For crying out Loud

This article was written by my friend Bryan as my guest poster.

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As a Christian I am crying out loud for your sake because I can choose to do things for myself and stay within my comfort zone to satisfy my own needs/desires but the love of Jesus Christ compels me to do this.

We may be called as Christians due to a lot of things that we know about the word of God yet genuine Christianity is seen more on the deeds thus the life we live must be in unison with the faith that we profess and the brand “Christian” that we claim; faith without action is dead. Our Christianity is dead if we do not live our life accordingly.

Here we go in the pages of the bible specifically in the Old Testament.

Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king. 1Samuel16:1b

When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed stands here before the LORD.” But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1Samuel16:6-7

In selecting leaders who will lead us, as Christians we must not look at the outward appearance, but look at the heart. In choosing leaders we often base our criteria with what meets the eye but this is a sign of WORLDLINESS, this is choosing not according to righteousness but with pleasantness.
In the verses quoted Samuel also fell on to this kind of trap but the LORD is faithful to rebuke him and lead him to the right one. We must choose righteously the kind of leader who compassionately leads the flock with a pure heart and not the leader who knows how to look good in leading yet lack the compassion for them.

As Christians whose eyes were unveiled by God from all the blindness that this world has set before us should not go back to where we have been. Live as people who can SEE and not as BLIND men.
We NEED to choose Righteous leaders and must not settle for the lesser evil.
The course of this nation depends on us now and we MUST put our faith in to action and trust God’s conviction.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. Proverbs16:25

Why do we let ourselves be led by an unbeliever?

Do we not know that we will judge angels yet now we come to consult an unbeliever who is now here and later will be gone just like a mist?

Don’t we want to trust a man of God? Would we just yield to what this unbelievers think of what is right?

Have we not received the Holy Spirit when we accepted Jesus Christ? Have we not been set apart? So, why do we keep on upholding the horn of these people who don’t even listen to God’s conviction of what is right or wrong and to us when we air out our thoughts and our love for Christ –our first love? Why do we stand up for people who will not stand up for God? Are we really for God or not? Are we a double agent, playing-safe, lukewarm christian?

If we find this condemning instead of convicting then brother there may be something wrong within us.

Wag na po tayong magbulag-bulagan, kung kristiyano talaga tayo dapat ipakita natin hindi lang kung nasa gusali o bahay sambahan tayo at kasama natin ang ibang mga “kristiyano”.

If you do not stand for your faith, you will not stand at all. By God’s grace please do not waver.

These words may be hurtful yet truth really hurts and we must respond rightfully, yielding to and not acting towards it with pride. I’m not into being judgmental here because I do not have the right to be as such, I’m just setting before everyone the words to relive which people forget nowadays.

Spirituality must be top of the food chain stuff and not just a thing to be dissuaded or thought of as a thing of the past. In all of these I pray that we may all have the wisdom and revelation from God because the moment we start rationalizing, entertaining the ideologies and principles of this world instead of following God’s ways signals our downfall or spiritual death.

The standards we must look for in a leader should be composed of these 4C’s; Courage, Character, Competence and Compassion.

Bro. Eddie’s compassion for the people even reached to a point that he was imprisoned twice in fighting for the rights of his fellowmen, now who among the presidentiables have this level of commitment and compassion for others? We may be in the peril of choosing someone who says that he care over the one who shows that he really care. How can we choose someone who may know all the things in this world yet do not have the compassion for people in their times of need? How would we choose a person who will care for us in words instead of deeds? Empathy is way more different than sympathy; they may present the same façade yet differ in depth. Many may claim of their love for the people yet genuine love is shown through Christ; that you lay down your life for others. It’s easy to say that you love someone in times that you are reaping benefits from that person; yet real love is proven in times when you have to offer yourself -reputation, life, rights, anything that holds dear to your life and this is only possible when your love is founded on Christ.

If Bro. Eddie does not have the right capacity to govern then how in this world was he able to expand God’s kingdom in the hearts of people from having 15 students to now a congregation of 4-5 million people worldwide. If God was not with him then how was this possible? In this I can say that God was faithful to His word that those who are faithful in few will also be faithful with plenty. It’s always hard to lead but to genuinely care is way harder. I believe that a person can lead a number of people for a span of time but keeping them from stretching their run needs a lot of compassion because people do not care how much you know unless they knew how much you care.

Please do have the heart and time to spread this note to all Christians you know by tagging or reposting on your wall; do this for God and not for man. May God’s presence be before you in doing this because only with Him the gates of hell will not prevail. Thanks and God bless.