Build your relationship with the Lord

Revelation 2:14-16 (NLT)
14 “But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. 15 In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. 16 Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

Jesus reproves the Church of Pergamam in these verses. The Christians there were following in corrupt doctrines leading to corrupt worship and corrupt teachings. They were being drawn into sin just as Balaam had drawn the Israelites into sin. [Though the church, as such, has no power to punish the persons of men, either for heresy or immorality, with corporal penalties, yet it has power to exclude them from its communion; and, if it do not so, Christ, the head and lawgiver of the church, will be displeased with it. ~ Matthew Henry]

Desmond Tutu — the Nobel peace prize winner and Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South African — famously said in a 2008 speech that, “There’s nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible. If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible.” For you see God’s Word is a first step in beginning to understand who God is. In Acts chapter 8 Philip met a man reading scripture and God’s spirit moved him to want to know more. So Philip shared the message of Jesus dying for our sin with this man. The man responded he believed Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The man declared he wanted to be baptized and had the chariots stopped immediately so Philip could so. When God’s Word and Spirit move you there is a desire for an immediate response. As God’s Word speaks you become closer and begin build a relationship with the Lord. This relationship is not based on man’s ideas or how the world tells you to act, but based upon what the Lord would have you do. Yes, let men build a relationship with the Lord and their submission will be to Him and not the world.