This is an introductory page; it's blissfully short, but is by far the Most Important of all 'my' webpages.
Synopsis of webpage, and intra-page links. Just click on a link to go straight to a section, or just read the page in order.
God's Blessing Objective is to have you learn and live on Bible, Matt4:4 -- that makes for a 'conversation' with Him, which is the Biggest Blessing of All, fulfilling Christ's Prayer in John 17. However else you worship and serve according to your chosen denomination (if any), is between God and you. It's not a denominational issue, but a RELATIONSHIP issue. How close do you want to be to God? You can be as close as you desire -- and this is the System He uses to make it happen. Again, however else you worship or serve, is between Him and you. Private. Personal. Sacrosanct.
Time for straight talk on what this whole "God" business is about, no hedging or fancy words. Life is about but one thing: Do You Want God Or Not, And How Much. It's not about being good or bad, not about how you or someone else thinks you 'compare' to others. It's absolutely not about religion, culture, politics, or any other human-human issue which always absorbs the human race. God made you, because He wants you: but, do you also want Him? If yes, you'll want to have a relationship with Him, and be in whatever System He has created for that relationship to flourish. If no, you'll substitute your own ideas and call them His, or you'll just be disinterested or hostile. Your choice. Historically and now, 99% of the human race, Christian or otherwise, says "No, I don't want God."
If you say "yes, I want God", then God has to grow you within His System, so that you Grow In The Ability To Enjoy Being With Him. See, we are naturally afraid of God. That, because Godness and humanness are innately incompatible. So you can't grow toward Him on your own; nor does it matter even a whit, that you can't. He does it for you, in accordance with your consent. His Will isn't affected by what you choose, but your life sure will be. And if you choose to be with Him, then only He can make that choice, effective. Because, He's God, and you're not. Simple as that.
This Growth He does, is true blessing, because via Growth, He enables you to come to KNOW Him. Nothing else in life compares, frankly. Yet, all other types of blessing come to you as well, and operate under the Growth Blessing. For, God is Eternal, and if you want Him, you need to be enabled by Him to develop for an eternity WITH Him. So, God's System for Blessing is the same system for everyone; so, it is all-inclusive; so, the System structure is basic. And, 100% supernatural, though you will not be able to detect it: since God is Infinite, finite instruments, etc. can't 'prove' Him. But He can prove Himself to you; which He will do, if you want a real relationship with Him. If you want something else, seek someone else. God never flirts.
So no one who is outside God's Sane Blessing System, is directly blessed during that time; because to be OUT of His System, means you DON'T want Him. You only get blessing from God in two ways: if you yourself are in His System; or, if you are associated with someone else who is in His System. "5" is a Bible numeric metaphor of profit and blessing, so God's System is structured with Five essential Structural Elements; there are more than five, but the other elements are all corollary to the Five. If any one of these Five elements is missing from your life, you are NOT in God's Blessing System. But you can get (or get back) into the System: just 'do' whatever Element, you were missing.
For now, know this: having believed in Christ, when you die, you will live with God forever in perfect happiness, no matter what. FOREVER. Happiness isn't sitting on clouds with harps, k? It's a societal life that is everything anyone ever dreamed of down here, plus much more. Very similar in structure, but no competition, sin, nonsense. How you'd wish it would be, only way better even than that. [Rev21 shows there is no religion, and v.24 depicts kings paying taxes (aka "tribute") as a "glory", if that helps you get a grip on life then. How can it be a glory? if you love doing it -- so how great must it be?]
But if you never believed in Christ at least ONCE during your life down here, you will instead live in hell forever. Hell is in the core of the Earth, right now (very hot). It will eventually become another universe where angels and people who REJECTED God, live forever. They only go there, because they do NOT want God. No relationship desired. So, hell is a bad choice. Real bad. So just believe in Christ RIGHT NOW, and you'll never go there.
Parallel on sin-naming verses are Ps32:5, Ps66:18, etc. so you're NAMING the sin, to God. Not to people. [Whether you also tell people about it depends on other factors. God will show you if it's relevant to tell anyone else, so wait until He does.] Sin is a type of no-want-God rejection, so you are not spiritual in a state of sin. Using 1Jn1:9, admits the sin (just name it, doesn't matter how you feel), so you are thus re-admitted to fellowship with God. (Salvation and fellowship are two different things; salvation 'marries' you to God, so to speak; fellowship is enjoyment of that intimacy.) Click here for more info. For even way more info (more than you'll want), click on Caveat #3, "His Brains" at the top of the Home Page; besides walking you through 1Jn1:9 in context, that Caveat goes into much detail about the many false ideas of the "Filling of the Spirit", which millions of abacus-brains, click and cluck over...
Since you will be living with God forever, but are not IN Heaven yet, how do you PREPARE for that future? Well, God wrote Bible to TEACH you how to prepare: so that a) you get more enjoyment of your permanent life post-death, as well as b) more enjoyment out of your temporary life, down here. Your Life Totally Changed Purpose The Second You Became A Believer. Everything down here has a Different Usage. Nothing is small, anymore. Even brushing your teeth has a new role. So, you gotta learn what it is. So, you learn it by learning Bible. It takes time, so don't get anal and try to learn everything at once, and don't fret over mistakes. Babies, poop. So will you. Not to worry. Normal spiritual Growth takes some years, and you can't rush it.
Preparation is SPIRITUAL, not body: your body is just a bucket of biology. It's because the body is a corrupted bucket of biology, that "God" makes everyone nervous: it's the body which reacts, because it is totally the opposite, totally incompatible with God. This incurable corruption remains until death; then finally! you get rid of the thing, hooray! Replacing it, you get an INcorruptible body which is totally compatible with God, forever: 1Cor15, 1Jn3. Meanwhile, though, that body will fight any preparation you are doing in learning Bible. Not to worry. Use 1Jn1:9, truck on.
Preparation is Spiritual, because God is a Spiritual Being: Pure Thought, not bodied; and also because the preparation is a Complete Transformation Of Your Own Thinking To Be Like, God's Own. So, life in fellowship with God is Spiritual: it 'plays' as a type of awareness, a type of perceiving, thinking, learning, knowing. WITH Him. There's nothing weirdo about it (i.e., no such thing as 'feeling' spiritual). John 4:24 says you aren't spiritual unless in the Spirit, AND in the Truth. You can't grow spiritually without God's Power. Again, you can't feel His Power, and you can't feel the growth, either. So, only if you are also learning spiritual truth (Bible), are you spiritual. Click here for more info.
The teacher specializes in Bible study, and then passes on what he knows and learns, to his congregation. So it's a joint Bible study, in the sense that the teacher himself constantly studies; but he teaches it to the congregation. He's the teacher, they are the students. Again, it's like math: you need a teacher to teach you what the formulas are, and how to SEE them in Bible. Then YOU practice what you learned, so you yourself see WHY, what you learned is TRUE; and thereafter, become PROFICIENT at LIVING what you learned. That increases your faith, your understanding, so that in the REST of your day, you can LIVE ON what you are learning. It's really refreshing, this spiritual life. Problemmatic too, as anything worthwhile, is.
The "Right" Pastor? link at Home page top has within it a corrected translation of Eph4:12-16 from the original Greek text; once you see that corrected translation (which goes into much detail about the Greek text so you can see for yourself how translation was derived), you'll have NO doubt that Bible study under your right pastor is alone God's "Henotes"=System Agent for preparing you, by the Holy Spirit's Own Authority. 'Passage blows me away every time I think of it.
Prayer is the most powerful weapon in the universe among mankind. Almost no one knows how to use it. Royal Prayer Protocol on Home page(@top) is more detailled, but here's the gist of the protocol:
KEEP THINKING TOWARD GOD AS CONVERSATION OR PRAYER. NO MORE POWERFUL WEAPON EXISTS. I give my sworn testimony that this is true: it saved my spiritual life, accelerated spiritual growth so fast, I can't even describe the result. Reason: Awareness Of God skyrockets your understanding and motivation, when you are otherwise also in God's System. God hears you all the time, and is IN you. Really. Each God: Father, Son, Spirit. But you talk or think, toward FATHER, since He is the Chairman of the Godhead, so to speak. [Nerd Note: They choose to subordinate to Each Other, are NOT less than Each other. For a quick note on this page to help you, CLICK HERE. For the longer explanation, see first blocks of purple text in "DueDisclosure" link at pagetop. That's a main theme of the page, how Their Voluntary Corporateness resulted in the universe and our so-great salvation.] So, closer than your family, your spouse, your kids, your friends, etc. THINK TOWARD HIM AT ALL TIMES.
So, use this conversation-aspect of Prayer, to talk with God about what you are learning, what's going on in your day, just to say hello, anything. Anywhere. Any time, all the time! On the toilet, at the opera, elegant or base, 24/7. Because, "Christian" means, "of Christ". Relationship, not religion. Conversation is how relationship, 'plays'. So, PLAY!
This is the entire 'play' of the spiritual life, and all the gates of hell will eventually COME against it, and FAIL. But you won't see that for some years, and you won't see the magnitude of it until you've done enough #c. But it's there, and it's true, and You Won't Survive In God's System, If You Don't Cultivate These Three Habits (which only the Holy Spirit runs, not you -- you just keep VOTING for it). Again, this is a sworn testimony. TAKE IT SERIOUSLY.
As a branch of #b and #c, keep looking at your life in terms of Bible. Relate Everything To Him As A Kind Of Game, Test, Relaxing, Whatever. Just keep doing it. When you watch TV, when you eat, when you get up, when you go to bed. Again, sworn affadavit that nothing else in life is more enjoyable or more conquering than this. Because it makes you AWARE of God to do this, so you use 1Jn1:9, and you are thinking thus toward Him.
99% of even those positive to God, get stuck because they expect education to be like spoonfeeding. You gotta use what you learn OUTSIDE the classroom, or you are wasting God's and your own, TIME. Besides, it's totally DISrespectful to your pastor, and especially to the Holy Spirit, if you don't. If you are interested in God, you will want to know WHY He thinks as He does, and WHAT He thinks.. just because. And you will want to play with what you are learning. But if you are DISinterested in God, you will only want to accredit yourself as getting brownie points for going to Bible class, 'knowing' what your pastor is saying (familiarity is not knowledge, okay?), using his buzzwords as if that meant you were spiritual. So God will spank you for pretending to be in His System.. since, you're not. When you realize that, just use 1Jn1:9 and look for reasons to be genuinely interested. (Every time I was disinterested in a particular doctrine, I got royally spanked, k?)
Many churches (including my own) are plagued by the people IN them living that fake spirituality, getting high on how much they know, a form of childish appreciation.. or, egotism; it's not necessarily the pastor's fault. Don't imitate them. Learn God, and forget about people and their childish preoccupations. Be occupied with Christ, not preoccupied with the world. Use everything toward God, and you'll be amazed how your in-Adam addiction toward this world, gets defeated. Stand still, and watch the Deliverance (so-great salvation's results) of the Lord!
There will be times when you get upset and depressed with yourself because you expect that since you are in His System, that your body is supposed to magically 'obey' what you know. Guess again: read Romans Chapters 7-8 for the REAL story. Don't worry that you can't obey His Standard which you are learning to Love as well as you want to. Holy Spirit is building DDNA in you, so it takes time. God didn't save you so you could perform pet-tricks of obedience, but as you grow to love Him, you'll start demanding obedience from yourself. Belay it. Just use 1Jn1:9 and learn to enjoy the Grace that God isn't giving you a spiritual life in order to make you 'perform'. DDNA.htm says more on this topic, in its "God's Soliloquoy" table.
For, your relationship with God is intensely personal. That's the design, for crying out loud. Intimacy means the person is 'all over you', so to speak, so all your thinking is ABOUT that person, and all your outer life, too. Well, that's the design, for crying out loud: "that they may be one, even as We are One", John 17 (refrain). It's real, deep, intense, but without that #c, could quickly become insanity. But with #c, is Total Integrity. Which builds, line upon line, precept on precept. Again, this is a sworn affadavit.
Note what doesn't matter: it doesn't matter what kind of sin you sin, 1Jn1:9 works. It also doesn't matter what denomination or religion you get into; it doesn't matter if you do works; it doesn't matter how you feel; it doesn't matter if people like you or you like them; it doesn't matter how you 'compare' to others, nor does it matter how they 'compare' to you. This is a Vertical Life, toward God, learning His Son's Thinking, which is Bible. Whatever else you add to it, well.. that's your privilege before the Lord.
So, if you like Catholicism, fine. But be Catholic Within God's System. If you like being Buddhist, fine: but be Buddhist, Within God's System. Of course, if being Catholic and being in God's System seem to conflict, well.. then you'd pray using the protocol, to find out what to do about that conflict. Etc: substitute any other word for "Catholic" or "Buddhist" in the above two sentences. Contrary to popular opinion, it doesn't matter at all what religion you profess. Being In The System Alone Works. Naturally, as you spend time in the System, if you learn there's a conflict with something in your lifestyle, then you'd use the System to learn how to resolve that conflict.
This System is about Learning, so no two people learn the same things, at the same times, in the same ways, or in the same order. So an all-encompassing System, takes into account, and provides solutions for, all the varying individuals within it. So because His System is all-encompassing, nothing within the system, is equal. Rather, fitted, in a hierarchy. So some teachers, are teaching better than others; some believers, are growing better than others. At the same time, some who are higher, fall.
Because it is Vertical, obviously the more you are operating within His System, the more you will learn Christ, and the more you will be blessed thereby. Further, the more you learn Christ, the more those associated with you will be blessed thereby. For, we are all blessed solely due to Christ, and thus the more any of us grow IN Him (for growing up in Him is the reason we have Bible), the more we will be like Him, and the more others can be blessed Due To Our Growing In Him. God is consistent: the way He grew the Humanity of Christ is the way He wants to grow us. So, the effects of that growth, are blessing. Same structure as for Christ, is Christ's own Legacy, for us. Books of Ephesians and Hebrews center on this fact. Romans explains the structural elements, as does 1Jn. John's Gospel Chapters 14-17, are a good treatise on Christ's Election of this System for us.
So it doesn't ever matter who or what is 'better', but rather who or what is better for you. And It's Better For You, To Keep Learning Within His System. Because, wherever you are in the System, a 'low' person or a 'high' person, or anywhere in-between, you can always grow up more, and you can always fall. So God 'catches' you anywhere you are. So God grows you anywhere you are. And, isn't that what Truth ought to be? Isn't that how Love ought to work? Doesn't justice (i.e., spankings) work best, if the System handles everyone all the time, wherever they are? Best of all, His Personal Blessing is just that: just for you. Just for me. Just for your next-door neighbor. No matter where IN the System any one of us is located, we are all ONE in Christ!
That's the System. If you want more information, you can tool around the Home Page to see what's available. Please be sure to first clear it with God via that Prayer Protocol above, whether you should read anything else in my websites; and if "yes", then what? For I have no clue.
May God bless you in His Son, always!
Supernatural is NOT supernatural to one having those powers, but instead, Normal. So whatever is superhuman, is natural to the being who is superhuman. So it's natural for God to BE God, so His Infinite Ability, is normal for Him. So for Him, the question is what does He want to do and be, as He is. Well, His answer is that He wanted you, me, the entire human race, because HE chose to make us all. So, that's part of what He wants to do with His Infinite Ability.. have a relationship with each of us. No one is excluded: if you've ever breathed, God wants you. So, if you want Him back, obviously the relationship and the System will be Supernatural. Not goofy-supernatural (demons like the goofy stuff); but Sanely supernatural. Which is why it doesn't matter at all, what human limitations, are: no human ability is used. your wanting God, that's what's used. God supplies all the abilities, you just 'vote', as it were, to want Him and how much, every second you breathe. Frankly, as you keep doing this, you'll come to see more Sane supernatural power, than you can even imagine exists, and the Wit of how He uses it, is.. well, of superhuman enjoyment!
How God uses His Power: carefully. You won't feel it, and you can't detect it until you are far along in the spiritual life. God is too BIG for the human, so He carefully moderates the use of His power, so it doesn't kill you. Or, drive you insane. Even demon power will do that: Satan took over the serpent in the Garden (Genesis3), so he could entice the woman to choose against God (represented by eating the 'forbidden' fruit). Satan didn't display himself, but used an animal to make himself seem cute and unthreatening; because if he didn't, she'd have gone wacko over his majesty; so he wouldn't have gotten her free-will REJECTION of God. (We're in an Angelic Trial: you can't see much about this Trial in Bible translations, but the nature and arguments of it are really clear in the original-language texts. Paradox link at Home Pagetop and the "Thinking Series" below it, offer hundreds of printed pages of explanation on the Trial; the latter is comprehensive, kinda enjoyable to read, and is strewn with lots of Biblical and empirical evidence you can use to prove it all to yourself, especially in its Appendix.)
People who think they 'feel' God, feel only the demon power (demons mock and satirize that way); or, people are hallucinating feeling. Claims of 'God' making Statues cry, the sun turn backwards (Lourdes 'miracle'), faces-in-tortillas, name-the-inanity , are not God's doing. God isn't silly, for crying out loud. Demons and people, act silly.
God's Power 'travels' through the normal human methods (i.e., that's why Samson was strongER than humanly-normal), so you won't detect it's not your own ability that's working to enable you to learn Bible, or to do a thing with Bible you've learned; instead, the Holy Spirit is doing the work. Undetectably to you, so you won't be intimidated: so, God help you, you will mistake the ability as your own and will get cocky, at times!
There's much more to say about how God's Power actually works, but for now, you needed to know that it's not flashy. Demons do flashy. God did flashy in the OT, but even then, it was to communicate something. He did flashy, because it was a more distant way to communicate. but due to what happened on the Cross (long story, explained elsewhere), the full power of God is available to anyone who has ever once believed in Christ. It takes time to grow big enough in the soul to get to "full", so you don't die the meanwhile: hence the grow is something that happens in the soul, the capacity to see Him. Again, God is Too Big, so it's a delicate thing, to grow your soul, so for some years it will be invisible to you, how He does this. This paragraph won't make much sense right now; idea is to merely expose you to the concept of invisible, undetectable power being His Chosen Method, so you don't mistake the goofy kind as God's (demons do goofy, God never does).
Visible miracles are all suspect; God doesn't need to 'do it' flashy. It's not that God doesn't do miracles; in fact, His miracles are constant; but invisible use of His Power is now the norm. For the spiritual life is invisible, thinking; essentially the reverse of OT spirituality, in form (substance is the same, developing in the Relationship -- only far higher potential, now). When people think of miracles they think of flash. They don't recognize the Biggest of Miracles, is to Transform a puny human, into a nature compatible with Very God. This is true transmutation, and all in one lifetime: God does it all, to the extent you consent, and HE gets it right the first time (no such thing as reincarnation). That's why we have a life down here, and a Bible: to get this transmutation, to the extent we want God. He doesn't care what our flaws are: Christ paid so it wouldn't have to matter. So all that's left, is do you want God, and how much.
When you believe in Christ, you are "born again" (regenerated as a spiritual person). You will not feel this change at all. Just as God's Power is unfelt, so also the new spiritual being you've just become, is unfelt. Spirituality is not body, so cannot ever be felt. The structural changes are many, but suffice it to say here, you won't experience them: you will feel just as you did before. Any feeling you have, is your own reaction, nothing more. Infinity is nonspacetime, so Godness cannot be felt. Likewise, spirituality is nonmaterial, so also cannot be felt. Hence the need for a Bible, so you operate based on knowing spiritual truth, since you can't otherwise discern it. Nor can you humanly discern Bible, because it requires Spiritual Brains, A Spiritual IQ. So, the results are real enough, but never does any feeling accompany spirituality itself.
"Spiritual" is a type of beingness, not something you feel. "Born again" is a transformation in your very nature as a person, such that you become Structurally Compatible with very God. Hence, you can't feel any of this change (body is too small to detect it). You are imputed with God's Own Righteousness (2Cor5:21), you have a human spirit (in which the Righteousness 'sits', Titus3:5), and you have Eternal (God's Own Type of) Life (Jn3:16, "everlasting" life is mistranslation). You also get the Holy Spirit's Power, which is why the spiritual life is a perceiving life, via His 'brains'; spirituality is never works, since spirituality is never body. You are basically living in two 'worlds' the moment you are saved: one, toward God, and the other, in the body. So, certain body things are compatible or not compatible with the spiritual 'world' you live in, but at no time is a body thing, itself spiritual.
The spiritual life is a Thinking Life at all times, and is never anything else: Jn4:24 should be clear enough even in translation. Paul uses really blistering, sanctified sarcasm to stress this fact, in Rom12:1-3; but those verses are always horribly mistranslated. So see Rom121-3.htm, which is all about this transmutation. Book of Ephesians and Hebrews center on the transmutation and its effects, as does the entire book of Romans. All three books are horribly and strategically mistranslated (satanic tampering, frankly), so if this issue 'burns' in your soul, get your pastor's teaching on them in the original languages. [God's Power is supernatural, and so is Satan&Co.'s. We humans are helpless. So one of the other advantages of staying in God's System is that satanic tampering is blunted. It takes some years of growth for this to occur, which is why #5 is Mission Critical to your operation in the System. So the strategic mistranslation reveals how the translators were not living in the System (or not living long enough) when they translated. Because the mistakes in translation, would cause you to flunk a first- or second-year Biblical Greek test, in a good seminary.]
You also get dozens of other assets; you are a Royal Priest forever from the moment of salvation, and God's Will for your life is to train you to become a King-Priest (which Will, you can turn down). The typical idea of "priest" down here is not what Bible means. Think of it as "Royal Representative", ambassadorial. "DueDisclosure" link at Pagetop, explains what those terms mean in detail, starting with God's Own Nature; so you can get a rational frame of reference for what "Priest" means. "King" however, is pretty much how you'd think of it now, except no one will be competing with you, and it will become a joy to rule, once you are grown in the training. Which you get by learning Bible IN the System (next 4 Elements deal with that topic). Most Christians are learning Bible OUTSIDE the System, so aren't really learning anything. So don't interpret "learning Bible" by what you see Christians typically doing: they are in Satan's system, not God's.
So obviously this short description of the "born again" change, requires more be said. Other websites go into detail, but don't bother reading them if you've not believed in Christ: they won't make sense at all, until you do. An unsaved person cannot understand anything except the need to believe in Christ, because the rest of the information, can't be understood until one is "born again". Salvation can never be lost.
As a believer then, you have become royally able to live with Him forever, and royally able to get communication from Him, and to understand it. A saved person can understand everything, but it takes time, and Elements #2-5 of the System, are required for that learning and understanding to occur. An unbeliever or a believer OUTSIDE God's System, will imagine he understands spiritual truth, but never does. Such a person will not be able to tell he doesn't understand, either. Dead giveaway characteristics of being outside the System: anthropocentric interpretation, and goofy ideas about God, about what constitutes the spiritual life. Bible translations are often mistranslations (antropocentrically-slanted), for this reason; so Bible in translation often doesn't make sense (e.g., Gen3:11 compared to Gen2:24-25 -- 3:11's grossly mistranslated in all translations).
What constitutes "sin" is a much bigger array of negativity than the typical Christian knows, so most Christians are "carnal": so, not in the System. No problem: just use 1Jn1:9. You've heard about the gross sins, but here are some bigger ones: anger (Eph4:26-30, v.26 is mistranslated: should say "stop being angry and sinning", imperative of prohibition means stop doing something you are doing; not "be angry and do not sin", bad translation!). Also, jealousy, gossip, maligning, judging, vindictiveness, self-righteousness (very subtle, that), lying, stealing even a pencil. You get the idea. Then, some things are called "sin" by people, but are not: drinking alcohol (drunkenness is sin, not drinking, Eph5:18), smoking cigarrettes, eating certain foods, wearing certain clothes, abortion (though you should check everything you do with God, for any of these might be sin for you, given your personal situation). Volition's mental attitude causes sin. Clearly the guy who murders has the wrong mental attitude, so it should be clear that the gross sins have bad thoughts running them. Many good deeds are done in a state of sin, so don't let the outer appearance, fool you. As Christ said many times when He was here (search in Gospels, text isn't always the same), it's the THINKING which defiles you, not body stuff. Body is a helpless bucket of biology, a slave to thought. So the body, cannot sin. It's a SOUL, which sins. Usually, by pretending it's holy!
By the way, where it says "cleanse" in English Bible verses of 1Jn1:9, the word should be "purify" (French Louis Segond gets it right). Much stronger word, means never again do you need to name that sin; only what new ones you commit afterwards. Um, use common sense. If you don't remember them all, just say what you remember. Text makes it clear you don't have to be anal and state every single one: God knows you know what particular sins you have in mind. Breathe 1Jn1:9: I often just think it as an idea of "arrogance", takes a nanosecond. The point about naming is first the admitting, but more, the recognition of what you are doing. Amazing how that recognition builds a defense against the next attack of the same temptation...
Life with God is Spiritual: it 'plays' as a type of awareness, a type of perceiving, thinking, learning, knowing. With Him. There's nothing weirdo about it (i.e., no such thing as 'feeling' spiritual). John 4:24 says you aren't spiritual unless in the Spirit, AND in the Truth (#3). So, the Holy Spirit must Empower you, for you to be spiritual. Sure, when you were born 'again', you became a spiritual being; but function is something requiring Divine Power; just as, God's Power saved you and changed your very nature, so also that Same God's Power (Holy Spirit's) makes the spiritual life, function. Else you are spiritually comatose. You won't feel that either, but you will feel the results of the bad decisions you make when not spiritual, and you will feel the Divine Discipline, ere long...
You can't be spiritual if you are in a state of sin, because all sin is basically a rejection of the Holy Spirit's power, in favor of your own. Remember, your human power is of no consequence, so if you choose it, then you are REJECTING Divine Power. Remember, sins themselves got paid on the Cross; but sin is also a rejection of God, so you're voting "I don't want God". So, you're rejecting BEING spiritual. Sin was the trigger, and it got paid for on the Cross; rejection, however, is your free-will VOTE. That you used sin as your format to say "no", is now differently relevant as the motive for the rejection. But since the whole sin did get paid for on the Cross, your ADMITTING it, is a counter-vote to get back in Fellowship. So, you do, as 1Jn1:9 explains.
Fellowship, by the way, is a togetherness. Being in conversation with Someone you want. So-called 'Christian fellowship' isn't even a term in the Bible. Believers can gather for social life if they want to, but.. it's not a mandate in the Bible. It was a custom, nothing more: remember, Christianity's early days were fraught with persecution, so people clung together (sometimes stupidly, see Acts 5, 15 and 21, 1Cor11:17ff). Fellowship With God, on the other hand, is the First Commandment (i.e., Deut6:5).
Hence the need to breathe 1Jn1:9 whenever you are aware you have sinned: you're ADMITTING that you rejected, so you get Re-Admitted Into Fellowship With Him, and His Power thus re-enables you once more. I use 1Jn1:9, 24/7; even if I'm not aware I've sinned, at least once an hour, and even in my dreams I've noticed its use! So make it an instinctive habit to use 1Jn1:9. For more on what "God" means, read the next block of text between the half-lines.
Nerd Note on Trinity: "God" is a corporate noun or an individual noun in Bible, depending on context. Three Persons are Each Infinitely God, and their Titles (Names) tell us how they incorporated together as a Family. Hence "Father" is the 'head' of the Family (though Each God is Co-Equal in Nature and all other respects); Son, is the 'heir', and Spirit plays the 'mother' role. So, that's how we know Them in both OT and NT. Bible translations are not good for detecting how often Their Identities are displayed. You need the original-language texts. People who use translations always get "God" mixed up, and in history many people have been slaughtered over the mixed-up definitions. For example, "One" means "Same Nature", but dingdongs mix that up with one-in-number, or some hydra-headed-monster. It's a Corporation, for crying out loud: United, Voluntarily. Like, a Family.
In its originally-inspired written languages, Bible uses very careful grammar constructions and syntax to exactly convey meaning. So you have to become something of a wordsmith and a grammarian, to get the most out of Bible. God enables this of course, so your human limitations don't matter. Just get in and stay in His System, as summarized here in this page. TrinityCites.htm will be useful if the answers here aren't enough material for you.
Therefore, how "God" describes Himself in Bible, is witty and subtle, as well as blatant. He likes to use the foundational characteristics of the language, to communicate how He is, since He is foundational to all life. Also, since everyone in OT knew clearly about Father, Son, and Spirit, many references to Any of Them are made in wordplay; don't need to repeat what someone already knows, duh. So,
Infinity is not spatial, so the Number of Persons Who are God can only be disclosed to us, VIA God's telling us. And, Bible tells us there are Three Such Persons. So, the Holy Spirit is God, ("Holy Spirit" is His Mothering Title), and not just a format of display (1Cor12:7's "manifestation" is a SORRY translation). He is the COO of Divine Trinity Corporation, aka "Godhead" in theology. The Father is the Chairman of the Board, and is also fully God. The Son is the CEO, and is also fully God, which is why the Son took on Humanity to pay for our sins. "Father", "Son" and "Spirit" are all Their Titles, but They are Three Separate Fully-God Persons, not a hydra-headed monster.
2Cor13:14 itself proves all this in the Greek, and there are many other verses in the original-language texts of Bible to prove it all, as well. Translations screw up verses about God and His Nature, so you will have a very hard time seeing the How God is (Each One), from translations.
All goofy ideas about God come from people who don't study Bible in its original languages, or cling to baby-level, original-language study materials (i.e., Strong's lexicons). But even common sense would tell you that salvation wouldn't work unless there was a Separate Person (Father) who judged the Humanity of a Separate God-man (Lord Jesus Christ), and a Separate Person (Spirit) Who Empowered that Humanity (Jesus) so He could stay Intact on the Cross and successfully Pay for us all. Justice requires impartiality to be unimpeachable, and it's not unimpeachable, if the same person 'wears all the hats'. Nor would it actually PAY anything, for if God pays Himself, then all He does, is lose: justice to Himself would be a sham, were God merely One or Two in Number. Only at Three is justice no longer a sham, and since no longer a sham, not more than Three need exist. [God didn't create Himself, so to say only Three are necessary is more for our understanding that Justice is met. Bible simply says that Three are Each God, doesn't explain why Three.]
Technically, you are spiritual if you are Filled (empowered) by the Holy Spirit, which means 1Jn1:9 used. But you won't long be using 1Jn1:9 if you don't get spiritual nourishment, which comes from learning Bible WHILE being Filled. Almost no one does this, anymore. Which is why people constantly comment on how "mean-spirited", 'Christians' are. Well, they aren't using 1Jn1:9 so whatever Bible study they do, is just so much hot air. Human power is rejected by God, because Christ rejected using His Own Human Power, in favor of the Holy Spirit's. We inherited His Spiritual Life, not the OT version, so our human power, is worthless to the spiritual life. Doesn't mean you sit around on a bench; does mean you breathe 1Jn1:9 and Learn Scripture, Then Live On What You Learned.
For, enjoyment/fellowship requires compatibility between the parties. Hence the need to transform from the incompatibility of puny human thinking, to Infinite Quality God-thinking. Which means, depositing Truth into your head. Which means, learning Scripture, which is the Truth you need for this transformation to occur. Because Bible is truth, and you learn it; because God is truth, you are learning, Him. This information, then, changes how you choose to think, so transforms you to become like Him (Rom12:1-3, but translations are bad -- see Rom121-3.htm). All my websites spend a lot of time going over what this 'transformation' means, each from a different analytic 'window'. Thinking Series is the longest and maybe best of them.
So, it's voluntary, how much of this transformation, you yourself want. But however much you want, you need spiritual fellowship with Him, to thus learn and prepare (hence the need for using 1Jn1:9, as noted above). So if you are not in fellowship, no matter what you think you learn from Bible, it's garbage. It's spiritual perception under the Spirit, not human perception, that you need.
Studying Bible is not just collecting the data (i.e., memorizing verses, knowing who Moses was, what Christ said, etc). Studying Bible really means Understanding The Meaning, and 'connecting the dots' about how various Bible 'doctrines' relate. Kinda like learning math, you have to know the relationships BETWEEN data, not merely the data itself. So, "Bible Doctrine" means God's Own Thought-Formulas, which the Bible itself tells you; which formulas you discern, as you study Bible; which define the relationships between the various data; like, how faith relates to spirituality, to behavior, etc. Then, you LIVE on what you know, 24/7.
It takes practice, to do this, and the "practice" is to keep on thinking about what you know, applying it yourself to whatever is going on in your life; from the mundane, i.e., brushing your teeth, to whatever 'noble' high thing. This practice, like salvation itself, is personal: not one-size-fits-all. What's appropriate practice for person "A", won't necessarily be the same as for "B". Because, it's based on your own soul. Not, someone else's. Think of it like this: the Divine Thinking formulas are all the same, Bible, His Thinking: but each of us, is a 'variable', so the way His Thinking formulas play IN us, will vary per person. If you know anything about fractals, use that analogy to understand how "practice" is individualized, even though the Divine Thinking, is unified.
Because you are learning superhumanly, and it's Divine Thinking, above which there is nothing; your body life will be completely useless. One of the biggest mistakes in my spiritual life was an expectation that because I had been so well trained in Thinking, that my body could actually obey that thinking. Guess again. Romans 7 and 8 explain the real results: war, conflict, divorce, and pregnancy (latter is in Greek, fuzzed over in English). Divine and sin-nature human are structurally incompatible. So the more Divine Thinking growing in you, the more incompatible you will become with yourself, and with the world around you.
Maturity resolves that incompatibility in your thinking, but never takes away the incompatibility itself. For, the body is but biological material, ceaselessly sending up stupid sin-in-Adam signals, deaf to the Dear Doctrine you know. So you learn to ignore its deadness, as you mature. This is one of the most important lessons you can learn in the spiritual life; until you do, you will think you are supposed to be able to do 'great things for God.' Nope. That's not even the purpose of the learning. The learning, is God showing you His Son, your so-great salvation, how to be with and in Him, even as He is in you. That's it. For, your body this side of heaven, remains unable to use what you are learning, really. That's why you are commanded to be Filled with the Spirit (Eph5:18), sheesh. Would God do that, if it was unnecessary?
So you are to be CARRIED by God through your body life, and your soul lives on the spiritual understanding you have thus far, in God's System: which soul, is carried by the Holy Spirit (hence 1Jn1:9). Nothing Else Is The Spiritual Life; Nothing Else Pleases God. Repeat: nothing else. You will be tempted like people in the future (Matt24) to come out of your 'cave' of living in God's System. Tempted to 'use' instead of 'waste' what you are. All lies, those temptations! And all are via Satan&Co. manipulation, so don't blame the human agents (or things) used. Stay In The Cave. Heh: opposite of Socrates' advice to Glaucon! Christ Himself said, "My Food is to do the Will of Him Who Sent Me." Meaning, He didn't and couldn't survive absent living on the Word under the Holy Spirit, Matt4:4 and "full of Grace and Truth" verse. So if it's good enough for Christ, then it's good enough for you, and it's bad to listen to the average Churchinanity calls to leave your Petra!
For a Text-to-Speech rendition of this webpage, see the audio player below:
This portion is also short, but has a different focus, so the "Five" in "God's System", is instead reconfigured to "Four", here.
There are certain Divine Truths so essential, the absence or lack of their operation in the life, derails the life completely. For, man can't live on bread alone; on people-to-people. Those "laterals" need a Vertical; absent the Vertical, man vainly seeks fulfillment which will never materialize. That's why you can faithfully attend church and do Christian service for years but never learn a thing, never have a real, functioning spiritual life, but just the semblance of one (2Tim3:5). One or more of the following Essentials are missing. Kinda like a car without gas, or with a dead battery -- you just get towed away. By Satan&Co.
The lateral Christian mistakes his to-people orientation for the spiritual life, entirely forgetting that God is NOT the recipient of anything laterally done. Sure, the lateral Christian will quote verses like the one about anyone who gives a cup of water in the Lord's Name will get a reward. Surely, the water-giver will be rewarded: a ribbon is a reward. But so is a bizillion dollars. Which reward do you want? Only Scripture is gold, silver, precious stones: not man-made. Ribbons are man-made. So Learn Scripture, and get the "Crown of Life" (James 1), or play laterally, and get ribbons. Your choice. [Lateral Christians read James 1:1-2:26 laterally, so don't realize that, in the inspired Greek, James is talking about BIBLE'S Doctrine, when he says "faith". (Greek word pistis first means Doctrine Believed, not the act of faith.) DOCTRINE WORKS, so Doctrine is not dead. Of course, if you look at doctrine then forget it, you've not believed it, so it is dead in you, and all your works are thus dead also (James 2:18a, which lateral Christians all overlook). So you looked into the Mirror of the Word and then walked away, fruitless. Oh well.]
My pastor warned us for years that Christianity was going into an all-time low, and when I saw how obvious was the proof that Seed In You is Scripture, I didn't really comprehend so many in Christendom could be so uncaring of Word. If the US is destroyed, we Christians will be to blame, just as my pastor has warned since the '60's. Read Hosea 4:6 8:7, Lev26, see for yourself. [I didn't know Hosea 8:7 was a seed verse when I typed its reference just now. I was trying to remember which was the "perish due to lack of knowledge of God" verse, and thought it was 8:7, but didn't know if I mixed it up with Gal6:7, which also ties. So clearly the Holy Spirit wanted the 8:7 verse in here also. So clearly He would include OT references as well: there are hundreds, so the Bible's definition of "fruit" is not rocket science, to learn.]
Lateralism causes all misinterpretations and suffering, from banal secular, to Bible. Gotta do lots of Spiritual Auditing based on the Uppermost Truth, God. The one who bases his interpretations on lesser examinations will inevitably fail, and the failure always shows up. It's kinda embarrassing to see their fixations on man, never God: all those who think the spiritual life is hustling and works for people; who are totally blind to all the anti-Pharisee Bible verses (i.e., Romans 2), so emulate the Pharisees with their political crusades. You wanna cry for them, because the biggest fear we all face is that one day we will all know forever how we each screwed up. Protect yourself against that Rom 14:10 Day, then: always suspect as a lie any tenet which stresses man's behavior or role. For it's the Vertical, never the lateral, Who is the Only Meaning and Happiness of Life.
The Vertical, of course, is God. Man needs the Real God for fulfillment. And the Real God fulfills him if the Real God is poured into him, so to speak. Rom5:5, via mainlining Scripture. That's why we get a Bible, His Thinking in human language, in writing, a promise which dates all the way back to the Garden, when the Lord sacrificed animals and clothed the first fallen-then-saved humans. [ LordvSatan2.htm explains this integration-with-God need for man's happiness, in more detail.]
God wants equals, not lesser-thans. It's not fun to be intimate, close to those inferior to self: the thinking is too dissonant. Surely someone in your family is incompatible with you, so you know how horrible it is to have to be close to that person. Hence the verse, "He is not ashamed to call them brothers" in Heb2. Note that: "brothers", not retards. A "retard" can only be self-made, in God's system. So a truly-retarded person can be made a "brother", in God's system: "For God, Nothing is Impossible". To refuse this offer, is to hate God. Your choice: hate God, remain saved but distant, because self-chosen-retarded. Or "Grow in Grace and in the Knowledge of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ" (2Pet3:18) under the power of the Spirit (1Jn1:5-10 -- analyze carefully, esp. Greek Temple keywords). Again, Your Choice.
How much of that development you want, is up to you. Just as, if you want to remain a boxboy all your life, you can. If you treat your spiritual life as you would a 9-5 job, doing what you must to get a paycheck, you will be a low-level 'employee' forever. Works won't cut it: Ya Gotta Learn The Book. Using 1Jn1:9, under your right pastor. See RightPT.htm (link at Home Pagetop) for Bible's bald statement to this effect, in Eph4:11-16 (in Greek, and retranslated).
So Life with God is Vertical, never lateral. All laterals (i.e., toward self, people, things) are but condimental training aids for the purpose of Learning To Rule A Kingdom, because when you've been developed to be Like-Minded, you are qualified to be a ruler, with Christ, close to Him. Intimate, get it? Which is, your close destiny in Christ, IF IF IF you Learn The Book, which is the Very Thinking of Christ (i.e., as stated in 1Cor2:16).
So you can't relate to God the way you do, toward people and things. So you can't get fulfillment in the relationship with God if you try to relate to Him as to people: again, you're being towed, instead.
Frankly, you best learn God Himself if you get under a pastor who just teaches Scripture verse by verse, in the original languages, so you can see the Inspired Words yourself. I attest that you see God Himself more comprehensively and conclusively if you just mainline Scripture. You won't need anyone to tell you how to use Scripture, once you see it for yourself, via original-language Study, using these Four Essentials: just like the Bible itself promises, in Jer31:31-34, Heb8:8-10:17 (and a bizillion other passages which state the same fact in varying ways)!
For, Relationship with God is Intimate, and never at all about deserving. For, God didn't make Himself, even. So, He doesn't want you to make yourself, either. Instead, He wants to make you FOR you. Just because. Just because, dummy: That's What Happened To Christ. In His Humanity, He didn't tap into His Deity to do something for Father, Himself; rather, He depended on the Spirit, i.e., "Full of Grace and Truth" verse. Note that: first came the Grace, Spirit doing it TO His Humanity, and what did Spirit do? Last word in verse, last word Christ spoke when He died: "Truth". Romans 5:5, happening to Him, set the precedence for what God wants to happen to US. Isa53:10-12 in the combined Hebrew and Greek inspired texts, walks you step by step through the mechanics (you can't get the combined texts in English, sadly).
As a result, God has designed a system of Four Essentials to get "Christ in you", as Paul likes to put it. What beautiful irony. Here we were, all in Him on the Cross (theme of Romans 6). So now, He can be in us; positionally ("in Christ"), and dynamically, His Thinking, ("Christ in you"). Cry all the way to the Bible bank!
Elsewhere in my sites Biblical verses supporting the next section's Four Essentials, are given. The other sites also explain these essentials in much greater detail, from different perspectives, for we humans need as much repetition as we can stand, just like muscles need to be trained via repeated exercise. Meanwhile, and faster, you can get confirmation directly from the Holy Spirit, HIS Way For Your Soul: just use 1Jn1:9, ask Father in Son's name to lead you to the verses you need to see. Then start thinking, see what comes to your mind (principle of John 14:26), Breathing 1Jn1:9 as needed, the meanwhile.
It was a huge surprise to discover, in the course of researching material for these webpages, that the following Four Essentials are almost never taught by pastors: they talk around these essentials, or tangentially about these essentials, but never explain or train people in these essentials. So what happens over time, is this: they tow their congregations, rather than grow their congregations. For, spiritual growth is internal. If your pastor has to keep charging your dead battery, you'll last during the sermon, alright. But you'll never go anywhere.
But they want him to hold their hands, counsel, involve himself in politics, and all manner of things which no shepherd of the Word should be doing. Cut the pastors (priests, if you're catholic) some slack; stop expecting such nonsense from them, and stop accusing them when you think they are 'unspiritual'. These are our front-line troops! They are beaten on by Satan&Co. more than any other group of folks (along with Bible scholars and translators, evangelists, etc). Eat more by using the Essentials yourself, and you will bless pastors. Pray for them.
If you spend any length of time in my sites, you'll see how critical a vote, these Four Essentials: BELIEVE IN CHRIST for your salvation (else you're not even spiritually alive, and instead are dead-going-to-Hell, John 3); BREATHE 1Jn1:9; EAT and GROW (live on Bible) and PRAY (talk with God the Father, 24/7). The obvious hint that these Four Essentials are true: for 30 years the Lord Himself didn't do any works; and when He did come out, He Taught Words, not works. And Himself didn't do anything but Teach Words, a few miracles, and Die On A Cross -- which, Isa53:11 and many other verses make plain, was a THINKING payment. HIS 'Work" was that He Was Developed, Inside Himself! Capisce? Far bigger works, What God Does To You, than anything touted as spiritual.. test the claim yourself!
So think: if you are breathing 1Jn1:9 as needed, studying Bible carefully under your right pastor, then living on it while you go to the drycleaners, the bathroom, your office, the opera.. Divine Good Is Being Produced By Him In You. Just as Moses explained (threaded stress, like tfellin), in Deut1-9. Just as happened, to Christ. Ohhh, never underestimate God's Level of Productivity! Abram wanted only ONE son, but God wanted a whole universe of them! So a whole universe, which after all God binged exist in one instant of time (verb tense in Gen1:1 says that) -- well, then what's bigger than a whole universe? "Christ in you, the Confident Expectation of Glory", Col1:25-27!
My pastor noticed this problem, so for years both taught and warned us to remember these Essentials. So much so, the student under him is inclined to gag from so much repetition. So you know that I, a person of no authority, didn't invent these essentials. So perhaps you should investigate them under the Spirit, breathing 1Jn1:9 to be sure of spiritual perception.
Bible repeats this same literal meaning in a number of ways: in fact both these mechanics, as well as analogies to the mechanics of salvation are probably the most common category of topics in the New Testament. So, just as a baby doesn't cause its own birth, so also You don't add anything to faith in Christ. No invite, accept, into-my-heart garbage, for you are dead until you BELIEVE in Christ. Just as a baby is no baby until breathing on his own, so can't do anything until first breathing; so also you don't do anything until you take your own first spiritual breath (an exhale of faith, here; just like regular birth begins with an exhale). (Old Testament is rife with references also, but the Hebrew method of expression is often much more subtle. David, for example, makes onomopoetic breathing noises via words he uses in Ps139, to indicate that neshemmah, the first breath of life.)
BELIEVE in Christ, and in that instant, you are Permanently Saved (Acts 16:31); because the Holy Spirit takes that exhale and makes you spiritually alive (Titus3:5).
You don't need to understand anything in Bible to be saved. In fact, you cannot, because like every other human you were born spiritually dead; it's this birth-in-Adam which is the source of the sins you choose to commit, so even a just-born baby needs to be saved. (And of course anyone who dies before he's old enough to believe is automatically saved; the age when one can believe depends on brain function and learning right and wrong, so the age can vary greatly, depending on genetics, nutrition, and other factors which affect brain function.) So, the Gospel is always and only BELIEVE IN CHRIST; you don't have to understand it, you have to BELIEVE it. No additives. God gets it all right the FIRST time, and He did it 2000 years ago.
Once saved, use this First Essential to find out how and why salvation works, and to figure out how God is. It's critical you think over what you learn here. Doesn't matter if you make mistakes en route.. Every Bible writer also uses "salvation" as the first teaching doctrine to expand into explanations of what riches in Him are ATOP salvation, so time spent here is vital. Learn Christ's Nature; God's Nature; learn the components and mechanics of salvation, from how Christ paid for sins on the Cross, to what 4 Accomplishments He made when He did so. "Basics" box at Home Page top has some links which will help, especially the "Salvation Components" chart -- text below the chart is very good. (Chart needs a lot of work, but might help.)
Errors don't matter; PROCESS matters. Yours truly has made millions of belief errors; my own pastor has zero qualms about lambasting himself publically for missing some point of doctrine: he then goes on to correct what he feels was a prior mistake. Does any of this bother God? Of course not: God could just bing in all obedience and correct interpretation into our souls within a nanosecond. So common sense tells you it's not the obedience itself, but the PROCESS, which God wants. Remember, Christ was always God, but as Human, Father and Spirit DID TO HIM that growth to become the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Christ WAITED, therefore; so the PROCESS was what God wanted to do TO His Son's Humanity. Didn't matter, that Christ was Perfect -- it was HUMAN perfection, which is finite, therefore SHORT OF Divine Perfection. So, if obedience was what God wanted, then it would have been incumbent on Christ to use His Own Deity to be Bigger. But instead, God wanted Christ to WAIT on Spirit to do to His Humanity, as the Spirit Chose. That's our precedent, too. So the fact we are sinners, we make a bizillion errors en route, matters not at all. What does matter, is to "dioko" (Greek verb in Phili3:14), which is KOKO, Keep On Keeping On in God's System, living on the Four Essentials.
So we don't need to burn witches, call each other heretics, etc. Note errors, yes, and that only because certain errors derail the spiritual life; moreover, strong but constructive lambasting blunts reader embarrassment, heh -- which is why Bible is so often abrasive in tone (blanded out, in translation, very abrasive in the originals). Then fix your own versions of the errors, and leave the hearer to mull over fixing his own. No crusades. Move on, like blood flow, nourishing every part of the Body of Christ (Eph4:11-16, Greek). Whew.
Bible teaching on salvation (etc.) has largely been errant due to being sugared in one way or another, since people are uninterested. Well, then: VOTE for meatier teaching by being more interested, and God will respond (2Chron7:14, broad-spectrum meaning).
Bible is God's Thinking, and you get His Thinking so you can Be With Him In Your Thinking. Intimately. After all, God always sees you: wouldn't it be nice to see Him, too? Intimately? God sees all of you since eternity past and eternity future (everything is one big NOW to Him): so you don't have to 'act holy' or be embarrassed around Him, lol. We are each Royal Priests before God, Equal In Christ. Private between God and you, since you are forever a priest: 1Pet2:5,9, Rev1:6, 5:10.
Chances are, if you were directed to 'my' website, your appointed pastor teaches his congregation in the original languages, because that's what my own pastor does. So, you're getting an exposure of a specific nature, here. On the other hand, perhaps at first God will choose a different pastor for you until you are ready for 'mainlining' the God-Breathed original-language texts. "Ready" isn't a function of your own smarts, because only the Holy Spirit can process the information; rather, "ready" is your willingness, for the 'mainlining' requires a greater willingness. This might take time to build. (God builds on whatever willingness you have, so you needn't feel bad about any disinterest.) If so far you are only casually interested, He'll park you under someone suited to that lower interest. However, try to become vitally interested, because you have NO idea what enjoyment you're missing!
So, winning souls and works are only adjunctive -- like catsup or dessert -- for crying out loud! When God talks about the OT heroes, how much time does He spend talking about them winning souls? Almost zero! By contrast, how much time does He spend talking about what they thought? A lot -- in fact, the do's enumerated are to show you the thinking. Same for how The Bible talks about Our Lord Himself: how much time is spent saying how He won over souls, as compared to How Much Time is spent on His Teaching, His THINKING? See how clever Satan is? Brother-Foot Churchinanity is substituted for the Real Spiritual Life: Thinking FOR FATHER. "My food is to do the WILL of Him Who Sent Me" +Matt4:4, not hustling to other people bludgeoning them with how they go to hell if they don't believe. Revelation 17 is Fake Church, the biggest 'sign' of Tribulation trends, and the biggest disclosure of Satan's #1 weapon during the real Tribulation, whenever it begins.
And you will get swamped. You won't have to go looking for hearers, they will come to you: even if you try to be a hermit, you will be used.. count on it. Geez, if anyone bothered to read the Gospels, he'd know that people came to Christ from all over the world. Christ just kept on walking a circuit from Dan to Beersheba (Israel's borders, then). LvS4a.htm's first section, takes you through that history. But, what Sunday school child doesn't know that Christ didn't go running around looking for converts -- they came to Him. So also, they come to you. Your job is to go where God parks you. Which is probably where you are now (my pastor calls it the "geographical will of God"). Then, HE causes those around you who are positive to hearing the Gospel (and even many negative ones), to ASK you questions. Happens to me frequently, even though I don't usually leave my dwelling except once a week (just got off the phone, someone asking about Jn14:2's use of "mansions" -- someone far away from where I live). So, will happen to you, if you are preparing -- by, learning Him.
Save your strength: just learn Him, wait on the Lord (it's the Lord who orchestrates physicals). Here's how my pastor repeats this Doctrine: GOD does the work, brings the hearers, saves whomever however. For, they are for FATHER, get it? For, what was it the Lord said about the sparrows, huh? What did He say about the log in one's own eye, huh? Who is more important, a human being, or God HIMSELF? For Whom you are appointed a Royal Priest forever? To Whom are you first a Royal Priest -- to unsaved mankind, or.. to God? So, then: Don't you need a Bible to know how to think before God, yourself? You, not someone else.
Oh, how Satan always reverses God's priorities, and loves it most when he can reverse two valid doctrines: 1) You Become A Winner By God Doing It To You; 2) as God Causes It To Happen (meaning you WAIT, not initiate), you talk to others about what you are learning. For, not all Truths are equal in priority, and God Is Always First. God, not people. Getting grown up for Your Husband, Christ; not 'helping' others. No fornication! And it IS fornication, to stress people in the name of God (oh how evil), yet forget all about, God. Remember that parable about the rich man who had a bumper crop, so was thinking that oh, now he's ready to build siloes and can retire -- but that night, God was gonna take him home? [Luke 11:12-21, but the context is within an utterly fantastic nest of related concepts, so read the whole chapter.] Get your priorities straight. You'll be that one-in-a-million-Christian, who does.
So nothing nothing nothing matters except what you are thinking before Father. Hence the need to learn Son's codified-into-writing Thinking, the Infallible and Inerrant Scripture, so you can practice thinking it 24/7. For, just as everyone knows, he who fulfills the First Commandment fulfills all law: "for against love, there is no law" quipped Paul. So, Christ's Thinking, Bible Doctrine, resulted in Him becoming the Truth, and the Truth Expressed, is Love: Rom5:5,8 1Cor13.
The idea is to learn everything in Scripture. Truth is a STRUCTURE, and Scripture deposited in you CREATES that structure. This is how Christ Himself BECAME "The Way, the Truth, and the Life". So, you get the same spiritual life. It's like math: you get all the Formulas in you, and then they just keep on producing. Because, the Truth is structured like math, but is Living. Doesn't matter that you sin, because it really didn't matter that Christ was perfect. His Perfection was necessary to be qualified to bear sin, but His Perfection didn't cause His Spiritual Growth. Instead, what did the job was the Truth being poured in Him. Like the Gospel of John says, "full of Grace and Truth". So, it's the same 'job', for you. Which, the Holy Spirit accomplishes. Just as John tells us, in his Gospel and in 1Jn.
So, to speed that process, try to play with whatever you are learning. If you're learning about things in David's life, then try to tie what you learn to your own life. If you learn things about anything or anyone in Bible, try to tie what you learn to yourself. Better still, see if you can figure out What About God is Revealed; what does it reveal about God's Grace, for example, that He killed David's firstborn by Bathsheba on the 7th day, instead of the 8th? (Hint: circumcision would have been done on the 8th day.) Why did God love David so much, despite all he did wrong?
For, we are all human, and Scripture is All God, so.. everything in Bible ties somewhere. Doesn't matter if you tie it incorrectly. Practice. Just like you would, in learning a language. Just like you would, in learning a job. Keep using 1Jn1:9, keep studying, keep trying to tie what you learn. Fail, so what? Use 1Jn1:9 and Keep Going. It works. I can vouch for that fact experientially, and these webpages show how much the Holy Spirit can work in a life. So, it will likewise happen to you. Because, God wants it to happen to everyone. All we do, is keep on saying YES. He works in you to will and to do, Paul says in Phili2:12-13.
Obviously if you are spending your day thinking toward Father (aiming at it, really, since failures are necessarily frequent), prayer is a type of thinking toward Him. At Home pagetop, the "Royal Protocol of Prayer" link explains the how and why of effective prayer. (In Caveat #3, the 6-step protocol of effective prayer is more briefly enumerated.) It's a protocol because it's an office, a voting, as well as the best way I can think of to maintain awareness that Father hears you 24/7, so you want to play with Doctrine as much as possible, in your thinking. ["Protocol" means a precise procedure, in English. It has a scientific meaning as well as a Diplomatic/ Royal meaning. My pastor coined the phrase, "Protocol Plan of God" back in the 1980's and spent seven years via verse-by-verse exegesis of Ephesians, teaching it to his congregation.]
Other pastors have other classification systems they teach. You can also make up your own, but at least keep on thinking Scripture, applying it to your life, breathing 1Jn1:9 and keep studying. So Scripture comes to Cycle In Your Head 24/7, like breathing. This is your lifeline, your lifeboat, your food, your happiness, and there is no substitute for the Word itself: Matt4:4.
So your thinking before Father is the issue: using the Bible ITSELF, not some Christian bookstore's latest best-seller. David, you'll notice, thought out what he was learning, constantly. The Psalm119 people were tortured on their way to Babylon, but in v.103, look what sustained them. The Word Itself. Not some else's packaging. You'll always need a pastor to teach you the Word ITSELF, and of course to do that he will 'cook' it, just like a professor 'cooks' his subject to present it comprehensively; but you eat the Word; then you live on IT; not on someone else's words.
So don't let your self-perception of weakness fool you into thinking you shouldn't eat and drink His Thinking, that it's too high or beautiful for you, that hustling in the body somehow is more valuable or more 'humble'. GOD FIRST. Don't defraud God in the name of serving man, for then you replace "God" with man. So, the Only Person for Whom you need to get beautiful, is Son's FATHER. For, that's your JOB. So, you get beautiful, by 'eating and drinking' His Thinking under the Spirit. See the blazing sarcasm in Eze16, lol. [Nerd note: whenever you see valuables depicted in the Bible, the first meaning is Bible itself. Gold silver precious stones crowns wealth true riches etc. Man's substituting mere physical wealths for the True Riches Of Scripture is lambasted frequently. So also, "works" are First Learning Scripture, so counterfeit works are lambasted frequently as well. English can't bring out the sarcastic and ironic wordplay here, but under the Spirit you will still be able to catch on, gradually.]
Note how here, the "geographical will of God" (my pastor's term) was obviously communicated by the Spirit to Christ's Humanity, that He should go out of His normal returning path. Just like, to the kings who visited the Baby in the Manger, the kings were told to go another route; Joseph, was told to take Mary and that Baby, to Egypt. In short, if you Eat The Word Like Christ Did (Matt4:4), then you will know when and where to go, do a thing. Else, you'll only be fantasizing (or be 'told' by Satan &Co., who like to mimic and satirize everything in God's plan for mankind).
Still, we are in bodies: so, all else, though non-spiritual, might be either consonant or dissonant with these Four Essentials, depending on the facts and your own proclivities. Trick is, to draw the line ("rightly dividing the Word of Truth", Heb4:12) on what to do and not do with the body. Beware, though: Satan is a moral being, not an immoral one; his argument against God is based on a claim that Satan is more moral. That's why in Isa14, for example, he seeks to replace God, and thinks he can do so. The original sin of both Satan and our first parents (Adam and the woman) were moral sins, not immoral ones -- use 1Jn1:9 like breathing and think over the text in Genesis 3.
Beginning in Genesis 3, moral works and religion are Satan's main weapons. Much of my website material explores this fact, for I didn't understand it, though for nearly two generations my pastor has been teaching about it, as had the founder(?) of Dallas Theological Seminary, Louis Sperry Chafer. It's an awesome satanic strategy, and it's rooted in Satan's own nature, so that's one of the reasons why most website material revolves around the Thinking series. We fall for Satan's ruse, because it's so hard to grasp that doing good is also the worst evil; it's so hard to see that this evil results due to disconnection from God; it's so hard to see the disconnection, itself! Of course, it's also dicey, since morality is necessary for living, as well as an innate prosperity God gifted to mankind, believer or no.
See, when we call ourselves "good" due to something we think we are, or have, we are blaspheming God: "Why do you call me 'good'? Only God is good", said Christ. [Mark 10:17-30, but He faced this question often. See parallel passages in the other Gospels. They aren't all the same recounting.] Which is true, since God Is Infinite Perfection, and we puny humans are relieved, if even one tawdry thing in our lives, works! So if He is talking like that, whoa -- it's the worst arrogance for anyone to take some puny moral thing he got as a gift from God, and then call himself, 'good'. Parable of the Pharisee and the publican: it was the latter whom Christ called good (lit., righteous/justified), remember (Luke 18:14, see context). So Satan just loves to get us all hot-and-steamy over how 'good' we are. Can't have the TV on for more than five minutes, and not be bombarded with that propaganda (not that any human is consciously aware or desirous of helping Satan, of course).
Immorality, of course, is just plain stupid, obvious, incompetent, crass: animalistic. The kind of thing, only an idiot would enjoy. And notice how the moral sinner immediately becomes more immoral than the immoral sinner, when he 'morally' reacts! For the prolifers, like Saul going to Damascus, abort Scripture via their incessant campaigning and political activism! The US is at an all-time-low in Scriptural understanding, that these people can be rampaging across the world scene. Even Tamerlane, was more moral than the prolifers. Even Hitler was more moral. At least neither Tamerlane nor Hitler claimed to be speaking for God, and then lied about Him, to boot! So these prolifer people might end up being forever farther away from Christ in heaven, than either Tamerlane or Hitler (if either of those two ever once believed in Christ)!
Islam and Judaism and many other non-Christian faiths are extremely moral. Extremely evil, therefore: because in all other faiths, especially the more moral ones, God never gets paid for sin. What happens instead (as was just explained to me from a Hindu-related person), your bad deeds get you punished. You get punished, but God never gets anything. Well, that's true -- which is why morality is worth bupkis, and there had to be a Cross. Which is why morality is evil, when it claims to count -- because God should get paid. Which, not one holy book ever written, claims morality can do. Satan knows how to craft a holy book, too. Laughing in our faces, how we don't get it that our works don't count. [Someone read me a Hindu-related tract about how when you die, if you were a 'good person' you got to be unconscious for awhile; and then you wake up in an 'interim state' and your chambers are under the earth; oh, and you get to "drink orange light". The reader was sighing with happiness over this description, while reading. But I was thinking, Holy Doo-doo! That's exactly like the Satan-authored Greek mythology description for Hades, aka Hell of the Bible, and the "orange light", is FIRE! (Under your feet, iron oxide and/or sulphur mix at above 160 degrees C (per Encarta 2004 in XP), resulting in a kind of orange, fiery 'drink'! Not exactly Amaretto; but yes, exactly the 'cup of reeling', in the Bible!) Just like the line in the Koran which says, "in Paradise there will be shade", lol. Yeah, and "shades" were the names Mycanean+ Greeks gave to the souls stuck in Hades, a compartment of which -- now empty, since the Ascension, see Eph4:8-9 -- is Paradise! So all unbelievers, are there, looking up at that empty compartment (see Luke 16:20ff)! LOL, yeah, in darkness, or rotten-eggs-smelly orange 'light', gnashing their teeth at God! Classic demon authorship style, here; you ought to see how they manage to burlesque the Word by the exact mechanics of how they screw up translations, the human translators being none the wiser for it; oh, and how demons write false holy books like Koran and Book of Mormon with the exact same wit! Noel Coward and Gilbert &Sullivan would have killed to be that clever. So whoever was the poor human sap writing that Hindu tract, is being marionetted. Oh, so Satan&Co. hate the Hindus as much as they hate the Muslims and Mormons! The reader wanted to know what I thought. What the heck could I say? Well, the Bible doesn't describe heaven like that. What an understatement! See, if you know the Word, you can read between the clever lines in a holy book, lol.]
In either case, whether a moral or immoral sin, use 1Jn1:9 if you fall: you are thus PURIFIED of not only the sin, but all "wrongdoing." Black evil (immoral), or white evil (the worse one, moral, competing with God). (Greek katharizw=purified, OT Temple keyword in Greek -- not the insipid "cleansed" of English Bibles, in 1Jn1:9. "adikia" is the Greek word usu. translated "unrighteousness", but should be translated wrongdoing, for that is a keyword also for EVIL, whatever you're thinking or doing when not Filled with the Spirit. Again, the idea is if HE's not doing something to you, the wrong, is that you're doing (or thinking) on your own. Remember the precedence is the Lord's Humanity Totally Depending on the Spirit. So wrong is a far bigger thing than immorality: it's Who's doing the doing, not the doing itself, which is the bigger potential good.. or, evil.] Expect to fall down every second on the second as you begin the above Four Essentials. Consistent Repetition of the Four Essentials will eventually prevail over all your problems and sin habits -- nothing else will help. No amount of repentance, revival meetings, inspirational sermons or books, self-help stuff, counseling or anything but THE WORD, works (main theme of James 1:1-2:26, in Greek text). This isn't to say you can't do these things, since in the Spirit, you can do anything (other than sin, of course): "all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable", wrote Paul in 1Cor6. It's a question of maximizing your profit, then. For, just like salvation, which is due to The Word, so also post-salvation, Only The Word Works To Deliver You. ["Deliver" and "rescue" are the first two meanings of the Greek verb "sozo", usu. only translated "save", so you miss many Biblical puns of great enjoyment and nourishment.]
So don't worry about all the many interim failures; Bible likens the spiritual growth process to growing up mentally, in 1Jn. These Essentials are alone effective. Nothing works without them: these are the engine and the true growth of your spiritual life. All else is a gutless car, dead in the driveway. Absent these essentials, no matter what people do, it's like being towed but imagining you're driving. Lots of others also being towed around you makes the fantasy, seem real.
For a Text-to-Speech rendition of this webpage, see the audio player below:
Know that Every Believer is a Priest-King in Training for God the Father: Your spiritual life is measured by what you THINK in His Hearing, and NO other criterion is of any consequence. Therefore God the Holy Spirit gives us Spiritual IQ via 1Jn1:9 usage* to learn Christ via learning Bible Doctrine under one's God-chosen right pastor; thus we become Fit Bride (Ephesians 4:11-16 vividly says so in Greek); else, we will be spiritually comatose, retarded. So, let's be 'online' with the Spirit, and thus LEARN: grow up!
Text-embedded Links above, and links in the Home Page, provide further accounting details as to how and why the foregoing is true, so you can think for yourself and see for yourself, before the Lord Who Bought Us for God Our Father.
Forget religion: Christianity is a RELATIONSHIP, not a religion. Religion was invented by Satan in Genesis 3, and you can always identify its Rev17 power-lust characteristics (i.e., any and all Christian activism). Satan invented and continually sponsors religion, to defame God: flee it like the plague. Religion has sought to keep the Bible restricted from the common man, hard to use, hard to read, for most of Scripture's existence. Religion is completely and utterly irrelevant, even as sin became irrelevant, when it was nailed to the Cross! ('Theme of Romans 6, Romans 8, Colossians 1, 2 Corinthians 5, all of Ephesians; Hebrews 1-2, Hebrews 4, Hebrews 9, Hebrews 10, Hebrews 12!) For the upshot of the Bible is this: Christ's Victory at the Cross was total and permanent and all sufficient, just as promised in the Old Testament Lamb sacrifice depictions (see Hebrews 10). That's why He shouted "Tetelestai" (lamely translated "It is finished")! So all that remains, is for you to decide how much about that Victory you want to learn while down here, and thus participate in, forever. Your Royal choice.
* Footnote re 1Jn1:9 usage: Just like in the Old Testament (Psalm 32:5, Psalm 66:18), 1Jn1:9 says if you name your sins to God, you are in fellowship/online and thus empowered by the Holy Spirit; else, your spiritual life is comatose. Verses 6-10 help you 'see' this fact, and many other verses in Bible confirm it. You lost your brains that first nanosecond you 'did' John 3:16, so absent the Holy Spirit's brains, you are one dead puppy, even while you live.
Forgotten sins get treated as if you named them, if you have named something you remember. So don't deny, but don't dwell on remembering, since morose self-focus is itself sin. Often I just use 1Jn1:9, sure that there was "arrogance" of some kind. I use 1Jn1:9 probably a bazillion times a day, like breathing. Even if it's a temptation: because with thought sins -- and all sins are thought, body has no soul of its own -- you don't always know when "temptation" became "sin". 1Jn1:9 works: try it regularly, and see for yourself.
Important: "NAME", not "confess" is the real Greek meaning of the 5th-century BC legal term, "homologew" in v.9. It's only a "confession" in the sense of ADMISSION OF GUILT before the court [of Heaven, here]: look up the verb in the LXX, too. The term has NO connotation about how you feel, penance or any of the nonsense which accompanies the modern-day layman's MISuse of the term "confess". Do your homework. Don't let the religious crowd fool you into thinking that somehow you have to name your sins to another person (You are a Royal Priest yourself). What, do you think the Lord will be pleased if you die ignorant of Father's appointment of you as a Royal Priest under His Son? [1 Peter 2:5,9; Hebrews 5-10, central theme; Revelation 1:6, Revelation 5:10; also, specialized terms like "near" (means slave-dedicated-for-life-to-Temple-service, in Greek), are in other verses.]
Feeling is a body thing; emotion is not spiritual, and isn't even IN the immaterial soul. So any 'feeling spiritual' you get, is a feeling of arrogance, and you need 1Jn1:9 all over again; so fire Bible at the temptation to need to 'feel' something, á la Matt4:4, which is the true spiritual life. The same arrogance about feeling caused the Lordship-salvation people and the head-versus-heart-belief people to mistake even the way to get saved, so who knows if any of them ever really believed in Christ? See "False Gospels?" link on the Home Page, upper left blue box near pagetop (or blue box of same name in "Basics" box). Principle: Justice is based on facts, not feelings, not experience, not whether some believer does some sin which shocks 'us' who have almost no facts, but love judging others. So we get judged back, Matt7:1-2. Anyone Who Believes Is Immediately And Permanently Saved (Greek of Acts 16:31, John3:16-end chapter, Ephesians 2:8-9). Anyone who uses 1 John 1:9 is not only forgiven of judging (etc.), but "purified from ALL wrongdoing." Never underestimate the Power Of Christ On The Cross! (Corrected translation from the Greek -- Apostle John is using an Old Testament term, katharizw. It's the same word used in the LXX (Greek translation of the Old Testament) for purifying the Temple, which is now 'moved', post-Cross, to your body, per 1 Corinthians 6 & 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 2-4, and Hebrews 6, Hebrews 10, Hebrews 12.) It's what you think, not how you feel. [Only God made Christ Lord! See Hebrews 1-2, Hebrews 6-10:5-17, Psalm 110:1. "Heart" in Bible refers to the circulation of thinking: check how the word is used throughout Bible. Proverbs 23:7 doesn't have the word "heart" in it, but instead "soul". Still, the idiomatic meaning is aptly translated "heart". Hebrew word is "Leb", and Greek is "kardia", and the metaphor is used to denote the soul, alright -- but isn't in that verse. Blood is always the metaphor of thinking, in both the New and Old Testament.]
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