HEAVEN OR HELL
Our goal is to make it to Heaven, and our way to get there is to become as much like Jesus as possible. Jesus was fully human but also fully filled with God’s spirit. Jesus was not God, but God worked powerfully through him. This was possible because Jesus freely and willingly gave his free will over to God in everything he did. Everything. Not just some things – everything. That’s what we need to do to be like Jesus, and that’s what we must do to make it to Heaven.
In contrast, the “man of perdition” that Paul mentioned, who is the same one that Daniel described and that John wrote about in Revelation, will do the opposite of what Jesus did. That’s because instead of being filled with God’s spirit, he’ll be filled with Satan’s. In other words, a human will provide the body for the disembodied “Father of Lies” himself.
I was an atheist for the first 36 years of my life. During that time, various demon spirits moved in and out of me, most of them evil. I didn’t consciously invite them in; they just showed up as a consequence of my misguided thoughts and actions. I drew them to me, but unconsciously. Now, as a born-again follower of Jesus, evil spirits are still around me, but there’s no longer any room for them in me because God’s spirit has taken up residence. No human can have both God’s spirit and evil spirits at the same time. It’s either one or the other.
As Paul pointed out, everyone who doesn’t acknowledge that Jesus is Lord is antichrist (literally, “opposed to Jesus the Christ”), which means that most of the world’s population is antichrist. The man of perdition is also antichrist, but he’s not just your regular run-of-the-mill antichrist. He’s so antichrist that he’s considered The Antichrist. This is a man who has consciously chosen to host Satan’s spirit and to consciously work in opposition to Jesus (and therefore to God), so we’re talking one messed-up dude here. You don’t become The Antichrist by mistake: you become The Antichrist on purpose.
I mention this because the spiritual landscape is swiftly changing. The people of the world are being repositioned and softened up to accept a “global” leader who will be the man of perdition. God warned us about him through Jesus, Paul, Daniel, John and others, so he’s definitely coming. As born-agains, we’ll know him when we see him, and our job at that time will be to warn others about him, and to keep showing people the only way home to God.
Here’s what we should expect of The Antichrist. He’ll be very rich and well-positioned politically and religiously. He’ll perform “miracles” and will know everything about everyone. He’ll also be extremely handsome and charismatic; most of the world will be spell-bound by him and will without hesitation die or kill for him. His hold over people will be supernatural and powerful, and no-one will be able to escape his lure unless they’re born-again. Yet, sadly, even some born-agains will fall for him.
I’ve been under the thrall of demons, so I know how powerful their hold can be. I would still be under their control were it not for God rescuing me, but only after I cried out to him. God has given us all free will and he’ll never ask for it back. He respects our right to choose and won’t force his will on us, even if it means we choose our way to Hell. But the instant we break and cry out for help, God is there.
In contrast to what the world considers to be freedom (i.e., doing whatever you want to, whenever you want to do it), true freedom is putting your free will 100% into God’s hands and asking for his help and guidance in everything you do. As born-agains, we know this is true, because we live that reality every day. We know what it is to live without God’s help, and we know what it is to live with it, and there’s no comparison between the two. I’d rather live just one more day with my will completely in God’s hands than to live forever without his help.
The Antichrist has chosen the latter path, and that’s a horrible place to be. Even the pleasures of near-absolute power will in no way make up for what happens after that cold heart stops beating, and stop beating it will. Scripture tells us that The Antichrist’s days are numbered, and that Hell is his final reward.
Hell is the final reward of all antichrists.
We need to be reminded of that every so often.
__________
Heaven is our goal. Following Jesus as a born-again is the only way to get there. The Antichrist will try to persuade us otherwise, either through temptation or brute force. He knows all of our weaknesses, and he’ll try to exploit them. He’ll try to convince us that God’s Way is not only narrow but narrow-minded. He’ll brand us bigots. He’ll outlaw God’s Word. He’ll torture and kill those who won’t comply with his dictates. He’ll even torture and kill our family and friends. He’ll promote alternative belief systems that have elements of God’s Way but ultimately are antichrist.
Don’t fall for his lies. Don’t be deceived. Don’t be afraid.
Stay your course and endure to the end, no matter what that entails.
Jesus is Lord and God is our Father. We don’t bow down to anyone else.
Remember that when your time comes.
BEING BORN-AGAIN
Being born-again can be a lonely road. Spiritually we’ve got lots of company (God and Jesus are always with us through God’s spirit, just as Jesus promised), but fellow human believers are few and far between. It can be discouraging at times to feel so alienated from the general population.
How do you resolve this dilemma? Or can it be resolved?
The good news is yes, it can be resolved, and the best way to start is to be who you are. In other words – just be yourself. If you’re born-again, be born-again. Let people know you’re born-again. They should know anyway, but if they don’t, don’t try to “hide” it to keep the conversation polite. You know what I’m talking about. Jesus said that our worst enemies will be those under our own roofs, and he wasn’t kidding about that.
He might also have mentioned that one of those enemies under our own roofs is – surprise, surprise – us. We can definitely be our own worst enemy if we choose to hide our true spiritual identity. It comes back to bite us hard, and may even cost us our grace. DON’T BE YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY. Don’t lose your grace. Stand tall in God.
The next step, after we out ourselves, is to be clear about what we believe. Millions of people call themselves “Christians”, but what they actually believe has nothing to do with what Jesus taught us. As born-agains, we must necessarily believe what Jesus taught. Believing it implies living it as well as preaching it. Jesus is our example, and our task is to mirror his example in our lives. So – don’t drink yourself into the gutter. Don’t watch porn on the internet. Don’t have pre-marital sex, and don’t marry someone who is divorced (if the divorced spouse is still alive). Jesus wasn’t preaching just to hear himself speak. He was showing us which choices to make that would lead to the best outcome for all concerned. That’s what God’s laws are all about.
Bad choices have bad built-in consequences, and good choices have good built-in consequences.
Along with living your rebirth openly and being clear about what you believe, you should also not shy away from correcting false teachings. Jesus didn’t preach to non-believers, and nor did he yell at them for being non-believers. He just let them be.
In contrast, he spent a good deal of time yelling at people who said they were believers but showed by their words and actions that they were not. These were the hypocrites, and he didn’t hold back in telling them what he thought of them, or what was waiting for them if they continued in their hypocrisy.
Keep in mind that Jesus made a clear distinction between those who purposely skewed scripture and misled people (either from pride or a hidden agenda) and those who just got it wrong and/or messed up. He didn’t yell at the woman who was caught in adultery; he gave her a second chance. We all make mistakes and have moments of weakness, and sometimes those can be real doozies. Mistakes don’t condemn us; consciously and consistently choosing what we know is wrong – THAT condemns us. We all know the difference between those who sincerely love God but occasionally mess up, and those who are just pretending to love God in order to get a paycheck or fit in with the Sunday morning crowd. If we don’t know the difference, we need to learn it real fast because that latter group – the professional preachers and Sunday-morning Christians – is the main reason driving many would-be believers away from finding God.
Living fully as a born-again follower of Jesus means to be fully open about who you are and what you believe. That doesn’t mean you should preach to everyone, but anyone who knows you should also know that you’re a born-again follower of Jesus. Jesus only preached to those who wanted to hear, but everyone who knew him or knew about him during his ministry years knew that he was a strong believer. You shouldn’t be mistaken for a Muslim or a Buddhist or an atheist. If people don’t like what you have to say or don’t want to be around you because you’re a believer, let them be. Pray for them. But let them be.
Which brings us back to the original dilemma and its resolution – how do born-agains find fellow born-agains when they are so few and far between?
The answer is: God will bring them to you. When you live your beliefs openly and fully, God will bring like-minded believers into your life (as well as believers who need to learn a few things from you, and believers who have something to teach you or remind you about). Jesus said: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” He was including human companionship in “all these things”. We don’t need to go out and look for fellow believers; if we’re living our lives as we should be living them, we’ll just happen upon each other.
God will make it happen.
HEAVEN SIXTEEN
Acts of terror, regardless of who perpetrates them, all have the same final outcome: the reduction of freedom. This means less freedom of movement, less freedom of association, less freedom of speech, less freedom of the press, and so on. The initial gut-level response to terror is almost always fear and the desire for revenge, but the long-term fall-out is always – ALWAYS – less freedom. Think of how the Patriot Act has stripped Americans and their allies of freedom since 9/11. From this, we can assume that all acts of terror have as their ultimate aim the reduction and curtailment of freedom.
Likewise, from this, we can assume that whoever is ultimately behind all acts of terror is someone who wants to take away our freedom and thereby control us.
God gave every one of us free will and has never asked for it back. Paul said that all things are possible, but not all things are good. That’s why God engraved his laws on our hearts and set the Ten Commandments in stone, so that we would always be able to discern the good within the possible, regardless of how beguiling the temptation was to do bad. But God still permits us to do bad, if that’s what we choose to do. He does not intervene in our freedom either to do good or to do bad, but he does try his hardest to persuade us to choose the good.
That is free will.
Given this reality, it must therefore be someone who is opposed to God who is behind terrorist acts. Anyone who wants to forcefully remove or curtail the freedom of others is not mirroring God’s way and is not acting as God’s ally. In other words, they do not respect our God-given free will. We know, from Jesus, that the world is under Satan. So whoever is working behind the scenes to perpetrate terrorist acts with the ultimate aim of controlling the population is working for Satan, as are all those who willingly agree to have their freedoms curtailed in direct response to terrorism.
The New Testament mentions “the synagogue of Satan” a few times. This is in reference to “Jews who call themselves Jews but are in fact not”. Muslims call the United States “the great Satan”. These references to Satan point to power strongholds in the world at any given time. The truth is that all people, regardless of where they live or what religion they espouse, are under Satan unless they are born-again followers of Jesus. Born-agains are in God’s kingdom on Earth and have pledged their allegiance to God. Those who have not done so are defacto worshippers of Satan and thus automatically fall under Satan’s jurisdiction.
So what does this mean for acts of terrorism like the one unleashed on Paris on Friday the thirteenth of November, 2015? It means that Satan is behind these acts, regardless of who gets the finger pointed at them. It means more freedom will be forcefully removed and also willingly forfeited. It means that the world on Saturday the fourteenth of November, 2015, is less free than it was the day before. It also means Satan’s control of the world is expanding.
Satan goes by many names and wears many hats. His favourite disguise is The Invisible Man because he fancies himself to be like God. He and his minions slip in and out of people’s minds, beguiling them to act in ways that they know in their heart is wrong. Sadly, most people give into them.
The only way to win people back from Satan is to do as Jesus told us to do: love our enemies. We need to pray for the human perpetrators of terrorism as much as we pray for those who suffer from their acts. We need to pray, not curse them. If we find them, we need to imprison them, not torture or kill them. We need to give them time to repent of their acts, in the same way as God gives us time. We do not repay an eye for an eye, but nor do we just let them get away with their crime. Jesus says not to overcome evil with evil but to overcome evil with good. He also says that praying for our enemies is like pouring hot coals on their heads. So pour away, my friends. Pour away!
It may be, from all the prayers pouring out of us, that even one evil-doer may some day turn, just as I did and just as you did.
This is how we win people back from Satan and in so doing make the world safer and freer.
HEAVEN FIFTEEN
There’s an epidemic of well-meaning but misdirected help these days. We born-agains are often the worst offenders, imposing our “help” on people who either haven’t asked for it, don’t really want it, or never actually receive it.
In so doing, we make things worse for them and for us.
If people haven’t asked for help, don’t try to give it to them. It won’t work. Yes, you may see that they have a need, but if they don’t see that same need in themselves, keep your mouth shut about it. Better to go to God and pray for them than to nag them.
The only one you should be nagging is God.
Another help misfire is when people are insincere in their request for help. You’ll know the difference between a sincere request and an insincere one, and the best response to an insincere request is a simple “Sorry, no”. It may sound harsh, but ‘helping’ people who don’t really want to be helped in the way they need to be helped does not lead to a positive outcome for anyone.
Sending a check to a charity is another misdirected help effort that does no-one any good (except maybe the administrators and marketers of the charity). If you know (as most of us do now) that up to 100% of charitable donations are redirected down the black hole of admin and advertising costs, then you’re a sucker to sign the check. Charities are banking on your being a sucker. Close that sucker bank down.
If you feel the need to help someone financially, find a relative or an acquaintance who could use a few dollars. Give them the money (don’t lend it to them, give it to them) and do it anonymously, if possible. Expect nothing in return, not even a “thank you”. That’s true charity.
During his ministry years, Jesus helped all those who came to him in sincerity. God also helps all those who come to him in sincerity. These are our models – Jesus and God – not the Joneses next door who are involved in a dozen charities and sign up to do volunteer work every weekend.
If people sincerely need your help, God will send them to you and make it obvious that he sent them to you. Always be ready and willing to help whoever God sends your way. If God sends them, God will help you help them. That’s the only genuine help that’s genuinely needed and genuinely does any good.
HEAVEN FOURTEEN
It must have been a shock to Peter when Jesus called him Satan, especially since all Peter was trying to do was help Jesus. “Get thee behind me, Satan!” is a far cry from “Thanks, Peter. I knew I could count on you for back up”, which is likely what Peter expected Jesus to say in response to Peter’s offer to protect him.
I can imagine the awkward silence that followed Jesus’ outburst, and I can almost see Peter’s face, his eyes wide, staring at Jesus in hurt disbelief and confusion.
Peter was easily the most enthusiastic of all the disciples. That he wanted to please Jesus was beyond doubt, but during Jesus’ ministry years, Peter had a hard time figuring out what Jesus really wanted from him. Jesus nagged him about his lack of faith and about his tendency to “think as man thinks, not as God thinks”. But Peter always tried his hardest.
And that was his problem.
Peter approached kingdom life as if it were the world. But following Jesus and doing God’s will is not like living in the world. In the world, you decide how you want to proceed based on a combination of common sense, logic, desire, past experience, knee-jerk reaction, and other people’s expectations. In the kingdom, you have to wait for God’s go-ahead and proceed only if and when you get it. You also have to do what God wants you to do, not what your gut tells you to do, not what everyone else is doing, not what has always worked in the past, and not what religious tradition dictates you do.
Peter wanted to follow Jesus, but what he ended up doing instead was trying to get Jesus to follow him. It didn’t work.
It must also have been a shock for Peter when Jesus stared straight at him following his betrayal in the courtyard. That’s a wordless “I told you so” that I hope never to experience.
But amazingly, immediately after his resurrection, Jesus singles out Peter for a special mission: He wants him to feed his sheep and lambs. No, Jesus hasn’t left Peter his petting zoo to look after; he’s assigned Peter more or less the same position Jesus had during his earthly ministry.
Say what? Peter is to take the reigns from Jesus? How can that be?
Peter must have experienced yet another shock when he realized that Jesus had entrusted him with the leadership of the new church. Maybe the other disciples were shocked, too. Peter always seemed to get it wrong, and he had even denied knowing Jesus – how could Jesus overlook Peter’s numerous mistakes and make Peter the new leader?
God reads hearts. Peter clearly had a heart for Jesus and a heart for discipleship. What he was missing was the sense that he wasn’t up for the job. Peter’s enthusiasm was tinged with a headstrongness that was morphing into pride. The pride had to go, and pride can only go through repentance and a sense of one’s full dependence on God.
When Jesus appeared out of nowhere while the disciples were fishing, Peter didn’t even want to approach Jesus, he felt so unworthy. This is similar to the man who went to the temple to repent of his sins. He wouldn’t even lift up his head, he felt so bad about what he’d done. And what did Jesus say about this man? That he was the one who was forgiven his sins, not the man who proudly stood up and recited his laundry list of good deeds.
God reads hearts. Peter was ready to be everything he needed to be, but only after he let go of everything he wanted to be. As long as Peter thought as man thinks, he was going to go contrary to God’s will. God’s ways are not our ways. You can only think as God thinks when you stop trying to control the narrative and give yourself completely over to God.
HEAVEN THIRTEEN
Just before Jesus started his ministry, he thought he wasn’t ready to start. He’d been preparing for years, and had made one aborted attempt when he was 12, but he didn’t know he was ready when he actually was. His mother had to get his motor running, so to speak, by asking him to lend a hand at the wedding at Cana. God asked her to do that, and she did. Mary Mary was quite uncontrary when it came to doing God’s will.
Jesus didn’t know his time had come, and yet in God’s eyes Jesus was ready. God does that; it’s a little trick of his, like a test. The work we need to do in his name has to be done by him. Scripture says that. God works through people. All good things come from God. But in order for God to work through you, you can’t be relying on your own strength or your own understanding. What comes through you needs to come from God.
People who proudly assert that they’re ready are, in fact, not. Jesus thought he was ready to start working for God when he was 12 years old. Certainly, he already was spiritual light-years ahead of the Jewish elders in understanding of scripture, but he wasn’t ready to preach and teach. He had some living to do, some maturing that can only come with time. So his mother and father hauled him back to Nazareth.
But a few decades later, at Cana, when he thought he wasn’t ready, he actually was. He was as ready as he would ever be. He had prepared; he had learned; he had matured. And (and this is the kicker) he wasn’t confident in himself anymore. He hung back. He thought he needed to learn and mature more.
This hesitation and humility is precisely what God is looking for. Jesus not only needed to learn and mature, he needed to lose his confidence in his own abilities and rely solely on God.
It is, after all, God’s work that needs to be done, not ours.
This form of humility is not self-denigration but places all trust and confidence in God rather than in oneself. This has to be learned and then tested over time.
Jesus passed his final test at Cana, and off he went.
He was ready because he didn’t think he was ready.
Are you?
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.
Then saith he unto his disciples, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.”
Matthew 9:35-38
HEAVEN TWELVE
As in every other type of job, working in God’s kingdom on Earth requires preparation. Very few people are ready to preach the Word immediately after rebirth. Most need intensive trial-and-error training, followed by a lengthy apprenticeship period. If the apprenticeship works out, God will hire you to work on a probationary basis. If you make it through the probationary period, then you’ll be hired full-time.
In contrast to the world’s system, the higher up the employment ladder you go in God’s kingdom, the fewer financial rewards you’ll reap. In fact, with each promotion, the less money you’ll earn. Nabbing a coveted full-time position means you’ll be earning a whopping nothing in terms of worldly wealth because you won’t need to earn anything. One way or another, God will provide for all your needs.
Look at Jesus during his ministry years, or Paul during his final travels. These are our examples of what full-time work in God’s kingdom on Earth looks like. Neither man had any income to speak of, yet their housing, food, transportation, clothing and miscellaneous needs were completely taken care of. They were also ferociously, even supernaturally, energetic. They didn’t just grudgingly put in their 40 hours a week and then kick back for a weekend of R&R with their buddies – no, they were always working. There’s no such thing as “overtime” when you accept a position in God’s kingdom on Earth. You work every day, from the time you get up in the morning until the time you close your eyes at night, and you keep on working until you either fall down dead or are killed. There is no retirement in God’s kingdom on Earth. The phrase “retired minister” is an abomination to God.
At any point, of course, your training or employment can be terminated, if you show yourself unworthy to the task. Being born-again isn’t a guaranteed ticket to Heaven, but it is a prerequisite to getting into Heaven. And being born-again necessarily means that you’re either working in God’s earthly kingdom or preparing to work in it.
All of you reading this blog should either be training, or apprenticing, or in your probationary period, or working full-time. If you don’t identify with one of those phases, you’re not born-again.
Jesus said that you cannot serve God and mammon. During your training, apprenticeship and probationary years, God will allow most of you to continue working in the world, but only enough to keep body and soul together. Your focus, during those years, should not be on increasing your income or on upgrading your skills to get a “better job” with “better benefits”; your focus should be on doing God’s work in preparation for full-time employment in the kingdom. Your goal is not to earn more money but to earn less, until you’re finally released from the need to earn money altogether.
What a blessed day that is, when God calls you to work full-time!
His spirit is with you powerfully from that point onwards, and you have the same focus and drive that Jesus and Paul had. Every incremental increase in God’s spirit (which comes with every incremental increase in your faith) brings you greater insight into God’s ways as well as enhanced pleasure in everyday life. The higher up the employment scale you advance, the closer you grow to God and Jesus, the more they entrust in you, and the more likely you are to get to Heaven.
The job does get tougher, however, and the physical comfort level decreases with each advancement. If you’re looking just to slide by as a lowly bench warmer in God’s earthly kingdom – forget it. There’s no such position available.
No genuine born-again wants to be bench warmer. That’s one way you can tell the real born-agains from the fake ones – the genuine ones can’t wait to get out there and start spreading the Word, whereas the fake ones either don’t want to do it or will only do it after attending theology school. These latter types see preaching as a career opportunity, and they’re in it mainly for the income security.
No genuine born-again preaches for a paycheck. No genuine born-again expects payment for sharing God’s Word.
Jesus filed professional preachers and Word-sellers under “hypocrites”.
Don’t get on that file.
Working for God can be exhausting and demanding and take everything you have to give, but even your worst day working for the kingdom will be infinitely better than your best day working for the world..
HEAVEN ELEVEN
One thing you can bet your bottom dollar on when you start seriously following Jesus is that you’ll be broke.
Flat broke.
No savings to speak of. Not even enough for an ice-cream on a hot day.
That’s because God’s weaning you off your wants and getting you used to having only enough for your needs. Burning off the excess. Refining the gold. Getting you to focus on what matters. Having money to buy things you don’t really need takes your focus off doing God’s work.
You prayed to have only your daily bread, so don’t be surprised if it doesn’t come with a steak and fries.
Or an ice-cream.
Most of us, however, don’t go gently into that economic good night. I speak from experience when I say it’s a shock to the system when God takes the money away, even if you think you’ve prepared yourself for it psychologically.
It’s at times like these that you have to remind yourself, over and over again (in between crying fits), that Jesus had no money, either. People would donate to him, but otherwise he was a freeloader during his ministry years. He never begged, but he graciously accepted what was offered him by way of meals and transportation and housing. Nothing wrong with that, if it’s what God wants for you. Even as a freeloader, Jesus always had enough for his needs and then some.
“Blessed are those who look after the needs of God’s freeloaders.” I’m sure that’s in the Bible somewhere, though perhaps worded slightly differently. Remember what Jesus said about how God rewards those who give even a cup of cold water to one of his children? That would be us, God’s children. His dear little thirsty freeloaders. His dear little thirsty and hungry freeloaders.
God bless us, and God bless those who look after us!
Huge blessings come the way of those who look after God’s children, especially when they’re in their seriously-following-Jesus freeloading years. But that’s always the way – those who help get more than those who are helped. It’s a wonderful law. Unfortunately, it’s been perverted by some “wolves” to insinuate that God will reward people MATERIALLY for helping others, but that’s not God’s way.
The best rewards are always spiritual.
What keeps me going as I stare into my empty wallet (and try not to cry) is thinking about Heaven. I can have all my wants here now, on Earth, if I choose to, or I can wait and get them in Heaven, where they’ll be infinitely better and last forever.
Most people, sadly, have chosen to get their wants now. It’s tempting, that’s for sure, but it’s best to do what Jesus did, and he waited to get his wants in Heaven. So did Paul, and so did all the prophets.
In this, as in everything else, we should choose as Jesus did. As long as we’re doing God’s work, we’ll have enough for our needs while we’re here on Earth. And then, if and when we get to Heaven – PARTY TIME!
As my grandmother used to say: “The good Lord provides.”
And that’s something else you can bet your bottom dollar on.
HEAVEN TEN
I am rabidly areligious. I hate all religions equally, and I hate them with a passion.
In my mind, ‘freedom of religion’ just means freedom to bow down to whichever demon you fancy, because all religions are demon worship, every single one. It’s better to live where religion is outlawed than to live where all religions are welcome.
Take Christianity, for instance. It’s loosely based on Jesus’ life and teachings, but it’s polar opposite to what Jesus intended. When he warned us: “Many will come in my name”, he was referring to the multiplicity of denominations that would spring up like weeds after a hard rain. None of these denominations reflect the true teachings of Jesus, and yet all claim to be “Christian”. Like the other demon-worshiping cults they mimic (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.), denominational Christianity is based on creeds and a rigid system of beliefs rather than raw live faith.
Jesus wanted us to experience faith raw and live, and he showed us how we can do that. Rather than institute a religious system that requires us to mouth “vain repetitions” (by reciting certain words over and over at certain times of the day) or perform deeds that were disconnected from our daily lives (like attending worship services), Jesus demonstrated how faith in God should not be something separate from what we do every day but instead should be life itself. He constantly referred to God as “the living God”, and invited us to live along with him. We don’t need to go into a building to worship God because our worship is the choices we make, every day, all day. We are our faith, we don’t just “practice” it.
If you follow Jesus as you should be following Jesus, your faith is indistinguishable from your life. In fact, if you follow Jesus as you should be following him, you could live in a Muslim country where Christianity is outlawed, and still openly live your faith 24/7. This is what is so astounding about what Jesus accomplished: he not only conquered death by paying our sin-debt on the cross, but he also conquered religion and the need for religious worship by turning everyday life into worship.
If you follow Jesus, you automatically are worshiping God.
If you follow Jesus, you live your faith real and raw by the choices you make, every day, all day.
Following Jesus is the highest calling a human being can aspire to; it’s also the most natural and the most rewarding. Jesus was a cool guy who lived a cool life. He was answerable to nothing and no-one but God, whose values he fully shared and fully espoused. He was areligious in the extreme.
So should you be.
HEAVEN NINE
One topic that makes many born-agains intensely uncomfortable is earthly possessions.
You know – your stuff. Your belongings. The ‘treasures’ you cherish and the things you use daily that you can’t imagine doing without, like your car, your furniture, your pots and pans, your dishes, your phone.
Your stuff.
Jesus had no stuff. Whatever he’d accumulated in Nazareth before leaving home to preach, he likely left behind in Nazareth. He had only the clothes on his back when John baptized him. As a preacher, he roamed from village to village, using what he found along the way but taking nothing with him.
Jesus is our model on how we are to live our lives. All born-agains accept this as God’s truth, but when it comes to earthly possessions, some get very touchy.
People can get really attached to their stuff.
The rich young ruler was attached to his stuff, too, and Jesus saw that it was preventing him from doing God’s will. That’s why he told him to get rid of it.
All of it.
Yikes.
Some of you reading this are probably feeling distinctly uncomfortable right about now. Maybe you’re thinking that getting rid of your stuff doesn’t apply to you because you can do God’s will well enough WITH all your stuff in tow, thank you very much.
That’s between you and God, but Jesus is our example, and he had no stuff. Before he left Nazareth, he likely had lots of stuff, but as soon as he started preaching, he let it all go. It would have slowed him down and redirected his energy and attention. Stuff can do that to you. Possessions can possess you even more than you possess them.
Better to live each day as if it were your last, because it could be. We came into this world empty-handed, and we’ll leave empty-handed. When we become born-again, we die to this world. What does that mean, to “die to this world”? When you die, you no longer have any stuff. Other people get what had been yours. If we are to live our born-again lives as if we died to the world, then our stuff has to go, just as the cursing, the fornicating, the lying, the stealing, the coveting, etc., also have to go.
When we become born-again, we leave the world spiritually and enter into a transition zone between Heaven and Earth. Our body is still in the world, but our spirit is not. What the world holds dear, we no longer value. That includes our and everyone else’s stuff.
I know this is hard for some of you to read. You might even point to clever arguments that show you can have your stuff and still do God’s will, have your cake and eat it, too. As long as your possessions don’t possess you, you can keep them, right?
Right?
Jesus is our example. He had no stuff.
“Sell what you have, give to the poor, and come follow me.”
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 