Originally written 2000 – 2003, and first published online in 2004

The purpose of this book is to take a discerning look at what we believe, and how our belief system enables us to continue to walk in the flesh, and practice sin and enable us to believe we are still OK with God. We will focus on several major areas that need to be changed so we can live the lives that God’s Spirit and Word require.

Mending The Sword

Repairing the Faith
and
Restoring the Church

A Letter to the Church in America
By Kirk Osgood

Introduction

Have we substituted the traditions of men for the wisdom of God? Who have we depended on to give us instruction in God’s word? God or man? If it is man, can we trust then our interpretations? Have we allowed ourselves to be indoctrinated by the school of men, without waiting on God to guide us into all truth? For the bible was not written by the mind of man, so do we dare trust the mind of any man or group of men to interpret it for us?
Have we corrupted the word of God by not allowing it to mean what it most simply says? Reshaping it so we can get away with our spiritually lethargic, fleshly and undisciplined ways? Have we formed it to our own liking and even our own likeness, making it into a co-dependent parent who enables us to remain as worldly, flesh indulging, lukewarm pseudo-Christians?
If these words strike an interest in your mind, but also bring a feeling of trepidation in your gut, then prayerfully read on, as we explore the labyrinth of interconnected beliefs that dwell in the chasm of our minds. And see how we have mixed flesh and spirit, sweaty wool and fine linen, and have allowed the temple of our hearts the sacred home of the living God, to be desecrated, relegating ourselves to live as spiritually unproductive, disobedient and even rebellious children.
If you are too fearful of such an encounter, then think on this; if you want to become all that you can be in Christ, if you want all the promises for good that God’s word speaks of, then remember His words, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it will not see new life”.

Note: Scripture quotations taken from the NASB © The Lockman Foundation. www.lockman.org

Table of Contents

Part 1 – Bible Interpretation

It’s Time to be Weaned from the Breast
Indoctrination
Our Primary Goal
Forgotten Method of Interpretation

Part 2 – A Fresh Look at Our Modern Theology

Drawing Near
Worthy Means Worth It
Abide in Me
Abide? OK – But How Do I Do It With My Busy Life?
Prayer Interlude
Pushing Away
Fear & Reverence
Firm until the End
I Will Never Desert You, Nor Forsake You
Righteousness
Christ’s Righteousness Credited to Our Account
God’s Purpose for the Law
Practicing Sin
God’s Desires, is His Righteousness in our Account
Clothing the Naked, Us
Age of Grace
“Chewing the Cud” (Reviewing the Chapter)
Faith and Works
Paul and James
The Repentant Believer Is “In Christ”

Part 3 – Our Experience

Obsessing Over Relics
How To Keep Your Heart Daily Filled with the Glory of God
What Do You Want?
The Understanding
How To Do It!
When The Old Desires Rise Up Again

Part 4 – Our Modern Methods vs. The Biblical Mandate

“Go…and Teach Them to Observe All That I Commanded You”
What Would Discipleship Look Like Today?
“Believe” (Calling to Life the Hidden Seed)
Believing In

Epilogue

It begins with Prayer

 

 

Part 1

Bible Interpretation

It’s Time to be Weaned from the Breast

The people of God have become lazy and are not willing to give God the time it takes in His word and prayer to hear from God on our own. It seems much easier to just let our Pastors and Teachers teach us what the bible means. Or we may even take the next step and get one of those bibles with a built-in commentary so we can get our answers right away and not have to wait for Wednesday night or Sunday morning to find out what God is saying.
If you find yourself in one of these categories, I implore you to wean yourself from the breast of the Church and eat solid food. For milk is food that has been predigested for you, and you need solid meat. It is time for the people of God to be eating meat directly from the hand of God. So kill and eat. 1st John 2:27 And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things…
Do you see why the bible says to not lean on or trust in your own understanding? This would have to include our own ability to figure out and interpret scripture. Again we do need to use our understanding, and it is good to listen to others and have good teachers, but we cannot trust in our own or a large group of men’s own private understanding. And as Proverbs says, but in all our ways we should acknowledge Him and He will direct our paths. How? His voice in our hearts is one way, and also He puts His desires in our hearts that make us want to do things. Our walk here on earth is He and me together, “My God and I”.

Now having laid this foundation of having an open mind to God’s leading, I ask you to not believe what I have written in this book just because it may make sense to you, but rather, wait on God, for Him to…I’ll use the word illuminate your mind by affirming or discounting what I am about to say. No sense in opening another can of worms right now by saying something like reveal it to you, lol. So here I wish to get on with the meat of this letter. (Well it was meat for me; but I guess it’s “milk” for you.)

Indoctrination

If you read the Introduction, you would have heard me mention how we have engineered our understanding of the Bible into our modern day belief system that enables us to remain in a serious malady of lukewarmness. Part One of this book will deal with what we need to change as we read the Bible in order for the Church to regain God’s perspective on His Word.

I believe that all of us in the body of Christ have been indoctrinated by the mind and wisdom of man. Let me give you my understanding of how indoctrination occurs. First off, indoctrination is not a bad word. It simply means to be taught doctrine, and in this case the precepts of scripture. The problem then, is in who we trust to teach us. God, who wrote the bible or the mind of man, who can only, when left to his own devices, guess at it’s meaning.

Indoctrination by man occurs when we accept an idea we hear from earthly teachers as truth before we hear from God that it is true. If we fail to wait on God for His instruction, we can not trust in what we believe no matter who we learned it from. So if we have jumped the gun and accepted something as truth either because we trust the human source or because it makes sense to us, we have abdicated the responsibility of waiting on God and we have built our house out of sand. We may have started out with a sure foundation, but have begun to build the structure, using water and sand as a trusted compound to build with…it’s called a “Sand Castle” and will not stand even though we started to build on a solid rock.

Our Primary Goal

The main ingredient for any good and serious discussion about biblical views is to have the same goals at heart. Otherwise we will have difficulty in being able to understand the others view, let alone find any agreement.

We must be willing to sacrifice all for the sake of discovering truth. Our primary goal must be to find out what is truth, and not to prove that we are right. For if each party has as their goal to prove themselves right, neither can ever be sure that they are right, because they were not willing to accept the fact that they could be wrong, and then recheck the logical progression of their ideas. If a person will not do so, their belief system is suspect. People have to admit that they are fallible. If we will humble ourselves before God, then God will teach us and exalt us. One way to do this is to humble our hearts and minds before our brothers and sisters here on earth, even those we may view as having a lower place than we do in the Church. Then we may be able to learn from one another and God’s Holy Spirit.

Forgotten Method of Interpretation

Two questions to consider are, what should we use to interpret scripture, and what do we trust to interpret scripture. Or whom can we trust to teach, lead, and help us to interpret scripture.

We have many tools at our disposal, our own minds or understanding, books and commentaries, friends, and Pastors and Teachers. Now let me say in the beginning that these are important and useful tools, but we must not allow them to take the place of God in our life. The bible teaches us, “not to lean on (trust in) our own understanding.” We are not to trust in it but we are surely to use it. Just don’t believe something merely because it makes sense to you. For we have all been wrong before about something that made sense to us, correct?

Lets look at 2 Peter 1:20 “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own (or private) interpretation.” “Ahh here’s the answer, we should get a consensus of a larger group of believers, and then we can be sure we are in the way.” Except the meaning of private here isn’t in relation to man, but rather all of men in a private club excluding God, the Holy Spirit.

2PE 1:21 for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” Do you see that little word “for” at the beginning of verse 21, it means that it is about to explain why no prophesy of scripture is a matter of one’s own (or private) interpretation. It’s because it wasn’t written by man’s will, but rather it actually came from the mind of God spoken through the mouth, or penned by the hand, of man. But it did not come from the mind of man, so why would you ask man what it means. You cannot trust in yourself or any other human to make truth known to you. When it says its not a matter of our own private interpretation, it doesn’t mean private in relation to other humans, but in line with verse 21, private in relation to God, without hearing from God’s Spirit who wrote it. When you want to know what someone means you ask the author. Listen to Jesus, “John 16:13 “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 1John 2:27 “and as for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things…” Tell me how many verses can you find that tell us we should trust in the interpretations we get from people? Listen to yes, but wait for, and Trust In God. I have sited a few verses that point us to God, and there are more. But I can’t think of any that tell us to trust in man for understanding. We are told to listen to those in authority over us. But we are not told to lean on them, but rather to lean on God Himself, for He alone is our infallible teacher. Before we turn to commentaries or ask our friends or Pastor what something in the Bible means, we should ask God.

1 Corinthians 2:5 “that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. And verse 11 “…even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.” And James 1:5 “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”

But don’t ask God and the next minute turn to a commentary and say “well this is how God is going to show me.” Learn rather to wait for Him to give you understanding by His Spirit. But you may ask. How does He do that? Do you mean that God actually talks to us with His Spirit?

Imagine the best father in the world, and this father was separated from his precious child, so he wrote the child a letter, and it was a great letter that contained so much wisdom that the child would need to learn to make good decisions. Then a way is made for the father to abide with the child again. The child says to the father, “oh thank you so much for the great letter, I read it every day, it has been wonderful.” And the father goes and gets the letter and points to a passage but never speaks a word. For the next month this goes on. Here the child has the father abiding right under the same roof, and the father never speaks but just points to something that he has already written to the child, and this never changes.

Would you think that a truly wise, loving and intimate father would ever do such a silly thing? And yet that is the belief that many people hold concerning the most loving father in the universe. Some people believe that God doesn’t talk to us, but somehow mysteriously directs us. The other belief thinks that God may talk to us, but he will only repeat His letter to us. Likewise if an angel should appear to us they too can only quote scripture.

These beliefs are based on the doctrine that revelation is closed and we have no more need of hearing anything from God other than what He has already said. Well the bible may be finished but that doesn’t mean God is unable to say something other than a quote from His word, and yes it is His Glorious word. Of course if that belief is true, I wonder what translation He uses. For if He were only able to quote from His word, then He would have to do it from the original language and we wouldn’t be able to understand Him.

In a popular end times fiction book the angels and the two witnesses can never address a person by their name, or tell someone anything specific that is not a direct quote from the bible, King James Bible to be exact. I suppose this is because it either doesn’t fit the author’s theology, or maybe the authors were just graciously making it palatable for people who hold this belief. Imagine the Greatest most intimate Father ever, the God of the universe, can’t say, “I love you Fred, or Sue, or Billy” because it’s not in the bible. When I think about it, why it’s just plain silly.

Part 2

A Fresh Look at Our Modern Beliefs

Chapter 1

Drawing Near

Worthy Means Worth It

We have a skewed idea of the word “Worthy”, the word simply means worth it. What makes it worth it all to the Father to send His own Son to do all He went through to save us? It’s because of who the Father is. God says of Himself that He “is” love. His love, His heart, is a fullness that wants to give, out of His goodness to others. But the question is what makes someone worthy (now hold on before you say, “we aren’t worthy” until I define worthy).

When we go to the store, and we look at an item with a price tag of $20. We then consider whether the item is equal to the value we have for the $20 asked for. This is similar to how we are worth it to God. Except God fills us with the amount that is equal to our emptiness. Or to the amount of our emptiness that we will open to Him.

Our heart is an emptiness that needs to be filled with goodness.

God’s love is a fullness that is desiring to fill an emptiness.

If God’s love is a fullness that is looking for something to fill, what would it be that He is looking for? Someone else who is full of giving love just like Himself or even thinks they are?

No, but what would He think is worth filling?

Someone who is empty of course. Someone who knows that they are not good on their own without Him, without His goodness resident within them. This goodness is His own Holy Spirit.

God’s Spirit is like rain on a mountain that gathers as a stream and begins racing down the mountain to the valley below, like an adventurous man on skis rushing down the slope with one purpose, to find the bottom. And so what is God looking for? But the lowest, emptiest place He can find. Like you and me. People who have no hope of being good on their own.

Now we who admit our emptiness, our total depravity, are who are worth it to God. We are not worthy by being good enough, but rather worthy by being humbly aware of the truth of our inept state of affairs. And then, we open ourselves up for God to fill us.

It is after this that He washes us clean from sin and pours His Spirit into us. This new state of affairs, is how we gain a new heart. By His Spirit we now have His love in us, this is the new heart that we are to live by. Having Him in us is what the bible calls God abiding in us. But now if we want Him to continue to abide in us, do we need also to abide in Him?

Abide in Me

Abiding in Him has many elements. All of which are essential to maintaining intimacy with the one who truly cares for us with an undying love.

Have you ever wondered why God loves us so? Just think of the investment that He has made in us. First He brought us into existence. We seem to not consider how much God is involved in this process. The bible says that He formed us in our mother’s womb, He controls every atom, every molecule, and the growth of every cell. The bible says that He holds all things together. This means even every atom in the universe, so of course this includes the very atomic structure of every cell in our body. He knows every hair on my head; no mother or father in the world knows their child that well. He’s aware of every thought we think, and just as importantly, the motive behind it.

Whenever a person willingly invests a great deal of time in caring for a child or an animal or even a plant, there is a natural affection that results.

One spring when I was living in the city of Minneapolis, my son who was about nine, came down with the chicken pox and came home from school for what I thought would be a couple of weeks. The temperature that spring was very hot for May, it was sunny and in the mid 80’s. As I went out into the back yard I found a little baby sparrow that had not even a feather on it. The mother had been nesting in one of our roof vents, and with the hot sun, the temperature on that roof was very hot. So the little sparrows kept wriggling out trying not to be fricasseed.

I had been putting them back in, being careful not to touch them, to keep momma sparrow from rejecting them. But to no avail, they just kept finding their way out and landing in our yard. Well with the others tumbling to their eventual death, I decided to see if we could rescue this last hatchling from, what would be, a most probable doom.

So this time I picked him up with my hands and brought him into the house. I arranged a little tissue bed in a shoebox, made a call to the University of Minnesota, and they suggested feeding him a mixture of beef baby food and some whole grain baby cereal. I broke off all but two of the prongs of a plastic fork, and I scooped up a smidgen of the food with this modified fork and, “Hey Mikey, he likes it.” Course I had to stick it down his throat like his own momma would, but it worked, he ate.

So I said to my son, Michael I’ve got something for you to do while you’re home from school. I showed him how to feed him, and this became his out of school assignment. Now the bird needs to eat every hour or so, so it took a lot of care. And Michael did a good job; the little birdie lived and grew for the week that Michael was out of school.

“You mean Michael is going back to school tomorrow? I wasn’t expecting this. Now what was going to happen to Spike? The name my son gave him. Well I guess he was going to be my responsibility. I would have to bring him to work with me, with his little jar of food and special fork.

So he sat beside me at work, and he would cheep cheep cheep when he was hungry and I would feed him. Of course other people would wonder, “what is that noise?” To which I would reply, “Oh that’s just Spike, my baby sparrow.” Well when you put so much care into something you get quite fond of it. And Spike grew rather quickly in his little shoebox, and began jumping out and hopping around, very cute he was.

It wasn’t long before I would get him to fly a little. A little later I began teaching him how to find his own food. I began by not putting the fork down his throat, instead I made him come to the fork himself and “take” the food from it.

At first he would just stand there and chirp at it, as if to say, “Well come here already can’t you see I’m hungry?” When the food wouldn’t come to him, his hunger would drive him to the fork to get his food.

After this I took him onto the patio or garden and would turn over a rock and take the fork and tap at whatever was scurrying around. It didn’t take him long to get the idea. He also learned to find and eat seeds in the same manner. That was a cool experience to teach him how to find his own food.

I began keeping him in a birdcage, as the old shoebox wasn’t able to protect him from harming himself anymore. Now that he was able to fly fairly well, I kept him outside at home during the day. And soon would leave the door open so he could fly around while I was gone. It was the neatest thing, I would come home from work, and I could hear him chirping up in the trees. Then he would fly down and sit on my shoulder. This went on for awhile.

Until one day I came home, and it was very quiet. I mean sure there were other noises, dogs barking, kids playing, other birds chirping, but no Spike. I know the voice of my own, and he knows mine. I looked all around, but still no Spike. I went inside the house, changed clothes, talked to my kids and came back outside…still no Spike.

We had a wading pool set up in the back yard for the kids, and so they wouldn’t get dirt in the pool we had a little tub of water for them to step in and clean their feet before they would get in. Well I found out the neighbor lady had once given him a drink or a bath in the little foot tub, so I guess he remembered that and came back there for a little splash or drink. The sides were too tall for him to get back out. I can’t tell you how my heart sank, at the sight of him lying lifeless in that water.

I was so heartbroken over a little sparrow. I think of how God cares when even the little sparrow falls. How much more does He care for us, when He has put so much time and invested so much of His heart in us. We must have this idea that everything we get or anything that happens to us is because we, or another person here on earth, has seen to it. But God is the real provider. He holds the very atoms together of everything we have, including every morsel of food we eat. His care for us goes way beyond the care that I provided for Spike. He truly loves us so.

This is the God of whom we are told to abide in. It is intimacy with Him that our heart truly longs for. Man longs for the intimacy with Him that was once ours, which our hearts were built for and long for. Embedded in the core of our hearts is the memory of God’s presence. A deep longing, an ache is what we feel. Our hearts were made to be the dwelling place for the Spirit of our loving Father.

As an engram, planted in the hearts of our first parents, Adam and Eve, is the memory of His presence, we remember goodness resident within our being, and it is because of this memory that we instinctively want to be good. But alas the goodness is gone, and here we are left to try to produce goodness based on this memory of goodness. But to no avail, we fail miserably, our hearts without His presence are incapable of living up to what we long to be. This clouded vision of goodness that is burned in the memory of our hearts is like a specter, a ghost just out of our reach. We ask; “Why am I the way I am? Why can I not break free from the tyranny of the wretchedness that I am?” When at last our pride is broken, we finally, out of despair, reach out for help.

But who can help us? We try marriage, but this only compounds the problem. We try psychology, but this too is unable to reach the depths for which we had hoped. Is there any hope left? Who can set me free from this body of death? We must return to someone long forgotten, to a hope for a love that can again impregnate our soul and give life back to our spirit; a life that has the power to produce goodness in and through us.

This life is sustained through Him abiding in us, and by us abiding in Him. He will draw near to us, as we draw near to Him. When we come to Him, on His terms, in faith, we are walking in obedience to Him. This is how we abide in Him. It is as we walk with Him, wherever He goes that we are abiding with and in Him. As we stay close to Him, He abides in us, and it is His abiding presence, which is the life, the power that enables us to live good, holy, righteous lives. For we can do nothing good, we can bear no good fruit without abiding in Him. In order for us to abide in Him we must have Him abiding in us. These two principles of our faith and experience with God are dependent on one another, we cannot have one without the other, if we think we can, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. For “the one who says he abides in Him and yet does not love his brother is a liar and the truth is not in him.” So it says in 1st John.

There are a number of elements to consider when we talk about abiding in God. We will look at a few of these now and address them more in depth later.

We are given the command by Jesus and other writers in the Bible to abide in Him. This suggests that it is not something that is automatic but instead we have to choose to do so. John tells us in 1st Jn 2:28, “And now little children abide in Him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.”

Abiding in Him is just like the disciples choosing to follow Jesus. First He chose them, and called to them to follow Him. They had no doubt been listening to Him for a while and their hearts were already drawn to Him. They could see that this was no mere man, but was something so much more, and their hearts had been drinking in His words of life to the extent that they were willing to leave everything they knew to continue on with Him.

They saw His love, and this spawned a hope for true love in their hearts. This is no different than when a young man sees a young lady and his heart ignites with hope of her being the one that will fulfill the emptiness, the longing for completeness that resides in the depths of his being. But this wasn’t just an imagined belief that fulfillment was so near as in infatuation, but rather this hope had more reality behind it. For it’s Jesus who is the answer to our inner longings, it’s He who has the true ability to complete and to fill the inner soul of man and woman. And it is this hope for real intimacy that has the power to bring a man or woman close to God and be filled with His Spirit. And it is God’s Spirit in the man that has the power to change man into something more than he is, a power, which no woman can attain in a man, or no man in a woman, no matter how much influence they believe they have on one another.

As I believe that God is my hope, then I become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus 2 Cor 5:21.

Abide? OK – But How Do I Do It With My Busy Life?

What would this abiding look like in a day by day practical way?
What we love is what we abide in. If we are loving the world, then it is the world that we are abiding in. If we are loving God then we are abiding in Him. In Luke 14:15-24 Jesus told the parable of the man who gave a banquet, and the invited guests were too busy with their day to day lives to spend time at the table of the lord. These were not allowed to taste of the dinner, just as the five foolish virgins who did not take the time to keep their lamps full of oil (the Holy Spirit) were told that the groom did not know them. Why? Because it takes time spent with someone to know them, and be known by them.

But how do we know we love God? When we are thinking about how we can please Him through the day. And when we put Him first in our lives by choosing to spend quiet intimate time with Him, we are making this time with Him the most prized thing in our lives. We have to give up what may be the natural thing we want to do. Instead we have become creatures of the wrong habits, and it is those habits that we are bent on doing that keep us from spending that time with the one we need most in our lives. I know you have so many demands on your time, it may just make you cringe to add one more. But Jesus said that if we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, that He would add the other things we need to us. If we actually put God before everything else, then God will help you with the rest, and speaking of rest, this is how we enter into His rest, by resting from ours. There is no other way, to be “In Christ”. This is how we give Him our burdens, by putting Him first.

Do you remember when you were first in love with someone? You couldn’t help but to think about them with every free moment you had. When you woke up you were thinking of them, on your lunch break you gave them a call, when you got off of work you couldn’t wait to see this person. Then after you were with the person for a year or two or more, that newness began to wear off, and in order to keep your love alive you had to choose to think of how you might please them. More often it became something you had to choose to do. As we choose to do so, we love by faith, and are actually cultivating the ground of our hearts for the love to grow again. We have to make time for those we love or that love will die away and we will find that we have grown apart, and we are not “In Love” anymore. Some may think that this is the time to end it and find someone new, and start the whole cycle all over again. This is all because the people in the relationship do not know how to bring their love to maturity, or are just too undisciplined to do so. Love then, becomes something we have to choose to do, or it will die. The same holds true with our relationship with God, we have to choose to actively put Him first in our lives, and cultivate intimacy with Him, if we want to cause our love for Him to grow, or even retain what we originally had.

We are also loving Him, by looking out for the needs of our neighbor, like we look out for ourselves. We may have love (noun) for others, but unless we choose to put that love into action and actually love (verb) them, our love (noun) is not doing anyone any good. It is useless. Love is a commodity just like faith, and God gives them to us and He expects us to use them. If we don’t use them then we are useless, as the salt that has lost it’s flavor, and we are good for nothing but the manure pile. Special note: There are no manure piles in heaven!!

If we find ourselves too busy then we must prune the non-productive things out of our lives or they will suck the life out of us, and we will be useless to God and His kingdom. And the useless; the ones who hide their talent in the ground, the ones who don’t replenish their oil reserve, those who hear the words of Jesus but do not act on them, who do not love their enemies, who put their lamps under a bushel, who fear man rather than God, who have no firm root in themselves and in time of testing fall away, who hear the word but are carried away by the cares and worries of the world, those who commit lawlessness, those who did not forgive their brother, did not give to the poor, feed the hungry, invite the stranger in, give the thirsty a drink, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoner, Jesus will say to these; “depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;” — and He will say; “to the extent you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to Me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Matt 25:41-46. Take note that the righteous are not those who merely have the faith added to the account of their heart, but rather are they who actually lived their faith and so were, in actuality, “Righteous”.

These have been a few thoughts on abiding; we will look at some others later on.

Interlude

Prayer Necessary for Enlightenment

Lord, I recognize that my understanding of scripture may have been unduly influenced by the mind of man, and it may contain some error. So I again lay down my belief system before you and ask you to reveal any error to me, including, that which relates to what will be discussed in this book. I also lay down my fear before you, where I may fear that if I let go of what the majority of modern scholars believe that I may fall into error. This fear is not from you, because it does not come from a trust in you to lead, but is actually a distrust in you, believing that you will not lead me, leaving me only to trust in man’s abilities to keep me in truth.
Lord, my Father I am making the decision to courageously allow you to challenge what I believe, even if no other human goes with me, and I am left alone in regard to men. For I choose to need/love you more than I need/love people.
You may want to return to this Interlude for Prayer several times while reading this book.

Chapter 2

Pushing Away

As we discussed in the previous chapter, When we love, or are loved, the motivation is a drawing towards the object of love. This is one of the motives that keep us close to God. But there is another. We can think of the motive of drawing close as pulling ourselves up on a chin-up bar. We would use our arms to pull ourselves up and hold ourselves there in that position, close to God. As in the verse in James, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” We do not sit idly by in life and just expect God to pull us to Himself; our relationship with God is built on a two-way love. We draw near to Him, and He draws near to us. You may say, “Yeah but we don’t use our own strength, we do it by God’s strength.” But is that what God teaches us in the bible? Are we not to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul and all of our strength? This is our pulling towards Him with all of the strength of our love. As we do this He will fill us with His love and strength. But this too we will discuss later. The point I want to look at now is, think about how hard it would be for someone who is new at exercise to keep themselves in that pulled up position on the chin-up bar. Because of the constant strain on the muscles, it would be impossible to keep oneself in that position. And so when we are but babes spiritually it is just as difficult to keep oneself always close to God with only our love. We will falter. That’s why we go up and down spiritually. And that is why God in His infinite wisdom designed us with legs that push. So instead of only relying on our love arms to pull us toward God, we also have legs to push away from something; the world. When we push away from something we do so because we either just don’t like it or hate it or are afraid of it. Or if we do like it we may push away for fear of losing something that we want even more. This is what John was referring to when He said, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. For if anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him.” This should spark fear in us of losing the indwelling of the Father’s love. Just take the verse for what it says. If we love the world, then the love of the father is not in us, not abiding in us. And it is this fear combined with our love for Him, which will help us to stay close to the father. Most Christians will automatically disagree with this thinking, for our modern reasoning does not like to hear about negative motivations, and most have a fear of the word fear.

Fear & Reverence

Fear was a gift given to us by God to help to keep us from doing stupid, harmful, even life threatening things where we put God to the test. We should fear to disobey God’s commands, because the outcome of disobedience can not only ruin our lives, but also have severe eternal consequences. Just like the ability to feel pain is a gift from God, which keeps the child from putting his hand on the hot stove. So fear is a gift. We may however fear things which God tells us not to, such as, Quoting Jesus in “MAT 10:28 “And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul…” This is an example of fearing man who God tells us not to fear, and if we do fear man, it shows that we are not walking by faith in God. But then Jesus tells us whom we should fear, He says: “but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” This is not the devil, only God has this power.
Now you may say that the word fear here should be translated as “reverence” that we don’t fear God but we revere Him, or have reverence for Him. But then we have to be consistent in translating the word fear as always meaning reverence. So when Jesus says we should not fear the man who can kill our body, then that should say, we shouldn’t reverence him. And that does not sound like the idea that Jesus is trying to portray. If someone who hates us is trying to kill us that will initiate fear in our hearts, not reverence. So you see when Jesus says that we should fear God, He means just exactly what He says. Don’t mess with scripture to suit your theology. Rather mess with your theology to suit scripture.
Now I am really going to confuse you, for when I say that this word fear really means fear, which it does, it can also include reverence for God. But this does not mean that you can pluck the idea of fearing God out of the word fear. In order to understand this we will need to take a look at what reverence is.
We’ll use an example that God gave us in His creation – Colors; did you know that all colors are made from just three? These colors are called primary colors. Do you know what they are?
They are Red, Yellow and Blue, and all other colors are derived from mixing varying amounts of two or three of these together. Mixing blue and yellow together makes the color green. It is a mixture of two different colors.
In the same way reverence is not a primary motivation. But is a mixture of two different motives. Can you guess what they are? Jimmy you had your hand up first. No “The First Commandment” is not the right answer that was yesterday’s discussion. Lynn? Very good, fear is one of them; can anyone guess the other ingredient? Yes Jimmy? Yes, very perceptive, but Lynn already guessed fear. Anyone else? Jamal? Very good, yes love is the correct answer. Lynn and Jamal both get gold stars. We need fear and love to make respect.
Do you remember the proverb “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”? But then in 1st John it says, “perfect love casts out fear.” Now if you say that the word, “fear” in the Proverbs verse should be translated respect, then it should also be translated that way in 1st John. So it would read that “Perfect love casts out respect.” That doesn’t work. But should we really fear God? There is a man walking through life who says “I don’t believe in God, and I do what I want to do.” But then that same man comes to a point in his life when he considers eternity and the inevitable outcome of being without God, which is death and hell. And out of fear of this he turns to God. Was this a wise choice? Of course it was. But did you notice that there was no mention of love for God in this decision? He came to God out of fear, and that was the beginning of wisdom. So now the man looks at God and says thank you for doing this for me, and a love for God begins to tint the fear making a new color. Changing it from all yellow to a yellow with a hint of green in it. When we add the blue of love to the yellow of fear, this new color is green, portraying reverence. But don’t say that fear is bad, for without it little Johnny can become a naughty boy, and turn into a son who may not have any respect for his father and eventually end up in prison. But with a wise and healthy fear in place, as the man’s relationship with God grows, so does his love for Him. The more his love for God increases, the less he needs to be motivated by fear in order to follow in the way with God. This is what the scripture is referring to when it says, “perfect love casts out (replaces) fear. It’s like having a glass full of air (fear), as you add water (love) to it the love displaces the fear. 1JO 4:18 “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.” But don’t expect a new believer to have a “perfect” (complete) love for God right off the bat. For if you tell him that he should have no fear, you are just inviting problems and sin into his life.
This is a source of major problems in the modern day church. We have taken the teeth (the more serious consequences) out of scripture and have become co-dependant by enabling the church to get away with sin, or so she thinks. Just remember how Jesus said, “…depart from me, you workers of iniquity.”
PRO 16:6 By lovingkindness and truth iniquity is atoned for, And by the fear of the Lord one keeps away from evil.
Have you ever stood at the edge of a cliff and been afraid you might do something foolish and fall or even jump off? I think we are afraid because of our propensity to foolishness. Inside we know that we cannot always trust ourselves not to do something foolish. So we are afraid we might just spontaneously jump off to our death.
With this in mind we also need to fear getting close to falling into sin. Like Eve we may begin looking at temptation thinking about how it will please us and we might think that we could dabble in it and get back out and still be cool with God. So we have no fear of being trapped by sin, when we should be afraid that we might content ourselves with the passing pleasures of sin and continue in sin, and not turn back to God before we die. See if this verse doesn’t seem to warn, and inspire a godly fear in the heart. 2PE 2:20 “For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.” This verse states this last state is worse than the first. And what was the first? The first was before they knew the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and were trapped in the defilements of sin. They were not saved, and their last state has become worse than this. There is no way that they could still be saved and be worse off than being damned to eternity in hell. If this be the case, if we die in our sin having not confessed and turned from it, then our end will be the Lake of Fire. So tell me, is not “The Fear of the Lord the Beginning of Wisdom”? Ok now you have a problem with the idea that a person who appears to have started out with God could end up in hell; this will be the subject of our next discussion.

Return to: Prayer Interlude

Firm until the End

We have permitted ourselves to not live wholeheartedly for God by interpreting His word so that it allows us to live as we want without the true eternal consequences with which the scripture warns us.
We have this concept of salvation that sees salvation from a single point in time, the beginning of our said walk with God. This viewpoint believes that a decision we made at one point verifies our salvation in the end, no matter if we continued walking with God or not. Scripture over and over states that when God views our life, He doesn’t merely consider our standing by when we first asked Him to forgive us, but regards our salvation by how we end our walk. Because we don’t understand this, but rather have invented a means for us to live as we like, we have no or not enough fear of sinning because we think God automatically forgives us anyway.
Now it is true that God does forgive us when we confess and repent or turn from our sin. But if we allow ourselves to give in to sin, we will be sowing sin in our lives, and whatever we sow will grow, and as sin grows in our life it can overpower us and we may not turn back from it. If we continue in sin without repenting, we run the risk of dying in our sin. If we die without repenting from rebellious sin and had full knowledge that we were sinning, we have not continued in the faith as is the condition the following scriptures show as necessary for salvation. The word IF shows a condition that must be met for the statement to be valid. ROM 8:17 and (as) children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. GAL 6:9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. 1TH 3:8 for now we really live, if you stand firm in the Lord. 2TI 2:12 “If we endure, we will also reign with Him;” HEB 3:6 but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house – whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. HEB 3:14 “For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end,” So if we do Not hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, we are Not partakers of Christ. Notice that it says “if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance…”? This would mean that the person had to have the assurance, the boast of our hope, to begin with, and then had to hold onto it until the end to be a partaker of Christ. This implies that a person could have the assurance of salvation, and then lose it. And if he lost it then he is not a partaker of Christ. Paul says, Colossians 1:21-23 “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach – if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel…” Here again the promise depends on whether we continue in the faith, and he adds that we also must be firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the gospel. These are requirements for us to be reconciled to Him, and for Him to present us holy and blameless before the Father. Look at 1 Corinthians 11:32 “But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world.” Here Paul shows how the Lord disciplines us for correction to bring us to repentance – so that we will not be condemned along with the world in the day of judgment. Don’t bother arguing with me, this is what God’s word says. Your old line of reasoning may not be able to deal with this. You just have to be willing for it to be true, in order to understand it, then you will put yourself in a position for God to give you that understanding. If you are not willing for it to be true, you will never even understand the concept and you won’t be able to hear from God as to whether it has any potential for truth. Or you may reason that you have dealt with the concept of eternal security before, and you don’t need to re-examine this issue again. And you may think that we can’t base this reasoning on one or two verses, but if you read through the New Testament with an open mind you will find evidence in every book usually more than once. People say; “but what about Paul saying that even if we are faithless, that He remains faithful?
Many people use the following verse to say that even when we do not continue in the way, that God is still faithful to save us. Which is adding to what the scripture says, for it does not say that He remains faithful to save us but that “He remains faithful,” to what? To what He says, listen to the verse; 2TI 2:13 “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” Let us look at the previous verse to see what he remains faithful to; 2TI 2:12 “If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us;” and so, “if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” And what does He remain faithful to? “if we deny Him, He will also deny us.” If we continue in sin disregarding His word, we are denying Him. And so He remains faithful to His word, which says, that He will then deny us. But having said this, if we do turn back to sin and continue in that way, by His love He does remains faithful to His heart of love and continues to try to lead us back to Him, as long as we are on earth. But if we do not respond, in the day of judgment He will be faithful to His word to deny us. And so we ascertain from Col 1:23 that He will present us holy and blameless before Him, only if we continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel. If we will not pursue Him with all of our heart, and not aggressively fight off the evil in our hearts, and instead give in to the corruption of our flesh, and allow ourselves to walk after sin, and if this results in our giving up on walking with God, and if we die in our sin… then we have no salvation. HEB 3:14 “For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end,”

I Will Never Desert You, Nor Forsake You

The verse in Hebrews “I will never desert you nor forsake you.” Is a quote from the Old Testament, Deut 31:6-8 & Joshua 1:5 and is similar to the promise made later in the Old Testament that God made concerning Solomon’s Temple.
2CH 7:16 “For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that My name may be there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.”
Remember that the temple in the Old Testament is a picture that God has drawn in real life. It is a picture of the temple of our hearts, which He intended to be His home.
If God says His eyes and heart will be there perpetually, and His name forever, this is the same as saying that He will never leave nor forsake. At first glance it sounds unconditional. But there are conditions to it just like there are to the New Testament verse, this we will see as we continue with the verses following.
2CH 7:16 “For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that My name may be there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.

2CH 7:17 “And as for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked even to do according to all that I have commanded you and will keep My statutes and My ordinances,
2CH 7:18 then I will establish your royal throne as I covenanted with your father David, saying,’ You shall not lack a man to be ruler in Israel.’
2CH 7:19 ¶ “But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you and shall go and serve other gods and worship them,
2CH 7:20 then I will uproot you from My land which I have given you, and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
2CH 7:21 “As for this house, which was exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’
2CH 7:22 “And they will say, ‘Because they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them from the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods and worshiped them and served them, therefore He has brought all this adversity on them.'”
God states that His name, eyes and heart will be there with the temple forever. Just like He promises to be with us forever. But if His people turn away and serve other gods, then He will cast it and them out of His sight. God’s dealings with His people in the Old Testament gives us a picture of His relationship with the Church today. He will not allow anyone to snatch us out of His hand, but even though Jesus says that He will never leave us, He does not hold us prisoner to Himself against our will, He will allow us to leave Him, if we so choose.
At this point we need to look at another scriptural concept, which is the promise God makes to forget the past. We see this when He says that He will remember our sins no more. This fulfills the promise God makes in Ezekiel that the sins of an unrighteous man will not be counted against him or remembered when he repents from his unrighteousness and turns to practice righteousness in Ezek 18:21-22. Now remember the only righteousness there ever was, is Christ’s righteousness. And it has always been received by putting ones faith in God, and that God by His mercy would save us. Adam, Abraham, David and every one who is or has ever been accepted by God, is accepted by faith in God’s goodness and the person had to determine in his own heart to follow God’s Word, His Righteousness, whom we know now to be Jesus of Nazareth. Then they knew Him by several names, one such name Job uses when he says, “for I know my redeemer lives.”
Whenever someone turns to God in such a manner, God wipes his or her sin from the record, just as He proclaimed in the Old Testament Ezekiel verse, and restates in the New Testament. Now keep in mind that the biblical definition of repentance is to change our mind with a determination to practice a life accordingly. And repentance is the requirement which must precede the promise of forgetting what lies behind. So it looks simply like this: We turn from our sinning and determine to live by faith in God’s word, and receive and practice Christ’s righteousness. And when we stumble we confess our sin and turn back to Him, this is how we continue to repent (turn to, and follow God, trusting in His saving goodness). This is walking “IN” Christ, with His blood covering our sin. God’s word NEVER fails; it is true yesterday, today and forever. The word He spoke in Ezekiel about forgetting what has been repented of was true then, now and forever. God and His word doesn’t change.
This principle continues on the reverse side also, for in Ezekiel 18:24 God also say’s, “But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that a wicked man does, will he live? All his righteous deeds which he has done, (Christ’s righteousness which he practiced by faith), will not be remembered, for his treachery which he has committed, and his sin which he has committed; for them he will die. So just as when a man departs from sin and turns to God his lawless deeds will not be remembered. So too when a man turns from His righteousness (Christ) and begins and continues to practice lawlessness, and dies in that state, God will not remember the righteousness that was his salvation, and if it is not remembered, then God will say, “I never knew you, depart from me you who practice lawlessness.” Matthew 7:23
Not convinced? Listen to these:
1JO 3:6-10 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Now some may say “I may not be practicing righteousness but I have Christ’s righteousness and it is by His righteousness that I am saved.” 3:7 “Little children, let no one deceive you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous” (this is saying we do not have Christ’s righteousness unless we practice or do it.). “The one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.”
MAL 2:17 “You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied Him?” In that you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them…” 1 Jn 3:7 “Little children let no one deceive you, the one who practices righteousness is righteous…the one who practices sin is of the Devil.”
Some ignore God’s word and say, “Oh but I am saved by Christ’s righteousness, it’s ok if I sin, I may lose some rewards, but I am still saved because I am under the blood.” This idea about just losing some rewards comes from 1 Cor 3:15 “If any man’s work is burned up, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire.” The works that will end up being burned, which Paul is speaking of are not works of sinful rebellion, but rather Paul is referring to a person wanting to do God’s work and some of the work he does is done by the Spirit of God, and some he unwittingly does by his own wisdom in ignorance. So the work, probably teaching, that he does by God’s Spirit stands the test of fire, but the work resulting from teaching he does, not knowing that he is in error, does not stand the test of fire, and is burned up. Do you see the difference between these two types of works?
Let’s say a man has two children, and he says to each of the two, “Jimmy I want you to help your little brother to do his homework, like I have helped you with yours” and Jimmy goes and helps his brother. Now as he helps him, part of the time he does it like his father helped him and part of the time he tried his own methods which were not really helping the brother to learn, but the homework got done. When Jimmy used his own methods he was not rebelliously disobeying his father, he was merely doing this part in ignorance. So some of his work will endure the test of fire, and some will be burned, but he will be saved, yet so as through fire.
Likewise the father told his daughter to help her little sister to do her homework. But she went and told her sister to get busy with her homework, and her little sister said, “But dad told you to help me” so she slapped her sister in the face and told her to get busy and that if she told her dad, that she would beat her up. This was sinful rebellion and is not an example of a Christian who works for the kingdom and part of their work will stand the test of fire and some will burn. For “the one who practices sin is of the devil.” Read all of 1st Corinthians chapter 3, wait on the Lord, and see if that doesn’t make more sense.

Return to: Prayer Interlude

Righteousness

It is absolutely true that it is only by Christ’s righteousness that we are saved. So now let us discuss righteousness.
“All men’s righteousness is as filthy rags.” This quote from Paul is saying we have, on our own, no righteousness, because there is no such thing as filthy righteousness. Righteousness is how God acts. So our righteousness quotient is rated at zero, then when you add in our evil deeds it brings it down into the negative numbers.
We or any one else, as hard as we may try, cannot produce any good works by our own motives. God alone is good, and until we realize this, and understand that we are poor in spirit and wretched and blind and “naked of righteousness”, we cannot receive God’s Spirit to produce Jesus’ righteousness through our lives.

Christ’s Righteousness Credited to Our Account

When an unsaved person comes to understand that they are poor, wretched, blind and naked. When they finally understand that they are not good, and that God alone is good, and that He will forgive us for our sins, and offers His Spirit to us which will give us the opportunity to be good. It is at this point that we can receive His Spirit, and are cleansed from our sin. Then He credits to our account His righteousness. The word for this transaction in the bible is “imputed righteousness,” I remember it this way, He puts or “putes” it into our account. Now this righteousness that he puts in our account He expects us to use. Remember the parable of the 10 talents? The talents refer to money. But in the Kingdom of God, it is not greenbacks, but Christ’s righteousness that’s used for tender.
Matt 25:14-30. One man was given 5 talents, another 2, and another 1. The guy with the 5 used them and made 5 more. The guy with 2 used his and doubled it. While the guy with the one buried his, and when Jesus asked him to give an account of the Masters goods, he said “here you go, here is the talent you gave me I hid it in the ground so I wouldn’t lose it.” Jesus answered. “You worthless slave, you should have at least put it to use in the bank and accrued some interest on it. MAT 25:28 ‘Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.’
MAT 25:29 “For to everyone who has shall {more} be given, and he shall have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.”
What does this mean, “but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away”? First the “what he does have” this is what was put into his account to use but was still owned by his master. He does not yet possess it for it is in the account. He will not possess it until he withdraws it from the account and puts it to use to earn more. But since he did not withdraw the money and put it to use Jesus said he does not have it. Then Jesus says even what he does have in his account to use, this will be taken away also. So the master says, “but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away”
Here He is saying that if we don’t use it we lose it. And if we lose it then the next verse gives the outcome: MAT 25:30 “And cast out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Could this be any other place but hell? We are saved from death by Life, God’s Life, His righteousness, which He puts into the account of our heart. Life must be lived or it ceases to be life. We only possess what we use. It is only by Christ’s righteousness that we are saved, and we have no righteousness apart from His. And if we do not live out that righteousness we don’t have it and are not saved.
Psalm 40:10a “I have not hidden thy righteousness within my heart.” Yes it is only by Christ’s righteousness that we are saved, but God is saying that if we don’t live out that righteousness, yes by faith, then we don’t have it. Our relationship with God is us following Him. He does not follow us into sin. If we sin and we repent and turn back to following Him, we are forgiven. If we persist in our ways and will not turn again, then we are as the seed that fell on something other than the good soil, and have fallen away. So we must follow Him to maintain this relationship. If we do follow Him, then we live out the righteousness that He has credited to our account, and it adds to it or it multiplies, and God is glorified.
Hence, the only imputed righteousness that we have is the righteousness that we live out by faith. But if at anytime we turn back to following our old nature, and do not repent, and continue in this way, and die unrepentant… Listen to James 5:19-20 “My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth, (he could not stray unless he were once in the truth and remember Jesus is the truth) and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his SOUL from death, and (then) will cover a multitude of sin.” It doesn’t say save his body from death but his soul is still saved. But his soul shall die, and so the word of God remains true, which says, “the soul that sins it shall die” and “the wages of sin is death.” God says to Ezekiel, for his iniquity which the righteous man has committed he will die. Read the passage, EZE 18:24 “But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that a wicked man does, will he live? All his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered for his treachery which he has committed and his sin which he has committed; for them he will die. EZE 18:25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Hear now, O house of Israel! Is My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right? EZE 18:26 “When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, (Turns from following Jesus’ Righteousness that is in his account) commits iniquity, and dies because of it, for his iniquity which he has committed he will die.” You say, “that was the Old Testament and does not apply to us, but we are in the age of grace.” Oh contraire, this is still true even after Jesus died for our sins. Jesus did not come to invalidate the word of God, but to fulfill it. And He did this, but not so that we wouldn’t have to fulfill His word, but rather to pave the way being lead by the Holy Spirit so that we can also fulfill the “righteousness of the law” empowered by the same Holy Spirit. Romans 8:3&4
Aaahhh – Return to: Prayer Interlude

God’s Purpose for the Law

God’s purpose for the Law is simply to show us what we will look like when we walk by His Spirit. For His Holy Spirit most certainly will not lead us into immorality by breaking His moral commandments.
When God first gave the Law, His intention was not that they, the children of Israel, could prove to Him how good they were. But rather to show them what goodness, righteousness, looks like in real life. (Through this book when I refer to Law I am speaking of God’s Moral Law, as in the Ten Commandments, and not the Ceremonial Law, which were instructions concerning sacrifices, holy days, ceremonial washing, circumcision and things like these. When I speak of this law I will specify “Ceremonial Law”). But the Nation of Israel thought they could establish their own righteousness by keeping God’s ceremonial law, which the more religious kept stringently. But they were never able to keep God’s Moral Law. The ceremonial law was given to them to be a picture of the salvation that was to come through Jesus. So when Jesus came and fulfilled this picture, for them to continue keeping the ceremonial law, thinking that they would be atoning for their sin, would be a slap in the face to Jesus, and would say, “what you did was not good enough and we will continue in our old way.” This concerns the “Ceremonial Law”. This is similar to what Jesus was saying when He said to the Pharisees that they would “strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel.” They would keep the ceremonial law, but break the weightier provisions, God’s moral law. With the same reasoning, David was not chastised by God for breaking the ceremonial law by giving to his men the holy Bread of the Presence. But it would be preposterous to even think that David would not be punished for breaking God’s Moral Law like he did by committing adultery with Bathsheba and then murdering her husband to cover his sin up.
Here we see the Ceremonial Law being fulfilled by Jesus and we are no longer to be following it. For if we did we would be saying to Jesus that His atoning sacrifice wasn’t good enough and we have to continue atoning for our own sins. So of course we no longer follow those requirements. But as for the “Moral Law” certainly they were not to begin to be immoral after Jesus came, were they? No, of course not, but on the contrary, now that they have received God’s Holy Spirit, they would automatically fulfill God’s moral law, as long as they were walking by the Spirit.
ROM 8:3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God {did:} sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and {as an offering} for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
ROM 8:4 in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Did you hear what Paul said? That the righteousness or morality that the law requires would be fulfilled in us as we walk by the Spirit.
So here I see Paul saying that the Righteousness that the law spells out for us, meaning what one looks like when he acts righteously, will be fulfilled in those who walk by the Spirit. The law then is a picture of righteousness, and shows us what we will look like when we abide in Christ and follow Him, living out His righteousness.
Now keep in mind that the law cannot produce righteousness, anymore than studying and looking at a picture of Abraham Lincoln will make us look like the picture. But say we were to die, and then be born again from the seed of that person, we would have that person’s genes in us and we would be conformed into the image of that person.
So also the law was given as a picture of what righteousness looks like, whereby we cannot attain to looking like this picture of righteousness by merely looking, no matter how intently at it. But if we are born of the same Spirit that produced the righteousness that this picture (the law) portrays, then this same Spirit will motivate us to live in such a way that fulfills the righteousness of the law. So we will look like the picture the law portrays, which is a picture of love.
But we as Christians who are born of His Spirit, are still susceptible to being deceived by our own resident evil (our flesh) not to mention the devil. So it is helpful to us to have some picture to study so we know whether we are living by the Spirit or are being deceived by our own flesh and not doing what God wants. Hence we have the New Testament purpose for the law, to help to keep us walking by the Spirit.
Even after saying these things you may still be having a hard time with the idea that the law has a purpose in our lives. You may at one time have had a legalistic heart, or been under a legalistic Church or parents and you are fearful of returning to anything that even reminds you of it. But do not let anyone’s misuse of God’s word keep you from His intention for it. Remember that God’s purpose for the Law is to simply show us what we will look like when we walk by His Spirit.
The secret is not to spend allot of time studying the Law and and thinking that you can make yourself righteous by trying to keep it. But rather the key is to spend allot of time looking with your heart, to God, thinking of Him as you would a newfound love. As you do this you will be looking for the things that He likes and you will want to please Him. This will include reading His word daily, even the Law, for it reveals God’s heart also, His likes and dislikes. Don’t just read certain favorite parts, for you will end up unbalancing yourself. Read the whole word, even the prophets that pronounce doom to the people of God who wander and go astray, for it will help you to walk circumspectly, and will keep you from disappointment or worse; falling off that treacherous precipice to your own destruction.

Practicing Sin

GAL 5:24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
But if we are still knowingly practicing sin we have not crucified our flesh with it’s passions and desires, and so we do not belong to Christ Jesus. Because it says, “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
GAL 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
GAL 5:17 For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.
GAL 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. (Note, when he says that we are not under law, this means that the Law is not our master, it is not the one who enables us to be good and holy, like God. So our faith is not in the Law, but is in Christ, who we regard as our master, and so we will look like Him when we do His works here on earth. Thereby since He fulfilled the righteousness of the Law, so will we, by faith in His enabling Love power – the New heart that He has put within us.)
GAL 5:19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,
GAL 5:20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissension’s, factions,
GAL 5:21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If we are practicing such things we will not inherit the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is wherever God is King. This includes the hearts of those who follow Him & heaven.
MAT 13:41 “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness,
MAT 13:42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
In Romans 9,10 &11 we find Paul speaking figuratively to Gentile believers, about Israel being the natural branches of God’s olive tree, being cut off because of their unbelief, so that they, the Gentiles, could be grafted in. And he tells them about this, ROM 11:21 for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you.
ROM 11:22 Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.

God’s Desires, is His Righteousness in our Account

When we have God’s Spirit in us, we have His heart, His will, His desires in us. These desires want to be fulfilled through us. So God actually “wants” through us. Or “desires” through us.
So then our job is to die to what we want so that we can choose to connect with and live out God’s desires.
I find myself thinking about what I want to do next and I think, “wait, what do you want to do now my Lord?” And I look in my heart for God’s desire; it’s not difficult to spot the difference if I’m willing to give up my own way. If we are not willing to give up our own way, and we tenaciously hang on to what we want to do. Then we have closed our hearts and minds to hearing from anyone else, even from God, because we are unwilling to hear. But we have to choose to pursue God’s desires and think the thoughts appropriate to them.
These thoughts will be motivated by the desire of giving love. Love that wants the best for others, and happily gives up on trying to fulfill our fleshly desires to do so. Now these desires are in an account, which is our heart and needs to be acted out or “activated” to become ours to keep.
This is what righteousness is, and leads us to the next topic.

Clothing the Naked, Us

As we choose to follow God’s desires in the account of our heart, we clothe ourselves in Christ, Christ’s righteousness. It is when we make the very choice to follow God’s desires, that we actually wrap ourselves in Christ’s righteousness.
When we live-out through our skin the life he puts within, it is then that we clothe ourselves in Christ.
Believing starts in our heart, but if we leave it there and do not live by it, we then sentence it to death. It is dead because we were not committed to living it. But when we live by faith, it comes through our skin and it is what we wear. It is how we dress ourselves.
I have in my account God’s righteousness, which is His desires resident by His Spirit in me. If I live out His desires and so die to myself, I then clothe my nakedness with His righteousness. So that when we are in the “Wedding feast of the Lamb” we will have wedding clothes on, which are the righteous deeds that we clothed ourselves with when we lived out the desires of God.
REV 19:7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.”
REV 19:8 And it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
Did you catch that? It said that what she was clothed with was the righteous acts that she, the church, did. What we do is what we clothe ourselves with. If you want to clothe yourself in Christ’s righteousness, then you live out the desires of God, that He has put in the account of your heart. This is what I was referring to earlier by God imputing His righteousness to us. When we choose to live by that righteousness, we live it out and is how we dress ourselves in the white robes of Christ’s righteousness, and so we are “In Christ”. This is abiding in Christ. Along with spending intimate time alone with Him, listening to Him, and reading His word and talking with Him and praying. This is part of abiding in Him. But everything we do should be part of us abiding in Him, when we walk out our faith we are abiding in Him. We are hiding ourselves in the cleft of The Rock. And so we dress ourselves with His righteousness. These are acts of faith. Even the original decision whereby we trusted Him and determined to live our lives for Him, the very decision, was an act of faith. If we continue till the end with this faith we prove it to be true, and will enter in to the joy of the master. The following parable of Jesus lends insight in the matter of dressing ourselves in robes of righteousness. It’s about a wedding feast that a King was giving:
MAT 22:9 ‘Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.’
MAT 22:10 “And those slaves went out into the streets, and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.
MAT 22:11 “But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw there a man not dressed in wedding clothes,
MAT 22:12 and he said to him,’ Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And he was speechless.
MAT 22:13 “Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
MAT 22:14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
This man was without wedding clothes. These wedding clothes that he was expected to be wearing is the “Righteousness of Christ” that he should have been living out, it was “The Talents” that he should have been adding to. What we do is what people see, it is our spiritual clothing. When we walk by the Spirit of God, we are living out His love to God and to the world. When we do this we are dressing ourselves in Christ’s righteousness. We are clothing ourselves in Christ. We are making Him the Lord of our Hearts, by choosing to be His servants. When we choose to be His servants by serving Him, then God will exalt us as sons. As James say’s, “Humble yourself in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.” But remember this, and work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for if we follow our own selfish fleshly way, then we are denying Him and He will also deny us. 2 Tim 2:12
Even if we by faith, ask Jesus to forgive us, and He credits our account with His righteousness, we must continue in that faith and live out the righteousness, by faith, or we lose it, like the man who buried his talent. If this is the case, we will die in our trespasses and sins, and we also will be cast out into the outer darkness, just as Jesus said.
REV 3:14 – 22 “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I would that you were cold or hot. ‘So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. ‘Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich, and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see. ‘Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; be zealous therefore, and repent. ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me. ‘He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ ”
In GAL 5:25 Paul says, “If we are alive by the Spirit, then the outcome will be walking by the Spirit.” So if we are not walking by the Spirit, then we are not alive by the Spirit.
GAL 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
GAL 6:8 For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life.” (The word translated corruption means, destruction, destroy, perish)
When it uses the word “but” in verse 8, the author is setting up a contrast between two ways. The first part reads that “sowing to the flesh results in perishing, or destruction from corruption. The second part defines more literally this perishing, because it would be the opposite of eternal life, which is the result of sowing to the Spirit.
Now lets read it that way vs. 8 “For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap (the opposite of eternal life – death) corruption”. This applies to all, it makes no distinctions. It applies both to those who have never accepted Christ, and to those who have in the past. “But the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life.”

Age of Grace

The words, grace and mercy mean two different things. People seem to have the attitude that now in the age of grace God is more merciful than before Christ. Actually the opposite is true. Being in the age of grace does not mean that God is more merciful. It means that God has given us more gifts to live righteously. If we have more such gifts, which are His Spirit and the New Testament, then we have more responsibility to live righteously.
JOH 15:22 “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.”
We are not afforded the excuse of ignorance now, as before the church was birthed.
ROM 3:25 “…This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed”
ACT 17:30 “Therefore (Paul speaking) having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent.”
The main difference between BC and AD is that now the “Good News” of Christ’s atoning death is more clearly explained in God’s Word and God’s Spirit is given to us in a more intimate way. Now because of these two things God holds us more accountable because we know more, and also have His indwelling empowering Spirit.
JAM 4:17 “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin.”
Whereas “Before Christ” the truth was, to a greater degree, hidden, so if anything, God “overlooked” the sins previously committed more then, than He overlooks them now. But He will forgive us at any point when we turn from our sin, and begin following Him. This is walking in righteousness, and unless we are walking in righteousness, we do not have any righteousness. This is how we are “In Christ”, and there is no other way to be “In Christ”, except to walk in Him.

“Chewing the Cud”

(Reviewing the Chapter)

The entire Word of God is true and is relevant in the modern Christian Church. There is no part of scripture that is to be set aside. The New Testament does not invalidate the Old, but rather more clearly explains God’s truths.
Jesus fulfilled the Ceremonial Law because it gave a picture of what He would do for mankind to redeem us from our sin. For He is the real Lamb of God, the former is done away with. But God’s Moral Law is another story, because just as Jesus, by abiding in His Fathers Spirit could live up to the moral righteousness which the Ten Commandments portrayed, so we also are to live out God’s desires, which are now resident in us by His Holy Spirit, enabling us to live righteous lives, which will of course fulfill the righteousness required by God’s moral Law. And we are not to live according to our flesh any longer. But instead we are to die to trying to fulfill our own fleshly desires. If this doesn’t make sense to you, then read this statement everyday asking God to give you understanding, and He will.
In Deuteronomy 29:14-21 God says to them that this covenant and oath is not only for those who are standing with them, but also for those who are not with them in that day. Are we not also of those who do not stand with them in that day, but yet share in the blessing of Abraham? Have we not been grafted in to the family of God so that we might be partakers of the blessing, and as we have chosen to walk with God in righteousness, so we are released from the curse that comes with not keeping Gods Moral Law? And is there not a curse on those who have not repented and walk in the sinful flesh? This curse was proclaimed by God in the Garden of Eden, and pronounced death to those who would disobey God. And through Moses this same blessing and curse was reiterated and built on, it is not a new one, just more of the elements are given. But God also promised a redeemer who would make a way for man to return to God. Now our generation has perverted the promise and has made it say something that God has never intended for it to say, that we can receive this redemption and continue to do as we please so as to continue walking in the ways of our sinful flesh and still be considered to be in right standing with God.
Listen to what He says in Deuteronomy 29:14-21 “Now not with you alone am I making this covenant and this oath, but both with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here today (for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed. “Moreover, you have seen their abominations and their idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which they had with them); lest there shall be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations; lest there shall be among you a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood. “And it shall be when he hears the words of this curse, that he will boast, saying, ‘I have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart in order to destroy the watered land with the dry.’ “The Lord shall never be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and His jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven.” “Then the Lord will single him out for adversity from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant which are written in this book of the law.”
Note what is underlined above and just as those who were disobedient in that day said in their hearts, “that he will boast saying, I have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart…” So the church today believes that it can continue in sin (which is the same stubbornness of heart), and still have peace with God, because they stubbornly believe they are still “In” Christ. When you are in your house, well you are “in” your house, but if you go out the door and down the street are you still “in” your house? Of course not. To be “in” Christ we must be walking in Christ, and not the stubbornness of our hearts. We may stumble and sin, but someone who is “in” Christ cannot continue this way, so he repents. And the blood of Jesus cleanses him from his sin. If the one who sins will not repent, then He is evidently not “in” Christ, but is in the flesh. For us to remain in Christ we will always repent when we find ourselves in sin, otherwise we show we have not been saved from our sin if we still cling to it and deny Christ. For we cannot both deny Christ and be in Him at the same time.
Read the italicized portion above in Deuteronomy again, God says that He will never be willing to forgive this one who continues in sin. But if he repents and truly turns to God, He will. But God will not forgive him as long as he continues in the stubbornness of his unrepentant heart and walks in sin.
This is the same as what the writer of Hebrews is speaking of in Heb 10:26-31 “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
There is a distinction between two kinds of sin in the bible, there is unintentional sin, and rebellious sin. God told Moses that there would be a different law for someone who sins unintentionally and one who sins rebelliously. This is found in the book of Numbers
NUM 15:28 ‘And the priest shall make atonement before the Lord for the person who goes astray when he sins unintentionally, making atonement for him that he may be forgiven.
NUM 15:29 ‘You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the sons of Israel and for the alien who sojourns among them.
NUM 15:30 ‘But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from among his people.
NUM 15:31 ‘Because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be on him.’ ”
Did you notice how it said that the person who sins “defiantly” or as another translation puts it, “rebelliously” that that person is actually “blaspheming the Lord” and shall be “cut off” from his people. He would not be forgiven, you would not pray and ask God to give him life as long as he is continuing in this defiant rebellion, as it instructs us not to do in 1st John 5:16-17. So we also have added insight into the infamous “Unforgivable Sin” talked about here in 1st John, which has usually been referred to as “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” which Jesus talked about. These two ideas, defiantly sinning against God and speaking against the Holy Spirit are actually closely related and are linked here by these different passages in Numbers 15:30, 1st Jn 5:15-17 and Mark 3:28-30
MAR 3:28 “Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter;
MAR 3:29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin “–
And similarly in Luke
LUK 12:10 “And everyone who will speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him.
All through the letter of 1st John he writes that if someone is saved that he does not “continue” in sin. This continuing in sin is talking about the same thing as in the Numbers verses (as well as the rest of the old and new testament) as defiant sin. If a person sins unintentionally he does not realize that he is sinning, and the blood of Jesus automatically covers such a person if he is a believer. However if a person knows that a particular course is sin, and he continues with carrying out this sin, this is not unintentional but is intentional, and so he does so in defiance to God’s face. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin, so if we continue with a sin that the Holy Spirit revealed as sin, we are defying the Holy Spirit, and Numbers calls this Blasphemy, and God says there that such a person should be “cut off from the people” of God. In the New Testament Jesus says that Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is “unforgivable” and is an eternal sin. With this reasoning that intentional sin is defiance against the Holy Spirit and is unforgivable we read in 1st John, (Special note for the following passage, there is no reason for putting the word “a” before sin in this passage it is supplied by the translator) John says: “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin, not leading to death {unintentional}, he shall ask, and God will for him give life to those who commit sin, not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death, {sin done with full knowledge it is sin, so done in defiance} I do not say that he should make request for this. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death.
From our human perspective we have trouble with understanding how God views our salvation from start to finish. If we listen to James talking about how Abraham’s works completed his faith we may begin to understand how our works are a continuation of our faith. If we have no works done in faith it shows our faith to be orphaned, or not brought to fruition. Remember the very first time we believed is actually an act of faith. But God views our life from an eternal perspective, and is considered by how we finish our course, as to the validity of our faith.

Chapter 3

Faith and Works

Paul and James

Paul says “Faith alone” James says, “Faith plus works”

James 2:14 “What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him?”
James 2:24 You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.
Faith – In James there are a number of statements, which seem to contradict what Paul has taught that it is by faith alone and not by works through which we are saved. When James and Paul speak of faith they are speaking to two different mindsets. When Paul spoke of faith, he did not speak of it as a mere thought, for a key element of faith is that you use it as a reference point to live by. If you believe that God is good and is all He says He is, then you come to God by submitting yourself to Him. This coming to Him is an action in life. Faith always requires some type of response appropriate to the particular belief. If there is no such appropriate response then the so-called belief is only a mere thought, not actually believed in yet. It is just a fancy. The act of responding is believing. This is giving life to faith. If you say that you trust your teenager with your car, and yet you don’t ever let him or her use it when they ask; are you really trusting them? God has given each person a gift of faith in Himself, but it is the one who uses that faith, by putting himself into God’s hands and trusting Him, that is saved. Having faith in your teenager will do nothing until you activate that faith by giving them the keys and it is then that the faith relationship is activated. This is what is spoken of in Matt 25:14-30, and the same idea is presented again in another way in Matt 25:31-46. 25-30 we looked at earlier, which is the parable of the talents, where I have stated that the righteousness that God gives us must be lived-out or we will lose it and so be naked of Christ’s saving righteousness and we will be cast out into outer darkness. Also in 31-46 the Lord is teaching that the people who did not live out God’s righteousness will be separated from those who do, as goats from sheep, and will go away into eternal punishment, but the sheep “the righteous”, the ones who lived out their faith, into eternal life.
When we give up being the masters of our own lives, and turn from trusting in our own way, and begin following God by trusting Him; it is then that we have put our faith in God to use, and our faith relationship with God begins. So here when Paul talked of faith he spoke from the Jewish mind, that what you believe is what you will automatically do, this is how he was brought up. While James is speaking to the Greek mind (particularly those influenced by a popular philosophy called gnosticism). This philosophy sees things from an entirely different perspective. Such a person can hold differing, even contradictory philosophies all at the same time. This Greek way of thinking defines faith as a philosophical idea, and may not have anything to do with how one behaves. This may leave the so-called “believer” thinking that this is what Paul is talking about when he uses the word faith. So here James says that a faith that is not being lived out is not a real faith at all, but rather is dead, and has no power or promise from God to save. He is more carefully defining faith saying that if you do not live out this faith, that it is not saving faith at all. If this so-called “belief”, that you say is faith, does not change your life, if there is no difference between you and the world, your faith is dead. Paul agrees with this when he writes, EPH 5:5 For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
James and Paul are in agreement, but at first glance it may appear that their use of the word faith is different. But Paul’s writings do explain that it is only a “living” or lived-out faith that is real for he states in Galatians, “those who practice such things…(sin, walking by the flesh) will not inherit the kingdom of God,” and James says, “faith without works is dead.”
Works – When Paul speaks against salvation by works, he is referring to works that are based on faith in oneself, a belief that says, “I am”, “I am able,” a faith in one’s own ability to fulfill God’s requirements for righteous living. Before he was saved Paul thought he could be good on his own, independent of Gods Spirit. He thought if he just knew the right thing to do, by knowing the Law, “he” could do it, and so be accepted by God. This is “works” salvation, the belief that unjust man could become acceptable in God’s sight by trying to keep up with God’s standard, which is revealed by the Law. But after Paul’s revelation that God alone is good. And that it is through our faith in His goodness, that He offers to intimately abide in us and so impart His righteousness into us, it is by this participation that we have salvation. In fact He abiding in us “is” our salvation.

After Paul came to this understanding and received God’s invitation of an indwelling salvation by faith, Paul went out to set the rest of His compatriots in Judaism straight on the fallacy of man trying to establish his own righteousness based on keeping the Law. After Paul was saved, in his New Testament writings, he taught against the idea of our becoming good by trying to keep the Law by our own ability to do so. He taught against anything that sounded like it. But Paul also taught that our lives must change for salvation to be real. ACTS 26:20 “but (Paul) kept declaring…that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance.” He taught we must be on a course of turning from sin to God. We must be in a process of separating ourselves from sin and pursuing a life lived by God’s Spirit, and it is then that we will fulfill the righteousness required by God’s moral law, which Paul states in Romans 8:3&4. So in essence Paul and James are in agreement that works appropriate to our faith must accompany salvation or our faith is dead and will not save us.

The Just Live by Faith
Our translations express these verses as. “The just shall live by faith”. Are these verses giving us a command to live by faith? Or a suggestion to live by faith?
If you guessed suggestion you are incorrect.
If you guessed command you are incorrect also.
Rather, it’s just stating a fact.
You see the word “shall” is added by the translators so it fits grammatically in the structure of our English language. So when we hear that the “Righteous shall live by faith, we hear it telling us that we should live by faith. We hear it as a command or suggestion.
This is not what it is saying at all. Rather it is giving us the properties of the righteous. Let me give an example of the difference between a command and properties.
If you hold a glass of water and turn it upside down the water will pour out and fall down. If you hold a ball and turn your hand upside down and open your hand the ball will fall down. These are examples of properties of water and the ball in reference to gravity. The water pours out and the ball falls. You are not saying to the ball or water  “The ball shall fall.” Do you see here the difference? It is rather making a statement saying that, righteous people live by faith. And living is action, or else you are dead.

Chapter 4

The Repentant Believer Is:
“In Christ”

There is a danger that comes with not understanding the balance of knowing how our responsibility to live for Christ is very much linked with our position “In Christ”. For unless Christ is our Lord He is not our savior. We cannot separate Christ from who He is. He is our Savior when we set Him apart from all else in our heart and so make Him our Lord. He automatically then is our Savior. He is One.
There is the danger that comes from allowing ourselves to return to our sin and be content therein. But there is another danger that comes if we obsess with our ineptitude as His servants and so give up in hopelessness. We must keep getting back on the horse. I have fallen countless times, and I can only do one thing… get back on. But with each fall I must drill it in my head how precariously close I may have come to utter ruin. It is only upon such a realization, that one who has become calloused of heart towards sin, can keep himself from returning again and again to his own vomit. Is drilling this into our heads the obsessing I was talking about? No. When we focus on our inability without remembering Gods ability, then we are obsessing with with our ineptness. Although when we recognize our failures and are aware of our inability, but all the while know that as we cling to the hope of God in our lives, it is then that we can conquer all. By our own devices, we are doomed. But through Him, we are saved.

Part 3

Our Experience

Chapter 1

Obsessing Over Relics

Special Note:

In this section I would like you to note that it sounds like I am against what has been referred to as the “Manifestations of the Spirit”. At one time I was experiencing these manifestations myself but then I did become unbelieving in these things after seeing the Church running after, which constitutes “Idolatrous Worship” of these manifestations. But since then I have reconstituted my belief that these experiences have a place in helping us to experience our true God, when used in a conscientiously applied program of heart hygiene and regular worship of the one true and living God. Whereby we run after Him daily in our lives and not after these experiences. We worship Him and use the gifts.
I have left this section as I originally wrote it to give you an idea of what can happen when we turn good things into idols and mar God’s good intentions for them.
Thank you for your understanding…

“We obsess over relics” Quoting Martin Luther, who took the Church away from a severely misplaced faith-alliance with “Holy Objects”. Such as the skull of “John the Baptist” where you would pay to gaze at it for a few seconds and so barter away some time due to you in purgatory. And there were countless other “Holy Objects”. Things which had no power to make us more like Christ in order to reach a dying world.

Have we, those of us who so proudly bear the brand of Charismatic – Pentecostal – Faith Preaching Churches, have we truly become more like Christ through our miracle seeking, through our “Quest for the Holy Grail” of “Manifestations” of the Spirit?
If it has, I have neither experienced such a change nor seen it in others, and I have been in numerous Charismatic/Pentecostal Churches for over 25 years.
Whether I was pushed over by a preacher who then shouted “The Power of God” (did you know that if you just gently lay your hand on someone’s forehead, that will be enough pressure to push them over if they are standing relaxed with strait knees and do not move there feet?) or when I was sitting in the pew listening to the preacher and a “Holy Laughter” erupted from my belly. And other such experiences, all of which I would have to say in retrospect, that none of these things has made me truly more like Jesus. Oh they would make me all excited about this “New Toy” I found. And I talked about it and probably was a bit obsessed with my latest “In the Spirit” experience. But when the hype died down, was I really more like Christ? Did I really have a closer walk with Him? Did we, God and I, spend more quantity or quality time together doing the things that He likes to do? Like feeding the poor, visiting orphans and widows? Befriending the lonely? Was I a better father? … Did I bring God into my life more? Trusting and leaning on Him where I would do His stuff with Him and I would invite Him to do my stuff with me? I’d have to say, a big fat no!
I was just “Obsessing over New Experiences”.
We call it “Manifestations of the Spirit, meaning that the Holy Spirit was manifesting Himself through miraculous and usually just weird things. The weirder the more spiritual!! Now manifesting the Spirit means that the Spirit of God is showing Himself through you. It is nothing different than displaying in life the heart of God. I’m afraid that Job’s so called comforters were better at it than we. They sat with Job for a whole week without saying a word because of his agony and distress. Nothing weird there, just pure compassion. Sure when they finally opened their mouths they got it all wrong, the devil got hold of their tongues. But our obsessions just draw us to our beloved meetings in hopes that we’ll see the Ultimate Super Spiritual Manifestations of God, like Gold Dust, the Dead Raised or People getting out of Wheel Chairs!!! … Why? Because we have so much love for the unfortunate that we are willing to sacrifice all of our earthly possessions for the benefit of the less fortunate? … I am sad to say, noooo… but rather because we want to see and experience all this stuff… for ourselves… That’s just another way of being … SELFISH!!!
True manifestations of the Spirit of God are things like showing your neighbors you love them more than you love yourself. You would sacrifice your time not to be looking for more great experiences, but because you simply want to bless someone else.

I’m sorry to have to put it this way Church, but we stink. Now don’t look at the person sitting next to you as if it was him who let one fly. Oh he may have, but you, yes you, the pretty lady sitting right there, you may look good on the outside in Church, but yes you made a stinkie too!!! We all did… And it is Not a sweet smelling savor rising up in the nostrils of our Holy God.

Am I saying that God cannot perform miracles in our midst. Or that we as His people here on earth cannot do a miracle in His name? I am not saying that, for we can do all in His name. The problem is that we simply are not. We are not looking to serve His purposes but our own. We want to “Shoot Up” or “Snort” some “High” in life where it doesn’t depend on us giving up our fleshly lives, but only Looks like we are. If we are obsessing over the relics of the So Called – Manifestations, we are not obsessing over God, but gifts. We must rather obsess over the giver, then we will see clearly enough to know if it was His gift in the first place. Or whether it was from Him but then we took it and focused on it and not God or from a true heart of God compassion, and so we made it into an idol.

Remember how the Children of Israel as they were wandering in the desert and how God disciplined them for their contemptuous sin by sending poisonous serpents, and they were dying by the thousands from their bites? God answered the prayer of Moses and had him fashion a Bronze Serpent on a pole, and if the people would look up at it, they would be saved.

Well what do you think the people eventually did with this gift from God? They began worshiping it. Idolatry! Nothing less than idolatry. And God directed Moses to destroy it.
Whenever we obsess over a gift, we turn the blessing into a curse. Do not obsess over “Manifestations” or Miracles, but over God! And God alone!!!

How To Keep Your Heart Daily
Filled with the Glory of God

What Do You Want?
We go to Church and are somewhat filled with God’s Glory, but by Monday or Tuesday, if not on our ride home from Church Sunday morning, our hearts are back, set on our own petty desires.
Are you OK with that?
Or do you long for something more?
In order to be filled to overflowing with Him, we cannot serve both ourselves and God.

The Understanding

Do you want to be so filled with the Glory of God that you are willing to give up everything else in your heart and life?
Because that’s what it’s going to take. We cannot serve ourselves and God. If we want to be filled with His Glory and serve Him, we must sacrifice our own desires. Not just our evil sinful desires, but everything, all of the nice things we want. Even the very loves of our lives. For if we try to live by our own human love, we will not be filled with God’s Love to Love those with whom we are close to. There is a verse that bible expositors have misinterpreted through the years, because they cannot reconcile what Jesus said there, with the idea of our responsibility to Love others. Now you may have noticed that I have capitalized God’s Love and used a lowercase l for human love. This is because the Love that we are to have for others, as in the second commandment, is God’s Love. And the first commandment tells us to love God with all of our heart. And if we love God with all of our heart will there be any of our heart to love our neighbor with? No, if we have truly given all of our love to God, then there should be nothing left. Whomever we love with our love, we make the master of our heart. For our human love is a desire to have someone or something for ourselves. What or who we set our hearts on having, becomes our master and we are enslaved to them.
It is only God’s Love that is truly self-sacrificing. You may want to believe that our human love is truly benevolent like God’s Love. But then that would mean that we have the potential to be good, like God, on our own without Him, if we have our own source of righteous Love. The truth is, we don’t. And the only way to get it is to give all of our love to God. Then God will give us a new heart, a heart of Love and compassion, whereby we are then able to fulfill the second commandment to Love our neighbor as our self, but with God’s Love, His strength and not by the strength of our own human love.
This is the foundation we need to understand the verse bible teachers have misunderstood, and is why Jesus said,

LUK 14:26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
Jesus was saying we must do the opposite of loving all of these in order to do the first commandment, which is to love God. Then we can be His disciple and be filled with God’s Love to Love our neighbor (and loved ones) as ourselves.
If this is confusing to you, then think of love as pulling something toward us, and hate as pushing away. If we want God alone to inhabit our holy of holies, the innermost place in our heart, then we must push everything else out of it. This is what Jesus was saying when He stated that we must “hate” or push away all of these others out of our heart, His sanctuary. This is the process of the sanctification of our heart, where we set our heart on God alone, making Him our one true master and savior.
If we allow anyone else but God in our most holy place, it is idolatry, and we are disobeying the First Commandment to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind and all of our strength. All means all.

How To Do It!

You must get tough with yourself!
Do not allow any excuses!
Be ruthless!
Make yourself get up everyday with time for putting God first!
Do this by:
Reading your bible everyday, find a bible reading program of at least a chapter per day.
Find someplace to be alone, pray and whether out-loud or only in your heart, praise and worship Him with all of your heart, driving out all of your other desires, making God your only desire. He alone is the fulfillment of your heart! And do not stop until you are so filled with His Glory, that all you want to do is please Him!
Do not give up if you do not find Him immediately. You will find Him if you search diligently, with all of your heart. Now I am not saying that we should only wait to give to people when we feel God’s Love for them. For if we obey God’s command to Love others, even when we don’t feel like it, but do so by faith in His goodness, it is another way of seeking God, by the faith of obedience.
Go, love others as you would want them to love you. Motivated either by the faith in God shown by obedience to His directives, or by the actual substance of God’s Love you feel as compassion for others!!! In both cases, by doing so, you are walking “In Christ”
The result will be, you won’t be looking out for your own needs, but He will supply the everything else as in MAT 6:33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.” (The “and His righteousness” is doing His righteousness by faith)
Now it’s true that Jesus is here referring to food, drink and clothing, but the principle behind it holds true for everything in our lives, people and things. This is why it say’s in 1st John 2:15 Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. When John says “the world” it refers to both the world’s system, and the people in this world, not limiting it to just unbelievers, for we are all in this world. 1JO 4:5 “They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them.” Here John say’s that the “world listens to them”, clearly defining the word “world” as people, because “they” listen to them.

You won’t be seeking them because you really don’t “need” them. And since you don’t need them (need, meaning love them with your human love), you are then free to truly Love others, with God’s Love!

When The Old Desires Rise Up Again

When these old inhabitants of the land (our desires) try to rise up and regain control, we must drive them back into submission. Actually the goal is death to them, for if they are not being lived-out we are dead to them. I must decrease and He must increase.
The best way to do this is to tell our minds that seeking to fulfill these desires of our flesh will end in our death. Instead we are to consider ourselves dead to them and say, “I want to live out the desires of my Lord. I want to be full of the Glory of the Lord! And begin worshipping the Lord out-loud or in our hearts, but do so vigorously as a battle cry. For it was when the children of Israel let out the battle cry that God came in and routed the enemy before them.

Part 4

Out Modern Methods
vs
The Biblical Mandate

“Go,… And Teach Them to Observe All That I Commanded You”

Classrooms, classrooms, classrooms. Oh, did I mention classrooms?
Whether it’s on Sunday morning, Wednesday evening or even Monday night; we go to Church, Seminars, Bible Classes, Bible Colleges and even Seminaries. But still something is missing. So we try staying at home with our families more. Still something is missing. What could it be?
What could it be??
What could it be???
Have you heard the saying, “Many teachers, but few fathers?”
Me too…
Well I’m not quite sure what that means. Well I know what teachers are, for I’ve had countless teachers.
Teachers..
Teachers…
But what’s a father?
Ooh, ooh, I know, I know…
Yes Johnny
Um…
Um…
Uhh, I forgot.
**********************
On a distant planet far, far away…
A long, long, long time ago…
Before our schooled generation was born…
There were fathers, and mothers.
These fathers and mothers actually taught their own children. What’s more, they taught without…you guessed it…they taught in a dark aged, archaic way…they actually taught their children, without “CLASSES”!!!!!!!! Gasp!
Gasp!!
Gasp!!!

Picture a grown man leaning on his male teachers breast, and during supper yet!!! Now what in the world would a student be doing eating supper with his teacher, let alone leaning on him as if he were a close friend or (here’s that unknown word again), Father??? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, this is how the disciple John was eating at the table with Jesus.

Now we all have been to many classes and seminars on parenting which of course includes, fathering and mothering, so then what’s the problem?
Fathering, mothering, relational skills, intimacy etc. is not learned in a classroom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The thing missing?

“Make disciples”

We don’t understand the word disciple.
We think in extremes. Either too much, or too little. Either communes, or classes. Nothing in-between. So we tend to substitute classes, cuz they’re easier, besides from what I saw the commune experiment of yesteryear didn’t quite work anyway.

What Would Discipleship Look Like Today?

Well, I think there are a few men who have been, in varying degrees, fathered today. Some grew up with pretty good fathers, fathers who took their children along side them and brought them into his, the fathers, everyday world. This is where one learns how to live in closeness to someone else. This is where men learn to be fathers, friends, and good husbands. Otherwise if you expect a child to grow up and become a good father by reading about fathering in a book or a few sermons, or classes, or seminars, or tapes etc etc etc. It would be like expecting someone to go out in hand to hand combat on the battlefield in a real live war against an enemy of seasoned soldiers after reading a book or hearing a sermon.

What would discipleship look like in today’s world in the good old USA?

Maybe you grew up with a fairly good father, meaning your father brought you into his world, and actively participated in your world. Now he had struggles sure, but you knew he loved you and believed in you, because he showed you that he did. Love requires participation and action.
So you were given the gift of having a father who gave you time. But you say: “You can’t expect me to take someone into my daily life and into my home and have them follow me around all day do you?” Not quite, you’re thinking in extremes again. But could you invite someone into your life and family as you would a brother who comes over for dinner? Not to think of him as a guest where you entertain and wait on him. But as a member of the family, where he may come over and do what you do with you. Maybe you as a family make dinner together, he’d help. After dinner your close family members clean up together, he’d help. You would think of him as a member of your family.
In addition to this ask him to help you do some task around the house, like help you clean the garage, or tell him you’d really like to spend some active time with him and help him with whatever chore of his he say’s he’s about to do. When the two of you do it, make sure to practice the presence of God in the task, after all relationship is the purpose for our tasks. Relationship with God – where we learn to commune with Him during the task, and relationship with others where we co-commune with God/with others, and is how others learn to bring God into their daily living.

This is how he would learn togetherness, closeness, friendship. He would see and experience how a family functions. He would learn it in a way that he could put to practice in his own dysfunctional home, and make it functional. Your gift would not only save him from a life of loneliness and emptiness but you could help to break a pattern of dysfunctional parenting that most probably would otherwise span generations. And in turn he will be able to invite others into his home in the same way, and end the tyranny of hopelessness in countless others. All by inviting One person into your life and home. (for pennies a month you could feed a starving person, but how many do?)

In our society we generally think of children as liabilities. Children cost allot. In times past children were thought of as assets. They contributed to the family. They didn’t just consume.

We bring this same liability minded thinking into our view of discipleship, and we cringe at the thought because we just don’t have anything more to give. We are exhausted as it is, there’s no way we could take on any more and be fair to our own families.

We need to change the way we think of disciples and children, we need to think of them as apprentices, and so as assets.

An apprentice does allot of work to contribute to the business. In fact you need him, for without him, without his help, your business is lacking. Are you a Pastor? You should be training someone to do your work. Are you a minister of some other kind? And have you asked God for someone to take with you in whatever ways God has given you to minister? Are you reproducing yourself? That’s what Jesus meant when He said: “Go and make disciples”. Why do we insist on doing what we do alone? Is there someone God would want you to bring with you as a helper and trainee to share the load with? You might even enjoy the fellowship.
Don’t think that you need to have these great bible teachings and that sort of thing, sure bible teaching is good stuff, but that is not only what it’s all about. Bible truth is learned by being caught, not just taught. If one had to choose one over the other, then choose the caught. For knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.

You might be thinking that such a person should see a counselor. Although counseling has it’s place, it is not a cure all. Life is love, and love is not bought with money. It’s given freely. Ask God what He wants you to do about this. Have you already been given the gift to befriend and father others? Or do you need to be fathered first. Let me tell you, this is the single greatest need in the American Church today.
Ask someone over this week, don’t make a big deal of it. You don’t need to say to him, “Hey there lonely boy, I’m going to disciple you.” Rather keep it simple, and see what God does.
If you are a Pastor and want to find an apprentice, then ask God to show you someone, and ask the person if he would like to go on a Pastoral call with you, or some other task. Then when you find someone who has a heart for doing whatever it is, ask him to do something else with you. Remember the key is doing it together. Maybe you are going out of town for a speaking engagement, the man you bring with you may develop his own public speaking ministry. Or may just be a help to yours. Always be looking to God for the next step. After you have built a relationship of trust between the two of you, you may want to ask him if the idea of apprenticeship sounds good to him. But this is after you have shown him what it looks like by the things you have already been doing together. Every minister needs their John Mark, or Silas.

Chapter 2

“Believe”
(Calling to Life the Hidden Seed)

In each Man of God, the Spirit of God lives. And with God All things are possible. Even when the one in which He dwells appears to be so unlikely. There is a seed in this seemingly unlikely Man of God which may as yet remain unseen and under the ground, it may not have yet sprouted, and come to life. It is the privilege of others in the body to develop eyes that look not at the outward appearance but that look underneath the surface to the hidden person, the person of the heart.

Just as we are to be a people who have a heart for the lost, so are we to have a heart for our own. Just as we believe that God can take an unsaved man who is a complete derelict and make him a beautiful man of God. So can God make everyone in whom the Spirit of God dwells to be a Great Man of God! In a parable Jesus spoke to a gardener concerning a fig tree that had not produced any fruit for years, to cut it down, “for why does it use up the ground?” The gardener replied, “Wait my Lord, let me dig around it and fertilize it; and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.”

If you are not seeing the fruit you would expect to see from a believer, such a man is in great danger and may not know it. Much the same that the unbeliever may be unaware of his fate. You may have tried every way you know of to call this man to life, but he doesn’t seem to have any lasting change. He may shudder as if he is going to rise up to the occasion, and then he just drifts back to a slumber.

So what’s it gunna take? I have in Part 2 of this book suggested one thing we need to change in our belief system, that when applied will help to shake and stir the heart that is at ease in this world. That was, a “Godly Fear”. But there is another. This other is seen symbolically in the laying on of hands. This is the gesture that symbolizes a relating of oneself to another. This relating joins one to another. Identifies one with another. Becomes one with another, to where what is yours flows into or is imparted to the other. The laying on of hands is more than just this single action of laying your hands on someone in a point of time. It also symbolizes the ongoing unity and close relationship we share as we intimately relate with one another. Do not lay your hands on anyone in this way too quickly or without consideration and prayer. But do seek the Lord diligently as to who the Lord would have you to share your Life with. Listen to the voice of Love in your heart, for it is the voice of God in you, for, “God Is Love”. Do not let your fears and doubts turn you to inactivity or back to the status quo, you know, confining yourself only to the way you’ve been doing it. What you have been doing may need to continue, but not without the intimate relationships needed to call at least one other to life, to the on fire, committed, “Kingdom of God” Life, that is lying dormant in the hearts of the Church of God in America. The “Sleeping Giant” may not be as big as we hope, or may be bigger. But we will not know until she is awakened and rises up to the occasion that God has placed before her.

Believing In

“Faith, without works, is dead being by itself”, so we recognize the familiar words of James. In this book I have related this to our personal sanctification and to our personal salvation, for the two are inseparable. But does it relate in any way to our relationships with others?
If you tell someone that you believe in them, do you not need to show it? For believing is faith in action. If there is no action, is there really any believing? Faith is a gift. It is a gift given to us from God. But what happens when we do not put God’s gifts to us to use? Remember in Part 2 “Christ’s Righteousness Credited to Our Account” the parable of the talents?

But here we are focusing not on what our fate would be, but on what fails to happen in the person we were to put our faith to action in. If we tell our teenager that we have faith in them to drive our car, and then will not give them the keys; what good does that faith do them? They know you don’t believe in them, and their heart will die within them. But you may say, “They are not ready to go out on their own”. This may very well be true, but why aren’t they? Have you been spending any time behind the wheel with them? If not, it not only shows them that you don’t believe in them, but the care that you say you have for them, never materializes and so they see that you don’t care for them, and again there heart dies within them. ( I hope you understand that I’m not really only talking about cars and teenagers here)
I hope for their sake, and yours, that there is still a spark of hope left within them. That spark of hope is life, life waiting to be called forth to be multiplied as fruit.

You may be overwhelmed at this point and say “I can’t do this for everyone!!!” No of course you can’t. Not directly anyway. But do it for at least one. And teach that one to do it also. Over time you may have done it to many of “the least of these” and they in turn to others. And in time you will have reached “Them All” through those to whom you have reached.

“Behind the Wheel” in Christian life is taking someone with you in your everyday world. Remember it doesn’t have to be everyday, in fact that may be too much. But it does mean some time on some days. Look at what the person is missing the most in their life. Then look at what the person’s already developed gifting is, and think as a good nurturing parent would think as if this person were your own grown child. What would you do? You would help them in their area of greatest need by letting them see you handle similar situations in your own life. You may not need to utter a word about it, just let them see good life in action. Then help them to hone their good points, if it isn’t the same as yours, then encourage them to go beyond what you can teach them in this area. How? Give’m the keys. You might even sit in the back seat if you like. Each situation is different. But do something!!!

This is what discipleship looks like.
Do not drop the ball on the Great Commission.
Just do it!!!
If you fail,
Get up and do it again,
And again,
And again,
Don’t stop,
Don’t give up.
Don’t give up, on Life!!!

Epilogue

“On your walls, oh Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; All day and all night they will never keep silent.
You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest, until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” Isaiah 62:6-7
It begins with Prayer
In the passage above the people of God are the physical descendants of Abraham, who live in Jerusalem. But when the nation as a people rejected the Gospel that was preached to them by the Apostles after Jesus died on the cross, Gentiles who believed were then grafted in as the people of God. And now all who believe are one in Christ Jesus, whether Jew or Greek. So when we read this passage in Isaiah, we can read it as; “On your walls oh people of God (His Church) I have appointed watchmen; All day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest, until He establishes and makes ‘His Church’ a praise in the earth”
How the whole earth groans, waiting for the people of God to be revealer’s of His Glory.
Do you have a deep call in your life as a watchman? Then take no rest for yourself, don’t allow yourself to be content, until He establishes the Church and makes her a praise in all the earth.

In a parable Jesus spoke to a gardener concerning a fig tree that had not produced any fruit for years, to cut it down, “for why does it use up the ground?” The gardener replied, “Wait my Lord, let me dig around it and fertilize it; and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.”
Can’t sleep at night? Then get up and spend 15 minutes or half an hour asking your Lord to pour out His presence on His people till they bear good fruit. It’s OK if He needs to begin with you, for we are all in the same boat.
Luke 18:7-8 “Now shall not God bring about justice for His elect, who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them speedily. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”

He will, if you exercise your faith by continually following Him and coming before Him in prayer.
I commit myself, promise to and covenant with the Lord to love Him with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength, and love my neighbor as myself.
Heart equals desire or love, soul equals emotions, the mind equals thoughts, while strength equals intensity.

Wash the make-up from the face of humility and, no matter the wrinkles and blemishes – truth is beautiful. Wash the make-up from the proud and – the truth is ugly.

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