Random Thoughts on the Really Good News

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.. this is the will of My Father, that everyone who is beholding the Son and believing IN HIM may have life eonian, and I shall be raising him in the last day." (Matthew 7:21; John 6:40) "MANY will say to me in that day Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me..."   (Matthew 7:22-23) The "many" who are told "depart from me" will have "prophesied" ,  "cast out demons" , and "done wonders"  in the Lord's name.  Obviously he is not talking about atheists or agnostics, or Muslims so who are among the "MANY" Jesus will not know if we happen to be living  "in the last day"  today?  1. All Jews who deny that Jesus is their Messiah.That is m

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” (Philippians 1:6 NLT). Just WHEN does God begin a “good work within you” ? I suspect that most Christians would assume it is when they get saved. But they would be wrong. God’s work in us begins when He decides to allow us to be conceived in the womb of our mother and be born a living human being. “Before I was born the LORD called me; from my mother's womb he has spoken my name.” (Isaiah 49:1) “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…" (Jeremiah 1:5) “But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by His marvelous grace…This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--and I am the worst of them all.” (Galatians 1:15; 1 Timothy 1:15) So God has set us apart, called us by name, and formed us in our mother’s womb. And He will complete that good work

"Be not carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by GRACE...be sound in the faith...pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth." (Hebrews 13:9; Titus 1:15-15) Please don't believe the "strange teachings" about hell. It is a terrible fiction created by the church that has been attributed to Christ Jesus. In the "strange teaching" , God and Jesus will send the great majority of people into a place of unending torment for eternity. That is not the God of the Bible, nor His Son Jesus, who love their enemies and are spoken of in terms of grace, mercy, justice and compassion for sinners. The Jesus of the Bible was sent by God NOT to condemn the world but to SAVE it. (Luke 9:55; John 3:17). God nor Jesus mentions a place of eternal torment and certainly never threatened anyone if they chose not to follow their teaching. There is no word found in the

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future… He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new! Then he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." (Jeremiah 29:11; Revelation 21:5) God’s plan has never changed. When bible teachers attempt to categorize certain “economies” or “administrations” or “dispensations” in a progressive manner they do so without any outline or direct statements of such a thing in the Scripture. Doing so does help us see historically how certain cultures lived in relation to their understanding of God. But it also limits a God without limits.  God’s plan never changes. He creates imperfection, totally destroys the imperfect and recreates perfection from the ashes. And it is not a “circle of life”, but a straight line that begins in imperfection and mortality and along His infinite highway that mortal, sinful, failed life r

“And the multitude of those sleeping in the dust of the ground do awake, some to life age-during, and some to reproaches -- to abhorrence age-during.”   (Daniel 12:13 YLT) We get our first insight into what death is from Daniel above. When people die, they are said to be “sleeping in the soil of the ground” until they are awakened. Our Lord Jesus said this himself when referring to the death of his friend Lazarus… "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up." (John 11:11) And about the dead, the Apostle Paul wrote… “We would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not….for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable.…” (1 Thessalonians 4:17; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52) I asked a Baptist preacher one time why we comfort people by telling them that a Christian immediately goes to Heaven at death when the above Scripture makes it pretty clear they are asleep. He said it must be

"Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel…I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people…they ALL shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (Jeremiah 31:31, 33-34) Like the old covenant, this new covenant is with ISRAEL. It will be establish when they are resurrected by Jesus their Messiah when he comes to earth again to establish his Millennial Kingdom.  ISRAEL will become priests and  "reign with him" over the present earth "for a thousand years" . “This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.” (Revelation 20:5-6) Over the pa

“Now this I am averring, brethren, that flesh and blood is not able to enjoy an allotment in the kingdom of God, neither is corruption enjoying the allotment of incorruption…Now apparent are the works of the flesh, which are...enmities, strife, jealousies, furies, factions, dissensions, sects, envies... and the like of these, which, I am predicting to you, according as I predicted also, that those committing such things shall not be enjoying the allotment of the kingdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 15:50; Galatians 5:19-21) I left out the obvious works of the flesh in order to focus on the words “factions, dissensions, sects, envies” . These are rampant in Christianity and other Religions. I read somewhere that there are over 2000 different "factions" or “sects” in Christianity alone, each believing their particular group has the correct doctrine. NONE OF THOSE "FACTIONS" OR "SECTS" WILL HAVE “AN ALLOTMENT IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD” any more than those

“...where sin increased, grace increased all the more…" I ran across the term “HyperGrace” the other day.  It was being used in a Facebook comment to criticize Christians who place too much emphasis on the grace of God, and not enough emphasis on God being Just.  I had never heard it before but it accurately describes the unlimited Grace of God.  The apostle Paul was talking about unlimited Grace when he taught that "where sin increased, grace increased all the more" and that Jesus’s "one act of righteousness" brought "justification of life to all" mankind just as Adam's one act of disobedience has brought death to all mankind.  HyperGrace is a good term to describe the Grace of God. It is this HyperGrace that now REIGNS over death... "So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to ALL MEN, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to ALL MEN. For as through the one man’s disobedi

“For such are false apostles, fraudulent workers, being transfigured into apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is being transfigured into a messenger of light. It is no great thing, then, if his servants also are being transfigured as dispensers of righteousness...” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15) Paul says some  “dispensers of righteousness” are  Satan’s servants who are appearing to the world as “apostles of Christ” . They are at work in the midst of Christianity. They are not bad people per se, just preachers and teachers preaching and teaching false doctrine, for the most part unaware it is false. How are we to distinguish them from the true believers and followers of Christ Jesus if they all look the same and may not even realize who they are?   We can only identify them by what they are teaching. If it is not what Paul was teaching, then they are Satan’s servants, not Christ’s, regardless of how sincere they are or righteous they may appear... "...there are

"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also...Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you..." (John 14:1-3, 27) Jesus knew that after his death, burial, resurrection and ascension into heaven his followers would still be troubled.  So he left them, and us, with the peace that comes from the promise of his return.  His words were given to comfort them as they testified to the world of his resurrection and awaited his return. After many years had passed and Jesus had not yet returned, some of those followers had fallen "asleep" .  Jesus and Paul both referred to death as sleep.  So Paul was confronted with a question about what would happen to those who had fallen asleep when Jesus retu

This question was in a Facebook post I read the other day. I was glad that I knew the answer. The post went on to quote the following words of Jesus to Zaccheus… “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:9-10) The Hebrew word for “salvation”  is  “yeshua” which means "the LORD's salvation"   or "God delivers", and is translated JESUS when used as a noun that designates a person.  That is really cool - Jesus is Salvation. Jesus is salvation, and as such he came to do what his name represented -  “to seek and to save that which was lost”.   Zaccheus, the sinner and publican, was included...and so are all other sinners.  It seems to me that anyone who reasons otherwise is saying Jesus has failed to do what he was sent to do. In my opinion it is not the role of the church to seek and to save the lost. JESUS came to do that and he will succeed when the

“…the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God." (Hebrews 7:18-19) The "better hope" that we have for becoming perfect is the Gospel of God. The Gospel is the good news that in Christ Jesus all will be “made alive” , all will be “changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye”  and all will become a “new creation in Christ Jesus” where God is “All in all” . “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive…we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet…that God may be All in all…a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come…” (1 Corinthians 15:22, 51-52, 28; 2 Corinthians 5:17) Perfection is a promise from God which occurs for us when in His GRACE our salvation is complete. And that salvation does not occur as a result of any works or good decisions we make, but is the result of a decision God has made to save si

“Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) “What is the great commandment of the law?...You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind…you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37) The Greek word translated "commandment" is "entole"  which focuses on the end result.  See below from Strong's concordance... 1785 entolḗ (a feminine noun derived from 1722 /en, "in," which intensifies 5056 /télos, "reach the end, consummation") – properly, "in the end," focusing on the end-result (objective) of a command. So to me, Jesus is telling us that one day, when God is finished with us, we “shall be perfect” , and “shall love” God and our neighbors. The doctrines of religious men reign in this present evil world. And these doctrines insist that God has made certain commandments with eternal consequences when we disobey. God, h

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:36-40) Let me make an observation. You, I nor anyone else who has ever lived, with the exception of Jesus Christ, love like this. Ergo, you, I and everyone else, with the exception of Jesus Christ, have broken the “Law and the Prophets” which makes us all SINNERS. “…there is none righteous, no not one…all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. ” (Romans 3:10, 23) Furthermore, you, I nor anyone else who has ever lived, will ever love as set forth above in this life, even after we become believers of the “gospel of God” (the gospel which few seem to comprehend), even though some come much closer than others. But w

Is it possible for God to create without purpose? I cannot imagine such a thing. So l wanted to know what purpose God had in mind when he created evil. “I make peace, and create evil.” (Isaiah 45:7) At first I wanted to use another word for evil like “calamity”, or “disaster”, or “bad times” as do the corrupted English versions of the Bible. But I found that it is the same Hebrew word used in the phrase “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” . But whether I called it evil, calamity, disaster or bad times…the Bible says God created it. So I continued to ask myself “Why?” and started to search the Scripture for the answer. In my initial quest it did not help to find verses about God like the following… “…the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will”, and “all is of God” (Ephesians 1:11; 2 Corinthians 5:18) Not only did God create evil, it was the “purpose of His will” , for  “all is of God” . It is no wonder most of Christendom and Flip

"I will approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that I may receive mercy and find grace to help me at the proper time." (Hebrews 4:16) And that is my New Years Resolution this year, and for each year of the remainder of my life.