BE MINDFUL THAT ONE DAY, YOU’LL STAND BEFORE THE MONARCH OF THE UNIVERSE

My escort told me to stand to one side of the Gates and present my case. He assured me that God would hear and answer my request. As I stood before the Gates, the sense of joy, happiness, and contentment radiated out from Heaven. I could feel the warmth it produced and as I stood there to plead my case. I could feel the awesome power of God. No being could possibly appear before Him, even separated by a gate as I was, without experiencing this awesome power, might and majesty. At first I had a sense of fear, sort of guilty feeling that is always produced in me when I believe I have imposed on others. In my mind’s eye I could just visualize a busy God who was annoyed with me for taking Him away from important things. Then, just as suddenly as this feeling came, it passed. I then found strength or boldness in my belief that I had served my God faithfully for many years. To me, I was convinced that this request of mine would be a snap!

Boldly I came before the throne and started out by reminding God what a great life of love, worship, and sacrifice I had lived for Him. I told Him of all the works I had done reminding Him that I was now in trouble and only He could help by granting me an extension on my physical life.

God was totally silent while I spoke. When I had completed my request, I heard the real, audible voice of God as He answered me. The voice I heard was not like the sweet voice that satan had used to trick me before in the valley. You could put together the noise of all the storms, volcanoes, tornadoes, and hurricanes and they could in no way imitate what I heard. The sound of His voice was in no way like the sweet voice I talked about earlier. The sound of His voice came down on me from over the Gates even before the words hit me. The tone of His anger knocked me on my face as God proceeded to tell me just what kind of life I had really lived. He told me what He really thought of me and even other people who lived as I did. He pointed out that my faith was DEAD, that my works were NOT ACCEPTABLE, and that I had labored in VAIN. He told me that it was an abomination for me to live such a life and then dare call it a life of worship. Furthermore, He said to those who do it, they are in danger of experiencing His everlasting wrath. As God dealt with me, He displayed His wrath to me. Notice, it was not His everlasting wrath. He did say there are some who will experience His everlasting wrath.

I could not believe He was talking to me in this manner! I had served Him for years! I thought I had lived a life pleasing to Him! As He was enumerating my wrongs, I was sure He had me confused with someone else. There was no strength left in me to even move, let alone protest, yet I was panicking within myself. No way He could be talking about me! All of these years I thought I was doing those works for God! Now He was telling me that what I did, I did for myself. Even as I preached and testified about the saving grace of Jesus Christ, I was doing that only for myself in order that my conscience might be soothed. In essence, my first love and first works were for myself. After MY needs and wants were met or satisfied, in order to soothe my conscience I would set out to do the Lord’s work. This made my priorities out of order and unacceptable.

Actually, I had become my own false God. He makes it plain in His teachings that He is a jealous God and will have no other gods before Him; flesh, stone, blood, or whatever. He will have no other gods before Him. God told me that He did not accept this kind of worship in the day of the Pharisees and He certainly was not about to accept it now in this the Laodicean Church Age. He put it to me as plain as words and actions could make it. In order for our works to be acceptable, we must work according to His command in Matthew 6:33 which empathically states, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these other things shall be added to you.” As God told me about my true motives, the verse of scripture in Matthew 16:24-26 and Luke 14:26-33 became so clear to me. In Matthew 16 it states, “Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man will come after me, let him DENY himself and take up his cross, and follow me, for whosoever shall save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” In Luke 14 beginning with verse 26 it is stated, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and HIS OWN life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” In verse 23 of this same chapter Jesus makes the following statement which is the cornerstone of the two portions of scripture previously stated: “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not ALL that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”

Only now as I was here before Him being chastised did those two portions of scripture become crystal clear to me as to their true meaning. As God told me about my TRUE MOTIVES, I could see plainly for the first time how MY WORKS were DEAD. Because God was displaying His wrath toward me, I could not stand nor could I speak. No strength was left within me as I was nothing more than a wet rag lying there writhing in agony. It indeed, was fortunate for me that this was not God’s everlasting wrath, only temporary wrath. However, at this time I did not know this was only temporary.

It needs to be stated that at no time while God was chastising me did He say I was not saved nor did He say that my name was not in the Lamb’s Book of Life. He never mentioned salvation to me at all but only spoke about the works produced through my life. He told me the type of life I lived was an unacceptable life for a true Christian. As He spoke to me of my dead works, he indicated that there are some people who are not saved but think they are. These people will experience His everlasting wrath. He also made it plain to me that there are others of His children who will find themselves in my present condition on Judgment Day. This revealed to me the true meaning of 1 Corinthians 3:15 which states, “If any man’s works shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” There are no words that can describe the pain I endured as God’s wrath was upon me for this life of so–called service. The agony was beyond the scope of the imagination and the remorse that I felt produced a very heavy burden similar to a physical weight pinning me down or an enormous stone crushing me. Growing weaker and weaker, my mind was frantically racing in an effort to grasp what the Lord was telling me while recalling each actual incident. God leaves no room for error and that includes whatever is in our minds.

The surprise was so overwhelming in its magnitude that it rendered me senseless. My strength left me immediately, just as though I had been hit by a bolt of lightning. Even if God would have ceased and allowed me to speak on word of protest, I would not have been able to do so. I had absolutely no strength whatsoever to utter anything. In my mind I was constantly DENYING the wrong in my life while acknowledging the fact that I had committed them. My conscience was asleep but my mind was NOT.

Slowly, it all began to be absorbed by me. Remember how the Bible tells us to have no other gods before us? I had thought that the Most High God was the only God of my life, but I was not fulfilling that part of scripture which tells us that if we allow anything to come between us and the Lord, (whatever it may be) it becomes our “God.” I realized that each day of my life was devoted only to MYSELF! My whole life was preoccupied with MY needs FIRST and THEN I was concerned with what the Lord wanted. The money to help the church, the poor, or anything else was secondary because I was my OWN “god.” Naturally, the devil was contented with allowing me to remain in that condition because as long as I was in that condition, I was of no use to the Lord and His kingdom.

I allowed this to occur because I was really indifferent to the things of the Lord. It was too uncomfortable to change and I was convinced I could remain as I was without having to really DO anything (such as following the Lord’s commandment about DENYING myself and picking up my cross daily to follow HIM.) For this reason, my life was wasted and amounted to absolutely nothing in the Lord’s eyes. I hope that you understand what it is that I am saying because it is the whole point of this chapter. The fact is we must prove we are really Christians by first examining our motives behind each deed in our lives, and then repenting and recommitting ourselves to follow the Lord daily. When we decide to serve Him FIRST, this decision must be followed by ACTION or it will be as useless as if we did not decide to do so in the first place.(Pittman Howard)

I admire your threads beloved.It seems to me God graciously keeps them from noise & arguements that bastardize other threads.More grace to your efforts & I pray you be perfect & recieve great rewards In Jesus name.Amen

bizmahn: I admire your threads beloved.It seems to me God graciously keeps them from noise & arguements that bastardize other threads.More grace to your efforts & I pray you be perfect & recieve great rewards In Jesus name.Amen

Truly said bro, I have been following his threads for long now n I tell u if not for politics on this forum, this are the kind of threads that should make frontpage.
More grace in Jesus name