Human Beings: Created To Advance! [#JesusFollowers]

  

Improvement is a law of the Universe. All things, great and small, are made to improve and progress. Human beings are no exception.

We must not allow everything else to move on, while we remain stationary. When the insensible earth and the irrational animals obey the commandment of Nature, let not us, who alone are capable of voluntary obedience, alone be unfaithful.

When even the all-wise Creator, in unfolding His ways and purposes to His children, observes this rule of constant progression, let not us, with wisdom only of yesterday, children in understanding, think that we may rest where we are, and refuse to move forward.

Our very capacity of progress is itself a further reason for striving after perpetual improvement. The plants and animals around us have limits set to their advancement which they can never pass.

They go forward by a prescribed course to their maturity, and there they necessarily stop. The voice which spake to the sea, “Thus far shall you go, and no farther,” has spoken to all things terrestrial except us.

From that mandate our spirit is exempted. The tree has its growth, and the bird its instinct, and they can add to themselves nothing beyond it. Human beings, reasoning, immortal, immaterial beings, to whom the inspiration of the Almighty has given understanding, has received the power of expansion. Our souls may grow - not like the body, which is to perish in about a hundred years, and therefore becomes perfect in twenty; but, as it is never to perish, it never reaches a perfection beyond which it may not pass.

If the soul's duration were bounded by a thousand years, or a hundred thousand centuries, then we might anticipate the day when its growth should be completed. But since it shall exist through eternity, since it can never approach the termination of its existence, neither can it approach the termination of its progress. It must enlarge, extend itself, and continue to advance.

So, other creatures may stop growing, and become stationary; for they are to come to an end. But not human beings, for we are to know no end. Others may be satisfied with a perfection which earth can understand and contain; for they are of the earth, and shall return to its bosom.

But human beings are children of the Most High, our spirit a ray from the fountain of unquenchable light, made capable of attainments which earthly beings cannot hardly imagine. Let us not dream that any present attainment is our perfection; let us press forward to that mark - that something immense and infinite -  which Jesus has set before us as the prize of our high calling.

For us to be stationary would be rebellion against our nature, a willful forfeiting of our birthright, and should subject us to the harsh reproaches of our own minds, and to the deserved scorn of all higher and lower beings.

This great progress of the human soul is only begun upon earth. But it is begun. The desire of purity, the love of excellence, the habits of holiness, the relish for spiritual pleasures, are begun here below; and ones who have made the greatest advances in these during their mortal lives, are doubtless best fitted for entering into a future state. This thought suggests to us another reason for improvement.

The degree of happiness and glory to which the soul shall be admitted at death, must depend on the progress which it has made on Earth. In our Father's house are many mansions; differing unquestionably in order offense. And how are they to be assigned? What says the Scripture? “According to their works,” for “He that has been faithful in little, shall be placed over few cities; he that has been faithful in much, shall be placed over many cities.” (Luke 16:10; Matt. 25:23)

Happiness and honor shall be rendered to every person according to their preparation for them and their capacity to receive them. And our capacity to receive will be just in proportion to the state of advancement at which we have arrived on leaving the present scene.

And the soul that issues from its mortal tabernacle a trembling, anxious penitent, - just "assured" that its sins are forgiven, but without any confirmed religious experience, or spiritual maturity of character - cannot enter into the fulness of bliss which awaits the faithful servant of God, who has toiled for duty during a long life, and become almost spiritualized before laying aside the body.

Therefore let us strive to be found, at our death, so far advanced in holiness, that we may join the company of those who stand nearest to the throne; that we may be ushered into the light of the highest heaven.

(Adapted from a Sermon by Henry Ware, Jr.)

Some False Doctrines Churches Teach [#JesusFollowers]

If you hear sermons from the pulpits of Western Christian "Churches," or if you've ever picked up a "fundamentalist tract" on the ground or in a public bathroom, you may be hearing many falsehoods that Jesus never preached as part of his Gospel. Here are a few of them, and wh you ought to reconsider basing your faith on them. (Or on anything other than the words of Jesus.)

1. "Jesus teachings are 'for the Jews' but not for us, Today." 

This was debunked by Jesus, himself, who said his words would never pass away, and sent the Jerusalem Apostles out into the world in his Great Commission to tell people to obey his teachings. That's Not "just for the Jews." He did say for the Apostles to go to the Jews FIRST, which they did. 

2. The late theologian John D. MacArthur infamously said, "Christianity has nothing at all  to do with the teachings of Jesus."

What he meant as a statement of theology is actually true of modern Christianity, but that's a fact we should mourn, not celebrate. Denying Jesus or putting his life story first, which MacArthur taught, and most Christians believe, is false.

3. "We Inherit Adam and Eve's "Original Sin" at Birth and it means we are Cursed, Cannot Obey God, and Are Totally Depraved, unable to do any good."

Variations of this is taught in churches, but not often said out loud or in these words. None of this is consistent with Bible teaching. God told Adam's own son that he would be rewarded if he did what was right, but he would be punished if he did what was wrong. Catholic "Church Father" Augustine of Hippo wrote of Cain, and us, saying it is, "non posse non piccare" (not possible (for us) to not sin." And this became Catholic Doctrine in the early Fifth Century, despite contradicting God's  very words in Genesis. Who will You believe? 

4. "The Bible's High standards of morality, especially in Jesus's teachings, were simply meant to "convict" humans and aren't meant for us to obey, because we are morally unable." 

This man-made nonsense turns the entire Bible on its head and makes Jesus and the Prophets into liars. If we are unable to do these things, calling on us to do them is sadistic of God, His rules would be pointless, and his punishments for failing would be unjust, if his words were impossible to obey. Of course, this isn't the case.  

5. "Jesus Forgot To Teach That He Was Part of a Godhead or that he was a Person in it, Equal to God.

 Jesus told the Apostles that everything he heard from God, his Father, he told to them. He didn't forget to mention these things about a Godhead, or that he had actually created the world. Why wouldn't he tell them outright that he had created the world? Clever men today may twist his words, just as the religious teachers of God's day tried to do,  or use other men's words to imply otherwise, but we follow Jesus, who said he had a God, and prayed to God, Whom is his God? Our Father. And his.

Yet, Jesus said not one word of being part of a Godhead in which he shared the "substance of the Father " and a "person" called the Holy Spirit nor was this written by the Gospel book writers, because this definition of a Godhead wasn't invented until the 4th and 5th centuries by clever philosophers, turning spiritual and theological phrases into literal ones. Jesus said he was one with the Father, but also that he wanted his disciples to be one with him,  just as he was one with the Father. 

6. "Make war With Your Prayers. Be "Prayer Warriors " for Christ."

That phrase never occurs in the Bible, nor is it a strategy suggested by Jesus. But many "Prayer Warriors" today use prayer as a weapon.  Jesus calls us to pray FOR our enemies, and bless those who curse us, not use prayer against them. Adversaries of Good are defeated by our Good deeds in the world, not hateful vibes sent out to God, directing Him to do our bidding.

7. "Jesus Was Born Of A Virgin on December 25th as a star moved over his stable and God Was His Father, Not Joseph. Jesus Was the Legitimate King Of The Jews. God Impregnated Mary, A Virgin, Became A Man  Jesus Was The God-Man: Both Man And God."

Sorry to ruin Christmas, but... Propagated by Catholic Second Century Christians, this collection of pagan stories are recited every Christmas as if they are Historically accurate. But it's all based on a false translation of a line in the Old Testament (Isaiah 7:14) that didn't apply to a future Messiah figure, it certainly did not apply to Jesus, the Hebrew word, "Almah" used by Isaiah simply means "young woman," but was mistranslated in the Greek Septuigaint version as "virgin" and subsequently "Matthew" and Luke spun the yarn of a virgin conception and birth.

8. "Jesus' Death Gave God Permission To Forgive Human Beings." 

This silly and blasphemous statement is made by Televangelists of our own age, but not by Jesus, our only teacher, who said we must forgive 70x7 times. 

These same men teach, "Only God Can Forgive Sins, " just as the Jewish opponents of Jesus also said about him.  While it's true that we can't forgive sins others commit against God, Jesus says we must forgive others IF we wish God to forgive us. 

9. "The Devil Is the Ruler Of The Earth."

 A false and foolish saying, refuted by Psalm 24: The earth is Yahweh's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it." False teachers of darkness preach this today as a way to put Jesus higher above humans, and make God seem more aloof. They don't need the help and God is spiritually alive in us, here on the dirty, filthy old earth of His.

10. "The Bible has been Preserved by God Just As It Was In Jesus' Time." 

The Bible in Jesus's time was just the Hebrew Scriptures, and even that collection of books wasn't canonized (collected and approved by a council of Rabbis) until the Second Century, AD. And think about this: no one carried around printed Bibles until modern times. The New Testament contents weren't finalized until AD 367 by a Catholic Council. The Eastern Orthodox Church, to this day,  uses a Bible with several books that were never in the Catholic Canon.

And several books used by all churches today (including Jude and Hebrews) were almost left out of the Canon, while others (like 1 Clement and Shepherd of Hermas) were widely used by many churches in the first century, but were eventually dropped. During the Reformation, Martin Luther wanted to leave the Revelation of John and the Letter of James out of his German translation, but was convinced to leave them both in. 

In England, the books of the Apocrypha were quietly dropped from the King James Bible in its 1750s revision. Why didn't God keep all these books in? This doctrine is clearly false.