If you know what God wants you to do and do not do it, you will be beaten with many blows. Either the Lord Jesus is a liar or numerous Evangelical leaders are deceived and are unintentionally deceiving others.

I could go on and on and on but you already may have gotten the point. We are way off base today!

The Evangelical traditions of our day are not only applesauce they are destructive lies. They are not found in the Scriptures except by cutting and pasting a verse here and there to "prove" Christians do not have to do righteous works.

How can we bear witness of Christ if we do not do righteous works? Jesus Himself commanded us to let our light shine so the world could see our good works and glorify God.

The lengths Evangelical scholars will go to in order to prove we do not really have to become a new creation in order to be "saved" is nothing short of remarkable. It reminds one of a pretzel factory. The Greek often is appealed to because most of us are defenseless when appeals are made to the imperfect past participles and future aorist subjunctions that prove the text doesn't mean what it says.

I do not think we need a burst of brilliance that would terrify the neighbors in order to discover the Bible is the "good book" and teaches us how to live soberly in the fear of God. Just good old common sense will do. But I guess common sense went out with the covered wagon.

Sometime people ask, "What is your doctrine?"

My answer is, "the Bible—just as it stands."

"But you can prove anything from the Bible!"

"Not if you approach it inductively, letting it command its own therefores. But if you draw conclusions from isolated passages you can get messed up."

If we stand back and view the New Testament as a whole, it is telling us that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to forgive people and change them so they can worship God in Spirit and in truth. Jesus always referred to the soon coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth. God wants His will done in the earth.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Both grace and truth are Christ. Christ Himself is the Grace of God through whom we are changed from sinners to saints, not by imputation alone but most importantly in actuality.

The Kingdom is coming to the earth, the Kingdom prophesied in the Old Testament. The Kingdom is Christ formed in us. When the Christians have Christ formed in them, Christ will return with them and establish righteousness in the earth.

It is as simple, as clear as this.

If you want to please God, then seek Him several times a day. He will keep challenging you and then help you to change. As you change you grow in your ability to discern good and evil, and in your desire and strength to choose the good and reject the evil. This is what it means to grow in Christ.

Your goal is to be conformed to the moral image of Christ and to enter untroubled rest in the heart of the Father through Christ.

You can reach this goal if you avoid those who are teaching Gnostic Christianity—that we are to adopt a formula that insures our entrance to the spirit Paradise apart from conformation to Christ's image, apart from untroubled rest in the Father's heart and will.

Don't let these false teachers take your crown unless you want to join them in the outer darkness some day!

I hope I have not denigrated or bifurcated.

This is enough for now and my blood pressure is back to normal, so I shall retire and snore the snore of faith.

Amen.