Are you feeling the pain of guilt for something you have already been forgiven for?  Let it go.  That guilt does you no service.  If you have confessed this sin to Christ already, it has been forgiven and you are free from it.

If you have not yet confessed it, do so.  For God has promised to be faithful to forgive your confessed sins and cleanse you of unrighteousness (1 John 1:9 – The Christian’s bar of soap).

Bear in mind, that confession to God of your sin and the subsequent forgiveness does not mean you won’t still have to suffer consequences brought on by it.  King David still lost his first born of Bathsheba.  If you have wronged someone, do what you can to reconcile with them.  I’ll leave you with Jesus’ words on this:

“So if you are presenting your gift at the altar and remember there that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and first go and be reconciled to your brother. Then come and offer your gift. (Matthew 5:23-24)

Keep examining yourselves to see whether you are continuing in the faith. Test yourselves! You know, don’t you, that Jesus the Messiah lives in you? Could it be that you are failing the test? (2 Corinthians 13:5)

Before I go too far along on this, I want to explain a principle of biblical interpretation that I think will help in a study of these letters.  It is a principle called PARDES and it comes from the Jews.  You might remember them, the feature prominently in the bible.  PARDES is an acronym made up of the first letters of the Hebrew words used to describe the four levels of interpretation of biblical scripture.  I will supply a brief description of these levels just so you get an idea of their meanings.  Not all passages have all levels of meaning.  All do have a P’shat.

P – P’shat – meaning simple. It is the natural or literal interpretation of the events described given context and cultural references.  This does not mean there are no figures of speech. Quite the contrary.  This is just the simple most basic level of interpretation that can be applied to scripture.

R – Remez – meaning hint. All verses have a P’shat meaning, but some have an implied hidden meaning.  This isn’t to say it is secret knowledge that defines doctrine.  That leads to cultism.  This is just that a passage may have a deeper, wider application of its meaning.  One example being:

 False weights and measures—the LORD surely detests both of them. (Pro 20:10)

This has the obvious simple (p’shat) meaning of not using different weights and standards among your customers to determine price, however, it can also be applied in a wider sense to not apply a different standard of fairness in your day to day dealings with other people.

D – Deh’rahsh sometimes called Midrash.  It is the conceptual meaning.  How the passage can be applied.

S – Sud this is the mystical meaning.  One example is Jesus speaking of eating his flesh and drinking his blood.  He isn’t speaking about literal cannibalism.

These four levels of interpretation can be applied to the seven letters I told you about above. I am going to simplify them by naming them, literal, hidden, application and for lack of a better word, mystic (or prophetic).

The seven letters Jesus wrote to us were dictated to John (the traditionally held youngest apostle) while he was exiled on the island of Patmos.  They are found in chapter 2 and 3 of Revelation. Jesus appeared to John and instructed him to “Write on a scroll what you see, and send it to the seven churches: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.“

In the literal category, these were actual seven churches that existed at the time John was writing.  They indeed had the very problems (those that had problems) outlined in the letters.  Each letter, however, has an admonition to “let everyone listen to what the Spirit says to the churches”.  More commonly remembered as “let he who has an ear let him hear”.  It is a phrase Jesus used many times.  Just before the parable of the sower and the seed, in fact.  Note, also, that the letters say to listen to what the Spirit says to the CHURCHES.  That is plural.  Therefore it is not only for the specific church addressed.  Every letter here is addressed to all churches and to all peoples of those churches.  That is these letters apply literally, personally and for all time.  I have noticed in my life that God (and thus Jesus) never wastes anything.  Here, one (seven really) letter covers three levels of meaning.  Very efficient.

You might notice some things about the letters.  Each has a title of the Christ appropriate to each church it is written to.  All but two have a commendation.  All but two have a criticism.  Each of them has the admonition of “let everyone listen to what the Spirit says to the churches” in it.  Each of them has a promise to the overcomer.  The first three have the admonition before the promise to the overcomer.  The final four have the admonition at the end.

I wrote that three levels of interpretation were clearly covered.  I submit, as do others, that these also have the fourth level of interpretation.  In the order they are written, they cover the history of the church age from time written of in Acts to now.  The only question is where we lie on that history.  Are our modern times correspondent to Laodicea?  It might be.  Read the letters and come to your own conclusion.

Read the letters.  They hold meaning not just to the historical churches addressed, but they are for every church and every believer to apply to their lives to become overcomers.  They may even be prophetic of church history.  In fact, go ahead and read the entire book of Revelation.  It is the only book that promises a special blessing to the reader.  It is a highly symbolic book and it may not make a lot of sense but as you get to know the bible more, especially the Old Testament, it will actually begin to make some sense.

The story begins in the book of Genesis. It is the story of a people called upon to become a nation of priests for God through which the world would be blessed.  God called upon a man named Abram from the land of Ur.  He was told to leave his father’s idol making business and go to a land that God would show him.  He stopped for a time in Haran for a time, where his father died.  This was not the land God had told him to go to but God was in no hurry.

After his father died, Abram was once again told to get up and go to a land that God would show him.  He did and, travelling west, he eventually came upon what we know today as the Jordan Rift Valley where God showed him all the land from there to what we call the Mediterranean Sea.  This is where God told Abram that he will be the father to many nations and through him all nations would be blessed.  This land was owned by the Caananites at the time.  Yet, Abram was promised that this land would be given to his descendants.  Now what happened to Abram and the changing of his name is an interesting story, but you can read about it all in the book of Genesis.

The point is, this started a wonderful set of events.  One of which was the creation of a nation of Priests that would come out of Egypt through wondrous works. These people would go through the desert to learn to trust in the Lord and to be made a consecrated people through which God would bless the nations of the world.  You can read all about this in the books of Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy.  A little of it is in the book of Jude.  Yes, we know at the end of Deuteronomy that Moses died and was buried in a place nobody knows, but apparently Satan knew and argued over his body with the Archangel Michael.

The people had to retake the land that was once belonged to their ancestors and eventually became what we call Israel.  Named after the new name God gave a descendant of Abraham above named Jacob after wrestling with him over the course of a night.

This nation went through several times of turmoil.  They were on and off invaded by their neighbors, they eventually demanded a king to rule over them.  So a king they were given.  Only three, though before the nation split.  Those stories can be read in the books of Joshua, Judges, Kings and Chronicles.

During this time, Israel enjoyed its golden period under the rule of King David.  Now David wasn’t a perfect man, but he was considered a man after God’s own heart.  For a long time it was decided that David and his son Solomon were mythical characters, then archaeologists found some stones (stele) upon which was written an accounting of a battle victory the King of Aramea had over the King of Israel of the House of David.

After the split of the nation, the two halves eventually fell to conquest by their neighbors.  You can read about this in the books of Chronicles and the prophets, such as Jeremiah and Isaiah.  This is also backed up from external sources that Assyria did indeed conquer the northern part of Israel and then some time later Babylon conquered the southern part.

One would think at this point that the story is over, but if you read what is said in all of those books, and remember the promises made by God throughout them, you know that the nation of Israel’s story cannot be over.  One of the prophets, Ezekiel even tells of a future time.  Well many of them did, but this one is quite clear.  In the 37^th chapter of the book of Ezekiel, starting about halfway through, he is told to grab two sticks and write on one For Judah and the Israelis, his Companions.  On the other stick he is to write For Joseph, the Stick of Ephraim, and all the House of Israel, his Companions. Then he was to join them together to make them one stick.

He is specifically told that when asked about this stick, he explains it means that the God will be joining the split houses of Israel back into one again.  This has happened, but it was a fact that many believed this would never be and it was either just plain wrong or all allegorical.  However, on May 14, 1948, Israel was once again made a whole nation.  In one day, you might notice.  Something else people thought would be impossible.  I say this because it was Isaiah who wrote that the nation would be remade in one day.

What a crazy story, right?  It gets better.  David, that king during the golden age of Israel, is to somehow come back to rule over this nation.  This, too, is written in the book of Ezekiel.  Now obviously that part hasn’t happened yet.  Given our track record on how sure we were that the story was false up until now, one might consider the possibility at least, that this future part is going to happen.  It will be a very different Israel and a very different Jerusalem, to be sure.  I can’t tell you when it will happen.  I can tell you that it isn’t only the Torah that speaks of it.  Paul when writing to the Romans talks about it in chapter 11 of his letter to them.  God is not finished with Israel.  They may be on pause for a time, but when the church age is done, He will pick up where He left off.  Thus fulfilling everything that He said He would.  Through His nation of Israel, the gentile nations learned of Him.  Though they rejected the messiah, they will come back.  Through the nation of Israel, the Gentiles were saved.  Through the gentiles, Israel will be returned to God.

Of course, you still have to accept this gift.  Jew or Gentile, it is offered to you even now, you but have to accept.

If you haven’t, think about why that is.  Is it because of fear of what others might think of you?  I would suggest you rethink that as you are the one ultimately responsibile for the keeping of your own soul.  Your eternal postion hinges on this decision and you have only this lifetime to make it.

Perhaps you are like me and waiting for more “proof” of the reality of the Bible.  I have to tell you from experience that you are in for a long hard road.  Do not let me disuade you, however, but get out there and do the homework.  Again, you may not have as much time as you imagine you have to make this most important decision in your life.

If you have decided adamantly to refuse Christ, have a reason for it.  I don’t agree with your results.  I’d suggest you reconsider but in the end, have a reason for your decision.  Christians are often scoffed at for being blind followers.  That standard works toward the non-beleiver as well.  Don’t be a blind non-believer.

Again, though, it is my wish that each and every one of you will evaluate your position in Christ and have a reason for it.

The above quote is from the first letter from Peter to the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, and to everyone else chosen according to the foreknowledge of God.  This is all future Christians. I put it there because it is a tradition among some Christians to share their salvation testimony.  It is a helpful tool for others who may be considering the truth of Christ.  Sharing these testimonies helps us to see the wide variety of ways people come to the truth and show us that we are not alone in our conversion from the path that leads to death.  Some salvation experiences seem quite extraordinary filled with emotion.  Some are less fantastic but no less extraordinary than anyone else since anyone who comes to the Christ does so through a miracle.  (John 6:44) Not a one of us would seek God if left to our own devices. (Romans 3:10, Ecclesiastes 7:20)

So it is my hope that by telling my story; it will help someone to give up their final doubts or perhaps lend encouragement to someone who is already a Christian but may be feeling faint in their faith.

I called this “Putting the Pieces Together” because to me, that was what my experience was like.  I was born into a Christian family.  I went to church three times a week but it was because we were told to.  My dad had a rather fancy bible, I recall, but I never read it myself.  Sunday schools consisted of highlights from the bible stories.  In later years, I even found out some of the things taught to me were just false.  The historical events of the bible were never tied into the history as I was learning in secular school. I want to make a distinction here about what I mean because there are many things taught in secular school that don’t match with the Bible.  What I mean in this case is that no attempt was made to tie the biblical account in with the world in which we live.  The world the bible is describing a part of.  Some of what I was taught in Sunday school I later learned was of Gnostic teaching.  Some of it was just crazy.  Like snakes used to have legs.

The end result of all of that combined with what I was learning in secular school lead me to swallow the world view without question.  After all, at that young age, you tend to believe your teachers because that is how it is done.  It is why we are called impressionable at that age.  It is why a teacher of any subject, biblical or not, has a greater responsibility than a non teacher.

I formed a view of the bible as that of a book of mythology that was a good guide for living but certainly not true.  There was a point in time where I even thought that if there was any God at all, then maybe all world religions are a way to His good graces.  For some it is Christianity, for some Buddhism, for others Zoroastrianism; what have you.  I accepted that all religions basically taught the same thing and that truth was relative. An absurd notion, I realize now.

Naturally, as I grew older, I began to believe in the great brotherhood of man.  A humanist if you will.  I believed that humans were basically good and just needed to pull together.  If we’d work hard enough we would soon achieve greatness.  It was inevitable, or so I thought.

Not reading the Bible, what I knew was from Sunday school and from the popular culture.  Such as the God of the Old Testament being so different from the New Testament is one example.  He was so mean in the old and suddenly turned into a nice guy in the new.  Besides, this book is at least two to three thousand years old.  There have been many atrocities committed in the name of his book.  Surely the multiple translations introduced errors.  Add, too, that surely unscrupulous men in power would change the text to suit their own purposes.  What we have today couldn’t be that accurate if it was ever accurate to begin with.  At best, besides not believing the bible held truth, then the bible was full of metaphors, and very little if any of it can be taken literally.

When I was a kid, I was never really one of those bad kids.  I didn’t get into drugs, or hang out with the wrong crowd or drink.  I don’t say this to say I am righteous.  I am not.  What I am saying is that from that sort of beginning and as I spent time away from home in my older years, I began to erode.  I can see that now from my current perspective but I could not see it while it was happening.  I will not list the things I did here, rest assured I have brought them before God and confessed them (1 john 1:9).  I can now see it was a process that was growing in intensity that would have left me in a very dark place should I have not turned around.  I compare it to erosion because that is precisely what it was like.  Each little infraction became commonplace and familiar until I would sink deeper until that became familiar and so forth.  Again, this realization is all in retrospect.

I went to college to get a degree so I could get a good paying job and live my life.  I found I was good at computer science so that’s what I pursued.  I did well, so I can even now call myself a computer scientist with all the honors that go with that.  It says so right on the diploma.

So I had grown up, moved out of the house.  Felt that I had no need to attend church since my parents weren’t making me do it.  I had no reason to do so on my own.  I wasn’t having a great time out in the world, but things just happen.  Randomness created the universe after all, right?  There were times I had very little money to get food.  Once I had forty dollars with which to get two week’s worth of groceries.  I managed it.  I also realize there are others who have nothing.  So I’m not special here.  I have been homeless twice in my life but I had a good family so didn’t remain technically so for too long.  I say had not because they became a bad family just that they have passed on.

Even with all of this, I still held on to some core beliefs about Christianity.  They would later serve to help bridge the gap between my learning in my younger years and the reality that is real Christianity in the real world.  I believed that if one were to decide to really believe in Christianity, they had to take the bible in its entirety.  You can’t pick and choose what you like and leave the rest.   I also believed that if one were to believe this bible is telling you the truth then the words that are in it are all there on purpose and for a reason, every word and number.  None of it can be taken as space filler.  That didn’t mean I believed it, just that I believed IF one was to believe it, you had to accept it all.  I also disdained the use of single verse theology.  Taken out of context, anything from the bible or elsewhere can be made to mean anything else you want it to.

I never did fall into the idea that religion was there to explain that which was not yet explained.  It is a popular view on religion but for some reason that never seemed to be a trap I fell into.  I did know, however, that many atrocities have been and continue to be committed in the name of religion.

So I had all of these pieces floating around regarding the nature of God.  I was living in California by this time and had a job with a major software company.  I was in no mind to go anywhere.  This was before what we now know to be the bursting of the internet bubble.  There is more to this story but suffice it to say, God had a plan to get me out of Silicon Valley.  The process was not without turmoil but in retrospect was probably the only way I would have left the position I had there.  The end result was much better than I could have imagined.

At one point, soon after I was now in New Mexico living in a garage.  All had abandoned me.  I felt stupid and was looking for a job while also being technically homeless again.  My aunt and uncle, they are good people, took me in while I worked to put my life back together.  Things looked pretty bleak that summer.  I had no job prospects. Everything I owned fit in the trunk of my car.  My money was running out.  I say all this because that period, I believe was important.  I found that one other thing I retained from Sunday school was the promise that God will never leave you (Hebrews 13:5).  Thus began a summer of change.  When I wasn’t job hunting, I went on long walks in the wilderness (literally, I was in the canyons near Santa Fe).   During these walks I asked God many questions about the why’s of what was going on in my life.  I told him how I felt about it and even shared realizations I was coming to on the subject.  No, there was no burning bush moment. I never blamed a god I didn’t know for what was happening.  I went to church a few times during that period.  It made me feel better.  Not from anything in the messages, I have to admit I don’t recall any of them. 

Eventually the darkness was lifted.  I did get a job and I don’t think it was a random event.  From the resume they had on file, it had to be from the first ones I sent out while still in California.  I believe to this day that even then God was watching out for me.  I eventually met and married the woman who is my wife today.  I don’t think that was a random event either.  In fact, I have come to a point in life where I don’t believe there are any consequences whatsoever.  There are plenty I can’t explain but nothing is an accident even in this world.

So now, had this recent experience I learned from.  I had those pieces from my earlier life floating around.  My life was back together and I was doing pretty well but I have long drives to work and back and during that time, I play the radio.  One day, I was looking for something to listen to on the radio and came across a talk show.  Not the political ones we know about from the news.  This one, it turned out, was a lecture from what I learned is an annual event put on by Koinania House.  It was the lectures from their strategic perspectives conference and the speaker was Walit Shoebat.  He has a very interesting testimony himself.  He’ll likely never know in what way he affected one listener that very day.  I have heard him several times since then so I can’t recall which lecture this was exactly but it kept me tuned in.  It was interesting and offered a view to current events that I happened to agree with. I listened the next day, and every day thereafter.

Now, any regular listener to 66/40, which it turns out the radio show is called, knows that the Strategic Perspectives Conference is not the main thing they broadcast.  Indeed, it was about to get much better.  For the first time, I heard a biblical commenter connect the events in the bible to the real world.  He also had a motto that I had come to understand living in the age of the internet.  Don’t take anything someone tells you as truth without checking it out.  We can all relate to this now, I’m sure.  Internet hoaxes aren’t the only way people have perpetuated falsehoods but they sure make it a lot easier.

What he was saying was to be like the Bereans.  This is where I got the Acts 17:11 principle.  He also has a habit of telling you plainly when something he is about to say about the bible or anything else is just conjecture, but to at least consider that it might be true.  I would often hear him say to let go of your preconceptions and consider what is being said.  The only barrier to truth is the belief that you already have it.  Here was someone who was putting together a more realistic picture of the bible.  Indeed, he connects the bible to the world around us.  He is very good at it.   So for the first time in my life, it seems, the truth was being told to me from the Bible and I was being asked, challenged even, to verify that the teacher wasn’t making it up.  So I did.  I learned so much more from doing that than all the years of sitting in a pew and going to Sunday school.  The pieces were coming together.  When that happened, fairly quickly I completed the trip to conversion.  It was clear to me from taking up that challenge to verify the truth that this book we call the bible was telling the truth and since it was telling the truth, I was in deep trouble.  I gave myself to Christ right then.  Yes, on highway 70 just before crossing the Augustin Pass.  Since that experience all I can describe it as is like a dawning.  A more literal metaphor might be to say it was as if I had been rooting around in a cave and came across a great treasure room where the light shone brightly.

At this time, I also listened to other teachers but I applied those principles I learned from Dr. Missler’s radio broadcast.  Eventually I started reading the bible every day.  It seemed only logical.  If you are going to profess to be an ambassador of Christ, you probably should know what it is He has to say.  Things that once made no sense to me started making sense.  It was overwhelming and I had to share what I was learning.  I wanted to do so in a way, however, that didn’t make the same mistakes teachers earlier in my life made.  I wanted to and still want to tell the truth as it is.  The stories in the bible need no embellishing.  They tie together in ways that before I just had no inkling of and I wanted to help others who may also be falling victim to the detritus of what the popular culture tells us about Christianity.  For the first time I understood what was meant by the metaphor of putting on the whole armor of God.  I understood the peace that surpasses understanding.  I have tossed out the fluff that I learned from popular culture and well-meaning but wrong teachers.  I read the bible and use that as a basis of comparison for anything someone might say about it or Christian doctrine.

I still advise that nobody listen to me on any of these things I say about God or the Bible.  To me, if God was praising a group of people for anything, it is probably a good idea to emulate them.  Go look it up.  It’s another excuse to read your bible every day.  This is your eternal destination you are messing with.  You better darn well know everything you can know about it and what needs to be done.

Since then I have been told that I have changed.  Indeed, I can see some of the changes myself.  I no longer believe in the humanist philosophy.  I no longer believe that all religions basically say the same thing.  I no longer believe in the absence of absolute truth.  I go to church every week, not because I feel like I have to, but because I want to.  At the least it serves as a rejuvenating experience to regroup and be around like minded individuals.

Since then, Jesus has worked within me.  Most every day I find that I am being asked again if I trust Him.  He finds ways to test that.  I don’t always pass but I know I am not condemned for it.  Things are not always rosy.  Indeed, there are some troubles going on in my life even now.  I struggle to trust that He will help me through them.  Trust in His promises, it seems, is a big key.  It wouldn’t be in the bible so much if it weren’t, but I know that now even more so than I would from just reading.

By no means am I an expert.  I am learning every day.  I struggle with understanding of some of what I read but then I go research it or pray for understanding.  Actually, I do both.  I have come to understand that God doesn’t mind you asking questions.  Indeed, he doesn’t want blind followers.  He wants us to think and to reason.  I have learned there are multiple levels of understanding of the biblical text.  That isn’t the same as multiple meanings.  I have often said I wish my Sunday school teachers would have taught this stuff when I was young.  However, all that has happened to me happened to shape me into what I am now and becoming.  It was for a reason and that reason is for the glory of God.  I trip up along the way and I am by no means perfect, but I am justified and being sanctified.

First off, I am not a catholic.  I call myself a protestant but my wife, who is a Catholic says I’m more a fundamentalist.  My understanding of a protestant is anyone who is Christian but not Catholic.  Perhaps I’m wrong.  My wife and her sister, who stays with us, are both Catholic so we go to a Catholic church.

The changes are word changes to their recited prayers and creed to be closer to the “original” latin.  I put original in quotes because it seems odd to me.  The entire affair is odd to me.  Recited scripted prayers and pronouncement of memorized lines each week do not a Christian make.  I am fully of the belief that God seeks a personal relationship with Him and reciting scripts isn’t personal.  Nonetheless, I have come to the understanding that some people are just more comfortable with this format and so long as they believe the basic foundation of the Christian faith, they are saved.  In my view, they are putting themselves through unnecessary steps which seem to add to their own sense of guilt if not done just so.

In the end it doesn’t matter, a good friend and co worker of mine has put it best when, after a religion related discussion, she summed it up to say the extra details don’t matter so long as we believe in Jesus, who he is and what he did for us.  Echoes of Romans 14 and 15.

What I wanted to speak to today was in relation to a problem that a friend of mine has.  She has had someone giving her grief because she isn’t performing to the personal expectations of this person who appears to believe she is “holy” because she is apparently doing all of these things she accuses my friend of not doing.  I have not been given the details what these things are but I have run into this sort of person before.  They believe themselves holy because of what they do and they have no difficulty telling you that you are wrong.

Soon after the start of the first century church, there was a group known as the Judaisers. These people, while Messianic Jews, had the belief that they also had to abide by the Law to be true Christians. (Acts 15:1)  They caused all sorts of havoc among new gentile Christians claiming that while the gospel was nice and all, to truly receive the gift of salvation, one had to place themselves under the Mosaic Law.  As I explained quickly in my last article, the Law cannot save.  Its purpose is to show you that you are a sinner.  All the Law can do is condemn you, which it does quite well.  Salvation is through grace alone. (Ephesians 2:4-9)

Indeed, this was such a problem that a council was formed in Jerusalem to discuss this very thing.  What will the disciples say to new converts about what is required of them?  You can read about this council in Acts 15.  Their conclusion was that they cannot in good faith ask the gentiles to keep laws that even they themselves could not keep.  Instead, they decided that the only things they would hold over from the Mosaic law to give to the gentile believers was to abstain from eating food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from anything strangled and from sexual immorality.  So they wrote a letter stating just that and sent it to Antioch with Silas and Judas (Barsabbas, not the former apostle who betrayed Jesus).  Even so, Paul later writes that eating food offered to idols isn’t immoral because we all (as Christians) know that idols aren’t anything real anyway.  However, in that it may cause a new Christian or someone else to stumble or in other words appear to endorse idol worship then you have a problem (1 Corinthians 8).

I say all of this to bring to mind a potential point of attack that these changes may bring to our brothers and sisters of the Catholic persuasion.  In the case of my Australian friend, she is being told her salvation is in jeopardy because she isn’t performing some ritual (or rituals) just so; or she isn’t participating enough in whatever extra-curricular activity this modern day Judaiser  thinks she aught to be participating in.  See, to this accuser of hers, the rituals have become a means unto themselves.  She has forgotten the reason they were made up and has made it a club to use against her fellow church members.  While she may be sincere in her intentions, she has forgotten her first love (Revelation 2:1-7 – the discussion of the Nicolaitans is for another day).

To anyone who may also be suffering from such attacks, I will say to you the same advice I gave my Australian friend.  Let no one steal your joy.  It is a favourite tactic of the devil to try to get you to doubt your faith.  You must work out your salvation (Phillipians 2:12-13).  It is God working in you to do good.  Remember also that what has been given to Jesus (you when you repented and came to Him) can not be taken from His hand (John 10:28-30).  This person accusing you of not doing enough to earn salvation is preaching salvation by works and it is a good thing they are not in charge of your eternal destiny.  Salvation is a gift that cannot be lost (your heavenly rewards are a different matter for a different discussion).  So the only way really to defend against such attacks and to be able to stand firm in the faith is to read your bible thus putting on the armor of god and carrying that shield of faith. (Ephesians 6:12-18).  If someone is professing to you a gospel that is not from the bible, it is quite simply wrong.  No matter who it is that is telling it to you (Galatians 1:8).  The only way you are going to know what that gospel is is to hear the word and be like the Bereans.  Receive the word with an open mind but look to the scriptures to see if what is said is true. (Acts 17:11).

I want to add a note here:  I don’t particularly have a problem with rituals.  I don’t prescribe to them myself but I do know that many people are as uncomfortable without them just as I am with them.  To me, my head fills with static in the middle of reciting prayers from a book or the apostle’s creed each week.  I don’t know the words. They carry no meaning for me.  It is because of my belief in the personal relationship with God (and thus Jesus) and I wouldn’t read from a script when interacting with my friends, coworkers or family.  It isn’t personal.  Rituals have a place and indeed, there are some in the bible complete with the reasons for them.  They also come with the problem described in this article where they become a reason unto themselves and the purpose for them is long forgotten. I do not run around thinking that those who do engage in them are condemned.  As my friend and coworker said, and so did Paul in his letter to the romans (Romans 14).  There are certain things that are basic and important (repentance and coming to the Christ for the gift of salvation) and the rest aren’t worth fighting over.  There are just a ridiculous number of ways I’ve seen people argue over details of such rituals which in the end have no bearing whatsoever on your eternal salvation.  So much grief is distributed from such arguments and that is what this article is about.  I want to help people who may now be experiencing such grief which will have an even greater opportunity to happen with their rituals being changed.  If you are one of those nit picking over the right words or the proper hand to lift or not life or when to bow, then I encourage you to take a look at yourself and realize what you are doing to your brethren.  Are you helping them or causing them to stumble?  Jesus said (and I take it seriously as should you) that it would be better that a millstone be tied around your neck and you thrown into the sea than to be the cause of one of His to sin.  That sin may be the sin of apostasy.

Assuming you have to come to the conclusion that God exists and you will have to answer to him; you then have to realize that you have sinned against God and need salvation.  The Bible states this fact.  If, however, you do not believe you are beholden to anyone or any entity for your behavior, then the rest cannot happen.  Romans 6:23 tells us that the “wages of sin is death;…” If that short version isn’t enough, we have the books of the Law.  Read the consequences for pretty much any violation of the Law.  Even without the written Law, everyone is born with a conscious.  We know when something is wrong unless we have lead a life in such a way as to sear our conscious to uselessness.

So take a look at the Law.  It can only condemn you.  It only shows you how you have failed.  Taken at just its most shallow meaning we still cannot uphold it all.  All of those proclamations of capital punishment for even what seems minor sins has a reason.  The wages of sin, any sin, no matter how small we think it is, is death.  This is the purpose of the Law.  Even if all you ever did in your entire life was lie once about some minor incident, you will suffer death.  This seems harsh but I suspect it goes beyond our concept of human justice.  We all agree there have to be rules for a society to exist.  Sin is a corruption in the very being of a human – of creation even (all creation is cursed for the sin of Adam and man Romans 8:19-22) .

Now don’t think for a moment that God is some cosmic meany just waiting for you to do wrong so He can smack you down.  Read Ezekiel 33:11 where God says He does not seek the death of the wicked but instead that they would turn to Him.  The action, however, is yours to take.  YOU must choose to turn away from your sinful life and come to Him.

Perhaps you don’t lie, not likely by maybe you don’t think you have.  Perhaps you don’t covet, you don’t worship idols and other gods.  Jesus explained the Law on an even deeper level.  If you even think hatred toward your fellow human, you have already committed murder in your heart.  Just looking after a woman lustfully (I suspect this applies to women looking at men as well) then you have committed adultery (and covetousness) in your heart. 

So perhaps you have rightfully come to the conclusion that you are a sinner even on the smallest scale and that sin will cause you death.  Not just of the body, that happens to everyone but this is a death on spiritual level.  What do you do about it?

 The short answer is you can’t do anything about it.   Don’t dismay, however, God is not a cosmic meany, remember?  He has a plan and has given one, Himself, as a redeemer for that sin.

 God came down in the form of a man named Jesus.  Long prophesied in the old testament.  He came and lived the perfect life according to the Law.  The only one in all of creation who could and did do this.  He was then put to death, innocent of any guilt, thus paying the required price to cleanse all of us of our sin.  What is more, he defeated death by rising again of his own accord.  This isn’t just a fairy tale as modern society would have you believe.  It is documented.  Josephus wrote about it in the antiquities of the Jews.  He was not a believer, at least not at the time he wrote his history texts.  He had no reason to promote the resurrection.  In this way, he was and is our kinsman redeemer.  This is a concept also explained in the Old Testament; spelled out in Exodus and Leviticus and illustrated very well in the book of Ruth.

 So that brings us back to the original question.  What can you do about the sin nature that you have?  I said. “nothing” and that is true, but the fact is, Jesus has done what you could not do.  Because he lived and died and rose again you can be spared the death that is the inevitable result of a sin nature.  Believe in him and you will have eternal life.  That isn’t to say you will live here on earth forever, who would want to, but you will be raised again (should you not be of the final generation). That’s all you have to do.  Believe in who Jesus is and what he did for you.  Repent and be baptized in the spirit, said Peter.

 Finally, if you are holding back because you think you aren’t good enough yet, keep in mind that Jesus died for you while you were still in sin (Romans 5:8). Accepting Jesus as your savior and Lord is not the end of the journey, it just the beginning.