Challenge Your Faith

Here is a question to challenge those who profess Christ. We sing of and talk about God's love for us, and many even profess that love to be unconditional. Time to challenge your faith, if you dare care to test what you think you know.

1. IF you must "choose" God in order for Him to save you, would that not make His love conditional?!

-You must either conclude that God's love is conditional, or that He loves you BEFORE you decided to glorify God as God.

2. IF God loves everybody the same, how do you tell someone being damned to Hell that God loves them?

- You must become a Universalist and blatantly make Jesus a liar by claiming that Hell is temporary and that suffering the undiluted wrath of God is somehow loving, or you conclude that God has a peculiar love for His bride (Imagine that).

Please feel free to comment on either point. Can your faith withstand testing? If it is built on Truth, it should.

My Reflection

Over the past few weeks I have been blasted by many for speaking God's Word and telling the truth. Today I was cleaning my old apartment, and I was just listening to worship music and praying. I don't want to estrange people, so I was just praying "Lord I will follow you anywhere, and I will speak whatever you want me to speak, just let me know that it is you."

I was examining the things I say, and the things I have been saying. Have I been judgmental? Am I inappropriately dividing the Word? What am I doing, and why? I asked that God would just show me. Show me what He wants me to be saying.

Towards the end of the cleaning I had peace in these things. The Word of God, and His Law, is to make EVERYONE guilty before Him. The Word should bring conviction. The Truth should offend. There is no difference between me and another as far as our "deeds" are conerned. We ALL stand guilty. A person has no hope in and of himself, and we must all have our conviction.

We are to use the Word to shine the light into the darkness, exposing the truth in hopes that people will realize that they are sinners under condemnation. Only then, in that place of humility, can one accept that they need a Savior. ONLY FAITH IN JESUS saves. PERIOD. Trust God. Is that not the Gospel?! Is that not how we are made righteous?

Maybe it is that I am failing to offer the solution after revealing the darkness, which would be a greivious error on my part. God forgive me. There is NO HOPE outside of Jesus.

Why Shouldn't We Have Our Best Life Now?

Christianity is about Jesus. When we wonder what our life should look like as a Christian, it should look like His.

1 John 2:6 NKJV

He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

John 14:4-7 NKJV

"And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

The persecution, the rejection, the humiliation... all the way to the cross.

John 13:16 NKJV

"Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him."

Revelation 12:11 NKJV

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.

What I Teach is...

It appears to me that I haven't taken the time to properly convey things to some, so I am going to attempt a concise and pointed narrative.

For some reason some of you think I judge others by comparing them to me. Well... If I did that, that wouldn't be a bad thing because comparing anyone to me would ALWAYS make the other person look good. I know who I am, and I am a wretched sinner.

Here is what I teach in a nutshell (if I can be so precise).

We are ALL born into sin, and deserving of God’s holy wrath. We are born SLAVES to sin. That means sin owns us. We cannot do ANY good and our hearts are deceitful and wicked.

Psalms 51:5 NKJV

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.

Jesus came as God in the flesh around 2000 years ago and was born of a virgin mother. He lived a sinless life and was crucified for the sins of those whose names were written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, and was raised from the dead all according to Scripture. In this act Jesus became the sin of the believing ones and suffered the wrath of God in our place, and HIS righteousness is imputed to those that He died for.

2 Corinthians 5:21 NKJV

For He made Him who knew no sin to  be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

When a person turns to God with ALL of their heart through the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit, such a person is born again (filled with the Holy Spirit) and made new. We are given remission of sins through faith in Jesus Christ, and sanctified through the Word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Ezekiel 36:25-27 NKJV

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

The spiritual state of a person produces FRUIT, which is the by product of what is going on in our heart. If a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, they produce like fruit in their lives. If a person is not filled with the Holy Spirit, still a slave to sin, they produce like fruit in their lives.

Galatians 5:19-21 NKJV

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who  are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

These things are manifest as a RESULT of the God/god in a person's life. If Jesus is our God, then we are in right standing before. If Jesus is not God to a person, they are guilty of idolatry and abide under the wrath of God.

The RESULT of Jesus being God to a person is that the person is free from sin, and is being sanctified (made like Christ) to the glory of the Father. The  RESULT of Jesus not being God to a person is that the person is a slave to sin, and GOD GIVES THEM OVER to the destructive behaviors of the flesh.

This is a HEART issue, NOT a "do it yourself" project. ONLY Jesus can save you and make you free. I NEVER speak about me, but ALWAYS about God, for a person must fully turn to Him with ALL of their heart. If the fruit of the flesh is evident in a person's life, they must be made aware of their idolatry that they might return to God and be healed.

Testify

Yesterday I spent time talking to all three of my brothers about God and these things. Dale and I went to Maranatha Christian School, and Adam and Ryan went to Nampa Christian. As we were talking there were so many heresies and erroneous beliefs exposed in their words that were taught to them through their experience at Nampa Christian and church growing up.

All three of them are living in the world right now and have denied God, and it is in part because of the lies they were taught growing up. I know that because it was those fallacies that they were bringing up in their attempt to validate their position.

Listen... Here is truth. Jesus came to save those whose names were written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, the beloved. Jesus' sheep, the elect (the beloved), hear His voice, and they follow Him. There is NO AMOUNT OF PERSUASION or CREATIVE PRESENTATION that can turn one to God. ONLY the Word of God saves, because it is mixed with faith that God gives a person.

Because of the heresy that is taught people worry about how "the thing" for which God sends His Word is going to respond, which is the fear of man, instead speaking the Truth in love as we are commanded. (Isaiah 55:11)

My own cousin professes Christ with her mouth, yet her she likes and supports a hater of God as he spews forth his hate and rebellion. NOBODY CAN BE A FRIEND OF THE WORLD AND A FRIEND OF GOD. Either we are hated by all for Jesus, or we make ourselves an enemy of God.

I do not force anything down anyone's throat, but because I KNOW that it is the Word ALONE that saves I speak the Word constantly into the lives of those I love. If they are of the elect, they WILL respond to the Word. If they are not, that is not my concern, for what is the chaff to the wheat, and I must keep looking for my brethren. Speak the Word over your family my friend.

All the Promises of God.

If you are in Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, ALL the promises of God are yours. Amen!

2 Corinthians 1:20-22 NKJV

For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

Deuteronomy 28:2-8 NKJV

And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God: Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be  in the country. Blessed shall  be  the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall  be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord  will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

Do You Resist Reformed Theology?

You do realize that the very mission you are on to refute reformed theology is to steal God's glory in His sovereignty and to give it to man don't you? Again... Your intent is very discomforting sir.

1 Corinthians 1:29 NKJV

that no flesh should glory in His presence.

Jeremiah 13:15-17 NKJV

Hear and give ear: Do not be proud, For the Lord has spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God Before He causes darkness, And before your feet stumble On the dark mountains, And while you are looking for light, He turns it into the shadow of death And makes it dense darkness. But if you will not hear it, My soul will weep in secret for your pride; My eyes will weep bitterly And run down with tears, Because the Lord ’s flock has been taken captive.