Our Pillar of Salt

Our Pillar of Salt

From the time of the Garden of Eden, mankind has continued to inherit a sinful nature. Scripture shows us in Genesis 1:26 that ADAM was created in the ‘image and likeness’ of God. Genesis 5:3 goes on to show us that Adam had a son in his (Adam’s) image and likeness. We descend from the lineage of Adam.

The sinful nature passed down from Adam to us today (and the one which we continue to procreate), can be likened to a car engine which drives a car in a certain way. Despite modifications being made to the engine, the car still moves the same way. The only way to drive that car differently would be to replace the engine completely.

It is little wonder then that mankind has survived for centuries but the world is no better morally than it was from the time of fallen Adam. Irrespective of culture, race or government, the nature of mankind continues to seek its own desires, not caring what others think or feel. Human (Adam) nature drives mankind in its quest for success.

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A Timeless Tale – Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve: Living a Life in the Kingdom of God – Continued

“As a man Thinketh in his heart, so is he”. Prov. 23:7 KJV

In the previous chapter, we discussed the fact that, management of the thoughts in our mind is what will determine what we become in this life and where we will be in the eternal world when our present earthly body dies.

Once we cross the bridge from being unbelievers to followers of God, it becomes obvious to us that in order to grow in our relationship with Him, we need to change the way we previously used to think.

A Timeless Tale – Chapter Ten

With your permission, I am going to interrupt the theme we have been working on so far. I am doing this especially for those readers who might belong or have belonged to Christian Communities.

When I say Christian Communities, I am referring to those across denominational divides.

You will notice that in the previous chapters I have made no mention of two practices that the greater majority of these communities hold fast.  These are ‘Baptism’ and ‘Holy Communion’ (or ‘Breaking of Bread’ as it is often called).

My reason for not mentioning these topics before, is simply that they are ‘ceremonial practices’ that will in nowise affect your day-to-day spiritual life here on this earth and certainly never have any influence on your eternal future. On this basis, let us get some understanding on these issues.

A Timeless Tale – Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight: Essential Keys to Unlocking the Power of God in this Life.

As a basis for this teaching, let us consider the words of Jesus:

New Living Translation: “For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up“.

New Living Translation: Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me”.

Before I set about explaining the beautiful revelation in the words of these scriptures, I would like to raise a few points that I have mentioned to you in previous chapters.

Hope you don’t feel that I’m repeating myself; but I firmly believe in what my theology teacher told me so many years ago: “Repetitio est mater studioram or Repetition is the mother of studies”.

We must never lose sight of the fact that Jesus was not a ‘Christian’ but in every perfect way, he was a Jew and via Joseph, his earthly father, of the royal line of King David.

The word, “Christian” was born in Antioch in AD 34, and from that time the followers of Jesus were referred to as “Christians”, previously they were referred to as “The Way”.

History also tells us that in the reign of the Roman Emperor, Constantine, in AD 300 there was an alliance formed between the state of Rome and the Christian movement at that time. This was the origin of the Roman Catholic Church.

Born out of this arrangement was the myth that if you follow Jesus and His teachings, you are a Christian. You should now see clearly, that this is not the case.

We can be followers of Jesus and His teachings and choose to join the Christian religion, or we can choose to follow Jesus and His teachings and not be members of the Christian religion. It is a matter of personal choice.

Now, let us get back to the scriptures above.

Jesus points out that nobody can take hold of His accomplishment on the cross and the benefits of Godly power in this life, unless God chooses them to take part in these benefits.

Then He says that the only way to God, in the eternal sense, is by taking hold of the benefits of Godly power through His crucifixion and applying these to our lives, on this earth.

I say it to you once more: no amount of good, kind, gentle or disciplined living in this life on earth; no religious practice or traditionalism can give you what Jesus is saying in the above two scriptures.

Only this will work:

• God chooses the one’s to whom He gives the benefits resulting from the crucifixion of Jesus.
• You alone can accept His choosing and apply these benefits to your life on this earth.

Let me explain these two statements in plain contemporary English:

The only reason for God choosing you will be because you want to be chosen. He won’t choose you otherwise. Would you choose to befriend someone whom you know for sure does not want your friendship – no, of course not.

You know you want to be chosen, so you say to God, “Even though I do not fully understand all that I have been told here – I accept.”

Good! Now on this basis you are under way to your new life, drawing to yourself health, wealth, power and peace on this earth and immigration requirements for the life after your body dies.

Congratulations and well done!

I need to explain the issue of, “…I do not fully understand…”

Never in our relationship to God are we ever called to understand. We are only told to accept Him and what He says.

When I was eighteen, I understood everything and was wary of accepting anything.

As I have grown older I understand much less than I did then, but I accept all of what God shows and tells me now.

Another word for this condition is a wonderful gift called faith. Remember my definition: “Faith is believing that something exists even when all my senses say it doesn’t”?

Let me share something else; my faith has led to my trust in God’s plans and this has led to my hope in His promises.

Whilst I will appreciate that you might be a little fuzzy about all of this in your mind at the moment, I feel very safe to tell you that If you have read so far, you are on your way to a glorious life of health, wealth, power and peace on this earth and are booked on the flight to eternity with all your documents in order.

I am going to conclude with the explanation of two last verses of scripture:

New Living Translation: Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

New Living Translation: Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.

For the most part the scripture of John 3.3 has been a password in certain Christian Churches and movements. You may have heard the expression: “You need to be born again if you want to go to heaven”. Nobody could ever give me a reasonable explanation of what ‘born again’ really meant, apart from some very spiritual explanations, that I truly could not understand.

I eventually found that historically speaking, it was during the Azusa Street Revival, Los Angeles, California in 1906 that the expression became the password as the Pentecostal Movement came to know its birth.

In his wonderful book, a Christian best seller, “Born Again” Charles Colson, helped to fuel this password fire to the entire world.

What was even more wonderful for me was the revelation that one cannot use the scripture of John 3.3 without coupling it to John 3.5.

Let me explain to you what this means.

Firstly there are two positions that John speaks about here. The first is ‘see’ and the second is ‘enter’. One cannot enter without ‘seeing’ and one cannot see an entry point without it being there. So these two positions are interdependent on one another.

Let me give you a practical example of this: One day I am piloting an airplane to a city in our country called Cape Town. At ten thousand feet above sea level and the visibility is clear as crystal, I can see Cape Town ahead and in fact even the airport, for that matter. But the motor car below me has at least seventy miles to travel before it reaches Cape Town.

At this point it comes to me; I can see the big city and her airport, I have not entered it. The conditions to entering are another thirty minutes of flying and a safe landing.

Jesus is saying, “You will have to go through the experience of being chosen by God and accepting He has chosen you; then you will be able to SEE that God has got a new life for you on this earth.

When you believe what I did on the cross for you and how it is going to put you on your way to a glorious life of health, wealth, power, peace on this earth and booked on the flight to eternity with all your documents in order, then you have ENTERED.” (my translation)

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A Timeless Tale – Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven:

Self improvement and our own efforts to live a ‘better’ life on earth versus taking the power that God has equipped us with and applying it to our everyday life here on this earth.

I want to quote you two scriptures, which point to the foundation of God’s plan for humanity:

“Love God (the God of Abraham in the Old Testament) with your whole heart (Which is the seat of your emotions and moral code), your whole soul (Your intellect, emotion and will) and your whole strength” (Which is the dedication of the complete function of your body).   Translation and italics are mine. 

“Eternal life (The life we face once our body on this earth dies) is knowing (in the sense of a husband and wife in intimate relationship) God, the one true God and His only child, Jesus the Christ.” Translation and italics are mine.   

No human can live either of the above commands unless they really deeply desire to do so. If we carefully read and study these two scriptures it must become evident to our intellect, that having a deep intimate relationship with God is what this life on earth is all about. This process will not stop when our bodies on this earth die, but will continue into the next life.

These two scriptures are the very foundation upon which our lives on this earth need to be built.

It should now also be very clear to our intellect that no amount of effort on our part can accomplish God’s requirements above, unless God ably assists us to do so.

The good news is that God wants to assist us to reach the above place and His only requirement from us is to believe that He will assist us and then to trust that it is happening, even when our senses say it isn’t.

I hope that you are with me so far. In which case, let’s continue.                                                                          

I truly pray that you can see that no matter what we attempt to do by our own efforts, in terms of our relationship with God and our promised life after our body dies, will be completely fruitless, without God assisting us.

Every religion known to humankind, teaches that we need to ‘do’ certain things in a certain way, in order to get close to God and reach our new life. Nothing, as you can see from what I have shown you above, that we ‘do’, can achieve what God requires.

I refer to these religious teachings as ‘self improvement’ schemes. These self improvement schemes can often benefit one to live a better life, here on earth, but have absolutely no eternal value.

Hopefully, all of you reading this have enjoyed the wonderful experience of ‘falling in love’ (not to be confused with loving someone – which I will cover in a later chapter). How, absolutely beautiful is the experience of falling in love with someone else. You will know that the first thing you want to do is to get to know that person more deeply than just to have an outward friendship. You realize at that point, that in order to get to know the one you are in love with better, you will want and need,  to spend more time with them.

Getting to know God is like this too and the way to achieve this is also spending time with Him. Getting to know more about His great person and character, getting to know about His plans for the universe that He created and, as important, what His plans are for His relationship with you.

In later chapters I will discuss ways that we come to know God, but just for now it’s important that we understand how we must live our lives upon this earth.

Religion, generally teaches about God without God’s power in the teachings (Karl Marx said it was “The opium of the people”), whereas ‘knowing God’ empowers us to have a relationship with Him – to love Him.

Religion teaches ‘self-help’.

Knowing God is God’s power to live a healthy, wealthy, powerful and peaceful life on this earth and gains us entry into our new life, once our bodies die on this earth

Go to the below link for free download on related material:

Click to access thegospelexplained.pdf

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Next Chapter, we shall talk about the power of God working in the lives of humans on this earth.

 

A Timeless Tale – Chapter Six

Chapter Six – Living in a State of Health, Wealth and Power on this earth.

Remember always, that what God accomplished in the life and death of Jesus on the cross, is complete and there is nothing ahead that can improve on this perfect work of God, no matter how long we live.

All religions, in one form or another, suggest that life consists of progressive states of improvement for us humans in this life. I fully agree that the world is in a constant state of progressive change, according to God’s long term plan, but as far as God’s plan is concerned, no more can be done in terms of His spiritual benefits for humankind.

Anything over and above what God has already accomplished is superfluous and is therefore totally unnecessary.

A Timeless Tale – Chapter Five

Chapter Five – Living in Two Bodies

Like so many things in life, a relationship with God is a very simple and uncomplicated thing. Yet in our efforts to understand how the inner workings of this relationship function, we discover that it is not that simple, but rather complex in fact.

The encouraging news is that like most things in life, we need to accept the simplicity of this relationship and the aspects of the relationship that are not easy to grasp, should just be put to one side.

A Timeless Tale – Chapter Four

Chapter Four – Your Future Body
Our acceptance to a new and better existence after our body on this earth dies, will automatically present us with a new body.
By way of explanation, let us go back to the Garden of Eden:

A Timeless Tale – Chapter Three

Chapter Three – Where You Fit In…..

Tell me that you are getting something out of what we have discussed so far. I’ll wager that a lot of it, you never heard before; I hope so, because, if you are like me, you love hearing about new things.

Let’s update then. You feel that there might just be the possibility that your soul and spirit may not dissipate with your body when it dies, so you feel that you would like to investigate a little further.

Jesus, The Man and His Work.

Wallace Wattles 1860-1911

Part Two – The Real Jesus Christ

In the first place then, Jesus could not have been despised because He was a carpenter, or the reputed son of a carpenter. Custom required every Jewish Rabbi or teacher to have a trade. We read in the Talmud of Rabbi Johanan, the blacksmith, and of Rabbi Isaac, the shoemaker, learned and honoured men. Rabbi Jesus, the carpenter, would be spoken of in the same way. St. Paul, a very learned man, was a tent-maker by trade.

At that time and among that people, Jesus could not have been despised for His birth and station.

And he was popularly supposed to be of royal blood, being saluted as the son of David; His lineage was well known. The people who cried, “Hosanna to the son of David” knew that He was an aristocrat of the aristocrats; a prince of the royal house. He was not “lowly “in birth, nor was He supposed to be so. On this point I refer you to Matt.9:27; 15:22; 20:32; 21:19; Mark 21:47.