Institutionalized

An institution is any structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human community. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human behavior.^[1] (Wikipedia)

Aspects of Institutions

Although individual, formal organizations, commonly identified as "institutions," may be deliberately and intentionally created by people, the development and functioning of institutions in society in general may be regarded as an instance of emergence; that is, institutions arise, develop and function in a pattern of social self-organization, which goes beyond the conscious intentions of the individual humans involved. (Wikipedia)

We humans tend to have a club mentality. We love to be apart of a group, whether it be a street gang, motorcycle gang, "save the trees" club, "Save the baby seal" club, political affiliation or religious denomination... We long to be apart of something that gives us identity and security. So we attach ourselves to an institution. When we cast ourselves at the mercy and furtherance of an institution, and we find our identity and security in it, we become institutionalized. You might say, "So what?". There are two main reasons.

Before I get into that, Jesus Christ did not come to start an institution. His followers did that. The true Church, is meant to be relational and spontaneous, not surrounded by barriers that are always prevalent inside institutions. Does God work inside those walls? Absolutely. There are many godly men that are used powerfully by God to preach His truth inside the walls, but the people having their lives changed are almost always the younger generation who have not yet given themselves over to the establishment.

The first evil of the institutional church is that people find their identity and security in IT, instead of in Jesus. Scores of guilt-ridden people, find relief and security in an institution. With all reliance on the "learned" clergy, the rules that govern the "church" members, the ordinances and the overall structure, many people falsely believe in their salvation, right up until the day they slip into hell. For what? For a club that they chose to be their saviour. For an institution that became their identity, security, hope and often times, the provider. If the institution were to go, so does everything. This is especially true of those in leadership. In this state, the leader's faith is reduced to fighting for and promoting the institution.

So many people have this false security. It doesn't matter what institution's banner you fly under. Whether your identity and security are found under the banner of a particular denomination, a home school, a house church, a mega church, a Calvinist, or an Arminian, it doesn't matter. If that's where your identity lies and where you find your security, then you might as well be an atheist. John Calvin did not die for your sins. The Methodists and Baptist's did not die for your sins. Pastors, priests, worship leaders, youth ministers did not die for you. No group, club, no ordinance, no denomination, local or otherwise, died for you! Jesus Christ died for you! Jesus Christ is the true Church and if our identity and security aren't in Him, then what have we got? Nothing! Without our faith being fully in Him, everything else is merely fluff and meaningless. All the institutions in the world won't save us from the wrath of God and eternal torment in the lake of fire. No institution in the world will pay the massive debt our sin has incurred before a holy God. No institution was crucified and rose from the dead. No institution made a sacrifice sufficient to make peace between God and man.

The second evil of the institutional church is that it limits God's working to inside its walls as if it were His only instrument on earth. If we view, what is called "church", to be God's only means of working on this earth, and of divine importance, then anything opposing it or existing outside of it is resisting and existing outside of God Himself. It would seem then, that if you further the cause of the institution, you further the cause of God, or if you resist the institution or question it, then you are resisting and questioning God Himself. If you are not a friend of the institution, then you are not a child of God. The worth of people is determined by the worth they have to the institution. This is how people are controlled and manipulated by this system. The institutional church, has become god.

Both of these evils are idolatry. Anything that takes the place of Jesus Christ, is worshiping a false god. Anything that a person trusts in, whether it be personal goodness, water baptism, church membership, humility, instead of the Lord Jesus Christ whom God made to be sin for us, is idol worship.

God's Kingdom is bigger then any church, institution, denomination, or club. God does work in the institutional church, but most assuredly He works outside of it too. Christ's Church is His body in which we, that have His Spirit in us, are members. We have our identity fully in Him and no church, institution can steal that from a true child of God. What is a cause to worry though, is that millions of people have bought into an institution and are a million miles from finding peace with God. They are in bondage to an invisible stifling institution that governs their behavior thereby making them feel good, but they are without light and without truth. There is no truth without Jesus Christ. He is the way and the truth. He is the only One worthy to receive our faith, thanksgiving and praise.

To The Lost Sinner

If you are a human, then you are a sinner. All of us have at one point in our lives done things that we knew was wrong and violated our own moral standard. We tend to use the fact that all are sinners as an excuse for our own sin, but it is no excuse at all. Why? For the reason that our universal sinfulness does not diminish the strict requirements that God has, because He is holy. His character is such that he cannot tolerate anything that is unclean and completely blameless and pure. Sin is so contrary to God's character, that as the moral ruler of the universe, He must reveal wrath on that person, or being, who perpetrated the sin. The penalty for sin is death, and ultimately eternal torment in a literal lake of fire which is in the heart of the earth.

We hear a lot about the love of God, and it is true, He is loving. Foremost though, He is the Judge and Supreme Lawgiver of the universe, and as such, He is and must be completely just in all His dealings. Transgression of the law cannot go unpunished. Each individual sin, stores up more of God's wrath upon the sinner.

So what is sin? Sin is the transgression of the law. What law is that? The law of our minds (ex. The law of the jungle), or our personal knowledge of right and wrong. When we do something that violates our own moral standard, then we have sinned. To go further; when we don't do something we know we ought to do, then we have also sinned. Sin goes even deeper then that though. Sin is basically rooted in the intentions. Selfishness is the root of all sin. Anything done for personal gratification while ignoring the needs of others, against the law of our minds, is sin. Something that seems to be a righteous act, but if it is rooted purely in selfish motives, then it is a transgression and must ultimately be punished. Furthermore, we get a perfect image of our own moral standard, from the very measurement we use to judge others. In simpler terms, it is easy to cast blame and judge others, but to judge ourselves and be honest with ourselves about who we are, we find extremely difficult. That's why our conscious or subconscious measurement of others is a perfect image of our own moral standard. Ultimately God will use each individual's own personal standard, to judge and condemn them.

So what is the big picture? Here is God's perspective...

Every person capable of rational thought since the beginning of time, has an innate knowledge that there is a God. Every person has at some point looked up at a starry night in awe at the perfection that makes up our universe. Perhaps you have at some point laid outside and gazed up at the sky and thought about how earth simply a big ball floating around in the middle of a big dark universe. Maybe you have seen pictures of the earth from outer space and marveled at the beauty of it. Perhaps you have at some point thought about how the earth and all the planets have a set course and never run into each other. Maybe how the sun is a burning ball of gas and never runs out of fuel. Have you ever seen a rainbow? Or a sunset? We don't need to have religion or a book to tell us that there is a Creator to all that we see from nature. All a rational person has to do is sit down and think, to know that Someone created all this. This universe practically shouts of the glory of God.

We also know that God requires us to do right. We know that because He has given every normal person knowledge of right and wrong. We don't need a bible to tell us that. We know that we shouldn't steal, commit adultery, murder, or rape our fellow human beings. Everyone knows that and doesn't have to be taught it by religion. We also have knowledge that if we see someone that needs help, then we should help them. When we violate this knowledge or moral standard that we hold, we experience guilt and enter into a state the bible calls, “Dead in trespasses and sins”. This guilt we experience is universal throughout the human race. Whether priest, pope, pastor, president, or prime minister, all people experience guilt when they violate their own moral standard of right and wrong, and all are “dead in trespasses and sins”. People who have sinned even once, have come up short and are sinners in a damnable blameworthy state, already condemned by their own conscience in full view of a just God who must bring His wrath to bear.

What despair the human race is in! All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God looks down at the people He created and sees that there is not one righteous one among them. The whole human race has become unprofitable, depraved, and given over to fulfilling the lusts of their own bodies. They have degenerated to little more than animals, basically living to breed and eat. All have succumb to the natural drives of their bodies, which have run away with them against the better knowledge of their minds. None prefer to retain God in their knowledge. They love their sins and wallow in them apparently unashamed... Adultery, fornication, covetousness, idolatry, lasciviousness, extortion, murder, full of envy, without understanding, backbiters, haters of God, proud, boasters, disobedient to parents (Rom 1). They all live only for the purpose of fulfilling their next selfish desires. All these having known the judgement of God, and that people who do such things are worthy of death, are without excuse will suffer eternal torment in the lake of fire without mercy and without excuse.

Furthermore, God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all people that hold truth in unrighteousness. His wrath is on people who knew through nature, that there is a God, knew what He required, and of the judgment to come. His righteous indignation and wrath are on those that go through their lives ignoring, and living as though He didn't exist despite all the evidence to the contrary. His wrath is against all those that do not glory in Him, who is glorious, and against those who are not thankful despite all the good they have. While taking full advantage of all of God's goodness, they fail to be thankful but live as though they deserve more!

Opposing False Doctrine and Stating The Truth (Overview)

There are many commonly held truths that are held by the majority of Christians that I oppose, but none, I believe, that leads more people from Christ then this one.

Before I get around to doing that, I would ask that you not believe me but instead turn to the word of God (found in the Authorized KJV), and search for yourself. If you use a modern bible translation, you will not find the truth in this respect. Also, in the pursuit of truth we must not let anything, including preconceived doctrines of men, get in the way. The holy bible must be our final authority, or else we are easy prey to those who would deceive us.

What this note concerns is living the Christian life, and overcoming sin. I would begin by stating that psychology has crept into large portions of Christian doctrine and has no basis in the word of God. This concept that I will confront is found in many of the eastern religions and is merely repackaged and retooled for the Christian faith.

It states that man is a multifaceted human being and that we are made up of a dual nature. It says that we have two men in one body, an old man and a new man, a good nature and bad nature, or if you will, a black dog and a white dog. One nature can do nothing but sin, and the other, can do nothing but good. It says that these opposing forces, dual natures or alter egos are at war with one another and that in order to be victorious over sin, we must feed the one and starve the other. This encompasses a life of brokeness and emptiness, dying to our self will, and overcoming our sinful nature through prayer, fasting, and meditation, and bible reading. What it boils down to, is that the answer to a successful overcoming life is found inside each one of us instead of in Jesus. This method is nothing more then modern psychology, and will work as good for a Buddhist or an atheist as it will for a Christian. If God's method of living an overcoming life, is not a miracle and does not rise higher then our will can take us, then what good is it? The main essence of this heresy if you'll notice, is that Jesus has no part in it. The whole process is one, that never rises higher then your own self will and is no more the word of God, then is witchcraft.

To most professing believers, salvation is merely theological. Most professing Christians believe that there is really no difference in the experience between a believer and an unbeliever and that Romans 7 is the nominal Christian experience. That the Christian life is one of struggling and striving to fight against the world, the flesh and the devil with no resources other then self effort. I would add that the whole point to all false doctrine, is to lead men to trust in themselves rather then Christ. It is NOT of faith. If I thought that this was all the Christian life was, one of struggling to overcome sin, dying to self and being broken and empty enough so that God could fill me, I would just throw away my bible. If God's method of living an overcoming life did not rise higher then what my self effort could produce, then it would cease to be of God. God's workings are miracles. They are outside of all human capability.

Where the world does a "clean up, fix up" job on the old car (the Adam self, the old man), God's method is destruction. He simply takes the old car out back and destroys it. Then Jesus's limo pulls up and you climb in the back seat and ride with Him from that moment on. You don't ride in the old car anymore. You are a brand new creature in Christ Jesus. The "old self" is dead. You are no longer you, and I am no longer me. We are no longer Jew, Gentile, male or female, bond or free, but ONE new man in Christ Jesus.

This is NOT a second work of grace. This happens the moment a sinner gets saved, and is not even dependent on the believers holding the correct doctrine. God's truths don't rely on our understanding to make them true or effectual. God's methods ride higher then our understanding and even our reality. He gives us an alternative reality that we don't see, and challenges us to believe it simply because He said it.

Now that I've stated my views on what biblical sanctification is not, I will state what God's method is. It will seem just as foolish to most professing believers, as salvation through faith in Christ does, but here goes... Justification and sanctification are ONE work of Christ on the cross. One in which Christ died for our sins, and one in which we died with Him, too our sins.

If we see ourselves apart from Jesus, we have nothing. Our whole identity is found in Him. We have ceased to be "us" and are now ONE body, which is the body of Jesus Christ (literally). His history is our history. God now states that us living an overcoming life free from sin, is now entirely based on this fact. He basis our freedom from sin, on the fact that we were baptized into Christ and therefore crucified with Him. This co-crucifixion delivered us from the flesh (is our material self) wherein sin dwelt.

Here is my main point... In God's reality he no longer sees 'us' as 'us'. He sees Jesus. Jesus is no longer subject to the law of sin. Sin has no dominion or power over Him. He is not even tempted by it. Why? Because He was crucified and put to death. That body that was subject to the lusts and affections of his flesh are dead. It was nailed to the cross. Now, seated at the right hand of God; the world, the flesh and the devil are of no consequence to Him. They don't worry him in the least. You think Jesus is worried about falling to temptation or the snares of the devil?! Then why would we? Our life is hid with Christ in God! We are crucified, buried and risen with Him through the operation of God, and seated at His right hand! Jesus is our life! Why in the world would we continue in sin when we have been freed from it! We HAVE overcome. We have no confidence in ourselves (our flesh), but our rejoicing is in CHRIST JESUS!

This is the gospel of sanctification. It is NOT one of striving and struggling to attain victory over sin through self effort, but one of living in the present, having already overcome, believing God's reality over our own. It is not one of working it out in our experience, but rather accepting that our overcoming life has already been accomplished for us, IN CHRIST. This is living by faith. Not having faith that we, through our inner resources can somehow manage, but having faith that it's already done in Christ. This way we can't take credit for anything. Jesus get's all the credit and all the glory which is the way it should be.

(As this is merely an overview, I will be doing another note in the future using scripture to prove what I've written is the truth)

Concerning Final Authority and Truth

You know what I love? Truth. Just the plain, raw truth. Personally, I don't need big words and lots of adjectives. Just give me truth. So where do I go to find truth and what is my final authority? The word of God found in the King James Bible (AV) is where I go, and I have complete confidence in my bible, that it is the truth of God... Exactly... Every single word and letter, breathed by God Himself to the English speaking people.

2Timothy 3:16 All scripture IS given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Much of modern Christianity is filled with feigned spiritualism, tradition, someone's opinion, will worship, rudiments of the world, and "allegorizing". When did this probably start? About A. D. 250, when Origen, one of the Church Fathers, conceived the idea that the words of scripture were but the "husk" in which was hid the "kernel" of scripture truth. At once he began to "Allegorize" and "Spiritualize" the Scriptures, and thus founded that school of "Allegorizing" and "Spiritualizing" interpreters of Scripture, from which the institutional church and the Bible have suffered so much. This is the primary cause of so much heretical teachings that have invaded the institutional church.

Instead of asking what does the Holy Bible say, and letting that be our guide, the common view is not to believe what it says but rather, what does the author really mean. The modern concept now is don't read what it says and believe it, but rather find the hidden "gem" in the "husk" of the text. This modern method elevates those that are "learned" (the clergy) and displays their wisdom (sarcasm intended) in scripture knowledge. The idea is that the common man is not able to grasp the doctrines of the bible without help. I am glad that God chooses to reveal his word to those that simply read and believe what The Book says. I am glad that I have a perfect Book that leads "dumb" people to truth. It is the wise... The "Allegorizors" and "Spiritualizers" and those that believe them, over the word of God, who are at the end of the day, left in the dark.

That being said, I love good bible teachers. When I say "good bible teachers", I mean those that read and believe the bible exactly as it is written. If they say, "What the author really meant here...", (inferring that the author apparently didn't mean what he said) then I have no use for them. I don't want someone's opinion. I don't want to know how they feel. When I am in pursuit of truth I don't care how you feel or how I feel. Feelings have nothing to do with truth. That is effeminate. I want the raw truth and that comes only from the true word of God.

Conclusion... Throw away your feelings and your preconceived opinions and doctrines of men when in pursuit of truth! Let the Holy Bible be your final authority every time. Test everything you know, think you know, or what the preacher says, against what the Book says. Don't believe someone because of who they are or what they have achieved. Be a Berean!

Acts 17:10 ¶ And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.
Acts 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, IN THAT THEY RECEIVED THE WORD WITH ALL READINESS OF MIND, SEARCHING THE SCRIPTURES DAILY, WHETHER THOSE THINGS WERE SO.

The people at Berea did not even believe the Apostles! Where was their final authority? The SCRIPTURES.

A Man, Guilt, Religion, and Christ

A man experiences guilt when he breaks his own standard of right and wrong. He feels guilt when he goes against the truth that he possesses about what he should and should not do. Throughout his life he becomes increasingly depressed and attempts to mask it by increasing his carnal activities (taking drugs, alcohol, partying, dating women, music, outdoor activities etc). By these constant activities he creates distractions that drown out his conscience. Listening to music, video games, internet and phone take up any "down time" that might allow the conscience to bring the guilt to the surface. So as time goes by, the conscience is quieted somewhat, but the loneliness and emptiness never go away. The guilt that is always just below the surface, bubbles up now and then but is quickly brought back down by another drunk or high. The biggest threat to his lifestyle is boredom. Boredom is time that is not being spent doing something and therefore is a time that the mind could possibly wander.

His mind sometimes wanders into dangerous territory. Things like, his duty to do righteousness, death, and the judgment to come. He knows that there is right and wrong. His sense of judgment concerning others speaks volumes to him that evil acts and the people that do them must be held accountable. He knows that there must be day where people that do bad things must and will be judged, and therefore there must be a supreme Judge. All this he knows without a bible. He knows this without any outside religious influence. It is inherent in all men. This creates an uncertainty and fear in him about dying and how he will fair in the judgment. This doubt and fear create an unstable platform for the mind. His soul is in a constant state of unease. There is a nagging feeling of something not being right. Constant effort to justify his actions and himself is tiresome. All the self justification he can do, never satisfies his soul.

The guilt and depression mounts. He is now fully addicted to drugs, alcohol, pornography... He is a slave to his body. He knows that he should clean himself up and do what's right, but he can't. He is completely enslaved. His will is overcome by a stronger force, (his bodily desires) and what he wants to do (what's right), he can't.

Someone from the local denomination comes and invites him to "church". His guilt drives him to listen to them and as a last resort he goes. The well meaning people surround him with good will and cheerfulness. He hears a message about how to live a "Christian life" and how to follow the law of God. He makes a decision, confesses his sin, and prays a prayer with a councilor and goes away feeling great. He is highly motivated to try his best. He stops drinking, drugs and starts to get his life in order. He reads the books that the denomination members give him about how to live the deeper Christian life, a life of joy and happiness right now. He studies hard on how to overcome his addictions and live a life pleasing to God. He hears sermon after sermon on how bad sin is and the principles on how to overcome the overpowering desires of his flesh. He feels better and his guilt is lessened by his religious activity but the lust in his body still have control. All the while he is trying to live a good life, his greatest desire is to feed his carnal desires. He knows he shouldn't but the urge to partake is very great. His addiction to pornography is still alive and well and sometimes he still dabbles in drugs, but his guilt drives him back to trying to do what's right. He is trying to do what God wants out of guilt but his true desire is for his sin and the world from hence he came.

This man is what the bible calls "Dead in trespasses and sins". If this man dies, he goes to hell. He had a heart problem that never got addressed. His guilt drove him to Dr. Religion. Dr. Religion gave him a shot to make him feel better and failed to tell him that he was terminally ill. Dr. Religion told him to "just do the right thing and God will have to accept that". The man was already in a condemned state and Dr. Religion didn't fix him. He needed a new heart and Dr. Religion stepped in and offered him a cheap, worthless substitute. The man had a fatal disease since the first time he deliberately broke his own standard of right and wrong. Religion failed to address the sin issue.

Our sin incurs debt with God. Sin must be punished or God would be unjust. The penalty for sin is eternal death. So to get rid of the guilt, somehow our sin must be paid for. We MUST die or someone must die in our place! Being good and being religious from now on won't settle this issue! Dr. Religion is a liar! He claims that by ignoring your past sin and just live life by doing the best you can, God will not send you to hell and will let you into heaven. That is the farthest thing from the truth. Justice must be done and the payment has to be made. The wrath and justice of a holy God must be satisfied! The payment God requires is blood! Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. So what are the options? We burn in hell as guilty sinners, or somebody completely righteous that is worth more then all the souls on earth, sheds his blood and dies in our place. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. SIN MUST BE PAID FOR SO GOD CAN JUSTLY FORGIVE SINNERS.

Seeing that there is no way for us to be justified then and our sins to be forgiven by our own effort and merit, God who is rich in mercy, shows his love by sending his ONLY BEGOTTEN SON JESUS CHRIST to die horribly on a cross. The blood that the perfectly righteous Son shed, is sufficient to satisfy the wrath and justice of God for our sin. So through Jesus and that ONE OFFERING and payment for all sin, we have peace with God through faith. That is completely apart from all effort or religion. God made Jesus to be sin for us so we could be made His righteousness. God can now JUSTLY forgive all sinners who will turn to him and believe that what Jesus did is enough to get them into heaven. It is a FREE GIFT and can not be bought with any filthy religious acts. The sinner must come to God with all his sin, realizing that there is nothing he can do to remove that sin and without the shed blood of Christ, it is a hopeless situation. There is only two options... You die, face the judgment and be damned to the fires of hell... Or Christ died, went to hell so you could go to heaven. That's it... Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.

Guilty!

Most of us know the story about David and Bathsheba. King David saw a woman that was obviously pleasing to his eyes and he desired her. After inquiring about her and finding out she was married to Uriah, one of his soldiers, he slept with her. Then he had Uriah killed and took Bathsheba as his wife. David had many wives already and Uriah only had the one. Nathan the prophet came to David and told him a story.

2Samuel 12:1 ¶ And the LORD sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.
12:2 The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:
12:3 But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.
12:4 And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.
12:5 And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die:
12:6 And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.
12:7 And Nathan said to David, THOU ART THE MAN.

Nathan points his finger at David and says,"You are the man! You had many wives and this poor man had only one, and you took her and killed him. You're the man". GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY! By David's own admission he is guilty. Nathan's story brought out emotions in David that said that the guilty man must pay. It brought out feelings of righteous anger and justice that the guilty man is deserving of death. This is the same method that the apostle Paul uses in Romans to convict the whole world of sin. Paul uses half of chapter 1 describing the heathen sinner and then in chapter 2, he points his finger at us and says...

Romans 2:3 And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
2:5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;

Paul's method inspired by the Holy Spirit is pure genius. He first describes the ungodly sinner and we look on them in judgment. We look at all the horrible sins they have committed with feelings of "that horrible person must pay"...

Romans 1:29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
1:30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
1:31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
1:32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

We look on people that do those things and feelings of justice rise up in us and we condemn them. We know that doing those things are not right. Yet we have all done things in that list! Paul points his finger at us and says, "You're the man! You just looked on those heathen and judged them and you've done the same thing! How do you think you'll escape the righteous judgment of God?" Do you still think you are a good person? You think of all the times you've judged someone and then gone on and done the same things. Do you think you're above God's judgment? Are you ignorant of the fact that you are a guilty sinner worthy of death? Are you ignoring the longsuffering and goodness of God in that he has allowed you to live as long as He has? Are you ignoring the fact that you are breathing His good clean air and He hasn't damned your soul to hell? Do you not know that you are storing up the wrath of Almighty God because of your sin and like a dam it will one day burst and come pouring out on you?

So by our own judgment we have condemned ourselves. We stand guilty, with our mouths shut before God without a shred of an excuse. We deserve death and eternal punishment in the lake of fire. The whole world stands guilty and condemned deserving of death. No religion, no belief system can save us. No amount of effort and "church going" can save us. No pope, no priest, no pastor, no denomination can save us. Our only hope is Jesus. Thank God he died in our place. Thank God that He took our punishment so we wouldn't have to. He is the truth and the life.

Resident Judges and Guilt

We all have a judge residing inside us. We usually call it a conscience. He is beyond our control, a bit like our emotions... Just like we don't control what we feel, only how we react to that feeling, the same it is with our conscience. For example, when something bad happens, we can't decide to feel good about it. That would be insanity. If I had a dog and someone killed that dog, I couldn't decide to feel happy or glad that my dog was dead. So we see that emotions are beyond are control and separate from our will. We call that physical law. The same it is with our resident judge. Every time we act in opposition to that inner judge or the law of our mind (our standard of right and wrong, or the truth that we hold), that resident judge screams, "Guilty!" He constantly accuses us and we try to drown out his voice or to soften it, but we cannot.

When we were little children, we were alive without that judge once, because our knowledge of right and wrong and our knowledge of God, was extremely limited. We didn't feel guilt like we do now. We were innocent. As we grew older, the truth that we held also grew. We developed the knowledge that we should always do what is right, we should never be selfish, and we should always care for our fellow man before our own needs. There was and is always a struggle though... To obey that knowledge that we held, or to disobey it and follow after the natural desires of our bodies. Our bodies do have a desire to eat, sleep, copulate etc. There is nothing wrong with those natural drives, except when we follow those drives past their natural course and go against the law of our minds.

James 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
James 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

As you see, the lust wasn't the sin. The "drawing away of his own lust" and "when lust has concieved" is the sin. For instance, we know that sex is for marriage and between a man and a woman. It is when we go against that knowledge and against better judgment, that we sin.

So what am I getting at? The end product of our life of continuously going against this truth that we hold, is guilt. All our lives we have been storing up guilt, and trying to hide it. The problem is, nothing we do, can permanently remove this constant feeling of guilt. We go through our lives attempting to bury it, and try to justify ourselves through many different means. One of the means would be, comparing ourselves against those around us and trying to ignore that resident judge, through temporal pleasures.

Another would be religion. Religion temporarily brings relief from guilt through some ordinance or activity. All the "man made" means of diminishing that feeling of guilt, are empty and vain. They may make a person feel better for a short while, but they don't work in the long run. They are nothing but shallow attempts at removing that feeling of guilt that just won't go away. They are nothing but a progression of an empty, meaningless life of holding truth, aggressively going against that truth by following after selfish and carnal desires, all the while trying in vain to justify oneself. You know where this leads besides eternal punishment?... Depression, loneliness, in some cases mental illness, and always a life of misery.

There is only one way to remove this feeling of guilt permanently. No religion can do it. No church, no denomination, no pastor, no priest can do it. Why? The sin issue must be dealt with. Someone must pay! Only then can we be free from this guilt and condemnation!

As our sin grows, so does God's wrath. God has emotions just like we do and he is angry, he hates and his wrath burns not only against sin, but against sinners. The wrath of God is revealed from the supreme court of the universe (in Heaven) against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth and deliberately chose to disobey it. God's wrath had to fall and it did. On His own Son Jesus, who took the wrath of God for us. It actually pleased the Father to bruise His Son and make His soul an offering for sin, because He placed all our sin on Jesus. He made Jesus to be sin for us... He who had never sinned. The flood gates of God's wrath, that was kindled because of our transgression, fell on His only begotten Son and He died on a cruel cross, where his blood was shed, and He went to hell for us! The perfect righteous blood of God was shed so that He could justly forgive sinners freely without any effort! That's not all though. God raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at His right hand to signify that Jesus was who he said he was and that the payment had been made in full. That's not all though... God now calls all who believe this gospel, perfectly righteous and justifies them as a free gift! This way, God gets all the glory. Jesus did all the work, and all He now requires from us is that our faith not be in ourselves but in Him, in order to be saved and have our sins forgiven. This belief that I speak of is not with the head but with the whole heart.

When a person turns to God and believes this message, he knows his sins are forgiven and his eternity is assured. The guilt is gone because the sin has been paid for and God remembers them no more. Not only that, all future sin is also paid for. The wonderful thing is, this message when it is truly believed from the heart also produces an obedience and a righteousness that far supersedes anything that religion ever could. This gospel produces a new creature out of that miserable, sinful, lonely old creature that then was and transforms a him to a person filled with love, joy and peace. All this through a relationship and a salvation that is entered into by faith. Not faith in oneself but in the Son of God who died and rose again. It's a beautiful thing.

A New Start

Is this life beating you up? Are you tired of the constant struggle just to keep your head above water? Is life just a major disappointment and not turning out like you had hoped it would? Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Then you're in the same place I use to be.

If you're like me then you just experience one let down after another. Nothing ever seemed to go your way. You try to be positive, but it's so hard when you have nothing to be positive about. You're always bored and life is a continuous effort just to keep moving in order to find something to keep boredom from setting in. Sadness, loneliness and bitterness are your only steady companions you can count on. There is a big empty hole in you that you just can't seem to fill. Relationships with others can't fill it. All the pleasures that this life affords, seem to be only temporal and never truly satisfy. You're looking for something else and you can't for the life of you figure out what that is! If that describes you, then I totally know where your coming from. Most of my life I spent walking into that wall over and over again, and the emptiness and misery of this life just kept growing.

Maybe you've tried religion and that didn't satisfy. You even became a member of a local congregation and got baptized. Nothing changed. Maybe you've been to see a psychiatrist or a councilor which made you feel better for a bit, but that overpowering feeling of emptiness keeps coming back. It seems no matter what you do, or how many anti-depressants you take, it can't fix what is ailing you. What you need is relief from all that guilt that is built up inside of you. What you need is a clean slate. A fresh start. You need forgiveness and love. You need a new outlook on life. You don't need a patch up job. You don't need soul maintenance. You need an end to the old life. You need a brand new life. You need a relationship with your Creator. A psychiatrist or a councilor can't give you that. A pastor or a priest can't give you that. Religion offers nothing of the sort. No belief system, no set of rules or principles, and no religious activity can give what you need.

Here is some good news for you! All your guilt is unnecessary. You've been carrying it around when there is no need to! God sent His Son into this world to die for your sins, which He did. Jesus became your sin and died on a cross, so you could become His righteousness and live. He came to be your mediator and to make peace with God for you. He suffered and died so that you could live! He took your place in hell so you could take His place in heaven. He took the punishment that should have been yours, so you could take the benefits of His overcoming life. The good news isn't finished yet. Then God raised Him from the dead and seated Jesus, the only overcoming Man on His right Hand. Your sins have been paid for. Peace with God has been made!

So how do you access this great salvation? Just believe it. It's a FREE GIFT. God promises that if you simply turn to Him and believe this message, He'll immerse you into His Son, Jesus. He'll place you as a part of His body, of His flesh and of His bone. That's right. He will join you to Christ so that you are inseparable from Him. His life becomes your life. His history becomes your history. His righteousness becomes your righteousness. That way, whatever happens to Him, happens to you. Whatever Christ inherits, you'll inherit. This way you'll know your saved. You won't have to rely on your measly works to get right with God. You won't have to rely on your religious effort and getting your soul right because, Jesus already got right for you! You'll get right with God because of what Jesus did!

If you believe this, then God has saved your soul and you have a brand new life. You are now a member of different race of people with Jesus as the head. Your old man is crucified, dead and buried. You're old life is a thing of the past. Your brand new life in Christ is filled with joy, peace and love. You have everything to look forward to now. You have an inheritance that won't fade away. You have an all powerful God who loves you and has your best interests at heart. You've been forgiven of all your trespasses and entered into a relationship of faith with God. This is great! As God's love changes you, you will experience a growing, maturing and a loving relationship with your heavenly Father that will satisfy all the deep longings of your soul. Everything is different now. You have eternity to look forward to. Nothing will ever be the same. Your entire outlook on life is different. You truly are a new creature. Amazing!

A Person Driven Life

Much of what is goes for Christianity these days is merely self help program. Nearly every sermon preached from the pulpit pertains to improving self, how to live a purpose driven life, and how to live your best life now. Watch religious tv and see if it is not so. You got your Osteen's and Schuller's spewing out the same self absorbed garbage that got humanity into the mess we're in. Go to a christian book store and start looking at the shelves. Most of the books are about how to improve yourself and your life. It's all about how to think positively and feel really good about yourself. It's sick folks. Almost everything taught from the pulpit and media today is just plain humanism with feel good message attached. There's no gospel to be found.

True Christianity is not about us and how to live our best life now. Christianity is not about becoming something we're not. Christianity is Christ. It's about a living breathing Person. It's about the second Man, the last Adam. It's about the Son of God who came into this world to die in order to save a whole race full of losers. It's about God revealing Himself to this lost world in the likeness of sinful flesh to save us from our sins. It's all about Jesus. We've gotten lost in ourselves and it's time to refocus on Christ. We need to start looking at the big picture. We need a new paradigm to view the world through and it must be in through the framework of God's eternal program.

We have become lost in our own little denominational kingdoms and we need to get back to the Kingdom of God. This self love, self righteous, self sanctification, self absorbed mentality must go. It is not biblical. The Christian life is not becoming something we are not. It is becoming something that God says we already are. I don't know if you've noticed but in the bible it continuously says "In Christ". Apart from Christ we are nothing, but in Christ we are complete. The only struggle we have then is believing God and taking hold of that which we already have, in Christ.

What my main point is though is this... Christ is everything. He is the Head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the end. He is life itself. He is the truth. He is the way. He is the power and grace of God. In Him all things consist. He is the glue that holds everything in the universe together. Shouldn't He be our focus? We have a risen Saviour who was dead and is alive for evermore and He lives in us! We ought not live by principles, rules, and humanism. We ought not live for ourselves. We ought to live by faith in Him who loved us and gave himself for us. We should have a person driven life not a purpose driven life. That person is Jesus. He's the author and finisher of our faith. He is our life. To ignore Him is to ignore all purpose and all meaning. We need to be consumed with Jesus. In him we live and breath and have our being.

Paradigms and "Church Buildings"

par·a·digm

Pronunciation: \ˈper-ə-ˌdīm, ˈpa-rə- also -ˌdim\

Function: noun

Websters Dictionary

1 : example, pattern; especially : an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype
2 : an example of a conjugation or declension showing a word in all its inflectional forms
3 : a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly : a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind

We all tend to view different things in our lives in different degrees through a paradigm. It is perhaps the culture itself, that to an extent formulates the framework through which we view the world and reality itself. The issue I have though, is that we tend to view the truth and still choose to ignore it. Why?! One major culprit is tradition. Tradition is so ingrained in our minds we can't seem to see clearly. The eyes of our understanding are blinded.

Lets look at an example. "Church" buildings are a primary illustration of what I speak of. We view the buildings in which we meet as spiritual. Why? There is nothing of the sort in the New Testament. You may not think this is a big issue, but it is. We say phrases like, "We're going to church", "behave yourself in the house of God", "let's assemble in the sanctuary". There is no doubt about it, we tend to view the building we meet in as holy and the roots of that are deeply ingrained in tradition. When confronted with scripture we readily agree with it (that it disagrees with our tradition) but our actions and words deny that we believe it. We still have this idea that God is more readily present there then anywhere else. We tend to believe that praying in that building will grant us better access to God. We dress up to go there, we act differently when we are there... All our actions testify to the fact that we truly believe that the "church building", is the house of God when God's word is in direct opposition to that. What if we believed that we, not a building, were the temple of God? Would we live our lives differently?

Ac 7:48 Howbeit the most High dwelleth NOT in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,
Ac 7:49 Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest?
Ac 7:50 Hath not my hand made all these things?

Not once does the bible equate special significance to a building after the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Any teaching that puts spiritual overtones to a specific building flies directly in the face of NT teaching. Why?

2Cor 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? FOR YE ARE THE TEMPLE OF THE LIVING GOD; AS GOD HATH SAID, I WILL DWELL IN THEM, AND WALK IN THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.

Before Christ died on the cross, there was a priestly ministry, a temple, and a sacrifice. Now those of us that are Christ's, are priests and kings unto God. We are the temple of the living God, and the one sacrifice that is sufficient for all time in order to pay for all sin has been made, which is Christ. All of those prior things reach their end when Jesus died for our sins on the cross. The temple veil was rent from top to bottom, and now God lives in His children, not in a building of bricks and mortar. We now have direct access to God by faith. We have the same access to God as does Jesus Christ. We don't need another sacrifice. We don't need a priest or a pastor to intercede for us to God. We have one High Priest, and one Head of the true church, and that is Christ.

For three hundred years the church flourished without "church buildings". The Christian faith was founded in believers homes, along roadsides and in courtyards. Then Constantine (Roman Emperor) gave Christians pagan temples to worship God in and that started the downfall of what we see today. Instead of the believers in Christ being the temple of God, it slowly digressed into a meaningless building of brick and mortar. It is a direct insult to the redemptive work that God did for us in Christ. It is a denial of the truths of God's word. We do not go to "church" to worship God. We are the temple of God, we are the church and we worship God in Spirit and in Truth. Our very lives are meant to be an act of worship. To denigrate worship of God to a couple of hours on "the Lord's day" (everyday is the Lord's day), is a travesty.

The early church believed that Christ was the very presence of God. They believed that the body of Christ, the church constitutes the temple and they turned the world upside down. Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against buildings for Christians to come together in. I do have a problem when a mere building is revered, and replaces the true house of God which is not a building made with hands.

The other day I was reading a book called, "The Tangible Kingdom", and the author made a statement that a "church building" was no more holy or spiritual then your local coffee shop. Well, I did a double take. You see, I knew this before, but hearing it in such a manner really caught me by surprise. It proved to me that knowing what I know, I still look through a paradigm and view the world partially through a framework of tradition.

This is a constant struggle. How hard it seems to remove those things we once believed from our minds. How hard it is to see truth and receive it gladly without allowing preconceived notions and beliefs from getting in the way. I will continue to trust that the truth of the word of God will set me free in every way.

Pertaining to Salvation

It's not enough to be a good person. It's not enough to try harder to do what's right. It's not enough to be religious. It's not enough to go to church and become a member. It's not enough to try to be a good Christian and do the best you can. It's not enough to know that you're a sinner. It's not enough to want to be saved from hell. It's not enough to know that Jesus died and rose again. It's not enough to want to believe.

If you asked the devil whether Jesus died for sinners and if God raised Him from the dead, he would (if he wasn't lying) say yes. He knows. If you asked Satan if Jesus was God in the flesh, he would say yes. He knows that even though he isn't saved. That doesn't make Satan a Christian.

What separates a Christian from a non Christian then? Baptism? Membership? Obedience? No. A true Christian has stopped trusting in himself because he sees his utter lack of sufficiency and placed his faith in another. He has turned from himself as an end to all his deeds, and placed his faith in Jesus. A saved person no longer has any faith in a single thing he has ever done, or ever will do to get him right with God. A born again Christian has no confidence that his own righteousness and merit will gain favour with God.

A religious person on the other hand is no different in a sense, then a total heathen sinner. A religious person does religious deeds in order to earn favour with God (and to be seen of men) for his own personal gain. So in effect, the religious person is going through life, working and living purely for himself. How is this any different then the sinner who continually indulges in his own lusts? Their both working for the same end... Themselves. The end of living for yourself is eternal death. The religious person is growing his own "good person portfolio". That is selfish and selfishness is the essence of sin. That is as sinful as you can get. Just because an individual does right in the eyes of man, does not mean that God views it the same way. We can fool men but we can't fool God. God knows the intention of the heart and if the "good deed" is done merely for selfish reasons, He doesn't count it as good. He counts it as sin. He knows why the religious person does religious deeds. He knows that all this person's work and self effort is for self gain. That religious person is worse off then the ungodly sinner who has never has stepped into a church building, synagogue or mosque. That's why Jesus had more harsh words for the religious then for the ungodly sinner.

Back to the Christian. A true Christian knows that if left to his own devices, he will perish and spend eternity in the lake of fire. He has no faith in how he has lived. He has no confidence in his own right doing. He has turned from himself, from his life, from his self-seeking ways and placed his life in the hands of another. His faith is in a Man who died for his sins whom God raised from the dead. All his hope and faith is in the Son of God and in His right doing... In Christ's righteousness... In His merit alone. That's why the Christian is saved. Not because he lived right, but because Jesus lived right. He's not saved because he confessed all his sins, but because the blood of Jesus paid for his sins and he simply believed that. He is not counted righteous because he is righteous. The Christian is counted righteous because God reckoned or imputed righteousness to his account when he simply stopped trusting in himself believed the gospel with all his heart.

This belief is not something mentioned in passing or something you confess and live out on Sunday morning. This is not a glib faith. This belief costs you yourself. It costs you self love, self trust, self worth, and self gain. When you believe in Jesus, He is your focus every day. He is your affection. He is your hope. You no longer live for yourself but for the one who died for you and rose again. Not a day goes by that you aren't thankful that He saved you from the wrath to come. Not a day goes by that you don't wonder at the mercy and grace of God that saved a wretch like you. It never ceases to amaze that God didn't just throw you into hell like you deserved.

So what are you trusting in to get you to heaven? Your good works? Your faithful church attendance? Maybe because you're a Methodist, Lutheran or a Baptist? If that is what you're trusting in, you're lost. There is no salvation there. Salvation is in Jesus Christ alone and it is in turning from yourself, from your life and believing with all your heart that what Jesus did is enough to get you into heaven. It's believing, that makes salvation effectual for the sinner, not doing something. It is giving up on yourself and trusting Jesus.

Law, Sin and Judgment

Not a popular subject this one, but if I wanted to be popular in this present evil world I'd just write about Britney's latest fling or how Michael Jackson lost his glove. That's what the world is interested in. The world is more interested in the latest tips on how to pick up your husband's best friend, then on the things of God and doing right. The world is more interested in the latest Hollywood puppet coming out of the sodomite closet, then of sin and the imminent flood of God's wrath and judgment. Therefore we tend to minimize sin in our modern culture because it is out of control and rampant. Being bad is now considered good and being good is totally not cool. The bible predicted this would happen by the way. What is sin and why is it sin?

The bible says that sin is the transgression of the law. By what law though? The ten commandments? What law governs us individually and what about those that have never been told what the bible or religion considers as sin? What about those lost native tribes that have never had any contact with the known world? What law are they under?

According to the bible, we are all under known law. In other words we are under jurisdiction not of some outside law that we have no knowledge of but, the law of our minds or our conscience if you will.

Romans 2:14 For when the Gentiles (that's us), which have not the law (Mosaic Law), do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law (Mosaic law), are a law unto themselves:
Romans 2:15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)

Here is what that means. We all have a knowledge or a standard of right and wrong. That is proven every day when we judge our own thoughts and actions, as well as the actions of others. All day long our thoughts are accusing or else excusing us and we feel good when we do right and guilt when we do wrong.

We can't get away from knowing right and wrong. The only way we could not know right from wrong is to get brain damage to such an extent that we lose all sense of reality. The older we get, the more knowledge we retain of what we ought and ought not do. The more knowledge we hold, the more we use that knowledge to judge ourselves and those around us. It might be conscious and vocal, or a mere thought, but we can't escape it. So what it boils down to, is that the Judge (God) will one day judge every person by the amount and severity of the times he broke his own personal standard or knowledge of right or wrong.

Mt 7:2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

There will be no excuse in that day. Those that are still in their sins will stand before God with their mouths shut, fully knowing that they are guilty. There will be no "but...", only, "I knew I should have, I blew it".

Nowadays we see sin as not a big deal. That is because we have been blinded by our own sin so that we don't see the holiness of God. We can get a glimpse of the righteousness of God from the old testament and from the teachings of Jesus. For instance, if a young man was consistently rebellious toward his parents, he was to be taken outside of the city and stoned to death. That's pretty harsh for our day. The punishment for adultery was death. All transgression had a punishment and had to be paid for. Eye for and eye and tooth for a tooth. Payment had to be made for sin, and this was done by sacrificing animals and shedding it's blood to cover the sin so that God's judgment and wrath wouldn't fall. Whole unrepentant nations were destroyed because the continual transgressing of God's commandments. God killed 23000 of His own people Israel, in one day for worshiping other gods. We could go on all day and give more examples of how severely God views and judges sin. So severely that He had to send His Son to die on a cross and shed His blood to satisfy the justice of the law so that He could justly forgive sinners.

What the world tends to do is to look at others and judge their own selves compared to those around them. They think that if their in the top 10% of "good people", they'll be alright and everyone else will go be punished.

The thing is the law says that the soul that sins shall die. Here you have been thinking you might be alright but you have been in a condemned state since the first time you understood that you had a duty to do the right thing and you didn't. It doesn't matter how good a murder is after he has committed the act. The penalty for breaking the law still has to be payed. Being a good person won't satisfy the punishment for the crime. In fact, even the murderer asking for forgiveness from the judge or the family of the victim, won't make things right. Justice must still be served. The punishment for sin is eternal death in the lake of fire. Forever in a state of dying but never quite getting there. The soul never dies. Constant pain and torment with no relief, ever. You say you don't believe in a literal hell? Jesus spoke of it more then heaven. He spoke of it more then any other person in the bible. Either Jesus is a liar or else there are literal fires of a literal hell. If you reject the message of Jesus, you reject Him.

So what is the sum of these things? The whole world is guilty before God and in a condemned state. That's a fact. There is no person on the face of the earth who feels confident at the thought of standing before Almighty God and being judged. Our conscience bears witness that we are all guilty. We are hell deserving sinners with no hope in our selves of doing enough good to make peace between us and God. What are our options? Keep heading down the path of destruction and hope for the best? Continue to feed our lusts and ignore the impending doom? Just like the people in Noah's time, we could just continue eating, drinking and marrying until the flood comes. The flood of God's wrath is coming and there is only one Ark of safety! As in Noah's time, only the people in the ark were saved. All others were destroyed by the flood. They died! The flood of God's wrath is coming again and the only Ark of safety is Jesus Christ. Only by getting into Christ, can anyone be saved. He is the only one with the righteousness to get into heaven. Jesus is the only one who paid the price for us to have peace with God. Jesus is the only one that God ever raised from the dead to eternal life. Everyone else falls short. On one side we have everyone that has ever lived... Lost and condemned sinners, but on the other there is One righteous Man who never sinned. If we can join ourselves to Him, we'll be saved. If some how we can have peace with God through what He did, we'll be saved. If we can enter into a oneness with Jesus, we'll make it in. God says we can do this freely by simply by believing that Jesus payed the price. God says if we believe in Jesus, He will forgive our sins and we'll be saved from the judgment to come.

Why I Hate Religion

I want to explain my extreme dislike of religion. Hate would be a more accurate term. So what do I mean when I say religion? What I speak of is a system of rules, ordinances, ceremonies, traditions that are to be obeyed in order to obtain favour with God and eventually eternal life. It is a process that covers the length of your life in which you obey the laws of God and do what you ought to do. "Well that sounds pretty good, there can't be anything wrong with that", you might say. Just go to church and do the best you can. As long as the good is more then that bad, you'll be alright. That's religion. It leaves a man striving, grasping one commandment after another, as a knot in a rope, trying to pull himself up to God. It's a fruitless task. You never get where you want to be. You never get peace in your soul. The thought process in religion is that if I keep striving to be better, then God will love me and let me into heaven. What it ignores is our sin problem. Our sin has to be dealt with. God can't be just in forgiving someone, without someone paying the penalty for the crime. Religion completely ignores this. We have a huge mountain of sin that must be dealt with so we can have peace with God! In our natural state we are enemies of God! Religion can't bring peace with God. Over and over people try religion and become disgusted with it because it fails to satisfy the soul.

Religion won't get you peace with God. It falsely claims that by doing the law, you can justify yourself before God and have peace, but the bible says it can't.

Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his (God's) sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Gal 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh (person) be justified.

Religion is a false blanket of security. Why I hate religion and why Jesus had such harsh words for the religious, is that religion gets in between a sinner who is convicted of his sin, and the forgiveness and peace he is looking for. Sin convicts a person's conscience, and then religion steps in offers a cheap substitute for Jesus. Religion says, "Just do this list of rules and you'll have peace with God and forgiveness." It's a lie. Religion says if you wear these clothes and meet with this group of people, you'll have peace. It's a lie. Religion says finger these prayer beads and chant this chant you'll justify yourself before God, and it's a lie. Religion says if you pray this prayer and become a member of this church, you'll have peace. It's a lying, despicable lowdown substitute for the Lord Jesus Christ. The bible says...

Gal 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
Gal 3:11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.

That says that all people that live their life by doing the law (here is religion... just follow this law) are under a curse because they have not kept the law they so value. The law has been broken and the penalty for breaking the law is death. Eternal death. What a dastardly thought, that us keeping some rules will cause a just God to overlook the thousands of times we sinned. So it is futile to keep living under the curse of doing the law in order to please God and justify yourself. But this is exactly what religion does.

A minister or priest might get you to confess your sins to him and that might make you more comfortable around him, but it won't satisfy the wrath of a holy God. Continuing to do religious activities to buy favour with God might ease your guilty conscience, but at the end of the day it won't bring peace with God. Praying toward Mecca might make you feel better, but it won't remove the mountain of your sin or bring peace with God. We have a huge sin debt that religion can never remove.

Man and God are enemies. We are at war. The best man can do is a brief cessation of hostilities. God cannot over look our sin and forgive us. He can't justly do that, or He would be unjust like we are. You see the predicament. We need an intercessor! We need someone to step in and satisfy justice, because we can't.

In steps Jesus, and dies on the cross and sheds His blood to pay God, for our sins. OUR DEBT THAT RELIGION COULD NEVER PAY, JESUS PAYED. Man could now have peace with God, at the cross by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is through faith in a person, not religion that justifies us before Almighty God. Where religion had always failed to satisfy the wrath and justice of a holy God, Jesus succeeded! Jesus obtained peace for us at the cross! His blood was shed to pay the penalty that our sin had incurred. God and man can now meet together in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and have eternal peace! There is no other way. You want peace with God and satisfaction in the depth of your soul? You need Jesus. No other substitute will do. Cast aside religion! Put your faith in Jesus.

The grand thing about this is, you can know today that you have peace with God. With religion you never know. When you believe that Jesus paid the price for you and made peace with God, you know that you know. The satisfaction from that knowledge is the grandest thing in this world. To know that your salvation and eternal destination are SURE, is a wonderful thing. Nothing can compare to the joy and peace and love, this new relationship with God, brings to a person.

Peace With God

Peace is defined by Websters dictionary as freedom from disturbance. All over the world, people seek peace for their soul. The problem is that natural man has a disturbance and an unrest in his soul that is caused by a war that exists between him and God. This war is a result of rebellion on our part, not God. God did not chose to be our enemy, rather we chose to be His enemies when we consciously turned our back on Him and contemptuously, went our own way.

Our conscience accuses us continuously, and this causes an uneasiness in our soul. This uneasiness also comes from the knowledge that if there is a coming judgment after death, we don't know how we will fare. In fact, we are down right uneasy about the idea of standing before a righteous and holy God. This knowledge causes us no end of grief. The best we can do to dull this soul disturbance, is to try and drown it out with the many distractions of the world. We ignorantly have a hope that in the future, that one self indulging pleasure will bring us peace. But when the day is done and we rest our heads on our pillows and everything is quiet, the questions and uneasiness arise again. Trying not to think about it only lasts so long.

Thoughts arise... If there is a God, what does He require of me to have peace with Him? Thoughts immediately turn to the experience you had at church. The prayer you prayed, the aisle you walked down... it just didn't bring the peace that you hoped for. Still you lay there night after night, month after month thinking what to do?! No peace!

When we consciously made a decision to ignore God's demand to do right and chose instead to do evil, we openly declared our independence from God and showed our disdain for His law, his glory, and His very person. The only path then to peace is for someone to surrender and it must be on God's terms. You see, God's peace can't be bought. You can't earn it, you can't buy it. The only place you can find it is God. No one else has it. Apart from God there is no peace. You can seek it in pleasure or religion, no peace. Brief feelings of peace will not suffice. All us humans can bring about is a brief cessation from hostilities.

God cannot justly make peace with man and man cannot make peace with God. No religious act can satisfy God's demands. You could finger your prayer beads or pray to a rock, and it might make you feel better, but it won't bring peace with God. Praying a prayer and walking an aisle won't bring peace with God. Joining a church and getting baptized won't satisfy the wrath and justice of God. It might make you more comfortable with that group of people, but it won't bring peace with God. Religion won't satisfy the wrath of God. It might ease your conscience and make your family life run smoother but it won't satisfy the demands of a Holy God. The only way to end the hostilities that have brought about our enmity with God, is that God must pour His wrath and punishment on hell deserving sinners. Or else, someone has to come and pay a price sufficient to satisfy God demand for justice. Sin cannot go unpunished.

God sent His Son to do just that. Jesus died on a cross and shed His blood to pay the penalty that the law demanded. God was satisfied with the sacrifice, and proved it by raising Him from the dead. The payment has been made and all God demands from us in order to be saved, is to believe that. That is the question... are you satisfied that the payment has been made? Do you believe in the depths of your soul that the war is over between you and God? God made peace with us through Jesus Christ. We need to stop fighting with God. We need to cease hostilities and surrender to Him. We need to surrender and turn from ourselves, our life of independence, our own righteousness, and turn to God and acknowledge that the sacrifice and payment was made in full. Jesus made peace for us. God demands blood to be shed for sin and our blood is too polluted. We need perfect righteous blood, and Jesus provided that. His blood is sinless. It is perfect. It is so precious that it is able to pay for the sins of the whole world! There is no peace outside of Jesus. There is no forgiveness outside of Him. We need to believe that! The war is over! That's awesome!

Why Love?

Love is the most powerful, controlling influence in any one's life. Love is the only thing that will ensure faithfulness, and this is true in all relationships. The relationship that I will focus on today, is our relationship to God.

A knowledge of scripture, or of the laws of God will never motivate an individual to complete faithfulness. There is no motivational factor behind them, except condemnation and death, when we don't keep them. Does that make them a bad thing? Absolutely not. But they are insufficient to consistently motivate us to do what we know we ought to do. That is why all religion is doomed from the start, in claiming what does... That it gets us in such a position with God, so that we can have eternal life. Religion is simply living by a set of laws and rules in order to obtain position with God, and we have seen throughout history that it is an abject failure. What it breeds, is self righteous people who have obtained an outward form of righteousness that is designed to please men and not God. This goes for all religions, not just one.

So what does true Christianity offer, that is different from all religion? It offers real love. A love of God that the natural person can't begin to understand. A love that says, "Lord, if every person in the whole world turns against me... I will still love and serve you".
This love I speak of, actually induces a person to a state of obedience and a faithfulness to God, that far supersedes anything rules, laws and principles (religion) can produce. This love that I speak of cares more of what God thinks, then other people. Living your life trying to please other men, brings only failure. It is meaningless because in the end, mankind won't be the judge... God will. So on a scale of importance, what God thinks far outweighs what other people perception of you is.

So, how is this love brought on? How do we attain this love? How do we get into this love? Through something we do perhaps? Absolutely not. How could something we do produce the love of God in us? No, it must be something God did. You see, God did something wonderful. God sent His only begotten Son Jesus down to this earth to die on a cross for our sins. God saw our sin, and He directed all His HATRED... All His ANGER and burning WRATH... His VENGEANCE... and He poured it out on His only Son who had never done anything wrong. God saw the travail of the soul of Jesus, and saw the blood that was shed, and was satisfied. His wrath was satisfied. Justice was satisfied. This was proven when God on the third day raised Him from the dead and seated Jesus at His right hand. We could now have peace with God, because of what Jesus did for us. We could have peace with God because justice was served for Somebody took our place. Jesus died in our place and took our punishment. This is the love of God. This is God's doings. It is through faith in this good news, that God's love is shed abroad in our hearts. It is when we perceive this love, that we come under the subjection of the ONE AND ONLY TRUE POTENTATE... THE KING OF KING AND THE LORD OF LORDS.

1John 4:10 HEREIN IS LOVE, NO THAT WE LOVED GOD, BUT THAT HE LOVED US, AND SENT HIS SON TO BE THE PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS.

The love that we are speaking of is not that we loved God, but rather that He loved us, and His love was manifested in that act of sending His Son to appease His wrath and justice that should fall on us. We are the ones that sinned, not Jesus.

The moment we believe this, we start caring what God thinks of us, rather then what others think of us. This is when we start obeying and truly doing what we ought to do, out of love and not guilt. When we have this love, the result is that we keep His commandments. We don't keep His commandments in order to gain our position or to show God that we love Him. We love Him, therefore we keep His commandments. We believe, therefore we love God, therefore we obey.

Sinning Christian?

Is there such a thing as a sinning Christian? Is there such a thing, as someone who is in bondage to sin, can't get free from it and is still saved? Most denominations seem to think so. They think that Romans chapter seven is the nominal experience for a Christian. This heresy has permeated modern Christianity to such an extent, that there is little difference between the "average church- going Christian" and the average ungodly heathen. The mentality is that as long as you are a member of a "church" and have faithful "church attendance" and tithe regularly, that you are right with God. The deception runs so deep that I feel that many people living in sin, actually believe that they are saved and right with God, when in fact the bible teaches something totally opposite.

The apostle Paul seemed to think that this gospel actually had the power to change someone into a new creature. He said that he was not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ because it was the power of God. He believed that something happened to a person when they believed this gospel. He believed that some supernatural work of God happened to the person the moment they believed and the Spirit of God entered into them. Modern Christianity doesn't believe that. Paul seems to believe that ungodly, unrighteous people won't inherit the kingdom of God. Seemingly, he taught that people who live in sin, are not born again.

1Cor 6:9 ¶ Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
1Cor 6:10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

According to Paul, no unrighteous person is born again. There is no such thing as a carnal Christian. People who habitually dabble in sin are not saved. Men who habitually watch porn are not saved. People who can't stop having sex outside of marriage, are not saved. People who lie regularly or steal, or get drunk are not saved.

If what Paul taught was taught at church meetings, it sure would weed out the wolves. The gospel of Jesus Christ so effects the believer, that they could never become addicted to a sin again. Sin is as foreign to a believer as righteousness is to an unbeliever.

God speaking in the book of Revelations seems to be of the same mind set . He adds fearful and unbelieving to the list...

Rev 21:7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
Rev 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

Even the fearful and the unbelieving will have their part in the lake of fire. Why? Because in order to be born again, one must believe. A person that believes is not fearful. We have nothing to fear. We don't fear God's judgment or wrath anymore then Jesus does. Jesus died and paid the price that we owed. He already paid and when we are born again, we enter into a oneness with Him. We can't pay for the same crime twice. We already paid through Jesus. All God asks us to do is to believe the Gospel and we'll be saved escape His wrath. Just believe that Jesus did everything that needed to be done to make us right with God and get us to heaven. Very simple. When a person believes that, something happens and he is motivated by love and his strongest desire is to do the right thing and no longer live for himself, but for God who died for Him.

If this is not your experience... If there was never one point in your life that everything changed... If there was never one moment in your life that you became sure that you were saved... If there was never a moment in your life when you stopped your life of sin, and started living for God... If there was never a point in your life when you truly believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then you were never born again and your still dead in trespasses and sins. Joining a church won't save you. Saying a prayer won't save you. You must believe the gospel with all your heart.

Redemption Through The Blood!

REDEMP'TION, n. L. redemptio. See Redeem. Websters Dictionary

1. Repurchase of captured goods or prisoners; the act of procuring the deliverance of persons or things from the possession and power of captors by the payment of an equivalent; ransom; release; as the redemption of prisoners taken in war; the redemption of a ship and cargo.

6. In theology, the purchase of God's favor by the death and sufferings of Christ; THE RANSOM OR DELIVERANCE OF SINNERS FROM THE BONDAGE OF SIN AND THE PENALTIES OF GOD'S VIOLATED LAW BY THE (BLOOD) ATONEMENT OF CHRIST.

Many people might not know what redemption is, and might be ignorant of the importance of blood, so I thought I might write on this subject. We humans, are squeamish at the sight of blood. Many people faint at the mere sight of blood. It is vile and disgusting to many of us, but it is quite the opposite to God. God sees it as extremely important. God does not faint at blood. It is very precious to Him. God says to Israel in the old testament...

Leviticus 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

Atonement in this case means to appease the wrath and justice of God. When we sin, we incur a debt with God. We tend to view sin as no big deal, because it is so common, but to God it is a very big deal. God cannot allow sin in His sight. We have a very big problem. We have sinned possibly hundreds of thousands of times. We thought we were getting away with it, but we are not. God is keeping track of every thing. Even our own conscience tells us that we ought to do right, and when we don't we feel guilt. Not only that, we all have a sense of justice and judgment. When we see someone do something wrong, we feel that they deserve punishment. We have incurred a huge debt with God... Let's say a trillion spiritual dollars. We have no way of paying it. All our righteousness only works out to about one dollar. God looks through the record books and sees that He will have to eternally damn us to hell's debtor prison because we are morally bankrupt. We have incurred such a debt, that we could never in a million years pay it off. That means that if we were to never sin again, and do only good things, we would still fall short. We have sinned against God and we deserve the fires of hell for eternity. God requires perfection. He expects it. That is God's standard and we have have fallen way short. There needs to be a ransom paid to save us from the wrath and judgment to come, and it must be in paid in blood.

The moral law of the universe requires blood as payment for sin.

Heb 9:22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission (of sin).

The life of the person or animal is in the blood. When the blood runs out, the body dies. Blood is the most precious thing there is, and the law requires it as grounds to forgive sin. WE NEED BLOOD OR WE ARE DAMNED! Do we see the seriousness of the situation?! Without righteous blood, our sins cannot be justly forgiven. Our right doing will forever be insufficient! No amount of righteousness can make us right with God.

John 1:29 ¶ The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD WHICH TAKETH AWAY THE SIN OF THE WORLD!

God supplied His own spotless Lamb, His own Son, whose name is Jesus! He came and shed His perfect righteous blood to appease the wrath and justice of God! God's own Son died on a cross and paid the ransom we owed. He died in our place! His blood paid the debt that we owed!

Eph 1:7 In whom (In Jesus) we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

Heb 9:12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

What a marvelous verse! Christ entered into the holy place with His own blood, having (stating in is past tense) obtained eternal redemption for us. Awesome!
That is wonderful news indeed! "But", you ask, "Where does religion fit into all of this?"
Better news! It doesn't! Its completely free with no strings attached. Believe it and be saved!