I just thought I'd share a very small portion of some of
the stuff being taught here at Interface. Before tribal
evangelism can take place, we each must be assured of our
own salvation and be able to share it with anyone. For
that reason, we have spent a lot of time going through the
Bible and determining what exactly it says about God,
Jesus, and mankind. Below is just a little snippet of
what has stood out to me through the teachings of the
staff here and the reading of God's word:
Through the course of our lessons it has been imprinted on
my mind that: While God will allow us to do whatever we
want, he will not allow us to chose our consequences. As
a creator, God created the world; as a God of consistency
and order, He created this world with rules - both
physical and spiritual - each with their own set of
consequences if they are broken. These rules do not
change; so if a scientist wants to plan a flight
trajectory of a satellite to Jupiter, he/she will be
assured that it will get there because the rules of
physics, say gravity, do not change. Likewise, if a
person decides to jump off a cliff, he will be assured
he/she will fall down; he/she cannot chose a different
outcome (that is unless he/she has a hang glider, but I
think you get the picture).
Spiritually speaking, God gave us rules, like the 10
commandments, that if, or more accurately, when, broken,
ensue prescribed consequences. God calls the breaking
of these spiritual rules sin, the penalty of which is
death. "For the wages of sin is death" Romans 6:23. By
this standard that God set up, all of us are guilty of sinning.
As it says in Ecclesiastes 7:20, "For there is not a just
man on earth who does good and does not sin." So just as
we can be sure that if we jump off a cliff we will fall
down, we can be sure that there will be a death for the
sins we commit. I say "a" death and not"your" death
because God has set up a way for us to not personally have
to pay the entire consequence of our sin. God sent Jesus
- the only one born who committed no sin (because He was
also God) to die for us. God said that if we believe in Jesus,
we will not be condemned for our sin. To
complete the entire verse of Romans 6:23, "For the wages
of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in
Christ Jesus our Lord."
Now, just as God set up the rules of physics and of sin,
God set up the rules of salvation. One cannot chose his
or her own method, but we must go through the ONE method
God has set up: Jesus. Many people try to get to God by
other means, be it through certain rituals, or by thinking
their good actions will outweigh their bad, but these
things are not Biblical and will not lead to salvation.
Jesus says that: "I am the way, the truth and the light,
no one comes to the Father except through me" John 14:6.
So, to sum up, just as if we were to jump off a cliff we
will certainly fall - there is no other option, and just
as if we sin we will certainly face death - there is no
way around this, we can be given salvation by having faith
in Jesus - there is no other way. This IS what the Bible
teaches.
One of the main things that Interface has been emphasizing
in its classes is that everything we do, think and believe
MUST be proven in the Bible. The Bible is the way we can
know the attributes of God. All our doctrine and ideas
MUST match up with it.
So many times we (as Christians) get into "discussions" or
fights and form divisions based off of what we think
instead of going back to God's written word and seeing what
it actually says. Even while I have been here we have had
some discussions when we had to remind someone that we
must base our beliefs on what the Bible says, not on what
some other great theologian might say, or what we might
think has to be true. If we go into the scripture with a
pre-conceived notion of what it must say, we will be in
big trouble. In this case, one can "make" the Bible say
whatever you want it to: that the world is flat, that it
is OK to kill off all non-Christians, or that
homosexuality is not a sin (these are all not true, by the
way, but were or still are thought to be Biblical by some).
Jesus said "blessed are the poor in spirit and the meek"
(paraphrased from Matthew). We must come to God with no
pre-formed agenda in order to fully understand and
glorify God.
=J
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