a response

There were a couple of comments that people have left concerning my latest post. There were a few things that I believe people have misinterpreted. First, I never said that in order for someone to be saved they must understand the Holy Spirit's role in salvation. I simply said that when we preach the Gospel we tend to leave out some very important parts and yes, that does cheapen what we preach and yes, sometimes I believe when we preach that way we can easily help condemn someone rather than lead them to Christ. When we preach the Gospel we must help people to understand that they must come and die and take up their cross in order to follow Christ.

where is the Holy Spirit

Where is the Holy Spirit? Why has the name of God been blasphemed among every lost person in America? I truly beleive that a lot of this is the churches fault. When God moved in the Old Testament in the life of the Jews the nations stood in awe of God and the power in what He had done. Now we, just like the Catholics, declare unchanged people to be saved (to the delight of the lost world) and they say "where is the power of your god"; and they have every right to do so.

We need to remember that God not only has the power to change lives but He also has the power to cause people to act like their lives have been changed. I have found something very interesting in Ezekiel 36:20-38. When God does a work of salvation He does it for His own glory and for His names' sake. Where is the Holy Spirit and the work of God when we preach the Gospel. I have been taught many things in my life that now, as I study my Bible, am finding them to be false. For instance, I have been taught that the Holy Spirits work in salvation is to reveal that you have a need for God but that is not the whole truth it is just the part that is easy and gives us a bigger number of people coming forward. There is a doctrine that I had never heard of before until recently. It is the doctrine of regeneration. The Holy Spirit not only shows you that you need God but He also causes you to esteem the God that you were an enemy of and causes you to despise the sin you once loved. I had never heard that about the work of salvation, only have I heard it when someone was talking about the work of sanctification. We, in part, have become just like the Catholics. I pray that we stop trying to make things easier than the Bible teaches in order that our numbers might increase. God has chosen to use us as His instruments, lets work wisely and Biblically.

proof of faith

What have we made faith? If everyone claims to have faith and we know that they don't then how do we know that we have faith? The Bible tells us to examine ourselves in light of scripture in order that we may know that we have eternal life. So what and where is the test? There are several like the entire book of 1 John, or James, or Galations 6, just to name a few. People make a profession of faith and then that is it, and everyone seems to be o.k. with it.

One more question, if you don't find the sinner's prayer in scripture and if Jesus never walked up to someone and asked them if they would like to ask Him to come into their heart, then why do we do it. Is it that we have made this whole thing so easy in order that our numbers would increase? It is not so easy and I don't believe Jesus intended for it to be so easy. In order to be saved you have to give up everything and follow Him. Why is this not being preached anymore. We lead them in a sinners prayer and a lot of times condemn their souls to hell. I am so sick of this. They are people, not numbers, and if you want to make it to Chili's then you can forget about leading people to Christ

The Gospel is a Gospel of power and I think that many people have forgotten that.

faith

What is faith? Hebrews tells us that faith is the evidence of things unseen and the substance of things hoped for. So this is placing your trust in something you know to be real but you cannot see it? Take the Holy Spirit for example, I know He is real because of His presence in my life but I can't point Him out to others and say "look there is the Holy Spirit."

So what constitutes as a great act of faith? Some might say moving mountains or raising the dead but I think there is an act of faith greater than these. If you were to discuss the subject with a charismatic he or she would probably say that the greatest act of faith is raising someone from the dead, but, I think that the greatest act of faith is something that seems much smaller than that. I say that the greatest act of faith is to look in the mirror of God's Word and see all of our filth, sin, and unholiness and still believe that God loves us exactly the way He says He does.

So many times we fail and we end up feeling so far from God but this is a very wrong perception. God has not moved at all and He is not angry with us because He sees His perfect Son Jesus when He looks at us. God wants to discipline us and make us more holy , but discipline isn't like getting in trouble, it could more be described as grace than anything else.

Our God is an awesome God and there is none like Him

decisions, decisions

I am at a time in my life where I have to make a lot of decisions and many of them will be life altering. I am 20 and on monday i will turn 21. The past few weeks have been pretty hard on me because i know what i want to do with my life but i am not entirely sure how to get there. I also do not know how to hear from God which is scary because what if i make a decision and it is the wrong one and i found out the hard way because "now my life is jacked up". Sometimes i wonder why life has to be so hard and i am pretty sure i will never know but despite all the frustration i am also very excited about the future

just another day

so yesterday was a very depressing day. Nothing really bad happened or anything but it was just weird. Last night i was thinking about how in the Bible it talks about how older men in the church are supposed to train and mentor the young men in the church. Oh how i wish that i knew a man with the one exception in my life that i would even trust to do this. I have never seen this happen, i may have seen a couple of attempts but i have never really seen it and the attempts that i have seen have always ended in failure. Why aren't the men in the church willing to sacrifice and do this. My old pastor talked about how he had a man that memorized scripture with him and really held him accountable and this same man would stay up every friday night, all night long, and they prayed all night and this man taught him how to read and memorize scripture, pray, study, and walk with some integrity.

Sometimes i feel so lost in my reading of scripture and my prayer life, and i know this is mostly my fault, but i have never had a man take me and show me how to read scripture and pray and most of all really seek hard after God. I hear all the time about how you have to sit still and hear and listen for God to speak but i have never been shown how to do that. It almost makes me angry that i don't know of one man that would or even could show me.

I am commited to not be just another male failure in the church. I really want to make a difference. I think, at least in part, we are too focused on gathering big crowds and getting 25 professions of faith, when in reality most are probably still lost, and we have lost the significance in making a difference in just one individual life. I know that the bigger the crowd, the more chance you may have of reaching just one person, but, i am mainly talking about making a difference in someone who is already a christian's life.

For those of you who are reading this and are christians please pray that God would bring someone into my life who will be willing to help me in a big way with this.