I’ve pointed out many times now that as a general rule, and a courtesy, we do not publish email without the permission of the sender.

At the same time, all email sent to AM and Christian Research Network is considered the property of Apprising Ministries so we may indeed publish unsolicited email for the purposes of edification.

The one which follows below is published by permission of its author. You may have noticed less activity here at AM following it being offline along with CRN a while back.

What happened was an illegal DOS attack which was so severe that the infected materials were actually affecting other websites on the server we were on.

This necessitated rebuilding the sites and then moving them onto another more secure server. I also used the time to rest and seek God as to the direction of AM.

I can now tell you that the Lord has seen fit to encourage me to continue along this Internet front and slowly the necessary funding is just now beginning to come in.

Should you wish to assist this work financially you can learn how to do by clicking right here. I thank you for your willingness to help me be here to defend the Truth.

With this in mind them, as a pastor-teacher I felt led of the Lord to share the following email exchange with you because as the reader says Christianity should be all about Christ:

Hi Diane,

I know precisely what you mean about the state of the visible church. For example, in 23 years of full time ministry in the fields of counter-cult evangelism, apologetics, and Comparative Religion, I’ve found that those who follow heretical teachers within the Word Faith Movement (WF). i.e. Joel Osteen, see themselves as “super” Christians filled with the Holy Spirit (speaking in tongies) so they are the “real” Christians and we’re second class citizens. Make sense.

Actually I was in a WF church when I was a very young Christian and I personally went through this. It’s really a form of Gnosticism; gnosis is the Greek word for knowledge; so they see themselves as the intiated ones “in the know,” so to speak, having a secret—as in purer—knowledge about God that we who are unintiated simply don’t have. That is what they have in common with those who practice the Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism you’ll often see me writing about.

Concerning the sad state of what’s passing for Christianity within mainstream evangelicalism today, let me offer this bit of encouragement from Jesus:

“And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” (Matthew 24:10-12)

You see, what you’re noticing is exactly what the Lord said we’ll see as time grows closer to His arrival. We get “down in the dumps” sometimes because we long to see the church be what Scripture says it should be. The Truth is the actual Church—the universal and invisible Body of Christ—is always what God wants it to be; however, it’s the visible church, which automatically includes all who would claim to be Christian, that contains those who would be doing the foolish things you’d talk about. That’s why you’ll see me mention the church visible as I critique it.

I pray this helps. Please know that you never need to be concerned about sharing anything with to me; as a pastor, it’s my undeserved privilege to listen to God’s people and to serve them. I’m not much, but for better or worse, what you see is what you get. I’m happy to hear you and your family enjoying the times you told me about; and having some fun time with friends and family is a good thing for mental preparation. We all need rest. I even took some extended time off this past month to kind of recharge my batteries.

Some of the other online apologetics and discernment ministries have been talking to me about how so many of us are going through real times of testing right now. Diane, this seems to be happening to the remnant God is preparing and drawing out in this generation. Sadly, so many pastors aren’t maturing as they should so God always has a group of people He prepares through the fire of trials that we might help people see how worldly more and more of their lives are becoming as they seek the status quo.

Not that it makes what we’re going through any easier; however, let us try and remember that trials make us stronger in the Lord because His strength shows itself in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). I pray this helps. May the Lord give us the courage to stand for what His Scripture says, no matter what others who claim Him do.

Blessings,

Pastor Ken

Thanks Pastor Ken!

Well, if we are going to be going it alone—God will give us the strength to do it.

I prayed in the very beginning that God would give me a consuming love for Christ alone—after having found out exactly what He has done for me. I prayed that devotion to Him would be first in my mind, and that I would understand that this is how the Lord commands it to be; and that it would be my desire to not deny Him in front of people. Not that I do that perfectly—but wanted the desire to be foremost in my mind—so then I would be sensitive to my sin when I failed. God has granted that prayer. I am sure He gave me that prayer to pray in the first place—as I never would have come up with it, nor  even have wanted to do that on my own.

This worldly Christianity makes me ill. I just want to take away all the books, conferences, big churches, pastor tweets and blogs that are all about themselves; worldly clothes and 100 dollar haircuts, and throw it all away. Why the interest in all of that, I ask. Why not just be an ordinary Christian who doesn’t really care about how he looks, or being witty, or whether people are noticing him., but just wants to quietly serve God by not denying Christ and His Word?

It seems like that is what Christ is asking/commanding us to do—deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. Otherwise, we are not worthy of Him. That’s a scary thought, and yet, I never hear any sermons on this subject. Seems there is such a competition to be “out there and in the front—cutting edge Christianity,”whatever that is. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just empty words.

Christ is the only important Person to me—and honoring His Word is the only way I wish to arrange my life. As it will be with all true born again believers who have new hearts and changed desires. Christ—our Avenger, Protector, Just Judge and Righteous King!

God’s rich blessings to you always, I pray,

Diane

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