This turn of phrase got me to thinking, about integrity. The Bible is an exciting living breathing tome. When I read Matthew Henry's Commentary On The Whole Bible, my mind starts zinging with enlightening flashes.
The service of virtue is perfect liberty; the service of lust is perfect slavery, Matthew Henry
Conscience can enslave or set free, an internal bit of work that each human is marked by on the outside of their soul. In other words, our inner workings show up in the external world.
Those are easily drawn by Satan to any evil who are wavering and inconsistent in that which is good and are never persuaded to make religion their business, Matthew Henry
In plain speak, we choose God or choose him not.
Lately I have seen many a video with famous people publicly performing demeaning rituals commanded by their master in order to garner wealth, fame, prestige, and the lusty pleasure that money can buy, often at the expense of innocent and vulnerable people, including children. The emptiness they describe coupled with the profanity that ushers from their mouths unchecked, has me feeling sorry for them. I watched a frazzled short-haired-dyed-blond Katy Perry weep in her brokenness: she admitted in an interview many years ago, that she sold her soul to the devil for success. She was easily drawn by Satan to any evil, wavering and inconsistent in that which is good and; in wealth and pleasure, prostituted her conscience.
God will not turn away from us, unless we first, turn away from him: this concept echoes throughout Matthew Henry's writing, and it gives me great hope. If we can turn away from God, and clearly, we can and often do, leaving us open to the consequences of our sinful choices, then we can also, turn back toward him, and praise be to God, his mercies are gloriously abundant. While Satan says, You owe me and I will get my bloody pound of flesh, God says, You owe me, and yet I gave my Son for your bloody sins... only a Father loves his children in this magnificent way. Only a true parent sacrifices self for the sake of his sons and daughters.
Think with me now, of the wretchedness of the wicked, how restless and unsettled, how each day they awake thinking of death and destruction, hurting, harming, self and other. To what end, I ask you, dear reader? I have sinned, and I know you have too, but I am ashamed and humbled before God when I consider that my personal guardian angel, assigned to me by the Almighty, sees everything, and worse than this, my Father, who art in heaven, not only sees all, but hears all too. Man alive, I am mortified!
Virtue is perfect liberty while lust is perfect slavery
People think it is hard to be a Christian. I think it is harder to not be one, and I pity those that choose him not, because clearly, they know not what they do. As the days get longer, I ask God every morning for the sun to shine. I saw video just yesterday of Ferrari's and Lamborghini's, airplanes, road and runways, and apartment buildings being pounded with torrential flooding rain in Dubai.
What good is a car, plane, pathway, apartment, if rain ruins them from use? Cloud seeding, mere humans acting like little gods, has gotten many into deep trouble, and since religion and honouring the Sovereign is the last thing on their minds, God has ensured that their physical well-being will be their only ongoing concern.
In a carnal world turned carnival, we see carnage.
Look at scripture. Scripture knows all, including your conscience dear reader:
For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish. They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth (Psalm 73:3-9)
Dear reader, Satan and his demonic forces know what heaven and hell look like. Humans get a taste of both while we walk the earth, and we almost clueless regarding eternity in one place or the other:
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known (1 Corinthians 13:12)
It is our job to refrain from envying the foolish that put their souls into the hands of their eternal enemy. It is wise and virtuous for us to understand that their vulgarity and violence leads them to destruction, and only God can save, and for this, we must pray, and pray some more. Souls hang in the balance, they dangle over a fiery pit, and God can and does, pluck from the fire when we call on him for our own salvation and for the salvation of the currently lost.
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much (James 5:16)
Get to praying. Let us be one in the Spirit, one in the Lord.
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