Hi Kathy, Beloved,
Here is a short testimony from my (purely carnal past). This is what most others still contend with.
The great deceiver has a few tricks up his sleeve too. I used to pay because i thought that was the way the
system worked from GOD. When i stopped paying several times it seemed that money stopped coming in and
my work would not prosper. Naturally i started paying again and things would seem to settle down and go well.
This was a cycle that had me really confused for years and believing the system was designed that way. The
reason i say Satan has his own tricks is that it really appears to be a reward system that is scriptural if one is
only able to understand carnal things. Eg: give - receive, sow - reap, seed - fruit and on and on. The cunningly
devised fables of man and Satan are indeed a powerful attraction for the carnal (physical) mind.
In That Day; when we see the breathless evil and cunning of the deception we call progress (while we were
still carnal) is when we cry out to GOD to rescue us from the body of this death.
Reading and listening to: how hard is getting saved smacks all that deception and cunning into the dust.
george.http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,3849.0.htmlHow Hard is Getting Saved?
by L. Ray Smith
Bible Truths Conference
Nashville TN 2005
Who gave me this newspaper…The Tennesian—the article is called “The Scripture has the Last Say on Who is and Who isn’t a Christian.” By Betty Joe King.
She says, “There’s an awful lot of talk around media, politicians, and anybody else who can draw a public audience, about what a Christian is, what a Christian believes, and what a Christian does.”
I’m just going to hit a couple of the high points. I’m not going to read the whole thing.
“A Christian is a person who believes and accepts the authority of the bible.” (King)
True or False. There are all kinds of “bibles”. Bible is a translation of scriptures that could be a fairly good translation or a very bad one.
“God wrote the Bible…” (King)
See, these are misconceptions…God didn’t “write” the bible. God INSPIRED the writing of the Holy Scriptures. (which were not written in archaic English, Japanese, Chinese, or Mongolian) Any foreign language that the Scriptures are translated in are BIBLES: God did not write the Bible….this is total heresy.
“Just for the record, let me lay out for you just what a true Christian is or believes: 1)Man was created in the image of God” (King)
If you believe how it’s worded in the King James, that God created man (past tense), in the image of God, you will NEVER EVER understand the scriptures. If you don’t understand Genesis 1:26, you will never understand the scriptures because that verse tells us why God made humanity; and if you don’t know why He created humanity, how will you ever know what this is all about? And here’s a typical Christian. Now, you know we’re not talking just disparagingly about Christians who believe these things, I believed them! We’ve all been deceived. And we know they are deceived. We love them. But this is heresy. I’ll talk a little bit about that.
“If Adam and Eve had not sinned, there would be no such thing as death.” (King)
See, what they think is, God created first of all a great Archangel, one of his most spectacular creatures of all. Right? And the whole thing went belly-up! Bad idea…He gave it His best shot, but it didn’t work. Well, He was a novice. This was His first attempt at something really big like this. And it just didn’t turn out. His own creation turned against Him. He says then, “well, let me try something different. We tried the spirit beings, let’s try the physical beings.” So He made Adam and Eve. Made them perfect.
I just flipped on (the tv) for a couple of minutes, while I was having my coffee two days ago and Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Copeland were together. And Kenneth was saying how when God made Adam, you couldn’t even see him; he was so radiant and beautiful, so absolutely glorified, you couldn’t even see he had a body. He was so glorious.
But God screwed up again, see, He gave him this thing called “free will” and boy, that went bunkers. Now God is trying for six thousand years to get us back as good as we were when the whole thing failed!! Is that not basic teaching? We want to get back to as good as it was?? When it FAILED? If we truly have free will, at what point in eternity do we lose it that we don’t do the same thing all over again: turn against God. Do people think about this stuff in Christianity? NEVER, never ever do they think about this.
It doesn’t say, “so God CREATED man”. The word is CREATING. And the words are, “Creating is God humanity.” That’s a difference “He created man,” than “Creating is God humanity.” It’s a process, it’s still going on. If Adam was the best God could offer, it wasn’t very good because it failed.