I want to talk a moment about my most recent study releases.
I feel we grossly underestimate God. We don't really think about WHO God is. We don't really see the Character of God. We can easily read through the accounts of Isaiah and John, in what they saw of God, and it doesn't move us a bit. We don't take serious the Word's He spoke: we don't take seriously the lessons Christ taught. The church today has lost the meaning of love, Faith, Saved, Lord, Born Again, move of the Spirit of God, and so forth. Because of this loss of meaning, they have lost what each of these actually looks like in our lives. When I speak of this, I speak also to myself - when I look in the mirror, I'm also the church in America.
How is it that we can look in the Bible, with what God did and how He did it, and say what we are living in today is it? When I read Acts, which shows us what kind of church Christ established, I see something far different than what I see in the church of America or even my own life.
I read Acts and I see Y'shua telling His disciples to hang tight until the Spirit comes. In chapter 2, the Spirit of God rushes in and they all start preaching in the languages of the other Jews that were in the area for Pentecost. Those Jews are pricked to the heart and want to know what they needed to do. Thousands were saved, people were raised from the dead, crippled walked, and the Word of God spread to the whole world. None of them seen anything they had as theirs; and sold what they had and put it in a pot together to help those in need - and no one lacked. Then sin moves in and God kills them. People were persecuted but they didn't stop. Steven was stoned, but he was looking up saying, "Look, I see Y'shua". But that didn't stop the church from growing. It seemed that the gates of hell really could not stop this church. Then there was Saul, who fought against the church, but God got a hold of him and now he's spreading the Word of God beyond the Jews - to the Gentiles. This church was really unstoppable. Then I look at the church of today and think, "what happened". We're pretty stoppable. Just have the preacher quit - the next one isn't as good of a speaker. The music sucks. I don't like that person so I'm not coming anymore. We really drop out of a church because we don't like a children's program? REALLY? You changed service times, I'm not coming anymore!
When I look at my life, I put it on paper, and I try to apply it to the book of Acts, it's largely out of place. I mean, where does a truck driver who ministers in a prison once a month and creates YouTube videos to get people to think about what the Bible really says fit in the book of Acts? I dare to say, if your watching this video, your life doesn't really fit either.
Doesn't anyone else feel the same way I do? The reason I'm putting out these recent studies is that I believe there are people out there who see the same things I do. I believe there are people who are not satisfied with where we are today. What I'm presenting, is Scriptural evidence of what the church is supposed to look like. Not only that but when I'm doing this studying, I'm seeing where there are specific guidelines to what proves our love of God; and when we don't meet those guidelines, it proves we don't really love Him the way we claim.
If your dating a person who says they love you, and they want to marry you. Would you believe them if they were unwilling to spend money on you, or spend any more than an hour with you? No one is going to Heaven who does not love the Father. But, in my search for what is wrong, I'm seeing more, in my life, that it's less about Heaven and more about a relationship with God - Heaven is just my chance to spend face to face time with Him - anything else that's said about Heaven means nothing to me. When someone loves another that much, that will show in the way they live their lives. I can't believe that I'm the only one who wants this kind of relationship.
What I've been presenting, in the recent series, shows that love so strong that we will stop loving ourselves more. We show a sacrifice, in this short life, so we can be with Him (face to face) later. God may guide some people to give up their job for the building of the Kingdom, some He may guide to stay at their job because their job is the mission field, and they can make money for those who gave up the job. God may guide some to give up their home for the Kingdom, and others to keep theirs so they can bring people into their home. Whatever we feel it is, we should do it towards God. But, I don't see keeping our money and time to ourselves as a present to God. I don't see the people of God, in the Bible, keeping what they had and not sharing it with others in need. They didn't say, I don't like that person and I'm not going to share my home with them. They loved others as much as themselves.
The second most important command IS love your neighbor as yourself. This is not evident in the church today. If we loved our neighbor as ourselves, we would spend, AT LEAST, as much money and time for those in need as we do for ourselves. In Matthew 25, we see Christ joining that kind of love, for others, with the love for God - because when we love others so much that we will sacrifice for them, we love God that much. If we don't love enough to sacrifice for them, we don't love God.
I've been presenting these teachings in hopes of someone else who is feeling the same way I am, but they're having a hard time putting it together. Religion has really clouded our minds, and the training we've received since childhood has clouded our level of Faith. Why do we say we have faith in God providing for us when we work, buy clothes, buy food, just like the pagans? Why do we take out a loan on a car and say, "God provided it" when the pagans acquire their cars the exact same way? We have allowed ourselves to minimize the Works of God. Nowhere in Scripture do I see that God worked in the same manner that can be repeated by man. When I see the Spirit of God move in the Bible, they don't get goosebumps then go sit down to a fat meal and a football game on TV. Do we really think that's the Spirit of God moving?
Am I alone in this? Why are we so passive about what God says, and about convictions we may get from a good message. Why are we so passive to a God who loved us so much that He minimized Himself so that we could be with Him one day, and His only request is to give up the comforts of this life so we can show the same love, He showed us, to others? I'm not getting this. And, I'm guilty. But, it's not enough to know or feel guilty. God says He doesn't want hearers but doers.
In my studies, I'm not trying to beat up on the church, my heart is heavy for the church; because when I read Scripture, most of the church today will be rejected because they were fooled into a false belief of what LOVE towards God really is - what it really looks like. I'm praying that there are others out there that see these same things. I'm praying that these Scriptures I see, the ways that I'm feeling, what the Spirit is showing, will help someone else and, while so many have been allowed to believe a lie, maybe those who change towards a love relationship with God, can make changes in other people's lives; and the church of God becomes a light again.
I pray these will help - don't thank me for it but thank God, for what I'm giving is what He said - not my own words.
God bless
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