Saved Sinner – That’s Me.

 

If you read my Facebook page you might surmise that because of my posts. I must be a good person. I can tell you that I am a Christian and that the Holy Spirit indwells me. I am justified by Christ Jesus taking my sins on Himself on the Cross and the sin debt I owe is paid by His shed blood in my stead.

I accessed that forgiveness of my sins by believing on Christ Jesus (John 3:16). That I might not perish but inherit eternal life. Then because I repented and was baptised, I received forgiveness for my sins and the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). The work of the Holy Spirit during my life time is to sanctify me and make me a vessel of the living God, to make me holy and a temple of the Living God.

So am I really a good person? I’m better that I was when I first believed but I am still a human being. I have be saved in Jesus Christ in every way that matters but I am not perfect and I believe I will not be perfect this side of glory. This side of the resurrection unto eternal life.

Does this apply to all Christians? Personally, my experience is that there are some Christians who live a more pure life than others. We are all different and experience the revelation of God in ourselves at different rates. Some like myself struggle to pull away from the world and its influence while others grow closer to God more rapidly. They are faster to lead a repentant life that is along the lines laid out in the Bible. The point is as I mentioned earlier we are all different.

There is no one size fits all in Christianity. Some people become legalistic and judgemental at some stage in their Christian walk. They can be intolerant toward those who don’t believe and feel justified in preaching aggressively to them. They might harangue people with the gospel, thinking to force them to believe. The problem is that their is no love in that type of evangelism. It drives more people away than it reaches.

Just as there are the hardline fundamentalists there are those who are more inclusive and who are careful to love God with all of their hearts, all of their souls, all of their minds and all of their strength. It is important to place God first, to worship Him before all else and this leads to a more stable and loving form of relationship with God. In this style of Christianity it is important to love your neighbour as you love yourself which once again includes love for everyone equally.

The fact is that all Christians are people and all people are fallen. Christians are simply in the process of being restored into a holistic spiritual relationship with the Creator as Adam and Eve were before they disobeyed God and fell. We won’t be fully restored until we finish this life and are resurrected into the Kingdom of God.

So try not be too hard on the Christians you know. They are striving to assimilate all that the Holy Spirit is revealing in them and the knowledge that they are gaining from God’s word as they grow in faith and in God’s Grace. This leads them along different paths and results in learning experiences which will wear off the rough edges over time but at different rates.

If you read the gospels and focus on what Jesus had to say and how He treated those He interacted with. You will find that when He spoke to the authorities He was very direct and didn’t mince words. However, when he spoke to individuals he was mostly very loving, very patient, very kind and very gentle and when the situation called for it very merciful. He demonstrated to those he helped that He cared very deeply about their lives and the situations in which they found themselves. This is how Christians should act as well.

Christians are just people too.

Oy vey Updated

 

 

Oy vey (Yiddish: אױ װײ) is a Yiddish phrase expressing dismay or exasperation. Also spelled oy vay, oy veh, or oi vey, and often abbreviated to oy, the expression may be translated as "oh, woe!" or "woe is me!" Its Hebrew equivalent is oy vavoy (אוי ואבוי, ój va'avój).

I attend church irregularly. Not something to be proud of but there you are. One reason is that I haven't found a church that I would agree with theologically in Rotorua. I am, you see, a Fundamentalist Christian and believe in the Five Fundamentals:

1. The inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit and the inerrancy of Scripture as a result of this.
2. The virgin birth of Christ.
3. The belief that Christ's death was an atonement for sin.
4. The bodily resurrection of Christ.
5. The historical reality of Christ's miracles 
   

In addition, I believe that Salvation is based on a Holy Spirit inspired choice where the convicted sinner chooses to believe on Christ's redemptive work on the Cross or rejects the same. I also believe in the separation of Church and State.The bottom line is that while their are many fundamentalist Christians in amongst the Churches where I live there are no fundamentalist Churches per se.

The Church I attend is a Calvinist Reformed Church and I attend it because I love the folks there. However, the theology I find somewhat confronting. Reformed Churches are inherently addicted to the writings of John Calvin and the precepts of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Quotations from either turn up regularly in sermons. As a non Calvinist I find them very troubling. They impact the individual perception of the character of God while at the same time removing the believer from their proximity to the Gospel and the Great Commission. 

This teaching draws a line under John 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day." and builds a wall around John 3:16 -17 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him."

You may wonder what I mean here? Calvinists focus on John 6:44 and paraphrase it "No one is elect unless the Father chooses them."This fits with the premise that all men are totally depraved and cannot choose salvation for themselves unless God chooses it for them. Thus, all men are chosen to eternal life or eternal damnation by God from the beginning.

If you are elect, then everything you need to be justified and sanctified is included in God's grace which is made available to you without reservation. However, this same grace is withheld from the damned even though when the decision was made by God they had not lived. So, one man finds favor and another man is damned by an arbitrary decision of God made before the beginning of time. This is in Calvinist terms a decision made by the sovereign will of God.

This is what Calvinists believe in contradiction of what Jesus said in John chapter three. Here Jesus speaks to Nicodemis of  the need to be born again of the Spirit and of water. When Nicodemus questions Jesus over this Jesus points out to him that if he cannot believe these earthly things then how will he believe Heavenly things. The point here is that Jesus indicates Nicodemus must personally believe and make a decision about his thoughts on the matter of being born again in the Spirit and of water. God doesn't choose for him.

In John 3:16 -17, Jesus tells us the God so loved the World that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes on him shall not perish but have eternal life. Verse seventeen goes on to say the God did not send the Son to judge the World but to save it. So, contrary to the Calvinist view God intended by sending the Son to make atonement, through his shed blood at Calvary, available to all of the World. Further he doesn't judge the World, He desires to save it which would preclude the idea of a former judgement made by God at the foundation of the World where people were arbitrarily judged before they had lived. This scripture underlines individual choice by the sinner about whether they will accept the gospel or reject it.

Church

So, when I spoke to the Pastor at Church last Sunday and commended his sermon because it was a good one in my humble opinion. He said "Thanks for coming." Which I took as a dig at my sporadic attendance noting that he had not bothered to inquire about at any point. In hindsight this may have been an over reaction on my part.

Over reaction or not this inspired my fundamentalist furor and caused me to reflect that if I were ever to be made proctor of the region. We'd be training our Pastor's to ask a few questions before they take the usual snipe at potential congregants for not coming every week. Which he may not have been doing?

I'd also institute regular book burning ceremonies for the likes of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the writings of John Calvin. I guess we could throw some of Ellen White's works and possibly some of Charismatic Churches favorite writings in the fire as well. I imagine the look of shock and horror on your face as you read this. Oh come on, I am a fundamentalist after all!

I mean, it is rumored the we fundamentalists don't play well with other Christians. In fact, Pope Francis says we have to go. It appears we are a spanner in the works of Church Tradition. You all ways know when you are making a difference. People start crying you down and trying to get rid of you. Oh well, I suppose we are the victims of our own success.

It has been a rough couple of weeks folks. Two tragic deaths affecting the whanau and and two personal friends have passed away. Challenging bicycle update projects and helping the women folk on a major interior painting mission. I'm feeling a bit cantankerous at the moment. I'll settle down, I promise.

Reference List

Christian Fundamentalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_fundamentalism 6/01/25