Resequitur
Javier
clboltOne of my good friends the other day had posted a status on Facebook that said ” I have a Crush on Jesus.”. Which I know her well and I know that she was just joking around when she posted that comment. But it reminded me of a few things that the The Lord has been speaking to me about, and it forces me to ask some questions and check my heart.
1. Are we simply just “Crushing” on the LORD? When He commands us to Love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. (Mark 12:30; Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
2. Does the love we have for our Sovereign Savior include fear and reverence to His majesty and His power? (Proverbs 3:6-7)
3. Are we worshiping the Lord in Spirit and in Truth? (John 4:24)
Something God has opened my eyes to lately is that no matter what He does in the wise council of His perfect and Sovereign will, He is WORTHY of worship and praise. We really get this picture of Jesus in Revelation (Rev 5:12).
Another thing I have realized is that everything we know about Him, comes from Him. What we know about the Lord is because He has revealed it to us. The reason we know Jesus is because God revealed the Son to us. Not even our Faith comes from us, It is from The Father who has given it to us. ( John 6:44; Ephesians 2:8) It is God’s Grace and His Grace alone. It is Sola Gratia. That is the only difference between the Sheep and the reprobate.
The same God in Isaiah 10:1-14 who used the Assyrians as His “Rod of Anger”(verse 5) to discipline Israel for their godlessness, and then turned around and punished the Assyrians for their arrogance that resulted from the LORD hardening their heart (Verse 12).
This is the God we worship. The Triune God. God is one Being existing in Three Persons. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Each person equal in essence and nature. This is Whom we worship. Let us praise Him with every aspect of our lives, and have reverence and fear as well as Love for Him.
- Realize that we need a relationship with Him
- But Let this relationship carry a weight that cannot be described as “crushing” or anything that brings Christ down to something He is not.
Filed under: "In House" Apologetics
The Evangelical community is going crazy over it and I, myself, cannot see why. It seems as though the evangelicals go crazy over anything pronounced as a Christian fiction and therefore force it on Christian bookshelves. In the research I have done I want to push forward the many problems I have with the book and and stress how important Good Theology is.
According to Mack’s account, God summoned him, through a note, to a shack, the very one where, apparently, his daughter was killed. In this shack, God the Father appeared to him as an African American woman (p. 82) named Papa (p. 86). Jesus is a Middle Easterner who “was dressed like a laborer, complete with tool belt… and a plaid shirt with sleeves rolled just above the elbows,” (p. 84). The Holy Spirit was an Asian woman (p. 85) who was named Sarayu (p. 87, 110).
Problems already occur. According to John 6:46 and 1 Tim. 6:16, No one has seen the Father except for The Son. This is a big problem, It is bring God the Father down to a graven image. Lets move on to the next problem.
The Father had scars on his wrists – like the crucifixion wounds of Christ (p. 95).
Nope, Sorry . The Father DID NOT die on the cross. It was the Son who suffered on the Cross. To push forward the idea that the Father suffered on the cross is modalism, which was condemned as heresy. The Father is Spirit (John 4:24) and cannot have scars. The Son is The One who suffered the death on the cross while the Father sat in heaven.
Before moving on, There is some explaining that needs to be done on the Biblical Doctrine of “The Economic Trinity” . It describes the relationship of the members of the Godhead with each other as well as with us. For example, the Father sent the Son. The Son did not send the Father, (John 6:44; 8:18; 10:36; 1 John 4:14). Jesus came down from heaven, not to do His own will, but the will of the Father (John 6:38). The Father is the head of Christ (1 Cor. 11:3). And, 1 Cor. 15:27-28 speaks of creation being in subjection to Jesus and then in verse 28, Jesus will be subjected to the Father. All this means is that there is a hierarchy within the Trinity. But in looking at this quote on page 124
“So you think that God must relate inside a hierarchy like you do. But we do not.”
This is an obvious contradiction of the Scriptures. This book, even though declaring itself to be within the Christian worldview, is not written out of Biblical Christianity. Many come out of reading this book saying “I Understand the Trinity now”. Nope, Sorry, you do not if your idea of the Trinity is drawn from this awful Theology. You want to understand the Trinity? Read the Bible.
Truth in this generation is being watered down, especially in the evangelical community. This book is a great example of it. Lets move on.
On page 136 it says, “Mackenzie, evil is a word we use to describe the absence of Good, just as we use the word darkness to describe the absence of Light or death to describe the absence of Life. Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good; they do not have any actual existence.”
Wow. Now we are just getting way out of hand. Evil is a reality, and here it is being rationalized to “the absence of God”. I think the author needs to take a look at Romans Chapter 1 here. I’m sure the author is well aware that child sacrifice to pagan gods actually exist very much so.
On page 145-146 we find, “Mack was surprised. ‘How could that be? Why would the God of the universe want to be submitted to me?’ ‘Because we want you to join us in our circle of relationship. I don’t want slaves to my will; I want brothers and sisters who will share life with me.’”
And here we have it. The Evangelical community belief that God is supposed to be submitted to all mighty man. This is a perfect example of Christian humanism. The idea that God is this huge cosmic butler, or an ASK! internet search engine. There is nowhere in scripture that expresses God being submitted to human beings. God is a Sovereign and Holy God, that casts down nations to lift others up. He is a free being and is not subject to “the almighty will of man”. Therefore He is free to have mercy on whom He has mercy, and have compassion on whom He has compassion (His Sheep or His Elect). (Exodus 33:19; John 10:14-18)
There are many more errors this book’s theology points to, so many that I could probably write a book about them all. The thing I want to point out is that Biblical Theology matters. The evangelical community needs to realize this before it endorses books like this. This book is very closely related to the book of Mormon in its Theology. Theology (knowledge of God) really impacts the way we worship Him. In John 4:24, Jesus states that we are to worship God in Spirit and In Truth. This book is very left field as far as biblical truth is concerned. Especially when one comes out of it thinking they know God better after reading the book. Sorry, but you don’t! In fact, you probably know Him a lot less. This book is a perfect example of why Theology matters.
