Satan Desires to Sift You (Luke 22:31)

Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. (Luke 22:31)

Here are three conclusions people draw from these words of Jesus:
1.Satan needs permission to attack us
2.God gives Satan permission to attack us
3.God and Satan are colleagues in the business of attacking you, hallelujah!

To think that God and the devil are in cahoots is ridiculous. Believe this and you’ll believe that God is behind your illness or was complicit in the death of your child. Lose your job and you might say “God gives and takes away.” Phooey! With a God like that, who needs a devil?

So what is Jesus really saying?

Does the devil need permission?

This has nothing to do with permission. Satan is a thief. If the thief had permission he wouldn’t be a thief. Jesus is talking about Satan’s agenda. “Satan desires you in the way that sin desired Cain” (see Gen 4:7).

In other words, “Wise up. There’s a war going on. On one side is your heavenly Father who loves you; on the other is Satan who hates you.”

Now this is a very uneven war. Satan doesn’t stand a chance. In fact, he’s already been defeated and disarmed (Col 2:15). Thus the only way the enemy can win is through deceit, by getting you to believe lies about your Father and turning you against him.

If you believe a good God does evil, Satan wins. If you believe God is making you sick, perhaps to teach you character, Satan laughs. If you don’t resist the devil, because you think God has ordained whatever he is doing against you, the devil will not flee.

“Ah, but God allows the devil to do his work because it suits the Lord’s purposes.”

Which is bit like saying you allow your children to suffer. “I allowed my kid to get hit by that truck so I could show them my love.”

No, no, and a thousand times no! God is never the author of evil.

It’s very important that we don’t confuse God with the devil. God is good; Satan is not. God’s will for your life is not Satan’s will for your life. What Satan wants is not what God wants.

“But what happened to Peter is the same thing that happened to Job in the Old Testament.”

Sure, as long as you understand that God didn’t give Satan permission to afflict Job either. Satan is not God’s sheepdog.

What about sifting?

To sift like wheat means to separate. Satan wants to separate you from Jesus. He wants you to make you run from the Lover of your soul. Look at how Christ’s words appear in other translations:

Simon, stay on your toes. Satan has tried his best to separate all of you from me, like chaff from wheat. (Luke 22:31, MSG)

And this is exactly what Peter and the disciples did: They ran! They abandoned the Lord.

Then all the disciples deserted him and fled. (Matt 26:56)

What Satan desired came to pass. Like sifted chaff, the disciples separated themselves from Jesus. It was a victory for Satan – or so it seemed.

But wait…

What Satan meant for evil, God turned around for good. This is what God does – he redeems our failures and turns defeat into victory so that we might experience his unconditional love and grace (Rom 8:28).

This is the essence of what Jesus says to Simon Peter in Luke 22:31-32.

Peter, tough times are coming. I’m heading to the cross, and you guys are going to run like chickens. It will seem like the devil is getting his way. I’m telling you this in advance so that you won’t be discouraged.

Peter, you think you’re so strong with your boasts, but you’re not. You’re going to fail, and you need to know that I’m okay with failure. Indeed, my grace is greater than your failures. I’m praying for you, Pete. I’m in your corner. I will not abandon you even though you abandon me.

And after you’ve come through this, remember what I said and encourage your brothers. Maybe write an epistle telling people about the testing of your faith. Just a thought.

Don’t fall for the devil’s lies and don’t be ignorant of his schemes. He cannot win except by getting you to rely on your flesh and agree with his lies. Satan desires to sift you and separate you, so stand firm in the Lord and let nothing move you.

Tough times will come, and your strength will fail. But be of good cheer, for Jesus is cheering you on. You may have deserted the Lord but he will never desert you. No one can snatch you from his hand. Nothing can separate you from his love.

From time to time, you will fail and fall and it will seem as though the devil has won. But what he means for evil, the Lord can turn around for good. No matter how big your mess, God’s grace is greater than your worst.

- Paul Ellis

The Law is a Curse

Galatians 3:10-13: For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.” Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “The righteous man shall live by faith.” However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “He who practices them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”.

Today many Christian people seem to live in two worlds. Not only the spiritual world and the earthly world, but the Old Covenant and New Covenant world. The problem with the Old and New Covenant combination is that we already know we cannot live a perfect life and keep every law God gave. We are told that trying to following the Law is living under a curse.

The Law was given to the Jews, yet we can see that is was used as a tutor and guide to show us that on our own we cannot measure up. We cannot live a life acceptable to God and the perfection He desires in our own strength. Righteousness does not come through the Law, and if it did then Christ died needlessly. Jesus came into this world born under the Law, and He lived and taught it for the first 33 years of His life. When He died the Old Covenant came to an end because Jesus lived a perfect life and fulfilled the Old Covenant. When He rose from the grave the New Covenant began, which is a covenant of grace.

By accepting the grace He provided we can live a life pleasing to God by the power of the Holy Spirit within us. We now have fellowship with God through Christ and we are now counted as holy and righteous in His sight because of His work. The Law is no longer needed for those saved by grace. We are free because Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law. We now live under the New Covenant, one that is a free gift provided to us by Christ. We now live by Christ’s commands to love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind, and love others as ourselves.

- Jim Gordon

Spiritually Righteous

Galatians 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

We were created in the image of God. This means we were created by a perfect, loving God and we were good in the sight of God. We are made in the likeness of God, that is, three in one, spirit, soul (mind) and body.

Unfortunately evil entered the human race and we lived under the curse of the law because of the fall of man through Adam. Our spirit, soul and body were then subject to trying to earn salvation by following the law which we could not do, eventually leading to death.

Because of the fall of Adam and sin entering the world we lost the fellowship with the Father that we were intended to have. That does not mean that God stopped loving us. That does not mean that we became terrible people who were seen as nothing but sinful and incapable of doing anything good. Yet the fellowship between our loving Father and the human race was broken and needed repaired. Something we could not accomplish by good works and effort.

The answer came through Christ and the grace He provided. Because of the work of Christ we were made new creatures in Him. Our old sinful spirit was crucified and buried when he took our sins to His cross.

We now have a new righteous spirit within us and our fellowship with the Father has been restored. We still have a soul (mind) that needs renewed and an earthly body that will one day be changed into a spiritual body, yet at this moment God sees us as the righteousness of Christ who lives within us by His Spirit. The goodness and fellowship with the Father that we were originally created with is restored, not by anything we can do but because of the love of the Father for each of us.

Naturally speaking we will never be perfect on this earth, but because of the grace of Christ God sees us spiritually perfect already.

This does not mean we should do whatever we want because there are earthly consequences for our actions, but now we live for God and do what pleases Him out of love and not out of obligation. We now take up our cross daily and follow Him allowing Him to increase as we decrease.

We now have a restored fellowship with the Father that was intended from the day God created the human race. When you make a mistake it is covered. We do not have to repent each time but we can acknowledge we made a mistake and thank God for His grace that covers it.

I have found a good thing to do after allowing my mind or body to take control is to verbally or mentally confess ‘I am the righteousness of God’. Doing this will help us to remember God’s gift of grace and get us focused on our spiritual position in Christ.

- Jim Gordon

So Many Voices, So Many Views

It is amazing to me the variety of voices and views there are in the christian world vying for our attention.

Everyone has their own views and interpretations. I think we can learn something from everyone. Whether it is something new, a better way of doing things, a different way of thinking or just realizing we do not agree with what we hear and it bolsters our own faith.

The problem is that everyone has an opinion. That does not mean everyone is right or wrong. God works in each of us in different ways and what may be right for one person is not right for another.

We need to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit each day, listen for his voice and ask that He will lead us into truth. God will speak and lead us through the Spirit, through the bible and through words spoken from fellow believers. The bible says his sheep know his voice so we need to be sure we are hearing from him, yet we can be assured we can know his voice.

Our relationship with the Father is a day by day experience. What we know and understand today may be completely different from what we believed when we were younger. What we believe today will probably change in the future. God leads us into His truth in His timing as we are ready and open to it.

Our goal is to daily seek the guidance of God through the Spirit and seek His truth. To many of us want to put our focus on a man, a popular evangelist or pastor. Obviously, we can learn from listening to others views and opinions but when we focus on people we can get off track and confused very easily.

Everyone has a different opinion. You can listen to one person or group and hear what they think is the truth, then find another person or group who has a completely different take on the same subject. Putting our trust in people and their opinions often leads to fighting and arguing. Many times, when we have been shown something or led in a particular way we expect everyone to see it our way and to believe the same thing.

The only way to get past all the different views and opinions is to focus on Christ. He will teach us and lead us into the truth. That is not to say we are all going to think and feel the same way on everything. God deals with us personally and in different ways and as followers of Jesus there are many different paths we will walk throughout this life.

We need to remember that the Spirit speaks from within us, he speaks to us from the written word and he can speak to us through other people. We need to be sure we are hearing his voice and know he does not always speak the same way and does not always have the same life experiences for everyone.

It is time we become followers of Jesus and stop being followers of men. Nothing wrong with listening and hearing the views of others, but take it as that. It is their view and opinion. Only Jesus is the one to follow and to be our everything.

- Jim Gordon

A Gospel that is not The Gospel.

Glenn's sayings;

In my earthly journey as a denominated believer I have struggled with questions regarding the gospel that I was presented by christian denominations, including the one I was brought up to believe was the right one. The longer I traveled along my journey within my denominated corral the more I realized I was deceived by religion, imprisoned by religious spiritually, in bondage to man-made doctrines, clouded in my mind and blinded by religious spectacles.

For a long time I tried to make sense of the religious system I was in by giving my thinking and reasoning ability over to the denominated seminarian professionals regarding God, Jesus and the gospel. The more I tried to understand the more unanswered questions I had.

The qualities that were attributed to God, Christ and the Gospel were shaken because of the atrocity that the vast majority of people created by God  for His good pleasure were to be condemned and sentenced to suffer in the torture chamber of hell fire for eternity by God. I could not reconcile a God who is LOVE, whose LOVE never fails, failing to love the loved people He created and assign to this place of eternal torment while the sinner-prayed chosen few would be swooped up in a secret rapture to remove us from the anger and wrath of God, so He could pour it out on the non sinner-prayed people and give them a foretaste of His anger and wrath and the depth of hatred before sending them to the torture chamber of hell for eternity.

My breakthrough came when I had the courage to rethink and reason for myself...not only the hell doctrine...but everything I was taught and held as truth by the religious system and reassess my entire belief system from the ground up. I rescinded the notion that the Gospel solution to sin and violence was to call a few people to stare at the sky awaiting for it to split asunder and Jesus would appear to take the chosen few out of the way so God could stop loving people and reveal His violent deviate nature by heaping on them the wrath of His anger and hatred.

I concluded that if the Gospel I believed did not represent a God who is LOVE, graceful and merciful, if I could not reason that God is LOVE because of the dissonance being created by the clashing of what I was taught believe about God and and my own reasoning God-beliefs to bring the atmosphere of heaven to earth in the Here-and-Now instead of the When-and-Then, (when you repeat the "sinners prayer" then you are ready for heaven) it was not worth my holding onto.

My view of God and His Gospel I discovered through the lens of Jesus...His express image...who had been mutated over the years I was in religion, and was nothing like the man recorded in the Bible. God did not fail me, His love, mercy and grace did not fail me, what happened was the truth about God was buried under layers of the fear-mongering tradition of an hell fired eternity, religious man-made doctrine of Christendom that had Him encased in a cocoon of religiosity that veiled the truth as to who God is.

The Gospel of Grace is not the religious escapism gospel mentality of rewards for the sinners-prayer-repeating-prayed-saints or reprisals for the non-sinner-prayer-prayed-sinners of suffering in the torture chamber of hell's flames for eternity. The Grace Gospel speaks directly to what is wrong with the escapism-mentality gospel which is not taught in scripture. Grace invites ALL people to a new way of living and being during our earthly journey.

This is the Gospel of Love and Grace, the Gospel of Reconciliation that the people of the world need to hear.

- Glen Regular

He Is Not Dead!

This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples, after He was raised from the dead. --John 21:14

Often I talk about hearing Jesus.Indeed, every believer does hear Him and will discover that all of his clever little thoughts about Jesus were the voice of God all along. “My sheep hear My voice” is an absolute truth! We do hear Him. I enjoy being taught by God, and yet when I say that, I am sometimes looked upon as an alien. The fact is that He is not dead! He is alive, having come out of the grave, and He speaks to His people. We approach the Scriptures to find Him, to hear Him. We want the Bible to speak to us. We are not reading about His life like we would read about other teachers. We are not attempting to heed what was said by a teacher long dead and gone; Jesus is not dead! The Living Word will speak to us; we can approach Him personally. He is alive!

Stop and meditate on it if it seems doubtful that He is alive and will speak! Have you let Jesus speak to you? Have you heard from Him? There is no need merely to sing about Jesus or fancy Him in mind or emotions when He can be met and walked with. He is alive!

- Michael Wells

What Gospel do You Believe

 A writer in Charisma Magazine states:“The Law doesn’t save us, but it sanctifies us.”

What this is saying is: the grace of God brings people into a relationship with God but it’s people's keeping the do's and don'ts  that maintains that relationship and keeps people from upsetting a temperamental God who cannot look upon sin.

This is the Religious Gospel that Paul warned people not to return to “like a dog to its own vomit.”

The Gospel perspective according to the above is: We are saved by Grace but kept by the Law! They “fought the Law but the Law won” because they mixed the Law with Grace!

Let me tell you something, you put up a fight against the Law and the Law will always win!

 However, We are not called to fight the Law to make it palatable by mixing it with Grace. Jesus fought the Law but the Law did NOT “ win! Jesus fulfilled the Law by removing it as God's standard of holiness and godliness by revealing the mystery that was hidden in the Law...The Grace Gospel! The Gospel is no longer based on the Law's do's and don'ts...it is now based on what God has done through Jesus.

Through the Mixed Gospel of Grace and Law...people are brought into a relationship with God by Grace but that relationship is maintained by doing the do's and not doing the dont's of the Law. Therefore, the maintaining of people's relationship with God is based on what they do!

Through the Gospel of Grace people are brought into a relationship with God by Grace and that relationship is maintained by Grace...it is ALL based on what Christ has done and NOTHING of what man can do!

So...which Gospel do you think is the TRUE GOSPEL?

The Law Mixed with Grace Gospel...where people are saved by grace but kept by law

OR:


God's Grace Gospel...Where people are saved by grace and kept by grace!