I’m sending this to speak on the things I have seen. I have trouble communicating. As you well know. You said, “Test me and see where I am at fault”. God willing, I will do so. I had planks in my eye and they were plucked out with your help. What got me to repent? Light. The light was shone and I seen I had sin and I got rid of it. It has no power over me because I love Light and sin has been rendered powerless. However, preaching repentance to an unbelieving people has no effect on them; if there is an effect on them, the effect is they are driven away! Christ calls all people to Himself with the Good News; but you drive them away with regulations and rules, five steps mascaraing as “Good News”. This drives unbelievers away. What causes repentance? Don’t you know it’s God kindness that causes you to repent? Why not then preach God’s Good News then so that they may believe and have repentance that leads to life?
You are in error here and I was in error back there. I looked into the Mirror and God showed me my sins. Sometimes a brother needs to look at the back of another so they can see what they can’t see while facing the Mirror. This is why brotherhood is good and the Body of Christ is good. This is why as a Body, we need fellowship. The Mirror is God’s Word. I consider you brothers. Do you consider me a brother? How does one become a brother? Are we called repenters or believers? We are called believers which are also followers and disciples of Christ. Believers are ones who believe that Christ loved them and was crucified for them and rose from the dead. Could anyone be convinced Jesus loved them this way and not love Him back? If we love Christ, will we continue on sinning? No! Does someone hurt someone whom they love? If we love Him, we will obey His commandments. This shows that we love God and that we have faith in Him. What are His commandments? To live as He has lived (also known as following Him); He lived in love and love fulfills the entirety of the Law.
You preach conditional love and outside of Christ there is no love of God. If that is true, then how are you saved? Were you not outside of Christ at one point in time? Or were you born good? If God’s love is for us conditionally, based on our doing, then no-one would be saved! No-one can earn what Christ has done for us. We know that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. We show love to people in the world by giving them the message of God’s grace in hopes they will believe. If God loved us before we believed and also after we believed, then how is that conditional? God’s love is not based on us, but based on Who He is: God is Love. God has always loved us, ever since the beginning. The Holy Spirit warns me, if I were to join your fellowship, I will lose the love of God. I have already seen the fruit of this just by talking with you. This type of mindset is not right. (If we do sin, we confess our sins and He is faithful to forgive us our sins. The Spirit convicts us of our sins and we have inward grieves and groans until we rectify our sins. If we do anything outside of love, it is in vain. We can give our bodies to be sacrificed; we can live under the sun as an animal; we can give all we have to the poor, but if it’s not done in love then we have accomplished nothing.)
I will show the mindset you have using a marriage parable since you love those so much: A man wants to marry a young virgin. However, he wants a bride that can cook. So he slaps down in front of her a cookbook with thousands of recipes. He will marry her as long as she learns how to cook. Is this the same love God shows us? Please tell me this is not the Spirit you have received. He loved us while we were still sinners, while we were apart from Him in thought and deed. We have stored up transgressions in our account under the old system of Law; and in Christ Jesus we are freely forgiven. Is this for everyone regardless if they are in Christ or not? No! We have to believe the promise of eternal life through Jesus — this makes us in Christ, this is how we receive the promise. How then do we test ourselves to see if we truly do believe? A dead faith is a faith that does not move. It has no merit in reality. A belief that has no merit in reality is a delusion. True authentic faith lives and moves and has it’s being. A false faith is walking in the darkness. It does not move because it cannot move; the darkness blinds it. A true faith walks in the light and sees and has it’s being — for it moves. Let me say it in another way: a person who believes in God is godly and lives a godly life; a person who does not believe in God is godless and lives a godless life.
The Gospel is not a five step program, or ten step program. There is one step: Believe in the Son. How can they believe unless they hear? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? You preach a message for believers to an unbelieving people in vain. This is not the Good News that I have received. The Good News is righteousness by faith through Jesus Christ. If you preach your message to unbelievers, they will think they have to do instead of believe. They are not approaching God by faith, but on merit of their own doing. We know we approach God through prayer based on the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ. If we are not heard by God when we approach Him, then what does it mean? It means we have unbelief and are double-minded, sharing ourselves with this present world and having love for it. How do we rectify it? With our own human effort? No! We rectify our unbelief with assurance of the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ — Who is the Living Gospel, the Message, and Good News. This assurance brings us out of the world and to Christ Who is in heaven. Our walk in the Lord is from start to finish by faith in Jesus Christ Who is the Initiator and Perfecter of our faith.
If we say, “You must believe to be in Christ and we are shown to believe by our fruit based on the Law,” then what have you just done? You have rebuilt the old system of Law which you have destroyed when you came to Christ Jesus. We know we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ; that’s apart from the Law and not of works such that no-one may boast. We stay in Christ by remembering Him, or preaching Jesus Christ crucified, buried, and raised from the dead, confessing His Name causes us remember the confident hope we have in Him. We have freedom in Christ, but this mindset is tying people back up in the Law. Where there is Law, there is sin; where the Law is rebuilt, sin is re-established. All of the Law is fulfilled in this one command: Love your neighbor as yourself. This is the love that faith produces. This is the love that God gives. A love that is for everyone, a promise that anyone may obtain (I am not saying ‘unconditional’ since you do not like that terminology). If someone does not believe the message about Christ, God’s wrath remains on them, it doesn’t leave them. Does that mean they have exempted themselves from ever in their lifetime receiving God’s gift? No! We believe it’s by faith a righteous person has life. Perhaps that person may believe later in life. If they die in their sins, they will surely see God’s wrath. God will first-most turn that person over to deep darkness in judgement, so that the Light of the Gospel will shine brighter. What’s the likelihood? We know puny will make it into the Kingdom. But as for us who believe, we are grafted into God’s Family by faith, provided we continue to trust in His kindness; otherwise, we will be cut off.
The message that belongs to you is perfect for those who claim Christ, who say they believe. I do not disagree with even a single bit of it. I do disagree with it being called the Gospel. The response to the Gospel is the message that you have — nearly perfect. However, this message cannot be confused with the Pure Gospel Message that Jesus was the first to preach. The Law was revealed on Mount Sinai, exposing what is written on the conscience. Later, the way to get right with God was revealed, the way of faith. Many people were healed from unclean spirits, sickness, disease and death in Jesus’ time because they believed in His Name. After the Message, miracles and signs, if they still had not repented, Jesus called upon them woes and curses because they did not show signs of their faith — repentance. But that deliverance came by faith. Were all people delivered? No! Because many did not believe. Was there favoritism on God’s part? No! Because He has sent His Son for the entire world, to whoever will believe. You say you know these things, but by your actions you deny it. You take the commands of Jesus and pile them up blocking the way into the Kingdom of God. Can anyone repent outside of faith? Then why not give them faith by the Gospel of grace? The Jews came into the churches and spied out the freedom they had in Christ. The Church got whim of it and did not burden them — only four prohibitions so that they wouldn’t deter those trying to come near to God, them young in the faith.
I do believe it divine that I met you; do you think I have something that I see with fresh eyes as a novice? When someone gives a gift, even if it’s on their birthday, have they earned it? No! A gift is given by grace; the person simply receives the gift. They could easily say, “I don’t want it”. The Gospel is the free gift of God, receiving this gift is through faith. The gift is like a promise. A promise is given, not because we earn it, but because of the generosity of the one who gave it. God is kind and generous to us, offering us salvation through faith in His Son. We show we believe in God by how we live. If we aren’t in step with the faith that we think we have, then what do we do? Do we try to produce in ourselves works, simulating authentic faith? No! We believe in the Son. How? By hearing the Message about Christ, assuring ourselves in what is unseen. There are many beautiful things that are produced from the Gospel, but to take the production of the Gospel and put it in front of it as means to aspire to or work at before coming to God is false. Disagree? How then can someone enter the wedding feast without wedding garments already on? Shouldn’t they have removed their filthy rags, cleansed themselves, and put on wedding garments to begin with? We have faith by hearing the Word and believing it. If we preach the Gospel, we ought to preach a clear witness about Jesus that is available for everyone which is the essence of prophesy. Please give this to the other brothers whether you believe it or not. Let them decide whether or not what I am saying is true.
Those who use fear to stimulate someone show that they themselves are stimulated by fear. We know the fear of God is good to keep us unstained from sin; but to serve God, we do so motivated by love and perfect love casts out all fear. God desires mercy; not sacrifice. Sacrifice without mercy is meaningless and profits nothing. I will obey my Lord and listen to your teachings; as it is written, “Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and not do.” Beware of speaking against the Spirit of Grace by which we are saved. Many people in the world believe the doctrines of demons which assume God’s grace as means to live lawlessly. I know you didn’t mean it that way and were referring to the world in such speaking.