ENGLISH ONLY EDITION. Light is sown like seed for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Psalm 97:11
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Lessons from the Thief on the Cross
Reblogged from the-end-time.blogspot.com
Jesus was crucified between two criminals, one to His right and another to His left. (Luke 23:33). They were thieves. (Matthew 27:44).
“One of the criminals who was hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:39-43)
What was the forgiven thief’s name?
[crickets]
We don’t know, do we? When we look at the passage, often what is looked at, rightly, is the Lord’s compassion for man that He would ignore His own pain and minister to the sinners. Also, people use the text as proof that one can be justified without having done works such as baptism or partaken of the Lord’s Supper.
But what I’d like to look at is the man’s anonymity. All we know of him is that he is called The Thief on the Cross.
How would you like to be forever known by your sin? A thief. Forever.
There were others known by their sin, forever nameless in the bible. For example, there was--
--The Adulteress (John 8:3)
--The Serial Co-Habitating Woman at the Well (John 4:18)
What we know is that in the last moments of His incarnation, the last sinner whom Jesus justified was a thief. That's what makes the thief special. He is forever identified with his sin. Not his name, not His socio-economic status (Rich Young Ruler, The Rich Man and Lazarus) not his race (Syrophoenician Woman). He was a thief, a criminal, and unnamed.
What makes the thief not-special is that you or I could have been that person on the cross next to Jesus just as easily. Having broken some Jewish Law or a Roman civil law, you or I could be executed for our crimes too. All crimes are sins against God. You could be --
--The Lustful Woman on the Cross
--The Liar on the Cross
--The Greedy Defrauder on the Cross
--The Hypocrite on the Cross
--The Embezzler on the Cross
--The Porn Addicted Man on the Cross
Forever identified not as a person by your sin. Indeed, the other thief is forever identified by his sin at this moment, he died not believing.
However, the thief's notability is that he was the LAST person to be identified by His sin. Why? Colossians 2:13-14 says
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
The thievery is nailed to the cross, but the thief is alive! He is restored! He has a name! We will know him in heaven!
The atoning work of Jesus Christ is full of mercy, grace, and compassion, of which we startlingly see demonstrated by the conversation between the thief and the Messiah. Our sins are forgiven, and we are no longer known as sinners with names such as The Thief, the Adulterer, The Liar. We are known to Jesus as children of God, washed in His blood, made alive via the cross, where our sins are still nailed. The anonymous now have a name, and the dead shall live.
Hallelujah!
Posted: 20 May 2014 03:12 PM PDT
Jesus was crucified between two criminals, one to His right and another to His left. (Luke 23:33). They were thieves. (Matthew 27:44).
“One of the criminals who was hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:39-43)
What was the forgiven thief’s name?
[crickets]
We don’t know, do we? When we look at the passage, often what is looked at, rightly, is the Lord’s compassion for man that He would ignore His own pain and minister to the sinners. Also, people use the text as proof that one can be justified without having done works such as baptism or partaken of the Lord’s Supper.
But what I’d like to look at is the man’s anonymity. All we know of him is that he is called The Thief on the Cross.
How would you like to be forever known by your sin? A thief. Forever.
There were others known by their sin, forever nameless in the bible. For example, there was--
--The Adulteress (John 8:3)
--The Serial Co-Habitating Woman at the Well (John 4:18)
What we know is that in the last moments of His incarnation, the last sinner whom Jesus justified was a thief. That's what makes the thief special. He is forever identified with his sin. Not his name, not His socio-economic status (Rich Young Ruler, The Rich Man and Lazarus) not his race (Syrophoenician Woman). He was a thief, a criminal, and unnamed.
What makes the thief not-special is that you or I could have been that person on the cross next to Jesus just as easily. Having broken some Jewish Law or a Roman civil law, you or I could be executed for our crimes too. All crimes are sins against God. You could be --
--The Lustful Woman on the Cross
--The Liar on the Cross
--The Greedy Defrauder on the Cross
--The Hypocrite on the Cross
--The Embezzler on the Cross
--The Porn Addicted Man on the Cross
Forever identified not as a person by your sin. Indeed, the other thief is forever identified by his sin at this moment, he died not believing.
However, the thief's notability is that he was the LAST person to be identified by His sin. Why? Colossians 2:13-14 says
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
The thievery is nailed to the cross, but the thief is alive! He is restored! He has a name! We will know him in heaven!
The atoning work of Jesus Christ is full of mercy, grace, and compassion, of which we startlingly see demonstrated by the conversation between the thief and the Messiah. Our sins are forgiven, and we are no longer known as sinners with names such as The Thief, the Adulterer, The Liar. We are known to Jesus as children of God, washed in His blood, made alive via the cross, where our sins are still nailed. The anonymous now have a name, and the dead shall live.
Hallelujah!
Our World: Letting go of Abbas
Rebbloged from carolineglick.com
What makes PLO chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas tick?
In 2008, when Abbas rejected then prime minister Ehud Olmert’s expansive offer of Palestinian statehood, he did so for the same reason that Yassir Arafat rejected then prime minister Ehud Barak’s expansive offer of Palestinian statehood at Camp David in 2000.
In both cases, the PLO chiefs believed that if they waited, they could get everything they demanded from Israel – and more – without giving anything away.
As Abbas and Arafat both saw it, eventually either the Israeli Left would successfully erode Israel’s national will to exist, or the Europeans and the US would join forces to coerce Israel into giving up the store. Or both. So there was no reason for the PLO to give up anything.
To get everything in exchange for nothing all they had to do was continuously escalate the PLO’s political warfare against the legitimacy of Israel internationally, and escalate its subversion of Israeli society through political intrigue and terrorism.
Back then, Abbas and Arafat looked forward to the day when they could frame Israel’s unconditional surrender and nail it to their wall.
But things have changed.
The rise of the revolutionary forces in the Islamic world since December 2010 has transformed the political landscape.
The Syrian civil war, the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, the resurgence of al Qaeda franchises, the US’s abandonment of its traditional Arab allies in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood and President Barack Obama’s aspiration to reach a meeting of the minds with the Iranian regime have completely upended the political calculus of all regional actors, including the PLO and Abbas.
As Palestinian affairs expert Reuven Berko wrote in an article published by the Investigative Project on Terrorism last week, if in the past Abbas wouldn’t make a deal with Israel because he could get more by saying no, today Abbas cannot make a deal with Israel.
Any deal he concludes will lead to his overthrow.
Noting that Abbas was recently threatened by al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahiri who called him, “a traitor who is selling Palestine,” Berko explained, “The threats, veiled or not, by radical Islamists… and a quick look at [the] Arab-Muslim world, especially Syria, have made it clear to the Palestinians what the future has in store for them, and it now appears that in the meantime, they prefer the status quo to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.”
As Berko sees it, Abbas’s primary problem is the residents of the UN refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and beyond. Israel’s unwillingness to accept a so-called “right of return,” which would enable millions of foreign Arabs residing in terrorist-controlled UN-run refugee camps to immigrate to a post-peace agreement Israel, means that in an era of peace, they will move to the newly created state of Palestine.
Berko rightly notes that these immigrants will not regard Abbas as their savior, to the contrary.
“The Palestinian leadership knows that if their demand for Palestinian control of the Jordan Valley crossings were accepted, the operative result would be floods of people seeking entrance into ‘liberated Palestine.’ They know that among them would be operatives of all the Palestinian terrorist organizations, to say nothing of the armed jihadists currently active in the Arab-Muslim world, especially in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, who would stream in ‘to liberate all Palestine.’ The new Palestinian state would have no grounds to refuse entrance to the ‘jihad heroes,’ or to close its borders to all those attracted by the prosperity in Judea and Samaria, or to those who hoped to enter Israel or to those who intended [to] use ‘Palestine’ as a convenient base from which to attack Israel.”
The new immigrants would overwhelm Abbas and his comrades, making the Hamas ouster of Fatah forces from Gaza in 2007 look like a walk in the park.
Berko limited his discussion to a scenario in which these foreign Arabs are confined to “Palestine.” But if Israel were to agree to his demand that they move into its sovereign territory, Abbas’s future would be no different.
If Israel were to publicly renounce its right to exist, cancel the Declaration of Independence and adopt the PLO Charter as its new constitution, Abbas would be no better off than if he conceded Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, compromised on the so-called “right of return,” and accepted the settlements.
In both cases, he would end up like Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi.
It is because he knows this that he will do anything to prevent a peace deal with Israel.
Some Israelis are pleased with Abbas’s stand. As they see it, his position enables Israel and the Palestinians to operate under the status quo more or less unchallenged for the foreseeable future.
There are two problems with this view. First, neither the Americans nor the Israeli Left are willing to let the peace process go. US Secretary of State John Kerry’s decision to devote two hours to yet another meeting with Abbas last week, despite Abbas’s unity deal with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, shows that Kerry is constitutionally incapable of disengaging.
Likewise, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni’s wildcat diplomacy, which involved an unauthorized meeting with Abbas in London last week, demonstrates that like the Americans, Israel’s Left cannot relent.
Livni and her comrades have no issue other than the Palestinian issue. Their political survival is tied to the peace process.
The second problem is Abbas. Whereas he needs to prevent a settlement to keep the jihadists at bay, he needs to escalate the conflict to keep the local Palestinians at bay and maintain the support of the Europeans and the American Left.
Only by scapegoating and criminalizing Israel worldwide can Abbas maintain his relevance to the international Left.
And only by enabling and glorifying terrorism and actively inciting for the destruction of Israel can Abbas maintain what is left of his credibility among the Palestinians – five and a half years after his term of office legally ended.
The two-state model is his life preserver. The policy paradigm is based entirely on the false claim that the cause of all the region’s ills is the absence of a Palestinian state. That state, it is believed, would exist save for Israel’s land greed.
Those who uphold Abbas and the status quo ignore the consequences of Abbas’s own imperatives. In the international arena, preserving the status quo requires Israel to maintain its allegiance to the two-state paradigm’s inherent and malicious slander of the Jewish state. This allegiance in turn makes it impossible for Israel to defend itself effectively against the Palestinian led campaign to deny its right to exist.
In its internal affairs, maintaining faith in the two-state model and in Abbas as a legitimate and moderate Palestinian leader makes it almost impossible for Israel to take effective measures to defend against the Palestinian terror infrastructure.
That infrastructure relies on the Palestinian security forces, which Abbas, our purported peace partner, controls. Israel cannot discredit its “peace partner,” without disowning the phony peace process and rejecting the two-state paradigm. Consequently, it cannot take the necessary measures – like demanding that the US military stop training the Palestinian security forces — to effectively protect its citizens.
The time has come for Israel to show Abbas the door. It would be best if we can do it quietly – offering him the opportunity to relocate to somewhere warm and retain all the loot that he and his cronies have siphoned off for their personal use.
Once Abbas is gone, Israel will have to choose between applying its laws to parts of Judea and Samaria and offering the Palestinians outside those areas a limited form of autonomy, or applying its laws to the entire region, conferring permanent residency status on the Palestinians and offering them the right to apply for Israeli citizenship.
Alarmists argue that without Abbas, Israel will go broke having to finance the Palestinian budget. But this is ridiculous. Once you subtract the hundreds of millions of dollars that go missing every year, and you take into account that Israel managed to govern the areas for 24 years, you realize that this is just one more empty threat – like the demographic threat — made by people who have no political existence without the facade of a peace process.
Abbas is not an asset. He is a liability. It is time to move past him.
Caroline B. Glick is the author of The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.
What makes PLO chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas tick?
In 2008, when Abbas rejected then prime minister Ehud Olmert’s expansive offer of Palestinian statehood, he did so for the same reason that Yassir Arafat rejected then prime minister Ehud Barak’s expansive offer of Palestinian statehood at Camp David in 2000.
In both cases, the PLO chiefs believed that if they waited, they could get everything they demanded from Israel – and more – without giving anything away.
As Abbas and Arafat both saw it, eventually either the Israeli Left would successfully erode Israel’s national will to exist, or the Europeans and the US would join forces to coerce Israel into giving up the store. Or both. So there was no reason for the PLO to give up anything.
To get everything in exchange for nothing all they had to do was continuously escalate the PLO’s political warfare against the legitimacy of Israel internationally, and escalate its subversion of Israeli society through political intrigue and terrorism.
Back then, Abbas and Arafat looked forward to the day when they could frame Israel’s unconditional surrender and nail it to their wall.
But things have changed.
The rise of the revolutionary forces in the Islamic world since December 2010 has transformed the political landscape.
The Syrian civil war, the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, the resurgence of al Qaeda franchises, the US’s abandonment of its traditional Arab allies in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood and President Barack Obama’s aspiration to reach a meeting of the minds with the Iranian regime have completely upended the political calculus of all regional actors, including the PLO and Abbas.
As Palestinian affairs expert Reuven Berko wrote in an article published by the Investigative Project on Terrorism last week, if in the past Abbas wouldn’t make a deal with Israel because he could get more by saying no, today Abbas cannot make a deal with Israel.
Any deal he concludes will lead to his overthrow.
Noting that Abbas was recently threatened by al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahiri who called him, “a traitor who is selling Palestine,” Berko explained, “The threats, veiled or not, by radical Islamists… and a quick look at [the] Arab-Muslim world, especially Syria, have made it clear to the Palestinians what the future has in store for them, and it now appears that in the meantime, they prefer the status quo to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.”
As Berko sees it, Abbas’s primary problem is the residents of the UN refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and beyond. Israel’s unwillingness to accept a so-called “right of return,” which would enable millions of foreign Arabs residing in terrorist-controlled UN-run refugee camps to immigrate to a post-peace agreement Israel, means that in an era of peace, they will move to the newly created state of Palestine.
Berko rightly notes that these immigrants will not regard Abbas as their savior, to the contrary.
“The Palestinian leadership knows that if their demand for Palestinian control of the Jordan Valley crossings were accepted, the operative result would be floods of people seeking entrance into ‘liberated Palestine.’ They know that among them would be operatives of all the Palestinian terrorist organizations, to say nothing of the armed jihadists currently active in the Arab-Muslim world, especially in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, who would stream in ‘to liberate all Palestine.’ The new Palestinian state would have no grounds to refuse entrance to the ‘jihad heroes,’ or to close its borders to all those attracted by the prosperity in Judea and Samaria, or to those who hoped to enter Israel or to those who intended [to] use ‘Palestine’ as a convenient base from which to attack Israel.”
The new immigrants would overwhelm Abbas and his comrades, making the Hamas ouster of Fatah forces from Gaza in 2007 look like a walk in the park.
Berko limited his discussion to a scenario in which these foreign Arabs are confined to “Palestine.” But if Israel were to agree to his demand that they move into its sovereign territory, Abbas’s future would be no different.
If Israel were to publicly renounce its right to exist, cancel the Declaration of Independence and adopt the PLO Charter as its new constitution, Abbas would be no better off than if he conceded Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, compromised on the so-called “right of return,” and accepted the settlements.
In both cases, he would end up like Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi.
It is because he knows this that he will do anything to prevent a peace deal with Israel.
Some Israelis are pleased with Abbas’s stand. As they see it, his position enables Israel and the Palestinians to operate under the status quo more or less unchallenged for the foreseeable future.
There are two problems with this view. First, neither the Americans nor the Israeli Left are willing to let the peace process go. US Secretary of State John Kerry’s decision to devote two hours to yet another meeting with Abbas last week, despite Abbas’s unity deal with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, shows that Kerry is constitutionally incapable of disengaging.
Likewise, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni’s wildcat diplomacy, which involved an unauthorized meeting with Abbas in London last week, demonstrates that like the Americans, Israel’s Left cannot relent.
Livni and her comrades have no issue other than the Palestinian issue. Their political survival is tied to the peace process.
The second problem is Abbas. Whereas he needs to prevent a settlement to keep the jihadists at bay, he needs to escalate the conflict to keep the local Palestinians at bay and maintain the support of the Europeans and the American Left.
Only by scapegoating and criminalizing Israel worldwide can Abbas maintain his relevance to the international Left.
And only by enabling and glorifying terrorism and actively inciting for the destruction of Israel can Abbas maintain what is left of his credibility among the Palestinians – five and a half years after his term of office legally ended.
The two-state model is his life preserver. The policy paradigm is based entirely on the false claim that the cause of all the region’s ills is the absence of a Palestinian state. That state, it is believed, would exist save for Israel’s land greed.
Those who uphold Abbas and the status quo ignore the consequences of Abbas’s own imperatives. In the international arena, preserving the status quo requires Israel to maintain its allegiance to the two-state paradigm’s inherent and malicious slander of the Jewish state. This allegiance in turn makes it impossible for Israel to defend itself effectively against the Palestinian led campaign to deny its right to exist.
In its internal affairs, maintaining faith in the two-state model and in Abbas as a legitimate and moderate Palestinian leader makes it almost impossible for Israel to take effective measures to defend against the Palestinian terror infrastructure.
That infrastructure relies on the Palestinian security forces, which Abbas, our purported peace partner, controls. Israel cannot discredit its “peace partner,” without disowning the phony peace process and rejecting the two-state paradigm. Consequently, it cannot take the necessary measures – like demanding that the US military stop training the Palestinian security forces — to effectively protect its citizens.
The time has come for Israel to show Abbas the door. It would be best if we can do it quietly – offering him the opportunity to relocate to somewhere warm and retain all the loot that he and his cronies have siphoned off for their personal use.
Once Abbas is gone, Israel will have to choose between applying its laws to parts of Judea and Samaria and offering the Palestinians outside those areas a limited form of autonomy, or applying its laws to the entire region, conferring permanent residency status on the Palestinians and offering them the right to apply for Israeli citizenship.
Alarmists argue that without Abbas, Israel will go broke having to finance the Palestinian budget. But this is ridiculous. Once you subtract the hundreds of millions of dollars that go missing every year, and you take into account that Israel managed to govern the areas for 24 years, you realize that this is just one more empty threat – like the demographic threat — made by people who have no political existence without the facade of a peace process.
Abbas is not an asset. He is a liability. It is time to move past him.
Caroline B. Glick is the author of The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Waiting for God´s Timing
Written and posted by Jean-Louis. 2/2011
Ex 32:1-10
“Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him: “Come, make us a god who will go before us, as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him”.
Obedience not only involves doing the things that God commanded right away, but it also involves waiting on God and His instructions through His spokesman or the guidance of the Holy Spirit through the various means that He has chosen to reveal His will.
This is crucial because the flesh has the tendency to take over with impatience and rash decisions are made against God’s will. Of course, we deceive ourselves by choosing our own sign by which to interpret God’s will. Or we could be deceived by our enemy and falling into the trap of thinking it’s our own thought when in reality it was suggested by the enemy. We then proceed to make things happen in our own strength in order to fulfill our own wishes or desires and when they happen we are so happy and feel so blessed because we feel our prayers have been answered until God opens our eyes to the reality of our condition and the disposition of our hearts.
Of course nothing happens that is out of His sovereign rule, so He will use even our mistakes, our sins, our disobedience to teach us a lesson, discipline us so that we can learn and grow.
The children of Israel knew that it was God who performed the miracles leading them out of bondage in Egypt , but they had to blame Moses because they couldn’t wait.
Aaron had no business making a proclamation about a feast. The Lord had told them in Egypt that He would give them instructions about where, when and how they were to worship the LORD.
The irony is that while they were taking matters into their own hands, God was at work giving the instructions to Moses.
The questions to us is: “Are we going to take God at His word and believe what He says even if it means waiting for His delay in answering our prayers or are we going to act in the flesh and bring about the things that we desire thus worshiping the idols of our hearts in disobedience and rebellion against God”?
Most of the time when we are impatient we don’t realize that God in His loving kindness towards us is working on our behalf to bring things and people in our lives, ordering the circumstances to bless us and do us good because He loves us and knows what is best for us.
Jean-Louis.
Ex 32:1-10
“Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him: “Come, make us a god who will go before us, as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him”.
Obedience not only involves doing the things that God commanded right away, but it also involves waiting on God and His instructions through His spokesman or the guidance of the Holy Spirit through the various means that He has chosen to reveal His will.
This is crucial because the flesh has the tendency to take over with impatience and rash decisions are made against God’s will. Of course, we deceive ourselves by choosing our own sign by which to interpret God’s will. Or we could be deceived by our enemy and falling into the trap of thinking it’s our own thought when in reality it was suggested by the enemy. We then proceed to make things happen in our own strength in order to fulfill our own wishes or desires and when they happen we are so happy and feel so blessed because we feel our prayers have been answered until God opens our eyes to the reality of our condition and the disposition of our hearts.
Of course nothing happens that is out of His sovereign rule, so He will use even our mistakes, our sins, our disobedience to teach us a lesson, discipline us so that we can learn and grow.
The children of Israel knew that it was God who performed the miracles leading them out of bondage in Egypt , but they had to blame Moses because they couldn’t wait.
Aaron had no business making a proclamation about a feast. The Lord had told them in Egypt that He would give them instructions about where, when and how they were to worship the LORD.
The irony is that while they were taking matters into their own hands, God was at work giving the instructions to Moses.
The questions to us is: “Are we going to take God at His word and believe what He says even if it means waiting for His delay in answering our prayers or are we going to act in the flesh and bring about the things that we desire thus worshiping the idols of our hearts in disobedience and rebellion against God”?
Most of the time when we are impatient we don’t realize that God in His loving kindness towards us is working on our behalf to bring things and people in our lives, ordering the circumstances to bless us and do us good because He loves us and knows what is best for us.
Jean-Louis.
What Did God Do On The Eighth Day?
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing;
so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the
seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work
of creating that he had done. (Genesis 2:2-3)
These two verses are much different from those describing the preceding days in the creation account. All of them included the phrase “it was evening and it was morning, day … “. Not so for the seventh day. Also the Hebrew word translated rested is shabath (pronounced sha-BAT). We get sabbath from this word. It appears 71 times in the Bible, and 47 of those times it’s translated “cease”. It only means rest 11 times.
Now don’t accuse me of promoting the “Great Watchmaker” theory of creation. That’s the one where God created the world and all that’s in it, then set it in motion, and has been just sitting there watching it run ever since. Let’s look at what God has been doing since He stopped creating. We’ll begin in John’s Gospel.
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. (John 5:16-19)
This tells us that both the Father and the Son have so much to do that they work every day, even on the Sabbath. So they haven’t been just sitting around waiting. They’ve both been working every day from that day to this.
But that’s not the point. The point is this. Since the end of the 6th day, God has never again taken up the work of creation. Where the creation is concerned he has never ceased his Sabbath rest.
But when we get to the New Testament we find that the commandment to rest on the Sabbath is the only one of the 10 Commandments not specifically repeated. In fact the most frequent reference to the 4th commandment in the New Testament concerns the Lord’s frequent and flagrant violations of it. On six different occasions, the Lord defended working on the Sabbath, each time showing the religious leaders of the day that their rules for keeping the Sabbath were man made, arbitrary, and counter to God’s purpose. For example the priests in the Temple desecrated every Sabbath by working (Matt. 12:5), and the people could water their animals (Luke 13:15) or rescue them from danger (Matt. 12:11) but they couldn’t heal a person (Luke 13:14).
In Romans 14:5 Paul taught that we have the right to either consider one day holier than the others or to regard all days the same, based on our personal convictions. And in Colossians 1:16-17 he said not to let anyone judge us in regard to a religious festival or a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. He said that these things were only a shadow of things that were coming, that the reality was found in Christ.
Somehow the Sabbath commandment was supposed to teach us something about our relationship with Jesus. So let’s find out what it is.
God created the Heavens and the Earth. They didn’t do anything to help, He did it all. At the end of six days, He rested (ceased) from His work because it was finished. He never again took up the work of creating. He made the seventh day, a day without end, holy. There was no eighth day. Then He created a memorial. From that time forward the seventh day was a day of rest where no work was permitted to remind us that when His work was finished He ceased working.
Since we’re trapped in the dimension of time, we can’t have any days without end. So when God set up our calendar He made every seventh day holy, and then the calendar began again. There’s never an eighth day. This was to help us to see that the seventh day, the day of rest, never ends. To underscore the importance of this, He made working on the seventh day punishable by death.
But man missed the point. We thought it was about working on the Sabbath when it was really about resting when the work is finished, and that’s how all this relates to Jesus.
Jesus came to Earth with one job to do. It was to die for the sins of the people so we could be redeemed and live forever with Him (John 1:29). He was making us into a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). We didn’t do anything to help, He did it all. When He died on the cross, His work was done. That’s why His last words before He died were, “It is finished.” Then He bowed His head and gave up His Spirit (John 19:30).
He never had to take up the work of redemption again, for by that once-for-all-time sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy (Hebr. 10:12-14). When He ascended into Heaven, He sat down at the right hand of the Father. The redemptive work of our new creation was finished, so He ceased working. This is why some theologians refer to the Lord’s work of redemption as His “completed” work on the cross.
Jesus forgave all of your sins at the cross (Col 2:13-15) and therefore He saved you completely. Hebr. 7:25 confirms that He is able to do this. According to 2 Cor. 1:21-22 God has accepted responsibility for keeping you saved. He has set His seal of ownership on you and put His spirit in your heart to guarantee this.
Believing that means your work of salvation is finished and you have entered into your life-long seventh day, your Sabbath rest. It means you’ve done what God requires and the work of your salvation is finished. You will inherit eternal life. “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:40)
Just as God never again took up the work of creation, and Jesus never again took up the work of redemption, you need never again take up the work of salvation. You’re a new creation and the work is finished. Now you rest, as they rested. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. (Hebrews 4:9-10)
As we can see from the above, the folks who keep asking whether Saturday or Sunday is the correct Sabbath for Christians to keep are asking the wrong question. The real question we should all be asking is whether we are keeping our Sabbath rest or not. It doesn’t matter that you say you’re born again. If you are still working to earn or keep your salvation after saying that you’ve accepted the work Jesus did for you, then you are violating the commandment to keep the Sabbath and are subject to the penalty of the Sabbath breaker in Numbers 15.
His was a physical death, but yours will be a spiritual one, because you aren’t doing the one and only work He gave you to do; you aren’t believing in the One He has sent. Instead, you’re believing in your own ability to finish the work you think He only began. And that means you aren’t saved.
There isn’t much time left for the Church. The Lord could come while you’re reading this. Please consider these things carefully. Make sure you’re really saved by grace through faith. Not by works, lest anyone boast. (Ephes. 2:8-9) Remember, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness (Romans 4:5). Believe in the One God sent to save you, enter your sabbath rest, and don’t ever take up the work of your salvation again. 05-17-14
These two verses are much different from those describing the preceding days in the creation account. All of them included the phrase “it was evening and it was morning, day … “. Not so for the seventh day. Also the Hebrew word translated rested is shabath (pronounced sha-BAT). We get sabbath from this word. It appears 71 times in the Bible, and 47 of those times it’s translated “cease”. It only means rest 11 times.
Will This Day Ever End?
Now obviously, the seventh day had a beginning and an end just like all the days before and after it. But the fact that there is no mention of this in the text of the creation account indicates that in a spiritual sense this day has never ended. There is no eighth day of creation. God has never taken up the work of creation again, and that’s why a word that also means ceased was used in describing His Sabbath rest.Now don’t accuse me of promoting the “Great Watchmaker” theory of creation. That’s the one where God created the world and all that’s in it, then set it in motion, and has been just sitting there watching it run ever since. Let’s look at what God has been doing since He stopped creating. We’ll begin in John’s Gospel.
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. (John 5:16-19)
This tells us that both the Father and the Son have so much to do that they work every day, even on the Sabbath. So they haven’t been just sitting around waiting. They’ve both been working every day from that day to this.
But that’s not the point. The point is this. Since the end of the 6th day, God has never again taken up the work of creation. Where the creation is concerned he has never ceased his Sabbath rest.
What’s External And Physical In The Old Becomes Internal And Spiritual In The New
In Numbers 15:32-36 we read of a man who was caught gathering wood on the Sabbath. It was a violation of the commandment, but the Israelites didn’t know what to do with him. When they inquired of God, He told them to take him outside the camp and stone him to death. God was serious about not working on the Sabbath.But when we get to the New Testament we find that the commandment to rest on the Sabbath is the only one of the 10 Commandments not specifically repeated. In fact the most frequent reference to the 4th commandment in the New Testament concerns the Lord’s frequent and flagrant violations of it. On six different occasions, the Lord defended working on the Sabbath, each time showing the religious leaders of the day that their rules for keeping the Sabbath were man made, arbitrary, and counter to God’s purpose. For example the priests in the Temple desecrated every Sabbath by working (Matt. 12:5), and the people could water their animals (Luke 13:15) or rescue them from danger (Matt. 12:11) but they couldn’t heal a person (Luke 13:14).
In Romans 14:5 Paul taught that we have the right to either consider one day holier than the others or to regard all days the same, based on our personal convictions. And in Colossians 1:16-17 he said not to let anyone judge us in regard to a religious festival or a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. He said that these things were only a shadow of things that were coming, that the reality was found in Christ.
Somehow the Sabbath commandment was supposed to teach us something about our relationship with Jesus. So let’s find out what it is.
God created the Heavens and the Earth. They didn’t do anything to help, He did it all. At the end of six days, He rested (ceased) from His work because it was finished. He never again took up the work of creating. He made the seventh day, a day without end, holy. There was no eighth day. Then He created a memorial. From that time forward the seventh day was a day of rest where no work was permitted to remind us that when His work was finished He ceased working.
Since we’re trapped in the dimension of time, we can’t have any days without end. So when God set up our calendar He made every seventh day holy, and then the calendar began again. There’s never an eighth day. This was to help us to see that the seventh day, the day of rest, never ends. To underscore the importance of this, He made working on the seventh day punishable by death.
But man missed the point. We thought it was about working on the Sabbath when it was really about resting when the work is finished, and that’s how all this relates to Jesus.
Jesus came to Earth with one job to do. It was to die for the sins of the people so we could be redeemed and live forever with Him (John 1:29). He was making us into a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). We didn’t do anything to help, He did it all. When He died on the cross, His work was done. That’s why His last words before He died were, “It is finished.” Then He bowed His head and gave up His Spirit (John 19:30).
He never had to take up the work of redemption again, for by that once-for-all-time sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy (Hebr. 10:12-14). When He ascended into Heaven, He sat down at the right hand of the Father. The redemptive work of our new creation was finished, so He ceased working. This is why some theologians refer to the Lord’s work of redemption as His “completed” work on the cross.
What Is Our Work?
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:28-29)Jesus forgave all of your sins at the cross (Col 2:13-15) and therefore He saved you completely. Hebr. 7:25 confirms that He is able to do this. According to 2 Cor. 1:21-22 God has accepted responsibility for keeping you saved. He has set His seal of ownership on you and put His spirit in your heart to guarantee this.
Believing that means your work of salvation is finished and you have entered into your life-long seventh day, your Sabbath rest. It means you’ve done what God requires and the work of your salvation is finished. You will inherit eternal life. “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:40)
Just as God never again took up the work of creation, and Jesus never again took up the work of redemption, you need never again take up the work of salvation. You’re a new creation and the work is finished. Now you rest, as they rested. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. (Hebrews 4:9-10)
As we can see from the above, the folks who keep asking whether Saturday or Sunday is the correct Sabbath for Christians to keep are asking the wrong question. The real question we should all be asking is whether we are keeping our Sabbath rest or not. It doesn’t matter that you say you’re born again. If you are still working to earn or keep your salvation after saying that you’ve accepted the work Jesus did for you, then you are violating the commandment to keep the Sabbath and are subject to the penalty of the Sabbath breaker in Numbers 15.
His was a physical death, but yours will be a spiritual one, because you aren’t doing the one and only work He gave you to do; you aren’t believing in the One He has sent. Instead, you’re believing in your own ability to finish the work you think He only began. And that means you aren’t saved.
There isn’t much time left for the Church. The Lord could come while you’re reading this. Please consider these things carefully. Make sure you’re really saved by grace through faith. Not by works, lest anyone boast. (Ephes. 2:8-9) Remember, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness (Romans 4:5). Believe in the One God sent to save you, enter your sabbath rest, and don’t ever take up the work of your salvation again. 05-17-14
The Sectarians in America: The "Jumpers"
Reblogged from Leben Magazine
Written by Lillian Sokoloff, A.B., 1918, from The Russians in Los Angeles
American Christianity has influenced, and been influenced by, a stunning panoply of non-conformist groups, separatist enclaves and, in some cases, self-styled prophets and messiahs. In our series "The Sectarians," we will trace the origins, the beliefs and the impact which some of these groups have had on the Church today. We begin the series with a fascinating report we've recently discovered written in 1918 about a group known as the "Jumpers," or "Molokans," (the former name referring specifically to an 1830's offshoot of the Molokans). Impelled by the utterances of a prophet-child, they left their native Russia by the thousands and headed for the "City of the Angels"—Los Angeles, California.
The first group of Molokans, who came here in 1905 [some date this as 1904, Ed.],
settled around Bethlehem Institute on Vignes Street. When others came, a
few bought homes along Clarence and Utah Streets. Then the settlement
grew in the district situated between Boyle Avenue on the east and the
Los Angeles River on the west, and between Aliso Street on the north and
Seventh Street on the south. Recently there has been a new settlement
made along what is known as Salt Lake Terrace several blocks east of the
larger colony. On that street are located many of the somewhat better
homes. In a hollow south of Stephenson Avenue and east of Mott Street,
there is a group of about sixty houses occupied by Russians only.Sectarian Emigration from Russia.
To understand the Russians in Los Angeles, it is necessary to consider briefly their historical backgrounds. During the reign of Alexis
Michaelovitch,
second ruler of the Romanoff family—1645-1676—Nicon, at that time
patriarch of the Russian Greek-Catholic Church, investigated and decided
to change the liturgy. While the ruling house accepted these changes
and formally adopted his type of worship as the state religion, there
were many dissenters who would not submit to the dictates of the
government in matters of religion. The dissenters were continually
persecuted or banished, and were greatly dissatisfied with the
bureaucratic institutions, with the hypocrisy of the priesthood, and
with the forms of their worship, the numbers who sought other types of
religion that would satisfy their deep religious feelings constantly
grew.Prominent among the religious sects that developed, were the Dukhobors, the Molokans, and the Subotniks. The last-mentioned are Russians who have embraced the Jewish faith. This result was not through influence exerted on the part of Jews, however, because the Jews do not have any form of mission work for the purpose of conversion to Judaism; nor were there any Jews living in that part of Russia where these religious sects developed. The Subotniks embraced Judaism as a result of reading the Old Testament.
The
essence of the Dukhobor religion is a belief in the divinity of Christ
[this is contrary to modern sources, Ed.], and the brotherhood of man.
The Dukhobors do not believe in any earthly representative of God; they
have no church leaders, and no icons or images. They do not have church
ceremonies nor do they believe in saints as do the Greek Catholics. They
are opposed to war and therefore to military service. Their religion
forbids their indulging in the use of intoxicating liquors, and in
smoking.The name "Molokan, derived from the word "moloko" which means milk, was first applied to them in 1765 by a religious sect in the Government of Tambov. This name was applied because of the fact that the Molokans drink milk every day in the week, while the Greek Catholics abstain from it on Wednesdays and Fridays, which are fast days for them.
The
Molokans had no definite form of religion for many years. During the
last years of the seventeenth century, two highly educated men,
Skovoroda and Tveritinoff, had come under the influence of the teachings
of Luther, Calvin, and other European reformers. These men then
preached reform among the dissenters of the Russian Greek-Catholic
Church. They thus paved the way for other reformers. For about one
hundred years, the Molokans were unmolested by the governmental
authorities.It was not long, however, before the Russian government again began to oppress the sectarians in various ways. The heavy taxation of their land proved to be a greater burden than they could possibly bear. They were again compelled to serve in the army. Some of the more educated among them foresaw disastrous times because of inevitable wars in which Russia was to engage. They therefore began to consider the advisability of emigrating from their country. It is well known that of the emigrants from Russia up to the end of the last century, the greatest number were Jews and a smaller per cent were Poles, but scarcely any Russians proper. In the last two years of the nineteenth century, many of the Dukhobors left the Caucasus region and went to Western Canada where several thousands now live. [There remains a large community in the Grand Junction area, Ed.]
The beginning of the Russo-Japanese War inaugurated a new era of persecutions for the sectarians in southeastern Russia. They were compelled to go to war. Though many were capable of occupying high military positions, they were prevented from so doing and were put to the most menial work. They also suffered all kinds of insults at the instigation of government officials. They were not permitted to go anywhere without passports—and passports were not granted them. It is therefore not surprising that these people became disgusted with conditions such as they experienced, and longed to leave the country.
Occupations
Of all the Russians in this city, about 75 per cent of the working men were employed in lumber yards up to the outbreak of the war. Then the majority entered the ship-building industry. About 10 per cent own and drive their own teams, and work by the day in hauling produce and other commodities. About 2 per cent are engaged in running little grocery stores and butcher shops, which are patronized by their own people. The remainder—about 13 per cent—are employed in various ways, e. g., in the metal trades, automobile shops, planing mills, fruit canneries. The last-mentioned occupations are followed by the younger men of the community, who have had some schooling but who left school as soon as the law permitted them to do so.
It
is the usual thing among the Russians for the married women to work.
The young women are employed chiefly in laundries. Girls who have
attended school and have learned the English language, work in the
biscuit factories which are in the neighborhood. A small number of girls
work in a candy factory on Utah Street. The older women work in fruit
canneries or do housework by the day. Though many of the girls who have
been to school for several years, could do other work and perhaps earn
more money, the parents are anxious to have them work near home and
among their own people. Clerking or office work might cause the girls to
become "Americanized" quickly and to this the older people object.The religion of the Molokans sprang from that of the Dukhobors. Both these sects are opposed to war. They believe in no earthly representatives of God. The Molokans have no ministers or church dignitaries of any kind. They have no rules or traditions as to who shall be their religious advisers. Their pastors are not ordained, do not receive compensation, and are not dependent upon the approval of the community. Their authority prevails only at prayer meetings, marriage ceremonies, and funeral services. It may be said that the Molokan religion has little definite form. It is systemless. Many of its phases are exceedingly crude. It is incoherent and inconsistent. Like the orthodox Jews, the Molokans abstain from eating pork and are supposed to slaughter their beef in a certain manner.
There
are at present seven churches in the Russian settlement. These are
simply very large rooms in which church services are conducted. During
holidays, some private homes are also used for religious services. The
Priguni conduct their prayers in a unique manner. All pray aloud for
some time, until one feels that the "spirit" has entered into him, when
in a trance-like manner he comes to the center of the place of worship.
The praying goes on in a sing-song loud tone of voice until one by one,
every person feels the "spirit" within him....Abridged from: Studies in Sociology, SOCIOLOGICAL MONOGRAPH NO. 11, Vol. III MARCH 1918 No. 3, EDITED BY EMORY S. BOGARDUS, Department of Sociology, University of Southern California, Originally published by the University of Southern California Press, Los Angeles, California. For the complete text, please visit: http://www.archive.org/ stream/russiansinlosang01soko/russiansinlosang01soko_djvu.txt
While there are still numerous groups in the U.S. and in Canada that are direct descendants of the Molokan and Doukhabor sects, their influence may well have been enormous on what is today generally referred to as Pentecostalism.
The
Molokans, especially of the "Jumper" variety, had a long history of
laying claim to modern-day manifestations of the apostolic gifts,
including healings, tongues, etc. When they moved to Los Angeles,
California, most settled near the lumber yard that employed many of the
men, a lumbar yard situated in close proximity to Azusa Street. A year
after the Molokans arrived, the "Azusa Street Revival", considered by
many to be the birthplace of American Pentecostalism, burst forth onto
the American church scene. The "revival" continued with three services a
day for nearly three years.It is an established fact that many of the Russian Molokans became a part of the Azusa Street Revival, but it remains a mystery as to whether they were converts or, after a fashion, the founders.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Monday, May 12, 2014
Doing Something to “Feel” Saved
Reblogged via raptureready.com
Because the new believer wants to “know” that what has happened to him or her is real, they look for something tangible that they can relate to; like an emotion. Now, since there may not be some tangible manifestation to make them “feel” saved, they compensate by doing something that will give them a “feeling” that they are saved. Doing something is not a bad thing in itself, except that if it done from the flesh it is a religious thing the Bible calls “Dead Works.”
This “doing something” is sometimes encouraged by many churches; and often enforced as a legal requirement to “prove” that you were well and truly saved. New believers are vulnerable and eager to please God, and so Scriptures about tithing, bearing fruit etc, are used to get them into action; and soon they are on their way to becoming a well-meaning Pharisee. Why?
Because you end up in the place where you depend more on what you do, than on the finished work of the cross. Churchianity teaches that you have to work at being a Christian instead of simply being who you already are in Christ. This can make one feel that one cannot reach a level of “spirituality” and enthusiasm like the rest of their fellowship. This finally results in the believer feeling like a hypocrite.
This feeling of inadequacy causes them to disqualify themselves from the race. They eventually tire of working at the Christian life and failing at it consistently.
Others who feel the same way simply continue to go to church and remain involved, but they know that they are not what they should be. They maintain a sense of hypocrisy, but they would be too ashamed or too afraid to leave, because the church is all they have to cling to. Their connection to God is through the church, and the church is all that they have to lean on. They do not know that their Christian life is not dependant on what they do, or dependant on the church; their Christian life is rooted in Christ only. Nothing else can give them love, peace, joy and a deeper, personal relationship with God the Father than the Christ in them.
Relying on the Holy Spirit for eternal life is not what the Holy Spirit came to do. He came to reveal the Christ in you, in order that you might express Christ who is the real life within you.
Click here to Read More
By Vernon Gray
When someone
gets saved, it
is quite likely
that that person
expects to feel
something
emotionally or
physically. If
this does not
happen, they may
not “feel” like
they are saved.
It is true that
one may
experience
something on an
emotional level,
but this is not
always so, and
in any case
emotions do not
last. Because the new believer wants to “know” that what has happened to him or her is real, they look for something tangible that they can relate to; like an emotion. Now, since there may not be some tangible manifestation to make them “feel” saved, they compensate by doing something that will give them a “feeling” that they are saved. Doing something is not a bad thing in itself, except that if it done from the flesh it is a religious thing the Bible calls “Dead Works.”
This “doing something” is sometimes encouraged by many churches; and often enforced as a legal requirement to “prove” that you were well and truly saved. New believers are vulnerable and eager to please God, and so Scriptures about tithing, bearing fruit etc, are used to get them into action; and soon they are on their way to becoming a well-meaning Pharisee. Why?
Because you end up in the place where you depend more on what you do, than on the finished work of the cross. Churchianity teaches that you have to work at being a Christian instead of simply being who you already are in Christ. This can make one feel that one cannot reach a level of “spirituality” and enthusiasm like the rest of their fellowship. This finally results in the believer feeling like a hypocrite.
This feeling of inadequacy causes them to disqualify themselves from the race. They eventually tire of working at the Christian life and failing at it consistently.
Others who feel the same way simply continue to go to church and remain involved, but they know that they are not what they should be. They maintain a sense of hypocrisy, but they would be too ashamed or too afraid to leave, because the church is all they have to cling to. Their connection to God is through the church, and the church is all that they have to lean on. They do not know that their Christian life is not dependant on what they do, or dependant on the church; their Christian life is rooted in Christ only. Nothing else can give them love, peace, joy and a deeper, personal relationship with God the Father than the Christ in them.
Relying on the Holy Spirit for eternal life is not what the Holy Spirit came to do. He came to reveal the Christ in you, in order that you might express Christ who is the real life within you.
Click here to Read More
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Top Christian bestseller accused of heresy
Former New Ager alleges 'Jesus Calling' is harmful to believers
A
runaway bestseller in the Christian book world is generating
controversy as charges of unbiblical and New Age influences are leveled
by watchdog groups and individuals.
“Jesus Calling,” a top-selling inspirational Christian title, is authored by Sarah Young and currently ranks No. 1 on numerous lists
Young, who lives in Australia, where she helps her husband plant churches, has a philosophy degree from Wellesley College, a counseling degree from Georgia State University and a master’s degree from Tufts. By all accounts, she is stunned by the success of her book, which has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide in the decade since its launch.
Various editions have been published by Thomas Nelson, the world’s largest Christian publisher. The Nashville-based publishing house was bought by News Corporation in 2011, and is now a subsidiary of NewsCorp-owned HarperCollins.
Christian author Warren Smith, who left the New Age movement in 1984, has serious concerns about much of the material in “Jesus Calling,” and has written a book – titled “‘Another Jesus’ Calling” – critiquing Young’s bestseller as well as other modern Christian movements and ministries in which he sees dangerous New Age influences.
“We’re getting incredible response to my book,” says Smith, “because her book is indefensible!”
Laura Minchew, senior vice-president of publishing for Thomas Nelson, disputes the claims, and told WND the Sarah Young book has positively impacted countless lives.
“I will tell you that should anyone hint of New Age teachings in ‘Jesus Calling,’ they would be sorely misinformed,” she said.
“We are releasing a new 10th anniversary edition of the book in September. We have added an expanded ‘Author Note’ that looks back at how the book was published and includes stories from the thousands of comments we have received about the impact of this book on people’s lives.”
For a critical review of “Jesus Calling,” get Warren Smith’s “‘Another Jesus’ Calling.”
Minchew added: “Jesus Calling has been such a comfort and source of peace for so many. It helps readers spend time with the Lord. People’s lives have been touched for good by this book. I would ask that you not try to make a controversy that has no merit, just for the sake of readership.”
However,
others in the Christian community echo Smith’s concerns, including
Chris Quintana, pastor of Calvary Chapel Cypress, in Cypress,
California, who is alarmed by the book’s success: “‘Jesus Calling’ is just the latest fad to come through the church,” says Quintana. “Like ‘The Shack’ or ‘The Prayer of Jabez’ before it, when truth is mixed with error, then it becomes heralded as the new wonderful thing. The church embraces and promotes it because those who should know better … don’t.
“The Jesus of Scripture would be appalled by the ‘Jesus’ of this book, and I am sure is grieved over the misrepresentation. There are some pages where nothing objectionable can be found, so people let their guard down. The book was given to them by a friend, or purchased through their church bookstore, etc. It then becomes trusted and they fail to see the error of the mystical ‘Jesus’ found therein.”
According to the Association for Christian Retail, or CBA, “Jesus Calling” ranks No. 1 in the category of Inspirational/General Interest. For May 2014, the children’s version ranks No. 2 in the Children’s category and No. 3 in Young Adult for the teen edition.
“Jesus Calling” has a staggering 5,451 reviews on Amazon, of which 5,050 are five-star. Only 73 are one-star.
Typical of the positive reviews are these three:
- “A beautifully written book of devotion. Sarah Young has a great deal of love in her heart for Jesus and the Christian faith.”
- “I was given this devotional while going through a difficult time, and it couldn’t be a better fit. Young writes from the voice of God, without sounding blasphemous or assumptive.”
- “Great devotional book, has changed my life! If you are looking for a closer relationship with God, this devotional book will help you on this journey.
“There are several problems with this book. Here are just four:
- The obvious one is that the book puts words in God’s mouth.
- The author seems to depend on mystic experiences she’s had for her belief in God. Also, she wants something more than God’s Word in the Bible. It has a New Age feel to it.
- It’s a feel good book. It avoids the real problem of personal sin. It’s all about God filling the personal needs that you feel. It’s very self-centered.
- Dependence on experiences will lead to frustration and confusion in the Christian life because we need to have more and more experiences to be satisfied.
Despite warnings from Smith and others, “Jesus Calling” is highly visible in Christian bookstore chains and among ministries.
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