Archive for August, 2008

Do You Hate Yourself?

August 27th, 2008

I said something in my previous post that really does merit it’s own post.  I mentioned in the last part of the post, almost in passing, about what Yeshua wants from us. I think the best way to put it is in Yeshua’s own Words.

26 If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.

27 "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
Luke 14: 26-24 NASB

24"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

25"He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.

26"If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.
John 12: 24-26 NASB

In other scriptures He talks about us loving our enemies as ourselves and showing each other love being the hallmark of who we are, so what do these verses mean? If you take the time to think about it in context of other scriptures He is not saying we are to in fact “hate” these things but our love for Him is so great that our love for these things will appear as if we hate them.  A level of devotion so great that we would be willing to forgo all things if it were asked of us is what He asks for.  So where do we stand? Can we honestly say these things about ourselves? I know that I struggle with it all the time, I can be very selfish in the things I do and each time I am I put my love of self over my love of Yeshua.  This is the struggle we all face, how do I put Yeshua first in our lives? For each of us the path is different because we have different struggles but ultimately it comes down to one simple question.  Am I willing to lose my life and everything in it to serve Him? If you can honestly answer this question with a “yes” then you are one of His.

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How Can I Be More Clear?

August 16th, 2008

I started to write a long drawn-out dissection of Anon’s last comment but I am not sure it would be productive. He appears to have a serious lack of reading comprehension and a lack of understanding of logical fallacies. There are a couple of things that he said that are quite disturbing but they are the evidence of his lack reading comprehension. I wrote one anyways

He seems overly focused on the erroneous idea that I want the church destroyed. That somehow I am like Saul of Tarsus. I am not sure how much clearer I can be. I have absolutely no desire to see the church destroyed. Quite the opposite I desire to see the church restored. Heretical teachings have been allowed to creep in over the last few decades. I want people to wake up and see what those teachings are. If we do not wake up and see the path we are going down, Jehovah will see to it that His church is cleansed. What is so hard to understand about that?

He also made the obvious logical fallacy (known as the "no true Scotsman fallacy") when he made the comments about how true Christians act in the face of persecution. How people act in the face of persecution will vary from person to person and from instance to instance. In fact the source of that persecution will even affect the response. In fact if the persecution is from the outside it is much easier to stand in its face than it is to stand in the face of persecution when you do not realize it for what it is because it is disguised in the cloak of religious authority. Even Peter acted in "non Christian" manner when faced with possible persecution yet the faith that Peter showed was the faith that Yeshua said He would build His church. The statement was a bunch of self righteous religious garbage meant to create a guilt response. The kind of sanctimonious response that often drives people out of the church, and ironic considering his statements on the love we are to show each other.

He seems to think I have some kind of beef with the Baptist church, but I do not. A bad experience in an individual congregation does not make the whole corrupt. Baptists for the most part have resisted the heretical teachings that have pervaded some of the other mainline denominations. Yet even a good portion of them have been deceived by a true wolf in shepherd’s clothing. Accepting a clever marketing scheme designed to fill church pews but forgetting that is not what we are to be about. It is not about putting warm bodies in a pew it is about reaching a lost and dying world with the Truth of our Savior’s love. He also seems to lack understanding of the fact that there is a governing body in the Southern Baptist Church that sets doctrine and sets the agenda for teaching programs and such. While it is true that the Baptists are not as rigidly controlled as other denominations make no mistake that they are quick to remove a congregation if they do not toe the line. I have seen it before I am sure it will happen again.

I am digressing from my point though. He has missed my message and my point entirely. The message I was given is simple. Study the word, specifically what Israel went through when they strayed from Him and went their own way. I am told by Jehovah that He has seen the unrighteousness throughout HIS church and He will respond if we do not turn from our sin in the same way that He responded to Israel when they did not return to their one true Love. Why is it that this message creates such fear? Why would you think I want to see the church go through the purifying fire of Jehovah’s wrath? Why would you think He wants to do it? Is it not better to send messengers to the Church to call them unto repentance so that those in the Church have to opportunity to return to their first Love without going through judgment?

Now let’s address my views on politics and fighting the evils in our world. I have in the past been very politically active. I learned a lot in those years. The biggest lesson being that if politics is the avenue you are putting your faith in to fight the evils of our world then you will lead a life of bitter disappointment. The fact of the matter that we are ultimately in a spiritual war for the hearts and minds of men and if we lose sight of that battle we will lose. The only effective way to fight evil is to reach the lost and dying in our world for Yeshua and as Christians is our one true calling. Now that does not mean that I am saying people should not be politically active. If you are lead that way, by all means do so, but never forget where the true battle is. Personally I believe that political activity on my part is a distraction to my calling so I have chosen to abstain, but that does not mean that I have quit fighting evil.

Now as far as the disrespectful manner in which Anon has acted. He has shown that he has a problem with hypocrisy. He makes a statement about the love we are to show each other and then goes on to show an extreme lack of it by lumping myself and others of like mind with the likes of Jim Jones or Joseph Smith. What is your beef? Is it the fact that you are uncomfortable with the idea that Jehovah still uses prophets, can’t look outside of your own preconceived notions of what the church is, can’t open your mind far enough to question what you have been taught by the man up front, or are you afraid of what will be required of you if you do break out of your box and follow Yeshua with all abandon and truly give Him your life.

Ultimately my friends that is what is required of us all. Give Him everything without qualification. Diving deep into His love and living our lives for Him without reservation. It does not matter how we parse the Word or what denomination we belong to, our doctrinal philosophy does not mater if we cannot die unto ourselves and give ourselves wholeheartedly to Him so that He can give us LIFE and give it to us in a measure we could never fathom. What Yeshua desires more than anything is our unending and unwavering devotion to Him, and it is the least we could give Him.

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The Paradox of Believing

August 11th, 2008

Have you ever wondered how we look to the rest of the world? Can the world see a difference in us or are we just another person in the crowd? My friends we have a peculiar faith. Just think about it.

We believe that a loving and benevolent Creator created us perfect. In our perfection he gave us a free will so that we could truly love Him back. With our free will we decided do the one thing he commanded us not to do and sin entered His perfect world. The penalty for sin that imperfection He cannot tolerate is death. In His perfect wisdom and love He set forth a plan to bring us back and cover our sin in a perfect way and restore in His sight our perfection.

Does this not just sound like the stuff straight out of a children’s story? Yet it is the simple explanation of our faith, the basic understanding of what he did and why. I see in my minds eye the crucifixion of Yeshua and start to recoil at the absolute horror our Lord went through yet at the same time I am comforted by the extreme act of love He did for me in staying on that cross when the easiest thing for Him to do would be to get off of it and walk away. He could have decided it was not worth it and walked away, destroyed His creation and started over. It is within his power to do so, but He chose not to. There is also comfort in knowing that through this act of self-sacrifice He conquered death and the permanent expulsion from His presence we are due because of our rebellion.

The paradox is that it is for the most part it is so simple a child can understand it and realize that it just takes a simple faith; yet we as adults try to make it complex. We add rules; guidelines, doctrines, and anything else that makes the gift look more complex than it is in reality. Why do we do this? It does not add to the message, it dilutes it in ways we could not begin to understand. The answer lies in our sin nature. It rejects the simple because we know our nature is complex and out of hand tends to reject the simple solution to what seems like a complex problem.

Oh, how I praise Yeshua for what He did, and that He made the way to our salvation and eternity with Him so simple. Will you join me there?

This is a reprint of a post from Jan. 17, 2006. It needed repetition.

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Changing the Rules

August 11th, 2008

Because I believe in open and free discourse I have had an extremely liberal commenting policy. My only requirements were that you keep the language clean and that you were respectful.  The anonymous commenter on my site has crossed one of those boundaries.  I will address his comment in due time but I am being forced to change my policy on commenting. First, all commenters must have a name. It does not have to be your name, I also use a pseudonym for my writing. I do this for internet security reasons. Those who know me also know my real name, but it takes a certain level of trust to get to that point. Second, a valid e-mail address will be required to comment. E-mail addresses are not published, but they allow me to respond to a commenter privately. Third, all comments from authors that have not been approved previously will be held in moderation until I have the oprotunity to review them. I realize this will cause some initial hardship on those who comment here regularly but I refuse to publish disrespectful comments.

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Challenging the Status Quo

August 6th, 2008

It seems lately I have been on the defensive and that is not where I want to be.  On one hand it is easy to respond to criticism and a lot harder to be creative but that kind of stance leaves others in control of what goes on my blog. For one thing my posts on being a prophet will become a page on the header so that I can refer others to it in the future rather than continually fighting the same fight over and over again.

I want people to understand I am not here to condemn them or judge them on their choices.  People get so defensive when they think their ideas and preconceived notions are challenged.  What I am asking people to do is take a good hard look at what they believe and ask themselves “Is this G_d’s will?” or “Is does what I am being taught line up with the whole of scripture?” How many times have any of you sat in your pews and listened to what has been taught and never thought to check it out to see if it is correct, or if you did and found it not to be correct, did you challenge what was taught? I personally have lost count, much to my own shame. I remember sitting in a pew at a church that I had come to love, listening to a female evangelist during a “revival” only to hear her disparage her fellow brothers and sisters in Christ because they were of a different denomination.  I sat in stunned silence when I should have denounced her.  Nobody else said anything either. This was also the church that reinforced to me the idea that doctrine was more important than the Word. This was not said but was the practice.  It was this kind of thinking that allowed this woman to say what she said about fellow believers and why it was that my wife and I could only be visitors at their church and never actually be members.  It was more important for me to agree with ALL of the doctrine of the denomination than for me to be in fellowship with them. It is funny because I only disagreed on one element of their doctrine.

There is also the matter is that early in our walks we are usually taught through example not to question or challenge the status quo.  The incident that is burned in my mind happened in Sunday school. My wife and I were in our very early twenties and one of the youngest couples in the class.  We were discussing the good things the Lord was doing so when it came my turn to share I started talking about the miracles being reported coming out of China. You could have heard a pin drop on the carpeted floor of that classroom with the astonished looks I got right before the class leader lead a barrage against me on why it was that miracles were not happening anymore, and that I needed to put these foolish ideas behind me.  Not once was the Word consulted or even mentioned, just an implicit warning that that kind of talk would not be tolerated. Being young and naïve at the time I learned to keep my ideas to myself and not rock the boat. I got involved in several ministries at that church form working with the youth to the audio and video ministries. That was until I inadvertently crossed the elders of the church.  That is another story for another time though.

The point is that we need to start looking at what we think we know is true and find out for sure without a doubt that it is or change our views to line up with those in scripture. At that point we need to share the love we find in Him with everyone else.

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On Being a Prophet Part Duex

August 4th, 2008

I knew this day would come, I knew it the day I accepted my calling.  This was not prophetic but simply because of a small understanding of human nature. I knew there would be those who would challenge my calling because it did not fit their paradigm. As I said before, my paradigm was much like yours once, that was until Jehovah rocked my preconceived notions about the box I tried to put Him in. I am curious. Have you ever heard G_d speak?  It is no knock on you if you have not, most of the redeemed never do before they die.  Do you believe that G_d is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow? What do you believe Yeshua meant when He said we would do greater things than He did?

The first thing I had to learn was to in essence unlearn what I knew without a doubt to be true and let the Holy Spirit guide me in my study of who He is. The first thing that I had to learn was that the role of a prophet never actually went away. What happened is that we stopped calling people prophets and attached a negative stigma to the name.  That somehow some way someone claiming to be a prophet was not quite right in the head. So those who were called that way simply used other names. A good number of prophets were pastors of individual churches, or were circuit preachers.  If you actually do a study of the prophets you will find their biggest role was that of guardian, and herald. The thing that may help most is looking for the precedent in scripture for prophets in the era of the new covenant.

4 For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:
5 So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;
7 Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching;
8 Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.
Romans 12: 4-8


4 Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
5 And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.
6 And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;
10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:
11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.
1 Corinthians 12: 4-11


27 Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.
28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
1 Corinthians 12: 27-28

 


There are many more verses in the New Testament where prophecy is spoken of but not once have I found where Jehovah has revoked the gift. Verses 27 and 28 in 1 Corinthians 12 specifically mention one of the offices of the church as being prophet, I cannot even say that the office of apostle is gone as we still have those who teach the teachers and plant churches.  The thing is; quite frankly, I was somewhat predisposed to the idea even before I was called because I did believe what the Word said over what people said. I could not reconcile scripture with the Baptist doctrine concerning prophets I was being taught and even castigated over when I questioned why it was that it seemed to contradict scripture. It was over things like this that set me at odds with church leaders. This is when I learned all about local power bases in a church and how they do not like their predisposed ideas challenged. That a lot of them play lip service to the idea of testing their teachings against scripture, but when they are challenged or even asked to answer why they circle the wagons and act with hostility.

To put things plain and simple I believe the scriptures when He said that we would do greater things than He did and that He has not changed nor will He. If someone could show me where I am wrong then I would be willing to listen, but you need to come with your "A" game as I have studied this and a plain simple reading of the scriptures backs me up.

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