Something I would like to mention today is the subject of spiritual purity or sanctity. For many Christians the emphasis in their lives is the church; an institution comprised of buildings used to gather up believers every Sunday. The meeting together of believers is good for sharing stories of faith, teaching, personal breakthrough, praise and worship, collection of funds for charitable purposes and also for the establishment of faith and the networking of believers among themselves.
The central problem of church attendance is that it does not allow a person to understand the condition of their soul. You and I are souls and we have little idea of what condition our soul is in when we become Christians. Is it true to say that God alone knows the condition of each man's soul, or is it possible for each man to know the spiritual state of his own heart? Every person in this world is a sinner, that is something we all have been told. However, there are levels of sin which makes one man's heart cleaner than another. Some of us are deep in the mire while others of us are less deep in the mire. The point is we are all in the mire, but the levels vary from one soul to another. One man guards his heart while another lets it go to a life of hedonistic indulgence.
The thing we have to remember about Christianity is that it is a way to follow, which is designed to bring the soul's of men out of sins. It is a path which involves us undertaking a journey from darkness into light, from despair and sorrows into hope and joy. When you strip away the praise and worship, the bricks and mortar church, the sermon and the feel-good feeling of mixing with other believers, there is a fundamental question which remains to be answered. Are our hearts (spirits) right with God? The point is NONE of our hearts are in truth right with God. Why do I say that? Because we are all sinners. What is the condition of the heart which is right with God and which God will accept? Only that soul who has a clean and pure heart. That is, the soul which has undergone purification. We are justified by faith so that by walking each day in the faith, we might achieve the outcome of our faith, which is a holy soul.
The souls which God takes unto himself and to be his own, are those who fit his definition of righteousness, not the worlds definition. The soul can be in many states, but the only state which is of interest to God are the HOLY souls. A holy soul is a soul which is PURE. A PURE soul is a soul which is INCORRUPT and UNDEFILED by the contamination of SIN. The PERFECTION which is mentioned in the bible, has to do with a soul which is in the condition which God accepts into heaven. God is supposed to transform the sinner into the saint, by the removal of dross from the soul. It means that the soul retains it's essential character without the defilement of sins to influence it in a negative way.
The purpose of faith is to keep the faith through a time of purification of the soul. How do we know our soul is being purified during this time? Because as sin is succoured from the soul or removed from it by the Holy Spirit, the person is supposed to undergo emotional changes and increases in will-power which make him feel better. The inner feelings of heaviness, sorrow, misery, anxiety and despair of the sin-laden soul are supposed to be transient phases giving way to feelings of peace, happiness, light-heartedness, relaxation, satisfaction, joy and eventually bliss at the point of salvation. There are many believers who begin life as church-goers but due to not understanding the fundamental promises of the faith, fall away through poor understanding because their attempts to obtain what the faith promises are never realised. The simple fact remains: these souls do not achieve what the bible promises because they believe a series of faulty reasonings and false teachings which dominates church preaching.
If we understand that the salvation of the soul is a spiritual state of sinlessness, then it follows that salvation is the condition or state achieved by a soul through their faith in God through a period of earthly suffering, where they will carry a cross.
While it is true that faith is supposed to bring a reward and prosperity into the life of the disciple of Jesus, the simple fact remains that Jesus said that we would have to take up our cross and follow him. He did not say that he had carried our cross for us. There is a cross for all Christians to bear before the state of spiritual purity is reached. The bible says that we are to accept Jesus Christ and WE WILL BE be saved. It does not say that when we accept Jesus Christ WE ARE saved. If we are saved the minute we accept Jesus into our hearts by faith, then why does the scripture not say "you are saved". Instead the scripture says "you will be saved". "Will be" implies a given time in the future for those who enter the faith. It does not mean immediately. If there was an immediate reward, then the scripture would say, "you are saved".
Some souls enter the faith because they are suffering inside and yet when they accept Jesus into their hearts by faith, little changes in their lives. According to church teaching, a person is guaranteed to have a heart or soul which is instantly transformed from internal suffering to bliss and full enlightenment the minute they enter the faith. This DOES NOT HAPPEN in reality. Why not? Because we are told we will suffer for our sins. The church teaches the prosperity of Christ but it does not teach how we will have to suffer for that prosperity. It does not teach about how God will first punish those he accepts as Sons.
The modern church candy coats the truth to make it more appealing to believers. Why? Precisely because it is an institution which depends upon the monetary contributions of those believers. A prosperous church by worldly definitions, is one whose congregation is growing, whose coffers are swelling and whose influence and reach is extending. Does God want those things? Not if it means that those men are going to church to appease their own consciences and if they continue to believe the lie that they are without sins. By all means go to church, only realise that church-going is dominated by believers who are going there to learn about how to become rich in this life. They are normally not going to church in order to be transformed into Christs.
A church which preaches on the hardships which must be suffered by believers first is not going to be filled with people on Sundays! People want QUICK FIX religion and they are getting a corrupted version of truth because their financial contributions appease their consciences and make the entire charade seem OK and tolerable. It isn't. In fact it is rotten to the core! Jesus exposed this two thousand years ago.
In the early church, people met in the homes of others. The church was a gathering of human temples - hearts cleaned and prepared for anointing. Each person was filled with power after receiving the anointing. The manifestation of God's power in the life of a believer is supposed to be witnessed by others. The sound of rushing wind filling the room and the decent of flames of fire on each person's head is how the apostles received the anointing in the early church, yet I doubt if there is any Christian who has witnessed that sign of apostleship in the life of another in the modern church.
The point I am trying to make, is that it is only through the sufferings of Christ that we are able to fully identify with Christ. There is no rapture without tribulation, meaning GREAT AFFLICTION or OPPRESSION. The bible says, the servant's sufferings will turn to joy.
When we realise that the wreckage of our lives is because of the sins we have committed, that is not an end to our suffering. In truth that is only the beginning of a long road of suffering on the way to the peace, the joy and the bliss promised by Jesus. What the church is teaching, is a message of pure prosperity which bypasses the need for suffering. Humans do not learn from good times. True learning, maturity and wisdom only begin when a man has been thoroughly humbled by God and has suffered. If God were to instantly save and redeem your soul from sin the moment you accepted Jesus, what would you have learned from your mistakes? I should think precious little. The truth is that no person is going to receive anything from God until they have suffered for their sins. Why is there a cross for us to carry, if Jesus has shouldered the burden?
In Matthew's gospel it says "blessed are those who are pure in heart, for they will see God". It also says "blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled". What is being said in the first line is that those who have a heart which is undefiled by sin, will actually see God. How is this possible? Well firstly one must understand that it does not refer to the physical eyes of the flesh, but to the eyes of the spirit-man. The eyes of the heart were designed by God to see into the spiritual realm. There is a gospel song which goes, "open the eyes of my heart Lord, I want to see you." The eyes of the heart are opened when sin is removed from the heart. It means that in the condition of righteousness and holiness and spiritual purity, a man will be able to look upon his creator and bear witness to the risen Lord as he exists in heaven. It means that men have the God-given spiritual faculties to see amazing things in heaven, such as angelic powers and future events to come.
Is a man able to see the Devil in the spirit? Of course it is possible. Jesus said "to him who keeps my word, he shall not see death". Now we know that the prince of death is Satan himself. He is the emissary of death, also known as the destroyer. He is the one who comes to steal, to kill and destroy and also to take men to the grave when they pass from this life. The ones who keep Jesus word will not have to face the grave and look into the eyes of the devil when they pass from this life, because they will have emerged from sins before they pass from this life.
In the early church, the principle message of the cross was taught as the resurrection from death. This teaching concerns the ascendancy of the soul or spirit. The message of the ascention was that the soul was baptised into death because it would have to go down first into the spiritual underworld before shedding its sins and being raised into glory. Today's church says that you are saved at the inception of your faith. They miss the entire purpose of faith. What the institution of church is saying, is that the believer is raised into glory the minute he accepts Christ and bypasses the need to suffer as Christ suffered. If the "salvation of our souls is the outcome or goal of our faith", as declared in 1 Peter 1:9, then how is it possible to claim that we have achieved this outcome, the minute we enter into the faith? What the church is teaching then, is fundamentally impossible because it bypasses the punishment of God, which falls upon the sinner. If we enter the faith and are immediately saved, what need is there for training in righteousness, for perseverance, endurance, for patience, for long-suffering, for the learning of obedience?
All these spiritual qualities cultivated in the suffering soul become irrelevant, because according to the church you get to be instantly transformed into a pure soul. They are saying that when you ask for forgiveness of sins, you suddenly have all sins removed from you. Well if that were true, then every man who becomes a Christian would immediately be imbued with the power and authority attained by the apostles of the ancient church. The anointing with its visible manifestations is not being received by believers because they have not achieved spiritual purity. They are not delivered from sin as they believe themselves to be. This is one of the major end-time deceptions warned against in scripture.
Protestants and Evangelicals Admit Their Theology is Incomplete
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It's very interesting when Evangelical scholars admit themselves that
"their theology is incomplete" and what they need to do to change that.
For an Evang...
3 months ago


