The Pure Genius of Salvation

The Simple Gospel You might not know from listening to some Christians

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Were I an unbeliever listening to Christians today, I'd be extremely confused. It always sounds like I gotta be good, and do something to get this goofy Christian God to let me into Heaven. It always sounds like I can do something dreadful, and LOSE whatever "salvation" is said to mean. Or, it sounds like some kind of magic, and I 'get away with' something, if I 'merely' believe! But if I look anywhere else -- to any other faith or holy book -- I find a disturbing thing: GOD NEVER GETS PAID for sin, or for the shortfall of having to see puny finity forever. So if there really is a God, then He must be paid for that. So any faith or holy book which doesn't show HOW God gets paid, can't be valid. Truth doesn't contradict itself: all faiths cannot be alike, all roads cannot lead to heaven, since if God, then He Must Get Paid -- or He's not even just to Himself, so how can He be just to me?

So let's now examine this unique, nothing-like-it-in-the-world claim of GOD being paid for sin.. and what that means about how-i-get-to-heaven. GOD being paid, never mind whether the puny human suffers any consequences. For only if God gets paid, can there even BE a heaven. [Logically, any other afterlife proposal is just a continuation of life on a lower level with other creatures who aren't God, i.e., paradise, reincarnation, etc., so wouldn't be "salvation" from the puny imperfections, but rather a continuation of them in other formats. But to qualify as "heaven" with "God", then -- infinite perfection has to be satisfied. Hence the need for GOD, never mind anyone else, to be paid for it.]

The Bible is not a goofy Christian, of course. God is not people. We goofy Christians are goofy because we are "born-again": we are babies, all over again, spiritually. So, until we grow up spiritually, when we read the Bible, we come up with babyish ideas about what the Bible says. And thus confuse good folks like you about what ya gotta do to get saved...

So, what does the real Bible say one needs to "do", to get "saved" (go to Heaven when you die)? Simple: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and IN THAT MOMENT you ARE FOREVER saved-to-God!" That's a verse named Acts16:31. I've quoted it from the original Bible's Greek, and capped words translate its verbs idiomatically into English (so the meaning in English is closest to the Greek's meaning). So: If it makes you feel more official, try telling God the Father (or thinking toward Him) that you believe in Christ. He'll "hear" your belief in Christ, whether you officially tell Him, or not. He's always listening to your thoughts.

Belief-in-Christ is ALL you ever need to "do" to get "saved", and it's not magic. Because, God is Infinite, but we are not. So, think: what else can one do? If GOD doesn't solve the problem of us being so small, so unappealing to INFINITE Righteousness, what could anyone else do? So, obviously: it doesn't matter what your religion is, it doesn't matter at all, ever what your sins are/were/will be, it doesn't matter how handicapped you are, how bad or good you are. See -- God is Infinite, so only Infinite Good is enough. We can never BE infinite, so whatever we do can't "pay" for any wrongs. Not even the wrongs we do to ourselves -- because we can't turn back Time. Think: would God make you, then throw you away? Of course not. Think: would God allow some poor baby or handicapped person to be denied salvation? Of course not. God is Perfect. So, a Perfect salvation must be accomplished by God -- we just consent, that's all.

You might be tempted to think, "Oh, that's too easy!" Guess again. This is the hardest decision you will ever make. Everything goes 'against' it. So, don't belittle the gift which even the most handicapped person can "do", on the grounds that one does nothing.

Think this fact over: "doing nothing" is the hardest thing in life. Imagine you are an invalid, unable to do anything. Oh, the horror of paralysis! Or: imagine you must sit in an unfurnished room, with only a chair, no computer, TV, music, or even windows. (In Russia, a like method was used to drive people insane within 40 days.) Why is "doing nothing" so difficult? "Doing nothing" is a threat to the body's need to keep moving, and a congenital threat to one's need for self-esteem. Yet, "doing nothing" is what one must admit, to consent to believe in Christ, Who DID everything BY doing nothing. What?????! See? It's the very hardest thing to 'do', to 'merely' believe in Christ!

Yep, that's precisely how Jesus "the Christ" (aka "Savior","Anointed One") accomplished payment for ALL sins on the Cross: He did nothing. Remember, He was Nailed To A Cross, so could barely even move. What could He do??? So, He was like a lamb, allowing Infinite Righteousness of God the Father to lacerate Him (like javelin-stabs, says Isaiah53), imputing ALL sins in ALL history to Jesus' Body; and then, to judge every sin imputed. As if Jesus were guilty, instead of us. That's why it says, in another Bible verse (2 Corinthians 5:21), "He [Father] made Him [Jesus] Who knew NO sin, SIN! as a Substitute for us, so that we become the Righteousness of God IN Him[Jesus]." (That's a corrected translation from the real Bible's Greek.)

What does this mean? Well, here's an experiment you can try on yourself, to get a hands-on idea of what it meant to be on the Cross. First, though, make sure you are alone, and in a reasonably stable frame of mind, for this experiment will hurt. Ready? Remember thoughts which struck you and hurt when they hit. Each of us is more hurt by the idea of some thoughts, than others. Mentally-ill people are mentally-ill because they are constantly hit with torturous thoughts. So, for some, a past memory of being yelled at is so painful, they shove it in their subconsious. Or, some guilt idea. Or, some hateful thought. Or.. well, you get the idea. If you practice recalling thoughts which hurt you to recall, and you keep it up, you will become very upset. Because, It's The Thought That Counts: real pain or pleasure or joy or desolation is What You Think.

So, then: imagine Christ being hit over and over and over with every hurtful thought which was ever or will ever be in the mind of man, only Christ doesn't get upset, He doesn't react; instead, He embraces every thought and 'replies' to it with some truth he knows which is so good, the 'reply' literally Atones For, Propitiates, Justifies, the hurtful thoughts repeatedly lacerating His Soul! What thoughts can propitiate, satisfy, make one even want such pain? Look: Oh, Wonderful Father! Thank You For Stabbing Me With These Horrible Thoughts, And With Your Own Thoughts Toward Them AlL. Gratitude: for, Father is LOVED so much, that even getting Bad from Father is an outlet for Jesus' unending Gratitude. See? He isn't doing anything at all; not reciprocating the pain, not lashing out, not accusing Father for giving Him the Worst Kind Of Pain: man's ugly thoughts. ALL of them. At Once.

God the Father EXCHANGES our sins for Christ's thoughts on the Cross, and as a result of the extreme Beauty of His Thinking on the Cross, we are "become the Righteousness of God IN Him." That quote's from another verse, 2Cor5:21. See? It's a Real Purchase. For, it's ONLY the thought that counts: His.

See? By doing nothing, Christ received the penalty for sins you and I should have gotten. So, WE don't owe anything. So, there's nothing for us to DO. It was already done, about 2000 years ago. Therefore, as it says in another Bible verse (corrected translation from Greek), "There is NO other Person.. given to men by WHOSE AGENCY we MUST be saved." That's Acts 4:12: in the Greek, "MUST" is an impersonal verb of OBLIGATION. In short, a Contract. This Contract is not visible in Bible translation, but is in the Bible: Isaiah 53:10-11. It completely explains how sins were to be paid -- by Thinking, and then provides what happens to those whose sins got paid for -- salvation. The contract was made in eternity past: apart from your consent. So you don't get the benefit of salvation, UNLESS you consent. Hence you need to believe in Christ -- the One Whose Thinking paid for sins -- to be saved. See? It's a simple contract promise, from your 'end'. Nothing to be done: just believe in Christ, and at that very moment you are eternally saved.

Let's look at that Acts 4:12 verse again: "There is no other PERSON under heaven given to men BY WHOSE AGENCY we MUST be saved" -- no other person. NO OTHER person. Are you a person? Then, are you Christ? No? Then Nothing You Do Is Given To Help Your Salvation, get it? Because, He is the Truth (John14:6): Truth needs no additions, no 'help'. You don't need to 'do' anything TO Truth. It just is: total, complete, entire. Of Itself. Defense rests. And so can you. [Greek grammar note: when a sentence has a passive-voice verb and a by-means-of case in which the 'means' is a PERSON, it's solely by agency of that PERSON that the verb is accomplished. You learn this in first or second-year Biblical Greek. Yet most translators forget this rule, so mistranslate verses like Acts 4:12. Many Bible verses are similarly structured, and similarly mistranslated. Folks who think you gotta do something to get to Heaven don't know the Greek, and thus use mistranslations to justify their claims. So be careful to test for sense what someone tells you the Bible says: do homework in the original languages, if you can.]

Look: if you throw a ball up into the air, it goes up, then comes down. You threw the ball, but you were given power to throw it -- but not power to make IT work the way IT does. So also, with getting saved. You have the power to say yes, or no. That's like throwing a ball. But the ball itself, and what happens to it after that throw -- you have no power over it. You just use the option of throwing. You just use The Option To Say Yes To What Was Accomplished In Christ, on your behalf. For, He Himself merely used His Own Option to keep saying YES while imputed and judged with all sins in history. He didn't have to do anything to accomplish your salvation in Himself: because, He just IS the Truth. Like gravity on a ball: needing no other 'help', Truth always works, intrinsically. Unassailably!

Poetic, huh? Here is the only way everyone can get saved, no matter how high or low, no matter what linguistic or social barrier -- and, simultaneously -- it's the hardest of all things, to believe in Christ. 'Goes against the constant urge to "do" something. So it's not 'too easy'. After all, the One Who purchased your very ability to consent, was Christ. And that purchase cost Him everything. He gifted you gladly, because His love for you is total, and that love will never change.

It's not magic, either. See, God is Infinitely Perfect, and Alive. So, Omnipotent. So, if God Himself were ever to sin, what would happen? Could anything be done to restore God to His pre-sin state? NO. So also, for us: no works we do, no repentence or crying or sacrificing -- nothing can be done to restore us to a pre-sin state, because the problem of sin is IN us, in our very genes. For, even one teeny sin has the effect of mold which completely infects a slice of bread: what 'work' can you do to fix the bread? nothing. So, if God sinned, He'd have become irrevocably moldy. If we sin, we are completely moldy. Difference is, we are not Infinite, we do not have God's Own Life, so we can be saved: upon faith in Him we get HIS Righteousness in exchange for all the sins we'll ever sin. (2Cor5:21, quoted above.) And also, God's Own Infinite Eternal Life. So, We Can Be Saved. Which happens the very second we FIRST believe in Christ. Because, God Obligated Himself To This Promise, as we just saw, in Acts 4:12. So, God will never sin, so God Saves Everyone Who Believes. Forever. Just as Jesus told us, in John 10:28: I give them Eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of My hand."

He should know: for Jesus is God ("the Son"), too, and always was. See? "God" is a collective noun describing the Essence of Three Infinite Persons, each Identical in Nature, and of course, thus Co-Equal in nature. One, we know as "Father": think of Him as the Chairman of the Board, if that helps. One, we know as "Son": think of Him as the Chief Executive Officer. One, we know as "the Spirit": think of Him as the Chief Operating Officer. Note well: They Are Equal, but do NOT choose to have Equal Authority. Why? Because These Three Love Each Other So Much. They Love Each Other so much, and us as a consequence, that we are granted the offer of Living In Fellowship With Them Forever: John 3:16 and Roman 8:28-38's Attic Greek dramatically affirm these facts.
See, if you really love someone, you want to share everything bad with that person, not merely everything good. In fact, you need the bad to balance to the enjoyment! You come to ache for something costing you, to balance to the extreme joy of the relationship. Surely every love story ever written explains this natural law of love. So how much more, the Supernatural Law of Love, God's Own Attribute of Love? Christ, being First God, would Love more than anything else to 'go low' to pour out His Gratitude to Father: so, He did. He added Humanity to His Godness, and went through the Cross. See? Balance of 'weights' between the High Love enjoyment, and the High Love need to pour out. That's Integrity.

By contrast, if you really hate someone, you want to be as far away from them as possible. So, even if you are in the same room with that person, your "fellowship" is miles away. For, unlike love, unlike Integrity, rapport does not exist where hatred is present. So, while God is Omnipresent, it doesn't mean that you are in fellowship with Him. You can be in the same room with another person yet due to differences between you, be (as it were) miles away.

God is "near" (Bible term), not distant. It's we who are distant, bogged down with our many choking wants and needs, somehow (irrationally) afraid of God; just like Adam was, right after he ate that fruit. So, to get that Fellowship, we'd need to have Infinite Righteousness and Eternal life. That's why sins would first have to be paid for. Because, God is not magic, and the truth is, sin causes damage. Which damage must be judicially compensated; and then those damaged by sin, must be made whole. Which restoral, since there is no magic, we couldn't do! (Every other idea about God you'll ever hear is based on some kind of magical thing man allegedly can do to appease 'god': but Bible's God is not magic, and there is no appeasing. How can a sin-tainted person ever be perfect again, no matter what he does? Think it over.)

It's not magic how we get that Infinite Righteousness and Eternal Life, either. Infinity is neither mass nor energy, so it replicates without loss, similar to the way thought does. You read this page, and the thoughts in it, are now in you, yet still on the page. That's not magic, that's simply the property of thought, provable anytime, anywhere. [If you know something about fractals, you'll better understand why infinity can replicate yet not be diminished. If not, don't worry, you can learn in some different way: the Holy Spirit will eventually teach you.] So too, with the property of Infinite Righteousness and Eternal Life: difference is, God would have to will you to get those Attributes. Will, also, is a type of thinking. So, that's why we have to consent, too, in order to be saved: Will never coerces.

See? It doesn't have to be magic. If it had to be magic, then the relationship between God and us would be the magic.. instead of being Together. Free. Just because. So, we can't magically earn anything to credit us before Infinite God. So, God needn't compromise His Infinite Righteousness by binging us magically. After all, He could. But He doesn't want to. He can do anything, but He doesn't want to do all He can do. It's not about Power, it's about Love. Which, after all, wouldn't BE love, if not free. The gift of salvation, is FREE. Because, it wasn't accomplished by magic, is not offered by magic, and isn't obtained by magic. Because, God isn't magic, and neither is Real Love.

So, if we say "no" to believing in Christ, we are rejecting the only Gift which can save us. God will never reject us; we are rejecting God, if we never ONCE believe in Christ, because Christ Alone was able to pay Infinite God. Christ made that total Payment, without our consent, about 2000 years ago. So, in order for us to be forever saved, living WITH God forever after we shed our moldy body (die) down here, we need to consent to what He paid on our behalf: consent to that GIFT. So, salvation is like a gift which is waiting for you at the Post Office -- will you consent to its delivery, or not? "Believe in Christ.." means you've consented to its delivery. Until you consent, the Gift of Salvation is not delivered to you, but just sits in Heaven's Post Office, so to speak. (The Bible's Greek word for "salvation" also means "delivery, deliverance". Heh.)

Hell is the place where those who have rejected God's Gift of Christ will live, once they die down here, solely because they don't want to live with God -- where else can they go? They don't want the Real Heaven: heaven is 'hell', in their eyes, anyway, because they don't want the Real God. What they want instead is for God to CREDIT them for their "erga", their works (Rev20:12; some translations mess up this verse). The 'god' they want, is smaller than the Real God, for only a smaller 'god' could grant them credit for their moldy works. But, as Eph2:8-9 (and Romans 4, whole chapter) explains in Greek, Salvation "is God's gift; NOT from works, so that no one may boast." ['Corrected translation of these often-misused verses, showing where Greek lays emphasis. For Greek geeks: Greek houtos in Eph2:8 is idiomatically used to refer to the entire previous clause, kinda like we do with the English "this"; so, references salvation, not 'faith'; that's why it's in the neuter, not the feminine (Greek pistis, "faith", is feminine in gender). "From" could be translated "from the source of", really. English Bibles usu. say "of works", which is vague and tepid, versus the Greek. Paul shouts, here, syntactically stressing four times how we can't 'do' anything BUT believe to be forever saved. "Saved" is perfect passive participle, so complete, impossible-to-lose.]
See, in this life, we're used to having to 'pay' for something, to get something. If someone pays something for us, we feel the need to Reciprocate by 'paying' something in return. You take me out to dinner this time, so I take you out to dinner the next time, and so on. Well, that thinking is just fine between humans, but think: what can you 'pay' to GOD? (See Romans 4.) It's just plain irrational to imagine that a finite person can pay Infinite God anything, at all. Think: if you really needed to be 'good enough', or could be good enough on your own, wouldn't God have already made you 'good enough' in the first place? God demonstrates His Love for us in that He didn't need to make us good enough, of ourselves. Of course, if He had done that, we'd just be chirpy little automatons, not human except in form, having no free will. Whoopee. So instead, He makes us free first, and thus still good enough -- Through CHRIST. Who, after all, wanted to pay for our NOT being good enough, To Thank Father For The Pure Joy Of Knowing Him. (See Romans 5:8, Heb12:2.)

So it takes a lot of very painful and needless arrogance to imagine that a puny human can pay Holy Infinite God even one 'dot' of anything. People who choose to reject Christ are just that irrational (arrogance is irrationality, the source of all non-organic mental illness). God knows this; and, like it says in both Isaiah 53:5 2Chronicles 7:14, He uses our flaws to heal us of irrationality, to the extent we consent: for, God Loves. He's never insecure, so He's never about 'put down'. He put UP Christ ON the Cross to put us all UP. So, He puts up with us, while we learn, down here, about the Gospel -- so to put us up in Heaven with Him, forever. [See Romans Chapters 5-6, 2 Corinthians 5, plus "brass serpent" verses in Bible, which cover this topic. Greek/Hebrew note: the common custom of using "He" to mean Each God is Biblical. The "He" (Him, His, etc) usage expresses awe (not daring to call Him by name); plus, it's a very witty verbal device to stress that the Each Infinite Person Individually has the same Attributes, Attitude.. and, are in Total Communion (ultimate word for "rapport", Love) on all things. 'Stronger statement than even total marital 'oneness'. Folks who don't get the deliberate pun on Their alikeness which such "He" usage means in both the ancient Greek and Hebrew of Scripture, become very confused, lol.]

Many believers are themselves confused about these things, and imagine that they must do something to either be saved, or that they can lose salvation. However, as you saw earlier, it's Christ's Doing Nothing On The Cross Which Saved Us, So We Do Nothing, Too. How do we know? Well, look, here's what He said While ON The Cross: "Tetelestai!" That's part of a verse's Greek, of course. It means, "Salvation is (literally, "brought-to-completion") finished in the past with results which go on forever!" and is an exultant shout. Then, His last words: "into Your Hands I dismiss my human spirit, Oh God of Doctrine!" (Ps31:5.) So, then: if HE says it's finished, it's FINISHED! So, then: if someone, whether unbeliever OR believer disputes and says Christ's do-nothing Work on the Cross is unfinished, such that the human should also 'do' something, isn't that disputation an insult to God, and thus apart from God, even -- besides being rather silly? [Verses here are many. The ones quoted, though, are from the Greek, not English, and include: John 19:30 (idiomatic translation of the Greek tense), Luke 23:46 (ties to Ps31:5 -- "Doctrine"="truth", Heb/Greek use the term both ways). The 'doing nothing' fact is baldly evident from Him being nailed to the Cross, so obviously couldn't 'do' anything but Think Doctrine; Levitical "lamb" sacrifice and "Lamb-of-God" moniker for Him in both NT and OT.]

That's why life down here is allowed to be naturally bad: people want to add something themselves! That's the very essence of the sin nature we genetically inherited from Adam, at birth: me-be-good, me-be-god, as hilariously demonstrated by the figleaves thingy in Genesis 3. So, that's why God allows bad to freely exist -- to forewarn of what life apart from God is like: endless, moldy, boasting! Don't we all hear that moldy boasting everywhere, all the time? So, then: shouldn't you, being gifted by God with the free will to choose for or against being with God forever -- shouldn't you get full disclosure? Hence this world is allowed to be freely bad, so you can decide -- for yourself.
Sure, it's good to be moral, and not good to be immoral. Why, though? So we can all get along better. It's a blessing to have, not a club to bang on God's Door, yelling, "You gotta let me in!" Isn't it nicer to be on good terms with folks, rather than having to use them to get something? So, then: true morality comes from, and requires, grace to operate happily. So, then: morality which is used to get something is no different from immorality, since the latter is always some kind of abuse. How much more, if morality is used to get something from God, is the user abusing God (well, imagining he is, a kind of god-complex)?

So this world is freely bad mainly because people use morality to get things they want -- a kind of bullying. It's not good, it's not of God, and it is really immorality in disguise. Hypocrisy. Guilt. Pride: preening over one's own self-sacrifice, and expecting others to do the same! That's what happened to Satan (head angel opposing God, term means "opposing attorney" in Hebrew). That's what he and his cohorts very much want to happen to the human race. So, they, not God, sponsor all the morality they can. To abuse us. For, this world is also freely allowed to be bad to play out their arguments against God. That's why they sponsor religion: man, by man's own efforts, claims the approbation of God! True evil. See how disgusting such claims are, versus Jesus the Christ hanging on a Cross, doing nothing? Which side in the 'argument' do you think is more godly?

There is no second lifetime (Hebrews 9:27), and God is efficient: no one needs more 'chances' in some subsequent lifetime. He won't let anyone die before a boatload of offers has been consistently, always, rejected. That's enough time to be permanently self-hardened against God. After all, it only takes a second to believe (whether down here, or even in Hell). Moreover, no one goes to hell for sin -- Christ paid for all sins, so sin is not an issue. [See Revelation 20:11 and following, for proof. Sins are not mentioned there.] Good deeds are not an issue, either, for who of us can make up to Infinite God for anything, at all? In order to do that, we'd have to be able to turn back Time, and redo everything perfectly. No one can turn back time.

So: just believe in Christ. Once. Then, you are permanently saved. What could be more fair, especially since God Himself Alone runs the ability to hear the Gospel? See: no one is left out. So: just believe in Christ. Once. Then, you are permanently saved.

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Is there something else to get from this life, after being saved?

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Oh, yes. In fact, you are "born from above" (not "born again", a mistranslation) so you have a new spiritual nature: like God's. So you are a Royal Priest forever, which means you represent Him. So there's stuff to learn (never earn) about what that means. What it means the most, is that you can KNOW God intimately. That's the best reason to want to be saved, actually. Using 1Jn1:9 and learning what Scripture says, you can learn how to enjoy being with God, even while down here. Life down here after salvation is expressly for the purpose of learning Him. God will provide the spiritual intelligence you need to learn Him. Your high or low IQ is irrelevant. That's why you use 1Jn1:9, to 'access' His Spiritual 'Brains'. As you learn Him, you will come to understand Him and enjoy Him, as you grow spiritually.

God is a Spirit, see, which is why you needed to be "born again", to also become a spiritual being: you get a human spirit the first time you believe in Christ: That's where the Infinite Righteousness and Eternal Life permanently 'reside'. You won't feel them, of course, just as you can't 'feel' God. Infinity is too BIG to feel. Not magic. You can KNOW God, instead: that's better than magic, and of course way better than feeling.

This spiritual learning is exactly the same kind of learning Christ did in His Humanity. (He did not use His Deity to learn, since the sins were to be paid by Humanity, not Deity. No magic, no sham justice, either.) Because God is Perfect, one of God's Attributes is (necessarily) Truth. Truth, being Infinite, can replicate without loss: so, can be learned, because learning is done with thinking. Obviously, it would take God's Own Power to enable this learning, which it did: the Holy Spirit taught the Humanity of Christ. So, also, us believers: WE grow spiritually just like He did in His Humanity; but of course we sin, so we need to use 1Jn1:9 to learn Scripture. That Scripture, is Christ's Thinking (1Cor2:16, in Greek; also Heb4:12), which the Holy Spirit enabled the writers of Scripture to not only know, but WRITE. See? Not magic. He was able to bear all those sins due to the Truth He Learned. That's why He was so strong, so happy (see Hebrews 12:2). So too, can we become -- though of course, we'll never have to go as far as He did!

Truth is not magic; Truth can be Learned. God's Truth is His Attribute, and thus can be LEARNED. Learning of any kind changes a person for better or for worse, because thinking is involved with learning, and one also values what he learns. See? Not magic. Not emotion, not hocus-pocus or weird rituals, not chantings or ohmings or sitting on a mountain somewhere. Not works, but instead: Learning. Learning from God, takes God's Power, but it's certainly not magic. It certainly is a function of whether you are positive to learning. Hence the need for 1Jn1:9, for when one sins, one is offline with the Holy Spirit, and not positive. See? No magic at all. God is just that BIG: it's natural for Him. So, learning Him makes us bigger, too. Just as any learning does, except this learning is at GOD's level. Not magic, nor anything we can do. Just like salvation, we can only get this learning by Consent.

Learning and thinking are to your soul what food and exercise are to the body, and they develop in exactly the same way: all that is true about the effect of diet and exercise (or lack thereof) on the body is analogously true for learning and thinking on the soul (brain is interface between soul and body). Food supplies the body with the chemicals and energy to stay alive and be healthy; exercise instructs the body where and how to deposit muscle so the body can do what it needs to stay alive and be healthy under varying conditions of stress (resistance). So, if you eat the wrong food, or too much or not enough, you tax your body's ability to be alive and healthy. So, if you do wrong/too much/ too little exercise, you tax your body's ability to aptly function. [Nerd note: Everything is made up of some type of chemical, for a chemical is but a combination of atoms: "O2" for example, is a common version of the elemental chemical called "oxygen". Sadly, the term 'chemical' today is inaccurately used in a nasty way.]

So, if you don't 'eat' learning, you starve your soul (that's why brain won't work properly, either). So, if you don't exercise your thinking, your soul atrophies and fattens. So, if you 'eat' unhealthy learning, or exercise unhealthy thinking, you sicken. As with the physical body, the deleterious effects of an unhealthy soul take time to manifest, and take a much longer time to correct; the more time passes, the tougher and more correction is needed. That is why you must discipline your body, your mind. That is especially why God punishes: if we won't discipline ourselves, for our own sake we need to be disciplined. Clearly, then, learning Scripture is easier and more effective, than getting spanked.

Learning anything means essentially three functions must occur: 1) you learn DATA; 2) you learn CONNECTIONS among the data; 3) you believe what you learn. The believing is a consent, basically -- for, when you believe, you agree that a thing is valid, true. Of course, to do that, you have to have a justification, a reason to agree. That's where your brain comes in. The Holy Spirit's Ability to Communicate DATA and CONNECTIONS via your God-appointed pastor (God will show you who) nonetheless will not enable you to learn unless you believe. You won't believe unless you can see the reason why the communication is true. So, some things you hear, you immediately believe; some, you don't. Others, you sorta believe, but you don't understand them well enough yet. Of course, this same process is true for secular learning.

The body is precisely connected and woven together: it is a marvel of design which all of man's genius has yet to even approximate. The greatest computer network is but an abacus, compared to the brain's ability to process and analyze data; and we only use about 10% of the brain's capacity, medical folks keep saying! So, then: a precise connection system is needed for accurate and clear thinking to occur, to be sustained, to be effective. Just as with the body, the soul needs a precise set of data connected in a precise way, for thinking to be happy and fluent. Of course, since God is Infinite, the spiritual life is of unparalleled precision. That is why only the Holy Spirit's Power works to create the 'body' of Christ's thinking in the believer's soul. Man can't even approximate it; man can only ape outer appearances, like a child apes her mother by clomping in high heels.

See? It's not magic, but the Holy Spirit's Enabling Power which affords you the opportunity to be exposed to the relevant data, and the relevant connections with respect to learning Christ via Bible Doctrine via your God-appointed teacher. However, God never coerces volition. So you learn nothing, even so, until and unless you consent. Each second, your decision, your reasoning why you believe or not. Your choice.

For, You are What You WANT WANT WANT to Know... Will is the dominating factor of your life. You are what you want to believe, what you want to think, what you want to know. Bible calls this "eating". For, the soul 'eats' by believing, even as you eat food by wanting it. No one believes apart from wanting to believe, and no one else (not even God) can force you to believe what you don't want to believe. So, like it says in Proverbs 23:7 (in an eating context, no less!) -- You Are What You Think. By Choice. For the truth for us, is the same as for God: Will dominates, and Truth comforts. Specifically, the Willingness To See Truth, is innately contenting. God doesn't sin, because the Truth is so Gorgeous. No reason to want to sin, ever. So it stands to reason that the more truth you know, the happier you will become. But only God is Truth. So to get Truth, you've got to get it from God. That's why we have a Bible. People who get past wrongs in their lives do so because they accept the truth of what happened. They stop trying to fix what happened, but instead, move on. They don't necessarily ever like what happens, but they accept it. Same is true for unusual prosperities. Acceptance Is The Key To Everything. Just as your body becomes more content the more you properly feed and exercise it, so also your soul becomes more content the more you properly 'eat' truth and exercise thinking based ON truth. Which, of course, means you are first accepting both. Happiness Warning And Disclosure (heh): Accepting and Learning Truth from God is by far the most fulfilling and taxing life you can live. Fulfilling, because He's so Wonderful, and the more you Learn how He thinks and is, the more you want to learn. Taxing, because your body's got that stupid sin-nature genetic structure we all inherited from Adam: it's always going in the opposite direction. Taxing, because folks around you are being led-by-their-bodies: thinking is too hard, you see. So, you'll find it progressively taxing to be around others, the more you learn Christ. However, you'll also find learning His Thinking so refreshing and contenting, just as His Thoughts on the Cross comforted Him, so also will you be comforted as you face the 'cross' of having to live with the weaknesses of this world. In a word, you'll eventually find the entire experience, propitiating. Which, of course, Father also finds His Thinking on the Cross to be. Heh. So what do these twin pulls (toward God, toward weaknesses) 'do' to your spiritual and soul life as you accept learning Christ? Well, it's doo-doo (weakness) converting into Diamonds (Doctrine, His Thinking). Paul writes about these twin pulls in Romans 7: lol, you no sooner know what "good" is, than you have an urge to disobey it! 'Same kinds of things as happen to your body when you feed and exercise it properly: you gain in agility/speed, coordinative integrity (synergistic competence), endurance (stamina), flexibility (ease), strength (power). As you grow, you'll find the emphasis needed to keep on growing is in the reverse order, with strength-of-will being the initial focus, to keep you going despite the pulls; but focus shifts to agility, once you're 'athletic'. Thus you can track your spiritual progress (progressively learning and using Bible Doctrine), similar to the way you'd track a body's progress. It's amazing how the soul's attitude and progress/regress reflects the body's. Just as your body 'protests' when you are doing something you know is good for it, so also the weak soul reacts. Just as your body afterward has contentment and added strength from being rightly treated (despite protest), so also a weak soul will feel better and get stronger. The strong body or soul, by contrast, is eager to be exercised/tested/pushed, and becomes initiatory. In short, weakness is stillness, atrophy, death. Strength is movement, development, life. This fact is exponentially true of the spiritual life with God: learning and thinking constitute movement, development, life, since the real you is not your body, but your soul. Use it, or gradually become catatonic. No in-between. A baby doesn't know anything. So all input is sensory, how a thing feels. Volition interacts with feeling to 'baptise' onto the feeling, a meaning of 'i like', or 'i don't like'. The trick to growing up, even secularly, is to have volition replace feeling preferences with meaning preferences. And preferably, the meanings will be aligned with the Truth. To the exact extent this replacement does not occur, the soul will be weak, babyish. Like a weak torso which thus weakens the entire body, so also a soul's 'torso' of weak thinking will stunt that soul's growth. For, weak thinking on any topic displays a continuing preference for feeling as the criterion for decision. So a weak soul can't take much input or think very long before it 'faints'; isn't agile, so it can't 'dance' (enjoy) and can't evade sudden hits; it can't 'bend'; and above all, it can't have coordinative integrity, especially under repeated strain. A soul learning Christ, akin to a soul learning any viable subject over his lifetime, enjoys ever more increasing input and thinking; thus any 'hits' have progressively less adverse effect; such a soul also progressively enjoys bending, coordinating, holding together, especially under repeated strain. In short, learning Christ makes you a spiritual athlete, as Paul so frequently reminds folks in his letters. [In Greek, that is: all too often translations mask the athletic and military terms Paul uses.] Hence the hallmark symptom of spiritual retardation or at least, immaturity, is a view of the spiritual life as a works thing. Kids are like this, always comparing what they do to other children, looking for approbation because they took out the trash, or took a bath -- and tattling on those who didn't. Thus you see the wide divergence between Bible.. and Christians. We are all growing, and retardation is the norm. The higher a job you have in life, the more THINKING is required, not body stuff. So much more true, in the spiritual life! For God, is PURE THOUGHT. So the hallmark symptom of the maturing Christian, is that he accredits his works less or not at all, because he's come to know better -- and instead, he focuses more and more on how he thinks toward God. For the essence of the spiritual life, is your SOUL thinking toward Father. That's how sins got paid for -- that's how you relate to God. For God, has no body. For people consider learning and thinking 'hard'. However, it's people who make learning unpleasant. Think about how you pour over the smallest details on a topic you love to hear, speak of, or read; then ask yourself what you'd call that same effort relative to a topic you dislike. Also, the way information is taught requires rote memorization, so the relevant connections of the data memorized are not taught. Thus, the information is uselessly taught, and boring; so, we are also taught to be bored/disinterested in it. Or, to motivate memorization, teaching focuses on emotional hooks, like singing your multiplication tables or alphabet. This, of course, links emotion as a justifier of learning: a very bad habit we are all taught from childhood. So, by the time we are adults, we look for some emotional justification for learning something; or, variantly, we need some kind of instant gratification of relevance to warrant learning or thinking. Teaching by rote memorization is justified on the grounds that it teaches patience, too; but thus were we also taught to hate/dismiss what we learned -- for the relevance wasn't explained and repeated along with the facts. [The History Channel's documentaries are often riveting; compare them to the same topics taught in school...] All the foregoing is even more true, with respect to the way Bible is taught; translations and religions alike make it out to be useless, rotelike, in order to deserve the moniker of 'holy'; so life with God is pitched as a boring huff-and-puff sterility, with man doing all the 'pain', and God getting all the 'gain'. So, learning becomes 'hard'. So, we seek shortcuts, soundbytes, quick-fixes and answers. So, we bond data and connections incompetently, to avoid that bad feeling we knew as children. People believe or disbelieve based on erroneous data or, more often, erroneous connections deemed to link data. Emotion makes for errors; so do various prejudices, past associations (links you believed true in the past); improper definitions of data in particular make accurate learning a problem. All these handicaps occur much more often when it comes to learning Christ, for mankind is just like a dead battery (called "sin" or sin nature" in English Bibles), when it comes to wanting God. It's a genetic defect, a proclivity to choose against, so anything taught about God gets more garbled in the minds of hearers, compared to secular stuff. Hence historically, most Christians choose to accredit what they do with their still-moldy bodies (sin nature stays in you until you die) -- and learn God's Word, not at all. So no conversion is going on. No data is being connected. No relevancy is being built by the Holy Spirit. Paul explains all this in Romans 2, 4, 7, 9, 11. So their feel-goods and moralities, help them accredit themselves still further. That is why their ideas of what Bible says are so puerile; why as they age chronologically, they become prickly and legalistic, graceless, fixated on other's sins or alleged heresies. They remain immature, Eph4:14. Such is not God's intent. God's intent, is that you come to enjoy the Truth and Intimacy with Him, as He does. If you're busy loving, you're not busy tallying up scorecards of how good or bad you or someone else is. You're not busy saying how correct your belief, how heretical is someone else. Lovers are too busy loving. God threw all scorecards away on the Cross. So as you mature in Christ, you will too. So notice how profound, even devastating: how you BELIEVE the relationship with God should be, is how it will turn out: for you are a King-Priest in training. So your own decisions, govern. Choose wisely, then. You're crafting an eternal future from those decisions. And any decision made in the past, can be reversed, while you are still breathing. Truth needs no 'hook' like magic or emotional appeal, to justify accepting it. But if truth is deemed unattractive, substitutes will be chosen. Hence people often stress feeling as the criterion of truth. But what's the real message of the Cross? Christ tells the world that the Truth is so beautiful, He wanted the Cross! See, the Cross is fundamentally, the Invincible Power And Beauty of the Truth: Ps138:2, 89:14-15, Ps31:5 (His last words on the Cross). It's not really about sin -- that was a Problem of Separation (contagion, 'mold' of sin); which, His Growing Up IN the Truth and Bearing both sin and judgement of sin, solved. (Isaiah depicts what He did as healing us, in Isa53:5.) So, no need to feel guilty or bad that He paid for you. Instead, you can celebrate, and learn this beautiful Truth, which the Holy Spirit replicated in Him, thus in the Bible: the Mind of Christ. You'll have, as you learn Him, a truly meaningful life: a life where even all bads are 'baptised' (by Divine Design) to be catalysts for the greatest of goods, says Romans 8:28 (in Greek; English is fuzzy). For, by absorbing all bad into Himself, He "fills all in all" (Bible catchphrase used in a bizillion different ways in the New Testament). So, nothing else to do. So, no happiness exists "outside". Tell me: is this Ultimate Justice, or what? Just think: here you are, with your happinesses and problems. Here the world is, constantly warring, striving, demanding, crying -- so much pain! Yet what does it mean? All this pain illustrates what would have been the meaning of life, if He didn't pay for our sins! We are watching what he paid for, occur! After this life, these things are gone: "no more sorrow, no more tears, the old things have passed away" are but two of many Bible clauses revealing our future due TO salvation. For now, we're getting intelligence information on the extreme value of what He paid -- by doing nothing! So, isn't this the ultimate of Justice? Truth is so valuable, God doesn't even have to lift a finger to stop what's bad; what's bad is, just like everything else, Converted To A Training Device, resistance weights to make one spiritually bigger; converted to a hands-on Learning, akin to His No-Work Accomplishment on the Cross! [See Heb5:8-9, one of the funniest Greek paronomasias in Scripture -- if you dare!]

These learning (never earning!) choices you make determine how you will enjoy Heaven, not whether you go there. (You can't undo salvation, any more than you can turn back time.) Unlike the one-time consent to BE saved, you've lots and lots of choices to make about how you want 'your' Heaven to be: kinda like a menu of options. God Himself knows what would most fulfill you, and He has a very detailled plan for your life; which plan, you yourself can choose to learn and follow. Or, you can choose your own way (not recommended, as God is far smarter than we about what's beneficial). So, by the time you quit this moldy body down here, your choices, like votes, add up to some resulting person you've become, in your soul. You thus will voluntarily and happily and perfectly 'fit' in a certain kind of societal life with God, as part of what the Bible calls "The Body of Christ". (The Book of Ephesians is on this topic.)

Down here, we each differ in our likes and dislikes, abilities and inabilities. Down here, if you want to be a ballerina but lack the body, you can't. Down here, if you want to be a nuclear physicist, but lack the means to get the education, you can't. But in heaven, everyone becomes what he wants to become, gets the life he wants to have, in the society ("kingdom of God", in Bible). The only way you can lose something you want, is to not want it enough. Because, life with God is shaped by learning God, which only He enables, both down here -- and forever. So, it doesn't matter your sex, your cultural or societal handicaps, finances, etc. -- there are no hindrances to you getting all of what you want in heaven: except, by your own choice. No one else can stop you. And, God never will stop you, either. He never coerces.

So, inabilities don't matter. Desire, though, does. If I desire to be a nuclear physicist, and I have all I need to actually become one, but don't choose to study enough -- I won't become one. Because, I didn't desire it enough. Lots of Christians desire to be favored by God, but won't choose to learn Him. So, the life in heaven they actually choose is.. distance. Kinda like being a king, but choosing to live like a peasant.

For, Christ is Royal; so we who are IN Him (believers) also are, because IN Him, Royal: "King-Priest kata Melchizedek" (per Hebrews 5, and lots of other verses -- "kata" is Greek for "according to the pattern of, the order of"). That 'position', status IN Him is irrevocable (one of 39 irrevocable inheritances one gets upon salvation). In fact, if you've ever once believed in Christ (even right now), at that very second you are a Royal Priest, in training (should you consent) to become also a King. Under the "King over Kings", Christ. Forever. The Kingship option is yours to accept, or reject. The level of priesthood you want to have in heaven is likewise your option to accept or reject. Acceptance means you use 1Jn1:9 and start learning Scripture in that state, habitually. Rejection, of course, is the opposite. See? You choose how you want 'your' Heaven to be, once saved: do you elect God's King-Priest Plan for you.. or, your own?

What does a King 'do'? By contrast, what does a peasant do? A peasant cannot think, because that requires a lifetime of training. But all a king does, is think. He has to look good for the peasant, since the peasant cannot think and therefore cannot imagine the role of thinking. A peasant therefore must SEE things. Visible wealth is important to impress the peasant. But to the king, thinking is true wealth. No polity lasts long, without it. And all the physical wealth is meaningless, without thought wealth. So how much more true, when being crafted as a King for an eternal kingdom? Again, Christ was nailed to a Cross. All He could do was think -- and that Thinking, paid for our sins, Isa53:10-12 (the fact is stated 21 times from Isa52:13-54:1).

So, look: what does God get for your existence? What did He want? He wanted you. So, what does learning Him do to you? It makes you, to the extent you consent, more like Him. Compatibility. Rapport. Sharing. Love. The stone too heavy to lift, really: the one thing God 'can't' do (because it would violate His Integrity) is to force you to become compatible with Him. So, your post-salvation choices to keep on learning Him will convert you into being more like Him -- with all the attendant happiness which comes from such increased rapport with the Most Gorgeous Persons in the Universe. Not emotion. True knowledge. True Love. His Power, given in accordance with your consent, to learn Him. (See Eph3:15-21 and 1:15-23 if you think this benefit too good to be true.)

So, as always, it's not about works, which after all couldn't have saved you, either. (Works do nothing for God, before, or after, salvation. God didn't save your works, Christ didn't die for your works; God saved YOU; Christ died for YOU.) God does the works in your soul -- then 'rewards' the world for your growth in Him in ways beyond all human ability and wealth. (Eph1:19, 2:10, 3:19-21, 4:11-13 (but only in the original Greek), Col1:9-10(only..Greek), Col1:18, Philippians 2:12-13.) See, human ability and wealth all come from moldy bodies, which is why neither can save anyone anything. So, 'only produce more MOLD. Granted, we have needs, and we can do things with these bodies -- in fact, must, because the continuing moldiness means continual management of the infection -- but only God is not moldy.

So only God can do things to heal, slow down, make good out of, all the moldy infection which keeps on spreading also, by means of thought. (Thought naturally replicates, so thought is naturally contagious.) So only God can truly help man. So, if you are growing in Him, becoming more compatible with Him, your own moldiness while down here is being healed by that Truth, His Thinking you are learning. For, that Truth replaces the mold by means of Learning His Thinking! [Ephesians 4:11-16 and 4:23 in Greek say all this; so do many other verses, like Romans 12:2-3, all of John 14, 1Corinthians 2, 5. Again, translations are usually messed up.]

So, unlike someone who's not growing in Him, you're being used to do what no moldy body can do. Truly truly help replace moldy thinking, with Christ's Thinking. Doesn't matter that it's not visible: mold's danger is not in the part you see, but in the part you can't see (get any good biology book on molds). So also, the counter-mold (so to speak) of His Healing Thinking is not visible to others. Bigger still, you are becoming more like Christ, which pleases Father no end: just as we are blessed with salvation due to Father's Pleasure with Christ, so also those of us IN Christ are the justification for Father blessing the world, temporally. Bible frequently calls this Father-pleased-so-Father-blesses, "sweet savor", and it's a Priestly thing. So, see?

• Father gets what He wants;
• Son gets the "Bride" (another Bible term for us) who He wants;
• the world gets what it desperately needs but can't provide; and
• the Holy Spirit is the Operator, doing all this wonderful healing in the souls of those who keep on wanting to learn Christ. [This is why Bible uses the term "salt" for Scripture, and for people spiritually learning it: salt preserves, sterilizes. More importantly, your body can't absorb the nutrition in the food you eat, without salt. Again, you can prove how salt works in biology or organic chemistry books.]

  It honors Christ to bless us and the world; and Father Loves Honoring His Son. Christ paid, we benefit. We benefit, because Christ paid, because He loved us. So, the Father GIFTS us to Christ. So, we must be made glamourous, so to speak. Scripture depicts life post-salvation to an engaged woman who gets ready for her marriage: beautifying herself, and enriching her dowry. In the process, even those who will never believe in Him will be "paid" for our training period, as it were, down here. In short, if you would do good for people, learn Christ! That function does FAR more for them, than all the money on earth: "infinitely more than all we can ask or even imagine". (Eph 3:20 -- clause is very strong in Greek.)

The links at pagetop provide further introductory material.

• It's probably best to start with the "God's System" link. That short webpage gives you a hands-on way to deal with the spiritual life, especially when you don't know much. You'll see the results as you practice it, privately: no one has to know.
• For understanding the legal foundation of your salvation, you might next read the "TULIPS?" link. That site's name only sounds like Calvinism: instead, it fixes errors in Calvinism, while recognizing a few things that are accurate in it (like you only believe in Christ to be saved, and why).
• The "Salvation Components" link at pagetop has a very good explanation below its chart, to familiarize you with the Bible vocabulary of your salvation -- for the Bible is a CONTRACT. You believe, God does all the work. Belief has no merit. And as you just saw, what merit can come from a moldy body, anyway? Not to worry. You were not born the first time in order to stay that way. You were born to be made like the Son of God, John 10:34. By contract: Isa53:10-12. What happened to Him, is to happen to you.

  For why should Omnipotent God, tolerate lesser-thans? Why should you settle for BEING a lesser-than, when that is not your destiny in Christ? See: His Goal is to put us UP, which is why He puts up with us down here. We are His Children. We can grow up in Him. Our Choice.

• Most importantly, you need a Bible. If you seek an English Bible translation, try New International Version or New American Standard (for now); in Spanish, the Regina; in French, Louis Segond. You need a pastor to teach you Bible, and God has already selected one for you: RightPT.htm has details on this topic, and is also a link at pagetop. To find that pastor, use 1Jn1:9 and ask Father in Son's name to lead you to him. No one but God has any idea who that person should be, because God tailors based on personal commonalities God knows you need: it's not a religious or denominational thing. So you have to ask God, since only He could know. Again, you gotta pray for that -- see for yourself.

This is a personal thing, your salvation and spiritual life. It's not about who else believes as you do, what your family and friends do: you are your own soul. No one else has rights over your soul, and you have no rights over someone else's soul. So no one has any right to influence or dictate to you what you should believe. That's a private matter at all times between God and you. God is your Real Father, since only God can make a soul.

So, now you know the simple truth: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and IN THAT MOMENT you ARE FOREVER saved-to-God!" Go in peace: "Be Still, and KNOW that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). "I will never leave you nor forsake you." (7 verses, incl. Deut31:6, Josh1:5.) "not willing that anyone should perish" (2Pet3:9). 'I, even I am He Who removes your sins, as far as the East is from the West.' (Christ, talking from His Deity in Isa43:25; see also Ps103:12. This quotation concatenates both verses, which is a common interpretational math technique in Scripture.)

See? He loves you: "For God so loved the world" (John 3:16) and "God demonstrates His Love toward us: in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died as a substitute for us." ('corrected translation from the Greek of Romans 5:8.) FOR ALL OF US: 1Jn2:2, 2Cor5:14-15. See? God never rejects anyone. So: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you are forever saved-to-God!" Plain, Perfect, Simple. FOREVER. So: go in peace, and, as 2Pet3:18 says, "grow in grace and knowledge of Our Lord-Savior, Jesus Christ -- to Whom, Glory! both now and forever!" (Peter's last words, semi-corrected trans. of New International Version.)