Definition of sin: to miss the mark; to transgress; to rebel; to deviate from the path; to fall short.
Sin is serious, because we are all born in original sin. Sin is so serious, God sent His only Son to die on the cross of Calvary to die for our sins. During Old Testament times, the blood of millions of animals was shed to temporarily appease God’s wrath towards the sins of believers.
There are certain seasons in my life when ministry and other responsibilities are so difficult and my schedule so demanding that I feel like I am doing violence to my soul. (It’s as if I were taking a knife and intentionally sticking it into my body.)
As I analyze what I do and how I feel during these seasons, I have come up with several ways I have done violence to my soul. (Whether or not these seasons can always be avoided is not the point of this article.)
Often, many of us in leadership are so used to being engrossed in activities and giving advice and direction to people that we do not have enough time for self-reflection.
TRAITS OF AN ENABLER
1-You accommodate your message and approach to ministry based on the commitment level of your group rather than keeping biblical standards. Furthermore, your goal is to keep them happy and not make them uncomfortable.
The greatest sin in the Bible by far is the sin of idolatry. Idolatry is when we violate the first of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), which is “You shall have no other gods before me.” It is when we put something or someone first in our lives before the living and true God. Idolatry is the root cause of all other sins, which is why the first two commandments deal with this.
In scripture there are five basic jurisdictions (or governments) God has set up in His Kingdom:
1-Self Government
2-Family Government
3-Voluntary Associations
4-Civic Government
5-Religious or church government
As a full-time church minister since 1981, I have had the task of observing the lives of thousands of believers. Consequently, I have come to the conclusion that there are believers in the church who say they are Christians, while, at the same time, espousing value systems that are secular. However, these secular believers are slightly different from what we may identity as a “carnal Christian,” whose ways have to do with the overt sins of the flesh and emotions (read 1 Corinthians 3:1-4). Of these two types, the secular believer, as with “secular Christianity” (which, by the way, is contradictory and, therefore, a misnomer) is more subtle because they are sugar-coated with spirituality and outward peace but have foundations of secular values.
With many laws being passed that have an anti-Christian bias, many believers in the blogosphere are saying that we need to unequivocally submit to whatever the laws of the land are, since this is what Romans 13:1-7 teaches. In other words, acts of civil disobedience—praying in front of abortion clinics, public prayer in schools, and the arrests not so long ago of New York City pastors for praying in front of the New York City Law Department to protest the looming evictions of churches from public schools—are contrary to the word of God. According to the strict interpretation of this passage we should not only cease from all acts of civil disobedience, but we should not even complain about these laws and just pray for our civil leaders.
I have been in the apostolic movement since the late 1980’s and have observed many kinds of apostolic leaders. By “apostolic” I am referring to a person who functions in the apostolic ministry gift as mentioned in Ephesians 4:11. They may also oversee an apostolic church that exerts great influence in their community, and/or lead a network of churches.
The Bible teaches us that God has a multi-generational plan. This is true in spite of most Christians and churches barely surviving one generation of faith and practice, usually without emphasizing marriage, family, or multi-generational influence.
The following is a general biblical survey showing how the plan of God unfolds in history through generations of faith.
