joyindestructible

The Christian faith is a gift received when we believe that God exists and loves us so much that He sent His Son, Jesus the Christ, to die as a sacrifice, and reconcile our relationship with our Heavenly Father, the Creator, the giver of Life. God is accomplishing this great work one individual at a time. Some possess knowledge of God by their childhood training and come to saving faith with Biblical knowledge of God’s plan. Others, like me, are brought to our knees when we recognize the great goodness of God in comparison to ourselves and in desperation, do an about-face in our walk on the broad path to destruction and embrace Jesus as Savior. Each type of believer is equal before God. He loves the knowledgeable child, trained in outward obedience but lacking in saving faith, as much as He loves the child brought up in spiritual darkness; and He receives them each of them only, when they see themselves for the sinners that all people are and accept Jesus as their Savior from personal sin and death. Jesus is the Door to eternal life and the only opening into the Kingdom of Heaven. Anyone who devises another plan to obtain a part in that Kingdom will be frustrated in achieving their final goal. Compliance to God’s plan is required of every new believer, no matter their background and noncompliance ends in twisted joy.

Biblical knowledge without the discernment of the Holy Spirit is dead and lifeless. The Bible says of itself that scripture is spiritually discerned. Knowledge apart from discernment is not wisdom but legalism and legalism can never impart the spiritual guidance every believer needs for survival in a sinful, dying world. Reducing God’s Word to rules produces a form of outer godliness but denies its power. The Bible is a His-story book. It is the His-story of God’s people in the past and the future, with God’s unique perspective that is supernatural guidance for His children today. It is the story of Jesus Christ from beginning to end. Though the Bible contains many commandments not to be ignored, they can’t be kept according to only, knowledge because they are Spiritual and only the Spirit is required to fulfill them. Knowledge obtained and practiced apart from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that comes only, by faith in Jesus is to twist God’s Word and reduce its power to the mind of carnal, unregenerate man. The result is dead religion, not unlike the religion of the Pharisees who hated Jesus and instigated His crucifixion. There is no joy for the adherents of dead religion but only, slavery that ends in death.

Those who come to Christ from a background of utter, spiritual darkness bring many worldly, twisted ideas and actions with them. When Jesus was revealed to me, everything about me was upside down to Him. I had no knowledge of God’s Word and any spiritual understanding I held was eclectic and somewhat, occultic and drug induced. Before I received faith, I tried to read the Bible a couple of times and I couldn’t make sense of any of it. Nothing in my life held a common reference point with the Words of the Bible. After conversion that changed but it took time to unravel my twisted view of God in relation to myself and others and transform my world view to one that revolves around Jesus Christ and not around me. I am guilty, as all new believers are guilty of twisting God’s Word to my personal view and cultural understanding. I’m thankful that I belong to Jesus and not doomed to knowing only, twisted joy. Like the peeling of an onion, God’s Word spoke to me in my-self-centered state and gave me the guidance I needed to change the outward sin habits that were destroying me. He gave me a hunger for His Word and a desire to know Him better that drove me deeper into God’s Word. He gave me good teachers, shepherded me away from bad teachers, and drew me to seek a deeper understanding beyond my personal salvation and revealed that I’m part of something huge, so much bigger than myself, with Salvation in Christ Jesus the focal point. The Bible is a spiritual book that speaks to me personally but it is a His-story book that reveals God’s plan for everyone. The Bible interprets itself as the believer learns a little here and a littler here and it builds to an overview that is God’s perspective of the world.(This is the Biblical World View that is being tossed aside today; not only by non-believers but by those who claim to know Jesus.) To understand that plan requires knowledge of the history that has been fulfilled and that which is yet to come. It is important to understand the culture at the time of its writing, the meaning of words at that time, and to search out the intent behind them. This clean, practical process combined with the Holy Spirit’s guidance into all truth, under the personal tutelage of Jesus, has knot-by-knot unraveled my upside down view and turned me right side up. With every twisted concept that is straightened, comes the blessing of personal joy as God’s righteous, restorative, eternal life giving plan is revealed. I will need to read and study the Bible for the rest of my life because when I turn away from it, I find myself retying old knots and I drift away from God, as I return to following my old nature.

Today, it isn’t popular to diligently, study the Bible and conform one’s self to God’s ways. There are many sound-like spirits in the world today, who claim the Name of Jesus but lead people far from Him. Too few take the time to test those spirits and the mindset of the church is to welcome all of them in and not offer Biblical correction. The result is deceived believers and would-be believers who will never experience the true joy found only in Jesus but instead, settle for the twisted joy of self accomplishment. Transformation doesn’t come from a God re-formed to suit self but only, by obedience from the heart, out of love, that conforms the believer to the image of Christ. The clay that imagines itself as the potter is living the original Lie that man can be God and create a god in their image that serves them. Human potters are only, capable of molding pots meant for dishonor and God’s wrath. There is no life in the carnal imaginings of mankind and though they name Jesus, their actions deny Him, and they don’t possess eternal life. They like the Pharisees are enslaved by false religion and seek to enslave others to achieve and maintain the power of their imagined greatness.

Doctrine and theology are important but the doctrines and theologies of human beings are false and at best, a combination of divinity and evil, as all human being are good and evil. The Bible is sound, correct doctrine for every true believer. Jesus is the correct theology to employ because unlike the theologies of men consisting of men’s words, Jesus lived God’s Word and by doing so, made God known to a world that places man in the seat meant only, for God. Man will never be served by conforming God to himself and no amount of imagining can make man more than just a man. It is deception powered by Death that ends in the eternal death of those who embrace it. Twisting God to our personal view is the foundation of a world characterized by immorality, earned love, war, confusion, hatred, murder, and strong delusion that embrace Death as ultimate power. Though it seems hopeless, there remains hope in the work God is accomplishing through Christ Jesus in unknotting one heart at a time. Though the world is dark, Jesus shines bright in the night of human sin, with the promise of pure love, peace, and joy. Now, in the hearts of those who embrace Jesus and seek personal conformation to Him, that will end when Jesus returns as the Messiah; and all the world is conformed to Him, the One true Son who lived to please and serve God rather than self and man. He is the author and finisher of eternal life and the giver of true joy!

The words written above are the words of a sinful woman, saved by grace, through salvation in Jesus Christ. I write them in testimony of His work in my life, with the purpose of pointing others away from the darkness that envelopes the world, to Jesus. I am no one special and though I seek to express my relationship with God through Jesus in a truthful way, my words are no replacement for God’s Word, written in the Bible. Jesus is the true Teacher, the Bible is true teaching. I write in hopes of directing every reader to seek salvation in Jesus and sound doctrine by personal study of the Bible.