To the christian humility is absolutely indispensable. It's needed for salvation, {the fist thing that happens} it's also needed for sanctification {the rest, till you get to heaven and are glorified}.
The way God sanctifies people is to give them the acceptance to be themselves and deal with what comes out. Imagine an old car that needs fixing. In order to properly fix and clean it the parts will need to be loosened up so they can get a good wash. The repairer isn't disgusted and discouraged to find some dirty, smelly old parts, nor does he think it would be better to leave it together. On the other hand he may be annoyed if the engine remains tight and jammed. It's the same with people. How terrible the proud and arrogant who think that because they have spent there whole lives buffing and shinning the outside, wiping the oil away that appear between there seams before anyone sees, that they are better then the ones who let the grease come out.
So with Christians, God is pimping them up, they are being renewed day by day, they understand that in order for them to truly grow they need to loosen up and be exactly who the are, that gives them not just the allowance, but the obligation to be exactly themselves, and not try to clean or fix them self spiritually, stuffing it up and becoming fake. The stiff, tight, outwardly clean christian is a contradiction in terms. Christians are forgiven and accepted enough to be exactly who they are with not a hint of pretension, and the world has every right to believe that Christians are fake that don't realize this. Christians acknowledge they are sinners and waste no time trying to prove there ability to look righteous. By the same token the humble person doesn't care how proud or sinful they appear, they are not interested in finding virtue in themselves, they only care what God thinks of them. So, being themselves, they give all they find back to Him.
Jesus said "if you show love to those who love you, what is that" {what does it say about your ability to love} It's the same with how the world verses God's people see goodness and decency. If you look at a person who goes to church, wears long robes and doesn't drink or sware and conclude "God accepts this person" what does that say about your understanding of God's righteousness. However, if you look at rough diamond and conclude "God accepts this person" that shows you are aware of what God's righteousness and power really is.
Imagine being yourself yet on your way to heaven. That's the way it has to be.
I leave ye with a simple quote from A.W.Tozer. "I know two kinds of Christians: the proud who imagine they are humble and the humble who are afraid they are proud. There should be another class: the self-forgetful who leave the whole thing in the hands of Christ and refuse to waist any time trying to make themselves good. They will reach the goal far ahead of the rest."
Ugo meant Eve
Ugo Chaves has done it again by calling Jesus the first socialist. So let me respond by saying Eve was the first socialist. Eve was inspired by Satan's leftist propaganda. She was inspired by his talk of equality, his focus on a thousands half truths, his desire to snigger at the "just as bad" intentions of the good and free and appease the crafty and closed. He convinced her that God wasn't fare and was just trying to stop her from having her eyes opened and being like Him, knowing good and evil. Eve was the first to reconsider herself wise by believing the accumulated half truths on the left, and acted to bring about a world of peace through knowledge deduced through pride and suspension. She believed that God was not just the most powerful, but {toward hatred, control and manipulation} was indeed an aggressive, warmongerer that opposes peace {with murderous dictators.} But that's an inconvenient truth.
Max's Maxims
Max Lucado's maxims, taken from John 3:1-21
It's a fact of the farm. The most fertile ground remains barren if no seed is sown.
You can't help the blind by turning up the light.
You can't help the deaf by turning up the music.
You can't change the inside by decorating the outside.
You can't grow fruit without seed, you must be born again. {John3:3}
God does the work not us. It's not a trade off, it's a gift. Man's job isn't to earn it but to accept it.
All the worlds religions can be placed in one of two camps: Legalism or Grace. Human kind does it or God does it. Salvation as a wage based on deeds done- or salvation as a gift based on Christs death.
A legalist believes the supreme force behind salvation is you. If you look right, speak right, and belong to the right segment of the right group, you will be saved. The brunt of the responsibility doesn't lie with God it lies with you. It results in 1. fear:- that you won't do enough. 2. Arrogance:- that you have done enough. 3. failure:- that you have maid a mistake.
Legalism is a dark world of slow torture, suffocation of the spirit, amputation of ones dreams. Legalism is just enough religion to keep you but not enough to nourish you. So you starve. Your teachers don't know where to find food so you starve together. Your diet is rules and standards. No taste, no zest, just bland predictable religion.
If we want to sing we better stay in step, that's legalism. It's rigid. It's uniform. It's mechanical- and it's not from God. Legalism doesn't need God. Legalism is the search for innocence, not forgiveness. It's a systematic process of defending self, explaining self, exalting self, and justifying self. Legalists are obsessed with self- not God.
Legalism:- Turns my opinion into your burden:- There is only room for one opinion in this boat. And guess who is wrong!
It turns my opinion into your boundary:- Your opposing opinion makes me question not only your right to have fellowship with me, but also your salvation.
It turns my opinion into your obligation:- Christians must tow the company line. Your job isn't to think, it's to march. If you want to be in the group, stay in step and don't ask question.
Legalism makes you fear the displeasure of your peers. It puts the fear of man in you, it makes you approval hungry. You become keenly aware of what others will say and think, and you do what it takes to please them. Conformity is not fun but it's safe. The uniform doesn't fit, but it's approved so you were it. Who are you to ask questions, stay in step and plod down the path of least resistance.
Spiritual life is not a human endeavor, it is rooted in and orchestrated by the Holy Spirit. Every spiritual achievement is created and energized by God. Spirituality, says Jesus, comes not from church attendance, or good deeds or correct doctrine, but from heaven itself.
Salvation is God's business. Grace is His idea, His work and His expense. v15 "Everyone who believes can have eternal life" Not everyone who achieves. Not everyone who succeeds. Not everyone who agrees. But "everyone who believes"
Fantastic!
It's a fact of the farm. The most fertile ground remains barren if no seed is sown.
You can't help the blind by turning up the light.
You can't help the deaf by turning up the music.
You can't change the inside by decorating the outside.
You can't grow fruit without seed, you must be born again. {John3:3}
God does the work not us. It's not a trade off, it's a gift. Man's job isn't to earn it but to accept it.
All the worlds religions can be placed in one of two camps: Legalism or Grace. Human kind does it or God does it. Salvation as a wage based on deeds done- or salvation as a gift based on Christs death.
A legalist believes the supreme force behind salvation is you. If you look right, speak right, and belong to the right segment of the right group, you will be saved. The brunt of the responsibility doesn't lie with God it lies with you. It results in 1. fear:- that you won't do enough. 2. Arrogance:- that you have done enough. 3. failure:- that you have maid a mistake.
Legalism is a dark world of slow torture, suffocation of the spirit, amputation of ones dreams. Legalism is just enough religion to keep you but not enough to nourish you. So you starve. Your teachers don't know where to find food so you starve together. Your diet is rules and standards. No taste, no zest, just bland predictable religion.
If we want to sing we better stay in step, that's legalism. It's rigid. It's uniform. It's mechanical- and it's not from God. Legalism doesn't need God. Legalism is the search for innocence, not forgiveness. It's a systematic process of defending self, explaining self, exalting self, and justifying self. Legalists are obsessed with self- not God.
Legalism:- Turns my opinion into your burden:- There is only room for one opinion in this boat. And guess who is wrong!
It turns my opinion into your boundary:- Your opposing opinion makes me question not only your right to have fellowship with me, but also your salvation.
It turns my opinion into your obligation:- Christians must tow the company line. Your job isn't to think, it's to march. If you want to be in the group, stay in step and don't ask question.
Legalism makes you fear the displeasure of your peers. It puts the fear of man in you, it makes you approval hungry. You become keenly aware of what others will say and think, and you do what it takes to please them. Conformity is not fun but it's safe. The uniform doesn't fit, but it's approved so you were it. Who are you to ask questions, stay in step and plod down the path of least resistance.
Spiritual life is not a human endeavor, it is rooted in and orchestrated by the Holy Spirit. Every spiritual achievement is created and energized by God. Spirituality, says Jesus, comes not from church attendance, or good deeds or correct doctrine, but from heaven itself.
Salvation is God's business. Grace is His idea, His work and His expense. v15 "Everyone who believes can have eternal life" Not everyone who achieves. Not everyone who succeeds. Not everyone who agrees. But "everyone who believes"
Fantastic!
A light on a hill
None of us are like God, we are all formed out of the dust and darkness. God's method of salvation is a light in the darkness, and the light is from God by the way, not us. You can't brighten up the room so that light can come in. "You" can't do anything to make the room brighter, and the light doesn't need your help. Attempting to makes you proud and a worshipper of your own achievements. Your job is to simply accept the light and thank God He can do what He does. He sent His son the light to you, your only hope of salvation.
Here is the meaning of the good news of the gospel:- Mankind doesn't have it in him to produce the Godly righteousness that is necessary to get into heaven, so don't try. Trying to produce it is like a blob of mud cleaning itself. The only way that God can look at you and see the righteousness needed for entry into heaven is for him to give it to you in the form of a seed that He waters and makes grow. He then must blot out your past sins, and give you the power over future sin of a promise of continued grace and forgiveness so you don't have to concern yourself with it. That's the only way. God encourages you to forget about your level of purity and simply focus on his greatness. To get you to stop focusing on your sin is absolutely indispensable because sin's power is though the law. This is no cream puff theology of a week mind too stupid to understand the nature of evil, and to guilty to believe anything other then "geeze I hope God can forgive because i just want to be a basted." This is hard nosed truths about freedom and it's absolute necessity for purging pride from the human heart.
Since righteousness is so necessary, and humans don't have the ability to produce it themselves, the only way to get it is for God to impute {Rom 4:6} it to you though humility. But being humble, {another big subject therefore easily misunderstood} doesn't mean being reserved, it means admitting the truth about yourself, that you need God to be your savior because you can't do it. It means giving Him the glory for His trillion dollar gift, and being grateful rather then slapping Him in the face by offering him 20 bucks. This is indispensable because the only way God can keep pride out of heaven is to make salvation a free gift {Rom 6:23} something that can't be worked for because earning salvation or righteousness produces pride {Eph 2:8,9}. The attempt at working for righteousness and acceptance of God apart from faith in how wonderful He is causes your heart to focus on law, making law your focus for salvation rather then God and His grace, causing you to live under the curse of the law. {Gal 3:10} There are no half measures to God's righteous acceptance, it has to be one or the other, either grace of law. {Gal 5:4}
This is the reason why Christan's go on so much about the cross, because of what it means. All the righteous requirements are fulfilled in Jesus because He took on the cross with him all of the sins and diseases in humanity. Because of him, righteousness, acceptance and entry into heaven is given to anyone who believes God is who He is. This is the freedom that Christians talk about when they say they are set free {John 8:36}. They don't have to worry or try, they just have to relax and be themselves and there God will chase there humble heart. {Rom 14:4}
Be careful of finger pointers though. Finger pointers judge you by how well you are living up to the dead law of righteousness outside of grace. When Jesus said "judge not lest you be judged" He meant if you point the finger it shows your belief system is based on the law rather then grace and faith. Therefore you aren't a christian and you aren't going to heaven.
Here is the meaning of the good news of the gospel:- Mankind doesn't have it in him to produce the Godly righteousness that is necessary to get into heaven, so don't try. Trying to produce it is like a blob of mud cleaning itself. The only way that God can look at you and see the righteousness needed for entry into heaven is for him to give it to you in the form of a seed that He waters and makes grow. He then must blot out your past sins, and give you the power over future sin of a promise of continued grace and forgiveness so you don't have to concern yourself with it. That's the only way. God encourages you to forget about your level of purity and simply focus on his greatness. To get you to stop focusing on your sin is absolutely indispensable because sin's power is though the law. This is no cream puff theology of a week mind too stupid to understand the nature of evil, and to guilty to believe anything other then "geeze I hope God can forgive because i just want to be a basted." This is hard nosed truths about freedom and it's absolute necessity for purging pride from the human heart.
Since righteousness is so necessary, and humans don't have the ability to produce it themselves, the only way to get it is for God to impute {Rom 4:6} it to you though humility. But being humble, {another big subject therefore easily misunderstood} doesn't mean being reserved, it means admitting the truth about yourself, that you need God to be your savior because you can't do it. It means giving Him the glory for His trillion dollar gift, and being grateful rather then slapping Him in the face by offering him 20 bucks. This is indispensable because the only way God can keep pride out of heaven is to make salvation a free gift {Rom 6:23} something that can't be worked for because earning salvation or righteousness produces pride {Eph 2:8,9}. The attempt at working for righteousness and acceptance of God apart from faith in how wonderful He is causes your heart to focus on law, making law your focus for salvation rather then God and His grace, causing you to live under the curse of the law. {Gal 3:10} There are no half measures to God's righteous acceptance, it has to be one or the other, either grace of law. {Gal 5:4}
This is the reason why Christan's go on so much about the cross, because of what it means. All the righteous requirements are fulfilled in Jesus because He took on the cross with him all of the sins and diseases in humanity. Because of him, righteousness, acceptance and entry into heaven is given to anyone who believes God is who He is. This is the freedom that Christians talk about when they say they are set free {John 8:36}. They don't have to worry or try, they just have to relax and be themselves and there God will chase there humble heart. {Rom 14:4}
Be careful of finger pointers though. Finger pointers judge you by how well you are living up to the dead law of righteousness outside of grace. When Jesus said "judge not lest you be judged" He meant if you point the finger it shows your belief system is based on the law rather then grace and faith. Therefore you aren't a christian and you aren't going to heaven.
So it's a persons world. Get over it.
We all go to church looking for God, but what we actually find is the pastors world. Dreadfully, this may be the world of some of the narrowest, shallowest, pampered weirdoes on the planet. Yeah i know it sounds corny, but maybe this is the world we live in, the world of the real world church. Maybe this is the reason God uses people to do his speaking and, like Jesus as the word of God, and those who follow Jesus, maybe the best one can expect in a church is the world of the "person/personality" running the place. But hey, that might be o.k., in fact normal, in fact the way it should be in this life:- to not be able to expect anything more from God's church then the world of the man {or transvestite} who started it. It would be admitting the way things are anyway, and stop people from worshipping the pastor thinking he is supposed to be anything like God.
Rather then snigger at imperfections, we could get over the truth that the church is less then 1% God, and get on with finding the rest of him. So maybe the best Godly atmosphere we can expect is that of the person in place in the church in our community. So if your looking for God's atmosphere, the best you can expect in this fallen imperfect world is the atmosphere of A PERSON OF GOD. So were all winging because God isn't in our churches, but really we think the pastor is a wanker. And who knows, if we were to look at the personality of people who have churches what might we find. Empty cells, high pitch morons, those who are good at knowing how to form a church, how to preach regularly for 40 minuets every Sunday and say nothing at all in there long years of service. Good at making a church and that's it. But what is so wrong with that, we should admit the truth that we are all only a certain size and stop winging about it. Maybe the pastor can preach for forty minuets a week, and not have to spread himself to thin running the church as well.
Christianity's claim is that God changes people, so God reveals himself through the changed person, with God's strength being made perfect in weakness. So i guess it's up to the people to decide weather the "dear leader" is just another opportunist with another man made, ground inspired school of thought or not. If the power of God really exists, and we can't see it by merely looking at the sky, then we must also see it in God's people. And so we come face to face with our biggest criticism and the answer, that the pastor of that church is, well, o.k. i guess.
Rather then snigger at imperfections, we could get over the truth that the church is less then 1% God, and get on with finding the rest of him. So maybe the best Godly atmosphere we can expect is that of the person in place in the church in our community. So if your looking for God's atmosphere, the best you can expect in this fallen imperfect world is the atmosphere of A PERSON OF GOD. So were all winging because God isn't in our churches, but really we think the pastor is a wanker. And who knows, if we were to look at the personality of people who have churches what might we find. Empty cells, high pitch morons, those who are good at knowing how to form a church, how to preach regularly for 40 minuets every Sunday and say nothing at all in there long years of service. Good at making a church and that's it. But what is so wrong with that, we should admit the truth that we are all only a certain size and stop winging about it. Maybe the pastor can preach for forty minuets a week, and not have to spread himself to thin running the church as well.
Christianity's claim is that God changes people, so God reveals himself through the changed person, with God's strength being made perfect in weakness. So i guess it's up to the people to decide weather the "dear leader" is just another opportunist with another man made, ground inspired school of thought or not. If the power of God really exists, and we can't see it by merely looking at the sky, then we must also see it in God's people. And so we come face to face with our biggest criticism and the answer, that the pastor of that church is, well, o.k. i guess.
World War Three
WW three will begin the same way the others did with the world wide rise of the left. Major powers will have far left governments in place that "need" big armies to counter the "aggressive" free democracies. "Compassionate" leftists will cut the dictators slack giving them the benefit of a doubt, while sniggering and mistrusting the intentions of free and open democracies. Because of intellectually justified appeasement of dictators by there supporters in leftland, with journalists calling anyone that stands in there way "waremungerers," again good men will do {something to late} and evil will triumpth. This time though, there will be no great power to counteract the armies of the left because the great power will have been demonised and resisted and weekend for years prior, as we see now with anti-Americanism. The "evil" capitalist society that could have produced a defense will be boycotted in free societies, and quietly encouraged in dictatorships, as is China's story. Thanks to ww1 and 2 the world has a mentality that if they get into shit, someone will save them. Now they hate America and believe that the spirit of good will overcome evil, magically.
Now
It almost seams as though it's set up. We now have a culture, and the movies prove it by the way, that good will always be {in the physical world} stronger then evil, and if good is attacked, it should shrug of the attack as nothing. Might is right because the healthy are mighty and healthy people are right, yet the weirdo es who want to control are handed power. Watching the movie ghostbusters for instance teaches us that by waiting till the last moment, when it is obvious that the opponent really does need to be apposed, when finally the courts of the world realize the truth that we are in fact under attack, then good will be sufficiently backed and will always prov ale {especially if there is enough loving energy in the atmosphere}. Watching a 1985 Dr Who, {when he was at his most appeasement mentality, before the show lost it's mojo and became to boring and typical to continue}, the doctor said, on his way to execution "If we aren't willing to sacrifice our lives for the good of decency, then evil and chaos will spread and overtake the world." Isn't that just the mentality of the serpent all those years ago. "Humanity, give up, it will show your better, i promise." Through history we see the same demand, and those who follow, and the blood that follows, and the part of the pharisees in the church, and the turning away of seekers after God.
As our post ww2 culture teaches us, all we have to do is give up and good will triumph. What age is this? Our hatred of those who want to slaughter our women and children makes our adversaries stronger. All this wicked world needs is love. Anger makes the dark side grow. I can see another biased at work here can't you. The age of evil is coming upon us as before, but this time it's homework is done.
As our post ww2 culture teaches us, all we have to do is give up and good will triumph. What age is this? Our hatred of those who want to slaughter our women and children makes our adversaries stronger. All this wicked world needs is love. Anger makes the dark side grow. I can see another biased at work here can't you. The age of evil is coming upon us as before, but this time it's homework is done.
Information or Perspective
You can use statistics to prove anything, now why would that be. One reason is because of the size of truth, the amount of things there are to consider, and that there are infinitely more lies in the world then there are truths. Because of the amount of lies there are, a mere "search" for truth doesn't guarantee being able to find it. What the heart searches for it finds, "the eyes of the seeker are the ones that see", but what do they see. When the proud sniggering heart searches for truth it only finds proud sniggering truths, because the brain does what thew heart tells it to do, producing information for the heart. The reason why the partakers of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil will only ever find Satan's laws and ways of seeing things is because of the heart of the person doing the searching.
The proud of spirit believe that the accumulation of information alone leads to spiritual life. However the proud don't want to believe they are biased, they want to believe that there conclusions are a result of there spiritual purity and greatness as a human being, not to mention there superior intellect. It's no coincidence that the majority of college professors, artists, journalists, actors etc {talented fools, gifted idiots, who's lucky gifts keep them from feeling the real world} are passionate leftists, concluding that the ground is better then the seed, that socialism is better then capitalism, and freedom is a myth. The foolish spiritually proud heart, the dark natural disposition of us all, wants to slip into the doctrine of the whisperers and accusers, the doctrines of the devil who is called "the accuser" Rev 12:10
Here is where the conspiracy theories come in. The proud heart believes it's thinking to be nothing short of amazing, and rather then leave embarrassing blank spaces in there understanding would rather fill them with easy shallow information. They always make statements as questions and go no further because they don't want to. They will say along with homer Simpson "why do they do that, it's because they are stupid, that's why everybody does everything." All they want to do is snigger, and leave it as that because that is there religion, the religion of the serpent in the garden, the accuser. Conspiracy theories are candy for those who would rather know then think, and don't particularly want to take very much into consideration when making important conclusions about our world unless it unsettle there proud opinions.
Conspiracy theorising is easy sniggering at what is good and imperfect. It's a belief system based entirely on lies and half truths and even truths about our imperfect world. With the abundance of lies and lack of understanding about a subject as great at the world, conspiracy theories can go to work very well indeed, but always with one agenda. Why is it that conspiracy theories always conspire about how bad democratic government is {bribes run the world} and capitalism {the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.} Why will little old christian ladies spend there hard earned money on books and tapes about how bad capitalist America is {the best democracy money can buy}? It's because sniggering accusations and lies rely on people's ignorance about the imperfect, lesser of two evils way the world is, as well as the myriad of lies that can be conjured to support any of the growing dark doctrines all on the same side. The lesser of two evils is an easy target for the self-righteous heart that sees moral equivalencies everywhere; that sees the Rights capitalist system of free democracies as "just as bad" as the Lefts socialist dictatorships swarming the planet and on the rise.
When focusing on the knowledge of good and evil as one's measuring stick rather then life, the most brilliant minds can get caught up and lost in 99 lies that seem truer then one truth. And so it is that in these last days people will be proud of there accumulated "good enough" half truths and hate everything that is right and free. So they weigh up the knowledge of good and evil to find more lies then truths, making the conclusion deceit heavy. The idea of the lesser of two evils doesn't come into there thinking because that requires the perspective of life through leaning toward the other tree on the right. The tree on the left only ever produces more lies than truths, and proud intellectuals searching for wisdom prefer amount over substance.
The proud of spirit believe that the accumulation of information alone leads to spiritual life. However the proud don't want to believe they are biased, they want to believe that there conclusions are a result of there spiritual purity and greatness as a human being, not to mention there superior intellect. It's no coincidence that the majority of college professors, artists, journalists, actors etc {talented fools, gifted idiots, who's lucky gifts keep them from feeling the real world} are passionate leftists, concluding that the ground is better then the seed, that socialism is better then capitalism, and freedom is a myth. The foolish spiritually proud heart, the dark natural disposition of us all, wants to slip into the doctrine of the whisperers and accusers, the doctrines of the devil who is called "the accuser" Rev 12:10
Here is where the conspiracy theories come in. The proud heart believes it's thinking to be nothing short of amazing, and rather then leave embarrassing blank spaces in there understanding would rather fill them with easy shallow information. They always make statements as questions and go no further because they don't want to. They will say along with homer Simpson "why do they do that, it's because they are stupid, that's why everybody does everything." All they want to do is snigger, and leave it as that because that is there religion, the religion of the serpent in the garden, the accuser. Conspiracy theories are candy for those who would rather know then think, and don't particularly want to take very much into consideration when making important conclusions about our world unless it unsettle there proud opinions.
Conspiracy theorising is easy sniggering at what is good and imperfect. It's a belief system based entirely on lies and half truths and even truths about our imperfect world. With the abundance of lies and lack of understanding about a subject as great at the world, conspiracy theories can go to work very well indeed, but always with one agenda. Why is it that conspiracy theories always conspire about how bad democratic government is {bribes run the world} and capitalism {the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.} Why will little old christian ladies spend there hard earned money on books and tapes about how bad capitalist America is {the best democracy money can buy}? It's because sniggering accusations and lies rely on people's ignorance about the imperfect, lesser of two evils way the world is, as well as the myriad of lies that can be conjured to support any of the growing dark doctrines all on the same side. The lesser of two evils is an easy target for the self-righteous heart that sees moral equivalencies everywhere; that sees the Rights capitalist system of free democracies as "just as bad" as the Lefts socialist dictatorships swarming the planet and on the rise.
When focusing on the knowledge of good and evil as one's measuring stick rather then life, the most brilliant minds can get caught up and lost in 99 lies that seem truer then one truth. And so it is that in these last days people will be proud of there accumulated "good enough" half truths and hate everything that is right and free. So they weigh up the knowledge of good and evil to find more lies then truths, making the conclusion deceit heavy. The idea of the lesser of two evils doesn't come into there thinking because that requires the perspective of life through leaning toward the other tree on the right. The tree on the left only ever produces more lies than truths, and proud intellectuals searching for wisdom prefer amount over substance.
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