In my return to faith in Jesus, it has been more perplexing than ever to me how religion distorts the truth contained in God’s Word, the Bible. We have so many religions, denominations, sects, and outright cults ….. that claim to be “Christian” but yet bastardize God’s plan as described in the Book or build on “new revelations” that God has supposedly revealed to some person that contradicts, adds, or subtracts from the one source of truth we have…His Word the Bible.
One of my new favorite sayings learned from a friend regarding God and His revelation is, “if it’s new, it’s not true…and if it’s true, it’s not new”. “God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Mankind is continually distorting the truth and God’s authority for his own convenience. Today they are even distorting science to back up political agendas. Little surprise that they would distort God’s Word. The greatest battleground for our souls is not our temporal bodies with which we sin in so many ways, but it is the mind where our spiritual battles start…and end. The battle ends with the “renewing of our minds”.
We grow up hammered with multi-generations of false truth and ideologies. We are taught so many contradicting things between science and faith to where it is no wonder a majority of people never feel trusting or confident in what or who to believe in. We have been let down by all our institutions, including the church, and these sins of fabrications or “man’s way to God” are the most used tactics by the evil one, Satan, to confuse and keep us in spiritual darkness or confusion. Every time we have followed a man, woman, or institution towards spiritual pursuits…we have been let down. “There is no one righteous, no not one”. When we put our faith in people or institutions, we will always be let down and fail in faith.
Jesus wasn’t playing games when He said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6). He has always called His disciples individually to follow Him. Sure, sometimes He uses mass meetings to bring us initially to faith, but true abiding faith will be dependent ONLY on Jesus. The whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation is about Jesus who was there from the beginning. Not the saints of old. Not Mary or the Pope. Only Jesus is part of the trinity of God, and He will share His glory with none other. After all, it was HE who died for our sins. Not your pastor, priest, or guru. He demands each of us to individually declare faith and trust in what He did for us on the cross as His spirit draws us. We can’t even muster faith without His providing it. Without Him, we can do nothing outside of carrying on the deadly ways of sinful mankind.
As I now live daily trying to live and share the new life He has given me spiritually, I am amazed how often I hear “I don’t think…” or “I don’t feel” regarding God and truth. The whole point of the Gospel of Christ is that we don’t “think” or “feel” the truth. It just is and we know it…whether we can thoroughly understand it or not. We live our lives trusting many things that we don’t fully understand. We get on planes and trains that we trust an invisible pilot or conductor to get us to our destination without fear of death. That is a rational decision based on seeing millions do this every day successfully and our own many experiences trusting such people and the science of these planes and trains to safely get us to our destination. That is real faith right there since most of us have no scientific detailed understanding of how these things work.
So it is even more important that we trust a historical, verified God who revealed Himself through His Son Jesus Christ as both man and God to show us the way to eternal life and have the power to live victoriously in THIS life. The Bible and the one true God are as real as the planes, trains, and cars we trust to get us where we want to go in this life. And God has made it easy and basic for us to get through this life. He has simply told us to believe and trust in Jesus as the atonement for our sins and HE will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is not something we ever have to do on our own or from our own power. We can’t. It can’t be done in the flesh. It is only accomplished by spiritual rejuvenation and pure faith in Him.
So let’s keep life simple today. Sure, there are all kinds of questions and issues in the cosmos that are beyond our understanding, but God simply tells us to “come as a little child” and believe/trust in Him. Jesus is the one who has come from God to reach us. Jesus is also the one who died, rose again from the dead, and is coming back soon to reestablish His kingdom over this world. Those who sense His spirit and know his truth can see AND feel the fact of his soon return. No man knows the day or the hour, but all the signs in the Bible that prophesied the end times before His return are quickly coming to pass today. These are dark but exciting times to live in because this generation may never see physical death. The scariest reality of this is that ALL of humanity will live eternally…but few will live eternally with God the Creator. The Bible is clear that a majority of human spirits past, present, and future will have eternity without God…which is the purest definition of Hell.
My prayer today is that people will see Jesus in me…with all my imperfections and limitations. We know we cannot be perfect within ourselves, but we know that the new purpose of living for a Christian is to demonstrate the mercy and grace that has saved us from our spiritual darkness. We don’t need to wallow in our sin and selfishness because Jesus has made a way of escape from our darkened minds.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 explains, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
We all are afflicted and limited by our fallen human status, but the spiritual transformation God offers us allows us to be in right standing with God even as we exist in our imperfect, human state of existence. Yes, this is mysterious, but it is also miraculous. Even in our imperfection, we are seen as perfect before God because Jesus paid the price once and for all in our unrighteousness.
“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved”. Acts 4:12
That says it all. God’s plan of salvation is simple, plain, and absolute. Once we put our full confidence in Him, He has promised we would be filled with the Holy Spirit who will reveal all the rest of the story. Start today…and let me know if you did so I can pray with and for you.