Eternal life

Does eternal life mean waiting to go to heaven when we die or perhaps it starts here on earth and then it continues on after death, I don't think so, eternal life is knowing Jesus Christ and His Father John 17:3. Eternal Life is eternal because the ONE WHO IS LIFE IS ETERNAL; Jesus said that He is the way, the truth and the life in John 14:6, When we receive by faith the righteousness of Jesus, we have eternal life because eternal life is none other than Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:6 says we sit together with Christ in the heavenly places meaning we are not sitting around waiting to go there but rather we are there with Him. Believers in Christ have been called the body of Christ meaning we are the arms, legs and feet of Jesus on this earth meaning His Life is ours, His thoughts are ours and His works are ours, we are one with Him, He is the head and we are the body, we have eternal life right here and now. Amen!

DO ALL ROADS LEAD TO HEAVEN?

This is a question that has been lingering for a long time and there are those who believe all religions lead to God while on the other side the belief is that only one religion or faith has the answer or answers to man's questions and this religion is the only one which can link mankind to God and throughout the centuries we have seen wars fought in the name of religion and even in some countries now we see politics invoking religion especially in countries like the United States or in theocratic countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia. but the truth of the matter is that there is no religion that leads to heaven as is commonly believed by some as I will try to explain below. John 14:6 says that Christ and ONLY Christ is the WAY,TRUTH AND LIFE and NO ONE can go to the Father except through Him, now this is a verse that is known by many who practice Christianity but little understood by most professing Christians, the verse is pretty clear, it is Christ and not Christianity or Islam or some other religion that is the way. with that said how come we insist that a person cannot go to heaven unless he/she converts to Christianity and if we may ask ourselves just what exactly is Christianity, what answer would we give to the curious person, is Christianity Roman Catholicism, is it baptism, is it Presbyterianism, just what exactly is Christianity with its many different denominations, sects and divisions, are we certain that we are the ones who have a ticket to heaven to the exclusion of everyone who doesn't agree with our viewpoints about life, God e,t,c when we don't even seem to agree on core doctrinal issues like salvation for example with different denominations giving different approaches to it with some saying you must be baptized, others say you must believe and get baptized while others believe you must attend mass e.t.c so with all these confusion in the christian religion, are we sure that we are the ones who are right and everybody else is wrong,me thinks not! I think we are just as wrong as they are for if we were right we wouldn't have many versions of Christianity as we have today and each version claiming to be right or more right than other denominations. The fact is there is no "manmade" religion that leads to heaven for no flesh and blood can inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption, 1 cor 15:50. the only way to inherit the kingdom which is heaven is found in 1 cor 15:51-58 where it says the mortality has been swallowed up in immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: death is swallowed up in victory. and all these will happen because of Christ who is the victor of all so that means only Christ links us with God and not our efforts in religion, it is only He who did the works to that were a sweet aroma to God and that His life has been given to us by His Spirit so that He can be made manifest in us and through us, this my dear readers is heaven, to have the very life of Christ in you and working in you so that you are continually being conformed to His image and likeness, this is what it means to say "thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" may His will be done in us and through us as we live in this world and the need for empty religious doctrines and and machinations will cease to have meaning and all the world will come to believe and confess that Jesus Christ is indeed Lord of All to the glory of God the Father.

THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH

When you exercise faith in God, you will be different, See things differently, act differently! and you won't care what people say, You will begin to love and accept all people, begin to understand that the old testament is/was a shadow of the new, begin to see the Answer instead of just lingering on the question and you will also begin to see that God is bigger than any doctrine, creed or denomination and if need be, you will muster courage to walk away from the traditions of men so that you begin to understand what it means to eat the meat and not just feed on baby milk; You will be hurt, bruised and rejected because the Spirit will lead you out to the wilderness so that you He can kill your flesh and then you learn to depend only on what Spirit says; that is you will learn how to call sinners friends, calling those who have been rejected as "unclean" as "clean", call your enemies brethren, be willing to wallow in the mud with the downtrodden of this world, wear a crown of thorns because you are not ashamed to be called the "chief of sinners" and bear their burdens by denying yourself and carrying your cross to follow Him, this is what it means to live by faith. but on the other hand if you choose to live by sight, Then you will become the "good christian" you will not be different because you will be in your "christian comfort zone" you will never see the need to question because you won't be seeing things differently, you will act, talk and speak just like the average religious person and you will always see "those sinners" as scum of the devil, You will equate the bible to the Son of God and thus engage in the idolatry of worshiping the letter and not the Spirit who is the giver and sustainer of life. You "contain" God in your little box of doctrine, creed and denominational beliefs and thus God becomes a genie who can be summoned at will and carry out every command of yours and your denomination or church. You will rather be found dead than to be seen with the "heathen", condemn your enemies as lost and bound for hellfire, separate from God those whom He reconciled to Himself and not lift a finger to help with their heavy loads. You will be happy to be clothed in a robe of purple and to live sumptuously in palaces while the "scum of the earth" admire the crown of gold on your head and wish you could let them in so that they "belong". e.t.c Friends, Christ said He would wage war and many of us in the church think that He will fight someone else but not us, but what if that someone else is us, because we have not obeyed His commandments and kept the faith, something to think about; be blessed.

JUSTIFICATION

Justification is a word that is often used in our christian circles and it is a word that is found in the bible an example being Romans 4:5 which says " But to him who does not work but believes on Him who JUSTIFIES the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness," this shows us that it is Jesus Christ who justifies and not man, but according to my observations, I have realized that we do not believe in Jesus being the only justifier, for we have added many things and conditions for one to be justified which in effect has made these conditions to be our justifier and not the Lord. The book of Romans 4:25 speaks about Him who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our JUSTIFICATION. Our justification is thus based on Him and Him ALONE for if there was another that was needed to justify us before God, then Christ would not be enough and we would still be dead in our sins, but since He was raised for our Justification, then all who were under condemnation in Adam have now been given Justification in Christ and all who call themselves believers will agree with me then that we stand justified not because we have prayed the sinners prayer, or confessed our sins or kept the law but because Jesus Himself has justified us; 1 John 2:1 says " if any man sins, then we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." So let us go forth and proclaim this justification to all people, let us tell the drunkard and the sex worker that they have been justified by their Almighty Redeemer, Christ the Son of God who sits at the right hand of the Power. Amen.

IT IS FINISHED

These were the famous words that our Lord uttered when He was about to give up His Ghost at the cross, words that have profound significance and yet little understood by the church today as it is busy trying to do what Jesus has finished 2,000 years ago. John 19:30 " So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said," It is finished!" and bowing His head, He gave up His spirit." The modern grace message which has been called all sorts of names like greasy grace,cheap grace, easy grace e.t.c by its critics has been gaining traction among many churched and unchurched here in Rwanda as I found out recently on a visit to a family in Kigali, a family which I came to understand were devout churchgoers in the former years until they came across the gospel which is all about Jesus and His FINISHED WORK and this is where they repented and started sharing this gospel to their brethren in the church but the church leadership was not impressed by this and they expelled them and this is a similar fate that has happened to many here in Kigali where many churches continue to preach from the "depths of Satan" (see my earlier blogs). The fact that salvation of man cannot be attained in any way or form by man himself is a message that has been hard to receive by many in the church today because it takes away the credit from man and gives it all to God, man by nature loves credit and the christian is no different, he always thinks that his eternal destiny is dependent upon his decision or his "freewill" but Jesus tells us in his scriptures that WITHOUT HIM we can do nothing of ourselves for we are like dust that can be blown away by the wind and it is only because of God's mercy that we are saved not of our works or our faith lest anyone should boast but how many of us have boasted of our faith? we often hear many in the church say that they will go to heaven when they die because they believed in Christ, well it sounds spiritual but wait a minute, if it is true that we go to heaven because we have believed in Christ, then who is the source of our faith? is it not God Himself who has testified in the scriptures that unless the Father draws one to Christ, he cannot believe for man is not capable of seeking God; John 6:44, Romans 3:11. these verses prove that NO ONE can take a decision for Christ unless the Holy Spirit reveals the TRUTH to him for the whole plan of salvation was initiated by God from before the foundation of the world and that EVERYONE will come to the knowledge of the TRUTH who is Jesus Christ for it is the Father's will to do so. Dear reader, let it be known that your salvation and mine is entirely in the hands of Jesus and the scriptures say in 1 cor 15:22 that ALL die in Adam, but ALL shall live in Christ, all shall be saved for the Lord secured the salvation of all at the cross and its a done deal as far as God is concerned, IT IS FINISHED!

THE LOVE OF GOD CASTS OUT FEAR

When I was a young boy growing up in church, one of the scariest sermons was the "turn or burn" message that would be used by preachers and evangelists to scare the congregation into taking a decision for Christ and get born again and I remember watching a popular play at the time called "heaven's gate, hell's flames" that depicted the horrors of people who died and found themselves captured by Satan to be tortured forever in hell by demons while the christian believers who died found themselves welcomed by Christ's angels to the gates of heaven and this has been the popular belief throughout Christendom regardless of creed or denomination and many have supposedly decided to get saved because they were scared of going to hell and I suspect this has been a great financial earner for the church as well. 1 John 4:18 says "there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. but he who fears has not been made perfect in love." verse 19 says we love Him because He first loved us which means the very salvation we have stems out of His love, John 3:16 sums it up by saying that He sent His Son to us because He loves the world and the very core of the gospel is love not fear, no loving father would want his children to fear him but rather he would want his children to love him and forge a close relationship with him, the same is true of our Heavenly father who has reconciled us to Himself through His Son and wants everyone to experience the love that goes beyond our understanding, a love that is limitless and unconditional not based on our performance or abilities in whatever form, but purely based on His Person; this is the love that our heavenly Father wants us to experience and share with both friend and foe, the book of 1 John 4:16 "And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in Him." notice the verse does not say that God has love but that He IS LOVE and because He is love, He draws all men(and women) to Him because it is out of Him (who is love) that we have our being. So what is the gospel then, the gospel is simply put a manifestation of God's perfect love for humanity by enduring shame and suffering so that He could show us that He loves us and this is exactly the same type of love that husbands are required to have for their wives, to love them and sacrifice themselves for them just like Christ sacrificed Himself for the church. The church should be busy loving and not condemning people for their sins, the homosexuals, atheists, abortionists, sex workers e.t.c need to hear from our lips and our conduct that they have a Father who loves them unconditionally and it is only by accepting His love that they will experience His healing and His forgiveness for it is the goodness of the Lord that leads to repentance Rom 2:4. condemning these people to hell just won't work, we have elevated ourselves above the "sinners" and promised ourselves heaven for our self righteous works,and this holier than thou attitude has caused many who were in the institutionalized church to leave, just look at all those groups cropping up in Facebook of victims of church abuse who were violated by their church brethren who apparently believe that everybody sins are bad enough to warrant them hell but their own sins are "covered by the blood" as they like to proclaim. The love of God casts out fear, fear of the unknown that so many have had over the centuries, the fear of not knowing whether one will be in a place of paradise or torment or simply cease to exist well the good news is that our heavenly Father has promised us eternal life and that NONE will perish but that all will come to repentance when they see the perfect unending love that the Father has had for us for all eternity and we will rejoice and bask in the Light of His love which is His Son Jesus Christ.

SALVATION

This is perhaps the most misunderstood subject in the church today as many have debated this topic over many years and I remember we had the same debate in our local bible study here in Rwanda Kigali on last Friday of March 18th 2016. One reason I think this topic is such a debatable issue is that we think that salvation is something that man gets from God in exchange for something a.k.a barter trade whereby if a sinner repents of all his/her sins or ask Jesus to come into his life or heart or "make" Jesus to be his personal lord and savior or perhaps all of the above, then he or she will be born again/saved and destined for heaven, this is what is taught by many churches around the world and many of them have filled their pews with converts and the trend of the megachurch where a single church sitting up to 100,000 people has become a reality in some parts of the world all this made possible by the "marketing" of the gospel to the masses where we are the prospective clients or the market and the church which is now more of a business entity has made millions and even billions selling the gospel message and the payment has been in the form of tithes (which is illegal in my view) and offerings. So with that being said, what exactly is salvation and is it something that can be earned or purchased like in a market place or rather is salvation found ONLY in a Person? let us see; Matthew 1:23 "behold the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel", which is translated, "GOD WITH US". There you have it salvation simply means that God Himself is with you and what is the reason for Him being with you? John 1:3 "All things were made through Him and WITHOUT Him , NOTHING was made that was made. Jesus Christ who is God in the flesh is the Word who through the authority of the Father and by the power of the Holy Spirit fashioned the universe and everything that is in it to existence including humanity and the next verse in John 1:4 says that "In Him, was life, and the life was the light of men". this corresponds with the verse in 1 Corinthians 11 "but i want you to know that the head of EVERY man is Christ", meaning that no person either dead or alive is estranged from or separated from God as far as He is concerned since our very existence is in Him and without Him we can't exist, this should bury the doctrine of eternal separation from God forever. Salvation is NOT what we do or believe but rather salvation is the Lord Himself, salvation is our life, our identity in Christ 1 Corinthians 15:22 affirms this, all men have been saved why' because Christ came to give them life but how many know this, very few which explains all the religions including Christianity that have sprung up over the centuries and held man in bondage when he has been set free by the cross and this religious system is the great whore Babylon in the book of revelation who has fattened herself on the flesh and blood of the masses and continues to fatten herself through various Antichrist doctrines designed to deceive and blind the hearts of many as to their true identity in Christ. when I hear that the world has around 6 billion people who subscribe to one religion or the other, I do not rejoice and neither should you since this is only Satan who has been transforming himself into an angel of light and his ministers many of whom are not even aware, have been preaching the "depths of Satan" Rev 2:24. The book of revelation contains many deep truths that explain many of the happenings of humanity and the cosmos from time past and even future events and it deserves deep study and prayer for the power of the Holy Spirit to teach us. Speaking of the Holy Spirit, it has to be said that nothing that God is or does would be possible without the Holy Spirit; we read in genesis 1:2 "The earth was without form,and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters". then in verse 3, God commands "let there be light", and there was light. this verse corresponds with John 1:4 which speaks of Jesus being the light of men, we read in genesis of the state of humanity in verse 2 which has been bound in darkness for so many eons, a darkness brought about by the harlot Babylonian system riding on the back of Satan that has wrecked lives and destroyed peace so that there is only competition and discord with "man eating man" for his success or survival or both and this has been propagated by the "institutionalized church" (the harlot woman who rides the beast) who has robbed the poor and given to the rich, who has put humanity under Adam again and told me and you that if we do certain things and believe in the right things, then "it" "she" with the wave of a "wand" declare us "Christian" thus counting the blood of the covenant an unworthy thing. But God who is our salvation declares "let there be light" after the Spirit has been hovering over the waters, the waters spiritually means the peoples or nations of the world which shows that while the world has not yet been freed from its darkness, the Spirit is still in control and He commanded forth Light and the Light who is Jesus will come and put an end to all power and authority that has kept men in darkness and the knowledge of God shall be made manifest to ALL men that's why God in verse 4 of genesis 1 saw that it was good. believers in Christ are called the light of the world because we are the hands and feet of Jesus who are supposed to go out and make disciples of all men, notice I have said ALL MEN and not SOME men proving that Christ died for ALL and not just some as our Calvinist brethren would have us believe thus indicating that God has a plan of salvation that includes all of humanity and not a part of it and that our salvation is already a done deal secured for us by the God-Man Jesus Christ in a covenant made by His Father and sealed by the Holy Spirit. therefore let us proclaim the good news of our Lord that He has made all things new despite the happenings of the present world, God In His foreknowledge and omnipresence being able to occupy past, present and future at the same time has made us in His Image Gen 1:26-27 and 1 cor 15:49, these verses show that the Image of God is none other than Christ for He is the One who has declared the Father and made known His name for it is the Father who breathed in us His Spirit gen 2:7 making us living beings. Every person who is breathing has been included in the plan of God's saving grace because God breathed in him/her; 1 Corinthians 15:22, the gospel is simply to declare the truth that man has always been in Christ John 1:3,4 but because man has been blinded; John 1:5, then God sent His Son to take on our likeness so that He could identify with us in our lowly state and exalt us to where His Father is so that we could experience the love and fellowship of the God-Head, this is indeed the good news and it is our salvation, it means to be freed from the darkness of our minds and be lit by the love of the Father so that we can be His hands and feet and reach out to the outcasts, notice that when we do this, we are actually acting with God or if I can paraphrase it, acting as God in saving people from the darkness of their circumstances and we clearly have a long way to go if the church repents and returns to its "first love", I trust we will. God bless you.

HE WILL MAKE ALL THINGS NEW

Haven't you ever wondered whether the seemingly unending madness and violence in this world will ever end, it seems the world has grown cold and unloving as more innocent men, women and children are dying and suffering in unnecessary wars caused by human greed and selfishness and the current immigrant crisis in Europe is a testimony to this as thousands upon thousands of immigrants from war torn countries are seeking refuge but being turned away or forced to live in overcrowded camps.

How can one then believe that there is a God who is love and allows all these bad things to happen to innocent children whom He said He loves, well it's kind of hard to reconcile the two; a God of love and a world of suffering, but the truth is we don't have to despair and wonder whether we are alone in this universe left at the mercy of nature and whatever circumstances can throw at us; we have hope in His promise where He said He will neither leave us nor forsake us Deut 31;6, the truth is that God has never been far from the suffering people of this world, He has always been close to the broken hearted and the rejected of this world' He actually identifies with them, remember that Christ always helped those who were outcasts and He himself was rejected and even crucified.

Revelation 21;5 says that He the Christ will make all things new infact He says He is MAKING all things new signifying that He has began and has finished sanctifying His creation through His shed blood on the cross, Colossians 1;20 states that Christ reconciled ALL things in heaven and earth yes including all those who are behind the suffering of the innocent in this world back to God and yes there will be a day of reckoning when Christ returns but His purpose which was set before the foundation of the world will be done.

So then we should not lose hope in God whose mercies endures forever for He has set aside a Day in which His holy consuming fire will burn out all the dross and impure things in His creation so that no evil will exist anymore in His presence.Amen.

THE GOSPEL OF INCLUSION

This is to follow up on the earlier blog post made a couple of weeks ago about the lost in Luke 15 where Jesus Christ says using a parable that He will seek those who are lost because they BELONG to Him; remember I said that something cannot be lost unless it belongs, we say a child is lost when reported missing because that child belongs to his or her parents and if he or she is not home when expected then the parents will go out to find him/her.

Consider the parable of the lost sheep- Isaiah 53;6 says ALL we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.this off-course refers to Christ who bore all our iniquity on the cross thus cancelling out what Adam did in the garden of Eden and therefore making all of humanity righteous 1 cor 15:22 states that as all people were made dead by Adam even so all people will be made alive in Christ, some Christians apparently do not believe this as evidenced by much of what is taught from our pulpits whereby one is taught that if he/she does the right things or believes in the right things then he/she will have eternal life, well that is not true; the verse in Corinthians states that because of ONE MAN all were dead and now because of ONE MAN all have been given life, notice that you and I were not involved in any of this, we did not do bad works to become sinners, instead we became sinners because of Adam and neither did we do good works to become righteous but instead we became righteous because of Christ and now what we believers who are ambassadors of the Lord should do is to proclaim this glorious truth that Christ is victorious over Adam and that He has become the NEW ADAM in which all of humanity has its identity in Him.

Let this glorious gospel sink in us and manifest itself in our lives through love for others for the Holy Spirit came to reveal Jesus who is the love of the Father, all of us have the heavenly Father who loves us through His Son, why? because we are now the body of His Son and this is the core message of the gospel of inclusion since all have been included, all have been found, NO ONE is lost anymore since Christ has redeemed us through His shed blood and reconciled everything to the Father. Amen.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD.

This blog will attempt to address misunderstandings common in the church today that I tend to hear from time to time whenever I fellowship with fellow believers in Christ. Please understand that I respect my fellow believers and by no means condemn them, I am doing my blog with a spirit of love and hope to raise a debate especially in my country Rwanda on whether the teachings we have been feeding on since childhood line up with scripture or maybe it could be that we have been reading the bible with a veil over our faces 2 cor 3:13-16.

For a long time I was of the view that our God had created man with a freewill that would enable him/her to choose his eternal destiny on whether he/she would burn in hell forever or live in heaven with God forever basing offcourse on his works; whether good deeds or right believing e.t.c. but little did I know that first off all the bible doesn't teach that believers would spend eternity in heaven but in the NEW JERUSALEM which will be right here in the NEW EARTH and that ONLY believers will have citizenship in the New Jerusalem, second is that the bible does NOT teach eternal fire where unbelievers will be roasted alive continually without dying when the book of revelation 20 verse 14 says that DEATH and HADES/HELL were cast into the lake of fire, so my question is,if unbelievers are to spend eternity in hell as most preachers teach then will hell itself be burning?

Matthew 18:11-14 teaches a radically different message than that available on our pulpits today, it speaks of a shepherd with a heart that is all about love and sacrifice for his sheep, in fact the scripture says that this shepherd loves his sheep so much that he willingly risks his life to go to the mountains where he will face many dangers to look for only one sheep which was lost and when he finds, he rejoices more over the one sheep that was lost and found than over the ninety-nine sheep that were never lost, that seems to contradict those who say that the folks who will burn in hell forever are LOST FOREVER, obviously Jesus was using the analogy of the shepherd to refer to Himself since He is the one Who came to seek that which was lost which is ALL of humanity, the reason why man was LOST was because he BELONGS to HE who created him who is our Lord, something cannot be lost unless it belongs! in this case, man was lost because had lost the way but the WAY came and found him and if man would end up in hell/hades then even there the WAY would find him which destroys the teaching that hell is eternal separation from God Psalms 139:7,8.

With this in mind then, should we not then sit down and examine our beliefs and teachings in light of scripture and probably start teaching on inclusion other than separation from the GodHead as so many of us tend to do whenever we are out soulwinning? I realise there are many good men and women out there who have the best of intentions whenever they preach separation other than inclusion and many of them identify with Freegrace or radicalgrace or hypergrace movement that is sweeping across some parts of the world now and this is not a bad development in my opinion, but still we all ought to conduct a serious biblestudy with the lens of the HolySpirit so that we can do soulwinning from the Source Who is LOVE.

God willing I will keep sharing my thoughts on this blog and any questions, comments and even corrections will be appreciated by me, may the Love of Christ strengthen you all. Amen.

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