2. Pages: 5
3. Author:
Frank A. Jones
The Word of Truth Ministries
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.. ...Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
Those words were written by King David of ancient Israel as he described the illumination of God's word. Those words written then are equally true today for believers seeking to follow Jesus wholly and become disciples indeed. [John 8:32] There are many saints of God who honestly want to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and become perfect while on this earth, [Mat. 5:48] but they fail in that desire. And there are many who want to follow Jesus from a distance and be saved as they keep themselves firmly planted in worldly activities and behaviors, while firmly declaring themselves to be sincere believers--they do not succeed in that desire. This is one of the quandaries that is in the Christian Church as posed by modern believers. Yet this is not a new dilemma; it has been here since the starting of the church. Modern Christians, however, pose the greatest problem because of their ability to rationalize behavior that is inconsistent with scripture and still suppose a right division of God's word, and their ability to take the simple saint along with them for their long journey into perdition. Such people love simplicity and hate a real knowledge of God's word. [Prov. 1] They parcel God's word down into simple formulas that allow them to see through a dark glass of ignorance. [1Cor 13] And that darkness becomes their way of understanding the word of God and the world around them. But Jesus characterized that as a man's darkness becoming his light, and he asked the rhetorical question: "How great is that darkness?" [Mat. 6:23] When an individual has an epiphany that is not an epiphany/revelation of significance, but he thinks it is, that person holds tenaciously to that low-grade of enlightenment in spite of all others. That is comparable to one who has used a candle and is introduced to a flashlight; he has come to a greater light, but not one of significance still. And since he thinks he has attained this greater light, he may be deceived into thinking that this greater light that he has and by which he is only able to comprehend more is all the light there is. This is a deception that becomes his light, which is really his darkness. And under those conditions, he can never come to the light of the sun or the brightness there is in lightning. He is trapped in Plato's Allegory of the Cave situation--he is in darkness and thinks that his darkness is real light, but he can comprehend only the limits of his shadows. Oh, how great is his darkness! God's word is rich and powerful; it is full of difficult and pregnant truths that are given to us to seek out and find what he is saying to his people. He has spoken multiple truths on many areas of our lives, but He has said to seek out his book and read it for an understanding of those truths. [Isa. 34:16] I am convinced that the reason many are not following God and becoming disciples indeed is because they are not seeking out God's word with an understanding. Many have looked at the word of God too simplistically and have attempted to bind God by their simple understanding of His word. But be assured, if one misinterprets God's word, such a misinterpretation is not what God is saying--it is what he or she is saying, and God will be bound only by his word. Solomon asked the rhetorical question: How long will the simple love simplicity and the fools hate knowledge? [Prov.1:22] Many have allowed themselves to be convinced that ignorance is somehow godliness and intelligence is somehow ungodly. Yet the reverse is what God calls his people to, and a true saint of God can never move on to perfection until he or she abandons such foolishness. Yet God demands perfection as the next step of salvation. It is the folly of the wicked one to make believers think they are complete once reborn. A child is not complete at birth. He/she is only equipped to develop into maturity; at birth he/she is a child, and a child must go to the next level or we call that child retarded or deformed in some way. For unless that child grows to maturity, he/she will never come to full potential and usefulness. This is the physical, natural pattern God has given us in nature so that we can understand the spiritual road we must take. Notice how Jesus expounds to Nicodemus these matters: "If I have told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you heavenly things?" [John 3:12] God has made all things according to a pattern, and it is because of that pattern in the natural that we can see and understand the spiritual/invisible things of God. [Rom. 1:20] But the fool hates that knowledge even of the natural because it points him/her to Christ. Again, our pattern is Jesus: he was born into this world, but did not start his ministry until he was 30-years old. He had to grow into maturity. Yes, in him dwelled all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, [Col. 1:19; 2:9] even as a child, but after birth, there was another step he had to take--he had to grow into maturity. Paul said that we must grow up into him. [Eph. 4:15] And that statement is the same as his admonition* in Hebrews 6: to leave the principles of the doctrine of Christ and go on unto perfection. Notice the language of Ephesians 4, grow up into him. As a child grows up into the very image of his parents--a son into his father and a daughter into her mother--we must, after the new birth, grow up into the express image of Christ. For it is the next step. But many churches have preached and practiced a culture of ignorance that is passed down from one minister to another, from one person to another, and from one assembly to another. These individuals have mocked and demeaned those who would do as God has said: "Seek wisdom, that is the principal thing, and in all your getting get an understanding." [Prov. 4] Consequently, they and their congregants have remained stranded in the way of holiness and have made no progress toward becoming Christ. God's admonition, however, is to walk in the way of holiness not simply get there--one gets there through birth, Jesus told Nicodemus.[Jer. 6:16-17; John 3:3] But to walk in holiness requires great difficulty, until you have acquired the taste and disciplined your life to a certain behavioral pattern. That is what Jude 3 is instructing us--to actually contend for that faith. Jesus characterized this same struggle differently but just as clearly: "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force." [Mat. 11:12] And in another place he said, "...The kingdom of God is preached and every man presses into it." [Lke. 16:16] To enter the kingdom of God ** one must be born into it; to acquire the maturity, the righteousness, the peace and joy that is the kingdom requires struggle beyond ourselves. For you see, the call of the world is too great for many, and the deceptive practices to rationalize worldly behavior is ever-present so that many turn their ears away from truth unto the fables they allow. [2 Tim. 4:2-4] And as they continue to allow a quotient of deception as a regular way of viewing God's word and their relationship to God, God will add to their quotient a strong delusion so that they will believe lies for certain damnation. [2 Thes. 2:11] Then, it is all but impossible to follow Jesus, to become disciples indeed. A disciple indeed is one who knows the truth, and once one knows the truth, he/she can never be bound by man. Such a one is free in God. Satan binds and oppresses, but Jesus went about (and still does) healing all who were oppressed of the devil. Jesus makes free--not set free, but makes; he creates a new creature completely--a free of sin and free of man saint in God. Was it not Jesus who said to those Jews who believed on him, "If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed [without a doubt] and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." [John 8:31-32] The only way one is to continue following Jesus is to be free in God, not bound by the sins of the flesh, the sins of this world, the sins brought to us by the devil, or by the oppression of man. Beloved Christian brothers and sisters, if you continue in his word, there is a beautiful place in God that He will bring you so that you can hide from the winds of this world, [Isa.32:2] that you can stand the tumults of this life, the distain of false brethren, your casting down but never being forsaken, the gainsaying of many, and in that place you cannot fall; there is a place in God where you will long to be with him the more, and life and all its pomp and circumstance will lose its glitter and call upon you; there is a place in God where He speaks to you abundantly and lovingly with such enlightenment you are amazed and stricken with awe at the multiple revelations and total knowledge of God; there is a place in God that you can get to and exclaim as the Apostle Paul, in 1Corinthians 13, we see through a glass darkly but face to face--you will know you are there as you stare into that dark glass of reality and glimpse the soon coming tomorrow and as your heart leaps with the expectancy of a new, a different, and far more meaningful tomorrow. Bothers and sisters, I am not a man on his deathbed; I have no illnesses, I am not crippled by pain or infirmed by age; I am not destitute of this world's goods--God has blessed my health and wealth based on my own hard work; [no saint has enriched me, but I have been a lender of such as I have had and do have.] I simply long for Jesus with all that is within me. I long as a lover lost without his true love; I long as Ulysses longed to get back to sea. [Tennyson, Ulysses] I long as the Shulamite bride pined away for an absent lover whom she looked for and could not find, whom she waited for but he would not come. I long for him, to be in his presence. Many times in the midst of this eternal longing, I feel as the Shulamite bride did for her husband, "...Tell him that I am sick with love." [Song of Solomon 5: 8] I am not ashamed to say that I long for Christ and the things of God. I long to see him; I long to be in that place he has prepared for us, and often when that longing is heavy upon me, I read about it again to taste, as best as I can, all its ethereal beauty, its tranquility, and its heavenly ambiance. I long to see the angels around his throne; I long to see God in His glory. All that life has is not enough to compare with a mere glimpse of the King in His glory. But we are here, and while here we must continue in his word that we can grow to perfection so that we will ever be with the Lord. Do not allow anyone to stand in your way as you are obedient to the word of God. Jesus said that those who continue in his word are disciples indeed, without doubt. I doubt him not! As I work for him, I also look for his return. And there is a reward for those here on this sojourn: we will know the truth and that knowledge of the truth will make us free. Free of confusion; free of the fears and foolishness of men; free to serve, praise and have fellowship with God; and free to grow into the very express image of Christ, who is the express image of God. I am often sadden when I see good people afflicted by bad ministers who oppress the people of God with some distorted notion of watching for their souls. I have seen gross abuse of that scripture and people enslaved by it. Many, if not most, of these watchers for the souls are, in fact, souls in desperate need of saving and enlightenment to the word of God, as they use it to oppress others. And they are the ones whom Jeremiah 6:16-17 said they answer and said, "We will not walk therein." They eat their own bread, symbolically, and drink their own wine and use Christ as a cover for the real wrong they are involved in--oppressing the people of God. [Isa. 4:1] But for those who would be free, Jesus bids them to follow him into obedience of the truth and God's freedom, which is the natural extension of His truth. Finally, if you are not living the life of God in your life, or if you are still under the yoke of men's oppression, you have not continued in his word to know the truth of God because God's truth, when continued in, will make you FREE! [] _________
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