God-Centered or Man-Centered?
Believers are created to be God focused by being centered in God and not man-cenered. When believers have the wrong focus, they are off center and their "gospel" will be wrong also.
Which gospel do you believe and propagate? The man-centered false gospel or the God-Centered true gospel?
It is an affront to God to say we have the right doctrine, practice a pattern of
programmed-event-drive-meeting
Many "christians" claim they are not living in sin, meaning...they do not cheat on their wife, they do not keep company with "sinners", they are not shacking up with a member of the opposite sex living as if they were married, they do not curse or swear, etc.. Yet they live for themselves and to please the religious organization they have chosen. They are convinced that they are favored by God and believe they are superior to other religious groups because they have the "correct or more correct doctrine".
This is an example of the deceptive deception that Christendom has been deceived by.
Most people in Christendom know that "Christ died to redeem man" (1 Cor. 15:3). But fail to realize that Christ died "that we would be set free from living for ourselves and live unto Him" (2 Cor. 5:15
Christ did not come to establish religious doctrine, or the separation of His Body into denominated denominations based on religious beliefs.
Jesus came to "save us from sin". He came to lay the axe to the root of the sin tree. And the root of sin is : Being self-centered, seeking our own and doing our own will. If we do not permit the Holy Spirit cut out this "root" from our lives, we are the cause of hindering the work of God as pertaining to humanity. Satan may however deceive us into believing that we belong to a higher class of believers, because of our doctrine or our experience or the way we do church!
The arch-enemy of God doesn't care even if we have the right doctrine or if our way of doing church is right as long as we are not living in Christ and allowing Him to work His work through us by continuing to "live for ourselves".
In John 6:38, our Lord said that He came from heaven to earth:
To deny His human will (that He had acquired, when He came to earth as a Man).
To do the will of His Father, as a Man. Thereby He became our example and the express image of what God, His Father is like.
Throughout Jesus' earthly life He did not live unto Himself, He lived to do His Father's will. And He told His disciples clearly that those who wanted to be His disciples would have to go the same way. He came to uproot the root of sin in our lives..."doing our own will"...and to deliver us from that. So it is imperative to understand the the Gospel is more than "getting saved" it also includes Him living in us and we living in Him to free us from our selfish living by Him living through us to accomplish His plan for humanity.
As long as we remain "self-centered" instead of "God-centered". Our understanding of the Bible and God's will, will be wrong. But because of our acceptance of our long held traditional beliefs as being right because they came from orthodoxy will prevent us from accepting that we may be WRONG!
This is what we see among many of the "denominational groups" today. They have so many different interpretations of the same Bible...and yet each one is convinced that his interpretation alone is right and everyone else's is wrong. The others, they will say are "deceived". Why is this so? Because their center of focus is wrong.
The man-centered gospel promises man that God will give him everything he needs to make his life on earth comfortable and will also give him a seat in heaven at the end of his life. Man is told that Jesus will forgive all his sins, heal all his diseases, bless and prosper him materially, solve all his earthly problems, etc., etc.
Self still remains at the center of such a man's life as if God revolves around him...as his servant...to answer his every prayer and to give him whatever he wants! All that he has to do is "believe" and "claim every material blessing in Jesus' Name"!
The man-centered gospel, although believes in "repentance", in that man is to repent of his sins by praying the "sinners prayer" yet can live for self selfishly selfish.
The God-centered gospel, on the other hand, calls upon man to repent meaning:
Turning FROM Self as the center of one's life, from doing one's own will, from walking along one's self-chosen way, from loving money, and from loving the world and the things in the world (the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life), etc., and Turning TO God, loving Him with one's whole heart, making Him the Centre of one's life.
The man-made gospel makes the gate wide and the way broad (easy to walk along, because one does not have to deny one's Self or stop living for one's own interests for earthly gain). Multitudes attend meetings where such a false "gospel" is preached. And many enter through this gate and walk along this way, thinking that it leads to life. But the end thereof is death. The upholders of this gospel however, gloat in, and report about the large numbers of people who "raised their hands and made decisions for Christ" in their meetings!! But it is all a deception. Although some are indeed genuinely converted in such meetings, because of their sincerity and God's faithfulness, many such "converts" end up becoming "twofold children of hell. (Matt.23:15)...deceived about their true state.
The God-Centered gospel however, makes the gate small and the way narrow...not smaller or narrower than Jesus Himself made it, as some "super-spiritual" gurus do, but just the same size as Jesus made it. Few there be, that find this way to life. In the god-centered gospel there is not much for the evangelists of this gospel to report about, and the statistics are not impressive. But this gospel leads people to the Lord Jesus to participate in His kingdom.
If we fail to be saved from ourselves...we fail to be truly saved into His righteousness!
Comments
Post a Comment