A Message not a Massage

June 25, 2018

There has been an issue on my heart for weeks and I have finally found time to share some thoughts. I hear all too often how preachers are not addressing sin issues enough. They call it soft and compromising if you preach the love of God and His love for all people. Sinners and saints. I have heard said that some call it giving a massage, instead of preaching them a message about hell fire and eternal damnation.

The prophet Jeremiah addresses a similar issues in his 6^th chapter verse 14. “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.”

Ministries often spend time preaching against things that no one in their congregation is dealing with. Social issues, sexual sins. Never addressing the value that love has to turn the heart of someone that has not embraced Christ.

When I share my thoughts on this subject, I often get a lot of criticism. I love that. In some small manner it puts me in the same situation Christ was in. The religious folks didn’t like His message either.

They often forget that it was the religious folks that hated Him because He loved the sinners. He forgave them, healed them, embraced them.

2 Corinthians 4:3-4 Message

3 If our Message is obscure to anyone, it’s not because we’re holding back in any way. No, it’s because these other people are looking or going the wrong way and refuse to give it serious attention.

4 All they have eyes for is the fashionable god of darkness. They think he can give them what they want, and that they won’t have to bother believing a Truth they can’t see. They’re stone-blind to the day spring brightness of the Message that shines with Christ, who gives us the best picture of God we’ll ever get.

The religious folks were looking for the Messiah. Those in the temple knew every prophesy about Him, yet they could not recognize Him.

Much like to day many have a picture in their minds of what Christ should look like. How He would respond to sinners and saints. All too often that picture is a God with a sword, poised to kill those who are in sin.

It is a picture that is painted all too often when telling the story of Jesus.

In John chapter 4 Jesus had the longest conversation recorded in the Bible with a woman who had been married 5 times, and was currently living with another man.

History tells us a lot about this woman.

Sometime after this encounter she was baptized by the Apostles and given the name, Photine. Her name means, “the luminous one” or enlightened one.

History says that she was recognized by the church as equal to the Apostles because she won so many people to the Lord.

Look her up. It is an awesome story.

In reading the story in John chapter 4 Jesus pointed out her life issues.

John 4:15-18

15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.”

16 He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.”

17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’;

18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.”

So where is the condemnation? He pointed out her issue and then opened the path to redemption. Seems like I read somewhere that if you have been forgiven much, you will love much.

I could go on and on so let me wrap this one up. Tell the story of Jesus. His birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Tell them why He did it. That must be the message. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

By the way Photine converted her 5 sisters and two sons. They won many to Christ. In 66AD they were all martyred under the persecution of Nero. Some say he threw her body in a dry well.

Let me know what you think. visitlivinghope@gmail.com