TIMES ARE EMBARKING upon us where Christians are going to prove false or genuine in their profession. The depraved policies of the present American administration are no longer confined to the pages of our novels; it is becoming a reality stranger than fiction. The immoral laws that will soon be enforced upon everyone in society will be an acid test of every confessing Christian; will they compromise or remain composed in their loyalty to Christ?

Below is the current scenario ready to be implemented throughout the federal department and we can surely expect it to infiltrate all fields of employment in the near future:

“The Obama administration is apparently requiring federal workers to not only tolerate homosexuality, but to “publicly embrace and affirm” it, according to the religious liberty law firm Liberty Counsel, Charisma News reports. Last week, a whistleblower from the Department of Justice sent Liberty Counsel a copy of a brochure sent to all DOJ employees entitled “LGBT Inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers.” The directive requires employees to vocally affirm homosexuality: “DON’T judge or remain silent. Silence will be interpreted as disapproval.” The DOJ also instructs managers to “use inclusive words like ‘partner,’ ‘significant other’ or ‘spouse’ rather than gender-specific terms like ‘husband’ and ‘wife'” and to “use a transgender person’s chosen name and the pronoun that is consistent with the person’s self-identified gender.” According to Liberty Counsel, “No longer can Christians quietly dissent or remain neutral to same-sex relationships. Now the DOJ is requiring federal employees to affirm sexual behaviors that every major religion throughout history has deemed immoral.” http://www.religiontoday.com/blog/department-of-justice-federal-employees-publicly-affirm-homosexuality.html

For its added emphasis and relevancy, I include the following information with link attached below:

“The Obama administration is requiring federal workers to publicly embrace and affirm homosexuality. Last week a whistleblower from the Department of Justice (DOJ) contacted Liberty Counsel seeking help to protect her First Amendment rights.

The whistleblower sent Liberty Counsel a copy of an email sent to all DOJ employees, entitled, “LGBT Inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers” http://www.lc.org/media/9980/images/pr_doj_lgbt_directive_052113.pdf. The directive requires employees to vocally affirm homosexuality. “DON’T judge or remain silent. Silence will be interpreted as disapproval,” the DOJ tells employees.

No longer can Christians quietly dissent or remain neutral to same-sex sexual relationships. Now the DOJ is requiring federal employees to affirm sexual behaviors that every major religion throughout history has deemed immoral.

A homosexual employee is quoted in the directive: “Silence seems like disapproval. There’s still an atmosphere of LGBT issues not being appropriate for the workplace (particularly for transgender people), or that people who bring it up are trying to rock the boat.”

The DOJ also instructs managers to “display a symbol in your office (DOJ Pride sticker, copy of this brochure, etc.) indicating that it is a ‘safe space.'”

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, explains, “Under this directive, one cannot be a Christian and a manager at the Department of Justice. How does one who believes in the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Bible display ‘gay pride’ stickers? The Department of Justice is engaged in viewpoint discrimination and religious intolerance.”

“LGBT Inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers” also instructs managers to “use inclusive words like partner, significant other or spouse rather than gender-specific terms like husband and wife” and to “use a transgender person’s chosen name and the pronoun that is consistent with the person’s self-identified gender.”

In dealing with transgenders, the directive quotes a man who dresses like a woman: “I want people to understand that I’m real. I want to be recognized as the gender I really am. … Just imagine if people were constantly debating YOUR bathroom privileges. Imagine how humiliating that would be.'”

“This administration is pushing the most radical, immoral agenda on the American people,” Staver notes. “Christians are not merely required to ‘shut up,’ but now they are being coerced to embrace immorality that goes against their sincerely held religious beliefs. Liberty Counsel will do whatever is required to stand for religious freedom amidst this religiously intolerant administration.”’ http://www.charismanews.com/us/39566-doj-forcing-federal-employees-to-publicly-affirm-homosexuality

Christians, is luxurious living important to you; is a well paid salary your dream? Is promotion your ambition? Where really is your treasure? Where does your security lie? Is it your bank balance? Is it your insurance plan? Is it governmental welfare? Is that what enables you to sleep each night, or can you be anxiety-free in any array of problems, yet because of the peace of God, you can rest your head at night and sleep soundly? How on earth do you think the apostle Peter slept, chained to soldiers either side of him, strongly suspecting that the following day would bring his execution? It was nothing but the peace of God that transcended his understanding.

It’s easy to ‘trust’ God when our monetary values are at satisfactory levels; many don’t feel the need for God when money is their god, but it’s a completely different predicament when ambiguity pervades our circumstances and we don’t know where, when or how we’re going to meet and pay those bills just to keep a roof over our heads. Can we then perform what we are able to do (be responsible with the little we have) and completely roll such concerns onto God, confidently knowing that God shall provide what we really need? Do we have audacious faith to abandon such concerns into God’s hands and concentrate on His directives – to pray for such and such a person, to minister to that person, to be consumed with the burden of some country that is hardened to the gospel? Is the honour and spread of God’s name a priority above and beyond our personal concerns and daily needs? If not, then we are no different from the unbeliever whose substance and purpose in life revolves around clothing and food – the preservation of self (Matthew 6:32).

As Christians, don’t be surprised but prepared to lose positions of promotion in the secular world of employment, to lose one’s career because of standing for righteousness, with no aid from organisations to appeal and fight such injustice. Christians are going to learn what it means to lean on God when all human intervention and resources run absolutely dry. The early Church of New Testament Christianity had no government to lean on but God; their only light was God – not a law firm (and I’m not implicating that the use of lawyers is wrong; just in who and what is our trust?) How different it is today with the remaining freedom we have in America, yet so few are willing to make a difference for the kingdom of God. God has not prospered America to be absorbed in its own leisure. Has America been a good steward of its blessings? Instead of making excuses and justifying the laxity in our churches, we would do well to answer honestly. Do you know that the path to revival is first and foremost in knowing how far we have backslid from its standard? Brokenness has always preceded revival; it is a recognition and contrition of our spiritual state; humility, in God’s economy, always comes before exaltation.

The early Christians knew what it meant to trust in God momentarily. The world wasn’t their pillow to rest their heads on; the coming glory of heaven was. They joyfully accepted the plundering of their property knowing they had a better possession and an abiding one (Hebrews 10:34). What a world of difference to many Christians today who believe they are immune to such injustices. God was real to the first New Testament Christians; their trust in God was immovable; His Word was their substance and purpose for living. Much of modern Christianity is cloaked with so much earthly security it feels no need of God. Days, weeks and months are planned without even considering and enquiring the will of God. So few live on the sufficiency of God’s grace to meet today’s trials; so few stretch and prove the all-sufficient grace of God that results in bringing glory to His name before the eyes of many.

To be a New Testament Christian is going to cost dearly in today’s world; God have mercy on anyone of us that have not already kissed away the comfort zones of this world. Spirit-born and Spirit-filled Christians will withstand the coming fire; ‘moral-Christians’ will put up a fight but will soon find the heat too unbearable to persevere; they will soon lose hope, lapse and whither away. You can be moral and yet all the while be opposed to Christ; you can passionately adhere to sound ethical principles yet lack devotion to Christ; you may love attending church yet fail to love Christ (which manifests itself in obedience to Him). God has to be more real to us more than anything else, otherwise a pseudo-faith orientated Christianity will soon be won over by the spirit of this world to endorse and embrace it.

The two reasons why many Christians do not really pray today is because God is not real to them (otherwise they would pray) and secondly, they find no need to pray; many of those who profess Christianity do not know God in the extremity. The effective prayers of the righteous are reflected by the state of a nation and its standard of Christianity. The persecuted Church in Asia and the Middle East suffers amidst an immoral political regime, but the standard of Christianity is nothing short of sound Biblical conversion and conduct; the churches are rapidly growing and they know how to genuinely pray because all they have is God; He is literally ALL to them. They choose to suffer on account of the will of God rather than enjoy the passing pleasures of sin’s ‘freedom’.

God moves powerfully through desperate prayer and many of us, in a materialistic and technological-obsessed culture, have never known such desperation; we’re too preoccupied with the fascination of other things. Where do you hear of desperate prayer today like that of John Knox, “God, give me Scotland or I die”? More than anything else, Queen Mary of Scotland (known as ‘Bloody Mary’), feared the prayers of that man; God answered his prayers mightily and mighty prayers they were. Is there one man or woman, here in the United States, whose prayers would turn the heart and course of Barack Hussein Obama? Our generation has become so theologically glued and set in its ways that it’s too stiff and rigid to pray; so ‘meticulous’ is our definition of God’s sovereignty that we have lost fervency in prayer. The sovereignty of God’s grace in salvation never excuses the Christian to be slovenly in prayer, spiritual growth and the advancement of God’s kingdom.

Not only does our nation suffer a famine of God’s Word but of prayer as well; I mean prayer that wrestles with God until breakthrough. Leonard Ravenhill said “The Church doesn’t need more organising but more agonising.” It’s not that God is small; it’s the many who present God as being small because God is not present with them! People like M’Cheyne, Brainerd and Hyde were wet with the dew of heaven because they knew the presence of God through prayer. They all agonised, travailed and prevailed through prayer. Oh! That God would drench and saturate this generation with prayer!

Difficulties of a peculiar nature that lie ahead for God’s sons and daughters will prove to be true and fruitful blessing; some, in the extremities, will know God’s provision in miraculous ways; some will be so overjoyed at the realisation of their real security in God. The world may cut us off and abandon us, but God, Who created the rolling spheres, will never desert or forsake the apple of His eye. Those that trust Him with their whole life will find Him to be wholly true to His Word.

Let us examine ourselves and be sure we are standing in such faith – our feet on the Rock of all ages.

Like a river glorious
Is God’s perfect peace,
Over all victorious
In its bright increase;
Perfect, yet it floweth
Fuller every day;
Perfect, yet it groweth
Deeper all the way.

Stayed upon Jehovah
Hearts are full blest,
Finding, as He promised,
Perfect peace and rest.

Hidden in the hollow
Of His blessed hand,
Never foe can follow,
Never traitor stand;
We may trust Him fully
All for us to do;
They who trust Him wholly
Find Him wholly true.

(Hymn by Francis Ridley Havergal)