Friday, July 29, 2016
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Thursday, November 26, 2015
What If Everything You've Been Taught About Salvation By Faith And Grace Alone Is Wrong?
Someone asked Jesus" Are only a few going to be saved?"
He said,"Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many I say unto you, will see:k to enter in, and shall not be able." (Luke 13:24)
"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me .. And he that take if not his cross, and followeth after me is not worthy of me (Matthew 10:37-38
"if ye will enter into life, keep the Commandments."(Matthew 19:17)
Take any of these sayings of Jesus and have an average person read them and I do not believe they would have any trouble understanding them. That our salvation is something we are expected to work very hard for.
From the Reformation until now the majority of the church ignored these words of Christ or if not ignored they interpreted them through the words of Paul.
For example, some will say that to understand the words of Christ we must understand the proper distinction between law and gospel. Common sense and the plain reading of the Scriptures says that this is not the right way to look at it. And that is not the way I believe the writers of the New Testament interpreted the teachings of Jesus. Throughout the New Testament we see definite calls to make every effort to stop sinning and to be holy. John writes the one who truly knows Christ does not practice sin. Those who would abuse and misunderstand the doctrines of Grace will go to great lengths to deprive us of and explain away these teachings as well. One of the reasons is because they say that these doctrines drive men to despair. This may be true. The rich man in Matthew 19:22 certainly went away sad. The truth is the law does in fact do what the reformed say it should do. It drives men to the cross. I don’t deny that. Yet, I don’t believe that is the only purpose or reason for the law.
The truth is the Scriptures teach what seem like opposite truths when it comes to how to be saved. We have scriptures that say "believe and you shall be saved and other verses that state that we are to keep the commandments and deny ourselves completely following Christ to be saved.
It takes a whole lot of explaining and twisting to teach people how the statements demanding obedience are really only there to make us aware of our sin so that we will believe and seek salvation by grace through faith. Oh if only people could read the Scriptures without the preconceived expectations they've gotten through religion. I believe they would come to very different conclusions than what they've been taught by the church organizations.
First, let me say that I do not deny the meritorious work of Christ for which by grace we are justified but rather that we have a part in seizing or commandeering this salvation which has been made available to us. And I believe this is only available to us because of God's grace and mercy reflected in the cross.
I believe that it is clear that faith and obedience are two sides of the same coin. I believe that no one will gain eternal life without faith and also no one will be saved without obedience to the law and commands of God.
"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:36).
To have faith is to surrender completely to God making Christ LORD and to die to self. This is why Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven is like a man who finds a rare and precious treasure in a field and then goes and sells all that he has to buy it. Jesus taught this concept over and over again. No one can be saved who has not sold all they have to go and buy that field.
If this is true and I believe with all my heart and it is then millions upon millions of people are in error. There are so many who with confidence assert that they are saved by faith alone and they even downplay obedience as if it were a lower rung of salvation. Something of lesser importance and even something dangerous to salvation. Martin Luther is even recorded as saying that one should sin voluntarily in spite of the devil so as to not lose hold of his grasp on faith and grace alone.
Jesus on the other hand took sin very seriously.
If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire" (Matt 18:8)
As John Piper has said there must be a violence within us against the impulses that would make peace with her own sin.
Have you made peace with the impulses within you and the sin in your life or are you fighting to cut it out?
If you're like most,including myself, you've been taught and always believed that righteousness and holy living were something that the Holy Spirit would do within us and even felt as if you should not make any effort on your own. I used to believe this because that is how I was taught that is how I was taught to understand the Scriptures instead of asking Jesus to show me. What it resulted in was a passive attitude about the sin in my life. There was no urgency there was no violence within me to cut out that sin. I told myself that the Holy Spirit would sanctify me in his time. I would ignore the scriptures that say very plainly to make every effort to put to death the deeds of the flesh. I ignored the scriptures that say if we are in Christ and we are dead to the flesh and no longer a slave to sin.
Oh my friends please hear what I'm saying. Do not brush this off as if I'm some fanatic but ask Jesus to show you. It doesn't matter if the whole of all of Christian culture is against me and what I'm saying. Jesus makes it clear that very few will find the narrow path. So it Shouldn't surprise you that the majority is wrong.
One of the problems is our misunderstanding of grace. Our church culture refers to grace as if it is some attribute by which God overlooks or passively accepts unrepentant sinners. No! Grace is the power of God to obey. It is not permission to live in sin.Grace is the freedom and the power to overcome sin in the spirit. That is why there is no longer any sacrifice for willful sin after saving faith. Grace stops once we choose willfully to sin. (Hebrews 10:26) The writer is saying if deliberately keep on sinning and choose not to appropriate the grace of God in Christ then what else is left for us?
There is this idea that to have faith in Jesus is to mentally acknowledge and accept as true that he died for your sins and that if you sign off on that your guaranteed a place in Heaven.
And so many stake their eternal lives on this dreadful lie. They get involved in church. In fact, they go every Sunday. They go to Bible Study on Wednesday nights and give 10 percent of their money to the church. They wouldn't dream of not reporting income on their tax return and they even change the channel when a Victoria's Secret commercial comes on- even when no one else is looking. So you can imagine why you're so shocked on that day when Jesus says "depart from me for I never knew you who practice lawlessness." (see Matt 7:23) They respond and say
“Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7)
You can tell from their response that they are absolutely shocked. They believed they were Christians with all of their heart. You've got to see this it's so important that you understand this / they truly believed they were Christian. They were doing all kinds of work in His name.
We live in an age where church people talk about faith in Christ as separate from discipleship and obedience to His commands. As if you can be saved without giving yourself fully and completely to Christ and renouncing all for Him. You can not.
The call to be saved is a call to abandon all hope that is not Jesus. It is also self denial, death of self and complete submission to the commands of Christ. That is what it means to believe. Anything less is not saving faith. Someone's profession to believe in Christ is absolutely worthless without an outward mortification of the flesh. All of these church people thinking they are saved because they said some prayer or acknowledge certain facts about Jesus.. it is a sad joke. The demons have that kind of faith.
Some might say that I am being judgmental. Yet, I am only teaching the doctrines I believe are taught in scripture. It is up to every man to work out his own salvation before God.
I urge you to prayerfully read the Gospels followed by the New Testament letters and ask Jesus to show you the truth. That Truth will set you free. Jesus himself is the Truth and He is the way. Seek Him. Follow Him. Love Him.
He said,"Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many I say unto you, will see:k to enter in, and shall not be able." (Luke 13:24)
"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me .. And he that take if not his cross, and followeth after me is not worthy of me (Matthew 10:37-38
"if ye will enter into life, keep the Commandments."(Matthew 19:17)
Take any of these sayings of Jesus and have an average person read them and I do not believe they would have any trouble understanding them. That our salvation is something we are expected to work very hard for.
From the Reformation until now the majority of the church ignored these words of Christ or if not ignored they interpreted them through the words of Paul.
For example, some will say that to understand the words of Christ we must understand the proper distinction between law and gospel. Common sense and the plain reading of the Scriptures says that this is not the right way to look at it. And that is not the way I believe the writers of the New Testament interpreted the teachings of Jesus. Throughout the New Testament we see definite calls to make every effort to stop sinning and to be holy. John writes the one who truly knows Christ does not practice sin. Those who would abuse and misunderstand the doctrines of Grace will go to great lengths to deprive us of and explain away these teachings as well. One of the reasons is because they say that these doctrines drive men to despair. This may be true. The rich man in Matthew 19:22 certainly went away sad. The truth is the law does in fact do what the reformed say it should do. It drives men to the cross. I don’t deny that. Yet, I don’t believe that is the only purpose or reason for the law.
The truth is the Scriptures teach what seem like opposite truths when it comes to how to be saved. We have scriptures that say "believe and you shall be saved and other verses that state that we are to keep the commandments and deny ourselves completely following Christ to be saved.
It takes a whole lot of explaining and twisting to teach people how the statements demanding obedience are really only there to make us aware of our sin so that we will believe and seek salvation by grace through faith. Oh if only people could read the Scriptures without the preconceived expectations they've gotten through religion. I believe they would come to very different conclusions than what they've been taught by the church organizations.
First, let me say that I do not deny the meritorious work of Christ for which by grace we are justified but rather that we have a part in seizing or commandeering this salvation which has been made available to us. And I believe this is only available to us because of God's grace and mercy reflected in the cross.
I believe that it is clear that faith and obedience are two sides of the same coin. I believe that no one will gain eternal life without faith and also no one will be saved without obedience to the law and commands of God.
"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:36).
To have faith is to surrender completely to God making Christ LORD and to die to self. This is why Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven is like a man who finds a rare and precious treasure in a field and then goes and sells all that he has to buy it. Jesus taught this concept over and over again. No one can be saved who has not sold all they have to go and buy that field.
If this is true and I believe with all my heart and it is then millions upon millions of people are in error. There are so many who with confidence assert that they are saved by faith alone and they even downplay obedience as if it were a lower rung of salvation. Something of lesser importance and even something dangerous to salvation. Martin Luther is even recorded as saying that one should sin voluntarily in spite of the devil so as to not lose hold of his grasp on faith and grace alone.
Jesus on the other hand took sin very seriously.
If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire" (Matt 18:8)
As John Piper has said there must be a violence within us against the impulses that would make peace with her own sin.
Have you made peace with the impulses within you and the sin in your life or are you fighting to cut it out?
If you're like most,including myself, you've been taught and always believed that righteousness and holy living were something that the Holy Spirit would do within us and even felt as if you should not make any effort on your own. I used to believe this because that is how I was taught that is how I was taught to understand the Scriptures instead of asking Jesus to show me. What it resulted in was a passive attitude about the sin in my life. There was no urgency there was no violence within me to cut out that sin. I told myself that the Holy Spirit would sanctify me in his time. I would ignore the scriptures that say very plainly to make every effort to put to death the deeds of the flesh. I ignored the scriptures that say if we are in Christ and we are dead to the flesh and no longer a slave to sin.
Oh my friends please hear what I'm saying. Do not brush this off as if I'm some fanatic but ask Jesus to show you. It doesn't matter if the whole of all of Christian culture is against me and what I'm saying. Jesus makes it clear that very few will find the narrow path. So it Shouldn't surprise you that the majority is wrong.
One of the problems is our misunderstanding of grace. Our church culture refers to grace as if it is some attribute by which God overlooks or passively accepts unrepentant sinners. No! Grace is the power of God to obey. It is not permission to live in sin.Grace is the freedom and the power to overcome sin in the spirit. That is why there is no longer any sacrifice for willful sin after saving faith. Grace stops once we choose willfully to sin. (Hebrews 10:26) The writer is saying if deliberately keep on sinning and choose not to appropriate the grace of God in Christ then what else is left for us?
There is this idea that to have faith in Jesus is to mentally acknowledge and accept as true that he died for your sins and that if you sign off on that your guaranteed a place in Heaven.
And so many stake their eternal lives on this dreadful lie. They get involved in church. In fact, they go every Sunday. They go to Bible Study on Wednesday nights and give 10 percent of their money to the church. They wouldn't dream of not reporting income on their tax return and they even change the channel when a Victoria's Secret commercial comes on- even when no one else is looking. So you can imagine why you're so shocked on that day when Jesus says "depart from me for I never knew you who practice lawlessness." (see Matt 7:23) They respond and say
“Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7)
You can tell from their response that they are absolutely shocked. They believed they were Christians with all of their heart. You've got to see this it's so important that you understand this / they truly believed they were Christian. They were doing all kinds of work in His name.
We live in an age where church people talk about faith in Christ as separate from discipleship and obedience to His commands. As if you can be saved without giving yourself fully and completely to Christ and renouncing all for Him. You can not.
The call to be saved is a call to abandon all hope that is not Jesus. It is also self denial, death of self and complete submission to the commands of Christ. That is what it means to believe. Anything less is not saving faith. Someone's profession to believe in Christ is absolutely worthless without an outward mortification of the flesh. All of these church people thinking they are saved because they said some prayer or acknowledge certain facts about Jesus.. it is a sad joke. The demons have that kind of faith.
Some might say that I am being judgmental. Yet, I am only teaching the doctrines I believe are taught in scripture. It is up to every man to work out his own salvation before God.
I urge you to prayerfully read the Gospels followed by the New Testament letters and ask Jesus to show you the truth. That Truth will set you free. Jesus himself is the Truth and He is the way. Seek Him. Follow Him. Love Him.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Is Evangelical Christianity Still Missing The Point Of God’s Law?
What do you think Jesus meant when he said,
“For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the saw, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. “(Matthew 5:20)
Jesus tells us what he meant Matthew chapter 15:
“Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! You nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you.
These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules. (Matthew 15:3-8)
Jesus was saying “You people still don’t get it. You have completely misunderstood the purpose of God’s laws.”(my paraphrase of the situation in Matthew Chapter 15)
According to Jesus when we focus so much on the letter of God’s laws and our own religious rules we miss the point. And unless we realize that true righteousness comes from within the heart then we are not welcome in the kingdom of God.
Over and over again in the Gospels you will find Jesus getting frustrated when people held so tightly to the letter of God’s law that they missed the spirit of the law. (Read Matthew chapter 23 to see Jesus really let them have it. Some of the most harsh and angry words ever spoken by the Lord against the church leaders are contained in this chapter.)
The spirit of the law is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Consider Matthew Chapter 12.
“At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’[you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:1-8)
I fear much of evangelical Christianity is missing the point. Jesus teaches us that rules have nothing to do with true righteousness yet it seems all the world ever hears from the evangelical community is condemnation. All the world knows is what we are against.
Without love and the fruits of the Spirit we are missing the whole point of why Christ came.
Some will say that these old covenant rules should still be looked to as a standard by which we are to live. That might be true from a secular standpoint. We need laws based on morality for a civil society. But the truth is focusing on religious rule keeping breeds hypocrisy and more sinful behavior. No one can ever meet the expectations which we set and so that leads to dishonesty and therefore hypocrisy.
The Apostle Paul wrote that the law actually arouses sinful passions in us like when you tell a child that he cannot do something and that makes him want to do it all the more.
For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. (Romans 7:5)
But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:6)
But how can we do this? How can we be released from the chains of the law? How can righteousness come from our hearts when scripture teaches that our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked? (Jeremiah 17:9)
The answer is in Jesus Christ. Our righteousness and the accompanying freedom come from Christ and His fulfillment of the law.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.”(2 Corinthians 5:17)
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and werejoicein hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2)
Thanks be to God, who delivers us through Jesus Christ our Lord!
“For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the saw, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. “(Matthew 5:20)
Jesus tells us what he meant Matthew chapter 15:
“Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! You nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you.
These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules. (Matthew 15:3-8)
Jesus was saying “You people still don’t get it. You have completely misunderstood the purpose of God’s laws.”(my paraphrase of the situation in Matthew Chapter 15)
According to Jesus when we focus so much on the letter of God’s laws and our own religious rules we miss the point. And unless we realize that true righteousness comes from within the heart then we are not welcome in the kingdom of God.
Over and over again in the Gospels you will find Jesus getting frustrated when people held so tightly to the letter of God’s law that they missed the spirit of the law. (Read Matthew chapter 23 to see Jesus really let them have it. Some of the most harsh and angry words ever spoken by the Lord against the church leaders are contained in this chapter.)
The spirit of the law is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Consider Matthew Chapter 12.
“At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’[you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:1-8)
I fear much of evangelical Christianity is missing the point. Jesus teaches us that rules have nothing to do with true righteousness yet it seems all the world ever hears from the evangelical community is condemnation. All the world knows is what we are against.
Without love and the fruits of the Spirit we are missing the whole point of why Christ came.
Some will say that these old covenant rules should still be looked to as a standard by which we are to live. That might be true from a secular standpoint. We need laws based on morality for a civil society. But the truth is focusing on religious rule keeping breeds hypocrisy and more sinful behavior. No one can ever meet the expectations which we set and so that leads to dishonesty and therefore hypocrisy.
The Apostle Paul wrote that the law actually arouses sinful passions in us like when you tell a child that he cannot do something and that makes him want to do it all the more.
For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. (Romans 7:5)
But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:6)
But how can we do this? How can we be released from the chains of the law? How can righteousness come from our hearts when scripture teaches that our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked? (Jeremiah 17:9)
The answer is in Jesus Christ. Our righteousness and the accompanying freedom come from Christ and His fulfillment of the law.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.”(2 Corinthians 5:17)
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and werejoicein hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2)
Thanks be to God, who delivers us through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)