The Children of A Lesser God, Part 2 – By Thomas Koester

This is Part 2 of my first two-part article about the plight of 21st Century American Christianity.

My “fued,” if you will, is not against the true Church or authentic Christianity. It is an article of warning, challenge, and calling out believers that have been sold a false god, making them into a lesser child.

Nehemiah prays for God’s children…

“Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we now are slaves. And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress.” Nehemiah 9:36-37

Politicians, Legislators and Presidents will not return us to a Great People or a Great Nation, but confession and repentance of God’s People will.

Nehemiah continues…

“But they- our ancestors behaved presumptuously; they rebelled and did not obey your commandments. They refused to obey and did not recall your miracles that you had performed among them. Instead, they rebelled and appointed a leader to return to their bondage. Nehemiah 9:16-17

Jeremiah laments…

Death Is on the Prowl

God ‘s Message yet again:

“Go stand at the crossroads and look around. Ask for directions to the old road, The tried and true road. Then take it. Discover the right route for your souls.

But they said,

“Nothing doing. We aren’t going that way.”

I even provided watchmen for them to warn them, to set off the alarm. But the people said,

“It’s a false alarm. It doesn’t concern us.”

And so I’m calling in the nations as witnesses:

“Watch, witnesses, what happens to them!”

And,’ Pay attention, earth! Don’t miss these bulletins. I’m visiting catastrophe on this people, the end result of the games they’ve been playing with me. They’ve ignored everything I’ve said, had nothing but contempt for my teaching. Jeremiah 6:16-19

We’ve exchanged the Glorious Gospel for a seeker friendly message so as to build our Churches in numbers rather than faithfulness to God and His ways.

We’ve changed the blood of the New Covenant, the precious blood of our Lord and Savior, into that of the blood of animals, and we therefore proclaim people sinless by emotions rather by repentance and faith. We teach tolerance but not obedience. We preach the Love of God trumps all other attributes of the one and only True Living God of Scripture. Who’s wrath against sin and those who make sin their lifestyle still remains. Though they know it or not, their day of judgment is being held back.

Faith, belief, repentance, and obedience to The risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is mankind’s only escape from the wrath of God. For who needs to be saved from a God of Love? And, if we only preach God’s love and tolerance, what becomes of the shed blood of Jesus Christ? And, for what purpose does his death serve if God is only Love?

Our Country was found on Christian and moral principles, and by the rule of law. America became a people of renown, of freedom, liberty, and justice for all.

Our Nation was lost because we pastors and churches have abandoned our Christian principles and our moral standing under God and before the nations. We’ve abandoned the preaching of the cross and the resurrection of our only Redeemer. Sadly, the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his birth have become nothing more than semi-religious holidays.

We have full churches, but empty Christians. We have Christian couples fornicating, but freely worshiping. We have Christian marriages adulterating but actively serving. We have Christian youth sexually experimenting with their bodies, but attend warm gatherings and rallies for Christ. We’ve trained them with double standards, one set for school and the other for church. Our youth of tomorrow are the double standards of today’s adults. And all this is just fine?

Our Nation is lost not because the ungodly sin, but because the righteous practice, tolerate, and preach a distorted and confusing relationship with God!

The condition of the Church is directly related to the condition of our pastors; to the messages they preach, and the duplicity they tolerate. All in exchange for notoriety, fame and market share of transient Christians, and the unsaved seeking a friendly Sunday morning message. We’ve become more excited about a new visitor rather than a new saint.

One Wednesday evening service my Senior Pastor allowed me to preach a message titled: “Children of A Lessor God.” When I stopped preaching, people were weeping in their seats and falling on there knees at the alter. My Senior Pastor and I had to literally and carefully step around and over our repentant brothers and sisters, and began praying for them one by one. Others came forward to assist us with prayer or join their brothers and sisters.

After things quieted down, I will never forget what my Senior Pastor said:

“There is no way you can preach that way on a Sunday morning.”

I was both confused and shocked! It is precisely why our Churches and Christians are in the state that they are in because we don’t preach the Truth of God’s Word nor preach Christ Crucified to redeem sinners from God’s terrible wrath.

When we refuse to preach the weightiness of God, people will not experience the weightiness of their sins, and God then becomes less in their lives.

We have become children of a lesser God and therefore have a lesser Church, lesser Nation, and have become a lesser people.

Many years ago, between 1975 – 1978, I was attending two churches. The Walnut Creek Christian Reformed Church was the church my parents brought my siblings and me to. The second church, Concord Christian Center, was the church my girlfriend attended, which I visited from time to time.

At the Walnut Creek Christian Reformed Church, they read the Ten Commandments each Sunday service. The Ten Commandments were presented as God’s goodness and grace to his people. The Reverend taught in an expository manner, being faithful to context and textual meaning.

At Concord Christian Center, there was no reading of God’s law and, honestly, very little reading of the Scriptures. The worship part of the service was the highlight, with a full course band, singers, and highly emotional songs. The pastor’s messages, while loosely based on Scripture, were mostly topical, centering on physical blessings and prosperity. This church adopted the high school that I would eventually graduate from in June 1978.

At CCC, several marriages ended. Many of the divorced married other ex-spouses within the church. Fornication and adultery were not uncommon. While CCC may have been a fun and exciting place to worship and fellowship, the people there became lesser as God was lesser. This is one of my pivotal experiences that lead me to preach on a Wednesday evening service, “Children of A Lesser God,” back in 2007.

So, just as the Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt, our nation is headed back to Europe, the very place our founding fathers had fled. The ancient Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt, to return to slavery under a new Pharaoh. We seem to be headed into a new style of slavery by unelected bureaucrats, technocrats, and globalists. We want this 21st Century enslavement because we see ourselves as a lesser people.

It’s up to God’s people to stand strong as His Chosen People, as His Holy Nation and a Royal Priesthood of True Believers! We must shake off our false identity as Children of a Lesser god and be His Children of The Great and Mighty God, God of the Angel Armies!

Do you want to be a great people, a great man, or a great woman? A great nation? Then reject the lesser god of your life, cast him off like a worn-out shirt.

If you’re attending a church that emphasizes a false and fake gospel, a tolerant love guru, a genie god, or a Geico god, where it’s “so easy, a caveman can do it.” Find a God-honoring Church that worships God in Spirit and in Truth. A Church that aids you in becoming a Child of The Great God of Creation.

So goes the Church, so goes the Nation.

The Children of A Lesser God, Part 1 – By Thomas Koester

You cannot build a healthy Church by feeding the flock from your personal intimacies with God. They’ll end up living their faith vicariously through your faith without actually living by faith.

God’s people must encounter God as who he is in their lives, families, neighborhoods, and jobs, more than what they hear in a Sunday sermon. They need to encounter the weightiness of God in their lives rather than a theological supposition that tickles their intellect but does not move them to worship.

In other words, people need to encounter the Lordship of Jesus and not just the flannel board Jesus in Sunday School.

If we fail to present God as God, people will settle for a lesser god, full of winks, giggles, and thumbs-up to their sins.

David wrote:

“Fear the Lord, you holy people who belong to him. Those who fear him are never in need. Young lions go hungry and may starve, but those who seek the Lord’s help have all the good things they need.” Psalm 34:9-10

Our fear of the Lord should lead us into a healthy worship of Him so that being His children becomes our most meaningful identity.

Sometimes, even in America, we live as though there are many gods, even though we profess the Truth of Scripture. Our actions dictate our true beliefs and not simply what we profess. We cannot escape it. We belong to what we fear and to whom we obey.

Belief in the One True and only Living God requires obedience and not just belief. Demons believe yet shudder in fear. Even the Name of God’s Holy Son, Jesus of Nazareth, invokes fear and dispels demonic tactics and oppression. Darkness always is dispelled by light, and no shadow can hide from God’s brightness.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “don’t be afraid of your own shadow.” This means to be extremely timid, nervous, fearful, and easily frightened. This is to live a life of fear worship rather than God worship.

So, we have become what we worship. We worship what we fear, and when we only believe and remain passive to God’s will, we cease to worship God.

The God of Creation and Author of our Eternal Redemption must be obeyed, or we’ll become quiet rebels, worshiping lesser gods. The proof of our false belief is in the quality, or lack thereof, of our true obedience. We become what we worship and a slave to what we fear.

Do you want and desire the Fruits of Heaven?

Start listening to the One who occupies the Throne of Heaven and obey His Word, even if it leads to your death; death of reputation, death of comfort, death of self, and yes, even the death of your body. For “obedience is better than sacrifice,” as it is written in 1 Samuel 15:22:

“But Samuel replied,

“What is more pleasing to the Lord…

…your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice?

Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.”

When you act as though the Evil One has equal power to The Eternal One, you have ceased in both belief and obedience to God and have become a slave to your fears and false beliefs. Sickness, disease, divorce, betrayals, these suddenly have more power than God. The fear of these things eclipses the Fear of the Lord, and therefore these “things” become the center of your life, thought, and action.

There is NO contest between the Eternal One and the Evil One. God always was, is, and will be. The Devil, well, he has a beginning and an ending. Not even his puny acts will outlast the earth. And even the Devil’s original coup d’etat against the throne of God was a failure, and his kingdom is built on lies and falsehood. Yet, more believers are motivated by fear of man and evil than they are the Fear of the Lord and His righteous judgments.

Matthew 10:28

“Don’t be afraid of people. They can kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul. The only one you should fear is God, the one who can send the body and the soul to be destroyed in hell.”

We become controlled by what and by whom we fear; the clearest evidence is in our actions and responses to all diseases, betrayals, etc. You know it, God said it, and the devil, if you fear him rather than God, well, he delights in it.

Act like Children of God Almighty, the God of the Angel Armies, rather than children of a lesser god, who is the god of fallen angels and the Father of Lies.

Your actions tell the world who your true Father is. No matter how many Church services you attend, you cannot escape it.

Read I Samuel 15 again, but from the Message:

22-23 Then Samuel said,

“Do you think all God wants are sacrifices—
empty rituals just for show? He wants you to listen to him! Plain listening is the thing, not staging a lavish religious production. Not doing what God tells you is far worse than fooling around in the occult.

Getting self-important around God is far worse than making deals with your dead ancestors. Because you said No to God’s command, he says No to your kingship.”

Maybe the consent “No” from God is because of your consent disobedience to Him. After all, He is not called the Everlasting Father for nothing; if you call him Father, does he not have the right to treat you as a true son or daughter?

Whenever God disciplines you or brings hardship into your life, sometimes you blame the Devil, chalking it up to evil. When you doubt God’s goodness and wisdom during hardship, you become a victim and fall prey to the lies of the Devil. This false belief thwarts God’s hand in your life, and you reject your son-ship. You need to STOP DOING THAT!

Do you think God is impressed by your lavish religious productions — your empty rituals of a weekly 90-minute Church Service compared to a 10,000-minute week of worldly influence? A 90-minute Church creates Christians that can only last for 90 minutes in the world!

To the many pastors that occupy America’s pulpits. Your constant grandstanding and oratorical solos have robbed the Church of prophets, apostles, pastors, teachers, and evangelists. Your job is to disciple and Sheppard people into ministry, not become the ministry. Many rather preach to attract and keep people, rather than preach to equip and send people.

Many pastors end up becoming the sole arbiter of the Word of God. This has created a Nation of dependent-class Christians whose only requirement is to tithe in support of career-focused pastors and church-centered budgets. God’s Church has become a den of weak vessels. There is more power when the People of God discover firsthand revelation from the mouth of God through their reading of Scripture than a thousand of your feel-good sermons!

You cannot build a healthy Church by feeding the flock from your personal intimacies with God. They’ll end up living their faith vicariously through your faith without actually living by faith.

Christ Jesus is the only True Manna from heaven, not your recycled sermons.

Start teaching the people to read God’s Word and hear and obey His voice!

I dare you to become lesser, so they may become greater.

This is why God says No to your “church business” and Yes to the power of the Kingdom Gospel and the people who obey it! This is why so many para-church ministries are taking up the cause of Christ, and so many so-called “religious leaders” are taking up the cause of church.

You are not raising Children of God but creating children of a lesser god, with no greater expectation than donations and attendance!

Start saying “yes” to God and obey His voice so that you may become children of God, The God of the Angel Armies, rather than children of a lesser god. After all, we can only access God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son. He has proven Himself obedient through all His actions, even death on the cross.

The church shouldn’t orbit around pulpits but around King Jesus and Jesus as King to all Nations! His command to go into all the world, “..teaching them to obey all things that I have commanded you…” It was not mere rhetoric but a divine command by the King of Kings, Lord of Lords of the Gathered Ones! We are to make disciples of peoples and nations and expand God’s Kingdom, not churches.

Repent of your religiosity, and people worship. Break off your fear of man, or go the way of King Saul.

Teach us to become Children of God Almighty, dependent on Him for identity, purpose, and calling.

Where in The Heaven Are You? – By Thomas Koester

Until the “world” has been removed from you, you are no good to the Church or world. It is all about your proximity and not your prosperity! It is not what you have but rather where you are.

“Proximity,” definition: nearness in place, time, order, occurrence, or relation.

Life comes to us in seasons. It unfolds like a story. Until we move with the Spirit of God, according to our individual story and cooperate in the seasons he has ordained, we will be of little eternal use to God. Our proximity needs to change from running away from God, to drawing near to him. And, at times this may be what’s behind the difficult seasons you go through. Remember the story of Jonah? He could not out run God, and his running from God was making him awful company.

Sometimes “surviving” is an ordained season from the Lord. Sometimes he takes us, one by one into the wilderness to remove worldliness from us. While simply living at “survival mode” may not be our choice, it may indeed be the season the Lord has ordered. We should not look to be removed from the world, rather we should look to have the world removed from us. A trip through the Land-of-Not-Enough (survival) sometimes leads us to the Land-of-Worshiping-Him.

Why did God want his people to be set free from Egypt?

Was it so he could lead them into the promised land, flowing with milk and honey?

Nope!

It was so His people may come to the wilderness to worship Him there!

Exodus 7:16 (New International Version)

“Then say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert.”

God chose a unique people to show the world that he is a unique God. His first step was to bring his people into the desert. A land of just surviving, so that his people could learn to live in the Land-of-More-Than-Enough. The Land-of-Just-Surviving, trained his people not to forget Him, while they were to live in a land of worldly treasures. Since they so quickly refused God’s process of removing Egypt from them and the reproach of a “slave mentality,” God allowed his people to linger for a generation in the Land-of-Not-Enough, living at a basic survival mode with God as their sole (soul) provider.

Stop using the methods of the world to transform his people. We are not meant to be a “subculture” but a counterculture. We think we need to resemble the world in order to reach the world? God forbid!

We have got to maintain our worship of God. Our only hope in doing so, is to get the world out of us. You cannot use the same tools the world uses for worldliness and expect to be transformed into a spiritual people.

2 Corinthians 10 (New Living Translation)

“We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God.”

1 Peter 2:11 (New Living Translation)

“Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.”

Unauthorized acts of Righteousness

I would caution you to be careful of what you parrot when reading books of men, and mimicking the ways of “rock stars.” There are many worldly ministers and authors who are too accustomed to worldly ways to be of any spiritual good. It may seem good here on earth and may produce results, but will it be recognized in heaven and will the “results” be eternal?

It’s not the ministry outcome, which should be measured, but rather it’s method. If it is a worldly method, no matter what the result or outcome, it is lawlessness and an abomination to the Lord. The definition of “lawlessness,” is unauthorized acts. In the biblical sense it means “unauthorized acts of righteousness.”

Wow! How can righteousness be considered evil acts? Let’s take a look…

Matthew 7: 21-23 (ESV):

I Never Knew You

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

You see, your proximity is far more important than your prosperity, far more important than your talent, your “bling-power” or your religious glittering image. Proximity has to do with the nearness of your relationship with God. Not your talent, not your “anointing,” and not your wealth!

It’s not “what you do” as a Christian or minister of the Gospel; it’s not how many demon butts you kick, how many prophetic words you speak or how fluent your prayer language is. It’s not how many show up for your concerts or sermons; how many people make a decision for the Lord because of your fine singing, powerful preaching, or earth-shattering-mighty-works of God. If it is not done in accordance with the will of our Father in heaven, it is unauthorized acts of righteousness and it stinks to high-heaven. Only those who do the will of the Father, are those who know and are known by the Father in heaven. You can’t practice righteousness apart from intimately knowing God as “Father!” No matter how warm and fuzzy it makes you, and your audience feel.

You are so lost…

Lost in yourself, lost in your ministry and lost in your “so-called good works.” How lost are you? Worse yet, how lost are your disciples? Those you’ve taught, those who follow your every move and ministry trick. It may not be the stage of life you learn of your errors, but the throne of God, at Judgment Day. Repent of your lawlessness. It’s not about just doing it right, but by knowing God as Father and then doing His will, His way.

Which is better, a Worldly Church or a Churchy World? Get the world out of the Church and you will have a Church which will change the world. Our value to the Church is our clean hands from worldliness. A corrupt pastor can only corrupt, no matter how pretty and charismatic he may be, underneath and behind the scenes, he may be falling apart, but before the Church he’s Johnny-on-the-spot.

It has been too long since Christianity has produced authentic saints of God. Men and women who’ve not bowed to Baal (worldliness), nor kissed his feet, that is to tolerate sin within and without. You become what you worship, and you’ll eventually act out what is within your heart. It is far better to confess to a brother in this life now, rather than it being exposed in the Halls of Heaven and at the Throne of God.

If seasons of survival, living in the Land-of-Not-Enough, are the surest way towards righteousness and clean hands, then let us all travel there for a season of change. It is our part to wash our robes.

Revelation 22:14 (The Message)

“How blessed are those who wash their robes! The Tree of Life is theirs for good, and they’ll walk through the gates to the City. But outside for good are the filthy curs: sorcerers, fornicators, murderers, idolaters—all who love and live lies.”

Job 17:9 (New Living Translation)

“The righteous keep moving forward,

and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger.”

Jonah 2:8 (New International Version)

“Those who cling to worthless idols

forfeit the grace that could be theirs.”

Mark 8:36 (New International Version)

“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world,

yet forfeit his soul?”

Where in the Heaven are you?

Find a trusted friend and let him know where you truly are, so that you may find the needed rest for your weary soul.

Jeremiah 6:16 (TLB)

“Yet the Lord pleads with you still: Ask where the good road is, the godly paths you used to walk in, in the days of long ago. Travel there, and you will find rest for your souls. But you reply, “No, that is not the road we want!”

Yes, it is the road you want. It only takes twenty seconds to do the right thing.

Become so heavenly-minded that you’ll do earthly good. Maybe you’ll be recognized in heaven!