Abba, Father, I …

Any sensible and smart person believes that there is a God in this magnificient universe. You need not be able to explain it, but you can “feel” it:

The fool says in his heart, ”There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good. ( Psalm 53:1)

Thinking further, any religious and sensible person will realise that there must be but one God in the whole universe.

Since we are all smart and sensible, and believe the above, the next question is obvious:

since there are so many religions, each with it’s own God, isn’t then true that these religions are all really worshiping the same God but tag him differently?

That is surely a most reasonable supposition.

Many true Christians who care for their God would feel strange if you posited that the Muslim Allah is the same as the Christian God. I have always denied that supposition. I have always maintained that there is no way Allah ( or Baal as he was called in times past) could  be the same as Adonai. While now i am not totally against that supposition in part ( stay with me, please, for the difference is very subtle ), i still believe that there is just no way the teachings in the Koran or of Buddha could have been inspired by the same Spirit that inspired the teachings of the Bible. They are just worlds apart.

How religion is created

There  is one God. He is far removed from wo/men, since wo/men are fallen beings. In the deep recesses of their hearts, men know He is there, and that He needs their fellowship. But they do not know what He requires of them. Most normal wo/men have an urge to relate to this God. But they do not know how to. So some wise ones among them think out ways to reach Him. Sometimes in the course of their thinking, they get external help ( inspiration)  in coming up with the ideas they believe will endear humanity to this deity. These ideas are encapsulated in forms of worship and a religion is born.

Now, to understand what i will say, you need to ask yourself this vital question as you read the next sections.

Since all religious texts and beliefs claim divine inspiration, how does inspiration come to a man? Who inspires people? Is it all internal or it can be external? People, when they perform certain extra human acts ( good or even evil ) ,  often say “something came upon me”. What is that something?

There is one God, and His name is

Since my audience  believe in Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ( that is the assumption of this blog),  what i will say next is all biased and based on the Bible, the text inspired by Him. ( If you like you can argue and say i can not use the bible view to “judge” other reliogions, and you would  be right, but i will do it anyway)

There is one God. Humans can not reach  Him. But He can and did reach out to Humans, by sending Jesus Christ as the way for humans to  find and relate to this one God. But since anyone could make such claims of divinity, how could He expect the Jewish people to believe His claims? He went further and did supernatural ( divine ) acts  that none  other could do at that time, thus signifying His Godness to them:

‘I am God’s Son’? ³⁷Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. ³⁸But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” ³⁹Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp. ( John 10:36-39)

Still, many did not believe Him.

So He tells them, the Jews( who already believed in one invisible God), why people are religions and why they get it wrong:

⁴³I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. ( John 5:43)

People are always seeking to reach God, the one God of the universe. If the way is not through Jesus Christ, they have found another way ( by another ) and it falls far far short. So, while the intentions of their hearts ( all the religions)  is for this One true God, by picking another guide other than Jesus Christ, they fail short in their noble attempts to reach Him. Therefore,  for  the Muslim, his heart is looking for the one true God, the God of the Universe, the one we know as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But the guide he chooses, Mohammed, was inspired differently and ended up creating another way altogether. The same applies to all religions.

Islam, Judaism, Buddhism all miss it

So while the heart of the muslim man is looking for  the true God, Adonai, Mohammed gave him Allah, who is as far from Adonai as East is from the West. The muslim heart wants  the true God, but gets a substitute, a shadow that is far far from Adonai. He does not know this. That is why a muslim person will get so offended if you tell him his god is not the true God, because, in his heart,  he knows he is sincerely after the true God.

Even Judaism, whose God is that true God, comes so close, but by rejecting Jesus Christ, the God designed way, still misses the way.

¹⁰then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. ¹¹He is
” ‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the capstone.¹²Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:10-12)

Who inspires the religions?

Who inspires the religions? There are only two sources.

The Holy Spirit from Jesus Christ, or the spirit of the anti-Christ, who seeks his own way:

²⁴Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. ²⁶When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.²⁷“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

²⁸” ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

²⁹” ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. ³⁰Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’ ” ( Matthew 13:24-30)

Any way not created by, and that does not acknowledge the Godness of Jesus Christ, is of course by the enemy of Christ, the devil. So while all the founders/leaders of  the religions of the worlds may be  good and well meaning people who are looking to better the world or creating ways to meet the  seeking of men’s need for the one true God, as long as they reject the Godness of Jesus Christ, and Him as the way to the God of the universe, they are working with the enemy of Christ,  the devil, and end up creating “another” substitute.

What does that mean?

That Roman Catholicism is working with the enemy of Christ. That Judaism is working with the enemies of Christ, the devil! If you doubt this, listen to  Christ talk to the priests ( of God ) of his time:

⁴⁴You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ⁴⁵Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! ⁴⁶Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? ⁴⁷He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” ( John 8:44-47)

It means, that the teachings of Islam was inspired by the devil, of course.

[ But that does not mean that a Christian should go shouting it into a muslim's face and burning his religious texts, as some people claiming to be Christians want to do to remember 9/11. In fact, i believe those people are actually knowingly/unwisely working with the devil in trying to do that act. Any reasonable Christian knows that anything not of God is of the devil. As such, these people ought to go burn all other texts out there in the world that are not Christian in nature. That kind of zeal is misguided, foolish and does not serve the cause of Christ. ]

Buddhism was inspired by the devil. Hinduism is of the devil. New age was inspired by the devil. Atheism is inspired by the devil.

If someone is agnostic or has no interest in religion, he may not be isnpired, but as long as his agnosticism does not lead him/her  to Jesus Christ, the devil is happy and will not bother him.

Is it possible to have a non-Jesus Christ -based religion that is not inspired by the devil? Yes, it is possible. But given the fact that the devil is after men’s souls, and religions minister to men’s soul, i do not see how the devil will leave such a religion alone.

How to reach other religious people

One, there is not point in arguing as to whether the god of their religion is the same as the God of the Bible. You can never win such an argument without being intellectually biased and “irrelevant”. Salvation is of the heart. Exercise his heart. There are others already working on his mind. You go for the heart.

The best way, of course, is to let your love shine and to work with the Lord. Find out who He wants you to witness to at any time. And find out what He wants you to tell them. He knows their heart, and what they need to hear at any one time :

Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” ( John 1:47)

Who  would have known that these simple words would convict Nathaniel? Do not assume anything.

But then again, if you have love in your heart, i need not tell you what to do.

The unknown God

The conclusion then is this, many people worship a God they do not  know:

You [Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, New agers,Samaritans] worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” ( John 4:22-24)

Do you have an issue with your Abba?  Are you not talking with Him because He did not give you what you thought you so desparetely needed? Then this is your post.

Perhaps you are one of the few people who have read this verse.

¹⁰ “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit  of grace and supplication. They will look on  me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. ( Zechariah 12:10)

Briefly, this is a scene in the future where the Jews finally realize that the Messiah who has  just saved them from the fury of the Beast and Armageddon had visited them some 000’s years back and they had actully rejected Him and “pierced” Him.

Before you dismiss this as not applying to you, stay on a little with me.

Why the did it

Why did they reject Him? Here is a summary of the context.

He had told them that there is only one God, Him, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He had promised to visit them one day and give them eternal life ( also known as  salvation).

⁶ For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. ( isaiah 9:6)

But till that time of faith came, He put them under a guardian, the  law, for them to  ”live” by:

²³Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. ²⁴So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. ( galatians 3: 23, 24)

Unfortunately, as time went by, they forgot how He looked like or how His heart operates. His teachers forgot His grace. Instead they immersed themselves in the outward worship of His laws, and devoid  of the  spirit. But the law does not give life ( Gal 3:21 ). Instead it hardens the heart. Grace softens the heart.

When a person operates in the law,  faith becomes impossible.

So you would expect that when the time was fully come ( some 000’s of years later ) and He visited them as He had promised He would, they could not recognize Him:

¹⁰He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ( John 1:10,11)

He reasoned and pleaded with them,

³⁷And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, ³⁸nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. ³⁹You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, ⁴⁰yet you refuse to come to me to have life. ( John 5: 37-40)

He even threatened dire consequences upon those who remain n their sin,

²¹Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.” ( John 8:21)

all to  no avail. They rejected Him.

Why?

Because their hearts were hardened and they  were expecting their God to come through to them  in a certain style they had formulated  in their minds. They prayed, but they already knew how He would come to save them! They prayed, but they had the exact idea of how He was to answer their prayer. So they were not prepared for the answer that they received from Him.

They expected  a God of pomp and Glory , and a King of power with  fire consuming their enemies. They were not prepared for a lowly God who operates among sinners and is virtually penniless. No, they could not  take Him in.

Does that sound familiar?

The stuff we must have

Do you have a burning issue with the Lord? Is your heart lukewarm because He has failed you?

• Did you fail to marry the wo/man of your dreams that you so wanted to be happy with?
• Did you fail to attend the school you so much craved?
• Did you fail to get the career you felt you were born to be?
• Did you fail to land the job you “deserved”?
• Did you fail to succeed in the biz deal you came so close to clinching?
• Did the Lord fail to heal that loved one you prayed and fasted so much for?
• Is the Lord refusing you the “stuff” you “know” you desperately want?

Here is my advice.

The Lord loves you, and there is nothing He would withhold from you. Otherwise He would not have given you Himself, would He? There is nothing He would withhold from you without cause.

If He has kept something from you, let it be. He knows best. Lift up your eyes and look yonder where your real “stuff” awaits. Do not be like the Jews that had salvation within their grasp and let it slip by because of their lack of faith in the goodness of their God.

Why some  saints will weep in shame

The Lord, who scans the 1000000 infinite years at once and can see your tomorrow, and the next day and the next 50 years of your life right now, has perhaps seen it fit that none of your expectations be  met. He has His good reasons. Shall you remain  in hurt and lukewarmness towards Him because of this? If you do, you are in effect rejecting His wisdom and plans for you.

Must you wait another 25 years to look back and say “Lord, i am so sorry i distrusted you. Now i see back and i am so grateful you kept me from such and such”?

At the judgement, when their lives are finally revealed to them, there shall be many saints weeping with their heads bowed in great shame, that they even dared not trust the Lord of eternity and  the whole universe to lead them as He knew best, in the small matters of their short lives here on earth  spanning just 70 ( or so ) years.

And the Lord too might be ashamed of them!

….the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. ( Luke 9:26b)

This post is  really a comment as to whether someone can “blindly trust” the Lord.

The simple answer is Yes and No.

If a disciple of one lord Krishna said to me that his lord could give me eternal life, and i know nothing about this lord, and i trust him, this is “blind” trust. Will my trust in this lord work? Nobody knows. Depends on the powers of this lord.

For any religion (  all including Christianity as a religion  except a relationship with  the  Lord Jesus ) yes, someone may blindly trust. And the proof of the pudding is in “did it work”?.

But when it comes to Trustig Christ, someone who  has never heard anything about Him or had a history with Him may show what appears to be blind trust. But on further examination, this trust turns out to be not so blind after all. For the Christian, that “did it work” is what the Bible is all about. If one totally believes the bible, and what it says about the Lord, as is, then it  is no longer possible to blindly trust. You have evidence. Read on.

Faith comes by hearing

The illustration about lord Krishna we had above applies to the Christian scenarion. An evangelist  comes  and tells me that he met a certain man named Jesus Christ, and that this Christ gives eternal life and love and peace, and that he can do it for me. I can “blindly” trust that Christ, and await the result of this Christ to show in me. Will it work? Again, it depends on the powers of this Christ.

Aside: Before we continue and as a tip, notice that my being attracted to be interested in Christ does not happen in a vacuum. And for me to “believe” in this Christ, i need help from above:

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. ( John 6:44)

This i a continuation of “What is God doing nowadays?“.

Now that we Christian have the power to move things along or be moved by the Hand of God as He does His work of moving things along, how do we ensure that we do not deviate from the work that He is doing through us?

Here is an illustration i got from somewhere.

Easy battle. Enjoyable work.

I was in this place. Where, i do not know. It was dark all around but there was enough light that you could see shapes in the darkness. All around a battle was raging. But the fighting was with words. Speak the word, and the enemies who you could see coming at you would be pushed back.  The intersting thing is that whether they were many or few, i managed to always push them back. And this went on and on, but i never tired.

In the second scene, the  battle is now done, and the fighters regrouped. Everyone came around to share what their work was all about. Every worker was excited about what he did, and was overly excited when explaining the details of what they did. And each person was eager to recruit more people to go  join them in doing what they ( the worker) was doing. It seemed, each person had the perfect job.

Here is the interpretation of that illustration.

Hard work, yet effortless, untiring

How is that even possible, to do a hard job and not be tired? Because, as we said in the last post, it is not you that is doing the working, but it is the Father ( through His Spirit) who is  working through you, the vessel of his choice.

Therefore, it is impossible to burn out!

³¹ But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint. ( Isaiah 40:31 NKJV)

Secondly, that work  you are moved to do for the Lord, you want to do it all your life, and you enjoy it so much you would recommend and recruit others to join you. It is not a chore, or like these 9-5 jobs people do, that one gets  paid for. For these type of jobs, most people live for Friday or payday ( Payday is great, of course).

No, it is living, a lifestyle one enjoys.

Apostle Paul had completed his task and given a chance to leave the earth. Paul’s  life on earth was full of hardships and persecution. He  really ought to have jumped at the chance of retirement  and be with the Lord ( after all the Lord had told him that he was done). He instead chose to stay on and assist the new Christians. This is because he enjoyed his assignments.

I have done this
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When not at “war” and lazing about, do you ever wonder at some things about God, such as today’s topic? Have you ever wondered what the Lord God is doing in this 21st century? Isn’t creation done? Is He just sitting yonder “cloud” relaxing?

Here is what i found out.

And God finished all His work

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ( Gen. 1.1 NKJV)

We all know this. But we are not at the beginning. Furthermore, it is recorded that

¹ Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. ² And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

He basically said “It is finished!”.

To the Jews, God was done with all His work. He rested. He told them so. They held it so.

So they observed the sabbath religiously. Fervently, almost to the point of worship of the day. They followed the sabbath law so perfectly that it controlled them. Man now served the sabbath, rather than the other way round. They missed the spirit behind it.

Fast forward to the time of Jesus Christ.

“My Father is Still working”

Jesus comes along and began saying and doing things in rather bizarre ways. One, He claims that He Himself is their one and only God ( not another, but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Father Himself. The great I AM. Needless to say, they cannot stand it, and seek to kill Him, as Moses commanded). Secondly, He breaks their holiest of laws, sabbath, by working on the sabath!

And here we  get a glimpse of what God was doing in the 0th century:

¹⁷ But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” (John 5: 17)

He claims the Father is still working! Of course they  ” … sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.”

And then, of course, He does the ultimate work, dying for man.  Finally, the deed is done. It is finished!

He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. ( John 19:30)

So He ascends and sits down. He is done. No  more work remains for Him, it would appear.

No man worketh but the Spirit
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