For a Text-to-Speech rendition of this webpage, see the audio player below:
Reader Note: parallel htm to this one is "God's System". This webpage is also short, but has a different focus, so the "Five" in "God's System" link, is instead reconfigured to "Four", here.
Overview and Significance
There are certain Divine Truths so essential, the absence or lack of their operation in the life, derails the life completely. For, man can't live on bread alone; on people-to-people. Those "laterals" need a Vertical; absent the Vertical, man vainly seeks fulfillment which will never materialize. That's why you can faithfully attend church and do Christian service for years but never learn a thing, never have a real, functioning spiritual life, but just the semblance of one (2Tim3:5). One or more of the following Essentials are missing. Kinda like a car without gas, or with a dead battery -- you just get towed away. By Satan&Co.
Satan has a monopoly on towing, aka "religion". He invented religion to successfully trick the woman in the Garden, so has since specialized in Fake God stuff, and especially, using the Real Bible to make you think you are really in the Christian life.. but are not. This was a big problem for believers even in Paul's day, so you have passages like 2Tim2:26-3:7, Phili3:18-19. Peter and John and Jude, who wrote after the Temple was destroyed, also noted the lying-version of Christianity. The Lord warned about it, in Revelation 2-3 and Rev 17 (Rev6-19 are ALSO trends of history before the Rapture kicks off the official Tribulation). [LordvSatan4.htm is on the Rapture, but it's the fourth page in the "Thinking" series, so won't make much sense until you've mastered the prior 3 htm's.]
The lateral Christian mistakes his to-people orientation for the spiritual life, entirely forgetting that God is NOT the recipient of anything laterally done. Sure, the lateral Christian will quote verses like the one about anyone who gives a cup of water in the Lord's Name will get a reward. Surely, the water-giver will be rewarded: a ribbon is a reward. But so is a bizillion dollars. Which reward do you want? Only Scripture is gold, silver, precious stones: not man-made. Ribbons are man-made. So Learn Scripture, and get the "Crown of Life" (James 1), or play laterally, and get ribbons. Your choice. [Lateral Christians read James 1:1-2:26 laterally, so don't realize that, in the inspired Greek, James is talking about BIBLE'S Doctrine, when he says "faith". (Greek word pistis first means Doctrine Believed, not the act of faith.) DOCTRINE WORKS, so Doctrine is not dead. Of course, if you look at doctrine then forget it, you've not believed it, so it is dead in you, and all your works are thus dead also (James 2:18a, which lateral Christians all overlook). So you looked into the Mirror of the Word and then walked away, fruitless. Oh well.]
According to a search in BibleWorks, of the 47 verses which use the word "fruit" in English New Testaments, nearly 40 of them clearly mean Bible Doctrine you learn under the Spirit FOR FATHER, not anything to do with other people or money. The Seed goes in you and YOU grow. Could God make it more obvious, than to have the "forbidden fruit" in the Garden be false doctrine, Satan's thinking, and to depict Doctrine as something you "eat" when you believe? It's not rocket science, to check this. The fact that Paul was veering out of fellowship when he wrote Romans so acted out of character asking for money in three measly verses doesn't justify pitching the clear meaning in the dozens of others. LOL: If you're not learning Bible Doctrine, you are sterile. Check the fruit and eat verses, see for yourself.
My pastor warned us for years that Christianity was going into an all-time low, and when I saw how obvious was the proof that Seed In You is Scripture, I didn't really comprehend so many in Christendom could be so uncaring of Word. If the US is destroyed, we Christians will be to blame, just as my pastor has warned since the '60's. Read Hosea 4:6 8:7, Lev26, see for yourself. [I didn't know Hosea 8:7 was a seed verse when I typed its reference just now. I was trying to remember which was the "perish due to lack of knowledge of God" verse, and thought it was 8:7, but didn't know if I mixed it up with Gal6:7, which also ties. So clearly the Holy Spirit wanted the 8:7 verse in here also. So clearly He would include OT references as well: there are hundreds, so the Bible's definition of "fruit" is not rocket science, to learn.]
Lateralism causes all misinterpretations and suffering, from banal secular, to Bible. Gotta do lots of Spiritual Auditing based on the Uppermost Truth, God. The one who bases his interpretations on lesser examinations will inevitably fail, and the failure always shows up. It's kinda embarrassing to see their fixations on man, never God: all those who think the spiritual life is hustling and works for people; who are totally blind to all the anti-Pharisee Bible verses (i.e., Romans 2), so emulate the Pharisees with their political crusades. You wanna cry for them, because the biggest fear we all face is that one day we will all know forever how we each screwed up. Protect yourself against that Rom 14:10 Day, then: always suspect as a lie any tenet which stresses man's behavior or role. For it's the Vertical, never the lateral, Who is the Only Meaning and Happiness of Life.
The Vertical, of course, is God. Man needs the Real God for fulfillment. And the Real God fulfills him if the Real God is poured into him, so to speak. Rom5:5, via mainlining Scripture. That's why we get a Bible, His Thinking in human language, in writing, a promise which dates all the way back to the Garden, when the Lord sacrificed animals and clothed the first fallen-then-saved humans. [ LordvSatan2.htm explains this integration-with-God need for man's happiness, in more detail.]
God's Truth is His Attribute. It was Truth which held Christ together on the Cross: for, He became "The Way, the Truth, and the Life" before He even went to the Cross. What He KNEW, He thought ON the Cross, and THAT was the "sweet savor" (KJV trans) to Father, PROPITIATING Him. So, that is what Father wants for our lives: citations are so many, all my websites reference facets of them, so the cites won't be mentioned here. (Start with the "Spiritual Royalty Brief" box at Home pagetop.) So.. You Are To Be Developed Into A Soul Which Thinks As Christ Does.
God wants equals, not lesser-thans. It's not fun to be intimate, close to those inferior to self: the thinking is too dissonant. Surely someone in your family is incompatible with you, so you know how horrible it is to have to be close to that person. Hence the verse, "He is not ashamed to call them brothers" in Heb2. Note that: "brothers", not retards. A "retard" can only be self-made, in God's system. So a truly-retarded person can be made a "brother", in God's system: "For God, Nothing is Impossible". To refuse this offer, is to hate God. Your choice: hate God, remain saved but distant, because self-chosen-retarded. Or "Grow in Grace and in the Knowledge of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ" (2Pet3:18) under the power of the Spirit (1Jn1:5-10 -- analyze carefully, esp. Greek Temple keywords). Again, Your Choice.
How much of that development you want, is up to you. Just as, if you want to remain a boxboy all your life, you can. If you treat your spiritual life as you would a 9-5 job, doing what you must to get a paycheck, you will be a low-level 'employee' forever. Works won't cut it: Ya Gotta Learn The Book. Using 1Jn1:9, under your right pastor. See RightPT.htm (link at Home Pagetop) for Bible's bald statement to this effect, in Eph4:11-16 (in Greek, and retranslated).
So Life with God is Vertical, never lateral. All laterals (i.e., toward self, people, things) are but condimental training aids for the purpose of Learning To Rule A Kingdom, because when you've been developed to be Like-Minded, you are qualified to be a ruler, with Christ, close to Him. Intimate, get it? Which is, your close destiny in Christ, IF IF IF you Learn The Book, which is the Very Thinking of Christ (i.e., as stated in 1Cor2:16).
So you can't relate to God the way you do, toward people and things. So you can't get fulfillment in the relationship with God if you try to relate to Him as to people: again, you're being towed, instead.
If you try emotion, you will end up exhausted, even crazy
(big increase in mental illness among Pentecostals and like groups since the 1970's, for example). Pastors today want to get their congregations to Live on the Word, but make the mission-critical mistake of trying to 'inspire' their congregations, and then slip in applications of Bible; rather than, teach just doctrine for its own sake, especially doctrines about God Himself, i.e., the underlying truth of how God is, what the mechanics of the Cross are, etc. -- So You Can Know God.It's KNOWING God which will motivate you (2Cor5:14), not emotion. You can't apply the Word without knowing He Who IS the Word. Absent knowing Him, you're applying emotion, and will soon run on empty.
See, the pastor's gift makes him unusually sensitive to his congregation. Which he needs to be, so he can teach them better. Like a father for children. This gift though, like everything else, has a second side: getting the eyes ON the children. So, catering to their idea of what they need, like how to have a better marriage, self-esteem, commands, etc. What they need is to know GOD. Then all those other concerns are more-quickly addressed individually, since they can apply what they know about God to anything they face. That's what David does, in the Psalms. He learned Scripture as he had it then; so He knew WHO made him. So he knew what to do before Him Who made him. It's a natural conclusion, once you know Who, to know what. No counselling needed, as a result...
Frankly, you best learn God Himself if you get under a pastor who just teaches Scripture verse by verse, in the original languages, so you can see the Inspired Words yourself. I attest that you see God Himself more comprehensively and conclusively if you just mainline Scripture. You won't need anyone to tell you how to use Scripture, once you see it for yourself, via original-language Study, using these Four Essentials: just like the Bible itself promises, in Jer31:31-34, Heb8:8-10:17 (and a bizillion other passages which state the same fact in varying ways)!
So of course, no other substitute for Knowing He Who Is The Word, works. That's James' main point, in his epistle. So, If you try works apart from Knowing Him Who is the Word, you will end up dead; Exhausted; Bitter. For, works never do anything for your relationship with God, and people aren't capable of true gratitude. You slip up once, and you are branded thereafter.
Likewise, if you try ritual, miracles, magical incantations or like things, you will end up exhausted, like a hamster on a treadmill, running running running and only imagining you are going somewhere.
Emoting Emoting Emoting over some miracle just addicts you. Chanting chanting chanting doing doing doing the same ol' set ritual/prayer/incantation again again again. Even people don't like mindless repetition. So all that stuff won't help you relate to God, either. No matter how much you deceive yourself with that holy feeling you always get.
For, Relationship with God is Intimate, and never at all about deserving. For, God didn't make Himself, even. So, He doesn't want you to make yourself, either. Instead, He wants to make you FOR you. Just because. Just because, dummy: That's What Happened To Christ. In His Humanity, He didn't tap into His Deity to do something for Father, Himself; rather, He depended on the Spirit, i.e., "Full of Grace and Truth" verse. Note that: first came the Grace, Spirit doing it TO His Humanity, and what did Spirit do? Last word in verse, last word Christ spoke when He died: "Truth". Romans 5:5, happening to Him, set the precedence for what God wants to happen to US. Isa53:10-12 in the combined Hebrew and Greek inspired texts, walks you step by step through the mechanics (you can't get the combined texts in English, sadly).
And for that to happen, you need to come to know Him. See Eph3:15-21 and Rom5:5, again. His Knowledge being poured INTO you is what makes for relationship. Else, you're just fantasizing, and fantasies eventually all disappoint, 1Cor13:1-3. But Love never disappoints (Rom5:5 ties to the earlier epistle, 1Cor13:4ff). Paul laughs so cutely when he writes about this in Philippians 3:8-14 (weaving in a veiled allusion to Psalm 23's ending: "surely goodness and mercy shall PURSUE me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever!"), tying v.14 to Eph4:11-16's use of "katantaw", reaching the Spiritual Fullness objective (Eph4:13's end) BECAUSE (eis, one layer of its meaning in Phili3:11) we GET resurrection: communion, compatibility. With Him! Wow. Bigger than all fantasies man could dream of, this! And talk about 'booty', PLUNDER (term in LXX of Isa53:10-12)!
As a result, God has designed a system of Four Essentials to get "Christ in you", as Paul likes to put it. What beautiful irony. Here we were, all in Him on the Cross (theme of Romans 6). So now, He can be in us; positionally ("in Christ"), and dynamically, His Thinking, ("Christ in you"). Cry all the way to the Bible bank!
Grace, Grace, GRACE! These Four Essentials are not impacted at all by what denomination you are, nor by what kind of person you are. The Four Essentials only require a) you EXIST, and b) How Much You Want To Use them As Gifts From the One Who Fulfills. God. In Christ. For YOU. Best of all, execution of these Four Essentials on a constant basis glorifies God: Eph3:15-21, 2Pet3:18, and a host of other passages (some of which you can't even see in the English). It's never your works, but YOU. You are the Work God wants, and God wants to make: Eph2:10. [English Bibles are terribly mistranslated, because in the original languages special words are used to denote God Is The Sole Actor, but in translation, God as Actor is chopped off. Heinous. LvS4b.htm's "Father's Criteria" table offers a corrected translation of Eph2:10, but if you start using good lexicons (at least as good as TWOT, BDB, Thayer, Bauer-Danker), you can see for yourself how heinous are the translations versus the original text.]
Elsewhere in my sites Biblical verses supporting the next section's Four Essentials, are given. The other sites also explain these essentials in much greater detail, from different perspectives, for we humans need as much repetition as we can stand, just like muscles need to be trained via repeated exercise. Meanwhile, and faster, you can get confirmation directly from the Holy Spirit, HIS Way For Your Soul: just use 1Jn1:9, ask Father in Son's name to lead you to the verses you need to see. Then start thinking, see what comes to your mind (principle of John 14:26), Breathing 1Jn1:9 as needed, the meanwhile.
It was a huge surprise to discover, in the course of researching material for these websites, that the following Four Essentials are almost never taught by pastors: they talk around these essentials, or tangentially about these essentials, but never explain or train people in these essentials. So what happens over time, is this: they tow their congregations, rather than grow their congregations. For, spiritual growth is internal. If your pastor has to keep charging your dead battery, you'll last during the sermon, alright. But you'll never go anywhere.
The pastor's job is the hardest on earth. Besides grappling with the fact he's human like everyone else, he has this burning urge to feed his flock. He has this burning urge to save them from every problem, heartache, and especially from hell. On top of this, he must grapple with constant demands from the flock, who largely don't know that the pastor's got to spend 50+ hours per week studying Scripture, in order to prepare his congregation's spiritual meals.
But they want him to hold their hands, counsel, involve himself in politics, and all manner of things which no shepherd of the Word should be doing. Cut the pastors (priests, if you're catholic) some slack; stop expecting such nonsense from them, and stop accusing them when you think they are 'unspiritual'. These are our front-line troops! They are beaten on by Satan&Co. more than any other group of folks (along with Bible scholars and translators, evangelists, etc). Eat more by using the Essentials yourself, and you will bless pastors. Pray for them.
If you spend any length of time in my sites, you'll see how critical a vote, these Four Essentials: BELIEVE IN CHRIST for your salvation (else you're not even spiritually alive, and instead are dead-going-to-Hell, John 3); BREATHE 1Jn1:9; EAT and GROW (live on Bible) and PRAY (talk with God the Father, 24/7). The obvious hint that these Four Essentials are true: for 30 years the Lord Himself didn't do any works; and when He did come out, He Taught Words, not works. And Himself didn't do anything but Teach Words, a few miracles, and Die On A Cross -- which, Isa53:11 and many other verses make plain, was a THINKING payment. HIS 'Work" was that He Was Developed, Inside Himself! Capisce? Far bigger works, What God Does To You, than anything touted as spiritual.. test the claim yourself!
1Cor2 makes it quite clear that only the Holy Spirit can cause you to get the Mind of Christ (yet another moniker for Scripture in Scripture). So, this isn't rocket science: If it takes God's Power to get the Word In You, versus mere human power to do whatever "works" men so laud. then what the SPIRIT does, even if He does it while you brush your teeth! is light-years bigger. Bigger in that mere three-minutes' brushing, than all the works since Adam began. For, it's God's Power Applied -- get it?
So think: if you are breathing 1Jn1:9 as needed, studying Bible carefully under your right pastor, then living on it while you go to the drycleaners, the bathroom, your office, the opera.. Divine Good Is Being Produced By Him In You. Just as Moses explained (threaded stress, like tfellin), in Deut1-9. Just as happened, to Christ. Ohhh, never underestimate God's Level of Productivity! Abram wanted only ONE son, but God wanted a whole universe of them! So a whole universe, which after all God binged exist in one instant of time (verb tense in Gen1:1 says that) -- well, then what's bigger than a whole universe? "Christ in you, the Confident Expectation of Glory", Col1:25-27!
My pastor noticed this problem, so for years both taught and warned us to remember these Essentials. So much so, the student under him is inclined to gag from so much repetition. So you know that I, a person of no authority, didn't invent these essentials. So perhaps you should investigate them under the Spirit, breathing 1Jn1:9 to be sure of spiritual perception.
The Four Royal Spiritual Life Essentials
SIMPLY BELIEVE ONCE in CHRIST to be FOREVER saved. Adding anything to simply believing Christ paid all for your sins, NEGATES belief, for you are adding a condition, and if you add something, that's a work, but salvation is only through faith, because it's Grace: grace and works are mutually-exclusive (Eph2:8-9). For example, many teach you must repent of your sins AND believe in Christ to be saved. Dead WRONG. Such teachings egregiously misuse the term translated "repent" in the inspired Greek texts. See how the Lord puts it, in John 3:16,18,36 for comparison. So Don't don't don't add anything. JUST BELIEVE. Royal blue boxes at Home pagetop have more details.
See, "born-again" is a literal thing. God is a Spiritual Being, but man is not; man, due to Adam's sin, is spiritually dead (1Cor15:22, Rom5:12's Greek usage of hamartanw). So man needs to be born spiritually to even have a spiritual life. In the original languages, Bible makes itself clear. We didn't invent the Greek languages; we didn't invent the words of Scripture. We didn't invent the Greek grammar rules (esp. of Attic Greek for drama, used in John 3:16). So we can't invent the interpretation, either. Greek is exact, one of the most finely nuanced group of (5, in Scripture) languages ever on earth. So in John 3, for example, "born again" is literal, which is why the analogy to physical birth is made in the passage. The verbs' tenses are instantaneous, meaning the first time you simply believe in Christ you are permanently saved, because you permanently get Eternal Life, which is a type of Life that God, Who Has No Beginning, IS. (Unbelief in salvation's permanence will cause you much needless doubt and pain, but you don't have to know salvation is permanent, to be saved.)
Bible repeats this same literal meaning in a number of ways: in fact both these mechanics, as well as analogies to the mechanics of salvation are probably the most common category of topics in the New Testament. So, just as a baby doesn't cause its own birth, so also You don't add anything to faith in Christ. No invite, accept, into-my-heart garbage, for you are dead until you BELIEVE in Christ. Just as a baby is no baby until breathing on his own, so can't do anything until first breathing; so also you don't do anything until you take your own first spiritual breath (an exhale of faith, here; just like regular birth begins with an exhale). (Old Testament is rife with references also, but the Hebrew method of expression is often much more subtle. David, for example, makes onomopoetic breathing noises via words he uses in Ps139, to indicate that neshemmah, the first breath of life.)
BELIEVE in Christ, and in that instant, you are Permanently Saved (Acts 16:31); because the Holy Spirit takes that exhale and makes you spiritually alive (Titus3:5).
You don't need to understand anything in Bible to be saved. In fact, you cannot, because like every other human you were born spiritually dead; it's this birth-in-Adam which is the source of the sins you choose to commit, so even a just-born baby needs to be saved. (And of course anyone who dies before he's old enough to believe is automatically saved; the age when one can believe depends on brain function and learning right and wrong, so the age can vary greatly, depending on genetics, nutrition, and other factors which affect brain function.) So, the Gospel is always and only BELIEVE IN CHRIST; you don't have to understand it, you have to BELIEVE it. No additives. God gets it all right the FIRST time, and He did it 2000 years ago.
Once saved, use this First Essential to find out how and why salvation works, and to figure out how God is. It's critical you think over what you learn here. Doesn't matter if you make mistakes en route.. Every Bible writer also uses "salvation" as the first teaching doctrine to expand into explanations of what riches in Him are ATOP salvation, so time spent here is vital. Learn Christ's Nature; God's Nature; learn the components and mechanics of salvation, from how Christ paid for sins on the Cross, to what 4 Accomplishments He made when He did so. "Basics" box at Home Page top has some links which will help, especially the "Salvation Components" chart -- text below the chart is very good. (Chart needs a lot of work, but might help.)
Again, think over what you learn every chance you get. You don't bury treasure, you invest it. God's Word is the ultimate treasure, invested in you. So you use it. You can't use what you don't understand. Knowing the multiplication tables doesn't make the math work. Think over, all the time, what you are learning, and practice even 'rehearse' using what you learn. 24/7. You can be on the toilet, at the opera, doesn't matter.
Errors don't matter; PROCESS matters. Yours truly has made millions of belief errors; my own pastor has zero qualms about lambasting himself publically for missing some point of doctrine: he then goes on to correct what he feels was a prior mistake. Does any of this bother God? Of course not: God could just bing in all obedience and correct interpretation into our souls within a nanosecond. So common sense tells you it's not the obedience itself, but the PROCESS, which God wants. Remember, Christ was always God, but as Human, Father and Spirit DID TO HIM that growth to become the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Christ WAITED, therefore; so the PROCESS was what God wanted to do TO His Son's Humanity. Didn't matter, that Christ was Perfect -- it was HUMAN perfection, which is finite, therefore SHORT OF Divine Perfection. So, if obedience was what God wanted, then it would have been incumbent on Christ to use His Own Deity to be Bigger. But instead, God wanted Christ to WAIT on Spirit to do to His Humanity, as the Spirit Chose. That's our precedent, too. So the fact we are sinners, we make a bizillion errors en route, matters not at all. What does matter, is to "dioko" (Greek verb in Phili3:14), which is KOKO, Keep On Keeping On in God's System, living on the Four Essentials.
So we don't need to burn witches, call each other heretics, etc. Note errors, yes, and that only because certain errors derail the spiritual life; moreover, strong but constructive lambasting blunts reader embarrassment, heh -- which is why Bible is so often abrasive in tone (blanded out, in translation, very abrasive in the originals). Then fix your own versions of the errors, and leave the hearer to mull over fixing his own. No crusades. Move on, like blood flow, nourishing every part of the Body of Christ (Eph4:11-16, Greek). Whew.
Bible teaching on salvation (etc.) has largely been errant due to being sugared in one way or another, since people are uninterested. Well, then: VOTE for meatier teaching by being more interested, and God will respond (2Chron7:14, broad-spectrum meaning).
Bible is God's Thinking, and you get His Thinking so you can Be With Him In Your Thinking. Intimately. After all, God always sees you: wouldn't it be nice to see Him, too? Intimately? God sees all of you since eternity past and eternity future (everything is one big NOW to Him): so you don't have to 'act holy' or be embarrassed around Him, lol. We are each Royal Priests before God, Equal In Christ. Private between God and you, since you are forever a priest: 1Pet2:5,9, Rev1:6, 5:10.
Once saved, you must keep on BREATHING 1Jn1:9 to be Filled with the Spirit, without Whom nothing you think or do will ever be spiritual.
Instead, ALL of what you think and do, however moral, will be "adikia", WRONGDOING, worse than sin itself. (Sin was judged on the Cross anyway, no double jeopardy, so not even the unbeliever is judged for sin, see Rev20:11ff). You can't feel this Filling (Caveat #3 on the Home Page (top set of boxes), explains more about what "Filling" means).
You must find your right pastor whom God appointed for you (maybe more than one, but never more than one at a time), and learn Scripture itself, under him, consistently; ideally, every day.
This is not a hard task. Chances are your right pastor is nearby, or someone who teaches on tape is 'near', in that someone near you, knows him (never 'her'). The Lord personally orchestrates your physical circumstances, so He will orchestrate the exposure of your right pastor to you, so be alert: the Holy Spirit then testifies to you that this is your pastor, and it's not emotional (though your reaction sure will be), but you just know. You'll be able to corroborate what you 'just know', too. Use 1Jn1:9 and pray to Father in Son's name to show you whom HE HE HE has appointed as the right pastor for you. Then, pay close attention to what goes on in your life, for God will (probably, already has) introduce you to someone who knows that pastor. Just as parents are all unalike, so pastors are all unalike, and it does not matter who one believer gets as a pastor, versus another. Process, not better-than obedience, is God's Will for everyone. The latter (the obedience) is a concomittant result of the Process; apart from the Process, nothing happens. Just as it was, for Christ Himself.
Chances are, if you were directed to 'my' website, your appointed pastor teaches his congregation in the original languages, because that's what my own pastor does. So, you're getting an exposure of a specific nature, here. On the other hand, perhaps at first God will choose a different pastor for you until you are ready for 'mainlining' the God-Breathed original-language texts. "Ready" isn't a function of your own smarts, because only the Holy Spirit can process the information; rather, "ready" is your willingness, for the 'mainlining' requires a greater willingness. This might take time to build. (God builds on whatever willingness you have, so you needn't feel bad about any disinterest.) If so far you are only casually interested, He'll park you under someone suited to that lower interest. However, try to become vitally interested, because you have NO idea what enjoyment you're missing!
You must keep on using what you learn under your right pastor during the rest of your day, because the heart of the spiritual life is your THINKING LIFE BEFORE FATHER, for Whom you have been forever appointed, Royal Priest.
(See the "Spiritual Royalty Brief" at Home pagetop.) This is the most important reason to be a believer. Legacy of Christ for everyone in the Body of Christ, aka "Church".
Caveat Bema: The spiritual life is not -- repeat, not about you winning over other souls. It's about God Making You A Winner Via Millions Of Deposits Of His Son's Thinking. No doctrine in Scripture is more stressed than the depositing of His Thinking IN you. You, not someone else! All my websites, and especially the "Thinking" series, explain this fact. It's downright satanic to stress winning souls, instead of learning to think before Father. By the time you get through Part IV of the "Thinking" series (if you can stomach that much reading), you should have ample proof of the underlined statement.
How can you quickly tell the foregoing statement is true? LOL: Why Do We Have A Bible? Most of what's in it, isn't the Gospel, you know. Most of what's in it, isn't works, you know. In fact, most of what's in it, no one knows, lol. So winning over souls is not the focus, since that would require only a chapter, at most; so works is not the focus, since that would require only one book of the Bible, not 66 books. Yet to hear most pastors talk about Bible, you'd think it was only a book +one chapter, long...
So, winning souls and works are only adjunctive -- like catsup or dessert -- for crying out loud! When God talks about the OT heroes, how much time does He spend talking about them winning souls? Almost zero! By contrast, how much time does He spend talking about what they thought? A lot -- in fact, the do's enumerated are to show you the thinking. Same for how The Bible talks about Our Lord Himself: how much time is spent saying how He won over souls, as compared to How Much Time is spent on His Teaching, His THINKING? See how clever Satan is? Brother-Foot Churchinanity is substituted for the Real Spiritual Life: Thinking FOR FATHER. "My food is to do the WILL of Him Who Sent Me" +Matt4:4, not hustling to other people bludgeoning them with how they go to hell if they don't believe. Revelation 17 is Fake Church, the biggest 'sign' of Tribulation trends, and the biggest disclosure of Satan's #1 weapon during the real Tribulation, whenever it begins.
Of course we all want everyone saved. But today's Christianity is "mean-spirited" (as a friend puts it, anti-Bible (which all my sites prove), and very much Rev17, undoing our nation's founding by uniting Church and State (which is how Catholicism got started, if anyone would bother to read history). God's way to save souls is not Satan's way. God's way: Give them a Reason to Believe, by Believing, Yourself. Get the Word in you, and you'll be swamped with people wanting to know what you know.
And you will get swamped. You won't have to go looking for hearers, they will come to you: even if you try to be a hermit, you will be used.. count on it. Geez, if anyone bothered to read the Gospels, he'd know that people came to Christ from all over the world. Christ just kept on walking a circuit from Dan to Beersheba (Israel's borders, then). LvS4a.htm's first section, takes you through that history. But, what Sunday school child doesn't know that Christ didn't go running around looking for converts -- they came to Him. So also, they come to you. Your job is to go where God parks you. Which is probably where you are now (my pastor calls it the "geographical will of God"). Then, HE causes those around you who are positive to hearing the Gospel (and even many negative ones), to ASK you questions. Happens to me frequently, even though I don't usually leave my dwelling except once a week (just got off the phone, someone asking about Jn14:2's use of "mansions" -- someone far away from where I live). So, will happen to you, if you are preparing -- by, learning Him.
Save your strength: just learn Him, wait on the Lord (it's the Lord who orchestrates physicals). Here's how my pastor repeats this Doctrine: GOD does the work, brings the hearers, saves whomever however. For, they are for FATHER, get it? For, what was it the Lord said about the sparrows, huh? What did He say about the log in one's own eye, huh? Who is more important, a human being, or God HIMSELF? For Whom you are appointed a Royal Priest forever? To Whom are you first a Royal Priest -- to unsaved mankind, or.. to God? So, then: Don't you need a Bible to know how to think before God, yourself? You, not someone else.
Oh, how Satan always reverses God's priorities, and loves it most when he can reverse two valid doctrines: 1) You Become A Winner By God Doing It To You; 2) as God Causes It To Happen (meaning you WAIT, not initiate), you talk to others about what you are learning. For, not all Truths are equal in priority, and God Is Always First. God, not people. Getting grown up for Your Husband, Christ; not 'helping' others. No fornication! And it IS fornication, to stress people in the name of God (oh how evil), yet forget all about, God. Remember that parable about the rich man who had a bumper crop, so was thinking that oh, now he's ready to build siloes and can retire -- but that night, God was gonna take him home? [Luke 11:12-21, but the context is within an utterly fantastic nest of related concepts, so read the whole chapter.] Get your priorities straight. You'll be that one-in-a-million-Christian, who does.
So nothing nothing nothing matters except what you are thinking before Father. Hence the need to learn Son's codified-into-writing Thinking, the Infallible and Inerrant Scripture, so you can practice thinking it 24/7. For, just as everyone knows, he who fulfills the First Commandment fulfills all law: "for against love, there is no law" quipped Paul. So, Christ's Thinking, Bible Doctrine, resulted in Him becoming the Truth, and the Truth Expressed, is Love: Rom5:5,8 1Cor13.
The idea is to learn everything in Scripture. Truth is a STRUCTURE, and Scripture deposited in you CREATES that structure. This is how Christ Himself BECAME "The Way, the Truth, and the Life". So, you get the same spiritual life. It's like math: you get all the Formulas in you, and then they just keep on producing. Because, the Truth is structured like math, but is Living. Doesn't matter that you sin, because it really didn't matter that Christ was perfect. His Perfection was necessary to be qualified to bear sin, but His Perfection didn't cause His Spiritual Growth. Instead, what did the job was the Truth being poured in Him. Like the Gospel of John says, "full of Grace and Truth". So, it's the same 'job', for you. Which, the Holy Spirit accomplishes. Just as John tells us, in his Gospel and in 1Jn.
Of course, while you are learning, and especially in the early stages, you don't see any of this structure happening, building. But it's kinda like (according to Paul, in Greek of Romans 8), a fetus being built. So, you don't see it. So, you don't see the relevance of what you are learning. God knows the relevance. God is doing things to your soul with what you are learning. My pastor explains this as developing a "frame of reference". It's a lot like learning a new job. You learn lots of discrete items, but you don't see how they fit together. But, after a year or two on the job, those items not only fit together, but you've gained a kind of fluency in using them. You hardly notice how fluent you've become, after some years on the job, for the items fit together so well, they are natural to your entire being. So it is, with Scripture. But, it takes time.
So, to speed that process, try to play with whatever you are learning. If you're learning about things in David's life, then try to tie what you learn to your own life. If you learn things about anything or anyone in Bible, try to tie what you learn to yourself. Better still, see if you can figure out What About God is Revealed; what does it reveal about God's Grace, for example, that He killed David's firstborn by Bathsheba on the 7th day, instead of the 8th? (Hint: circumcision would have been done on the 8th day.) Why did God love David so much, despite all he did wrong?
For, we are all human, and Scripture is All God, so.. everything in Bible ties somewhere. Doesn't matter if you tie it incorrectly. Practice. Just like you would, in learning a language. Just like you would, in learning a job. Keep using 1Jn1:9, keep studying, keep trying to tie what you learn. Fail, so what? Use 1Jn1:9 and Keep Going. It works. I can vouch for that fact experientially, and these websites show how much the Holy Spirit can work in a life. So, it will likewise happen to you. Because, God wants it to happen to everyone. All we do, is keep on saying YES. He works in you to will and to do, Paul says in Phili2:12-13.
Obviously if you are spending your day thinking toward Father (aiming at it, really, since failures are necessarily frequent), prayer is a type of thinking toward Him. At Home pagetop, the "Royal Protocol of Prayer" link explains the how and why of effective prayer. (In Caveat #3, the 6-step protocol of effective prayer is more briefly enumerated.) It's a protocol because it's an office, a voting, as well as the best way I can think of to maintain awareness that Father hears you 24/7, so you want to play with Doctrine as much as possible, in your thinking. ["Protocol" means a precise procedure, in English. It has a scientific meaning as well as a Diplomatic/ Royal meaning. My pastor coined the phrase, "Protocol Plan of God" back in the 1980's and spent seven years via verse-by-verse exegesis of Ephesians, teaching it to his congregation.]
You can tool around the links at Home Page top, to get a better sense of the mechanics. In case you are supposed to know, my pastor wrote a book called Christian Integrity which summarizes as 10 thinking patterns for using the Bible Doctrine you learn. (His books and tapes are all free of charge; you will never be put on a mailing list; you will never be asked for money; in fact, until you have enough Doctrine, you aren't smart enough to give money.) Click here for a brief on these patterns, so you can get a categorical idea of how your day should ideally 'play'. John 14:26, 4:23-24. Life isn't worth living, else.
Other pastors have other classification systems they teach. You can also make up your own, but at least keep on thinking Scripture, applying it to your life, breathing 1Jn1:9 and keep studying. So Scripture comes to Cycle In Your Head 24/7, like breathing. This is your lifeline, your lifeboat, your food, your happiness, and there is no substitute for the Word itself: Matt4:4.
That's one big reason why these websites are findings, not teachings. YOU have to do the homework on them, if you choose to read them. Else, you shouldn't read them, for then you're reading someone else's words. If you USE someone else's words alongside your regular study of THE Word, that's perhaps helpful. But there is no substitute for THE Word going straight into your spiritual 'veins'. Preferably, under but one pastor, for each pastor has his own system, and until you've been under him long enough to know the Whole System, you will be fragmented in your understanding.
So your thinking before Father is the issue: using the Bible ITSELF, not some Christian bookstore's latest best-seller. David, you'll notice, thought out what he was learning, constantly. The Psalm119 people were tortured on their way to Babylon, but in v.103, look what sustained them. The Word Itself. Not some else's packaging. You'll always need a pastor to teach you the Word ITSELF, and of course to do that he will 'cook' it, just like a professor 'cooks' his subject to present it comprehensively; but you eat the Word; then you live on IT; not on someone else's words.
Oh, how Beautiful a life this is: not emotional beauty (emotions are all over the place), but Seeing Him VIA WORD 24/7. Worth it! This Thinking System God Invented is light-years superior to what's passed off as 'worship' or 'spirituality' in the world's religions, Christian or no. Try it, and see for yourself. The whole point of our spiritual life is to See Him Who is Invisible. Every Bible writer has some nifty way of stating this should-be-Impossible, sight: See how John puts it in 1Jn4:12-19, compared to how "Light" and seeing are used elsewhere in the epistle.
All else is not the spiritual life. John 4:23-24, Greek and in context explains that you must be IN the Spirit and IN the truth, to worship God: thus only by means of 1Jn1:9 (which causes you to be in the Spirit, analogous to how OT Temple was Filled, per Greek keywords adikia and katharizw) and learning Scripture (which causes you to be in the Truth, since Scripture is Truth), are you "spiritual". It's clearly not what you do, but 'where' your soul is with reference to God, in that passage (which 1Jn explains in more detail). Because, the Samaritan woman was being given a no-works offer of the SPRIT making alive the Gospel Word (=water, life creating, life-sustaining, cleansing, hence Regeneration and Filling of Spirit). Then, the returning disciples who went to the 'work' of buying food, who were full of the 'work' of despising the outcast (here, Samaritans) were told by the Lord He had meat they needed. The meat of the Word. Compare to Heb5:11-6:6, Matt4:4, Jeremiah's "I found Your words and I did eat them." Also, Isa55.
A pastor on TBN just talked about this Jn4:23-24 passage; best not to say his name; he didn't talk about the above meanings, at all. Rather, his use of the passage was: 'hustle for the poor'. But he did note one extremely important thing which stresses the critical importance of the preceding paragraph: the Lord went OUT OF HIS WAY to go back to Galilee. Samaria was in the OPPOSITE direction, in that it was way WEST of the shortest route back. Of course, many in that town were saved as a result of His visit. Principle: God Wants To Go Out Of His Way for everyone. There's no sin too big, no shame too great, no person too wretched for Him to Embrace. Just like He did, ON the Cross.
So don't let your self-perception of weakness fool you into thinking you shouldn't eat and drink His Thinking, that it's too high or beautiful for you, that hustling in the body somehow is more valuable or more 'humble'. GOD FIRST. Don't defraud God in the name of serving man, for then you replace "God" with man. So, the Only Person for Whom you need to get beautiful, is Son's FATHER. For, that's your JOB. So, you get beautiful, by 'eating and drinking' His Thinking under the Spirit. See the blazing sarcasm in Eze16, lol. [Nerd note: whenever you see valuables depicted in the Bible, the first meaning is Bible itself. Gold silver precious stones crowns wealth true riches etc. Man's substituting mere physical wealths for the True Riches Of Scripture is lambasted frequently. So also, "works" are First Learning Scripture, so counterfeit works are lambasted frequently as well. English can't bring out the sarcastic and ironic wordplay here, but under the Spirit you will still be able to catch on, gradually.]
Note how here, the "geographical will of God" (my pastor's term) was obviously communicated by the Spirit to Christ's Humanity, that He should go out of His normal returning path. Just like, to the kings who visited the Baby in the Manger, the kings were told to go another route; Joseph, was told to take Mary and that Baby, to Egypt. In short, if you Eat The Word Like Christ Did (Matt4:4), then you will know when and where to go, do a thing. Else, you'll only be fantasizing (or be 'told' by Satan &Co., who like to mimic and satirize everything in God's plan for mankind).
Still, we are in bodies: so, all else, though non-spiritual, might be either consonant or dissonant with these Four Essentials, depending on the facts and your own proclivities. Trick is, to draw the line ("rightly dividing the Word of Truth", Heb4:12) on what to do and not do with the body.Beware, though: Satan is a moral being, not an immoral one; his argument against God is based on a claim that Satan is more moral. That's why in Isa14, for example, he seeks to replace God, and thinks he can do so. The original sin of both Satan and our first parents (Adam and the woman) were moral sins, not immoral ones -- use 1Jn1:9 like breathing and think over the text in Genesis 3.
Christianity has fallen for Satan's morality: hook, line, and sinker. Rev17 reveals it, even as the OT always did; history reveals it (most notably, in Gibbon's tome on the decline of the Roman empire). So morality is a big pitfall, because it paints itself WHITE when it sins.Morality is easily and subtly driven by a lust to be right, which is Satan's own lust; which is why people won't believe in Christ. So on the outside, you can't tell if you or someone else is sinning, since the moral sinner sins by means of moral thinking or acts. "God" is then a status symbol to justify self, and that's why Satan lusts to beat God; that's why religion lusts to be credited by God.
Beginning in Genesis 3, moral works and religion are Satan's main weapons. Much of my website material explores this fact, for I didn't understand it, though for nearly two generations my pastor has been teaching about it, as had the founder(?) of Dallas Theological Seminary, Louis Sperry Chafer. It's an awesome satanic strategy, and it's rooted in Satan's own nature, so that's one of the reasons why most website material revolves around the Thinking series. We fall for Satan's ruse, because it's so hard to grasp that doing good is also the worst evil; it's so hard to see that this evil results due to disconnection from God; it's so hard to see the disconnection, itself! Of course, it's also dicey, since morality is necessary for living, as well as an innate prosperity God gifted to mankind, believer or no.
See, when we call ourselves "good" due to something we think we are, or have, we are blaspheming God: "Why do you call me 'good'? Only God is good", said Christ. [Mark 10:17-30, but He faced this question often. See parallel passages in the other Gospels. They aren't all the same recounting.] Which is true, since God Is Infinite Perfection, and we puny humans are relieved, if even one tawdry thing in our lives, works! So if He is talking like that, whoa -- it's the worst arrogance for anyone to take some puny moral thing he got as a gift from God, and then call himself, 'good'. Parable of the Pharisee and the publican: it was the latter whom Christ called good (lit., righteous/justified), remember (Luke 18:14, see context). So Satan just loves to get us all hot-and-steamy over how 'good' we are. Can't have the TV on for more than five minutes, and not be bombarded with that propaganda (not that any human is consciously aware or desirous of helping Satan, of course).
Immorality, of course, is just plain stupid, obvious, incompetent, crass: animalistic. The kind of thing, only an idiot would enjoy. And notice how the moral sinner immediately becomes more immoral than the immoral sinner, when he 'morally' reacts! For the prolifers, like Saul going to Damascus, abort Scripture via their incessant campaigning and political activism! The US is at an all-time-low in Scriptural understanding, that these people can be rampaging across the world scene. Even Tamerlane, was more moral than the prolifers. Even Hitler was more moral. At least neither Tamerlane nor Hitler claimed to be speaking for God, and then lied about Him, to boot! So these prolifer people might end up being forever farther away from Christ in heaven, than either Tamerlane or Hitler (if either of those two ever once believed in Christ)!
Islam and Judaism and many other non-Christian faiths are extremely moral. Extremely evil, therefore: because in all other faiths, especially the more moral ones, God never gets paid for sin. What happens instead (as was just explained to me from a Hindu-related person), your bad deeds get you punished. You get punished, but God never gets anything. Well, that's true -- which is why morality is worth bupkis, and there had to be a Cross. Which is why morality is evil, when it claims to count -- because God should get paid. Which, not one holy book ever written, claims morality can do. Satan knows how to craft a holy book, too. Laughing in our faces, how we don't get it that our works don't count. [Someone read me a Hindu-related tract about how when you die, if you were a 'good person' you got to be unconscious for awhile; and then you wake up in an 'interim state' and your chambers are under the earth; oh, and you get to "drink orange light". The reader was sighing with happiness over this description, while reading. But I was thinking, Holy Doo-doo! That's exactly like the Satan-authored Greek mythology description for Hades, aka Hell of the Bible, and the "orange light", is FIRE! (Under your feet, iron oxide and/or sulphur mix at above 160 degrees C (per Encarta 2004 in XP), resulting in a kind of orange, fiery 'drink'! Not exactly Amaretto; but yes, exactly the 'cup of reeling', in the Bible!) Just like the line in the Koran which says, "in Paradise there will be shade", lol. Yeah, and "shades" were the names Mycanean+ Greeks gave to the souls stuck in Hades, a compartment of which -- now empty, since the Ascension, see Eph4:8-9 -- is Paradise! So all unbelievers, are there, looking up at that empty compartment (see Luke 16:20ff)! LOL, yeah, in darkness, or rotten-eggs-smelly orange 'light', gnashing their teeth at God! Classic demon authorship style, here; you ought to see how they manage to burlesque the Word by the exact mechanics of how they screw up translations, the human translators being none the wiser for it; oh, and how demons write false holy books like Koran and Book of Mormon with the exact same wit! Noel Coward and Gilbert &Sullivan would have killed to be that clever. So whoever was the poor human sap writing that Hindu tract, is being marionetted. Oh, so Satan&Co. hate the Hindus as much as they hate the Muslims and Mormons! The reader wanted to know what I thought. What the heck could I say? Well, the Bible doesn't describe heaven like that. What an understatement! See, if you know the Word, you can read between the clever lines in a holy book, lol.]
In either case, whether a moral or immoral sin, use 1Jn1:9 if you fall: you are thus PURIFIED of not only the sin, but all "wrongdoing." Black evil (immoral), or white evil (the worse one, moral, competing with God). (Greek katharizw=purified, OT Temple keyword in Greek -- not the insipid "cleansed" of English Bibles, in 1Jn1:9. "adikia" is the Greek word usu. translated "unrighteousness", but should be translated wrongdoing, for that is a keyword also for EVIL, whatever you're thinking or doing when not Filled with the Spirit. Again, the idea is if HE's not doing something to you, the wrong, is that you're doing (or thinking) on your own. Remember the precedence is the Lord's Humanity Totally Depending on the Spirit. So wrong is a far bigger thing than immorality: it's Who's doing the doing, not the doing itself, which is the bigger potential good.. or, evil.] Expect to fall down every second on the second as you begin the above Four Essentials. Consistent Repetition of the Four Essentials will eventually prevail over all your problems and sin habits -- nothing else will help. No amount of repentance, revival meetings, inspirational sermons or books, self-help stuff, counseling or anything but THE WORD, works (main theme of James 1:1-2:26, in Greek text). This isn't to say you can't do these things, since in the Spirit, you can do anything (other than sin, of course): "all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable", wrote Paul in 1Cor6. It's a question of maximizing your profit, then. For, just like salvation, which is due to The Word, so also post-salvation, Only The Word Works To Deliver You. ["Deliver" and "rescue" are the first two meanings of the Greek verb "sozo", usu. only translated "save", so you miss many Biblical puns of great enjoyment and nourishment.]
So don't worry about all the many interim failures; Bible likens the spiritual growth process to growing up mentally, in 1Jn. These Essentials are alone effective. Nothing works without them: these are the engine and the true growth of your spiritual life. All else is a gutless car, dead in the driveway. Absent these essentials, no matter what people do, it's like being towed but imagining you're driving. Lots of others also being towed around you makes the fantasy, seem real.
