I believe in Jesus, meaning that you think he is Jesus and nothing more. What is in a name that has very little to do with you? Even the demons believe that he is the Son of God, and they tremble in great fear, but not man. Arrogance and blindness are the traits of godless people. Sin is the playground of all who lightly esteem his name or play their accepted roles within their denominations. What we often repeat is not what we believe, but it has become more of a form of speech, a practiced set of creeds that we have learned to mold ourselves into without having the life-changing makeover that will truly separate the saint from the sinner. We may be able to quote the scriptures generously, read and write the ancient languages, study the church fathers' words, and cause others to think of us as strong in character and spirit. Still, at the end of the day, when no one is around, human nature reveals itself as only the heart can do. Sin overpowers the mind until sleep envelopes the body until dawn, and the day begins with a fresh resolve to do things better than yesterday. But without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of Christ to produce genuine fruits of repentance, it's all an exercise in futility because the sins remain entrenched within the heart despite all outward appearances.
Millions claim to be born again, but that has been a running cliche for years, and despite all the talk, very little has changed within man's heart. Jesus was the firstborn from the dead and received his spiritual body. He was the first to be "born again." No one since him has received their spiritual body and won't until he returns to raise them from the dead, upon which they will then become born again. So, this is all talk from people who want to be seen as spirit-led believers but don't know what to believe in other than what they are told and, having taken the emotional high of spiritual ecstasy, now consider themselves to be led by the Holy Spirit of Christ. And the spirit of deception increases among those pursuing false teachings and doctrines created by the imaginative minds of men.
Genuine faith is based upon genuine repentance, which calls for a cross of denial to one's self. Sin, as most should know, is the breaking of the law of God, and we are all guilty of doing just that. To repent means to turn from a law-breaking lifestyle and learn to walk in his law and commandments. That is something that almost all believers have been taught as being done away with. That is a malicious lie sugar-coated by servants of sin and fed to the believers as truth. Despite all the talk, they still sin when they refuse to obey the law and commandments, and the truth is not in them. This is what the scriptures teach; it is what Jesus taught his disciples, and those disciples furthered the teachings onto their disciples. But today, such teachings are blatantly ignored, the words of Christ trampled underfoot or cast aside, and mankind, in their pride and opinionated views, refuse to walk the path of life as instructed by the Son of God. For such people, they have foolishly built their houses on a sandbank amid a mighty river.
Many believers have been taught that God's love is unconditional. This is called a barrel lie, constantly shaken and incessantly repeated until the believer is overwhelmed and rolls with it. God certainly has conditions for salvation, which must be strictly adhered to. Repentance without a genuine change of heart equates to changing clothing without taking a bath. The lifestyle remains the same because the person has been told that God accepts them the way they are. Not true. He meets you where you're at and calls you to follow him to the cross. And that is where many put up a stiff resistance. The cross is a point of horror to many people, a place of utter humiliation, a place where their old nature must be crucified, and there is that famous bone of contention, the nature of man. Self-preservation in all its infamy and decay, nonetheless, it is their Jericho in the heart, their innermost citadel, their ironclad fortress where none dare to tread unless invited. And to repent means to surrender their Jericho. And that, understandably, is the hardest thing for a person to do: willingly surrender themselves entirely to the Son of God and take up the cross of denial and persecution. It's no wonder that millions of believers have noncommitted hearts, outwardly confessing Jesus Christ as their Lord but denying his authority in their lives through disobedience to his commands and law. And they remain firmly seated upon the thrones within their hearts.
Such believers will extoll the virtues of love, the grandeur of Christ, and the many doctrines, sing beautiful songs of adoration and praise, pray for the sick, and perhaps even heal people. They will do many similar things, but in the end, Jesus will say to them, Depart from me; I never knew you, you workers of lawlessness. Now, which law is he speaking of, the laws of men or the law of God? Can you not see where this rebellious faith is taking such believers? This is faith without substance. This is the person who, looking at their face in the mirror, promptly forgets upon turning away. These are the ones who hear of the law but refuse to do it, instead relying on the translators, editors, and pastors, their opinions, interpretations, and the newest Bibles with all their promotional gimmickry.
Where does this leave the proclaimed follower of Jesus Christ? A passionate follower of the idol named the personal Jesus. In a realm of faith without substance. In an ort of disingenuous statements and conflicting theologies going against the Scriptures. In a pastoral circus where every pastor is another ring leader trying to outdo the other by promoting more lavishly, or so it would appear, the newest prosperity garbage. The lighter the cross, the more appealing to the bleating sheep.
The genuine follower of the Lamb of God has one mandate: to do his master's bidding and none others. His voice they will recognize, strangers they will flee from. This is where faith takes its first steps, listening to the master's voice and doing as he directs—learning to obey his law and commands and to walk in the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which include, among many, love for the brethren, forgiving one another, not holding to grudges, being merciful, compassionate, patient, long-suffering, not repaying evil for evil, being faithful in prayers and fasting, not forsaking the gathering of the saints, and more. Please note that contrary to the Romish established religion, saints are those living who love and serve the Lord and each other. The dead know nothing. So, please dispense with worthless traditions, for they will bring you nothing but rusty iron chains.
You need to turn to the Living Rock of your salvation and believe in his words and his works. You need to trust him with everything that you have and are. Jesus is not a religion created by men; he is the Son of the Living God who resides in heaven. This God, whom Jesus describes as his Father, and ours too, if we walk in the truth, is a spirit and a God of such immense power that we have nothing even to begin to compare ourselves against. But yet, this God, or Father, loved mankind so much that he sent his only begotten son to save us from sin and lawlessness. And it's his way that we must follow and obey to inherit eternal life. Not the life that the filmmakers produce, for they know only death and sorrow and cannot possibly conceive what God has prepared for those who love him.
This love of God is beyond our scope to fathom it; we can only believe and accept it now. This love is a sacrificial love that cost the Son of God his life, which he gave for the sins of the entire race of man to bring mankind back to the Father if only they would believe. You see, being a practicing sodomite, lesbian, murderer, adulterer, thief or liar, or practitioner of evil works, it doesn't matter because the blood that Jesus shed on the cross is powerful enough to wash even the filthiest man and woman alive, and to present them holy and blameless before the Father of Lights if they accept his sacrifice and are prepared to turn from their godless lives and evil ways. Sin is deadly and all-consuming until that person perishes in their sins, death being the result, and after that, judgment. And there is nothing but a fearful retribution from a wrathful God whose son you despised and rejected. The eternity that man has promised is then revealed to be nothing more than empty lies as you face the eternal lake of fire that had been initially prepared for the devil and his fallen angels but will include all those who scorned the blood of his son. And it doesn't need to end this way. You have a choice to choose between life and death. Between the truth and the lie. Between the lusts of man and the love of Christ. Sexual lusts usually culminate in a powerful physical reaction very similar to drugs. Still, the way of God goes into the heart to transform the believer into a son or daughter of the Living God through faith in his Son. And no drug on earth can compare to that kind of love from the Creator. His ways are not our ways; his thoughts, not our thoughts. He is outside of time and space while we are constrained within them. He is eternal, and we were formed from the dust of the earth.
Forget the words of Sagan, Hawkins, Darwin, Freud, Jung, Castino, and all of the new age sages and mystics, the descendants of Babylonian mysticism. Forget the theological doctrines of men and philosophical musings such as Nietzsche, Descartes, and Paine. Forget everything that will draw you away from the Creator and turn to his word, the Bible. This is the most hated book in the world by those who hate God, but it continues to be the one most sold or given away. The entire book is a book of prophecy, from Genesis to Revelation, and there is no division within its pages except through the hands of men. All you need to do is open it to page one and begin to read and believe what you are reading. Faith can be found within its pages, the kind of faith that can turn people around and change their lives. But what good does it do to say that you have faith but no works? When does what you claim not line up with what you do? Then, that faith has no substance. It has no value; therefore, you are not saved and are still sold into sin, still a slave of your sinful nature.
But that can all change if you want to change. Suppose you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God who created all you see from nothing seen. This is faith. This is not a fairy tale, not quantum mechanics, string theories, not the Big Bang blooper, and certainly not secretion disks forming planets. When God created the heaven and the earth, he did. End of line. This is where faith begins, by turning away from the vain reasonings of men and turning unto God, who created you from your mother's womb as while you had no substance, he formed you within her womb. And abortionists are doing nothing less than culling the future of humanity and destroying what God creates. But the cries of the helpless unborn have not fallen upon deaf ears, and their creator will avenge them. And this creator made this world by drawing it out of the water, so don't even begin to think to yourselves that he is not aware of man's wicked ways and murderous actions, for he is and he will administer justice righteously to every man and woman who has been born. From the beginning of Adam to the very last child brought into this world, not a single soul will be overlooked by him. The darkest nights are as broad daylight to him, for he looks into the heart and mind and sees and knows every thought and intent. Nothing is overlooked so that his judgments are righteous and faithful when he judges. He will not miss a single one on every continent, for He is God, and we are his creation.
He has given us his law so that we may learn how to do good and abstain from evil. Still, that law has been discarded by ungodly men who dare to walk where angels fear to tread, in lawlessness, in sin, disregarding the law of a holy and just God whose law upholds everything. This is how most pastors teach their flocks to go, the way of lawlessness. Believers who practice iniquity or lawlessness have faith without substance and are only deceiving themselves. But you can't tell them that because their pastor told them something else, and they trust the words of a man delivering them into perdition. So, move on and reach out to those sick and wounded; know that they are sinners, have done wickedness, and wish they could change but feel it's too late for them. These are the ones that Jesus loves, the very ones the righteous ones scorn and turn away from their house doors because they don't "fit in."
When Jesus calls and meets you where you're at, is he meeting a righteous man or a sinner in need of salvation? Righteous people pat themselves on the back and receive the accolades of men, but sinners are condemned by the virtuous. Therefore, seek them out wherever they may be found. Are they caught up in the ways of the world? So were the self-righteous. Are sinners in need of the redeemer? So did the pious. Are the saved to cast lots as to whom they will receive and reject? God forbid that a believer should harbor such evil thoughts. But that is what believers are doing, choosing and discarding people just as they choose and discard scriptures to their shame. And when they do it to others around them and the word of God, then you will know them as lawless believers. And they will be rejected on the day they expect to be received. But again, such people are utterly blind to their condition, impervious to sound reasoning; they will quote scripture out of context to justify their unrighteous actions and weak faith, they will condemn the innocent and lay burdens on the weak, and act as judges over the brethren, and deal with them as underlings while giving praise to those who appear to be something of more excellent character.
This is the condition of the church today, the divisive bodies that have plagued the body of Christ since the beginning. There are never-ending squabbles and theological points of contention among the many denominations, organizations, scholars, theologians, pastors, and laymen. These have brought so much confusion and division that the body of Christ is fractured to the point of disintegrating, and the sheep end up scattered to the four winds, left to their own devices and the cruel mercies of the many unfaithful shepherds. But it doesn't have to stay this way. You can choose whom to believe and where to go for fellowship. Remember that He will be there where two or more are gathered in His name. You do not need to attend a formal church body or become a member of any denomination or organization because the body of Christ is worldwide, and no denomination or organization monopolizes Christ's faith or truths. Whenever one makes that audacious and malicious lie, then you are dealing with a cult, and you need to step away from that group before it snares you in its deceptions and lies. And by reading the word of God in its entirety, it becomes difficult for anyone to easily captivate your mind and soul through clever speeches and spiritual trickery.
We are living in an era of great deceptions, and millions are falling away through false teachers, lies, Christian fairy tales, worldly lifestyles, and compromises; in short, sin has taken the place of godly living, and we are indeed paying a high price for our frivolous behavior and cavalier attitudes. We are letting the faith once imparted to us slip slowly away through our fingers as we live as the world, without taking due caution as to the price it extracts over time from the careless believer. And just as the frog in the cold water doesn't realize it is being cooked alive over time until it no longer has the strength to escape its doom, neither shall we if we prolong our stay in the fields of sin. It will consume us until we perish suddenly with no time to cry out for mercy, no time to say, Jesus, have mercy. He did for a very long time, but you played out your last hand, and now he is coming at the hour least expected, and you are caught unaware in the height of your hypocrisy because you chose to live a life of faith without substance.
And it doesn't have to end this way. You have a choice. You can repent, finally, genuinely repent of your lazy and lawless ways, your hypocritical lifestyles, putting aside all the compromises, the lies, and tales of the faith, and learn to become genuine believers whose faith has substance, and finally lose that crown of self, and put on the robes of righteousness, and take up the cross of Christ and follow him. It is a hard choice, but it is the only one if you will see eternal life. Become a living disciple of Christ, not a follower of fashionable practices and compromised lifestyles. Keep the commandments, keep the faith, and walk in love. Then, you will recognize a true believer from the one who is not.
I remain a brother in the faith to the faithful in Christ Jesus.
Edward L Ordway
