Who Gets To Define Sin?

In response to a post from Abby Johnson:

“No one gets to choose what’s sinful and what’s not except for God. He has the full authority on morality.”
~ Abby Johnson

Correct.
It’s not so much that God chooses what is sinful or not, as much as disunity with Him is sin and causes death… Physical and spiritual.
God is the Author, Sustainer and Source of Life, therefore anything we do outside of His will separates us from that Life. The natural result is death, just as unplugging any device from an outlet would cause it to stop functioning.

This world has been unplugged from that Source of Life and the battery is running out, so to speak. We are born into a sinful (disconnected) world, being sinful (disconnected) from birth. We can’t reconnect to that Source of Life on our own any more than a lamp can plug itself in.
That’s why we need a Savior: One who is connected/unified with God, to save us from the death that results in our separation from God, and reunify us with Him, our Source of Life!

As we cannot dictate God’s will to Him, we most certainly can not change what is and is not in His will. Anything outside of His will is sin. He has made known a great deal of His will to us, and in the vast areas in which He has not revealed His will to the masses through His Word, the Bible, He reveals His will to individuals through His Holy Spirit, in the grey areas of Grace.

Until next time,

Go in Christ’s Love

God In A Box

I find that people in the church tend to get a little too wrapped up in their version of God; sometimes to the point where when a conflict (or multiple conflicts) arises between what they THINK they know of who YHWH is and who He reveals Himself to be in Scripture arise, they choose the version they’ve got in their minds instead…

That’s not worshiping YHWH.
That’s idolatry.

…or they realize that they haven’t been truly following YHWH as He reveals Himself in His Word, and they walk away from the church entirely, which has been happening a lot lately too.

This is why I so strongly believe that it’s important to move away from denominational theologies, which do more to limit the scope of how we see God through the Bible and in our daily lives, and return to a model where if we believe that the Bible IS the Word of God, meant to be an example of how He interacts with us, His beloved creation, then we should expect Him to continue to interact with us as the example He gave us says He will… And like He does elsewhere in the world today and throughout history.

The Western church’s sanitized versions of God, Jesus, and even the Bible as a whole, do more harm than good as people end up believing that their versions of YHWH are somehow better than the real YHWH; a ludicrous concept, chocked full of subconscious heresy! This is exactly why people would choose to stick with an ethical god of their own design over a Holy God who they just don’t understand, because they haven’t been properly taught how faith, hope, or love, as God defines them works; instead, operating only on a worldly definition of each of these.

Until next time,

Go in Christ’s Love

Faith Is What Now??

At this point, I think it’s safe to say that many Christians know that “luv is a verb,” to quote DC Talk, meaning that love isn’t a feeling, but an action. But how many of us know that faith is too?

“Just as the body apart from the soul is dead, so too is faith without [action] dead”

James 2:26

Let me ask, how many times as a Christian have you had a good idea, and acted on it, hoping that God will bless your efforts because it’s a nice idea, only for it fizzle… or worse, for it to blow up in your face?

Did you know that as a Christian, it’s not just enough to do Christiany things once you are saved? Jesus warned that many will come to Him in the end pleading with Him, telling Him about all these wonderful things they did in His name, but He will sadly tell them that He never knew them and to depart from His presence! That should sober any churchgoer who thinks that their eternity is secure.

But if people did things in Jesus’ Name, then why would Jesus say that He did not know them?

There’s a lot that goes into adequately answering that question, but the simple answer is because they did not know Him.

We will spend several posts unpacking this, and other related topics, but first, let me ask you, if on your own accord you:

Met a celebrity once, would you say you know that person? If you’re honest, probably not.
Went to fan clubs for that celebrity afterwards, would you say you know that person? Still no.
Read that celeb’s biographies, would you know that person? Ok, you’d know an awful lot about them, but would you… KNOW… them? That’s sadly a no… still.
Went out into your community and raised money for charities, helped widows and orphans, fed the hungry, visited prisoners, and brought hope to sick and dying kids in the hospitals in the name of this celebrity, would you know this celebrity? Probably not.
Why would you not know that celebrity? Because you didn’t spend any one on one time getting to know them. You didn’t go to the fan club with the celebrity, or talk with them about their life. The celebrity didn’t go with you to do any of the charitable work, nor did they ask you to do any of it. To them, you’re just a fanatic. When you meet them again, and you tell them about all the wonderful things that you’ve done in their name, they’ll say something like what Jesus will say on that day, “Get away from me! I don’t know you!”

How would that situation be different?

Perhaps if you knew the celebrity before you did any of those things. Perhaps if you asked the celebrity how and where you could serve in their name to advance their cause. Perhaps, if you spend time getting to know the celebrity and having fun both while doing charity and during each other’s free time.

Now read this all again, but substitute “celebrity” with Jesus.

Would you say you know Jesus if you’ve:

only met Him once? (Said the “saving prayer”)
gone to church every week?
Read the Bible and maybe some Christian books
Went out into your community and raised money for charities, helped widows and orphans, fed the hungry, visited prisoners, and brought hope to sick and dying kids in the hospitals in the name of this celebrity, would you know this celebrity?
While all of these are good things for Christians to do, it’s not a guarantee of salvation. In fact, it’s not even a way to be saved at all, because only our faith in Jesus can save us. While we will talk about saving faith in another article, and we do not advocate works of any kind as the seal of salvation, the Lord is clear that faith is not inactive.

So, what kind of faith is God looking for?

God wants us to Love like Him. We know that everything Jesus did was an act of Love. Later we will go into how Jesus didn’t act on His own, but where God lead Him. He called it Unity. We’ll dig deeper into that Unity and how Jesus asked that we all experience that same Unity with the Father that He did through the Holy Spirit, which He sent to us. It is here that actionable faith comes into play; a faith in what God is telling us to do in the moment to the point of acting on it, not just blindly doing good-ish deeds in Jesus’ name and hoping something good results and not being surprised when it doesn’t.

In order for us to Love like Christ, we first need to learn how to have a faith like Christ which unified Him with the Father. It is my hope that this website, with the articles, podcasts, videos and any other media, will help you along the way to a closer, unified relationship with the Father through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Until next time,
Go in Christ’s Love

Just A List of Don’ts?

Many people try to sum up God’s Law with the word “Don’t” or maybe “Thou shall not….” Fill in the blank. As a result, many people view His Laws as restrictive instead of what it actually is: Loving. Yeah. Think about it; when you have information about harmful stuff, do you stay silent about it to those you care about, or do you give them a warning? Chances are, if you’re not cruel, you would want to ensure that they avoid the harm they are not aware of.

For instance, when I was learning to drive, I was given the incredible opportunity to go wherever you wanted. With that set of wheels came a seemingly limitless number of possibilities! However, in my optimism about my new horizons, I was not thinking about all the ways my newfound freedom could hurt me. Family and friends, on the other hand, were. I was reminded of the hazards of speeding, passing on those two-lane country roads and even going up blind hills on those barely paved, one lane back roads.

These people were not trying to restrict my freedom but attempting to ensure it! If I had been pulled over for speeding, while fun in the moment, the financial and judicial penalties are not so fun. Passing in a two lane road, or not proceeding with caution at every blind hill, while hindering my need for speed, could mean a much worse fate for myself… or someone else.

The same can be said with God’s Law. He didn’t place restrictions surrounding finances, work, communication, relationships, worship, and others to hinder our desires, but to allow us to enjoy them to their fullest potential! Anything outside of these boundaries are harmful to us, regardless of whether we realize it right away or not.

What is also sad is this idea that God directly punishes everyone that ignores these boundaries, when it is the natural order of this world, fallen though it may be. Just as if I had ignored the boundaries placed on my driving, it’s not my dad punishing me that caused me to get a speeding ticket or a wreck when I passed when I shouldn’t have. It’s the natural consequences of my actions, that both my family and God are trying to help us avoid!

Although perhaps it’s BECAUSE this world is fallen that these Laws are SO IMPORTANT! It’s vital not to blow all our money on entertainment and alcohol so that we can meet our financial obligations and still have financial freedoms. It’s important to stay active, not lay around and eat all the time, otherwise we get fat and have a ton of health problems that come with it. But God also tells us that it’s important to rest regularly. Remember that the Sabbath was meant for US.

It’s important to not deceive people around you so that you can form trusting relationships with friends, family, and coworkers, Otherwise you end up on your own, isolated from others. God knows that even introverts need community. It’s important for a man and woman to keep intimacy between only themselves, in a marriage. Else, you open each other up to diseases, broken hearts, broken families, and given enough time, degradation of the overall gene pool. It’s important to worship the Creator, Jesus, instead of worshiping what He created, like stars, nature, other people, teams, or institutions.

In a world growing evermore lifeless, these Laws bring Life into our innermost being. The more we stray from these Lifegiving Laws, the more dead we become inside. But these Laws ultimately are meaningless without a relationship with God’s only begotten Son. If you have not placed your faith in Jesus, you can follow all the Laws you want, but it won’t matter one bit beyond this life, because while these Laws are of God, and bring Life into areas of our lives, they can not bring us back to Life. However, we will explore this later.

Until next time,
Go in Christ’s Love