Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Human Nature

As I have gotten closer to God and learned more about God and His truth, I couldn’t help but learn about myself and human nature at the same time. What I have realized is; everyone believes what they want to believe. Whether a person calls themselves a Christian or not, they will only believe what they want to believe. If a person wants to stay in the condition they are currently in and wants to justify their current condition, then they will only believe in ideas and theories that go along with their current condition. But if a person is not happy with their current condition and believes that there is hope and a remedy for change, it is then that they will search out and believe in something new.

People restrict their belief and faith in God for many reasons. The biggest restriction to believing in God’s truth is that people don’t want to change. Some other reasons people will not accept God’s truths are concerns over their loved ones. A person’s loved ones usually include sons, daughters, parents, other family members, and usually certain friends. For the ones that have passed away, people want to believe their loved ones are in heaven even though they were not totally committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. They realize that the ones passed on were not living a Christ like life, but they saw some good in them, so they want to believe that God is gracious enough to let them into heaven. They are believing a lie, but this lie comforts them so they refuse to believe in God’s truth which states the opposite. Parents want to believe that their children are going to heaven, even though their children are living for worldly things and selfish gratification. To believe this lie gives a parent comfort, but it is still not God’s truth. It is only believing and living God’s truth that will bring a person into God’s eternity. We also want to believe that our friends will go to heaven because we see some good in them. It is not the man with some good in him that will enter heaven; it is the man that has all the goodness of Christ in his heart that will enter heaven. A man that lives on the street and is starving for food will find some good in a garbage can, but God does not allow garbage in His heaven.

Recently I experienced a “Christian” man with these worldly beliefs. He has been going to a holiness church for many years and I know the pastor there does not preach the lie this man believes. How could this man sit in the church pews for so many years and believe the opposite of what the pastor there is preaching. It is because this man (like most people) only will hear and accept what he wants to believe. His ears and mind have been closed to God’s truth. I have knowledge of this man’s beliefs because of the following conversation this man and I had. He told me that his friends he has worked with for many years are not Christians, but in his opinion, they live mostly by Christian values. He said he saw some goodness in these friends and believes that they would not be rejected by God, but would be allowed to go into heaven when they die. This man is living a lie, but he believes what he wants to believe.

What do you want to believe? Do you want to believe that God is all powerful and can change you into a pure and blameless person, or do you want to believe that God will accept you as His son (as is) and that you will inherit eternal life with Him, even though you still desire some of the sinful trash in your life. I have found that you can almost always find some goodness in a person, but when a person’s soul gets on one side of the scales and Christ get on the other side of the scales, how do you think a person can measure up to Christ. The only way we can have the scales balance against Christ’s love is if we have Christ also in us.

With God’s love,
Mike

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Two God's

As I look back on my life and look at other people’s lives and beliefs, I see that there seems to be two gods. There is one God that represents the fullness of His Word and another god that is a lighter version of God, kind of like a “god light”. God light is a god for our day; he is not as burdensome, intrusive, or restrictive on our busy lifestyle as the full version of God. He is truly a more up to date god that we can adapt into our life and the world we live in. God light doesn’t have the weight of all the words of the bible, just a subset of God’s truth. With god light, people of god no longer have to carry all of God’s word around in their hearts, but only the ones that seem to work for them. This is a god that is small enough to fit in your pocket, on a key chain, or even on a cross that hangs around your neck. He is also a god that can be put down for awhile, you know, when you need to carry around other things instead. God light is a perfect fit for our modern age. Also, god light is politically correct. He doesn’t put down or condemn anyone that is gay, an adulterer, or anyone that is sexually active out of marriage. He doesn’t require us to love others either. We can keep taking care of “number one”. There is more flexibility in god light’s eyes because everyone is accepted and loved the way they are. After all god light created us with these sinful tendencies toward these things, so they must be OK with him. Since Christ paid for the sins of the whole world, then what ever we do is covered by the blood of the Lamb, right. So god light’s view on this is that we are all sinners and we will always be sinners. With this modern god, we no longer have the requirement that was required under the full version of God, which was to have all sin conquered in our life. Now people that follow god light only have to try not to sin, but when they keep on sinning against God, it’s OK, because after all, no one really needs to become perfect like Christ anymore. This is considered an outdated and unrealistic requirement for the age we live in.

Becoming perfect as God is perfect is not realistic thinking for most Christians today. God (the full version) requires a person to give up all of them self to become perfect, but this is just too much to ask. If people were to give up all of themselves, they would not be themselves anymore and then who would they become. People today want to keep their individuality, and make their own mark in history. Most people are happy with god light instead of the fullness of God in their lives. People don’t want an all powerful God. They aren’t looking for a God that has no limitations and that can conquer every sin in their life. To take every sinful thing away from them is too costly, so god light is a good compromise. God light is a limited god, he doesn’t try to take your sinful nature away from you, but he does try to comfort you from the consequences of the sin. So for most people, god light has become a perfect fit for our society. It is like god light is always there to help us along our journey in this world.

I have also noticed that there must be two heavens (two different eternal life places). There must be one heaven for the people that believe in the full version of God and then another heaven for the people that follow god light. You see, God requires everyone that enters His heaven to make themselves pure, blameless, and without sin by the power of His love, but god light will let anyone into his heaven that has been forgiven by the Lamb. With god light, it doesn’t matter if you still have a sinful nature and are still sinning, just that you know you are forgiven. God’s heaven is without any sinful thing, but god light’s heaven will be filled with sinful things since sinful souls are let into it.

I want to tell you, I have had experience with this “god light” when I was younger. The relationship between god light and I worked out for awhile. He was helping me get my desires met. He blessed me with money, so that I could buy most of the things I thought I needed. I gave my life to god light and was working and reaching out for every worldly pleasure he would give me, but something was still missing. I couldn’t seem to find true contentment. I wanted to have a deeper relationship with god light, but he seemed so allusive. God light didn’t seem to want a relationship with me; he just kept pulling me closer to him, but I never felt any closer, just more abandonment. So I started reading more of the words he had told me before. God light had told me some of God’s word, but only bits and pieces. After searching and studying God’s word, I realized it was not god light I needed, but the real true God, the full version God. I realize now that god light never told me the full word of God, because he knew I would find a true love relationship with God within God’s word. He knew I would turn from him to have the true love of God living inside me. For me, there is only one God that matters. I’m so glad I read and believed the full version of God’s word instead of just keeping with the lighter version.

Christ's Reign

I know God’s Kingdom and His Spiritual reign has already been here for more then a thousand years, but many don’t accept a Spiritual reign of Christ, they are looking forward to Christ physically reigning on earth. This is what the Jewish nation was waiting for when Christ came to them before, but they rejected Christ because it was not the Christ they were looking for. To this day they are still looking for Christ to come and reign physically on earth like King David did, but Christ’s physical kingdom would not be limited to a section of the world, but would be a reign over the whole world.

For this discussion I will pretend to believe that Christ’s physical Kingdom and reign is yet to come. Where there will be peace and joy around the world. A kingdom where everyone will love one another. Where there is no more selfishness, hurt, sorrow, and pain. Where everyone would be living by the light of God and fully submitting to the Lordship of Christ. Sounds good and I admit that this would be heavenly.

There is one big problem with most (not all) of the people that believe this, and that is they are unwilling to submit to the Lordship of Christ in their lives right now. Do they think that somehow their selfishness will just evaporate to nothing when He returns or even when they get a new spiritual imperishable body? Where the problem comes in, is that our selfishness is part of our soul, not our fleshly body. What we love makes up what and who we are. Whether we are selfish or unselfish is a big part of who we are. Our love for self or our love for God is our spiritual nature. It is not part of the fleshly body that dies. It lives on in our soul that passes on to eternity.

So for all the people that are looking forward to this utopia of God’s physical reign, where do they fit into this new beautiful physical kingdom of Christ? If any of them are unwilling to have Christ be the Lord of their life now, what makes them think that they would want Christ to be their Lord in this new physical kingdom? Let’s say that Christ forgives their sinful ways and has covered their sinful behavior by the cross and that living a pure and righteous life is not required to enter this new physical kingdom – then what. What happens when someone still has their selfishness and sinful nature in this new and sinless kingdom? Is Christ going to throw them into jail? What happens when some of the nations of the earth don’t want to follow and obey the Kingship of Christ? What will Christ do? Will He go to war and upset this pure peaceful heavenly environment? Will Christ just send them all to hell with a Word? Is this the perfect kingdom that people are expecting? As soon as Christ would accept anyone into His Kingdom that still has their selfish sinful nature, then it would be at that point that it would stop being a heavenly place. That one bad apple would ruin the whole bushel.

We need to see that there is no place in God’s Kingdom for selfishness. Selfishness doesn’t have any place in His Kingdom and since what we love (ourselves or God) is the very essence of who we are and is the very essence of the person we are, we have to understand that if we have not died to our selfishness, then we have no place in God’s Kingdom. This is true whether you believe in a spiritual kingdom or a future physical kingdom.

Since God’s Word says His Kingdom has come to earth and is in the hearts of men, then let us bring God back into this world by killing our selfishness and live by God’s love. Let us show the people of the world that God’s love reigns over evil. Let us show people that they can be in God’s Kingdom today.