When we talk about the last days we seem to forget that many will lose heart and turn away from the faith. We can see the groundwork for this in the Church. We are not hearing about the 'walk' of the believer. The Church today is no different than the world when it comes to behavior.

I am not saying that you are not saved if you accept Jesus as your Savior, but to reject Him as Lord is to reject who He is. " Lord, Lord did we not… depart from me I never knew you." No one can call Jesus 'Lord' without the Spirit, and yet here we see the argument that they said lord, lord. Jesus must be more that a passport in your life, He must be the controlling influence in your behavior. According to research done recently the behavior of the majority of those who call themselves Christians, believe and live no differently then non-Christians. (Barna Group )

The behavior we are talking about is Holiness. This seems to be where confusion starts. What does Holiness mean, not in definition, but in practice? How are we to live our life in the context of community? It is my opinion that Holiness begins not with rights and wrongs but with the thought of others and how we behave towards man, that really demonstrates our understanding of Holiness. Let me explain God is love, and Holiness begins with that characteristic. Holiness without love is just rules and regulations. But when you add love to it we begin to see how we interact, and behave towards those around us. The first Commandment is to love God with all of your heart, and Jesus said the second is like unto it, to love your neighbor as yourself. This is where we begin to put into action, what real Holiness it is, and live out the life that is required by Jesus as to the way we live. Jesus said, keep my commandments. And what was his commandment? "To love one another." There are a couple of versus that I would like to share with you that will demonstrate what I'm talking about. The first one states that we are to look at others as greater than ourselves (NIV Philippians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves). With this in mind, how should we behave towards those around us? Should we see ourselves as the most important object in the activities that we do? Or should we see others as the most important object in those activities. The second one is similar in nature, to see the needs of others as well as our own (NIV Philippians 2:4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others).

How would that be? If we were to actually live by those two characteristics, to see others as greater than ourselves and the needs of others as equal our own. How would our world be today? What would businesses be like, if the employee's were as important as the owner of the business were? What would businesses be like, if the needs of the employee's were as important as the needs of the owner? Now I know everyone is saying that you cannot run a business by putting the employee's first but that has been proven to be wrong. To great companies, Southwest Airlines, and Starbucks have demonstrated that a businesses can be very successful if you put the employee's first. Now these are just two examples of companies that have tried to apply these two characteristics in business. If you put others first, you will also put their needs first, because you'll begin to see people as they ought to be seen by Christians. Christianity must be lived out in community to be seen as true Christ like behavior.

We have become an individualistic society. When we become individualistic, we become self-centered. We begin to look at ourselves as the center of what is going on around us and we become more concerned about who we are and what we need than we do about who others are and what they need.

Christianity can not be lived only in Church on Sunday but must be lived each and every day. When we begin to live as Christ and demonstrated to us how to live in then we will begin to see a change in our communities and our churches. Too often, we live our life as if it is only us, and no one else around us. How many people are hurt, because we have only seen, what is good for us without recognizing that may not be good for them.

In the last days the hearts of many will grow cold. Love comes from the heart, and so that means love has grown cold. When we stand before God as if nothing matters but ourselves and expect to receive a reward for living selfishly and self-centeredly, we will be rejected. I fear that many will stand before Jesus and say "did we not do things in your name?" Did we not say 'Lord, Lord', and he will say "depart from me I never knew you"!