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
Showing posts with label human reasoning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human reasoning. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
A Prophet's Note
Eph 4:11-16 - And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head — Christ — from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
In today’s world of human understanding and reasoning, we accept people with some Godly gifts, but not people with gifts from God that go against our own human reasoning, understanding, and logic. How many people today would accept an apostle or a prophet of God? People will gladly accept any apostle or prophet if they proclaim what we already believe as truth. But what if God has sent these apostles or prophets to His people to bring back the truth and get rid of all the deceptions that are laced within the beliefs that people believe as truth? In this age, are people only willing to believe what they want to believe and only willing to hear what they want to hear? God calls to come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God so we can become the perfect man – where we measure up to the fullness of Christ. How can we become Christ like when we currently believe in the deceptions of the devil? The current gospels taught in most churches today are made up of half truths and half lies. Let us turn from these lies and find the real truth again.
How the truth has been changed since the first churches (during the Apostles time) is by our selfishness listening to the devil and changing the definitions of the terms in Word of God. We have grouped all these terms together where in God’s Spiritual reality they all have different meanings. Today all the following words mean almost the same thing to our churches today: saved, born again, life in Christ, born of God, son of God, Christ like, justified, sanctified, having eternal life, disciple, salvation, inheriting eternal life, relationship with Christ, in Christ, etc… Why do we believe that all these terms have close to the same meaning – because we want to believe it. The selfish human nature wants it all and it wants it all from the start. We don’t want to think that we have to be holy like God. We don’t want to think we have to give up all our sinful ways. We want have our cake and be able to eat it too.
Well I want to tell you – I have been sent by God and have been given the gift of the truth (the one and only truth of God) – and the truth that most of the churches are proclaiming is not the truth. That is why the church is in such a hypocritical state. Our churches for the most part belong to the devil and what they are proclaiming is some of the real truth mixed with deception. It only takes one or two words to change the truth into a lie. We have made so many assumptions in our understandings of God’s Word and this has led us to where we are now.
So now that I have told you that I have been sent by God to bring back the truth – it is up to each person that reads this letter to decide. Are you prompted to get more into the Word to find the real truth or are you going to reject what I am saying and stay comfortable with your own human logic and understanding. God’s ways are not our ways. There is no free lunch when it comes to inheriting eternal life. Salvation is free, but becoming a son of God so you can inherit eternal life will cost you everything in this life.
The Jewish leaders that lived when Jesus Christ walked this earth thought they had it all figured out too. Instead of accepting the real truth, they crucified the real truth to a cross. Are you going to find the real truth or will you crucify it?
God’s servant and yours,
Mike Reid
In today’s world of human understanding and reasoning, we accept people with some Godly gifts, but not people with gifts from God that go against our own human reasoning, understanding, and logic. How many people today would accept an apostle or a prophet of God? People will gladly accept any apostle or prophet if they proclaim what we already believe as truth. But what if God has sent these apostles or prophets to His people to bring back the truth and get rid of all the deceptions that are laced within the beliefs that people believe as truth? In this age, are people only willing to believe what they want to believe and only willing to hear what they want to hear? God calls to come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God so we can become the perfect man – where we measure up to the fullness of Christ. How can we become Christ like when we currently believe in the deceptions of the devil? The current gospels taught in most churches today are made up of half truths and half lies. Let us turn from these lies and find the real truth again.
How the truth has been changed since the first churches (during the Apostles time) is by our selfishness listening to the devil and changing the definitions of the terms in Word of God. We have grouped all these terms together where in God’s Spiritual reality they all have different meanings. Today all the following words mean almost the same thing to our churches today: saved, born again, life in Christ, born of God, son of God, Christ like, justified, sanctified, having eternal life, disciple, salvation, inheriting eternal life, relationship with Christ, in Christ, etc… Why do we believe that all these terms have close to the same meaning – because we want to believe it. The selfish human nature wants it all and it wants it all from the start. We don’t want to think that we have to be holy like God. We don’t want to think we have to give up all our sinful ways. We want have our cake and be able to eat it too.
Well I want to tell you – I have been sent by God and have been given the gift of the truth (the one and only truth of God) – and the truth that most of the churches are proclaiming is not the truth. That is why the church is in such a hypocritical state. Our churches for the most part belong to the devil and what they are proclaiming is some of the real truth mixed with deception. It only takes one or two words to change the truth into a lie. We have made so many assumptions in our understandings of God’s Word and this has led us to where we are now.
So now that I have told you that I have been sent by God to bring back the truth – it is up to each person that reads this letter to decide. Are you prompted to get more into the Word to find the real truth or are you going to reject what I am saying and stay comfortable with your own human logic and understanding. God’s ways are not our ways. There is no free lunch when it comes to inheriting eternal life. Salvation is free, but becoming a son of God so you can inherit eternal life will cost you everything in this life.
The Jewish leaders that lived when Jesus Christ walked this earth thought they had it all figured out too. Instead of accepting the real truth, they crucified the real truth to a cross. Are you going to find the real truth or will you crucify it?
God’s servant and yours,
Mike Reid
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Love Has To Be A Choice
Most of us have asked ourselves - why are we here, what is our purpose? This basic question is a question that has to be answered to have a full understanding of who we are and how God relates to us. We must know why we were created to be able to fulfill our full potential that God intended for us.
The only reason for every man or woman's existence since the beginning of time is for each one of us to choose who/what will be the lord of our life and then glorify that lord we have chosen to follow and worship. The only reason God created man is to have a loving relationship with Him and for God to glorify Himself thru us. We are God's creation and with the Holy Spirits unrestricted working in our life, we have the full potential of glorifying God as He intended. But, we can also choose to have ourselves, things, or money be our lord. What ever we decide to be our lord, that lord is what we will worship. If we trust in anything other than the true God, we will not be able to have a joy filled life as God intended. All true love and joy can only come from God. We have to consider ourselves dead anytime we are separated from the Lord, since life is only in the Lord. If we don't have Christ in us, we don't have life. This is why a loving God can let people go to hell, since they are only empty shells with no life in them. The only value in us is Christ's life, which is from God alone. The good news is that He wants all to come and trust in His son Jesus to receive this life.
Love has to be a choice, otherwise it is worthless. What makes love so valuable? It’s what makes the world go around. It is what makes a life worth living. God's word says, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love , I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love , I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love , I gain nothing." (NIV 1 Cor 13:1-3). What makes the love of our spouse so special? It is the spouses choice to love us as we are and the sacrificing of his/her life for us. Why is it so special when our kids listen and do what we say? It is the love they are showing us by making the choice of respecting and being obedient to our wishes. Why is it so important to be obedient to God's word, His will, and the Holy Spirits leading? Our choice to be obedient shows our love for our Lord, no matter how much a sacrifice that obedience requires. The more sacrifice required, the more love is shown back to our Lord thru our obedience. What makes the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for our redemption so valuable? It is that He (God), made the choice to sacrifice Himself out of love for us, so we could once again have the choice to love God and others.
From the very beginning of time, love had to be a choice. In the beginning, God had a loving and close relationship with His creation, Adam and Eve. The only instruction He commanded Adam that he could not do, was to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We all know what happened with the fall of man when Adam did eat of that tree. But why did God have that tree in the garden at all? Since God is in control of everything, it must of been serving a purpose for God. The requirement of love having to be a choice has everything to do with it. God wanted to feel true love coming from Adam, not some kind of forced love. If we could create a robot and program it to only love us, what value would that love from that robot have in our hearts. If we could make our children love us by placing a pre-programmed chip in them to make them love us, what value would that love have to us. It would have no value at all. God created us to have free will so we could make the choice to love Him and willingly be obedient to His commandments out of that love.
Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. (NIV Jos 24:15)
With God's love and Spirit, I bring you this message.
Michael W. Reid
The only reason for every man or woman's existence since the beginning of time is for each one of us to choose who/what will be the lord of our life and then glorify that lord we have chosen to follow and worship. The only reason God created man is to have a loving relationship with Him and for God to glorify Himself thru us. We are God's creation and with the Holy Spirits unrestricted working in our life, we have the full potential of glorifying God as He intended. But, we can also choose to have ourselves, things, or money be our lord. What ever we decide to be our lord, that lord is what we will worship. If we trust in anything other than the true God, we will not be able to have a joy filled life as God intended. All true love and joy can only come from God. We have to consider ourselves dead anytime we are separated from the Lord, since life is only in the Lord. If we don't have Christ in us, we don't have life. This is why a loving God can let people go to hell, since they are only empty shells with no life in them. The only value in us is Christ's life, which is from God alone. The good news is that He wants all to come and trust in His son Jesus to receive this life.
Love has to be a choice, otherwise it is worthless. What makes love so valuable? It’s what makes the world go around. It is what makes a life worth living. God's word says, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love , I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love , I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love , I gain nothing." (NIV 1 Cor 13:1-3). What makes the love of our spouse so special? It is the spouses choice to love us as we are and the sacrificing of his/her life for us. Why is it so special when our kids listen and do what we say? It is the love they are showing us by making the choice of respecting and being obedient to our wishes. Why is it so important to be obedient to God's word, His will, and the Holy Spirits leading? Our choice to be obedient shows our love for our Lord, no matter how much a sacrifice that obedience requires. The more sacrifice required, the more love is shown back to our Lord thru our obedience. What makes the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for our redemption so valuable? It is that He (God), made the choice to sacrifice Himself out of love for us, so we could once again have the choice to love God and others.
From the very beginning of time, love had to be a choice. In the beginning, God had a loving and close relationship with His creation, Adam and Eve. The only instruction He commanded Adam that he could not do, was to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We all know what happened with the fall of man when Adam did eat of that tree. But why did God have that tree in the garden at all? Since God is in control of everything, it must of been serving a purpose for God. The requirement of love having to be a choice has everything to do with it. God wanted to feel true love coming from Adam, not some kind of forced love. If we could create a robot and program it to only love us, what value would that love from that robot have in our hearts. If we could make our children love us by placing a pre-programmed chip in them to make them love us, what value would that love have to us. It would have no value at all. God created us to have free will so we could make the choice to love Him and willingly be obedient to His commandments out of that love.
Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. (NIV Jos 24:15)
With God's love and Spirit, I bring you this message.
Michael W. Reid
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