UNDEFILED

Keeping our selves unspoiled.
This doesn't mean living an Amish lifestyle.

The Lord gave us instruction to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel truth, just don't go back to the worlds way of living once you have left it.

I have this charge in my heart to see that women and men younger in spirit than myself are not led astray by anything that deviates from what the Father has said.
In the beginning Adam just stood by while Eve was deceived.

You can frown at me, get up and walk away when you see me, you can sit in a circle and speak indirectly at me, you can talk about me and lie behind my back.

But one thing you can never say is that you didn't know, because I will not stand by like Adam did and let an opinion be on the table above God's Word.

There are many folks outside of the church and inside of the church who have a different view other than God's view.
A lot of folks promoting their own agenda and the Bible speaks clearly about the fate of these folks and I will talk about that tomorrow.

In Christ there should never be a view that we receive that is different from God's view of righteousness.

What Jesus said about what is right is what you say is right or take that cross off.

There are folks who believe that compromising God's Word in order to win the affection and or approval of people is more important than maintaining the affection and approval of God The Father.

I know that you know by now I am not one of these folks.
I do care about and love people entirely in line with the truth in God's Word.
Hating the sin and not the sinner.

I do believe that we as Christians should walk in love and kindness and fellowship with a heart of hospitality.
I also believe that we ought to be cautious in friendship, not suspicious but cautious in who we fellowship with.
Some folks wear their welcome out.

Some believe that there is a new way to win the lost and I say that the heart of the sinner in 2009 is no different than the heart of man in 9 AD or 1929, 1969 or 1989.

Mark 4 is just as pertinent today as it was when it was written.
People still let their minds wander about concerns other than the gospel.
Folks still have their own agendas.
Resistance of the truth is today as it was when Jesus walked the earth.
Those who say that they are Christians are still at risk of wandering away behind some other opinion.

I do not believe that we should alter the gospel in order to receive the lost.
I do not believe that we should allow the world system to dictate to us how to live holy or how to run the church.

This is a real concern of mine, I understand some folks have been hurt or offended by immature church folks, I was one of those people.
But it was due to the shear ignorance of man not the love of God that may have temporarily shook me.
My own ignorance and the people who hurt me and that I hurt in turn.
But nothing that anyone could say or do is going to send me running from God.

Offence is a major tool of the devil and an excuse that men use to stay in the world system.
You may be mad at the truth, but are you offended at the unspotted sacrifice that was made for you in Christ Jesus?

He didn't offend you.
And this is about Him.

Yet even those in the church experience world offences daily through it's TV shows, Movies, Lyrics, Speeches, your so called friends but nobody seems to be cutting them off and running from them.
In fact folks embrace it and say things like "I ain't going to hell because I listen to this song."

"I'm not going to hell because I do this or that..."
OK lets go to the Word.

UNDEFILED

Defined as: (entirely in accord with truth/ God's Word) complete , whole, entire, sound, healthful, unimpaired, innocent, having integrity.

It is important to know the definition of words because then you see how they tie in to scripture.

Like the word sound.
Paul wrote Titus in Titus chapter one telling him that there were some mouths that had to be stopped.
Mouths who were ruining entire households, teaching things that they ought not...

In Titus chapter 2 Paul continued to lay out for Titus what should be coming out of our mouths.

Titus 2:1-5 NIV VERSION
1 You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.
2 Teach the older men to be temperate worthy of respect, self controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.
3 Likewise teach the older women to be reverent in the way that they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.
4 Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children,
5 To be self controlled and PURE, to be busy at home....

WHY?

So that no one will malign the Word Of God.
Malign comes from malignant.
He says teach the young men the same.

So why would listening to Stevie Wonder sing "Part Time Lover" be a problem?
"I don't believe that I will go to hell because I get my groove on."
This is not about Stevie Wonder this is about keeping ourselves undefiled.
Amen

James chapter One
James 1:14
...every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
(There is nothing more enticing than words.)
They get into your thoughts and you begin to meditate them and then when you see that it is good and a fruit to be desired...
It began with words in the garden.

James 1:15-17
15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

When the seed is planted through the lyric then the meditation is the fertilization.
Tell me what will grow out of meditation on anything that God has said is defiled?
Sin will.

If you die in sin, hell is exactly where you are going.

Do not be led in error my beloved brothers and sisters.

James said listen, that's why God gave us two ears and one mouth.

James 1:26,27
26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this mans religion is vain(useless)
27 PURE religion and UNDEFILED before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself UNSPOTTED from the world.

Not merely visiting orphans and old widows but looking after those and providing for those who have no understanding, because trial, burden or pressure have the potential to crush them when they have no covering, no understanding.

Pressing together with them in the truth and ministry of God's Word not our opinion.
Some have no spiritual father because their biological father is lost in the world.
Mines was.
Some have no spiritual leader in the household because he is either gone on to glory or is alive and lost or stagnant.

This is why Peter stresses in 1Peter 1:13-19 living holy.
We have to understand what living holy means.

It's not a long skirt or a head covered if when you see someone coming to the elevator you ignore them and continually let the door close in their face.

It's not simply charity work, charity work is a result of the love, faith and obedience to God but if you don't live holy charity is of no consequence.

You can not purchase a ticket to God's grace.

We should not be living blind and lost anymore we should be living a mature life In Christ because we were not redeemed with some bootleg opinion or second rate offering that was half way decent.

Cain gave a bootleg offering with a bootleg excuse.

We were saved and washed with the precious blood of Christ Jesus, a lamb without blemish or defect.

If I purchase a pack of chicken legs and one leg is broken, I throw out the one with the broken leg.

I do it because if my Father will not receive the defiled or impaired thing, neither will I.

If our opinion deviates from what the father has set up it will not be received.

Think on these things.
The Lord is still speaking to our thinking in great mercy and grace.

James chapter 1; 1Peter 1:13-19; 2Peter 6:14; Titus chapters 1 and 2; 1Timothy 6:14