How Can Christians Have Faith?

 

You know it is a very difficult thing to adhere to a belief that there is more to life than just what we have to face when we wake up in the morning. To many secular atheists the adage that the sun rose yesterday, today and forever is the only world view they can accept. What we see around us is all that there is.

 

To believe that a God that we can't see or empirically prove to exist. Who created the Heavens and the Earth and who desires a relationship with each one of us is absurd to the rational natural mind of man. The apostle Paul put it like this in I Corinthians 2:14 "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Thus the non-believer cannot accept that there is a creator God who is responsible for the creation of this universe and everything it contains including the Earth, mankind and every other kind of life on this planet.

 

Further, a God who has a problem with our unrighteous ways and calls it sin is obviously intolerant and unreasonable. Very many people find that a hard and bitter pill to swallow. Surely we aren't that bad?  Add to that that the fact that Christians believe that God was so moved by the catastrophe of the fall from grace of Adam and Eve and it's disastrous consequences. That He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to live a perfect human life and become a sacrifice for our sins. That is not something that the secular humanist movement finds particularly palatable, especially in 2022.

 

Why should anyone believe that they are sinful or unrighteous? Why would we believe in this supposed creator God who loved us enough to sacrifice His Son for us on the Cross. A Son who died to redeem us and restore our righteousness and our perfect relationship with Himself. To the unbeliever this perspective of the Christian faith is simply unbelievable, irrational and illogical. They view it as dangerous religious extremism and the province of the backward thinking. So how do we get the faith required to accept the fallen state of man and that we have a great creator Yahweh. Who so loves us that he gave His only Son that whoever believes on Him will not perish but will inherit eternal life?

 

 The  answer is that to believe we must have faith. I made a comment on a Facebook post a few years ago. The post showed and astronaut in space holding a sign which said "I don’t see God up here." I noted that you only had to look around you and you can see the work of God everywhere. Another person commented on my comment that they only saw physics and science. So my conclusion is that we only have faith in what we believe to be the truth. So to believe in the Christian God you have to have faith that the Bible and the gospel of Jesus Christ are true.

 

This is where things get interesting because Jesus said "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day."(John 6:44) So we can't accept Christ Jesus as our Saviour unless God, the Father, draws us to Him. Ephesians 2:8 tells us "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God…"

 

There are at least three perspectives about the issue of Salvation by Faith and how we come to be saved or elected to become the children of God. Many people like myself believed that we heard the gospel and made a choice to believe in Christ Jesus as our Saviour and Lord. When we read the bible or heard bible teaching we may have noticed that Jesus spoke of many being called but few being chosen and thought nothing of it. The gospel goes out to many but only a few believe and go on to be genuinely converted children of the Living God. That seems reasonable.

 

However, there is quite a commotion about a thing called the Doctrine of Election. Opinion ranges from those I described above of which camp I belonged and those called Calvinists and their opponents the Wesleyan Arminians. The Calvinists believe that everything relating to Salvation is given to us in the Grace of God and by ourselves we bring nothing to our salvation and neither could we as we are so depraved as to be unable to even consider accepting Christ's work on our behalf.

 

The Wesleyan Arminians believe that our Father in Heaven draws us to Christ Jesus through the preaching of the Gospel and that Grace enables the lost to respond to the call of the gospel to repent and accept Jesus as our Saviour. Thus Grace gives us the ability to make a choice for or against salvation in the name of Jesus Christ.

 

Personally, I would consider myself to be in the Wesleyan Arminian camp at the moment. This is because as you grow as Christian and develop an understanding of the scripture. You come to see that things are more complicated than you first thought. Thus your perspective changes as you become more knowledgeable of the scriptures and the things of God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

 

Now while I understand the Calvinist view which states that there is no choice, rather God chose you and gave you salvation. You had no choice but to have faith in Jesus Christ and the work He did for you on the Cross because God chose you and you had no choice. However, I believe that choice is important to God because it is the one thing that the angels who fell exercised when they rejected God. For this reason I believe that God wants a people who would choose to follow Him even if He had to give them the ability to make that choice through Grace.  This is where faith comes from, God gives it to us in Grace that we might choose Christ Jesus and have Salvation and Eternal Life. That is my opinion in any case.

Agenda 21/30: Are You For Real

 

There's a lot of fuss being made about the amount of disinformation on the Net at the moment. Along with Fake News and Hate Speech the powers of officialdom seem to be getting quite fired up about this issue. It would appear that they are seriously thinking of passing some fairly draconian legislation to prohibit the right to free speech as a result all of the turmoil that is being created.

 

A pair of issues that are cases in point are the antivax furore that arose about the measles outbreak in 2019 and then the anti Covid vaccine debate that largely aired on social media from 2020. The ruling block saw this as distinctly unhelpful to their agenda and threatened to clamp down on the various conspiracy theorist anti vax bloggers.

 

 Another issue or possibly group of issues that seem to upset the ruling class are those based around climate change and environmental pollution. In this debate the Christians and Conservatives  seem to have been besmirched as Climate Deniers and Conspiracy Theorists and once again vailed threats have been made around the idea of bringing in laws to control those who oppose the socialist neo-Marxist agenda in any way.

 

My interest here is very much about Agenda 21/30 and the various objectives of the Global Elite in terms of what they see as needing to occur to rectify Climate Change by 2030. If you are familiar with Agenda 21 then you will know that it was the published goals of a United Nations summit of the Global Elite held in 1992 in Brazil.

 

It laid out clear objectives that those gathered in Brazil at that summit felt needed to be achieved by 2021 in order to avert Climate Changes that had the potential to wreck havoc on the Earth and which may well be irreversible. By 2015 most of the goals laid out had not been even entertained and at a conservative estimate would not be achieved until 2050.

 

Thus the actions which needed to occur to implement the objectives laid out in 1992 were discussed and identified and a plan put in place immediately to achieve the core goals of Agenda 21 by 2030. Thus it was renamed Agenda 2030 and work is now happening at pace to bring into being the framework that will reverse Climate Change.

 

So what are we looking at here and why are Christians and Conservatives so upset about it? Surely if the science supports climate change everyone should just accept that humanity needs to address this potential catastrophe?

 

However, the problem here is that Jesus described the type of events we are looking at today in Matthew chapter 24. He indicated that they were went by God as a sign that the end is near. So who would benefit by saying these events are the result of manmade climate change and not signs from God?

 

The simple answer is that Satan and those involved in what the bible describes as the Mystery of Iniquity would benefit. You see if they can deceive humanity into believing the scientific perspective rather than the Christian perspective they can cause them to embrace atheism with the end goal being to create a One World Government to save mankind and the planet.

 

So, if they can  hinder mankind from seeing that what is happening is judgement from God and that they need to repent and accept Christ Jesus to prevent catastrophe. Then rather than most people becoming Christians they will become atheists or, worse still, Mother Earth worshiping pagans.

 

Hence many Christians completely reject any attempt by the secular atheist movement and the news media to foist climate change on the unsuspecting public. This has resulted in a backlash through the new media as they attempt to portray Christians and Conservatives as right wing fascists.

 

The next seven to ten years are going to critical to the construction of a completely New World Order. What we have seen in the past three years with the global pandemic has been central to getting people used to obey the orders from a central global source in the form of the United Nations and the World Health Organisation.

 

The News Media have been crucial to pulling the people into line using science as a stick to bestow praise on good citizens and to toss brickbats at the backward Christians and Anti-vaxxers. Decrying them as backward and intolerant.

Daily life has changed into and Orwellian dystopia. Some foods are becoming difficult to obtain, energy costs are soaring supposedly because of the Ukrainian war. Road crews and general contractors seem unable to complete simple projects that would have taken mere weeks only few years ago and now take years. The roads are being allowed to decay and degenerate at an alarming rate.

 

Climate change projects are subsuming funds required to maintain infrastructure to the detriment of the efficient function of the nation. Farmers are being told to pay tax and destock which will send many to the wall and next year we are being told to brace for a Global Depression that some are saying will end the middle classes across the planet.

 

However, the end is not yet this is merely the birth pangs before the real event begins. Jesus described this time in Matthew 24: verses 6-8 "And you will be hearing of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pains." Bible Gateway NASB.

 

This time is probably going to last for the next several years and then the time of judgement and tribulation will begin in earnest and last for seven years. It is often described as the Seventieth Week of Daniel from the Book of Daniel in the Bible. It is also known as the Time of Jacob's Trouble from Jeremiah 30: verse 7. That time will conclude with the Second Advent of Jesus Christ and the establishment the Kingdom of God.

 

Thus we look at the events of this time and are often discouraged by the attitudes of secular society and the rise of ancient paganism to prominence once again. However, it doesn't matter how complex their science or how sophisticated their plans like Agenda 21/30. The plan of Jehovah and his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ will be enacted through the Holy Spirit and His people. Jehovah will be triumphant and Jesus Christ will return to establish the Kingdom of God. He is coming soon!

For the Love of God

In my last piece “Born to Sin.” I told you how I don’t believe myself to be a very good Christian. I must admit to being very disillusioned with my lack of commitment toward leading a spiritual life and how I felt I was leading a carnal life instead. I mentioned how I felt it wouldn’t be too bad if I didn’t make it to heaven as long as some of the people I love got there instead of me.

I need to say right now that I have no illusions about my salvation. I have believed on Jesus Christ since I was four years old. I believe His promise in John 3:16 “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son; that whoever believes on Him will not perish but will inherit eternal life.” I know I am a child of God and I know I will be resurrected to the Kingdom of God to life everlasting.

I have little time for Christians who are not real or who are hypocrites. By this I mean I am happy to share my failings as Christian with anyone. However, I find that often Christians are unwilling to even entertain the idea of admitting that they are sinners and far from perfect. They seem happy to deny that they ever walk in the flesh or seriously err from time to time.

Personally I would also acknowledge that God has high standards for his servants. I don’t know if you know the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 14-29? Jesus told a story about a man about to go on a journey. He called together his servants and to one he gave 5 talents, to another 3 talents and to another 1 talent. The servant who got 5 talents invested them wisely and made the five into 10 talents. The servant who got 3 talents invested them wisely and made the three into six talents. The servant who received 1 talent was afraid and buried the talent so that he would not lose it. When the master returned the servant who made the 5 talents into 10 talents was rewarded with much more responsibility and likewise the servant who made the 3 talents into 6 talents was greatly rewarded according to his ability. The servant who buried the 1 talent was lambasted by his master because he could at least have invested the 1 talent and gained interest on it but instead fearing his master he did nothing with the talent.

So it is with Christians. God gives us abilities and invests in us and expects us to use the gifts He gives us to enable us to work for the Kingdom of God. If we are wise and use His gifts wisely we will be greatly rewarded but if we are foolish and do as the servant who buried the talent. We will lose reward in the Kingdom and earn God’s displeasure. This is what I fear in my case as I have been a Christian for most of my life but have often not used the gifts that God has given me wisely and too His glory.

As I mentioned in “Born to Sin” I can be very worldly and often walk in the flesh even though I try very hard to resist temptations. I fail, and this is very disappointing to me as I seek to genuinely please God but often I am unsuccessful in that goal. This brings me to a fact that all Christians need to keep in mind which is that whereas justification is instantaneous in Grace and having faith in redemptive work of Christ Jesus on the Cross. Sanctification is an ongoing process and will continue until we die. We are all different people and have different problems, different sinful strongholds that we are often loathe to surrender. However in the end the Holy Spirit will succeed in sanctifying us before the resurrection.

Philippians 2: 12-13 says this about sanctification “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to desire and to work for His good pleasure.”
Romans 6:22 talks about sanctification in relation to eternal life “But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.”

So although I see myself as a poor hopeless Christian who is not fit to be in the presence of God. Ironically that is true of all Christians in this life. We are all woefully inadequate by the comparison to the holiness of God. I can vouch to the fact that God is at work in me as with all Christians with the intention of sanctifying me, and them, to eternal life. We will be perfect and holy in the resurrection to eternal life.

What I can take from this personally is that although the enemy confronts me with my sins and I find this very discouraging at times. I belong to God in Jesus Christ and my sins are forgiven and the righteousness of God is imputed to me by Christ Jesus. So the Father looks at me and see the righteous shed blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit works in me to being about sanctification and holiness and I must remember that I am a temple of the Living God. So don’t be discouraged brethren know that you also are God’s in Christ Jesus and He has imputed His righteousness to you also. You can admit to being imperfect in this life knowing that the Spirit works to make you sanctified during your Earthly struggles.

Born to Sin – An Honest Self Appraisal

I am a Christian but I really struggle to lead a repentant and sanctified life. I go to Church and see other Christians who seem to be much more successful at being consecrated and dedicated to their Christian life than I will ever be. I am a born sinner.

I love to tell stories, tease folks and I am more in my element being a working class man than I ever will be being a man of God. I love planes, trains and automobiles. You can add to that bikes of all kinds, farming and animals. I like to read about science and the stars and I read science fiction too. There is no hope for me it seems.

Dropping into coarse language is not uncommon for me. Whether I am having an open chat with family or getting annoyed with a piece of equipment that I’m trying to adjust. One foot in the world, I just am not a naturally awesome Christian.

I guess my major problem is staying out of the fleshly life and staying in the spiritual life. Perhaps it’s like the apostle Paul said of his struggle in doing the things he didn’t want to do and not doing the things that he wanted to do. Maybe he had the same battle with the flesh that I do.

My biggest fear is that I don’t have the assurance of salvation because I don’t see myself as being repentant. Worse no matter how hard I try not to do fleshly things I always seem to end up doing something that is not righteous. I guess again it is just as the apostle Paul said. Doing what I don’t want to do and not doing what I should do? The flesh seems to really fight back against the direction of the spirit.

On that assurance business though I often think it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t make it to heaven as long as I was able to assist others that I love and care about to get there. I’d sure be hoping for eternal fire rather than hell fire though. Undergoing a quick second death would be infinitely preferable to eternal suffering in hell.

However, be that as it may, as a Christian, I am interested in theology, denominations and bibles. I love the people in my Church. It’s just that I feel like a diamond in the rough besides some of the lovely folks that I know who love the Lord. I kind of feel like an outsider because I see myself as a carnal Christian not a spirit filled believer.

Don’t get me wrong I love the LORD. God is working in me to sanctify me and He is making progress. He shows me the areas that need to change and we are working on them. That includes reading science fiction as well. It is the next big stronghold that is going to have to go. Anything that hampers my Christian life is up for review.

I just wish that I was able to be a sanctified, spirit filled, completely on fire for God and sold out to Jesus kind of believer. Instead of a luke warm, one foot in the world, carnally minded type of believer. I just feel so inadequate and such a personal disappointment to myself. I often have such a keen sense of failure in my Christian life. Oh well, what can I do about it except pick up my cross and follow Jesus. A long way still to go. I guess.

 

Genesis Chapter 9 verses 8 - 13

 

As it was in the day’s of Noah...

I don’t know if you’ve heard of Noah or know who he was? During His time of ministry on the Earth, the LORD Jesus told us “As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man.” So who was Noah? Well in the book of Genesis at chapter six verse 5-7 the word says this “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”

So all of mankind was given over to wickedness and the only man left that was righteous in God’s sight was Noah. God decided to spare only Noah and his family and He instructed Noah to build and ark with which his family and representatives of all of the animal kingdom would be saved from the coming world wide flood which would destroy mankind and the rest of creation upon the Earth.

So it was that God sealed Noah in the Ark and brought the flood on the Earth and when the flood waters receded God brought Noah, his family and the remnant of creation out of the Ark and commanded them to repopulate the Earth.

Now having filled in a little detail about who Noah was and what was going on in the time that he lived. We come back to what the LORD Jesus was saying when He said “As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man.” In other words every intent of the thoughts of man will be only evil continually when the LORD Jesus returns at the Second Coming.

I don’t know if you will agree with me but I believe that the time we live in now has many similarities to the time of Noah. Most people are consumed with themselves and hardly anyone gives a thought to the LORD God or to His word the Bible. In fact most people would either claim to not believe in God or are actively worshipping other deities. If not being heavily involved in the doctrines of the New Age and obsessed with self worship.

I know that there are still many millions of Christians alive in our time but I would say we are not quite at the time of the Second Coming yet. In fact when Christ Jesus returns all of those who have found salvation in the period of tribulation and judgement prior to His return will have died for their faith. Those left alive at the Second Coming will be those who follow Satan. They will hate the LORD God and despise His righteousness. They will die in valley of Megiddo at the Battle of Armageddon.

However, I also believe that the Tribulation is not that far away. We live in changing times and the global evil that is described as being as it was in the days of Noah is quite visible in our nations, cities and communities. It is my hope that many will see the times we live in and repent of their sins.

My friends if you don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ then you are lost in your sins. You need to understand the God so loved you that He gave His only Son, Jesus Christ, to bear your sins on the Cross at Calvary. For you He paid the price that you may be saved. If you believe on Christ Jesus then you will not perish but will inherit eternal life. Please listen to what I am saying and confess your sins to Him and repent (John 3:16 & Acts 2:38).

Mindsets

There is a huge diversity in Christianity in the way we view what's happening in the world around us and what constitutes our mindset and world view. We could say that in the Protestant realm there are obviously denominational differences in theology. The big ones at the moment being between the Reformed Church and Calvinism versus the Wesleyan Pentecostal / Charismatic Churches and we could factor in the Mainline Liberal Churches - Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian etc..

Within those Churches are theological differences on how people view this era. By this I mean the lens they see the world through. Obviously being conservative or evangelical or, liberal are an integral part of that lens.  Concepts like Covenant Theology, Dispensational Theology,  Pre, Post and A millennialism  impact how they see the end of the Church Age playing out. Also, what they believe about the Book of Revelation and how it applies to the End Times affects the composition of the lens and impacts what they see and how they react to events around them.

 

These different Christian World Views result in some Christians who believe there will be an imminent time of judgement with the immediate return of Jesus Christ thereafter. As opposed to those who believe that Revelation has already happened and Jesus Christ will return at some point in the future when all of that generation accept the gospel and are believers in Him.

 

There are also many different iterations within a believers world view. Some Christians adhere to a major philosophy, such as, the Dispensation Pre Millennialist  view where some believe in a Rapture of the Church before the time of Tribulation and then the Second Coming after the Tribulation and see Israel as separate entity to the Church. Meanwhile, the Classical Premillennialists don't believe in a rapture and see the Church as Israel. On the other hand the Post Millennialists feel the Millennial Kingdom has already happened during the Church Age and that Jesus Christ will return later as mentioned above.

 

Liberal Christians tend to have a lot of questions. Some believe the bible to be a book of myths and legends. Others fit evolution into the first verses of the Book of Genesis. There are those who are effectively secular in their outlook supporting feminism, antiracism, LGBTQ+ and any number of other causes into their view of Christianity.

 

I guess the question that arises though is "Who is a Christian?" and in this discussion of Christian Worldviews, what can be said about limitations of what it is acceptable to believe and still be a Christian? I have given this subject a lot of thought and come to the following conclusion. As a bottom line a person is a Christian if they believe John 3:16 "That God so loved them that He gave His only Son that if they believe on Him (Jesus Christ), then they will not perish but will inherit eternal life." Then regardless of what else they believe, true or otherwise, and regardless of their denomination. If they have heard and believed the gospel they are saved.

 

So to me a Christian can be in any denomination and believe many things which make up their personal Christian lens through which they view the world. They can be misled and mistaken or partially correct or completely correct in their beliefs about many theological and biblical issues. However, if they believe on Jesus Christ and that He bore their sins on the Cross and paid their sin debt at Calvary. They will not perish and will receive eternal life. Then they are saved and as a result our brothers and sisters are a remnant scattered across the many denominations and factions of Christianity.

 

So what then can we say about  theology? What indeed? A good number of wars have been fought and lives lost for no good reason because of disputes of theology. In fact, if you will pardon me, I would have to say that the bible gives scant information about a lot of theological issues. In many cases it gives enough information to provide an outline of doctrine but not enough for an exhaustive and conclusive definition of doctrine. So interpretation becomes key.

 

An example would be Predestination and how that fits with the many scriptures that say Christ Died For All. Honestly, you can dispute this issue until the cows come home and never resolve it. The problem being that the scripture simply doesn't spell it out. God obviously felt it wasn't an issue and that we shouldn't waste time fighting over it. Probably because in the end, it is what it is and nothing we can do will make any material difference to the outcome. God has it under control and we just need to get on with the Christian life and the living of it.

 

So what can we conclude about how we view the world and how it impacts on who we are and what we do? For instance, should we stop reading the bible and being informed about the things of God. As the apostle Paul said "May it never be!" We need to pray and meditate on the word of God to grow our faith and develop our relationship with Jesus Christ.

 

The bible draws us closer to God and shapes our personality as a Christian. With it God develops His character within us as the Holy Spirit uses that knowledge to cleanse us of all unrighteousness and create a child of God. I think the bible is more of a useful tool for God to work within us than it is for us to draw out doctrines to beat others into submission. Maybe we simply aren't using it the right way. More humility and less spiritual pride as it were.

 

Finally, what of the time we live in now? Which is the correct lens to view this time? Well I think of climate change and the population of mankind in 2022. The climate seems to be becoming more unstable and we have approximately seven point nine billion souls on the Earth at present. The question here is "Can man survive his destructive tendencies without God?" Honestly, I think it is apparent that in less than a century man will fall victim to his capacity for global war or, the consequences of laying waste to the environment or, a general shortage of resources. In short man's capacity for evil and sin will lead to his demise. So to me any Christian lens which sees Jesus Christ returning soon is most probably the right one. Man just can't continue without the imminent return of the Saviour, Jesus Christ.