WHICH PATH ARE YOU ON?

Just what is the goal of education? According to the Bible in Proverbs 8, knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and prudence are all intertwined in that they in their truest sense must all relate to God. Basically to gain the knowledge of the Holy One is the goal of true knowledge. To know God and to serve Him is the reason to gain understanding. His wisdom is the only true wisdom. However, to go by the world’s standard, the reason for gaining knowledge is to get a good paying job or achieve worldly success to be financially independent from God and live a nice life now in this life. (Luke 16:19-31)

Jesus summed it all up in Matthew 7:13. He said there are basically 2 paths: one leads to life and the other leads to destruction. There’s no compromise or middle ground with the Lord Jesus Christ. In Matthew 6:24, He said we will either serve God or riches. That’s it! The choice is either educate your children to know and serve the Lord or educate them to be a gear in the wheels of this world’s economic machine. The former choice leads to life, the latter leads to slavery based on rebellion against and independence from God.

My question for you is: Are you not more than a gear, battery, or slave of the buying and selling system that is passing away? Consider what Jesus said to the rich young ruler in Luke 18:18-25: “Sell all and follow Me.” Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 3:3 that elders were not to be lovers of money. He warned us all not to trust in riches in 1 Timothy 6:10-17. Other applicable verses include: Prov 3:5-7, 11:4, 23:4, 28:6-8 & 20, 22:26 & 27; Heb 13:5; Phil 4:11 Despite all of what we “know” the Bible says about serving riches, most of the mainline American church-goers still serve riches. Jesus’ very example is explained in Phil 2:1-8: instead of buying and selling, He came to give and to die.

To top it off, the modern churches are based on the Rick Warren business-type models for churches. You see, even the pastors are serving riches in that ‘their churches’ are now their businesses. They fulfill Paul’s prophetic utterance to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:1-9: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.” (Such as Ted Haggard.)

Joshua said it quite well in Joshua 24:15. He understood the choice. God or mammon. Will you trust God or riches to save you and your children? If God, then your goal should be to raise godly seed that will be the ones who lead home-based gatherings of God’s people not as a business but rather as their duty to God, out of a love for Him that was instilled in them by you, their fathers and mothers. We should be simply content with food and clothing because our home is beyond the blue where our true treasures are. Remember, too, that we are all to be priests in God’s house and the priests in the Old Testament had God as their inheritance. (Deut 10:9, 1 Peter 2:9)

You see if the homes are teaching children to know God, then home-based churches will simply be an extension of this continued getting to know the Lord. (Is 11:7-9) By “having church” in our homes, children never learn the false idea that church and home should be separate things. For far too long, Christian families have been living double lives. They have been brainwashed by the idea that church is a couple of hours a week somewhere else. That that’s the way we ‘do church.’ You see there should be no separation between church and life or church and home. For the first 300 years of the church, this separation did not exist. The church met in homes because to be a believer made us all brothers and sisters. These are family words. The Bible NEVER! refers to God’s people as clergy and laity/parishioners. We are to be the family of God, brethren! A holy nation, a kingdom of priests…that priesthood is our home first and the gathering of God’s people second, yet all inseparable. Exodus 19:6, 1 Peter 2:9

Isn’t it about time we return to doing things God’s way? Don’t you know He blesses the obedient, those who trust Him, and curses the disobedient? Remember what Haggai the prophet said in Hag 1:3-14. So what are you building: your house or God’s? He wants a temple built with living stones. Read Rev 3:14-22 for it is a description of the modern American church!