A useful Jesus

The truth shall set you free. No wonder satan opposes the truth so much.

Most modern preaching focuses on SELF, putting man at the center, and then Jesus as the servant of man: Jesus only exists to give you success, favor, health and wealth. He’s a very useful Jesus. But, of course, this “Jesus” does not exist.

The REAL Jesus of GLORY knows when He is being used. No one can use Him for their own glory or gain. As much as they try, they can’t.

So, listening to most modern preaching (at this time of the great apostasy) will not set you free from your SELF, it only brings people more under bondage to serving themselves.

Serving self is the main bondage. We are our own worst enemy. The truth shall set us free from putting SELF at the center and using Jesus as our errand boy or butler.

Convinced

I asked a bro yesterday, when you pray for someone’s salvation what are you expecting God to do? Answer: You are expecting He will convince them of sin, righteousness and judgment: They will be convinced  they are lost, and that Jesus is the Son of God and that they need to believe and yield to Him. When you pray for someone’s salvation it means you believe that God has the power or ability to convince them of these things.

He convinced me. No one else convinced me, and i didn’t convince myself.

By the way, the word for “conviction” (Elencho in Gk) means to emphatically convince, without a shadow of a doubt.

He convinced me, and i believed, and continue to believe.

Spiritual resuscitation

Revival? Yes, we can experience spiritual revival from the dead each day, as if the Lord Jesus were giving us mouth to mouth resuscitation every morning. He keeps us alive, and renews our life, for He is our life. Paul said, we had the sentence of death in ourselves that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. (see 2 Cor. 1:9)

The only hope for mankind

Only a perfectly sinless person can enter into the presence of God in heaven. Then, no hope for any of us, UNLESS we are found believing, and found IN the perfect Man, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is our only chance, the only hope for mankind.

No Atheists or Agnostics in hell

The moment people drop into hell they start believing hell is real.

The times of the Gentiles nearly over

The times of the Gentiles coming to an end? Time for the false messiah to appear and deceive Israel and the world?

“Since last Yom Kippur, millions of Jews have begun a quest to find the Messiah. For reasons I cannot fully explain, Jews are suddenly searching for answers to the deepest and most important questions concerning life and death and God and atonement and eternity, in numbers unprecedented in history. Some are searching through the Hebrew Scriptures for answers. A stunning number are actually reading the New Testament, most for the first time. They are searching on Google for information about the Messiah.”

https://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2015/09/22/a-big-untold-story-since-last-yom-kippur-millions-of-jews-have-begun-searching-for-the-messiah-and-for-atonement-for-their-sins-the-media-isnt-reporting-this-but-its-worth-examining/

Facing extinction

“Genuine” and “sincere” : Will these concepts become totally extinct in Christendom in the last days? It’s getting that way.

Cross bearing

Bearing your cross and following Jesus: How do you know if you’re not bearing your cross? How do you know if you’ve cast away your cross? It’s when you do the very same things He was crucified for. He was crucified for our sins.

God’s own morals

God engraved the Ten Commandments in stone. The stone speaks of:

* Something permanent, unchanging. Timeless. Won’t decay, or be blown away by the winds of change.

* Stone, however, can be easily broken if cast down.

* Impossible to edit or alter the text without destroying it.

* Only the moral law was written in stone, not the ritualistic law.

* The heart of unregenerate man is likened to a stone:

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

“But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)

God first wrote His moral law in stone as the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Gal. 3:24-25) then whoever believes on Christ gets a new heart, with the moral law engraved deep within.

You are no longer UNDER the law when the law is written in your heart. There’s a change of position, from under, if it is above you, to within you. If we did not have a new heart we would still be under the law. You then fulfill the moral law if both the Holy Spirit and the moral law is in your heart, and you can never separate the two.

“Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.” (Romans 3:31)

The heart of stone, under the law, could never fulfill the law.

The new heart of flesh, the new creation in Christ, by the Spirit can only fulfill the moral law, and does.

And this new creation, this new heart of flesh has the moral law written inside.

Therefore, those who have a problem with, or want to change any moral command of the New Covenant reveal that perhaps these commands are not written in their hearts.

Also consider:

“Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” (Acts 15:10)

This refers to the problem of trying to force the Jewish law upon Gentiles. The ritualistic law is described as an unbearable burden.

So, we have two streams of error: people either return under the ritualistic law, or they think they are justified bcos they think they keep the moral law, OR, they are false believers who don’t have the true Holy Spirit, or true conversion, and the moral law is not written in their hearts, so they don’t love the truth, and their morality becomes pragmatic, circumstantial or opportunistic: as it suits them.

God’s own morals

When it comes to the moral law we need to acknowledge they are God’s own morals.

It’s not some arbitrary, shifting human morality, it’s God’s own morals, reflecting the heart of God: what He likes, what He hates. You don’t lie bcos God hates lying, it goes against everything that He is, and so forth. Whatever morality is spelled out in the New Covenant, that is the morality acceptable to God, for it is God’s morality, and anything contrary to His nature He hates.

The New Covenant being written in our hearts means our heart agrees with the heart of God: we love what He loves, and hate what He hates, from the bottom of our heart.

The “other” teachings of Jesus?

Regarding this text:

“This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.” (John 21:24-25)

Apostates use this verse to try and prove that there are many other teachings or truths of Jesus, or  things concerning Jesus,  which are not recorded in Scripture.

BUT that is not what this verse says. It says  there are many other THINGS which Jesus DID,  …..NOT many other teachings or commands of Jesus.

For example:

“But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all” (Matthew 12:15)

“And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.” (Luke 6:19)

He healed them ALL! This means Jesus did thousands of healings, and yet only a few are specifically described in the Gospels.

So, here are your “volumes of books which could be written”: untold thousands of healings and miracles, and acts of kindness, and yet no secret, esoteric, hidden teachings of Jesus. That would be way off the mark, and out of the ballpark.

Whenever people can’t accept the Canon of Scripture, and say it “limits their relationship to Jesus”, what they really mean is that they are trying to justify a lifestyle of which they find certain truths in Scripture cramp it, or limit it. People search for esoteric truth cos they can’t swallow the plain truth. If a person can’t swallow the truth, and doesn’t want to obey what they read in the Bible, they can comfort themselves with the thought that there are probably many other secret teachings of Jesus which affirm their hypocritical life.

So, where are these “other” teachings of Jesus?  Or, were they lost  –  God wasn’t able to preserve them?  A false comfort and a delusional hope.

A reason to fear

“And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last…” (Revelation 1:17)

What kind of man was John? I mean, when he saw the glorified Lord he fell at His feet as a dead man with fear. We know he was afraid bcos Jesus reassures him and says, Don’t be afraid! So, this paralyzing fear which John experienced at seeing Jesus, was this bcos there was something wrong with John? Absolutely not.

At that point in time John was still in his natural, earthly body of flesh, he had not yet undergone the change and received his glorious, resurrection spiritual body, promised to all disciples when they die.

John was not a hypocrite. He was not living a double life. When Jesus meets him He has no word of rebuke or correction for John, but plenty of rebuke for others.

And yet, John is paralyzed with fear.

So, just imagine the terrible fear if a backslider or hypocrite sees Jesus in all His glory, as John saw Him on Patmos?

Consider:

“Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:”  (I Peter 1:13-19)

True and false unity

True unity is to hold hands with the saints, false unity to hold hands with devils pretending to be saints.

False teachers are attractive to false Christians

And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. (II Peter 2:3)

For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. (II Peter 2:18)

They allure by covetousness: They are covetous, and covetous people are attracted by their covetousness, or sensuality.

The sin of the false teacher is the very thing which makes them attractive to the false Christian.

If you love money, or are looking for a loophole to justify your sin, then you will find exactly the “right” teacher for you, who is just like you.

Two ways to fall away

Only one way to be saved, but two ways to fall away:

The NT plainly spells out two ways a believer can fall away, or become disqualified from the grace of God:

a) Falling back into immorality and not repenting (Heb. 3:12-19, 12:15-16, 2 Peter 2:20-21)

b) Returning back under the law to be justified (Romans 4:3-8, Galatians)

Consider also:

“That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
(2 Thessalonians 2:12)

This means if a “Christian” has pleasure in unrighteousness, they don’t believe the truth, they don’t have genuine saving faith in Jesus Christ.

A transparent televangelist?

Why don’t TV preachers do a special program where they take you inside their mansions and private jets and disclose exactly how much money they are making, and what they spend your money on? Why don’t they take you thru their wardrobe, and shoe collection, or show their collection of luxury cars?

It’s bcos they know very well what they are doing is corrupt, and their “success” depends entirely on keeping people ignorant of what they are doing. Sadly, there are enough ignorant Christians to keep funding their opulent lifestyles, bcos they mistakenly  think that in doing so they will become like them.

Given over to a stupid mind

Carson said a Muslim should never be President. The same as Saudi Arabia saying a Christian should never be their ruler, or the Iranians saying a Jew should never be their ruler. Why is it a one way street, where the west is forced to accept Islam, but the Middle East doesn’t have to accept Christianity or Judaism? We are talking about a post-Christian society being given up and given over by God to a stupid mind.

A Facebook “discussion”

A Facebook “discussion” :

Ian wrote: “If the truth were not in writing, and you only had the Holy Spirit to determine the truth, then you could be easily be deceived by satan, when he comes to you pretending to be God, counterfeiting the Holy Spirit.”

Jim comments: “Once again, I will challenge you here Ian: what place did Jesus or his immediate followers describe this arrangement for the New Covenant?”

Ian wrote: “What you are suggesting is that the commands and teaching of Jesus and the Apostles in Scripture are meaningless. Such a suggestion is so idiotic we would be lowering ourselves to get sucked into your circular reasoning.”

Someone else comments: “Please tell me where Jim or anyone else here said that the apostolic scriptures are meaningless?”

Ian wrote: “Jim’s question to me is based on the assumption that there are no commands of Jesus and the Apostles recorded for us today. Bcos, if one acknowledges that their commands are written down, then his question is meaningless.

If what Jesus and the Apostles said is accurately recorded in Scripture (which it is) then these are their words, and their words are the objective standard and test of truth, and the Holy Spirit confirms their words in our heart, for the New Covenant is Him writing these same words in our hearts.

If this is not true for a person, then by this definition it proves they are not right with God, for they are not in the New Covenant. When a person has Scripture written in their heart they never have a problem with any moral command of the NT. We may resist it, but we know it is true.”

Spanner in the works

If your heart is wrong, that brilliant mind becomes totally useless.

One act of mercy

Whenever God extends mercy to us, that singular act of mercy, alone, is deeper than the deepest ocean, and greater than all the universe combined, and the cause of unceasing thanksgiving.

Holy offspring

The Father is holy, therefore His offspring are holy: the children He fathers are holy: born of the Holy Spirit.