For 50 of my 65 years of living on this earth I have been attending
religious meetings and listening to the Gospel...or so I thought. And it went
something like this, “man is a sinner destined to suffer in the pangs of hell
for eternity. Jesus came to die on the cross so that man could be rescued from
hell and fitted for heaven. Somehow this religious mentality was based on John
3:16; “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever
believes in Him should not perish but have ever lasting life.”
The Gospel was presented by fear-mongering mongrels threatening people to
an eternity in hell if they did not repent by saying the “sinner's prayer”, then
attending some denominational religious building on Sundays and abiding by the
religious rules and rituals.
Religion still functions today by espousing a partial gospel in that man is
in need of forgiveness through the cross which eradicates our sin and guilt. But
it does not give us power to live above sin and live the Christ life in the here
and now.
Man's problem runs much deeper than needing a Savior to save him from hell
so he can go to heaven. The root of man's problem is he is dead! God sees
mankind as dead and in need of life. The death of Christ on the cross did not
raise man from the dead. If Jesus died on the cross and remained in the grave
there would be no remission of sin and the world would be full of the “living
dead.”
The ultimate word that describes “resurrection” is “restoration”...the
resurrection restores life to the “living dead” and makes them alive unto God!
That is how we are to live in this world, “alive unto God through Christ living
in us and through us by His Spirit. “but God. Being rich in mercy, because of
His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our
transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been
saves) (Eph. 2:4-5).
As a side note...for you who have responded to one of my posts regarding
God loves the sinner by saying, “I used to believe that God loved the sinner but
hated the sin, but I no longer believe such nonsenses, God hates sinners.” Maybe
you should take the above verse to heart and apply it to your thinking.
The religious gospel heralders have associates the Holy spirit with the
giving of power to preach, to understand the bible, power to teach, power to
serve, while neglecting the single most important aspect of having the Holy
Spirit... THROUGH HIM WE HAVE RECEIVED THE VERY LIFE OF CHRIST, THUS THE VERY
LIFE OF GOD HIMSELF!
By only associating the Spirit's ministry with power, the emphasis is
“meism”... “God give me”, God help me”, God empower me”. And we take comfort in
the fact that the Spirit helps us but, it is still “us” doing the doings and
“us”doing the doings is not God way! Christ did not come to “help” me to do
doings for God; He came to live in me, live His life through me and do His work
through me! Christ is our enabler because He lives in us to do His work through
us. See Gal. 2:20.
If the religionists would get a hold of this truth, instead of doubling
their man-made efforts to maintain the status quo they would regain their lost
sight of God's purpose for the Community of the Redeemed and the Community of
Humanity. Their rededicating, rededicating, rededicating, recommitting,
recommitting, recommitting, repenting, repenting and repenting with nothing ever
changing is an expression of saying, God this time “I” will do it even if it
kills me!
And the thing is...it will kill them...because for a person to live the
life of a believer is impossible...ONLY CHRIST CAN LIVE IT!
He came not to get the atmosphere of earth to heaven by getting people out
of hell to heaven...No...He came to get the atmosphere of heaven to earth by
getting the atmosphere of heaven into people in the person of Himself.
And that my friend is why Christ came!
THAT IS THE GOOD NEWS GOSPEL OF GRACE!
No comments :
Post a Comment