Many people in the Commuity of the Redeemed have become bound within the
limitations of denominational man-made doctrines and imprisoned within the shell
of traditional ideologies and religious concepts until they are locked into a
pattern of thought and life, thinking they have reached a fullness of stature in
Christ. When in reality all they are full of is denominational pride and
traditional arrogance!
The life that has been hidden in the
believer behind the walls of ecclesiastical religion has to break out and and
allow the Christ life within to come into a new life where there is resurrection
life flowing through the Community of the Redeemed and benefit the Community of
Humanity.
Believers need to stand up and move forward in the
power of grace and love, allowing resurrection life of Christ to flow. We need
to allow the the Spirit to project Christ through us until the across-our-path
people are catching a true vision of "WHO" God is and what it means to be a
follower of Christ and not religion.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
The Danger of Rejecting Conscience
God was very wise when he created the world and human persons. He gave humanity
the faculty of conscience, so that we could have direction and guidance within
our very selves as to how we ought to act. Our conscience tells us when
something we are considering (or perhaps have already done) is bad; on the other
hand, it also prompts us to do things which are good, which nevertheless may be
difficult in some way or another. In any case, it is essential to a healthy
human life lived according to the design plan of God that human beings follow
conscience.
What a danger, then, when a person ignores conscience! It is worse still if a person should turn off their conscience, shutting its voice for good. At that point, the final power for good that God has put in a person is gone, and there is no more restraining the expression of the evil within. You may listen to other persons' advice and moral remonstrances, but only if you have a conscience yourself. If you lose your conscience, and in this way lose any connection or understanding with those who would advise you to act differently, you will have no reason to follow them. There will be no more impulse for good working within you, but only the impulse for evil.
If you manage to do this, you are certain to destroy your faith. A person cannot go on believing in God if he lives as if there are no reasonable and authoritative boundaries on his behavior. Plotinus once said that without virtue, God is merely a word. That is exactly right, and Paul shares the same sentiment here when he writes to Timothy. Those who ignore their conscience -- which is God's voice within them, telling them that they ought to live differently -- have cut themselves off from God and from his truth. What faith is left for them? What can they believe in, who reject God's voice and his commands?
On the other hand, it is the testimony of not a few persons that, during the process of becoming Christians, they experienced a reactivation of their consciences. Once more, for the first time in a long while if not ever, they felt that the lives they had been living were wrong. They heard the voice within them telling them that what they do is not right, that they are guilty of sin.
In these ways, we can see that conscience is a tool of which God makes use to bring human beings to salvation. It is vitally important to hear its voice, to heed its directions and guidance.
We can go about this a different way, too. For myself, I find it preferable to live a life with as few troubles and worries as possible. That is simply the way I enjoy to go through my days -- not worrying so much. Why should I pile on to all the other troubles which life inevitably brings, this particular trouble of my own making -- that of disobeying my conscience and incurring the sentiments of shame and guilt which follow thereupon? Why shouldn't I save myself from a trouble that depends entirely on me and no one else?
What a danger, then, when a person ignores conscience! It is worse still if a person should turn off their conscience, shutting its voice for good. At that point, the final power for good that God has put in a person is gone, and there is no more restraining the expression of the evil within. You may listen to other persons' advice and moral remonstrances, but only if you have a conscience yourself. If you lose your conscience, and in this way lose any connection or understanding with those who would advise you to act differently, you will have no reason to follow them. There will be no more impulse for good working within you, but only the impulse for evil.
If you manage to do this, you are certain to destroy your faith. A person cannot go on believing in God if he lives as if there are no reasonable and authoritative boundaries on his behavior. Plotinus once said that without virtue, God is merely a word. That is exactly right, and Paul shares the same sentiment here when he writes to Timothy. Those who ignore their conscience -- which is God's voice within them, telling them that they ought to live differently -- have cut themselves off from God and from his truth. What faith is left for them? What can they believe in, who reject God's voice and his commands?
On the other hand, it is the testimony of not a few persons that, during the process of becoming Christians, they experienced a reactivation of their consciences. Once more, for the first time in a long while if not ever, they felt that the lives they had been living were wrong. They heard the voice within them telling them that what they do is not right, that they are guilty of sin.
In these ways, we can see that conscience is a tool of which God makes use to bring human beings to salvation. It is vitally important to hear its voice, to heed its directions and guidance.
We can go about this a different way, too. For myself, I find it preferable to live a life with as few troubles and worries as possible. That is simply the way I enjoy to go through my days -- not worrying so much. Why should I pile on to all the other troubles which life inevitably brings, this particular trouble of my own making -- that of disobeying my conscience and incurring the sentiments of shame and guilt which follow thereupon? Why shouldn't I save myself from a trouble that depends entirely on me and no one else?
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Victorious Through the Storm
Many of you have had some devastating circumstances last year that had you
feeling like your heart was being ripped out of your chest.
The storm sank your hope-ship and also threatened to sink the lifeboat that you depended on for survival? The wind, the waves of adversity, the surges of heartbreak rolled, one after another. How did you survive? How did you pull through when you were at weakest point?
Because, in the middle of your storm, you heard a still small voice telling you that God provides sufficient grace for this trial, and though you are weak He is always very strong.
"Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me... For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Well, here you are...present and accounted for, you made it through the storm. The hard times, the unhealthy times and the hurting times revealed your weaknesses, however, also during those times you experienced the strength and faithfulness of God.
We often treat suffering like the plague. Anytime anything painful comes at us, we want to avoid it. We spend our whole lives trying to avoid anything that will hurt us or be hard on us. But there's a better kind of life...a deeper, more fulfilling kind of life...that isn't about avoiding every pain. It's about finding God faithful and powerful in the midst of whatever pain you go through. and experience the presence of God riding through the storm with you.
If we never had a problem, we would never know that God could solve them.”
Let your hope and trust in God elevate you to victory and learn the lesson He may want you to learn as you go through the storm victorious.
The storm sank your hope-ship and also threatened to sink the lifeboat that you depended on for survival? The wind, the waves of adversity, the surges of heartbreak rolled, one after another. How did you survive? How did you pull through when you were at weakest point?
Because, in the middle of your storm, you heard a still small voice telling you that God provides sufficient grace for this trial, and though you are weak He is always very strong.
"Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me... For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Well, here you are...present and accounted for, you made it through the storm. The hard times, the unhealthy times and the hurting times revealed your weaknesses, however, also during those times you experienced the strength and faithfulness of God.
We often treat suffering like the plague. Anytime anything painful comes at us, we want to avoid it. We spend our whole lives trying to avoid anything that will hurt us or be hard on us. But there's a better kind of life...a deeper, more fulfilling kind of life...that isn't about avoiding every pain. It's about finding God faithful and powerful in the midst of whatever pain you go through. and experience the presence of God riding through the storm with you.
If we never had a problem, we would never know that God could solve them.”
Let your hope and trust in God elevate you to victory and learn the lesson He may want you to learn as you go through the storm victorious.
Some People Enter the Grace Gate but then.......
"As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him...
beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the
tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in
Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are complete in
Him..." (Colossians 2:6,8,9)
The Believer’s life is a life that is lived IN CHRIST. That is to say, to allow HIM is to live HIS life through you is to live life as a Believer. The Gospel of Grace is not a works oriented...it is relationship oriented. A Believer is a branch that grows out of the Vine (Jesus) and continually produces abundant fruit for the Husbandman. The true “Church” is a living organism, an observable reality, not man-made philosophies or set of teachings.
It is by Grace we received the Lord Jesus, It is by Grace continue to walk in relationship with the Lord Jesus. Receiving Christ is through the Grace Gate, and walking in Him is the Grace Path. A true Believer enters by the Grace Gate and walks the Grace Path. The Grace Path is not paved with man’s doings, it is paved with God’s doneness. Trying to mix man’s doings with God’s doneness implies dumbness, because it can’t be done and maintain the true Gospel.
Everything God has done, is doing, and will do is aimed at bringing us deeper into the fullness Christ. God is the One Who brings us through the Grace Gate, and God is the One Who leads us along the Grace Path. Everything God has done, is doing, and will do has the same purpose, and recognizing that purpose explains everything you have been through, everything you are going through, and everything you will go through.
Jesus is the One through Whom all things in God are initiated, and Jesus is the One through Whom all things of God find their purpose, their meaning, and their reason for being. Everything begins in Christ, everything proceeds in Christ, and everything ends in Christ. He is the Beginning, the In-Between as well as the End. Man did not do anything, cannot do anything and will not do anything to improve on God’s way!
Real spiritual growth and Grace living occurs when we realize that God has only one goal for us, and that is, the full, mature, complete, and experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ to where we allow Him to do His work through us as He works with us as the Community of the Redeemed to affect the Community of Humanity with kingdom reality. For that to be realized will depend on the extent that we remove our focus from “man-made-religion” with all its "religiosity" and focus wholly on Christ and His working through us.
The Believer’s life is a life that is lived IN CHRIST. That is to say, to allow HIM is to live HIS life through you is to live life as a Believer. The Gospel of Grace is not a works oriented...it is relationship oriented. A Believer is a branch that grows out of the Vine (Jesus) and continually produces abundant fruit for the Husbandman. The true “Church” is a living organism, an observable reality, not man-made philosophies or set of teachings.
It is by Grace we received the Lord Jesus, It is by Grace continue to walk in relationship with the Lord Jesus. Receiving Christ is through the Grace Gate, and walking in Him is the Grace Path. A true Believer enters by the Grace Gate and walks the Grace Path. The Grace Path is not paved with man’s doings, it is paved with God’s doneness. Trying to mix man’s doings with God’s doneness implies dumbness, because it can’t be done and maintain the true Gospel.
Everything God has done, is doing, and will do is aimed at bringing us deeper into the fullness Christ. God is the One Who brings us through the Grace Gate, and God is the One Who leads us along the Grace Path. Everything God has done, is doing, and will do has the same purpose, and recognizing that purpose explains everything you have been through, everything you are going through, and everything you will go through.
Jesus is the One through Whom all things in God are initiated, and Jesus is the One through Whom all things of God find their purpose, their meaning, and their reason for being. Everything begins in Christ, everything proceeds in Christ, and everything ends in Christ. He is the Beginning, the In-Between as well as the End. Man did not do anything, cannot do anything and will not do anything to improve on God’s way!
Real spiritual growth and Grace living occurs when we realize that God has only one goal for us, and that is, the full, mature, complete, and experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ to where we allow Him to do His work through us as He works with us as the Community of the Redeemed to affect the Community of Humanity with kingdom reality. For that to be realized will depend on the extent that we remove our focus from “man-made-religion” with all its "religiosity" and focus wholly on Christ and His working through us.
On Waiting Patiently
Waiting. For an imperfect and impatient
person like me, it is one of the most difficult things to do—to wait with hope
and patience and faith. In these few words, though, Charles Spurgeon looks to
Psalm 62:1 (“For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my
salvation.”) and provides encouragement.
Blessed posture! Waiting truly and only upon the Lord. Be this our condition all this day and every day. Waiting His leisure, waiting in His service, waiting in joyful expectation, waiting in prayer, and content. When the very soul thus waits, it is in the best and truest condition of a creature before his Creator, a servant before his Master, a child before his Father. We allow no dictation to God, nor complaining of Him; we will permit no petulance and no distrust. At the same time, we practice no running before the cloud and no seeking to others for aid: neither of these would be waiting upon God. God, and God alone, is the expectation of our hearts.
Blessed assurance! From Him salvation is coming; it is on the road. It will come from Him and from no one else. He shall have all the glory of it, for He alone can and will perform it. And He will perform it most surely in His own time and manner. He will save from doubt, and suffering, and slander, and distress. Though we see no sign of it as yet, we are satisfied to bide the Lord’s will, for we have no suspicion of His love and faithfulness. He will make sure work of it before long, and we will praise Him at once for the coming mercy.
Friday, January 9, 2015
Self Hatred
Life is full of deception and deceivers. We like to
say, “fool me once…shame on you, fool me twice…shame on me.” And with things we
can physically “see,” it is more difficult for someone to fool us
twice.
However, we also live in a spiritual world where our
enemy, known as the Deceiver, finds it easier to fool us more than once because
we can’t see things as easily as we can in the physical world. Michael gives us
great insight into something that brings much defeat in the lives of many
Christians…and a beautiful way to begin to get on the road to
victory.
Self-hatred
For from Him and through Him and to Him are all
things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen. --Romans
11:36
Is it really self-hatred? Do I really hate myself?
No, self is still worshipped through self-hatred. I merely
hate the hatred. Self is still the focus and remains alive and
well. "I hate myself because I cannot be more Christian and overcome
sin." Really? Actually, you love self and are upset that the king of your
kingdom is not doing better. Who said self could do better? You are
only discouraged in your pride in self. You thought that it could do so
much and was going so well, but now it has failed you. You do not really
hate self; you hate that self is not stronger. If you hated self,
you would accept the death sentence on it, see the thing that you thought was
taking you out as actually bringing you in, and boast in your weakness.
Because of so great a sacrifice as what Jesus made on the cross, regret is a
luxury that a believer does not have. When he has sinned, he can call on the
marred Jesus for cleansing and forgiveness, for to continue to wallow in
shame and self-loathing is simply pride. Admit where you are to
leave where you are. Admit your love of self, that you want it to do better, and
that you want glory. At that point you can have a move from God. As
He lives Life through you, His peace will fill your days.
As I was reading what Michael wrote, I began to think
of how often I have made a comment like, “I hate it that I can’t do …” Or, “I
hate it that I am so …” Sad thing is that all my “hatred” of those things has
not led to a change (victory) over any of them. But with Michael’s counsel, I
can see the light at the end of the tunnel!
“Self-hatred” has gotten the best of many a
Christian…particularly when focusing on being a “better” Christian, or not
overcoming sin, or not doing more (for God), etc. To discover that what we
think is “self-hatred” is really not self-hatred, that we merely hate the hatred
(and, not self), and that self is still our focus and remains alive and
well…WOW!...that brings LIFE (Christ’s life, Truth) to the surface. Now I can
SEE what is really my problem, what needs to be dealt with, and how to start
dealing with it! Amen!
So, Self and Stinking Pride need to be dealt with.
Acknowledging “where I am” is a huge acknowledgement (grounded in humility) that
enables me to begin to leave where I have been BY THE GRACE OF GOD. I have
moved to a place where Christ can live His life through me…and His peace will
fill my days. Hallelujah!
- Mike Wells
Monday, January 5, 2015
Did Jesus Teach Self Mutilation
“If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is
better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be
thrown into Gehenna, And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and
throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your
whole body to go into hell.” (Mat 5:29-30)
The question is, was Jesus speaking figuratively? Jesus did love using metaphors when describing spiritual truths. “It’s like a mustard seed”...“it’s like a treasure buried in field”...“its like a pearl of great price.”
Is Jesus using another metaphor when He tells us to gouge out our eyes and chop off our hands. Jesus is using strong words to reveal something about the seriousness of sin but, He’s not teaching self-mutilation, He's teaching "self-denial" says the preacher.
It is common for preachers to sometimes exaggerate to make a point. However, Jesus always meant what He said and said what He meant. He is Truth personified and He never stretched the truth. Yes Jesus spoke in parables so as to conceal truth, not to stretch the truth (Mat 13:13). In any case, the passage above is not part of a parable. The context is the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus has just been teaching about anger and lust. His teaching is plain and clear because the issues are serious and damaging. There is nothing metaphorical in His presentation.
Another flaw with the metaphorical interpretation is that it suggests we can do the do’s and not do the don’ts to maintain our salvation. Maybe we don’t have to self-amputate, but we can do things like confess, tithe, read the Bible, pray, abstain, renounce etc... There may be nothing wrong with these things; however, the error is in thinking we can gain or maintain our salvation by doing them.
Another question is, was Jesus speaking literally? Most people think Jesus was speaking figuratively because they cannot conceive for a second that He meant what He said literally. But what if He did mean it literally? Does that mean He actually wants us to gouge out our eye? I seriously doubt it! We are sanctified by the blood of the Lamb, not by losing a eye or a severed limb (Heb 10:29). Self-mutilation does nothing to deal with sin because sin is more of a heart thing than a action thing (Mat 5:28). Besides, if you gouge out an eye or chop off an hand you’re still left with another. You can sin with them!
So why would Jesus teach us about doing something He doesn’t really want us to do in the first place? So people will realize the absurdity of trying to impress God by the keeping of the Law and the do’s and don’ts of self-righteousness.
He is teaching the crux of the law not so that we will try to keep its do's and don'ts, He is teaching it so that we will give up pretending who we are and stop trusting in our ability and performance to maintain our relationship with Him or with people.
- Glenn Regular
The question is, was Jesus speaking figuratively? Jesus did love using metaphors when describing spiritual truths. “It’s like a mustard seed”...“it’s like a treasure buried in field”...“its like a pearl of great price.”
Is Jesus using another metaphor when He tells us to gouge out our eyes and chop off our hands. Jesus is using strong words to reveal something about the seriousness of sin but, He’s not teaching self-mutilation, He's teaching "self-denial" says the preacher.
It is common for preachers to sometimes exaggerate to make a point. However, Jesus always meant what He said and said what He meant. He is Truth personified and He never stretched the truth. Yes Jesus spoke in parables so as to conceal truth, not to stretch the truth (Mat 13:13). In any case, the passage above is not part of a parable. The context is the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus has just been teaching about anger and lust. His teaching is plain and clear because the issues are serious and damaging. There is nothing metaphorical in His presentation.
Another flaw with the metaphorical interpretation is that it suggests we can do the do’s and not do the don’ts to maintain our salvation. Maybe we don’t have to self-amputate, but we can do things like confess, tithe, read the Bible, pray, abstain, renounce etc... There may be nothing wrong with these things; however, the error is in thinking we can gain or maintain our salvation by doing them.
Another question is, was Jesus speaking literally? Most people think Jesus was speaking figuratively because they cannot conceive for a second that He meant what He said literally. But what if He did mean it literally? Does that mean He actually wants us to gouge out our eye? I seriously doubt it! We are sanctified by the blood of the Lamb, not by losing a eye or a severed limb (Heb 10:29). Self-mutilation does nothing to deal with sin because sin is more of a heart thing than a action thing (Mat 5:28). Besides, if you gouge out an eye or chop off an hand you’re still left with another. You can sin with them!
So why would Jesus teach us about doing something He doesn’t really want us to do in the first place? So people will realize the absurdity of trying to impress God by the keeping of the Law and the do’s and don’ts of self-righteousness.
He is teaching the crux of the law not so that we will try to keep its do's and don'ts, He is teaching it so that we will give up pretending who we are and stop trusting in our ability and performance to maintain our relationship with Him or with people.
- Glenn Regular
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