Religious Faith vs. genuine faith

 

Religious Faith vs. Genuine Faith

Well, praise Jesus today, everyone. Yesterday, I was by a river and I happened to see all of these fig trees. I thought to myself, "When these fig trees have fruit on them, I will come back and I'll collect some of these fig trees to make something with figs. That'll be fun, I'll tell my wife."

But then I took a closer look and I noticed that it already had figs on it. Some were small, some were big, and the closer I looked, I noticed that they had a lot of ripe figs. So, I was excited that there were figs. Some of the figs were already so ripe they were falling into the river, and so I went to go pick a few figs. And these were big figs, guys. I've had some figs that were just the smaller kind, and they're very sweet and delicious, but these were huge figs. And so, I picked one of the big figs and, to my disappointment, it was totally dried up and the inside of it was all rotten. And so, I went to another fig. I picked another one of the figs, and every fig that I was picking off that tree—every single one of them—was rotten and bad.

What it reminded me of is where Jesus talks about how a good tree produces good fruit and how bad trees produce bad fruit. This tree, no matter where you went on the tree and picked a piece of fruit, even if it looked good, it was bad. I just knew it doesn't matter if I go clear to the top of the tree or pick low—all of its fruit is bad.

The Curse of Fruitlessness

The other thing it reminded me of is when Jesus was with his disciples and he came to this fig tree that was supposedly out of season. He's hungry and he wants some fruit, but there's no figs on the fig tree. So, what Jesus does is he curses that fig tree and says, "Never again will you ever produce fruit." And immediately, the fig tree withers up and it dies.

People think, "How could the Creator do this? Why would he do something so evil? Why would he curse a fig tree?" In reality, it has to do with spirituality. Jesus doesn't just curse things just because, but it's an example of how much he hates a lack of fruit. When people don't produce good fruit, their very lives are cursed. When you're doing evil in the sight of God, your very life is cursed by God because sin brings about the curse of God in your life. And so, this fruit never produced fruit again.

A lot of nations are cursed by God because they choose, out of their rebellion, to rebel against God. The nation of Israel was one of those that chose to rebel against God. What Jesus said about them: "How many times did I want to gather you under my wings like a chicken gathers her chicks, but you were unwilling." And because the nation of Israel was unwilling to be gathered by God, the curse of God is on her head.

Now, many Christians have rebelled against God. Even though they appear to look good on the outside, they're kind of like that fig tree that I came to the other day by the river. On the outside, it looks like they have big fruit and it appears to be nice or developing— some of their fruit looks small, some looks big—but the fact is, inside it is rotten.

So, how can we tell the difference between good fruit and bad fruit? Sometimes, apparently, you can't even tell the difference until you taste it. So, not only just by looking can you tell, but by tasting that fruit. When I tasted that fruit, I knew it was all bad. All the fruit on the tree was bad.

Religious Faith vs. Experience-Based Faith

How can you tell the difference between a Christian's faith? How can you tell the difference? What I want to talk about is the difference between religious faith versus faith that is developed or brought about by experiences in life.

When a lot of Christians think about faith, they think about a very superficial kind of idea of faith. The term "faith" has mostly been hijacked by our vocabulary. When you think about faith, you think about certain principles or a faith-based religion—so, the Christian faith, or the Muslim faith, the Catholic faith—which really doesn't mean anything that has been attached to faith over history. It just means: what do those people believe systematically? What is their theology? This kind of faith, I would call just a religious faith.

In fact, a lot of Christians are born into a faith, which means just because they were born into a Catholic family, they're Catholic, or they're born into a Protestant family, so they're Protestant. But this doesn't actually amount to anything as far as what faith really means.

When you look at people from the scripture—the patriarchs, the men and women who really had faith—faith was an attribute of their character that was developed by getting to know God through experiences. For example, Abraham heard from God, and God told him to leave his area where he was living, and that God would add to him more children than the stars in the sky or the sand on the seashore. If he were to follow the one true God, God would bless him and make him a great nation. So, Abraham had to develop and, by faith, trust that God would keep his word to him. When he chose to be faithful to God, then he saw God acting on his promise, and then his faith was developed.

So, it wasn't that Abraham just had a set of religious beliefs, and that he just read his Bible, and that he just believed the things that his parents told him, therefore he was Catholic or therefore he was Protestant. Faith to Abraham meant putting his feet where God had told him to go, proving that he was a child of God by obedience, and then seeing God keep his word to him. As God would keep his word to him, then he knew that God was the one true God. God telling him, "In your old age, you will have a son," and then Abraham sees that his wife has Isaac—that increased his faith.

If we want this genuine kind of faith, this developed kind of faith, it's only built through experiences in our life where we have a sort of faith that says, "I believe that God will provide for me. I trust that he will provide for me. I know that he knows the best for me, so I'm not going to run ahead of him and do anything without his will." It's not just supposing that we're men and women of faith because we were born into some religion.

You Cannot Outsource the Holy Spirit

I think that some people—and I've noticed this over the years—they think that faith can be granted them by a holy person. So, they're looking for a certain pastor, or a certain preacher, or a certain man or woman that has the Holy Spirit. They think that because that wise virgin has oil in his or her lamp, somehow they can have that overspill into their life, or that they can get that oil from that specific person.

Quite a few people have come to me over the years, guys, who have thought that I could give them the Holy Spirit. Someone asked me the other day this question as well—and I'm not saying this to pick on anyone—but what they asked is, "Can you give me the Holy Spirit?" People wonder, "If I am baptized by the right person, or if you baptize me, am I going to come out of the water speaking in new tongues? Now you have spiritual power in you because I baptized you, or because this other brother baptized you that's filled with the Holy Spirit?"

The truth is, not even Jesus was able to perform miracles in some towns around Nazareth because people had no faith. What Jesus would tell people is, "It's in accordance to your faith." Because a lot of people in Jesus's own town didn't believe in him—they didn't believe in him as the one sent by God—he couldn't do any miracles there. Jesus couldn't give them the Holy Spirit, and neither can I give you the Holy Spirit. It's not been granted to me, or by Jesus, to give you the Holy Spirit if you have no faith.

But if you have faith and it's been granted to you by God, then you can pray for yourself and go to the one who sells free of charge and say, "My God, would you please give me your Holy Spirit? Can you give me the fire of truth that I can be filled with your spirit and your love? Can you fill me up?" And if you go to him who can grant you the Holy Spirit, and you know that he's not going to give you a serpent or a snake, but he's going to give you the gift of the Holy Spirit, then he will to those who knock. Remember, the door will be open; those who ask will find.

What you're looking for, you're going to find, for good or for evil. A lot of Christians are looking in all the wrong areas. They're looking for a man in hopes that that man will give them the truth and give them life. You're looking in the wrong spot if you're looking for people. People will disappoint you. Every person is, at best, a brother or a sister in the Lord, and at worst, they're a snake.

So, as your brother in Christ, I'm encouraging you to go and pray and ask the Lord. Say, "Lord Jesus, I need faith. I need to be restored." Whatever you need, pray in faith, and that will be done for you if you have genuine faith. But don't be going running to other people as if they can give you the Holy Spirit, as if it's been given to them to somehow, just as it were magic, give you the spirit, give you a gift of tongues, give you a gift of healing, give you the gift of helps, give you the gift of prophecy. A lot of you guys are chasing after signs and wonders instead of after holiness, true repentance, and the things that God actually desires for you.

Instead of looking for people, rather check your own heart and say, "Am I someone who really wants to work for faith? Am I someone that wants to develop with Jesus? Have I counted the cost of following the Lord?" Because genuine faith is not something you easily stumble on.

The Right Attitude

What I've seen happen a lot, guys, is someone comes wanting to be baptized, and me, out of the goodness of my heart, I will baptize you. Because at the end of the day, Jesus isn't going to curse me for baptizing you even if you had the wrong attitude. Or if you came to me asking for money and I gave you money, even if you were trying to scam me, it's never coming back as a curse to me because I gave out of the goodness of my heart, or I was preaching repentance out of the goodness of my heart, or doing what Jesus called me to do out of the goodness of my heart. But if you came with a wrong attitude, then the curse of your sin is on you.

I see too often people coming to want to be baptized, or coming to hear the message of repentance, not because they really want to repent and get right with God, but because they are joining in by intrigue. Like the prophet says, they're just intrigued by the gospel. They're intrigued by the supernatural; they're intrigued by things that happen in the spiritual realm. So, they want to see the signs and the wonders and the magic, so to speak, rather than put their faith in Jesus and do the hard work to daily and diligently follow him.

And so, these sorts of people, they will come for a baptism, they will come for a healing, and then when they don't receive the healing or the spirit, then they blame it on me, or they blame it on the preacher, or they blame it on the person that baptized them. Because they think, "It couldn't be me who had a wrong heart. It must be them. They must have not been holy enough to baptize me and give me the Holy Spirit. They must have not been holy enough to fix my problem, or they must not be holy enough to heal me."

Even Jesus would heal people, and some of those people would go back to their sin. People wouldn't even thank Jesus. Remember, for example, those lepers that came to Jesus looking for a healing? Jesus could heal them, but only one of those ten came back and had gratitude in his heart. And Jesus said, "What about the other nine? Did they not also receive a healing? What about them?" Those guys only wanted a healing and then they ran right back to the world. But only one out of the ten realized that there was a miracle and gave glory to God and worshiped Jesus. Only one.

So, it seems like most people, of course, they want a miracle, they want to see God work in their life, but very few people are good soil or good seed in good soil, wanting to produce fruit.

Overcoming Daily Temptation

Genuine fruit is difficult to come by because it doesn't come naturally. You have to choose daily to deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Jesus. It seems like a lot of people think that God is going to do everything for them. They think that once they come to genuine faith, because Jesus already died on the cross, they will instantly not lust anymore, all the desire to sin will just be taken from them, they will never get sick anymore, they will never experience pain or suffering—everything will just be done for them because Jesus tacked it on the cross 2,000 years ago.

They're living in a fantasy land. They don't understand that we have to pick up our cross. We have to daily deny ourselves and choose to go the right way with Jesus over the wrong way of sin. That is extremely difficult. That is the work that we have to do as Christians: bearing good fruit. The more that we choose to do right, then we get better at rejecting evil, at overcoming temptation.

But that doesn't mean that temptation just goes away, or that Satan tries to stop tempting us. Even though I am dedicated to Jesus, I still am tempted by Satan. And so, when I go to bed at night, I make sure that I pray with my wife and my family, and I say, "Keep us from sexual temptation. Keep us from falling into lust. Keep us from falling into all of the worries of the world and all the doubt that comes into this life. Help us just touch nothing that's unclean and stay unstained from the world." Because if you're going to bed and not praying, and your mind is wandering, that is when Satan's going to come in and he's going to try to sift you.

So, you need to keep yourself prayed up. You need to continue to pray and say, "Lord Jesus, put your hedge of protection around me. I pray that your spirit can fill me. I pray to be listening to you and to be moved by your spirit, and only by your spirit, and that other spirits would not push me around, or tempt me, or distract me, or get into my spiritual life like arrows from the devil." We need to be very persistent in putting on the full armor of God and resisting the devil because it's not going to happen just by default.

So many Christians, it seems, think that when Jesus comes into their life, or when another man of God preaches the truth, then all temptation's just going to go away. They think they don't have to worry about daily denying themselves. How has that panned out for you? Everyone that's been walking with God a minute or two realizes that temptation never goes away. Jesus was tempted, every one of the patriarchs was tempted, all of us are tempted in many ways. But we get better at overcoming sin and temptation the more we choose good ourselves, and choose to feed the spirit and not the flesh.

If you want to develop genuine faith, it comes from feeding your spiritual man or your spiritual woman and not feeding the flesh. You are never going to make it into the kingdom of God simply because you were called a person of faith because you were born into a Christian home.

How do you do this? It happens through constantly growing with Jesus. Each time that you have a temptation come into your life, even the little temptations, choose to cast out what is evil from your mind. All sin starts when it comes into your mind, whether it's lust or anger. Whatever the temptation is, it first enters your mind to do it. So, when those things are entering your mind, rebuke those evil thoughts in the name of Jesus, realize that you're under spiritual attack, and then pray that the Lord Jesus gives you the power to overcome.

Each time that you choose good over evil, then you start to be developed in your faith and you start to realize the Lord rewards you for choosing good over evil, even when it's difficult. When you choose to tell the truth in the workplace, even though you may suffer the consequence for that, then the Lord blesses you and you realize, "Oh, the Lord is providing for me, even though I thought that I wouldn't have the money or income or whatever it is." By you choosing to follow the Lord, you are developing your faith as you see Jesus work in your life. So, continue to pray, continue to worship Jesus.

Discipleship Starts at Home

The other thing that stands out for me as far as developing your own faith is, as your faith develops, you make disciples of the people around us. For example, when I first got married and I was coming into my relationship with Jesus, my relationship with Jesus spilled over to my wife, and it became this really wonderful thing that built our marriage on the rock of Jesus from the beginning. I'm so grateful that I met Jesus at the very beginning of my marriage because, instead of my marriage being built on the religious faith of the church and what people were trying to make our marriage be, instead my faith was built on the truth of Jesus and trusting him, obeying him, and growing in real genuine faith.

And then after we had children, instead of my children being raised in church and just developing in religion, I could then have that overspilling of my life, of my faith, and my prayer life. All of that poured into my children. Because the things I was learning—all of those things—were spilling out of my life, then my children, instead of by default growing up in church and religion, they were growing up in genuine faith. It's been really a wonderful thing to see.

I have now five children. It's a really wonderful thing to see them grow in the joy of the Lord and really putting together what it means to have faith. I didn't have exactly that when I was growing up. Although I did have faith at times, mostly what I knew was religion. At some point, Jesus did speak to me and I started to realize the difference between what just religious kind of faith was and what really developing faith in the Lord meant. But how wonderful is that, to grow up in a family that teaches you what genuine faith is?

A lot of us as parents didn't have that. So, to be that to your children if you are a parent is really the most valuable thing because we want to bring our children into the kingdom of God. One thing that I think about is my children are the ones I've been given spiritual authority over. I haven't been given spiritual authority over people on YouTube or my neighbor, but those of my own household. I've been given spiritual authority over my children, my wife, and they're the ones that I am responsible for as a husband and as a father.

If you are a father or a mother, you're also responsible for your own family. You're responsible to help your children develop in their faith, develop real faith, learn how to pray, to talk to Jesus, have a prayer life, read their Bible, and develop good habits that will build them in the kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of the world. If you learn how to do that as a parent, you're going to greatly help yourself and your family to stay in the truth. You learn to pray, and by doing that, you're making disciples.

A lot of Christians that are just religious, they think of discipleship as a church program, or maybe going on a mission trip and making disciples overseas, but they totally forget about their own family. It's not a pastor's job to disciple your children. It's not a pastor's job to disciple your wife. It's your job as a husband and as a leader to disciple your wife and your family. That starts, of course, by you being a disciple, by you reading the Bible, by you applying the words of Jesus to your life, and by you being 100% devoted to Jesus.

100% Devoted

I was thinking about this the other day—how a lot of Christians have coined this term called "devotions." To them, devotions means spending time with a devotional or devoting 20 minutes of their time to God. When you think about it, that's ridiculous because God doesn't want Christians that devote 20 minutes of their life to him; he wants us to be 100% devoted to him. So, instead of just doing a devotional, you give 100% of yourself to God. Then, because you're devoted to God 100%, you become a disciple 100%, and then you're able to make disciples 100%.

By doing life that way with Jesus, you really develop genuine faith and you have real fruit—not this kind of fruit, you know, that looks good on the outside. A lot of Christians have fruit that looks good on the outside. You'll find Christians that appear to have genuine love; they're very thoughtful, very caring, they will give things to you, and in all these ways, they're helpful. But you find that their fruit is disingenuous on the inside.

We don't want to be the kinds of Christians that have a fig that looks big and juicy on the outside, but on the inside, it's all rotten. We want to be pure and holy on the inside. That way, the love of Jesus, true worship, and righteousness flows out of us.

So, that's all I have for today, guys. But I do want to pray for those of you that want to devote 100% of yourself to Jesus and develop the genuine faith that God requires.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, I pray for those who are listening today. I pray that someone may hear your voice, not my words, but that they may hear your word—that they may hear the word of life and that they may devote their life to you. I pray that they may repent of their sins and become a good tree that produces good fruit.

I pray that you purify them on the inside so that they can also be pure on the outside. I pray that we can be washed clean from immorality, from all the wickedness that's in the world. We pray not to have any addictions. We pray not to be addicted to anything in this world or tempted by the things of Satan, but that we could truly seek first your kingdom and your righteousness, and be filled with the glory of God so that we can bear good fruit and be your children.

I pray for your true church, Lord Jesus, and that someone today would be edified, put their faith in you, overcome sin, and inspire others to do the same. In your name I pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Pure Christianity is perfectly non- inclusive

 

Pure Christianity is Perfectly Non-Inclusive

Praise Jesus today everyone. I had a few minutes today, and I wanted to make a live video on something I've been thinking about the last couple of days, and that is the idea of how uninclusive or non-inclusive—or you could even say disinclusive, if that's a word—real and pure Christianity truly is.

And I want to explain what I mean.

God has made marriage on earth as a picture of what the marriage supper of the Lamb is like in heaven, because it's like an analogy. Now, when you are falling in love, you get engaged and you get your engagement ring, and then some time passes and you walk down the wedding aisle and you say your vows. And what you do when you're saying your vows is you're promising to be loyal to your spouse "till death do us part." And so, you're promising that you will disinclude or uninclude every other lover from your life.

Now, our culture in the world, they act like that is selfish and that's mean. They say you should be inclusive, and if you're not including all other people, you're being hateful. But we all know in reality that is a big fat lie. When you choose to go into holy matrimony, you are disincluding or unincluding everyone else from your marriage bed. You choose not to look at other women. You choose not to look at pornography. You choose to keep your mind and your heart pure. You choose to be loyal 100% to your wife.

And you know in your heart that if you are not loyal, and if you're not keeping your heart pure, then you're not growing in love with her. It unincludes you from a good marriage, a successful marriage, and it unincludes you from the kingdom of God. We know that it is written: fornicators, idolaters, sorcerers, those that are immoral, murderers, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. And so, if you participate in things that are pornographic and wicked, and things that are of adultery and fornication, you uninclude yourself from God's kingdom.

This we understand if we have a pure mind and a pure heart. But marriage is set up on earth between a husband and a wife to be an analogy, or a picture, of the marriage supper of the Lamb. That is the union—the connection—between God's people, the bride of Christ (He calls it His church or His body) and Himself, the bridegroom.

And we know the parables about the bridegroom. When He comes, He is coming for a holy and pure bride. He's not coming for a defiled bride with defiled garments; He's coming for a holy and pure bride. And we know also what happens to those that have defiled their garments: they get thrown out into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. We know what happens to the five foolish virgins. When those doors shut, they are closed, and they're not able to come in because they were not prepared. They didn't put on their white robes and have oil in their lamps in time.

Praise Jesus everyone. And so, we need to make sure that we are staying undefiled.

Now, a lot of Christians even think that they're going to make it into God's kingdom even though they have defiled garments. They are stained with the world. They have a perverted mind. They allow their eyes to feast on things that are wicked and their ears to indulge in all the impurities and the filth of the world. You can't expect to have righteousness pour out of you if you are inputting things that are of filth.

And similarly, if you are in a marriage, you can't expect for you and your wife or you and your husband to have a good marriage that lasts and is successful if you're cheating on your spouse. Cheating on your spouse is grounds for divorce legally, spiritually, and within the law. That's what Jesus said. And so, we need to keep ourselves holy and pure with our marriage, with our marriage bed.

But similarly with God, if you are cheating on God with other loves, and if He is not the only one you're living for, but you're living for a bunch of other false gods, then that's going to disinclude you in the kingdom of God. Why would you think that God is going to allow you into His kingdom when you served all these other things besides Him? Those that are His bride, that make it into His kingdom, are those that are 100% dedicated to His kingdom. They are sold out for Him alone.

You see a lot of Christians today that are sold out for a lot of things. They're sold out for sports. They're sold out for education. They are sold out for their own retirement, for figuring out how to do really good in the world. But we also know what Jesus said: you can't serve God and mammon. You can't serve God and money. So, how is it that we have this whole culture that thinks they can serve God and the gods of the earth, and that they will somehow keep themselves undefiled in the end? If it doesn't work with your wife when you cheat on her, it certainly won't work with God when you cheat on Him.

So, if we want to be the holy and pure children of God, if we want to be undefiled, we need to be like the five wise virgins that carried oil in their lamps. And of course, why they were virgins is that spiritually they were virgins. And that means that they were keeping themselves unstained from the world. They weren't worshiping idols. They weren't bowing down to false gods. They were keeping themselves pure for the wedding supper of the Lamb. Just as a bride needs to keep herself pure for her husband so that when they enter into matrimony, they have a pure relationship without it being defiled by other men already being in her.

Most people are breaking this commandment of Jesus. They're defiling their bodies. They're defiling their eyes and their ears—their eyes with pornography and their ears with every sort of wicked music. They have allowed evil into their life through all of their pastimes. And instead of keeping themselves pure for Jesus and being salt and light, they're totally choked out by all of the pleasures of the world.

Jesus talked about the four soils: the soil that doesn't produce; the seed that gets eaten up by Satan; the one that falls in the rocky soil that grows up and then is scorched by the sun because as soon as persecutions arrive, they don't want to follow God; and then you have the soil that has the seed that grows but then is choked out by all the worries of life and all the pleasures of life.

How many people can you think of, and include yourself, that are being choked out by the worries of the world? You're so worried about other people, so worried about your income. Where will you eat? Where will you sleep? What will you drink? How will you have a retirement? How will you have joy in this world? You're so worried about the things that the Gentiles worry about that you're not pleasing God and creating or instilling in even your own children the desire to live holy.

If we love Jesus, we will be making disciples. Think about it: when is the last time you had a heart-to-heart conversation with someone about the kingdom of God, about Jesus? When is the last time that you really cared for the things that are close to Jesus's heart? People talk about all sorts of things. They talk about their job. They gossip. They talk about the size of their vehicle tires and all these other things that are just things you have to do in the workplace and things to make your household run.

But when is the last time you were about your Father's business in heaven? When is the last time you were helping a sinner repent and come into the kingdom of God? Because those are the things that really matter. And if you are not doing those things, then likely you're being choked out by all the weeds of the world. That is the third soil. The third soil is the one that is being choked out because you're worried about all the different things of this life. You're engaged in all the pleasures of this life, but you're not speaking to anyone about Jesus. Maybe you're to the point where you're ashamed of Him, or you're too professional to speak out for Him.

Or maybe you've just lost your joy of the Lord. Maybe because you don't have that joy in you, you're not speaking about the Lord as much. Maybe you have lost your passion for Him, and so no longer are you really hearing from the Lord. You're losing your vision. You're losing your sleep at night. You're not hearing from God anymore when you pray.

That is a problem because you're being choked out by the world. And Satan desperately wants to take your light in any way he can, either quickly or slowly. He will deteriorate you to try to make your light less bright. He will try to drown out your light so that you can't shine for Jesus, so that you won't talk about Him, so that you won't have the joy of the Lord, and you won't be praising Him. Satan wants you just in the worries of the world, flooded with all the things of the world.

But if we want to be salt and light, and pure as a bride should be for her groom, then we need to keep ourselves unstained and we need to uninclude all the other lovers. A lot of us have problems with this. The world wants to be inclusive. And I look around and I see all of these churches, and I see all of life, and people want to be so inclusive of every religion, every tradition, every thought, every practice. They say every way probably makes it to God. And by doing this, they defile themselves and they are filled with filth.

Jesus is not coming for a filthy bride. He's coming for His bride that is unstained, that is pure, that has oil in her lamp—an undefiled bride.

So, I want to pray for those of you that want to keep yourself undefiled, your ears pure, your eyes pure, and your whole body full of light.

Lord Jesus, I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters. I pray for the church, the body of Christ, that someone may hear this message today and feel conviction in their heart, and that they may give their life to You and repent of following multiple loves. I pray they would learn what it means to really honor You by unincluding, by disincluding things that are evil and wicked. I pray that we would learn to touch nothing that is unclean and that we would just hold Your hand, Lord Jesus, and do Your will—that we would do what is perfect in the eyes of our Father in heaven. In Your name we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Can You Think From Jesus’s Perspective

Well, praise Jesus today everyone. I have a short message that I wanted to speak about today, and I thought this live video would be a good way to do it.

I have been very blessed to grow up in a family and to have been raised by parents who virtually had no social front. And what I mean by that is my parents and my family were exactly the same person in the public eye as they were in their private life. They didn't pretend to be someone that they weren't. They didn't try to portray themselves to clients or to people at their church as something better or something different than they actually were. And because I saw this in my life, even as a kid, that is what helped develop me to be honest, truthful, even if there were times in my life where I was distant from God. I was always honest.

What I realized though, as I went throughout life, is most people are not honest. I want to give an example of something that I noticed later on in life, and this took me a while to catch on to. And I think a lot of people just automatically knew how to do this, at least in the world, and that is to put on a face that everything is good or act like you're more friendly than you actually are to people, or always be smiling when you don't feel joy.

For me, that was never something of who I was. I don't smile if I'm not having a good day. And if I'm telling you something serious, I'm not going to be smiling and waving and acting with a false joy. I'm just going to say it as it is because that's who God has created me to be.

But I want to give a certain example so it would help put in perspective what I'm talking about. I graduated from high school with a class of about a hundred other kids, and those students all went their own way. Some of those students, once they graduated high school, went out and wrecked their lives. Some of them likely committed suicide, or they got on drugs, or they overdosed on drugs and alcohol. They wrecked their lives.

Some of those people that are now adults, they're now 40 or so. I see them around town. In particular, there's one guy who graduated from my same high school class, and he's homeless, likely due to drugs and his addictions. That guy never looks anyone in the face. He's always looking down and will never acknowledge anybody.

There's another fellow, however, that acknowledges everyone. If you go to the post office, or you see him at the supermarket, or anywhere in a public place, "praise Jesus today everyone." This guy is always smiling. He's always happy. He's always recognizing other people. Likely he would remember your name if you have spoken to him one time.

Early on, I started to wonder, what makes this guy different? Is it Jesus that makes him different? Because I'm pretty sure he's not a Christian. So what makes these people different?

I started to realize, even from a young age, that what makes these particular people different isn't that they've been changed by Jesus, but what makes it different is that they are in the public eye and they own a business and they're trying to bring in customers into their business.

This particular guy that I'm talking about, he owns a bar and grill and a lot of people know him in the community. People go to his shop and he wants people to buy his stuff, to buy his food or his products or whatever it is that he's selling. But it has nothing to do with him being a Christian, why he's friendly to others.

But it does help you in the world, I'm saying, to be friendly and joyous and to put on a false front, even if you're emotionally depressed and all of those things. It helps you to appear to be happy and joyous and friendly to others because probably 80% of people, if you're friendly to them, will be friendly back to you. But that has nothing to do with the true joy of Jesus Christ.

Why am I saying this? This is because the world has truly changed what it means to practice the golden rule. The golden rule is to treat other people how you want to be treated. And the reason why you would do that is because our Father in heaven is love. God loves us unconditionally in the sense that even if we're evil, He does good to us. He loves us even though we are corrupt and wicked people, and He hopes that we repent of our evil and that we come into the light of the truth and that we also get what it means to love others—not with a pretense, not because we own a shop and want to look good to other people—but that we just love others and treat others as we want to be treated without this pretense, without wanting something in return.

Even from a young age, I noticed these guys aren't Christians, that they're not caring to be godly. So for me, I had to figure out, why are these people being so nice? And when it hit me, it made me upset. The people in the world are only being nice. They're only being caring for what they will get on this earth.

To them, everything is about this earth—how much money they get, how much respect they get, how popular their business is, how good they look before men. But they don't care about Jesus and His kingdom. They don't even believe He exists. To them, Jesus is no different than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or something like that.

But for us that actually know Jesus as our Lord, we want to do everything as unto the Lord, not for this other reason of getting people into our business and trying to look good to the community so it helps us get more money and more security in this world.

I hope this is making sense to someone, because most Christians are not living for the kingdom of God. They're living 100% for themselves, and they're deceiving you. They're deceiving other Christians into thinking they're good brethren, they're righteous people because they appear to be joyous.

And I'm telling you, almost all Christians are fooled by this. They think that because a pastor or a preacher or someone in the community has a good smile, they must be a real Christian. And because they open the door for the ladies and they don't cuss, they must be a good Christian. They must love God. I'm telling you, this is not true.

Even evil people love their own. Friends do good for friends. But Jesus calls us to go way beyond that. If you read what Jesus says, He says, "love your enemies, pray for those that persecute you, do good to those that don't do good to you. Go the extra mile."

We know what it means to be a Christian, to be a Christ follower, but the amount of people that are actually practicing this—turning the other cheek, giving to those that ask—is almost close to none.

You will find people in the community that give to those that give to them. They love those that love them, and they smile at the people that they know may come to their business. But if you are poor, they're not going to care about you. If you're someone that can't help them out in the world, you are worthless to them.

This is not how the kingdom of God works. Jesus calls us to help people that can never give back to you. When's the last time you thought about helping someone that wouldn't help your business or wouldn't make you look good—possibly even would make you lose business if you associated with them? Probably never.

So we need to make sure that we're not showing partiality towards others, that we're not putting on a false face just to look good in the community to boost our own businesses, and that we're really loving others because Christ Jesus first loved us and we're trying to demonstrate that love to other people that they may also come into the kingdom of God. God doesn't want us just to call the rich people or the people that look good. When Jesus called out in that parable of who the people should go and bring into His kingdom, He says, "Call the lame, the blind, the poor." You're basically calling anyone out on the streets. Gather them. Bring them into My kingdom.

And we want to call whoever will listen to come into the kingdom of God, that the supper may be full, that there will be people with Jesus.

I want you to think for a minute from Jesus's point of view. You have a business, and that business is saving souls. And you don't just give a few dollars to this business, but you actually give your own blood, your own blood and guts, you give to your business.

Jesus was sent to earth by His Father, not just to mess around, not to just play or to look good or just to preach a few sermons to boost His ego. But Jesus came into this world to show us what true love really meant. And then He went all the way to a brutal cross, a Roman cross, where He died and shed His blood for this business, if you want to call it that, so that then He would reap the reward for what He did.

He didn't just go to the cross because that would be fun. In fact, He even prayed before He went, pleading with His Father that He wouldn't have to do that. He said, "Father, if there's any other way, let there be some other way that I don't have to drink this cup." But His Father didn't let Him. He had to drink the cup.

And so Jesus drank that cup of death. He sweat blood. He died on the cross, and He paid for all of our sins with His own blood, sweat, and tears. God resurrects Him from the dead, and He becomes the first fruit for us of the living, and that if we also come into His kingdom, into this new covenant, into His business, then we can also share and have a part of what He's doing.

So try to see it from Jesus's perspective. He's given everything He has for this business of saving souls, and He wants us to join in with Him, helping save people from their sin, save people from death.

Yet pretty much the entire church is batting a zero. They're not helping people come into the kingdom of God. They're preaching sermons on, "Oh, you're saved already, brother. Oh, don't worry about eternity. Oh, it's okay to be homosexual. Be who you are." They don't let their light shine for Jesus. They don't give a rip about what Jesus says. They don't pay attention to His words. They just want to get people into their program.

Now imagine Jesus, who has given His all, shedding His blood for His church, and no one wants to be a part of it. No one wants to help Him save souls. Everyone thinks they're already saved, so they turn the other way. "We're going to heaven in the end." These people are waiting for the rapture.

You think Jesus is proud of those people that aren't helping Him, that don't care to save the lost, that just think, "I'm saved, brother. I'm going to be in, you know, I'm going to be so glad to see you in eternity, brother"?

You think Jesus is proud of those churches, those people, those individuals who are not sharing in His suffering at all? They don't care to speak out about His kingdom at all. All they want is to look good at their business, not Jesus's business. Oh no, they want to look good at their pub. They want to look good at the bar and grill.

Do you think Jesus is proud of you for that?

We need to make sure that we join in with Jesus, that we start walking with Him now, because if we're not bearing good fruit for Him now, we will be cut off. Jesus is very serious about His kingdom, His work. He's very serious about the things that He spoke. He wasn't joking around.

He wants us to bear good fruit, or we will be cut off. Remember all those parables that Jesus talks about at the end? It will be like a dragnet, and that dragnet will collect good fish and bad fish. What happens to the bad fish? Are they brought into God's kingdom as well? No. The bad fish are cast out.

All the bad fish aren't going to make it into the kingdom of God. And there's very few people in the Lord's church who are doing His work. And this makes Jesus very upset. How is it that He gave His entire life for His church, and people aren't even willing to lift a finger to speak about it?

How is that even a thing, guys? How can you say you believe in Jesus and you love Him, and you're so worried about your own life and your own image that you don't even acknowledge anything that Jesus has done and help out your fellow brother and sister, when your own King went to His death, shedding His blood for it?

Jesus expects way more out of His church. And we want to make sure that we are obeying His commandments, not just with our mouth, but with our life.

Now, I know there are some Christians that believe this false gospel, that you don't ever have to speak a word. You just demonstrate to people by your actions. Well, that's false as well. You have to have the words proclaiming Jesus, and you have to have the actions.

You can't tell anyone about God without opening your mouth. There are a lot of people who can demonstrate a sort of love with their actions, but they never open their mouth about the kingdom of God. And you could attribute all that good they did to humanity or humanitarian efforts.

The government, after all, they don't really believe in God, and they give thousands and millions and billions of dollars to other countries. And that doesn't mean they're making it into heaven just because they've helped people.

So we need to profess with our lips to others about Jesus and His kingdom and true repentance. And with our actions, we also need to prove that we are Jesus's disciples.

Look around. Who is doing the work? Who is actually doing the work?

Jesus calls us to carry our cross. He calls us, His disciples, to bear good fruit and to preach the gospel. Read Matthew chapter 28. Jesus commands us to go into all the world and preach the gospel for all people to hear, teaching people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to obey His commandments. And He promises to be with us even to the very end of the age.

So let's make Jesus proud in the sense that He is happy and joyous to call us His children, that He is not ashamed of us. So many churches and people God is ashamed of because, even though He shed His blood, they're not lifting a finger to do His work.

Put yourself in Jesus's position. If you were the CEO of His business, would you be glad to see people just thinking that they're sharing in your business without lifting a finger, or would you be enraged?

God is very angry, and when He comes back to this earth, He's coming back with vengeance. And vengeance will start in His own house. He will weed out all the corruption. He will weed out all those who are pretending. He will separate the sheep from the goat and the wheat from the tares.

And so we need to determine if we are serious to do the Lord's work and if we will actually carry out the great commission.

I want to pray for those of you that want to be serious about Jesus, to do His work, and to call your fellow brother and your fellow sister, your neighbor, into action, because that's what Jesus calls us to do—to love our family, to love others as ourselves, but whoever we're around, to be preaching the gospel to all creation.

So Lord Jesus, I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters that they would really be Your church, that You will reap the reward of Your suffering. We thank You that You did die on the cross and resurrect. We want to be a part of what You did. We want to share in Your suffering so that we can also share in Your glory and be part with You forever and ever.

I pray that someone listening today may be pricked in their heart and in their conscience, that they really would repent of their sins, that they would put their faith in You and start doing Your work. We pray that we can be fruitful, bearing much good fruit, and be worthy to be called Your children.

In Your name we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Christians Enslaved in the Babylon Echo Chamber

 I want to bring something up that is not talked about enough in the Christian community, and that is this horrible—I'm going to call it—echo chamber in church. One person says, "We are all sinners," and another person echoes that "all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Another brother says in a false kind of humility, "I am the chief of sinners," as Paul said. And it becomes a way for people to hide behind their sin in this false kind of humility, trying to relate with the world.

Everyone knows that the world is full of sinners; no one's going to argue that the world is a pure place filled with righteous men and women. Everyone knows that all have fallen short of the glory of God. So it's easy for the Christian culture—that is the pastors, the lay people in the church—to hide behind this pretend shield of humility, claiming that we are all sinners. This is what the Christian church echoes, and a lot of Christians are stuck in this echo chamber. They're saying, "We are sinners. We are sinners saved by grace."

But this is a far cry from what Jesus actually taught about his church, about his people. I want to read to you what Jesus said in regards to sinners compared to people who obey his truth, that come into his light. This is found in John 8; I'm going to start in verse 31.

So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, "If you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." They answered him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?"

Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham's descendants; yet you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. I speak the things which I have seen with my Father; therefore, you also do the things which you heard from your father."

They answered and said to him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father."

They said to him, "We are not born of fornication; we have one Father: God." Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God; for I have not even come on my own initiative, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe me? Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I speak the truth, why don't you believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God."

The Christians today are stuck in the echo chamber that they are sinners. And they even think that they are humble because they claim to be sinners. But they clearly are not of the children of God because Jesus said, "If the son of God—that is himself—sets you free, then you are free indeed."

So if you really have had an experience with Jesus and he has touched you, then you have been set free of your sins. But if you are still sinning, it proves that you belong to your father, the devil. A lot of people want to argue with this and say how everyone is sinful—"Just look at the world." Well, of course the world is sinful; the whole world is in the grips of Satan. But only those that Jesus has touched their heart and purified them, they have been made free.

But if you are still sinning, then how has God purified you? You can't just be part of this echo chamber, this Christian community that thinks that they are going to heaven because they are echoing the pastor's words. It is not humility to claim that you're still a sinner relating with the world. Either you belong to Jesus and you repent of your sin for real—and you love and you obey Jesus and you hold his hand and you go with him every day—or you belong to this Christian community that belongs to the world, that's gripped by sin, that's gripped by lust, pornography, hatred of the true God.

All the lies that they believe from the pulpit... are you in the Christian community that is stuck in sin, that is enslaved to sin? And are you in this echo chamber also preaching that everyone's a sinner? "I'm just like you, brother." Or have you truly been set free by the Son of God? Those the Son sets free are free indeed. But those who are entrapped, enslaved to sin, and have no desire to get out—they belong to the devil, and the devil is taking them where he is going.

So you have to choose this day who you will serve. Will you serve Jesus? Will you let him purge you and purify you? Will you come out of sinful religion that continues to speak from this echo chamber? Or will you come to Jesus and be set free of sin and walk in the newness of life, practicing righteousness, practicing the love of God, loving your neighbor? Will you love the Lord your God with all your heart and demonstrate that you do by practicing holiness, obedience, righteousness, doing what's good in the eyes of Jesus? Who do you belong to: Jesus Christ or Satan?

Escaping the Broadway

 

How Satan Deceives the Masses

I just wanted to give a word here that the Lord's put on my heart to share, and that is about how Satan deceives the masses across the world.

A lot of Christians think that the battle is against atheism, or against evolution, or against witches and warlocks and things that look obvious. But in reality, if you look up what percent of people are actually atheist, it's only like one or 2% in America. It's virtually no one. But if you look up what percent of people are religious or spiritual or Christian, it's almost 100%.

People want to experience God. They want to experience something spiritual. And so if you were Satan, what would you do to distract people? What would you do to convince people of the wrong way but thinking that it's the right way? If you knew that only 1% of people are atheist, would you put all your eggs in the basket of atheism? No, you wouldn't, because 1% of people is not the majority of people. You're only going to be able to take a small portion of people to hell by atheism, so it's not worth convincing the 99% that atheism is the right way.

But the way to lead people to hell, that is the masses to hell, is convincing them that they're going the right way by following their tradition, by following their religion. So you tell Catholics that they're doing the right thing by going to mass. You convince Christians that they're doing the right thing by going to church. You convince evangelicals to go out and street preach. You tell Jews to believe in Jehovah and read the Torah and be obedient to the 613 laws that come from Moses, from God. So you convince all these people that they are doing the right thing and that they shouldn't change.

And you tell big leaders like presidents, kings, influencers, movie actors to encourage these people to be strong to their faith. That's what you would do if you want to take the masses to hell. But you would not focus on atheism or on Darwin. You wouldn't focus on these things because very few people actually believe in atheism and are following evolution. But there's a lot of people who follow a form of Christianity, Catholicism, so that is where you put your focus as Satan, as the devil.

I want to read to you what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 23, because this group of people that Jesus rebukes are people who were convinced that they themselves were the best of the best and were leading other people into heaven.

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses.” What is the chair of Moses? This is the same seat that the pastors today put themselves in. It's behind the pulpit. It's in the place that they think they're a mouthpiece for God. Moses was the leader of his people, and we know that Aaron was actually his mouthpiece, but he was in the seat of God to the people. That's what it says in the scriptures, that he was as God.

Pastors have put themselves in the same position as if they are God to you. And churches think that they are the hand of God, that they're leading people to God. The Catholic Church thinks that they're the one true religion and that if you want to be saved, you have to come through them, their pope, their fathers.

So this is what Jesus says. They've seated themselves in the chair of Moses. “Therefore, all that they tell you, do and observe. But watch this. But do not do according to their deeds, for they say things and they do not do them. They are hypocrites.”

This is the crux of it. A lot of the Christians in the church, they do tell you, “Know Jesus. Repent of your sins. Get rid of addiction. Stop smoking. Stop drinking. Marijuana is evil.” They say all these sorts of things. Don't go to the R-rated movie. Don't be looking at pornography. They preach all of these things, but don't do as they do, because they're hypocrites. They're doing these same things. They say don't do these things, but then they go and they pay their good money to watch movie actors commit adultery and fornication, murder, lust. They laugh at the jokes that Hollywood is putting out.

So in church on Sunday, and then they go and pay their own money to watch movie actors do them. Therefore, they're supporting all of this. So that's why Jesus is rebuking this.

And then they tie shoulders, but they themselves are not. They are unwilling to move them with so much of a finger. Many of the churches do the same thing today. They tell you about them for tithe. Otherwise, you're cheating God. You're robbing God. Thus says the scriptures. These guys are hypocrites because they like the new covenant, not the old. But then when it comes to them supporting their ministry, then they go back to the Old Testament and they pull out an Old Testament law of tithe, which is Old Testament, not New, and they say, “You have to keep this law because if you don't, you're robbing God.”

So they make themselves out to be huge hypocrites. Which is it? Are we saved by grace through faith like they're preaching, or are we saved by tithe and going to church and listening to sermons and making sure we keep up our church attendance and going on mission trips? Which is it? They're not sure.

So they tie up all these heavy burdens, but they do all their deeds to be noticed by men. Do they love to look good on Sunday? They love to sound spiritual when they give their sermon. They love the way they sound, so they hang on their every word. They draw out their words to sound aesthetic. But if you catch them on an off day, they don't want to talk about God. No, you need to go to church on Sunday if you want to hear this scripture.

So their actual life, they're not living genuinely for Jesus. It's only during that hour on Sunday for a show. So you can continue to read this. They do all their deeds to be noticed by men. They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues. Pastors love to be called, you know, your pastor, your elder, your leader. They love that title. They love the respectful greetings in the marketplace and to be called teacher, teacher, rabbi by all men.

But then Jesus says, “But you do not be called rabbi, for one is your teacher, and you are all brothers. Do not call anyone on earth your father, for one is your father, he who is in heaven. And do not be called leaders, for one is your leader, and that is the Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant, who himself shall be exalted.”

A lot of people love titles. They love to be a teacher. But Jesus says we need to clean the inside of our hearts. That way, whenever we go anywhere, we can be pure because we're already pure on the inside.

Now, guys, I come from a background of pastors and missionaries, and most of all my family is still involved in church. They're missionaries around the world, missionaries in Egypt, missionaries in South America, in Europe, in all sorts of places. And members of my family pride themselves in how many countries they're in and how many people they've won into Christ or how many pastors they've made active.

Christians and churches love to boast about this. How many people they made Christians, how many they baptized, how many they brought into the faith. But I now realize that there's a huge difference between making a disciple of religion and making a disciple of Jesus.

See, I used to also go around and tell people that they needed to get into church. When I was in church, I would go to my neighbors. I would knock on their door when I lived in my apartment complex, and I would say to them, “Hey, are you in church?” And they would say, “No, I haven't been to church in 10 years. I need to get back in.” And then I would guilt trip them about it. And I would say, “You need to get back in church because God wants us in church. We don't want to be giving up the fellowship.”

And they'd say, “You're right, brother. I know that's a verse in scripture.” And so I would convince people to come to church. I would get people to come to church with me. And when I was a youth leader, I would do a lot of things to try to encourage people to come to church. I would put on a youth group that looked really fun to people.

And at one point, I had a ministry of around a hundred or over a hundred students who came to my ministry. And the way I was able to get so many kids there is because I would do things that attracted kids. It was things that the world likes to do. The music, skateboarding, taking them to Six Flags, taking them to camps, doing things in the city.

And because the ministry was cool and a lot of people were going there that liked other people there, it just started to build this entropy where it was the cool church that everyone was going to. But what I found was all these numbers and all these people getting plugged into church were not genuinely coming to Jesus. They were coming for every other reason. They were coming for the food. They were coming for the show. They were coming for the girls. They were coming because I was taking them to amusement parks.

But they weren't coming to get right with Jesus, to repent of their sins, and to become part of the kingdom of God. And this is the same thing that the Pharisees were doing. They were calling people to become disciples of their religion, and they would make them, as Jesus says, twice as much a son of hell as themselves.

When I realized this, I knew that I needed to change. I knew that I needed to stop making disciples of religion, and I needed to start making disciples of Jesus. So that's what I've done for over the last 10 years. I've been calling people to repent of religion, to repent of all the sins that they know, and to put their faith in Jesus and to be led out of this phariseical kind of dead religion called church.

Now, I know that church looks good to a lot of people. They say, “It's better that I'm there learning about the Bible than in the bar.” But what I've also noticed is Satan has two kinds of deceptions. He has the obvious evil, and then he has the not so obvious evil.

Satan can come as looking like a gremlin, looking like a grim reaper, looking like something obviously demonic on Halloween, or he can come as an angel of light. He can look like he is of the truth.

So if you are someone that really likes evil, you can engage in that. You know, you can take part of all of these evil things that everyone knows is evil. But if you're someone who appreciates looking good on the outside, there is also a deception for you. And I think most people fall into this category who are good people in the community.

There's obviously people that are evil and corrupt and wicked, but there's also people that want to do good. They want to help their communities and all of that good stuff. So Satan has a way to lead you to hell whether you want to be a good person in the world or a bad person in the world.

So the bad is obvious. Atheism, transgenderism, it's the outward worship of Satan, pornography, drug addictions. But then the other side Satan has is dead religion, going to church, making money, being clothed outwardly like you're a really good person. And I don't just mean physically, but spiritually, you appear to be a really good person.

But both of these agents, whether they're the evil agent or the good-looking agent, are both used by Satan to bring people to hell. And what we as Christians really have to watch out for are the wolves in sheep's clothing. They might not even know that they are a wolf, but they're leading people to hell because they are teaching people to look good on the outside like the Pharisees, without actually being washed clean by the blood of Jesus, taking up their cross daily and following after the Lord.

A lot of these missionaries and these groups, they're making disciples of church. They're training pastors. They're training people to do house groups and to bring people around the Bible. And they end up making a who aren't really making and producing good fruit and children of God.

We need to be careful not to be distracted by religion. We need to really come to Jesus. We need to know his words. If we don't know his words, we need to read his words again and learn them and hide his truth in our heart and practice it.

So I want to pray for those of you that do want to come into the kingdom of God, that don't want to be deceived by false Christian religion or Jewish religion, but that really want to put your faith in Jesus.

So, Lord Jesus, I pray for your true church. I pray to be a good testimony for you, and I pray that people can come into a genuine relationship with you where they know you and they become different. I pray that people would see a difference in us between us who really love and obey you and those that are of the world. I pray that more people can have their eyes open, their ears open, and be led by you. That they wouldn't be distracted by the world or deceived by Satan, by riches or false religion or all the deceptions that are in this world, but they may come to you and be led along by your spirit and have you in their hearts always.

 

What did Jesus mean when He was on the cross and He said it is finished?

If Moses or Joshua by The Ten Commandments and by the law could have given the children of Israel true rest and finished salvation, then God would not afterward have spoken of another DAY which brings perfect rest and salvation through the SON. (Hebrews 3-4) 

 BUT there remains a rest for the true people of God and this has been spoken of thoroughly throughout prophecy. This is the finished rest: Whoever enters into a relationship with Jesus Christ the Son of God, has himself also ceased from dead works and come into the true works of faith that God gives each of His children to preform! 

Have you come into a relationship with the Living God through HIS Son Jesus Christ?