Category Archives: the gospel

True Profit

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I do not respect the customs of Men.  I have no regard to the differing “customs” of certain groups.  One eats just these things.  Another eats other things.  Certain clothing is appropriate for differing circumstances, relegated to the demands of pomp, pleasure, and expectations of society.  What do I care?  Eat what you will.  Dress as you desire.  What is that to me?

But the things of the soul.  Now these things matter!  Differing languages, differing customs, differing surroundings, differing expectations of society, what are these things?  When it comes to the soul, none of these things have any bearing at all.  For we are all created for the singular purpose of being profitable to the Most High God.

Profit, profit, profit!  That’s all the body desires.  We wake to “do”, that we might gain profit.  To one man profit is pleasure.  To another, profit is to gain, that he might add to his mountain of treasure.  But profit to God is that His Holy and Righteous Son be glorified.

Some call profit for God in various and differing terms, each according to the religion he has been taught.  But God has elevated His Holy Son to the place of First Above All.  And wouldn’t it matter that God has done this for His Righteous Son?  What does it matter if man considers another religion above Christianity?  It is God, alone, who dictates what is Righteous.

But let it be said, Jesus is the King of kings.  He is the Lord of lords.  He is the Mighty One over all!  It is to Jesus that every knee will bow and give Glory to God the Holy Father.

You say, “This is your opinion.  You were raised up under the constraints of Christian teaching.  But we were raised under the constraints of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Baha’i, Confucianism, Jainism, Shinto, atheism, humanism, [or a million other worthless tripe of human reasoning].  To you, Christianity is singular.  Realize that our faith is singular to us”.

But God has chosen His Christ.  God has secured salvation by His own Holy Hand.  And this is the message that has no dependence on the customs of man.  For it comes from Heaven.  It is delivered to God’s chosen ones to speak.  And it is secured in their souls by the Holy Spirit’s presence.

Do you want profit of Man?  Or do you want Profit of God?  Seek the Holy Father’s advice regarding this.  Strip your mind of the customs you were taught.  Strip your expectations from your soul.  Seek His Holy Face in Truth.  As we humble ourselves before the Living God, so the Living God responds.  Likewise, as we stand proud in our own understandings, the Living God is shrewd in his response.

Profit comes from humility.  True profit.  The profit of eternity that is dressed in the Glorious Living God’s Holy Son, Jesus the Christ.

Now you take offence at these things.  For I have spoken that Jesus is the singular means to God the Father.  But Christians should take no such stance as you.  We do not take offence at the accusations against Christianity.  We do not defend the Christ.  It is the Christ who defends us.  We have no means to sustain our teachings.  It is God who sustains the teachings of Christ.  We are witnesses, not defenders.  We testify that the Living God has secured our salvation.  We do not defend the Faith He has given us.

Perceive the difference.  Listen to what I am saying.  There is no salvation for anyone outside the Holy Son of the Living God.

Religion

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Who accomplishes the will of the Living God?  Isn’t that the one who is constantly looking to him for direction?

To what direction should we look, since no man has ever been in heaven?  Doesn’t it require a deep and living friendship with the Holy Son of God?

And how should we be friends with one we cannot see or meet?  Doesn’t it require faith from God?

What faith can a man have in mere words?  It is required that God should give life to those words within us.

Religion by itself, produces nothing but its self.  But the faith that God gives spawns a religion all on its own.

People, you have it backward.  You present your religion is if God should honor it.  But such procedure comes from the imagination of man.  If it is not of God and from God it will be eternally destroyed.

No man can become anything more than his religion dictates.  And how very few even aspire to that.  But religion that is spawned from heaven, aspires toward heaven.  And once a man is caught up in the things of the Living God, he can no longer aspire to less.

The religions of man lean toward pride.  The religion that God grants leans toward complete humility.

We are what we eat.  Bake cow pies if you desire.  I will be satisfied with nothing more than the manna from Heaven.  And this, not from my righteousness, but it is the gift of God, lest any man should boast.

By His Grace

Two Promises

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Profit and loss.  The entire world is based on these two concepts.  Absolutely everything we do contains things that are considered profitable, and those things that are considered loss.

In every possible way, creation has been subjected to loss.  It takes serious diligence to build and maintain anything.  And if we are slack, we will quickly witness our work returning to “nothing” from which it came.

This is true of material things.  It is true of our relationships with one another.  It is true of all “life”, which is so very abundant in this world,  And it is absolutely true of Spiritual things.

“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” (Hebrews 11:3)  We could easily say that all creation was created from what was “not”.  And if left alone, to its origin all things glide.  Creation could easily be perceived as a great splash in an eternal ocean.  The water will reclaim its equality of height, by absolute necessity.

It is the blessing of God to provide Life.  It is the curse of God to restrain His hand.  That’s all it takes for man to experience loss.  Just as we can produce loss by neglect, so it is with God.

He is the Sustainer of all things.  But even the idea that something must be sustained, indicates that it tends to obliteration.

There are two promises from God.  If you will consistently turn to me, I will sustain you.  But as you desire your own strength, you will suffer loss.  The first promise leads to eternal life in Christ Jesus, for God offers no other source of blessing and life.  The second is simply our natural destination; we came from nothing, and to that nothing we will return.  But God offers eternal life to every soul that will turn to His Holy Son in faith.

I know that there is a massive misunderstanding of these things.  Man thinks that he can save himself.  How can you save yourself if your hands are busy trying to hold up your own roof?  What knowledge do you have of eternity?  Isn’t it true that eternity is only a concept within the heart of every man who ever lived?  We are born and die.  That’s not eternity, friends!

What do we know of Holy Sustaining?  We can’t even make it through an entire day without causing some sort of destruction.  We crush a bug as we walk.  We speak an unholy word in casual conversation, or we do not speak what is holy when it should have been spoken.

Proof lies abundant within us, that we can’t sustain anything for very long.  Quickly, the glide to oblivion pushes past our strength to keep things going.  We are, by nature, walking death.  God alone, and this in His Holy and Righteous Son, is LIFE.

Make your own choice.  Consider these things with the utmost diligence, or relegate these promises to obscurity.  Choose death or Life.  The one is a given, we slide through time to the place of obliteration without any effort at all.  But life must be gained from He who is Life, Christ Jesus, the Holy Son of the Living God.

Making God Proud

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There is a saying among men that is worthy of inspection.  Anything that’s worthy is simply worthy.  Come on, let’s get after it.

“Be the kind of man of which God can be proud.”

On the surface it sounds pretty good.  It’s inspirational.  It provokes a never-ending stream of good behavior.  As far as I know, it’s grammatically correct.   But it is also seriously wrong.

A mother may be proud of her ugly and inept son.  But her pride is not due to the fact that he is a supreme representation of humanity.  She is proud of her responsibility.  She is proud of her gift from God.  Frankly, she is proud of God.

God is no respecter of any man.  To say that he is proud of any man, can be considered pure folly.  This is the same God who said all our righteous deeds are as filthy rags (let the reader understand the meaning of the words “filthy rags”).

What can a man possibly do that would make God proud of him?  Every righteous deed we do is as if under duress.  For every man will readily tell you that if he does not behave he will be punished.

There is One of whom God is proud.  His name is Jesus.  As we obey and praise God’s Holy Son, the Pride God has for him is enhanced.  Let us then, revamp the saying. 

“Let us be the kind of men who honor the One who has roused God’s pride.”

By His Grace

A Purposeful Tongue Lashing

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How many times do the people of God need to be encouraged before they will take the mantle of the Gospel upon their shoulders?  How easy it is to encourage them to be lax in the things of the Most High God.  They readily embrace social peace.  But war against what is wicked is relegated to a tiny few.

As a child abhores spinach, yet craves the sweetness of sugar, so the people of God have sought peace with the wicked.  And as the sugar will rot the teeth of the child, so this craving for peace has rotted the Church of God.  Where is the healthy mouth?

It is ridiculous to make a call for action for the entire Church.  But let those with understanding mount up for the sake of the Gospel!  To prayer with all of us!  To the things of God, with godly zeal, with every willing man and woman of God!

Let us open our eyes and look around.  Witness the compromise!  Take note of what is unholy.  See how the things of the Glorious Lord Jesus have been brought to such a small affair.  It is considered a trophy to attend church twice a year!  It is considered holy restraint to keep your lips sealed among the wicked!

How near the end of things must it be, that the church has become so complacent?  Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Valentine’s Day, and so many more, have taken the place of the crucifixion and the resurrection.  And suffering for the name of Christ Jesus has become an abhorrent obsession of a few.

So many Bibles in the world, yet so very few read and understand.  So much time for prayer, yet there is hardly a flake of callus on the knees of God’s people.  So many opportunities to speak out against wickedness, yet you would think Christians are mute; at baptism God rips the tongue out of the man!

If now is not the time to rise up for Christ, tell me when it will come upon us.  What are the signs I should look for, that I might see an explosion of zeal for the Living God’s Christ?  Who, among the children of God, will rise up and embrace the things of Jesus?  And do we need to wait another 7 days for this to happen?  Is it necessary to wait even another 10 minutes!

Who will come and die with Christ?  Who will render his life to prayer, a serious and diligent study of the Word of God, and become an ambassador to the Holy Lord Jesus in this wicked and adulterous place?

Is it true that it takes imprisonment to wake up a soul for Christ?  Will you wait for a house to house search before you commit to a boldness for Christianity?  What are you waiting for?  Define the obstacle so that we can speak of it openly!

Look how foreign these words are among what is called civilized Christians.  So very well dressed on Sunday.  But so putrid against holiness throughout the week. 

The debate among God’s people is not directed at how brightly we should burn.  It is more the focus of what can we get away with.  Where is the holy and burning fire of obedience among Christians today?  Has it not been replaced by wealth, social integration, and dedicated complacency?  Unholy lies dance in our streets!  Children murder one another!  And if one man is caught spreading the Gospel, all Christianity feels vindicated!

Decide for yourself if this is right.  Why should we listen any longer to words of restraint?  Who elected the cowards as our leaders?  Will God not support and catch those who step out from the cowering crowd?  Or has faith in Christ really become such a rare and elusive animal?

I am so tired of watching us hide.  It is sickening to the stomach to see the Glorious Lord Jesus hidden like some abomination among men; as if he had been a rapist, a thief, a murderer, and every other wicked thing!  Do you really think God will honor such purposeful obscurity?

By His Grace

The Intent of Preaching

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If I stand on the street corner and proclaim that all men should go to Christ, I cannot possibly expect any to remain with me. 

No one arrives at a street sign and makes his bed beneath it.  The street sign is only a directional source of information.  Neither does the street sign expect anyone to remain with him.  No, everyone who comes to the street sign is in route to someplace else.

It is only proper then that everyone who comes to me, simply gets the true and eternal directions to salvation. 

The one who looks for a job, does not stay seated in the employment office.  In that chair he will never earn a wage.  Rather, he goes where he is directed.  And it may well be, he will never see that chair again.

Christ Jesus is all in all.  It is to him we point.  By all means then, go to him!

By His Grace