Housewifing

Is Jesus the only Way?

My friend, Beth has some great questions:

1.  "I have wanted to tell you about a book by  Ekhart Tolle, have you heard of him?"

2.  "As for your deathbed question, why do I have to choose between the two?"

These questions are examples of the onslaught that has been at me to be able to answer the question, " Is Jesus the only Way"?  I know this is a spiritual battle and I am the testing grounds.  For the past few weeks I have been innundated with scenarios, God set-ups, direct questions, situations that are all begging for the answer, "Is Jesus the only Way"? 

I first discovered the answer to that question beginning about 5 years ago.  When I figured it out, I began my "no turning back" love affair with the Bible.  It has been an intense ride.  For almost the entire 5 years, I have read the Bible every day.  Lately, my fervor has been renewed and I don't ever want it to cool down.  I yearn for my Savior.  I tremble and travail over the ones the Lord has entrusted to me.  I wish they could get into my heart so that they could know what it means.

Is Jesus the only Way to the Truth (to the Father)?  Yes.  I say that with every ion of every molecule of every deoxyribinucleic acid strand of every gene of every cell of my body!  I say it with my whole mind, my whole soul, my whole spirit!  Yes!

Last night I went to Mountaintop Church located on Romeo Plank, North of 26 mile Rd.  Bob Duko from WMUZ was speaking on the Emergent Church.  He brought up everything that the last post was bringing up, but his focus was on what dirrection the modern churches are moving toward.  That they are packaging themselves as Christian churches, but they aren't the real thing.

That is what I am saying about the books that Ekhrart Tolle is putting out.  It looks good feels good seems to fill a need.  Bob Duko used a good analogy.  He said the new churches are counterfeit and are like using counterfeit money as apposed to the real thing.  And real good counterfeit money.  Not monopoly money.  Monopoly money you can easily spot.  But this counterfeit money is so close to appearing as the real thing, only the experts can tell the difference.  The masses are being pulled right in.

Why would I bring the deathbed point in.  Why would it matter what I would say to a deathbed person; they are dying anyway?  Because the feel good, listen to the silence message that Toole is teaching is the last chance that person is gonna get to repent and change their mind and to seek God.  In those last moments would a loving person offer the dying a chance to contemplate silence?  (or) Would a loving person implore the dying person to reach for Jesus, the only Way to the Father.  The only way to get to the real Life.  Why, if anyone had any doubts or non-belief would they seek after silence?  Wouldn't they want to be comforted by the mercy and grace of our Father.  If given a choice, why would anyone seek silence over a loving God?

The Bible says to be ready at every opportunity to give an answer for your (our) hope in Christ Jesus.  I believe this is an opportunity.

There is an atheist blogger out there in the blogusphere that I have been making comments to.  (I have to continue later).

Sabath rests & the Word

I've done something different for the last two weeks.

A week ago Sunday and yesterday, Sunday after church I spent the whole day reading the Word.  Probably about 8 hours on the first Sunday and probably 10 hours yesterday.

You might think that is a lot, but wait a second.  Have you ever spent a few hours watching tv before you go to bed.  A little tv in the morning with your breakfast.  And then a few hours shopping?  That all adds up!  I shop very little.  I watch tv even less.  So I have PLENTY of time to get into the Word.

Getting into the Word is miraculus!  Here's one way:  Just like tithing.  If you give Him your FIRST 10%, He:  takes back what the destroyer destroyed.  And on top of that he gives you double the time back.  He gives you Wisdom.  He gives you love and mercy instead of hate and bitterness.

I have pretty much given up reading any other kind of book.  I do browse through the "encyclopedia" of the internet.  For books: why do I need a filter of what everyone else thinks to know what God means for me?  I can find out what God means for me by reading His Word and talking to Him dirrectly.

God's Word is Life.  Why should I consume (take into myself by reading, thinking, contemplating)  a false god, a false life.

trusting God pt3

The passage I'm thinking about was in Judges.  It said that there was no king and that everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

Doesn't that describe the state of affairs, now.  In relationships, in marraiges, in countries, in the world?

This is also true:  They worship not God and everyone does what is right in their own eyes.

There is no law and everyone does what is right in their own eyes.

There is no husband and the kids and the mom do what ever they feel like.

There is no authority and everyone everywhere does as they please.

There is no bridegroom; and the bride and the wedding party say let's eat, drink and be merry.

The probem with all that is:  There is God and He has authority.  He is sending His Bridegroom...

serving in pain

How do you serve when you get your feelings hurt?

I guess you serve; and just forgive.

I want to quit.

...

What does the Holy Spirit do when it is not wanted any more, even if it is still needed?  Does it find somewhere else?

It seems like the only safety I have is in the Word.  People don't hurt me or my family in there.  I can reach my kids in there.  The more they read and get into it; the more they can find to get into. 

(I wrote this on 11/19.  I don't know what I was upset about.  I got over it quick.  Or I just plain forgot.)

Forsake not the assembly...

Since the beginning of October I have missed most of the Sunday services at church.  I've made it to almost all the Wednesdays with a coulple extra days thrown in; and the beginning of one daytime Bible study.  Even so, I am missing the flow of things, missing the community, missing worshiping next to certain people, missing the thick presense of God.  Missing the absolution, missing the heighth, missing the depth.  Missing the Praise (of Him).  Missing the repentence.

My kids are missing out too.  For today's service they begged to go.

On Sundays, things of this world are creeping in slowly, and subtly.  It's time to wake up!  I am told that when Jesus comes to the unbeliever or the slacker, He comes at you when you are unaware, like a theif in the night.  And He warns me that I should always be ready for Him; always being a watchman for Him.

What are you, also, waiting and watching for?

Attack

Just a thought.

I have just one more thing I want to share before I go to bed.

My latest obsession has been thinking about (and also trying to act and do) how to bring people to Christ. 

I've been blogging about some of it.

Then Satan attacked my mom and she's really sick.

I just want to say this:  "Take this you, lying devil: my momma's saved, and ther isn't anything you can do about that.  If you try to kill her body, she's going to Christ.  If Jesus heals her, shes going to Christ.  And there's nothing, satan, that you can do.  God already knows who are His.  God already knows where you, satan are going."

And so do I.

the battlefield of the mind

It's the middle of the night; and I am wide awake.

I woke up and I was still thinking about what I was thinking about when I was sleeping.

It really is the battlefield of the mind that has to be conquered for us to be born again.  From the very beginning how did Satan get his open door into our mind?  What did he seduce us into choosing?  Did he start a conversation up with Eve, "Hey, Eve!  Don't the fruit of the tree of life look pretty nutritious?"  No.  Satan went for an attack to our mind.  The tree of knowledge.  Oh, by the way; the tree of knowledge of good.  And also don't you know you will be like God.  That tree gives you the knowledge of evil, but you'll be like God.  Satan duped us.  It says in God's Word that we were created in God's image (already).  Satan wasn't able to offer us anything new.  Except the knowledge of evil, well, just a little evil; and not too harmful, right?  Yeah, just a little evil mixed all in with the knowledge of good.  Satan's a lier.  Good and evil cannot coexist.  IICor6:15 "What harmony can there be between Christ and Belial [the devil]?"

What then are we to do.  The fruit that led to death has already been consumed; had altered that DNA.

We turn to the God that "comforts and encourages and refreshes and cheers the depressed and the sinking," IICor7:6

What is all the depression for?  Why does God allow it?

"For godly grief and the pain God is permitted to direct, produce a repentance that leads and contributes to salvation and deliverance from evil, and it never brings regret; but worldly grief (the hopeless sorrow that is characteristic of the pagan world) is deadly [breeding and ending in death]." IICor 7:10

the battlefield of the mind

The reason I'm talking about being born again as a battlefield of the mind is that I think the mind is the number one obstacle to surpass to get to the heart of it.  Because being born again is a breathing life into the spirit.  It isn't something that is worked out in the mind and it isn't something that is created in the body.  It is a new creation in spirit.  The battlefield in the mind makes its final conquest right down to a choice.  It's very simple too.  All it is is a choice to confess that "Jesus is Lord".

How could that be?  How could just saying that Jesus is Lord change my whole life, make me a new creation?  Make me inherit what isn't mine to earn?  Let me escape death and the punishment of every sin that I have done, and have life eternal with God our Father. ?

This is what the Word says: Because if you acknowledge and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and in your heart believe (adhere to, trust in, and rely on the truth) that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart a person believes (adheres to, trusts in, and relies on Christ) and so is justified (declared righteous, acceptable to God), and with the mouth he confesses (declares openly and speaks out freely his faith) and confirms [his] salvation.  The Scripture says, No man who believes in Him [who adheres to, relies on, and trusts in Him] will [ever] be put to shame or disappointed.  --Romans 10:9-11

I can't explain it without finishing the story that happened to Nicodemus when he met Jesus.

John 3:7-17

Marvel not [do not be surprized, astonished] at My telling you, You must all be born anew (from above).  The wind blows (breathes) where it wills; and though you hear its sound, yet you neither know where it comes from nor where it is going.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.  Nicodemus answered by asking, How can all this be possible?  Jesus replied, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet do not know nor understand these things [Are they strange to you?]  I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, We speak only of what we know [we know absolutely what we are talking about]; we have actually seen what we are testifying to [we were eyewitnesses of it].  And still you do not receive our testimony [you reject and refuse our evidence-that of Myself and of all those who are born of the Spirit].  If I have told you of things that happen right here on the earth and yet none of you believes Me, how can you believe (trust Me, adhere to Me, rely on Me) if I tell you of heavenly things?  And yet no one has ever gone up to heaven, but there is One Who has come down from heaven-the Son of Man [Himself}, Who is (dwells, has His home) in heaven.  And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert [on a pole], so must [so it is necessary that] the Son of Man be lifted up [on the cross], in order that

everyone who believes in Him [who cleaves to Him, trusts Him, and relies on Him] may not perish, but have eternal life and [actually] live forever!  For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He (even) gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trust in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.  For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him. 

This is not easy to understand.  Look at Nicodemus, a leader in Jesus's time, seeing what Jesus has done, and a teacher to the Jews.  Even he can not comprehend this being born again.  It is not something that I can will you to be, can pressure you to be, can convince you of.  It is a choice.  And you don't process this choice in your mind, you do it in your spirit.

This is between you and God.  The only way to the Father is through the Son!  God can't be near man as man is.  Man is born into the inherited condition of sin through Adam.  Yes, genetics proves Adam!  If God were to be in our presence without the protection of the perfect, sinless sacrificed blood of Jesus as a covering or mecy seat for our sins, we would immediately perish!

You might say "Not so!, a loving God would never destroy me and the world!"  No, a loving God cannot permit sin.  (Man chose sin over his relationship with God.)  That is why Jesus had to die for our sins.  Nothing could do away with our sins except a sinless sacrifice.  Jesus takes the place for us.

You might say, "I am a good person.  I don't do anybody any harm.  I am good to others, I am always thinking about their interests before my own."...  You know what God says about man?  "As it is written, None is righteous, just and truthful and upright and conscientious, no, not one.  No one understands [no one intelligently discerns or comprehends]; no one seeks out God.  All have turned aside; together they have gone wrong and have become unprofitable and worthless; no one does right, not even one!"  -Romans 3:11-12  (and it should be read to Romans 3:11-28!!!!)

It is not our standard that we are judged and measured by.  It is God's.  God's standard.  God's law. 

What does that have to do with being born again?  With me being close to God?  With God fixing all my problems and pain?

the battlefield of the mind

I don't know how to explain being born-again, without referring to John 3:1-21.  Jesus explains it.  Here's John 3:1-6

Now there was a certain man among the Parisees named Nicodemus, a ruler (a leader, an authority) among the Jews, who came to Jesus at night and said to Him, Rabbi, we know and are certain that You have come from God [as] a Teacher; for no one can do these signs (these wonderworks, these miracles--and produce the proofs) that You do unless God is with him.

Jesus answered him, Iassure you, most solemnly I tell you, that unless a person is born again (anew, from above), he cannot ever see (know, be acquainted with, and experince) the kingdom of God.  Nicodemus said to Him, How can a man be born again when he is old?  Can he enter his mother's womb again and be born?  Jesus answered , I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, unless a man is born of water and [even] the Spirit, he cannot [ever] enter the kingdom of God. [also found in Ezek. 36:25-27.]  What is born of [from] the flesh is flesh [of the physical is physical]; and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

the battlefield of the mind

How do you lead someone to Jesus, that is at most struggling and just hanging on by a string.  The mental illness involved instills a brick barrier from my words.  Her father committed suicide.  She doesn't comprehend death and even is afraid of it.

I told her counceling and books will lead her to man's truth.  Even my talking to her is a type of man's (human being's) truth.

I desperately want to challenge her to believe in God's truth.  I told her there is a way.  There is God's Way.   How could I tell her the Gospel?   The whole reason why Jesus died on the cross.  How could I tell her about our (her) need to be born again?  How could I make her understand what she so desperately needs, (it's a life and death matter) needs to know?

I am not even 1% done with this blog.  I hope you can't wait to hear this.

I love you.  And you, girl, know who I am talking to. 

I'll get back to this when I have some alone time.  the family is all here.