Peace Treaties

Today, I want to expound on some quotes I have in my prayer journal. It's easy in an unholy world to make peace with unholiness Paul Tripp We, the professing church, know that this fallen world is unholy. It always has been. So much so that I believe the depths of depravity that we're seeing in every corner of society are succeeding in hardening our hearts and conscience towards it all. To what degree have we, you and I, made peace with it? How much of what is happening all around us doesn't really bother us all that much? No, we may not indulge in it, but neither are we much offended by it. It invades our hearts, our minds, our homes, and even our churches. Have we just decided to co-exist with it? Worse, are we, His church, His holy church, actually participating in it all to varying degrees? Where have we signed peace treaties with the world? We keep lowering the bar of what's acceptable Paul Tripp This quote should make us all squirm, because we know it's true. In many corners of His church, we just look like cleaned up versions of the world around us. It didn't happen all at once. It never does. Satan is far too subtle and sly for that. He slowly increases his depravities in the world, and we slowly acquiesce to them. Things thought unthinkable just 25 years ago have dug deeply into the church. The word "holiness" is disappearing in the teaching and preaching of the church. It is not only a central attribute of Almighty God, it was a central doctrine in the church. It may still be found on plagues and wall hangings in the church. Is it found in the heart of the majority of our people? We are tolerating things in ourselves, things we should be confronting. Lisa Bevere When we "sign" peace treaties with the world and the flesh, we give ourselves permission to cease asking Him to search our hearts for "any sinful and hurtful ways." In short, to make straight that which was crooked in our behaviors and thinking. When this happens we grow ever more tolerant of and at peace with things we would once have given no place to. By His grace, we confront the issues He has pointed out, but our compromises have ended that. The result is that we grow ever more blind to our inner corruptions and ever more "at peace" with them. Have many such peace treaties have we signed? Do we realize that they bring no real peace at all, and eventually, the enemy will destroy us through them. May the standard of His holiness be lifted up in our midst. May we cease making treaties with the enemy that only end up surrendering more and more of our heart to him. May we refuse to tolerate the very things within us that put Jesus Christ on the cross. Blessings, Pastor O