In times like these......

2 Timothy 4:2-3 NIV

Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

We live in strange times indeed. There was once a time that you did not need to say that you were a Christian by mouth; people saw the evidence from the quality of your decisions and words. There was a time that being called born again had only one meaning: you were really born again, not the modifications we have now, when someone calls himself a 'born-again Christian' as if there's supposed be another kind of born-again. We live in times of convenient learning, where we choose what we want to hear and believe. There are many variants of the book called the Bible, with various modifications made, emphasizing what people want to hear or believe. There are also variants of people who would take what is convenient for them from the bible and build a doctrine and an empire out of that, without any regard to the whole truth of God's word.

There's a problem: we need to understand what has gone wrong and what we need to do to get back in line. God's Word convicts, reproofs, corrects and trains so if you find yourself reading or listening to God's wordcat anytime, and there's no conviction in you to change in some areas or grow in some areas, there's a problem with the way you are listening. God says that his Word is living and active, it is always working and it must have an impact in any life that allows it. The parable of the sower is just a case in point: the seed always carries the capacity to reproduce; the issue is always the quality of the hearts receiving the seed.

If you do not know the truth, you cannot speak the truth or do the truth. If you cannot speak up for the truth now, it is a sign that the end- time is here. If all you want to hear is what promotes the evil that you do, or you resist every word that seeks to change your inner condition, it is a sign that you are in trouble.

Truth is not subject to our whims and caprices; it is the constant Presence against which we must continually measure ourselves against. He is the embodiment of Truth, so all that our lives produce must meet his requirements and conditions. Fear God, not people. Stand for truth, stand for God. Heaven has no room for compromise or falsehood. His time of favour is here.