Tag Archives: real faith

The Real Hands of God

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Exodus 3:7-10 is an insightful, informative, and instructive passage, it reads:

“Then the LORD said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharoah that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” (ESV)

Notice all that the LORD said he had seen, heard, and had come to do: The LORD said: “I have surely seen the afflictions of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry. . .I know their sufferings.” The LORD said: “I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. . .” The LORD said: “The cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.”

But if we merged the beginning of verse 7 with verses 8 and 10, it would read something like this: “Then the LORD said, I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land. . .Come, I will send you to Pharoah that ‘you’ may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

Do you see that? The LORD did all that talk about what he had come to do, only to send Moses to do it! That’s the lesson! Whatever the LORD does on earth, the LORD always uses human hands to do it! Why? Because God is a spirit and in a material world, an immaterial spirit can only work through a material human vessel. Two reasons for that: One, it’s just the way things work in the intersection of the spiritual and the material, and two, the earth is humanity’s domain, therefore only humanity has authority to operate on earth. (That is why, to fully redeem humanity, God had to become human in Jesus).

One of the reasons the world is in the shape it is in is because most ‘Christians’ don’t know or don’t understand what I just explained! This is why they pray prayers that God cannot and will not answer! God cannot and will not go by the hospitals, the nursing homes, or go behind prison walls to see about the sick, the lonely, and the imprisoned! Why? Because God is spirit AND those are the things God commands us to do! That’s the problem! Instead of being inspired by faith that God will empower us to do what we should be doing, too many of us are waiting for God to magically do it himself!

Another point and I’m through! After Moses led the people out of Egypt, they found themselves in a predicament with the sea in front of them and Pharoah’s army closing in fast behind them! Moses decided it was time to have a prayer meeting, but the LORD said to him: “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry land.” (Exodus 14:15-16)

We waste too much time praying for answers the LORD has already given and too much time waiting on the LORD to do what the LORD has already instructed, empowered, equipped, and authorized us to do!

It’s past time for us (redeemed humanity) to put on our spiritual ‘big boy’ pants and do what we were created and placed on earth to do; to exercise dominion on God’s behalf. Because of rebellion, Adam lost access to that dominion. But praise God, we can regain access to that dominion through Jesus the Christ! Traditional Christianity teaches Jesus came just to ‘rescue’ us from sin and to provide us a way to escape earth to go to Heaven. But Jesus came to fix up what Adam messed up! Jesus came to restore access to the dominion that Adam lost! Jesus came to provide the way for humanity to fulfill God’s original intent for creating humanity; to image, reflect, and represent God on earth!

Real Christianity?

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There is an old song that says: “Everybody talking about Heaven ain’t Going!” The meaning behind the words of the song is that just because a person talks about Heaven or talks about going to Heaven, that doesn’t mean they will actually go! Well, the same is true for everyone who claims to be a Christian: Everyone who claims to be a Christian is not actually a Christian! And just because a person says that he or she is a Christian, that declaration does not make them one! I wanted to bring this out because there are many today who are calling themselves Christians, but their actions are so anti-Christian that their actions are causing those who are not Christians to despise the name of Christ! Now of course, this is nothing new: The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, cites Isaiah 52:5 in Romans 2:24: “ For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (ESV) The word ‘blasphemed’ means, ‘to be spoken evil of.’ There are many people in the world today who want nothing to do with Christianity or the God of Christianity because of the acts and attitudes of people who ‘say’ they are Christians! So, for the record, let’s find a simple answer to who and what is a Christian.

Simply put; a Christian is a person who follows (is committed to imitate) Christ. A Christian is a person who faithfully represents the beliefs, actions, and attitudes of Jesus Christ. A Christian is a person who does what Jesus would do! A Christian is a person who follows (obeys) the principles and teachings of Jesus by faithfully following and enacting those principles and teachings in his or her own life within their present cultural context. The term ‘Christian’ is not a political term in the sense of party affiliation or platform. Therefore, those who attempt to use the name; Christian to promote a political or social agenda other than righteousness and justice are illegitimate imitators of the faith!

Let me put it in the kitchen so you can cook it: The vast majority of people, making to the most noise in the name of Christianity on the political scene in America today ARE NOT true biblical Christians! They are merely using the name to promote their political agendas! The Jesus of the Bible would not be in agreement with the mean-spirited racist rhetoric that is coming out of the mouths of many who claim to be Christians in America today! The Jesus of the Bible would NOT endorse the KKK, DID NOT endorse American slavery, and is NOT please with many of the policies of the present administration in Washington! Now, this is not to say that Jesus was pleased with all of the actions of the past administration, but to highlight the fact that just because you hear people say they are acting in the name of Christ; that doesn’t mean they really are! The Jesus of the Bible IS NOT pleased with America’s systemic racist injustice system that is bias against the poor and people of color! The Jesus of the Bible IS NOT in favor of white privilege and the oppressive practices of the rich and well-to-do! The Jesus of the Bible would NOT rubber-stamp the actions of our current president the way many so-called evangelical Christians  are doing! And speaking of the so-called evangelical Christians, I just read a report from Pew that asked Americans if the U. S. had a responsibility to accept refugees. No group – racial, by age, religious or political – was less supportive of the idea than white evangelical Protestants! The group least likely to think the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees is the group that claims to follow the ONE who would most likely think the U. S. has a responsibility!

The problem with so-called American Christianity is the fact that many of its followers tend to compartmentalize their faith. They have separated their faith from their politics and see no connection between one and the other. They espouse the possibility of being politically evil and morally good at the same time! But real biblical faith is not divorced from politics; real biblical faith shapes politics! Real biblical faith demands a political agenda that demands, letting justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:24 ESV)

The problem with so-called American Christianity is the fact that, for many of its proponents, faith is submissive to economic, politics and ethnicity. The ‘Jesus’ they serve is a reflection of them as opposed to them being a reflection of him. Hence, when one creates a ‘Jesus’ that reflects one’s own personal, political, and social beliefs, that ‘Jesus’ is an idol and NOT the Jesus of the Bible!

If you want to know what real Christianity looks like, don’t look at what you often see in America today; take a look in the BOOK! Now, we all sometimes fall short of the glory (the perfect idea) of God, but real Christians are honest about their short-comings, repent and strive to get better. Real Christians are submissive to the demands of Christ and seek to be molded into His image instead of seeking to making demands of a Christ they have made in their image!