We Are Telescopes

WE ARE TELESCOPES

To the world, God is merely a minute abstract entity—perhaps a sheer array of ideals. For God to become the axis upon which all of life is hinged, to them, is acting in pure absurdity and imprudence. In their mind, for any person to see God as more than a mythical being is damning evidence of their gullibility. In condemnatory pity, they gaze upon the devout as a congregation of the naïve. They inquire, with arrogance, “Where is your God?” To them, at the minimum, God is seen as a particle of light that is hardly perceptible in the night sky. We, who are in Christ, should understand through the studying of the Word of God, that our purpose is to enjoy the grace that He has bestowed upon us and extend His glory to the ends of the earth. In John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life, the reader collides with the simple, yet not uncomplicated, question, “What does it mean to glorify God?” The world’s view of God is greatly skewed. Sadly, not only the world’s view of God is off-center, but many in the Church have a minimal view of the Almighty God. Our God is perfectly holy, perfectly just, perfect in love, and exceedingly glorious! Our job is not to magnify God in a way that manipulates people into believing that He does things that He never promises. Our job is to reveal His infinite greatness with His truth. We are not, as John Piper notes, to magnify God in the sense of “making something tiny look bigger than it is,” as with a microscope. Rather, we are to reveal that tiny particle of light that the world sees for what it truly is! The object that, to the naked eye, looks like fragments of light are actually billions of stars gathered into a vast galaxy. The world perceives God as being small and insignificant; we are to be the telescopes that reveal that our God is so much more! This is what it means to glorify—or magnify—God. Not only should we take on the task of glorifying God, but we should enjoy it! People have this misconstrued idea that one either glorifies God with their lives or they pursue their own joy. In actuality, they are the same path. If you want immeasurable joy in your life, then live to the glory of God. If you want to glorify God with your life, then delight in Him! Be a telescope that reveals the greatness of God.

The Enemy Has A Blog

     It sounds like a simple alternative to the Way of Christ. They even use some of the same terminology. Yet, hidden deep within these sugar-coated posts are words that, if followed, damn men to hell. They call it "Theistic Satanism" because it is not as "arrogant or close-minded" as classic Satanism. In fact, they are quite evangelistic. They prey upon every desire of human flesh to entice prospective followers to join them. They say things like, "[We] recognize Satan as the giver of knowledge and a respecter of free will. If Satan stands for anything, He stands for freedom from being under the slavery of anyone or anything. We encourage our members, in their discussion with others who may disagree with our beliefs, to be respectful and confident, but not arrogant. After all, this is how our Father operates, and as His disciples, it’s our honor to do the same." They believe that God and Satan are polar opposites, and that they both exist. However, they follow Satan because he doesn't make you follow a set of rules that ruins your fun. In their own words, "Theistic Satanism, on the other hand, is based on the worship of deity who not only accepts physical pleasure as an ingredient of worship and attaining godhood, but actually encourages it. In contrast to the prudish prohibitions of Yahweh and his forces (designed to keep humanity in bondage – not the fun kind), our Lord Satan is the advocate of our libertarian freedom – in the mind, in the spirit, and in the flesh." Not only that, but they now offer "hope" for an eternal life. "Satan has a glorified body, meaning a body that will never die. He is able to manifest either materially or spiritually. In like manner, as those on the road to godhood, we shall also have glorified bodies. As gods, our material existence will mirror our physical existence, in a presence that is incapable of susceptibility to disease and death. This will not happen in this life, but as we progress towards divinity in the Way of Satan, we will become as He is, an everlasting deity with a glorified body, with the ability to manipulate said body to appear in various levels of materiality."
     If this does not wake a Christian up to the reality that this world needs Christ--then I dare say that Christ may not be in them. This is Romans 1 stuff!

     For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
    Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
    For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
    And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
   
(Romans 1:18-32 ESV)

   Theistic Satanism states, "Theistic Satanism, on the other hand, is based on the worship of deity who not only accepts physical pleasure as an ingredient of worship and attaining godhood, but actually encourages it."

    Do you see what the Enemy is doing? THE SAME THING HE HAS ALWAYS DONE! He is playing upon our sinful nature labeling sin as "acceptable" and encouraging it. Theistic Satanism is using hot-button topics such as homosexuality and sexual exploration and declaring in summary, "Join us! We accept it! It's not a sin!" The United States is so shocked that Christians view sexual immorality as a sin, when in reality it should be no shock. It is in our Scripture! If we are going to believe God, we must believe what He has spoken! Do not for one second think that I am perfect. I have committed sins in the sexual immorality category. The beauty of the gospel is not that "If we follow these rules, we can be saved." It is that God chooses to love me despite me because He is full of grace, mercy, hope, and patience. Would a loving God send people to hell? No. However, a perfectly Holy and loving God cannot possibly be in the presence of sin, therefore those still in their sin are condemned to hell, not because God throws them there, but rather because they have sent themselves there by rejecting the atonement for their sin...which is Jesus Christ. 

    To be  perfectly honest, we as believers should not be surprised by the world's decay. We have missed the mark on so many levels that this is to be expected. We have traded grace for a checklist of do's and dont's. We have traded justice, mercy, and humility for arrogance and malice toward anyone who rejects your first attempt at sharing the Gospel. We have traded the Gospel for, as Matt Chandler would call it, "Moralstic Therapeutic Deism." We have stopped talking to God and replaced it with programming in our churches. We have forgotten the verse just prior to the verses that I posted which says,

^"16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”    

^{Are we to blame for the decline of the world around us? Just a question that maybe we should all dwell on. Are living as Christ has called us to live or have we become the religious rule-keepers that the Pharisees were? Are we truly following Christ or a system of similar ideals? The only hope for humanity is the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We must repent. We must pray. We must Believe.}