Thank you and may God bless you richly. Excellent thoughts and you are preaching to the choir.Hi Major,
Its really ok because they were rhetorical questions anyway.
I fully see what you are saying and in a lot of ways i agree with you. The only part that i have grown to change in is instead of feeling condemned by the preacher's words, which leaves me thinking that i cannot ever be good enough to know that I am loved by my Savior and found in right standing with The Father, because of the Blood of Jesus. I grew up being afraid of the Father, thinking that He was just up there waiting to zap me if i made a mistake. Which was untrue, but because i listened to preachers that preached fire and brimstone (which some was get saved or else). And God finally set me free of that. God does not want us to be so afraid of Him that we serve Him out of have to or else....He desires that we serve Him because we want to and love Him. He deals with us differently in the new testament than He did in the old.
The Bible says in 1 John 3:21 that if our heart (inner man, not blood pump or physical heart...actually the core of the person) does not condemn us then we have confidence towards God. And in Hebrews 9:14 it says how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. So if i think about those two verses...then in my mind it says that God doesn't want me to have a sin conscious, because the Blood of Jesus cleansed that for me (us). And if i have a conscious that is cleansed by the Blood of Jesus then i can trust in 1 John 1:9 that i am constantly (after repenting when i miss the mark) in right standing with the Father, which leaves me to be encouraged in the fact that i can be free to have a close and intimate relationship with my Savior. My inner man will not condemn me because my focus is on what the Blood of Jesus has done for me instead of what Adam's sin created in my flesh. And as 1 John 4:4 says greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. Thus i have confidence to believe that God desires for me to live a victorious life, according to all that Jesus died for and bore on the cross. I can rest in His ability to work in my life (Philippians 2:13) because it brings Him pleasure to see me victorious, and not down trodden believing that i will never be good enough.
I fully agree that we should be encouraged by our pastors to grow and stirve to be obedient to Jesus' commands...because in doing so we show Him that we love Him (John 14:21). I do agree also that we (all believers not just in america) need to get back to studying and leaning on and implementing the truth of The Word of God into our lives. Fully walking in the light as He is in the light, as Jesus said, even if it steps on my toes as to what i have learned over the years. Its better to be teachable than to be stuck in what someone else has said, or interpreted the Bible to say or mean. I want to know what it says for myself, and when i find truth and understanding of The Word, given by The Holy Spirit, through meditating on His Word as He has commanded us, then by golly i am going to stand upon it, and share it. Because i want to be found faithful with what God has given me, and i want more to be able to share..for what we don't use we loose (my paraphrase of Luke 19:26). Walking according to the Bible should be a lifestyle and not just a hobby. As stated in 2 Corinthians 5:7... for we walk by faith not by sight.
I fully respect and have a reverance for My Father in Heaven, and agree that is what needs to return. But i don't want to get caught judging another person's heart or relationship with God, just because of what i see on tv, or their ministry, or their own personal lives. That is God's (Holy Spirit's) job to convict and change...not mine. I don't want to cause a higher standard of judgement to come on me because i chose to disobey Jesus' Words in Matthew 7:1-4.
Thanks for listening
Abundance of Blessings to you and your wife of grace and peace! I pray the rest of your years together will be extremely blessed!
However, I have lived long enough to see both side of this paradox. Let me ask you to dig down deep into your memory. Now the question I ask is this..........
" Is it bad to be motivated by fear to fly away from hell into the arms of Jesus and there discover that he is a million times better than anything, including hell. Is that bad or is it normal????? In other words, many motivations, many impulses, many experiences in life drive us to Jesus. Whether those motivations and impulses and experiences prove to be a means of salvation depends on what we make of Jesus when we get there because it is after we come to Christ that we can understand why we came to Christ, but the key is getting there. It might be a car wreck. It might be cancer. It might be anything. Anything can drive us to Jesus including the fear of going to hell. So what drives us there is not what saves us. What saves us is what happens when we get there.
Now since this thread is about a return to Biblical Christianity can be substantiate that comment with the Bible?
Luke 12:4-7.....
“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not — fear not — you are of more value than many sparrows.”
So we are told to fear God, because he can cast into hell. Now that is the black and white of God's Word. That is not my opinion or my thinking but it is what God said. And then we are told not to fear him because we are more valuable than sparrows. And I think the proper function of fear in those verses is to warn us that it is eternally deadly to fear man. In other words, fear the consequences of God’s judgment and let it drive you to be unafraid of God in the presence of Christ. Let it drive you away from fear of man into trust in Jesus so that you can realize that you are more valuable than sparrows and, therefore, fear not.
Now a lot of people will come up with exotic and romantic explanations of why they got saved. But I am being brutally honest and admitting to everyone that I was afraid of going to hell. I think personally if the truth be told, most everyone did the same thing.
Then after I was saved I grew to learn about the love of God in Christ that allowed me to make the right choice in life for heaven instead of hell.
The fear of hell does not keep one in faith with Christ, but it does have the potential of getting one to Him and then love keeps them in Christ.