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Monthly Archives: April 2019


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Loved by God

…“You are free and healed to the degree you know you are loved by God.”

This was posted on a church website that I visited recently.   Does knowing how much God loves us free us and provide healing for us?  According to what I remember reading in scripture freedom comes from knowing the truth.   The Truth will set you free scripture says.  Jesus says that ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.  This indicates that it is how much we know Jesus not how much we know that God loves us that sets us free and brings healing.  Jesus says ‘if you know me you know the Father’.

The statement above about knowing how much God loves us places the person at the center of things.  If we change this perspective to how much we love God we will be in better alignment with the teaching of scripture.  We will be in better alignment with the will of God. This above statement is a form of godliness but denies the power because it is altering the truth in a sense. Biblically we know that God loves us but this is not the main teaching principle regarding freedom and healing taught in the scripture.  This is a man made up ideology placing accountability and responsibility for relationship and covenant onto God only.


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Faith and Positive Thinking in our day

Positive thinking and positive confession is equated with being the same as having faith in Christ by some church teachings in our day.  Positive thinking has its roots in the new age movement and philosophies.  Positive thinking means that if you persist in thinking and proclaiming something as true, that it will manifest itself and be a reality in your daily life. This philosophy and thinking says ‘if you want healing and health proclaim these faithfully to yourself and others, even if you are sick, and you will be well’.  Do this for whatever you need or desire.

Faith in Christ is something different.  Godly faith is trust in a person, trust in God’s Word. There is some aspects of faith in Christ that are similar in stance to positive confession, but it is not the same thing .  The Bible says that all men have a measure of faith with which to begin their journey with God.  This faith is then strengthened through trust that God’s Word is true as the believer reads the Bible and through the work of the Holy Spirit.  The believer puts what he understands in the Bible into daily practice in his or her life.  The Holy Spirit works with the believer to strengthen his or her faith.  The believer’s faith is tested to see what is lacking and work is begun by God to strengthen his or her faith as long as the believer is willing to be corrected.

So we see that positive confession is the work of men,  the works of the flesh, and faith is the work of God through his Holy Spirit and his Word in the heart and mind of the believer. Where confusion comes in is when men, meaning church leaders,  try to mix positive confession teachings with Bible scripture.   Using God’s word in positive confession is not faith in Christ unless the believer knows that what he is doing is looking to the mercy and compassion of a person.  He or she is not calling something into existence.

 

 

 

 

 


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The Narcissist, the World, and the Church

The people who have destructive narcissism personality disorders are a danger to those around them.  This includes their personal relationships and their working relationships with other people.  From what I have seen online there are now some concerns about the narcissist being in high positions within a company or corporation.  Apparently,  there is a way to screen some aspects of this disorder before hiring someone, however,  corporations are often looking for the kind of person needed to axe large numbers of jobs, and perform other deeds that are disturbing and possibly unconscionable for non-narcissists to do within a job description position.  The corporation has become ruthless and unkind over the years.  Examples of this are the Enron type scandals, and the Wall Street scandals, which brought down a world economy in 2007/2008 through unethical, greedy, and immoral practices.

The church needs to pay attention to what is going on in the world.  First the natural the Bible says, and then the spiritual.   What we have seen in the past is the joining of corporate conglomerates to increase their power and influence in the world. Now  we are seeing this being done by the church.  The Catholic church is moving openly in this direction.  We see the Pope making statements of inclusion for all religions.  We see him in the news making reconciliation movements towards other world religions and their leaders, stating that we all serve the same God, and have the same goals of brotherly love and world peace.  That we need to reconcile and overlook our doctrinal differences.  What book or authority would we be using?  The Koran, the Bible, or another religious writing?  Or would we make up a new religious document so we could all get along?  What happens to the Truth?

We are not just seeing this from the Catholic Church.  We are seeing this in the mainline Protestant, Pentecostal, and Charismatic Churches also.  Getting along with each other and the world is superseding everything else.

We do not see this in examples found within the Bible.   Paul fought daily with those who were not tolerant of his teachings about Christ.   Jesus dealt with ferocious opposition from religious leaders of the Jews.  There was no compromising.  Truth was fought for and maintained by the Apostles and the believers.  This is the danger today.  The losing of Truth, and this matters tremendously.  The Bible says that ‘the Truth will set you free’.