A Biblical Foundation Part 4: Scripture is Stronger than Experience

2 Peter 1:16-19

Think about all that Peter had experienced and what he is saying about the Word of God.

• He lived with Jesus for 3 years
• He saw Jesus perform miracles
• He saw Jesus transfigured into a glorious state, and Moses and Elijah
• He heard God the Father’s audible voice
• Peter had performed miracles himself
• He had preached the Pentecost sermon, relating it all to scripture
• The Word is as sure as any of that, it is a confirmation of Christ (cf. Luke 16:22-31)
• We would be wise to get it down in us until Jesus rises up out of us

The common objection – Now look at vs.20-21 – You can't just say, “Well, men wrote it, therefore it must be flawed”, because if the claim of the Bible itself is true, God can get men to write what He wants them to. It is not self-refuting to claim that men wrote the very words of God and that it is inerrant.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

A Biblical Foundation Part 2: Scripture is Clear

2 Peter 3:15-18

Scripture is Clear – perspicuity of scripture – clear & understandable.

What it does NOT mean

1. All scripture is equally clear and easily understood as to its precise meaning
2. Interpretation, explanation, and exposition by a Bible teacher are never necessary
3. Believers will agree universally on every point

What it DOES mean

1. Scripture is clear enough for the simplest person to live by, yet deep enough for the most intellectual and diligent readers
2. Obscurity is the fault of our finite and sinful minds, not a problem with the Bible
3. Interpreters must use ordinary means

We cannot ask the Holy Spirit to replace our intellectual engagement with the text. We need to learn it and believe it (cf. Philippians 3:15-16 / John 7:17). Whenever we depart from the plain and simple meaning of Scripture, interpreted using normal means, we are headed for trouble.

When looking at texts, we can understand them to apply to Christians universally, such as Matthew 28:19-20 (go therefore and teach all nations), or to someone or something specifically, such as Matthew 10:5-6 (do not go to anyone but the Jews, a command for the disciples only and for that particular time period only, overruled by the Great Commission), or principally, such as Philippians 2:3-4 (Paul was speaking to a particular church but the principle of Christlike behavior applies to us) or not at all, as with 2 Timothy 4:13 (Paul tells Timothy to bring his papers, which we are obviously not to do). Texts meant specifically may also apply principally, so sometimes texts that aren’t teaching on a particular subject may still give us a principle to follow and apply to other matters.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

A Biblical Foundation Part 1: Scripture is Sufficient

2 Timothy 3:14-17

Paul told Timothy about the difficult days that he will face (3:1-9). Timothy will not have Paul personally present to lead and guide him (4:6-9). So what would Timothy have to guide him? Timothy would have the teaching Paul gave him, and the life which underscored that teaching (3:10-13). Timothy would have the grounding in Scripture that his believing grandmother and mother had given him from infancy (3:14-15). And that, Paul insists, would be sufficient to make him wise. He needed to lead the church and find others who would follow his lead and teach others (2 Timothy 1:13; 2:2. 7, 15; 4:1-2).

Then, in vs.16-17 Paul speaks of all Scripture. Now some might say that in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 Paul was referring only to the OT, but that isn’t true, because most of the scriptures were already complete. Peter brings the OT and NT together by saying that words of the Apostles were also authoritative (2 Peter 3:2), specifically referring to Paul’s writings as scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16). Paul uses the term he used earlier in 1 Timothy 5:18, where he quotes Luke 10:7 (Deuteronomy 25:4), so the gospels are included. Timothy would have had access to these writings (2 Timothy 4:13). Paul is saying that the Word of God, including the Old Testament retrospectively and the New Testament prospectively, including his own writing (1 Thessalonians 2:13) represents the very words of God, and thus tells us everything we need to understand in order to know and serve God (cf. 2 Peter 1:3-4).

All scripture is God breathed so even the narrative portion are for our use (cf. Romans 15:4, 1 Corinthians 10:1-5), although the way we are to use them depends on certain factors. For example, what about those seemingly endless genealogies in the OT books, what are they there for? To the Hebrews, their history and the names of their ancestors represented the salvation of God in their midst. The remembrance and rehearsal of their collective story was a constant reminder of God's promise to Abraham. To remember their past, in an important sense, was to realize that God was in their present, and was part of their future.

Coming out of the Babylonian exile, the reading of these names and the rehearsal of the national history marked the truth that God was still faithful to the covenant made with Abraham. This same emphasis is clear in the NT usages of genealogies. To continue to rehearse the history, and to show Christ as the culmination of it, was to argue that not only was God continuing to fulfill the divine promise made to Abraham, but moreover that God's promise was completed in the person and work of Christ.

So we can see that those lists are very important, but we don’t need to try and derive some deeper meaning from them. What the Bible doesn’t teach, and teaches against, is looking for esoteric things and clues like Bible codes. These are not mysteries to unlock they are mysteries that are now revealed. We do not need some other book as the “key” to provide a spiritualized meaning to an already clear text. God gave us scripture to reveal Himself, His works, and His plan and we are not supposed to go wandering off into myths and looking for secret knowledge (cf. 1 Timothy 1:3-4, 4:7, 6:3-5, 11, 20 / 2 Timothy 2:16,23, 3:5, 7-8 / Titus 1:14, 3:9).

Here is the point: in essence, spiritually speaking, if the apostles didn’t teach it you don’t need it, and you definitely don’t want it (1 Corinthians 4:6 / Galatians 1:8-9 / 1 John 4:5-6). Since Paul says that Scripture thoroughly equips we can unequivocally conclude that another revelation can only be inferior.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Potion of Emotion (Radio / Podcast)

For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
(2 Peter 2:19 – ESV)

Our text is speaking primarily of individuals who dupe others, but we want to look at the idea that our feelings and emotions can do the same thing. They promise liberty, but they bring bondage, because if we let them lead, if we do not put them in their proper place, then we become enslaved to them (Romans 6:16). If we try and fly by our emotions, we are flying backward, by the seat of our pants. Have you ever made “an emotional decision” and how many times have you been “overcome with emotion”?

We are not denying your emotions. You have them, they are real, and everyone has them. We cannot give a prescription as simple as “keep a stiff upper lip”, or “just suck it up”, because emotions are not all bad. They are a powerful motivator and they explain a lot of things, but we often fail to process our emotions in a rational way, and we can get caught up in a whirlwind of emotional activity and make decisions we might not otherwise make if we were in a more controlled environment. Emotions are there to inform us, not to lead us. They inform us of how we feel about a situation, not about how we should deal with a situation.

Many times, however, we can be under the spell of an emotional potion and it poisons our thoughts to everything that would lead us in a right direction, and lead us to make good choices. Instead we are led to destructive behavior, and away from Christ. We must learn to rule over our emotions. Feelings can be good, they can help us in many ways, but feelings can be faithless, or misdirected. We can easily become spellbound by our own emotions if we do not learn to process them and put them in their place, using them instead of them using us.

A careless cocktail of fleeting feelings can become flaming feelings, and our addiction of choice if we continue to give in to them. Many times to entertain these thoughts is to yield to death (James 1:14-15 / Galatians 6:8). In Philippians 4:8, Paul tells us to direct our thoughts to right things. Romans 12:2 says that we are to turn ourselves over to God in order to renew our ways of thinking about things. Ephesians 4:22-24 confirms this and says we can put on a new way, a new man, one who is not like the old man, who was ruled by his emotions. Christ rules the new man. The new man is the new man of maturity.

Maturity is mastering your emotions. Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane showed Himself to be the master of maturity. He had emotions, for sure, but He said not my will but thine be done. How about you? You may have everything against you, but do you give up, or go on, are you ruled by your emotions or do you rule over them? Are you going to let some fleeting feeling gain ground and score a terrible touchdown on your home turf, or are you going to defend your mind and spit out the potion of emotion? Are you your own worst enemy? In your old man, yes you are, but are you going to put on the new man, or not? What clothes are you wearing? What scent are you giving off, the fragrant aroma of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:16) that Christians are supposed to or the pungent potion of emotion, like the rest of the world?

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Scrambled Eggs-egesis (Radio / Podcast)

And in their greed they will exploit you with false words.
(2 Peter 2:3 – ESV)

Some “prophetic words of the Lord” have supposedly validating verses liberally sprinkled around ideas that the so-called “prophet” wants to implant in the people’s minds. The verses are ripped out of their context and seem to add blessing to the other pronouncements. They will pull some verse out and then define that blessing according to their new idea of it. What we will do in this post is to highlight in red the key phrases, and then we will speak briefly about the diversion, distortion, and deception being masked in blue.

It starts with a buildup of anticipation, with phrases such as “when the anointing is on you, when you understand the anointing, when you operate in the anointing, when you understand the worth of the anointing”, etc.

You can make this out to be anything you want, it is very vague. Of course, the prophet knows all about it and what he is about to tell you, so you had better listen up and “align” with it.

God Almighty is preparing a generation – it will rival what took place in the Great Reformation. You are the sons of the prophets. You are the seed of Abraham. Every blessing in the covenant to possess Heaven and Earth, to move in dominion, to move in increase, to move in the fullness of the Spirit – is yours.

“Dominion” is code language for the false belief that believers are supposed to take over the systems of the world before Jesus can come back. “Increase”, well, you get the idea there. This is over-realized eschatology in that he promises that we can have everything we will ever have right now. We can take charge of heaven and earth right now, every blessing to possess; wow, what a terrible torture of the textual truth. Of course, the dominion idea isn’t in the text at all.

"Holy Spirit of God, Holy Spirit of God, come right now – overshadow." Here it comes. Just let blanket you. Just let it soak you. Position yourself. Align yourself for that greater anointing.

Does this mean that we should be physically posturing ourselves at that very moment, as this prophetic word is being given? Just what does this prophet mean by "aligning yourself?” Probably he means we must agree with his words in order to be aligned with what God is doing.

The fullness of the Spirit, the fullness of Him who fills all in all; the anointing that breaks the yoke, not just in the meeting place but it will break the yoke in your home. It will break the yoke on your job. It will remove the curse from your destiny and from your career, from your vocation. It will remove the yoke from relationships that are draining you. It will bring deliverance.

He speaks of the fullness of the Spirit, and ties it to the notion of it being an “anointing” for temporal blessings, earlier he said the fullness of the Spirit was for dominion and increase, and so he defines this in ways that promise personal prosperity. It appears any kind of struggle or suffering will be relieved if you just line up with this new “anointing” that he tries to link with biblical teaching so as to validate it, but if this is that same “anointing” and fullness of the Spirit we see in the bible, why wasn’t this usage defined like this when it was originally written?

You are an heir. You are an heir of God. You are a joint heir with Christ. That double portion, that promise of the Father, the greatness of the call, the power of resurrection – we are about to embark on a season in which there will be such great difference between the light and the dark that you will be able to know, "These are the people that walk with God."

The promise of the Father was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all believers, first seen at Pentecost in Acts 2. It is not some special blessing for the super company who gets a double portion, more than anyone else gets because they are somehow special.

There is a great end-time visitation coming; it is almost upon us. I can hear the sound of an abundance of rain. God Almighty is grooming a company to move in power and practicality to reach the culture and to bring increase and expansion – the provision of God, more sufficient than any natural provision could ever be; the blessing of the Lord that makes rich and adds no sorrow. There is a new generation that is about to cross a line and cross a threshold and operate in a dimension.

This is pure pandering using triumphal language to believers who fail to discern. At least he then describes the threshold that they are crossing, and talks of the special dimension.

"They will go with Me on a journey to discover earmarks that are in the Spirit – places of lodging, places of power, places of deliverance, places of blessing. For in the heavenly realms, I have stored up treasures that when they go in, they will bind the strongman and reclaim the goods that he took from My people over these past generations.

What is going on when a supposed prophet uses modern day political language to give us an idea like “earmarks in the Spirit?” Aren’t earmarks bad things, like pork projects? Is that what this prophet is telling us, that we can expect God to bring home the bacon for us? As far as binding the strongman, this is terrible twisting of scripture, and time won’t permit us to go into it here, but suffice it to say that this idea had been refuted by reputable bible teachers time and again.

"There is coming a great shift. It is going to come globally on the Body of Christ and there is going to arise a company of people that will be delivered from their past and rescued for their future and they will operate in a double portion anointing that will stagger the minds of the unregenerate and they will walk in the wisdom and in the understanding and the knowledge of the Most High God.

He is talking about a great shift of material wealth; again, this is dominionism language. He believes this stuff and so out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. In this instance, great swelling words, I might add.

"And every place they go, they will transform the environment. They will bring blessing and they will leave blessing behind them. They will cause dark places to become light. They will cause brown places and barren places to become well-watered like a garden. They will cause broken places to be healed. They will cause sick places to be made well. "For they are the people of Jehovah and their vindication is from God. For there is coming a great vindication because of the great warfare. From the great warfare, there is coming great vindication and great blessing.

This is code for “Stick with us and it will pay off”.

"Rejoice, for your hour is coming and is now upon you when you will begin to see the goodness of God in the land of the living," saith the Lord.

He clearly defines the goodness of God as material blessing, and yes, a little spiritual stuff, but mostly triumphalism, personal power plays for your attention.

This man may talk much of God bringing home the bacon for us in the here and now, and this anointing breaking the yoke, but his prophetic words, twisted scriptures and unbiblical ideas all point to this being scrambled eggs-egesis.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Scrambled Eggs-egesis

And in their greed they will exploit you with false words.
(2 Peter 2:3 – ESV)

Some “prophetic words of the Lord” have supposedly validating verses liberally sprinkled around ideas that the so-called “prophet” wants to implant in the people’s minds. The verses are ripped out of their context and seem to add blessing to the other pronouncements. They will pull some verse out and then define that blessing according to their new idea of it. What we will do in this post is to highlight in red the key phrases, and then we will speak briefly about the diversion, distortion, and deception being masked in blue.

It starts with a buildup of anticipation, with phrases such as “when the anointing is on you, when you understand the anointing, when you operate in the anointing, when you understand the worth of the anointing”, etc.

You can make this out to be anything you want, it is very vague. Of course, the prophet knows all about it and what he is about to tell you, so you had better listen up and “align” with it.

God Almighty is preparing a generation – it will rival what took place in the Great Reformation. You are the sons of the prophets. You are the seed of Abraham. Every blessing in the covenant to possess Heaven and Earth, to move in dominion, to move in increase, to move in the fullness of the Spirit – is yours.

“Dominion” is code language for the false belief that believers are supposed to take over the systems of the world before Jesus can come back. “Increase”, well, you get the idea there. This is over-realized eschatology in that he promises that we can have everything we will ever have right now. We can take charge of heaven and earth right now, every blessing to possess; wow, what a terrible torture of the textual truth. Of course, the dominion idea isn’t in the text at all.

"Holy Spirit of God, Holy Spirit of God, come right now – overshadow." Here it comes. Just let blanket you. Just let it soak you. Position yourself. Align yourself for that greater anointing.

Does this mean that we should be physically posturing ourselves at that very moment, as this prophetic word is being given? Just what does this prophet mean by "aligning yourself?” Probably he means we must agree with his words in order to be aligned with what God is doing.

The fullness of the Spirit, the fullness of Him who fills all in all; the anointing that breaks the yoke, not just in the meeting place but it will break the yoke in your home. It will break the yoke on your job. It will remove the curse from your destiny and from your career, from your vocation. It will remove the yoke from relationships that are draining you. It will bring deliverance.

He speaks of the fullness of the Spirit, and ties it to the notion of it being an “anointing” for temporal blessings, earlier he said the fullness of the Spirit was for dominion and increase, and so he defines this in ways that promise personal prosperity. It appears any kind of struggle or suffering will be relieved if you just line up with this new “anointing” that he tries to link with biblical teaching so as to validate it, but if this is that same “anointing” and fullness of the Spirit we see in the bible, why wasn’t this usage defined like this when it was originally written?

You are an heir. You are an heir of God. You are a joint heir with Christ. That double portion, that promise of the Father, the greatness of the call, the power of resurrection – we are about to embark on a season in which there will be such great difference between the light and the dark that you will be able to know, "These are the people that walk with God."

The promise of the Father was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all believers, first seen at Pentecost in Acts 2. It is not some special blessing for the super company who gets a double portion, more than anyone else gets because they are somehow special.

There is a great end-time visitation coming; it is almost upon us. I can hear the sound of an abundance of rain. God Almighty is grooming a company to move in power and practicality to reach the culture and to bring increase and expansion – the provision of God, more sufficient than any natural provision could ever be; the blessing of the Lord that makes rich and adds no sorrow. There is a new generation that is about to cross a line and cross a threshold and operate in a dimension.

This is pure pandering using triumphal language to believers who fail to discern. At least he then describes the threshold that they are crossing, and talks of the special dimension.

"They will go with Me on a journey to discover earmarks that are in the Spirit – places of lodging, places of power, places of deliverance, places of blessing. For in the heavenly realms, I have stored up treasures that when they go in, they will bind the strongman and reclaim the goods that he took from My people over these past generations.

What is going on when a supposed prophet uses modern day political language to give us an idea like “earmarks in the Spirit?” Aren’t earmarks bad things, like pork projects? Is that what this prophet is telling us, that we can expect God to bring home the bacon for us? As far as binding the strongman, this is terrible twisting of scripture, and time won’t permit us to go into it here, but suffice it to say that this idea had been refuted by reputable bible teachers time and again.

"There is coming a great shift. It is going to come globally on the Body of Christ and there is going to arise a company of people that will be delivered from their past and rescued for their future and they will operate in a double portion anointing that will stagger the minds of the unregenerate and they will walk in the wisdom and in the understanding and the knowledge of the Most High God.

He is talking about a great shift of material wealth; again, this is dominionism language. He believes this stuff and so out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. In this instance, great swelling words, I might add.

"And every place they go, they will transform the environment. They will bring blessing and they will leave blessing behind them. They will cause dark places to become light. They will cause brown places and barren places to become well-watered like a garden. They will cause broken places to be healed. They will cause sick places to be made well. "For they are the people of Jehovah and their vindication is from God. For there is coming a great vindication because of the great warfare. From the great warfare, there is coming great vindication and great blessing.

This is code for “Stick with us and it will pay off”.

"Rejoice, for your hour is coming and is now upon you when you will begin to see the goodness of God in the land of the living," saith the Lord.

He clearly defines the goodness of God as material blessing, and yes, a little spiritual stuff, but mostly triumphalism, personal power plays for your attention.

This man may talk much of God bringing home the bacon for us in the here and now, and this anointing breaking the yoke, but his prophetic words, twisted scriptures and unbiblical ideas all point to this being scrambled eggs-egesis.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Potion of Emotion

For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
(2 Peter 2:19 – ESV)

Our text is speaking primarily of individuals who dupe others, but we want to look at the idea that our feelings and emotions can do the same thing. They promise liberty, but they bring bondage, because if we let them lead, if we do not put them in their proper place, then we become enslaved to them (Romans 6:16). If we try and fly by our emotions, we are flying backward, by the seat of our pants. Have you ever made “an emotional decision” and how many times have you been “overcome with emotion”?

We are not denying your emotions. You have them, they are real, and everyone has them. We cannot give a prescription as simple as “keep a stiff upper lip”, or “just suck it up”, because emotions are not all bad. They are a powerful motivator and they explain a lot of things, but we often fail to process our emotions in a rational way, and we can get caught up in a whirlwind of emotional activity and make decisions we might not otherwise make if we were in a more controlled environment. Emotions are there to inform us, not to lead us. They inform us of how we feel about a situation, not about how we should deal with a situation.

Many times, however, we can be under the spell of an emotional potion and it poisons our thoughts to everything that would lead us in a right direction, and lead us to make good choices. Instead we are led to destructive behavior, and away from Christ. We must learn to rule over our emotions. Feelings can be good, they can help us in many ways, but feelings can be faithless, or misdirected. We can easily become spellbound by our own emotions if we do not learn to process them and put them in their place, using them instead of them using us.

A careless cocktail of fleeting feelings can become flaming feelings, and our addiction of choice if we continue to give in to them. Many times to entertain these thoughts is to yield to death (James 1:14-15 / Galatians 6:8). In Philippians 4:8, Paul tells us to direct our thoughts to right things. Romans 12:2 says that we are to turn ourselves over to God in order to renew our ways of thinking about things. Ephesians 4:22-24 confirms this and says we can put on a new way, a new man, one who is not like the old man, who was ruled by his emotions. Christ rules the new man. The new man is the new man of maturity.

Maturity is mastering your emotions. Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane showed Himself to be the master of maturity. He had emotions, for sure, but He said not my will but thine be done. How about you? You may have everything against you, but do you give up, or go on, are you ruled by your emotions or do you rule over them? Are you going to let some fleeting feeling gain ground and score a terrible touchdown on your home turf, or are you going to defend your mind and spit out the potion of emotion? Are you your own worst enemy? In your old man, yes you are, but are you going to put on the new man, or not? What clothes are you wearing? What scent are you giving off, the fragrant aroma of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:16) that Christians are supposed to or the pungent potion of emotion, like the rest of the world?

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Increasingly Decreasing

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(2 Peter 1:8 – ESV)

If these qualities are increasing: think about that. In the kingdom of God we are either increasing or decreasing. To be more precise, we are either increasing in fruitfulness, and thereby decreasing in self and sin, or the opposite, we are increasing in self and sin, and thereby decreasing in fruitfulness. We are either moving forward or sliding back, there is no status quo in the process of sanctification. We must be about the business of increasing, growing in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18). The alternative is spiritual blindness (2 Peter 1:9).

In the list Peter gives here in 2 Peter 1:5-10, his words seem very similar to if not the same as Paul gives in Galatians 5:22-23 when describing the fruit of the Spirit. It is often said that we do not produce the fruit we only bear it. However when we consider this passage and others we must realize that we do indeed have a part to play. Certainly it is still it is done in God’s power (1 Corinthians 15:10 / Galatians 2:20 / Philippians 2:12-13), but we are elected to action not apathy (Romans 8:29 / Ephesians 1:5,11). Just because God is sovereign doesn’t mean we are static.

You see, when we were spiritually dead, the Enemy blinded our spiritual eyes (2 Corinthians 4:4). Then God said let there be light and we were born again (2 Corinthians 4:6). Even so, as believers we still see as through a dark glass (1 Corinthians 13:12). However, we can increase our spiritual sight even through the dark glass as we behold Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The problem is that many are not learning by yearning to let their light shine (Matthew 5:16). They don’t really want it because they don't think it’s worth it. Instead of giving off the radiant glow of their Redeemer, they turn down the dimmer switch. They think that just because they have seen the Light that they can turn the heat on and off any old time they like. The lights are down, they become drowsy, and the place gets cold. Soon they fall fast asleep. If they decide to get up and move around to get some warmth, they go bump in the night against anything and everything because they cannot see, it is dark! And they are just sleepwalking anyway.

Paul gives us the remedy, he tells us we must awaken by being more righteous in behavior than we were before we fell asleep and put the light out (1 Corinthians 15:33-34). He says it is high time to wake up because the dawn is near (Romans 13:11-12). If we do Christ will give us light and we may be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:14-18). But we cannot be filled with the Spirit when we are sleepwalking around, drunk on the drowsiness of the dimmer switch. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober (1 Thessalonians 5:6 – ESV). We are all increasingly decreasing: either in sin, or in sight.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

The Edge

…because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
(2 Peter 2:2 – ESV)

Too often Christianity or Christian principles are “sold” as the key to getting ahead in life. It is taught that following God’s plan for your life is the way to get the edge you need to be successful. We tell unbelievers that they need to add God to their lives in order to truly shine. We sell weak or make-believe believers the idea that they need to do this or that “scripturally based” plan for prosperity in order to get on with their faith walk.

Of course it is given a Christian veneer such as “being successful will help you to be a better witness” or “better able to help others”. Friends, you cannot baptize self-indulgence into sanctity by starting off a sentence or book with “it is not about you”. It may appease you conscience to think that you want to be successful so that you can glorify God, but in that case your conscience is seared, not cleared. You cannot want improvement for yourself first so that you can then serve God “better”; that is just covering up your own desire for comfort. It isn’t wrong to want comfort and relief, but you are called firstly to serve God no matter what, thanking Him for any and every opportunity you get, despite hardship.

What matters is the quality of service not the quantity, and the amount of money or time or success you have into it all isn’t the quality, it is the quantity. Your degree of surrendered heart is the quality, and if you think more success, wealth, influence, etc. is going to make you a better servant, then your heart is not even close to being half surrendered. Mark my words: if you think that garnering recognition or being noteworthy means you are more useful to God, then you are seriously deceived and spiritually immature, at best, if you are even regenerate at all.

If you receive blessing in the form of worldly success, notoriety, comfort, money or things like that, praise His name. But would you praise His name the same if you didn’t? I think not, at least for those who buy into the modern pseudo Christian paradigm of the prosperity preachers.

Notice this about them; it is always about you, becoming a better you will make you better for God, they say in so many words. If you are not as successful in terms of money and worldly influence as you could be, you either lack faith, or you aren’t as glorifying to God as you should be. It gives God more glory for you to be the head and not the tail, they say. They repeat blessing verses as mantra, saying, “God has plans to prosper you, to give you a hope and a future”. Oh yes, the bible says things like that, but not in the same way that they sell it to you, they take the scripture out of context. Applying this to everyone in every situation, they twist the oft-quoted scripture to mean a universal umbrella of unlimited blessing from God. Does that match the life of Christ, or Paul, or John the Baptist?

They make the bible appear to teach what they want to foist upon you by using their modern day magic, their superstitious scripture sorcery. They start by taking several scriptures out of context, and out of the greater biblical scope. Then, by putting them together, they fashion a beautiful string of pearls, woven together to make a shining adornment to their teachings. But that string of pearls is just an albatross, God’s Word applied wrongly becomes more poisonous than any self-help book could possibly imagine, and the devil delights especially in this.

We need to discover Jesus, not as a means to our own ends, but as the end to our own means. When make-believers go looking for the edge, they often find it within so called Christian principles and such, but the total truth is that while they have found the edge, it isn’t what they think it is. They are on the edge, all right, but they are actually dangling their hearts over the precipice of hell. No amount of professing their false Christ will keep them from slipping off.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

I Don’t Want What You Got

But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all…
(2 Timothy 3:9 – ESV)

I don’t need to worry about all the “I receive this” and “I rebuke that” teaching as if we had that sort of power, as if we were sovereign over the details. That is what those false teachers will tell you, and then they will blame it all on you when it goes wrong. I don’t worry about all that because I trust a sovereign God who works out everything for my good, even when He leads me to cry out Abba Father in my trials, I know He has predestined me as a child of God and nothing can separate me from the love He has for me in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:14-39).

I just follow Christ as best I can by following the scriptures, learning what they teach, fellowshipping with other believers of like precious faith and praying to God, asking Him to make me fruitful in every good work (Colossians 1:10), and trusting Him no matter what happens because I know He will never leave me nor forsake me (Hebrews 13:5). I try and change what I can, I strive for excellence in all I do, and I praise His name in every little detail, because I know He knows what to do better than me and I pray that He gives me the perspective to see His goodness even when bad things happen to me or my loved ones. I receive God’s plan for my life no matter what.

2 Peter 1:16-19 – Jesus told Peter to come down off the Mount of Transfiguration, and God calls us who are converted, those who have been born again to come down off the mount of our great experiences and dive in to the scriptures. We could have the most incredible experience, like Peter had at the Mount of Transfiguration, and the Word is still surer than that.

We hear a lot these days of “impartation” and spiritual powers that are “transferable”. Of course this transfer always seems to impart some wild manifestation or falling down. We have had so many people fall down and yet modern Christianity never seems to look up. It doesn’t do you any good to fall down today if you fall away tomorrow.

Now let me tell you, the scriptures are the impartation and they are transferable, and we are to be transformed by the renewing of your mind not an out of your mind experience. I don’t need you to impart some spirit to me I already have the Holy Spirit. I don’t want you to impart some anointing on me I already have Jesus, the Anointed One living in me. The Spirit won’t make me act like you it will make me act like Jesus who sent the Spirit to me.

They say, “Come get some” but I don’t need some of what they got when I’ve got somebody who is God the Son. I don’t need some new Apostle to tell me what to do when the old ones already told me what to do. I don’t need a word from a prophet when I’ve got the more sure prophetic Word. I’ve got an inheritance waiting for me in heaven, and I’ve got what I need right now. I don’t need something more.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©