With a Capital A

Posted on 8 Jan 2023 by Kathie Whitestone Thompson

GOD is love.
We hear it and hear it.

It’s about all we do hear about GOD.

And yet hearing only GOD is love, instead of drawing people to Him, I believe, has emboldened people to sin without remorse and indeed not repentance.
No, remorse and repentance are not synonymous.

The preaching of GOD is love alone has given the world a license to sin, not only a license to sin but to applaud and flaunt their sins and the sins of their peers.
There is no fear of GOD preached and most people in and out of professing Christianity are not afraid to practice sin.

I can tell you, I did not come to GOD for salvation because I heard GOD is love.
I came because I didn’t want to go to hell and I heard He would save me from it – if I turned from my sin TO HIM.
And, of course, that meant He loved me — why else would He save me, other than loving me?

What am I saying?
That we must preach the truth — He is love but He is Angry with a capital A.
Yes, angry.
There was a sermon preached on July 8, 1741, by Johnathan Edwards.
Ever heard of it?

Allow me to offer you (in part) a modern-day opinion of this sermon written by Josh Moody:

“On this day in history, Jonathan Edwards started a sermon that he did not finish. Such was the impact of his preaching that the people listening shrieked and cried out, and the crying and weeping became so loud that Edwards was forced to discontinue the sermon. Instead, the pastors went down among the people and prayed with them in groups. Many came to a saving knowledge of Christ that day.

What can we learn from Edwards’s preaching of “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God?”

We Should Not Be Afraid to Preach Hell

Edwards is unfairly tarnished as only a hell-fire preacher. Read Charity and Its Fruits. Read many of his other sermons that discourse upon the beauty of Christ. Preaching on hell was not unusual in 18th-century New England. What made Edwards’s sermon impactful was not that he preached on hell, but how he preached on hell. By contrast, we rarely (if ever) even mention hell from our pulpits today. Surely in the future, the church will look back on our age and recount it as the strangest fashion that we preached on God’s love without preaching God’s justice or wrath. There is little biblical balance in our preaching today.” Josh Moody. (2018)

https://www.crossway.org/articles/this-day-in-history-jonathan-edwards-preaches-sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-god/

Now, if you want to read the preserved sermon, here are two links:

https://enfieldhistoricalsociety.org/old-town-hall/jonathan-edwards-and-sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-god/

https://www.blueletterbible.org/study/he_is_risen/jonathan_edwards/sinners.cfm

Yes, GOD is love.
Not that He loves but He Himself IS love.

Because He is love, He has no alternative but to be Angry, at all that falls short of LOVE.

Click HERE for some verses about this Wrath of GOD.

What does that mean?
It means we must be perfect like GOD is perfect. Matthew 5:48

Are you saying, You can’t do it?
Neither can I.

BUT JESUS DID!

Yes. Love and anger go hand in hand.

08ab3b9e01210f8ab815e1ac8329c080 GOD is indeed love but do not be deceived, He is also perfectly and justly angry.

How fortunate for us that He is slow to pour out his anger and is patient and is not willing that anyone perish.

But obviously, people do perish EVERY DAY so . . .

We got to preach this!

Love, Kathie

Best Ride Ever!

Posted on 4 Jan 2023 by Kathie Whitestone Thompson

It’s approaching Noon in Lower Alabama as I sit to write this morning.
It’s been quietly occupied here so far today.

So, how’s your year so far?
We are what? Four days into it already!
I’m working on my calendar, and slowly getting it set up. Also, concentrating on a Word for the year.
Do you have a Word for the year that you are trusting came from HOLY SPIRIT for you to seek Him about each time it comes up in the course of the year? I can already attest it is a helpful concept.

Allow me to share a passage of Scripture and a thought with you today.
If you prefer to read a translation other than the CJB, click the word source below and you will find two other translations ready for your reading.

A little further help as you read the CJB is this: talmidim is translated in English as disciples
Ruach HaKodesh reads in English HOLY SPIRIT.

¹⁶So the eleven talmidim went to the hill in the Galil where Yeshua had told them to go.
¹⁷When they saw him, they prostrated themselves before him; but some hesitated.
¹⁸Yeshua came and talked with them. He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
¹⁹Therefore, go and make people from all nations into talmidim, immersing them into the reality of the Father, the Son and the Ruach HaKodesh,
²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember! I will be with you always, yes, even until the end of the age.” source

ALL
THEREFORE
GO
REMEMBER
I WILL

Do you need to read those verses again?
Did you notice specifically the words: ALL, THEREFORE, GO, REMEMBER and I WILL?

He has ALL authority and since He does — what do we truly have to worry about?
And because of that, THEREFORE, we must GO. Go out in our little corner of the world and do what?
Make Disciples.
How do we make Disciples?
First, we must encourage people to repent, believe, and accept the sinless birth, the sinless life, the Atoning Sacrifice, the Resurrection, and the Coming Again of JESUS the CHRIST.
Following their conversion from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of GOD then we do what?
Yes, baptism is important.
But our duty and our mission do not end there. Then we are to teach those new converts to obey everything JESUS has commanded us.
And as we do, it is a must and tremendous help to us to REMEMBER this: HE is with us always, to the very end of this age; this way of living here; HE is with us!
We must remember this because this mission HE has given us, ain’t easy!
Through HIM, it is possible and rewarding and exciting, and the 587fb708ef875432d64a01dd9fa303c0--best-bike-bike-rides BEST RIDE EVER, but not easy.

Are you in?

Love, Kathie

The Sunday before Thursday

Posted on 20 Nov 2022 by Kathie Whitestone Thompson

Just a quiet hello with hopes for your Thursday celebrations with family and friends to be filled with peace, laughter, and the Joy of The LORD.

thanksgivingbird

Matthew 6: ²⁶Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? King James Version

LORD willing see you soon.

Love, Kathie

Social Gospel

Posted on 14 Nov 2022 by Kathie Whitestone Thompson

Matthew 25

It’s a full chapter and for me to understand the bit of it that I do, I ask questions.
For this session I am bringing to you, I think we shall look at verses 41 – 46.

But as we begin, let’s go to the last verse, verse 46. We will go back to the others.

⁴⁶They will go off to eternal punishment, but those who have done what God wants will go to eternal life.” source

but those who have done what God wants

The question to ask is What does GOD want done?
We will have to bring in some other Text to answer that.

John 6:40; Luke 9:35; Mark 9:2-13; 2 Peter 3:9

GOD wants ALL people to believe His Son.
GOD wants ALL people to turn from their sins to HIM.

These verses tell us the Will of GOD is that people be delivered from unbelief to believing JESUS.

Now if you have read verses 41 – 46 you have seen The LORD saying to a certain group, depart from Me into eternal punishment. Why? Verse 46 is the answer but all the way to verse 46 He gives them examples of their unbelieving hearts.
They did not

Feed the hungry
Care for the sick and the imprisoned.

Today there is a social gospel being preached.
I think those who embrace this social gospel have missed the point of the passage — have missed the Truth.

The deeds described in this passage are NOT a means to EARN salvation.
People will not enter HEAVEN even if they cured all the social ills of the planet.
They can feed, clothe, and serve people until they are penniless but that will NOT earn them a place in Heaven.

GOOD DEEDS will not get anyone to heaven.

By the same reasoning, not doing these things will not send a person to hell either.

People miss heaven and land in hell because they have refused to turn from their sins and believe GOD.

However, when we have been born again, when we have believed JESUS, we WILL do these acts of service.
These acts of service give evidence that perhaps we have been delivered from unbelief and darkness.

It is filled with treasures for the Believer who will dig in, asking for Holy Spirit to help them understand.

I hope we have encouraged you to read, pray, and believe GOD.

Love, Kathie

Circle of Knowledge

Posted on 10 Nov 2022 by Kathie Whitestone Thompson

Good morning, Readers.
8:45 as I begin on this crisp November morning.

Matthew 18 is the subject passage of Scripture.

¹²“What’s your opinion? What will somebody do who has a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine on the hillsides and go off to find the stray?
¹³And if he happens to find it? Yes! I tell you he is happier over it than over the ninety-nine that never strayed!
¹⁴Thus your Father in heaven does not want even one of these little ones to be lost. source

Does it comfort you that the LORD goes looking for wandering sheep?
From what I have observed, I have wandering sheep in my circle of knowledge. Perhaps you do too.
I think two indicators will identify wandering sheep (this goes for wolves in sheep’s clothing too).

How long has it been since the sheep sat to read Scripture? I mean really read — like a whole chapter in one sitting?
When was the last time the sheep had a decision to make and the sheep made that decision based on what the Scripture revealed?

Have you observed that sheep wandering from The Fold of GOD do not often read Scripture and do not often live by faith? They do not decide what to say, what to do, where to go, etc., etc. based on what does the Bible say about this?
Is this you? Is this any person in your circle of knowledge?

We might also describe this as straying from their upbringing.
Or ignoring the knowledge of GOD they have known since childhood?
Or perhaps they are dabbling, soaking even, in the culture around them – patterning their choices like the people on their digital screens; feeding on those screens for hours a day. These are our wandering sheep, if not pagans altogether.

It’s frightening to me.
It is to you too, if you are not a wandering sheep, yourself.

But we can pray!
And we can take this Scripture for encouragement, for hope, and put our Trust in the GOD who spoke it.

¹⁴Thus your Father in heaven does not want even one of these little ones to be lost.

He has sent JESUS to find them. So we pray when they are found, they will say YES and return or for the first time come to the Fold of GOD.

So, in our circles of knowledge, identify as best you can those you suspect are wandering, present them in prayer to The Father, and believe He is going for them; into whatever high place or squaller they are now residing.

Luke 18:27 “And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”