Hmnn.. A Bitter Pill

I visited Pastor John Hagee website (www.jhm.org) today and I came accross an interesting article. After reading it, I felt I should share it with you. It is actually one of those bitter pills that one just have to swallow so as to have a healthy christian life. Find the full article unedited below:

“Here is a verse of scripture you will not find underlined in red in any charismatic Bible. It's a sermon you'll never hear preached upon, but it is one of the 3, 000 promises of God. Therefore you need to know it. My mother would love this verse.

‘For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourges every son/daughter whom he receives.’ (Hebrews 12:6)

Not some of them, but every son whom He receives. The point of that is this. When Christians go through tough times, they have a tendency to say this is spiritual warfare, because that's a lot more romantic than saying God is kicking my posterior for my stupid choices. See what I'm saying here?

The problem is your predicament may have nothing to do with spiritual warfare. But it's spiritual to say it's warfare because it makes you look like you're a warrior, and you're in a dog fight with the devil when really it is your own doing that has you where you are.

It wasn't spiritual warfare when the prodigal son was in the pig pen. His own stupidity put him there.

Choices have consequences. Galatians 6:7, ‘What a man sows, he shall also reap.’ That doesn't change when you get to be a Christian. If you do things that are contrary to the Word of God, God will see to it that you get punished. That's not spiritual warfare. That's the consequences of your choices.

But here is the very obvious point I want to make in this. That if you go around calling God's discipline spiritual warfare, you live in deception, and God has to continue to discipline you until you admit you're the problem. Think about that.

This is not warfare. It's the consequences of your foolish choices that has you where you are in the violation of the Word of God. We blame things on the devil that embarrass the devil. Think about that as you go through the dusty path of life.

May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of the Word.”

– Pastor John C. Hagee