“If you present the high ground of God’s full thought for His people and the hearts of the people are really set upon having a work for God down here that is flourishing and prosperous and well-spoken of, you find that people are really, after all, only going with Him so long as He comes into line with their ideas and ambitions. But immediately that runs counter to thoughts more earthly, thoughts even in relation to Him, something deeper rises up. They are not going to have that. You have seen that many times; you must not touch their things. They say it is for the Lord, but you must not touch it; it is their own. If you are not coming to help their thing or things with your ministry or presentation, of course they won’t have it, and it resolves itself into this: they won’t have Him; that is not the kind of Lord they want. They want a Lord who is going to make their thing for Him successful down here. You can only know and discriminate between the true and the false when you yourself are on the higher ground. Perhaps you know something about that. The Lord may have led you on spiritually, He has led you into new realms, and you look back and see what your devotion to the Lord really amounted to before – very largely something in this life.” – T.A. Sparks
Going on with God, often means losing individuals related to this exact point. Often, people follow God – get in a movement – but are focused on the temporary. Likely much of their own works are involved and outwardly they look very righteous. The religious church system we see throughout our nation, that may have a positive outlook on the outside with acts such as feeding the poor, charities, and ministries, is largely something temporal. “Christians” have their eyes set on the here and now. God’s major purpose for eternity is not necessarily the hunger in these individuals hearts. That is why so often when these ministries fail, individuals lose hope. Their expectation was not in Christ but in the thing itself. I have lost individuals on this line. They were determined to have their God. They stumbled on the testimony of Christ. God does not change, and Christ work in the cross should be worked out in His people. God is not a cruel God; however, the cross is a necessity to bring us to the end of ourselves, lest we not seek God. If we have it within ourselves, where would be the need?
I have struggled with this myself, putting faith in a situation or even individuals which I felt God led me to. Unfortunately, I could feel myself trusting more in the gift that the Giver. For example, God may lead us in to a situation. But then we cling to the fact we know He led us there, and we may get stuck there when he is later drawing us on. We may grasp at the situation and say I musn’t leave it – God put me in this; not understanding that God is moving on from it. He has had his purpose in such a thing and it is time to move on, but we have made a religion out of this thing – it is now our creed. It is easy to lose focus of God’s vision and only see with our natural eyes and understanding. God is far, far above us in his ways, mind, and works. God help us to “Seek first the Kingdom of God.”
DesertLilly 
“Let us beware of a dead faith. A man may be persuaded of many truths, and yet may hate them, because they interfere with his ambition, or sinful indulgences. Such a belief will make him uneasy, and the more resolved to oppose the truth and the cause of God; and he may be foolish enough to hope for success therein.” – Matthew Henry
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“The Pharisees laid their chief stress on outward observances, neglecting the weightier matters of the moral law, and the spiritual meaning of their legal ceremonies. Others of them were detestable hypocrites, making their pretences to holiness a cloak for iniquity. The Sadducees ran into the opposite extreme, denying the existence of spirits, and a future state. They were the scornful infidels of that time and country. There is a wrath to come. It is the great concern of every one to flee from that wrath. God, who delights not in our ruin, has warned us; he warns by the written word, by ministers, by conscience. And those are not worthy of the name of penitents, or their privileges, who say they are sorry for their sins, yet persist in them. It becomes penitents to be humble and low in their own eyes, to be thankful for the least mercy, patient under the greatest affliction, to be watchful against all appearances of sin, to abound in every duty, and to be charitable in judging others. Here is a word of caution, not to trust in outward privileges. There is a great deal which carnal hearts are apt to say within themselves, to put aside the convincing, commanding power of the word of God. Multitudes, by resting in the honours and mere advantages of their being members of an outward church, come short of heaven. Here is a word of terror to the careless and secure. Our corrupt hearts cannot be made to produce good fruit, unless the regenerating Spirit of Christ graft the good word of God upon them. And every tree, however high in gifts and honours, however green in outward professions and performances, if it bring not forth good fruit, the fruits meet for repentance, is hewn down and cast into the fire of God’s wrath, the fittest place for barren trees: what else are they good for? If not fit for fruit, they are fit for fuel… No outward forms can make us clean. No ordinances, by whomsoever administered, or after whatever mode, can supply the want of the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire. The purifying and cleansing power of the Holy Spirit alone can produce that purity of heart, and those holy affections, which accompany salvation. It is Christ who baptizes with the Holy Ghost… True believers are as wheat, substantial, useful, and valuable; hypocrites are as chaff, light and empty, useless and worthless, carried about with every wind; these are mixed, good and bad, in the same outward communion. There is a day coming when the wheat and chaff shall be separated. The last judgment will be the distinguishing day, when saints and sinners shall be parted for ever. In heaven the saints are brought together, and no longer scattered; they are safe, and no longer exposed; separated from corrupt neighbours without, and corrupt affections within, and there is no chaff among them. Hell is the unquenchable fire, which will certainly be the portion and punishment of hypocrites and unbelievers. Here life and death, good and evil, are set before us: according as we now are in the field, we shall be then in the floor.” – Matthew Henry
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The word says “What is not of faith, is sin” (Romans 14:23). The word sin there means: to be without a share in; to miss the mark; to err, be mistaken; to miss or wander from the path of uprightness and honour,to do or go wrong; to wander from the law of God, violate God’s law, sin (Reference: Thayer). What is not of God’s will – is not the way he would have it – is missing the mark; it is not fulfilling His purpose of revealing the fullness of Christ. It comes short because it is out of our mind, not His. Sin itself is the entrance of our own soulical thoughts into things, not just sinning. It is as simple as the seat of a thing is in you and not Him – it is out of you and not God, the Almighty, and all-knowing.
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