{"id":907,"date":"2014-07-14T19:28:06","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T19:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/?p=907"},"modified":"2014-07-30T00:57:20","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T00:57:20","slug":"are-you-awake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/07\/are-you-awake.html","title":{"rendered":"Are You Awake?"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"Girl<\/a>
I admit it: I was asleep for many, many years, and waking up was a shaking up process. Where are you? Girl in a Copper Dress 3, original painting by Steve Henderson; licensed open edition print at Great Big Canvas and iCanvasART.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Bible talks a lot about being awake, and all Christians like to think that they are so:<\/p>\n

“Oh, yes — I’m awake all right to the evils of the world around me!”<\/p>\n

Quite honestly, as much as\u00a0we\u00a0would like to think that Christians, more than anyone, are awake to the evil of mankind and all of its systems,\u00a0few of\u00a0us are, my dear brothers and sisters.<\/p>\n

“Now while (Jesus) was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name.<\/em><\/p>\n

“But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.”<\/em>\u00a0(John 2: \u00a023-25)<\/p>\n

Does this describe you? Do you know what is in a man?<\/p>\n

Following Others<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Do you wholeheartedly trust or believe in the teachings of another, because others — your pastor, Billy Graham, Oprah, Obama, George W., CNN or Fox News, the Republican or Democrat party, \u00a0Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Bill O-Reilly, Warren Buffet, Sean Hannidy, David Icke, a teacher, your boss, your mother, or lowly I — say that they are good and wise and to be trusted? Or do you trust in the names of any of those, or those like them, in that list?<\/p>\n

If you do, then my friend, you are not awake, because you do not know what is in a man:<\/p>\n

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”<\/em><\/p>\n

(This verse in Jeremiah 17: 9 is one we inflicted upon hapless young children when I was part of the church Awana program, but we gave the wrong information at the wrong time — when children needed to know about love, we preached judgment, so that by the time they were old enough to understand judgment, they couldn’t accept it because we had never taught them love.)<\/p>\n

But we’re grown-ups, my friend, and if we are Christians, then the central point we can start from is this:<\/p>\n

God Is Good; Man Is Not<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

God is good and perfect and loving. There is no evil in Him at all.<\/p>\n

Human beings are the total and complete opposite. The ONLY goodness within us comes from God.<\/p>\n

Ergo, any goodness that is found in man is rooted in his humility and submission to God, and what words of wisdom he lets fall point — always — back to God. When we start to think of a person\u00a0(and that person encourages us in that thinking) as wise, holy, intelligent, creative, and good in and of themselves, then we need to remember what is in a man:<\/p>\n

“For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.<\/em><\/p>\n

“All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.'”<\/em>\u00a0(Mark 7: 18-20)<\/p>\n

God Doesn’t Work from this List<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

And while Christians have been washed from these sins (2 Corinthians 6: 11), our flesh battles with our spirit,\u00a0so that\u00a0all of us can pick out an item or two from this list and admit we still have problems with it.<\/p>\n

\"Chimu<\/a>
The things made by man — whether they are clay pots or systems — break. Chimu, original oil painting by Steve Henderson, sold.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Think of this: if Christians battle arrogance, pride, greed, hate, bitterness, envy, selfish ambition, and deceit, what about those who do not follow or accept Christ as their master? Given that all sorts of people — some who are Christians but many more who are not — make up our government, education system, medical establishment, media, military, financial network, and not least, religious\u00a0order– why do we invest any trust or belief in these systems of man?<\/p>\n

If you are awake, you recognize that systems of man — ALL systems of man — are infected by the sins that plague mankind, and we cannot blindly support or believe in anything that man propounds. This means that the history you learned in school is\u00a0woven\u00a0with mistruths; the promises made in any political speech are highly likely to be lies (seriously, is that a surprise?); the assurances you are given for your safety and privacy are false; the facts you are presented as truth in your daily news are misinformation.<\/p>\n

Stop Believing in the Wrong Things (or People)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Every single piece of information you are given, by every single person, is suspect, because it comes out of the mouth of a man, or woman. The ONLY information you can trust comes from God’s mouth, and one of the main sources we have for that is Scripture.<\/p>\n

(“Written and passed on by man,” — I hear you already. But overseen and protected by God.\u00a0As a Christian, determine whether or not you do, or do not, trust Scripture as inerrant. If you do, then start treating it as such; if you don’t, then embark on the journey to solve this.)<\/p>\n

So seek truth. Read Scripture — for yourself. Believe in God enough to accept that He can help you interpret and understand what is written, and while you can learn from another person’s wisdom, do not\u00a0rely<\/em>\u00a0upon that person to interpret all wisdom for you.<\/p>\n

Wake up to this:<\/p>\n

“There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.”<\/em>\u00a0(Ecclesiastes 7: 20)<\/p>\n

Thank You<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you for joining me at Commonsense Christianity, where I am encouraged to see more and more people, some of them Christians, waking up to the evil that is besetting us in these latter days. I pray that 1) more Christians wake up and 2) when they do, they look up to God with those newly opened eyes.<\/p>\n

Posts similar to this one are<\/p>\n

I Was Born in Babylon<\/a><\/p>\n

Satan’s Three Lies<\/a><\/p>\n

The Misfit Christian<\/a>\u00a0(my book for Christians, and seekers, who feel out of step with today’s corporate religious establishment)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The Bible talks a lot about being awake, and all Christians like to think that they are so: “Oh, yes — I’m awake all right to the evils of the world around me!” Quite honestly, as much as\u00a0we\u00a0would like to think that Christians, more than anyone, are awake to the evil of mankind and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":561,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,88,5,1026,2,10,11,58,3,7,8,6],"tags":[1080,1644,103,72,305,1081,681,26,310,62,1025,203,423,280,1082,93,21,1079,117],"class_list":["post-907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-bible","category-christianity","category-church-2","category-faith","category-family","category-home","category-hope-2","category-inspiration","category-personal-growth","category-spiritual-growth","category-spirituality","tag-awake","tag-bible","tag-christianity-2","tag-church","tag-commonsense","tag-education","tag-evil","tag-god","tag-government","tag-jesus","tag-judgment","tag-love-2","tag-man","tag-media","tag-medical","tag-scripture","tag-sin","tag-system","tag-truth"],"yoast_head":"\nAre You Awake? 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