Finally!
I am excited this morning. The house just emptied out and all the breakfast stuff is cleaned up and I have a few minutes to write.....finally getting back to this being born again thing again. Last time I wrote was back on January 2, if you need a little background for what I am about to try to say.
There was/is a popular Christian song where we ask God to "Open the eyes of our hearts, Lord". We really need that. We really need the eyes of heart to be opened so we can see!
Take the scripture for instance, where Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again in order to see the kingdom. Why is it that this gets interpreted and taught to us as the way to enter "heaven" one day down the road when we die? The reason is because of what I have already said about every religious system making life here on earth all about whether we go to heaven or we go to hell!
If we think that what it's all about is this heaven/hell thing, then Satan has done his masterful full orbed deception and rendered us useless in the here and now to accomplish what the Lord has put us here for.
Let me ask another question. How come is it that this born again experience that millions proclaim has produced so little on the earth today that really looks like Jesus? If we have been born again and now have His very life in us why hasn't this done anything to change us to look like Him? Why have we seen high and low profile leaders fall in sin time after time after time. Why? Why has the Christian divorce rate passed the world's?
Take some time to look at the "enter the Kingdom" scriptures and you should hopefully understand that they have absolutely nothing to do with seeing the kingdom. To enter the kingdom He says we need to surpass the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees (the religious folks like me that tell you all the right things to do but then don't do them ourselves?) Jesus says we can say..... "but Lord, I did this and I did that for you" and He says I never knew you (knowing has to do with seeing and intimacy with Him)....He goes on to say something about maybe instead of all that we should try obeying Him. He talks about being like little kids to enter the kindom.... He says it is really, really tough to enter it when we got a whole bunch of money. When I made a whole bunch of money, I thought pretty highly about myself, I knew absolutely everything....not really very childlike. Yes..... He even promises us that the way we get there is through much tribulation. You know why we get tribulated? You like that word? Just made it up. :) It's so we will grow up.....(stop being babies forever just waiting to die and go to heaven and hanging in there hoping He will return before I die and try very, very hard to get people to agree with our doctrine and pray some prayer with us so they too will go to heaven, avoid hell and live meaningless religious lives in the meantime just like we do right now before we go.... and of course go to church more, read our bibles more, pray more, witness more...... I need to catch a breath. :)
To grow up , to do that we need to start by being born again. God's purpose in that is for us to be able to see the kingdom. Once that happens we just want to know the King, seek Him, hunger after Him and become like Him as He changes us from glory to glory. What an exciting adventure that is. We are not to stay babies forever. We are supposed to start looking like Jesus.
I think that I am supposed to stop now......always much more to say!
:)
There was/is a popular Christian song where we ask God to "Open the eyes of our hearts, Lord". We really need that. We really need the eyes of heart to be opened so we can see!
Take the scripture for instance, where Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again in order to see the kingdom. Why is it that this gets interpreted and taught to us as the way to enter "heaven" one day down the road when we die? The reason is because of what I have already said about every religious system making life here on earth all about whether we go to heaven or we go to hell!
If we think that what it's all about is this heaven/hell thing, then Satan has done his masterful full orbed deception and rendered us useless in the here and now to accomplish what the Lord has put us here for.
Let me ask another question. How come is it that this born again experience that millions proclaim has produced so little on the earth today that really looks like Jesus? If we have been born again and now have His very life in us why hasn't this done anything to change us to look like Him? Why have we seen high and low profile leaders fall in sin time after time after time. Why? Why has the Christian divorce rate passed the world's?
Take some time to look at the "enter the Kingdom" scriptures and you should hopefully understand that they have absolutely nothing to do with seeing the kingdom. To enter the kingdom He says we need to surpass the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees (the religious folks like me that tell you all the right things to do but then don't do them ourselves?) Jesus says we can say..... "but Lord, I did this and I did that for you" and He says I never knew you (knowing has to do with seeing and intimacy with Him)....He goes on to say something about maybe instead of all that we should try obeying Him. He talks about being like little kids to enter the kindom.... He says it is really, really tough to enter it when we got a whole bunch of money. When I made a whole bunch of money, I thought pretty highly about myself, I knew absolutely everything....not really very childlike. Yes..... He even promises us that the way we get there is through much tribulation. You know why we get tribulated? You like that word? Just made it up. :) It's so we will grow up.....(stop being babies forever just waiting to die and go to heaven and hanging in there hoping He will return before I die and try very, very hard to get people to agree with our doctrine and pray some prayer with us so they too will go to heaven, avoid hell and live meaningless religious lives in the meantime just like we do right now before we go.... and of course go to church more, read our bibles more, pray more, witness more...... I need to catch a breath. :)
To grow up , to do that we need to start by being born again. God's purpose in that is for us to be able to see the kingdom. Once that happens we just want to know the King, seek Him, hunger after Him and become like Him as He changes us from glory to glory. What an exciting adventure that is. We are not to stay babies forever. We are supposed to start looking like Jesus.
I think that I am supposed to stop now......always much more to say!
:)
