People who build close friendships experience great pain because it’s part of the package of friendship. When you build deep connections with people there is always the potential of being wounded by them, or the loss when they are gone. Every person we build friendships with will suffer loss because we all are destined to die. Physical death causes great pain if there was also great love connected with that relationship. It shows the value we attributed to that life. What’s worse is if the friendship we built over time ends up betraying our trust and then the loss is doubly painful.

Ask anyone who has had a disease or crippling physical problem and they all will say they would loved to be healed and would do almost anything to get healed. Yet there are millions who have never received what they longed for or prayed for. People in many different age groups from young and old will tell you the doctors and medicine don’t seem to be able help them even with all our advanced discoveries. Some sicknesses and problems in life we don’t seem to recover from, so people have to live with chronic illness for the rest of their natural lives. I know this isn’t a popular thing to say but many people, Christian or not, will not receive their healing. In many Christian circles, especially if you believe prayer makes a difference, this seems contrary to what they have been taught in scripture.

When I look at the average believer today I am saddened by the lack of the ability to understand what’s going on in the spirit in any given conversation, let alone what’s going on in one’s own personal life. Too many believers walk in life as if they were never born again but only have the knowledge that God loves them and Jesus died to forgive them.

In every generation there are those who hunger for God and then there are those who put their security in religious rules and systems rather than in God, all the while thinking they are serving God.

Success in our walk with God often requires getting all the help we can because of the unseen world around us.  Yet, many believers never consider angels in that equation, including me. Why would we overlook such help in times of need? Many may believe that we are not important enough for such assistance.  Others may be discouraged because few pastors teach any kind of practical knowledge about angels.  Unfortunately, it seems that the average seminary that prepares pastors for ministry either doesn’t believe in the supernatural or they just have no experience with it….. or both.

The first Christmas story was sharing scripture or preaching a sermon that revolved around real life and participating in the divine moment God was unfolding. When people think about sharing their faith in God or witnessing for Jesus during the both of December they often get intimidated by all the complexity of the story rather than keeping things simple and to the point. Jesus made it simple for all of us when he said:

John 13:34                                                                                                                                                                                                                       A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 

You would think sharing the love of God with others and telling how God sent his only Son into the world as a baby would be an easy thing to do, yet many believers never share Christ, even during the Christmas Season. I want to look at just a few of the reasons why so many Christians struggle with expressing their love for God even when the Holy Spirit sets the stage for communicating our own salvation experience.

Many believers refuse to speak to a person who is causing division in the body of Christ because they are friends with this type of person or they just don’t like confrontation, so they stay silent. I’m not talking about correcting a person for every little word, or rebuking people because they understand a certain scripture verse differently than you. I’m talking about people who move with an angry spirit, who disrupts the body of Christ wherever they go.

Have you noticed how the world today is intolerant of anything godly? Just a few years ago the world was pushing for people to be more tolerant, which in some ways seemed like a good idea, yet the tolerant propaganda was just a Trojan Horse to get our society flexible toward wholesale liberal ideas which are against Judeo Christian foundations. Most of all, they wanted people from religious persuasions that believed in the God of the Bible to stop talking about morals and ethics all together. The trick was to get Christians and moral people to shut up and just be quiet as these social engineers attempted to change our country. The worst part is that many Christians did just what they were told. They got quiet instead of getting louder to expose the lies of the liberal left that want nothing to do with God and ethics. 

We all have experienced “Bold People & Bullies” in our lives and there is a vast difference between the two. Many, if not all of us, have experienced bullies when we were small and today I think bullies are on the rampage in many adults.

No one likes a bully unless you are a bully yourself.  Maybe the worst part about talking about bullies is that they can be secular or religious. For me, I understand secular bullies but religious ones seem more evil because they are supposed to represent knowing and loving God. It’s one thing to see a bully who confesses he or she is one, but it is a travesty when a religious person tries to hide their bullying nature by using scripture and religious words to fool people while claiming to be humble.

When someone has boldness, especially about their faith in Christ, we admire them but we need to know what motivates them, pride or humility. Pretending to care about issues or scripture while wounding and harming other believers is a sin against the body of Christ and Jesus does not treat those who wound his people kindly. 

Let me be clear, sometimes we are called to challenge or rebuke fellow believers when necessary and those rebukes can and often do cause pain initially, but the motives for any rebuke need to be anchored in the love of God and not being motivated by pride,  arrogance or any measure of animosity or hatred. Let me also be clear that God warns all believers not to judge others, meaning we are not to condemn others with our spiritual knowledge. Lastly,  it is my belief that the average believer needs to leave the rebuking to church leadership who hopefully have the spiritual discernment and attitude that God requires of them.

Here is just an interesting background on the word “BULLY”:

The term “Bully” comes from the Middle Dutch word boele, which means “lover”, which seems surprising. At that time, bully was used in English to mean “sweetheart.” Its use then became more general, coming to mean “fine fellow,” and, eventually, the opposite. Bully began to be used in a negative sense around the 1700s.  This goes to show that the roots of words can and often do lose their true meaning and become twisted over time.

One of the best scriptural illustrations of a bully being created is when Israel began to desire a king. God warned Israel many times that having a king ruling them would lead to their downfall but the Israelites kept pestering Samuel primarily because they wanted to be just like the nations around them. Why you might ask? Because the Jewish people wanted to “FIT IN” with all the other nations instead of standing out for their beliefs in the one God. All the other nations believed in multiple gods. Many Christ followers compromised their faith for the same reason.  It is sad when believers want deception just to feel good about themselves.

As Christians we are called to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus and we can fall into the same trap of not wanting to stand out from the people around us so we end up compromising on so many levels, from our morals and ethics to scripture. When we as parents compromise with our kids they end up wanting to wear revealing clothes or listening to inappropriate music just like worldly, secular kids.

Why do parents wonder why their kids leave Jesus and the church when they leave the house for college?  Believers, whether young or old, compromise either because of fear or a lack of true commitment, which leads to the destruction of their faith. They may say they still believe but their lifestyle does not reflect the love of God.

If you are on Facebook at all like I am, you witness this same bullying spirit in the people that post as Christ followers. Every day when I post a devotional I review what people are posting to see what is going on with so called people of faith and I am sometimes disgusted. Although there are believers posting about trusting God in their every day life there are far too many looking for someone to beat up in the name of religious purity.

Unfortunately, there is one consistent thread from people who claim to follow Jesus and that is arguing about who is wrong and who is right. A vast majority of them are slamming different believers either because they believe a certain doctrine differently than themselves or because they don’t read the KJV bible. I have never seen such mean spirited people who claim to know God and yet want to put other believers down and ridicule them. They claim they just want to warn others of their sinfulness but you realize they are just mean in their souls and not loving at all.  Simply, they are just being bullies!

A bully can be religious or secular but they drink from the same well and that well is “PRIDE”. Humility, which comes from brokenness, softens the heart and while pride hardens the heart. If you are a strong believer you can smell pride a mile away and there is much pride being advertised on Facebook.  So, you can imagine what is bubbling in people’s souls when they attend church each week critiquing others in the name of God. 

Here is a key for those of us who claim to follow Jesus. This key is a warning and an encouragement from God

James 4:6                                                                                                                                                                                                                  But He ( God ) gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, but gives greater grace to the humble.

If we want “GREATER GRACE” from God we had better check our heart to see if pride is motivating our conversation and actions or if we are being motivated by the love of God. 

The “Spirit of Pride” is given and motivated by Satan himself and he has many ways of disguising pride to look and smell good to unsuspecting souls. Don’t fall for his deception but rather be filled with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Make today a “SPIRIT” led day by walking in the love of Jesus and glorifying your Heavenly Father. By doing so, pride will not find a home in your soul and your heart will stay soft and pliable as you chose humility rather than pride.

Questions:

1) Have you been attacked by religious people on Facebook or in person? Realize where that spirit comes from and it’s not God. Pray for them that the deception would be exposed and they would find freedom in Jesus.

2) Have you been caught up in bullying others? 1 John 1:9 is a good place to find wisdom and then confess and apologize to those you have wronged.

Desiring to walk with a pure heart and encouraging others likewise,

Pastor Dale