God save us from for-profit non-prophets …
And those so easily swayed by them.
Category: Simple Truth
I’m not sure who scare me most:
Folks who believe God only speaks through Scripture …
Or folks who believe God tells them things which trump Scripture.
God’s utter holiness:
Sinners who are lost and know it …
Get it.
Smug “Christians” …
Seldom do.
To say that truth is Jesus …
Begs the question.
Which Jesus?
A Jesus of your own perception and creation who reflects your own “truth”?
Or the authentic Jesus who authoritatively defines Himself, us, creation, and so much more through Scripture as His written Word?
There is no truth or Jesus …
Except on His terms.
Helping victims over many years has taught me some important facts:
Sexually exploitive church leaders often come across as the most charming, engaging and gifted people you’ll ever meet.
After all, how do you think they kept getting away with it?
Plus, it’s a sure sign you’re dealing with a narcissistic predator when their regrets are all about the effects of their sins on them …
Rather than the sin itself and its effects on others.
God in His wisdom justifies repentant sinners …
Not sin.
No nation knows liberty …
Without embracing virtue, prudence and diligence as Divine obligations.
May God’s people stand in the gap once again.
Pastor this, pastor that,
Pastor here, pastor there,
Pastor, pastor everywhere …
Except in the New Testament.
Why is that??
God is not passive.
Scripture teaches that our worth comes from being created in God’s image …
And our dignity from choosing to live accordingly.
Unfortunately, so-called “Progressive Christians” and “Christian Nationalists” both distort Scripture to promote their own – but different – anti-God agendas.
Fundamentally, they each believe our worth comes from recreating us into their own ideological image …
And our dignity from using government power to compel us to live accordingly.
Don’t surrender God’s authentic liberty for the bondage of counterfeit Christianity.
When we make God all about our own things – our own giftings, aptitudes, motivations or pet doctrines – no matter how good or right they otherwise might be …
We deny His sovereignty over all things.
Plus we’ll find it’s impossible to successfully start or be part of a relational participatory church …
Because it makes us incapable of submitting to one another or preferring each other above ourselves – like commanded in the New Testament.
Maybe that’s why mono-churches are so prevalent today – whether in a living room or a “sanctuary” …
Because they’re all about ministry by “the one” rather than one to another.
It is shameful how some Christian leaders cozy up to power …
Rather than speak truth to power.
Jesus never said to disengage from the disarray of nations …
But to engage all nations.
It’s called the Great Commission, which commands us to go and redeem not just individuals …
But whole cultures.
Our fallible interpretations never negate God’s infallible written Word.
Only fools say otherwise.
Be brave:
Examine your presumptions and traditions through the lens of Scripture as God’s authoritative written Word …
Rather than Scripture through the lens of your presumptions and traditions.
Embracing the Kingdom of God …
Requires nothing less.
God’s grace is amazing and unmerited.
But if it doesn’t lead to repentance and understanding …
You’re still a sinner and a fool.
There is no solution to sin …
Apart from righteous judgment or humble repentance.
Nor is there any middle way.
Yet by grace God lets us choose between the two.
One leads to death.
The other life.
Those who reject the justice of God’s wrath …
Will never grasp the mercy of His grace.
Everyone loves the prophetic, until it speaks of them …
Everyone loves discipleship, without the discipline …
Everyone loves ekklesia, but not submitting to each other …
Everyone loves truth, when there is no price to pay …
Everyone loves God’s Kingdom, apart from the dictates of His rule …
Everyone loves Jesus, yet seldom on His terms.
So let’s stop being everyone …
Because God calls us to be so much more.
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“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3:13-14
All laws reflect somebody’s sense of morality …
Whether right or wrong.
This doesn’t mean, however, that laws have the ability – or governments the power – to make us virtuous.
That seldom works and often morphs into tyranny.
Rather, Scripture says that government should protect us from evildoers …
So we have the liberty, of our own volition, to pursue virtuous lives as God directs.
A government which oversteps those bounds …
Oversteps its legitimate, God-given authority.
If you wait until you finally figure out what God’s up to …
He’s likely already moved on.
Those who elevate their own concepts of Jesus over His written Word …
Know neither Jesus nor His Word.
Many are led astray …
By unexamined presumptions.
Jesus said that all Scripture points to Him.
Which simply means that all Scripture bears witness to Christ’s authenticity …
Just as Christ bore witness to the authenticity of Scripture.
He did NOT mean, as some now imply, that we can project a false “Jesus” of our own imagination back onto Scripture …
To somehow then supersede whatever we don’t like in Scripture.
Don’t be deceived by those who twist Scripture to elevate themselves and their agendas over Scripture …
Through a Jesus of their own creation.
The many years of repeated failures by the existential fringe of the simple, “organic” church movement – with authors like Felicity Dale, Frank Viola, Milt Rodriguez, Jon Zens, Keith Giles and their buddies – stand as an object lesson moving forward:
Without the plenary authority of Scripture, simple participatory churches don’t succeed.
Although they are now fading away, in their day these fringe authors dismissed the plenary authority and discipline of Scripture – and in some cases even denied that the Bible is God’s written word – to peddle a Jesus of their own perception.
They then used the legitimate yearnings of others for simple, participatory house churches to promote their disastrous, extraneous agendas …
Eventually derailing the hopes and aspirations of many.
Their false Christ – who was little more than a projection of their own “deeper life” angst, post-modern sensibilities and trans-Biblical ideologies – inevitably led to dysfunctional, insular and anemic “communities.”
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