Can Christians Sin?

According to Paul, Once God has accepted you, sin no longer has a hold on
you. There is no more sin in your life. Feel free to smoke that cigarette.
You'll still run the risk of getting cancer, but God isn't going to condemn
you to hell for it. Whatever that struggle is in your life, in the churches
system you'll constantly be repenting and starting over in your relationship
with God. It gets so depressing you can get suicidal and give up. When you
are being told how you should live your life, and your life doesn't stack up,
it becomes a spiral heading down into hell. Add to that a breakdown in a
relationship with someone you love, and your days become one miserable
stretch.

We think of ourselves as a Christian nation. But the reality is that only a
portion of the Christians truly seek a relationship with God. Most people
are content to be sheep, to be led down a path they think God wants for
them (because their leaders told them and that's where they put their
trust.) Just praying to God to meet needs isn't really a relationship.
When you have a relationship with someone, you learn about them,
you learn their character, you get to know them.

People who say they know God, but really everything they know about
God is what they've been taught, only know about God. Don't trust me
to tell you about God, as He'll reveal Himself to you without my help.
Preachers and priests go to school to learn about God, supposedly.
Really what they are learning is theology and pschology. Doctrines
have been passed down through generations upon generations
dating back waaay before the time of Jesus. It didn't change with
the New Testament and the advent of the Catholic or even Christian
church. Politics has influenced decision making in the church, and
always will. Well, maybe someday we will see "the knowledge of
the Lord cover the earth as the sands on the seashore." That's
another discussion.

To have a relationship with God, you must be perfect. There can
be no sin in God's presence. So by the teaching of the law, when
you think a bad thought, you need to repent of that before God
will accept you again. Our guilt bears witness, we don't feel we
deserve to be loved unconditionally. But that is how God loves
us. Even Paul struggled with this, and the early apostles. They
were brought up in a system of law, and they couldn't grasp how
God would just set us free like this. In his letters, Paul qualified
how our lives would be with: "...if the Spirit of God lives in you."
Which is true, if you don't really establish that relationship for
yourself, than the Spirit of God wouldn't live in you. As I said,
only a percentage of people actually seek that out for themselves.
The rest are followers who let other people seek it out for them.
And that is what you are doing if you are letting a preacher or
a priest tell you how to run your life. I'm not saying you don't
belong to Him if you're in the church (I'm sure God's people
really do reside there too) just that your trust is in men.

There really are no rules beyond love. I've tithed and not tithed,
it's made no difference on my financial status. I don't generally
swear or call people idiots, but it happens. Instead of being
seperated, I might get a nudge, when He knows I'ld be receptive
to it. At some point, you get a realization that our purpose in
this life is more about the people around us than it is ourselves.
You don't need to go looking for good works, but opportunities
to do the right thing and help your brother out will present
themselves from time to time. There's no requirement to do
anything. You don't have to give the homeless meals, but if
you do there are rewards that go way beyond money. God's
rewards are treasures that are not material in nature.

More later.

Why Trust Men?

The point I was trying to get to in my last post, is that the people doing the
teaching have their own motives and slants. They've been taught by other
people with THEIR own slants. The theology that they preach doesn't get
questioned, with any credibility, and answers are bought into and accepted
as facts. Interpretation is controlled by a few at the top of the chain. Any
time a priest or preacher saw a different interpretation and stuck to it, we
would get a new denomination. These were courageous people, like Luther
and Calvin, but if they wanted to question further than the issues they
pursued they were probably limited by the thought of being labeled as
lunatics.

The advent of the press, that made the Bible available to laymen and as
time moved on millions of people made control of theology threatened I'm
sure. But the established churches have been consistent in their dogma,
and to belong to one means you believe as they believe. Minor differences
might be allowed, but not taught. If you tried to teach in the church that
heaven is here and now, not someplace you go when you die, you wouldn't
last long as a teacher. If you try to counsel someone that they are no longer
a sinner and that sin is no longer in them (despite that act they just did that
they're feeling guilty about), I doubt they'ld let you continue to counsel. You
get the idea.

This isn't limited to the Christian church, by the way. Any time you have
men running an organization, you'll have corrupt men running things. I
would dare say the number of people with an absolutely pure heart is a
fairly small sampling percentage wise. So if you're REALLY after the truth,
you're on your own. Or are you?

There are a lot of people today who have figured out what to believe for
themselves, thanks to the religous freedom we have found in America. It's
a good thing, really. There was a time that I would have been tortured and
killed for what I believe in. I'm careful talking to religous people, because
I still have respect for most of them, and I don't want to insult them. But
I do feel free to speak among most of my friends. I don't have to worry
about anyone ratting me out to the religous authorities, because I don't
belong to them. I'm free to go to their services if I choose, but I really
can't stand any more to listen to the garbage that gets spoken as 'God's
Word.' I hear Isaiah preaching, "For it is do and do, rule on rule, a little
here, a little there. To whom is he trying to preach, a child just weaned
from his milk?" I believe many of the preachers, whether it's their intent
or not, really do turn their converts into sons of hell with their teaching.

So what do I believe that's so different? Stay tuned. When I have enough
posts I'll change the title of this blog to "Are we really sinners?" One thing
I DO believe, is that if you earnestly seek out God, you WILL find Him, and
HE will teach you Himself. And the Bible, which men said for decades that
couldn't be interpreted by anyone but the leaders of the church, attests
to it. And when you start down the road to listening directly to God, you
will learn to trust Him and know His voice. And the Bible will even teach
you HOW to learn to recognize His voice. It's a voice you can hear like the
calm in a storm, but you do have to learn how to be calm yourself. (Comes
with trust.)

Scribes and Pharisees

I am of the opinion that the priests and preachers and religous
leaders of the day today are just the same as the scribes and
pharisees of Jesus day. Human's being what they are, full of
ego and a lust for power, still do what they have to do to get
to the point of leadership. I think there are legitimate preachers,
who think of themselves as servants, but none of them are in
any of the megachurches. The ones I've met, that I felt were
sincere, are in smaller neighborhood churches of no particular
denomination. (Just my personal experience). But I've only
met one that was able to shake off the theology he belongs to
in a quest for truth, and he had a church with maybe 10
members. He had a radio broadcast, and whatever he talked
about, the preacher who followed his broadcast would address
his subject the next week. He put up with me for a summer
when my first wife left me, and I was at the time heavily
indoctrinated in Baptist beliefs. I imagine I was a pretty
miserable person to be around.

But I digress.

Anyway, I had to move 12 hours away from my home to find
someone like that. That's where God led me. Perhaps it was
to be just far enough away from home that I had to be alone
with Him too. That was the start of my growth. Fortunately,
my current wife (of almost 30 years) won't let me get stunted.

Getting back to the subject at hand, it's the nature of the beast.
The more followers they have, the more stature they have. It
doesn't matter if that's what they're after, it affects them, and
they can't do anything that would hurt it. By the time they are
there, theology is set. The Bible isn't read in the eyes of a
searcher, but in the eyes of a teacher. And accepting that
there could be other scripture, well, that would be out of the
question. Never mind that God's message could be in it, for
so many the Bible is God's only and last word. Psht.

All it takes is a little history lesson to determine the absurdity
of that. The organization that put it together was already
corrupt, with their own agenda. God protects his word, is
the rationale. But then here's a bunch of power hungry
men telling us what that word is. No thanks. I've found
that when you live with God, His word is revealed in all
kinds of people's writings. Because God still lives in people,
and people still write about their view of him, which is what
the writers of the Bible did. But until you get to know him,
I guess it's safe to stick to just the Bible. Just not the Bible
as taught today.

Church has limits

Never blogged before. The address and title are intentionally provocative,
because I intend to write about this with the hope of reaching other people
who are searching God beyond what the churches are offering, which I believe
is based on fallible teachings. I find I can barely tolerate the jibberish that is
offered by most of the preachers, but also understand that to someone who is
in the church is where God wants them to be. Maybe. Or maybe wanted,
at one time.

I do believe the church serves a purpose in our society, and acknowledge they
do much good. But for those who are earnestly seeking God in their lives, it's
only a stepping stone. There is no church that has a corner on the truth, and
much of what is taught is actually AGAINST the true teaching of the Bible and
Christ. To know this, however, you have to take the Bible yourself, and read it
for yourself without the influence of what you've been taught. Sound
impossible? Difficult. Especially if you've been raised on Bible verses. They
need to be read the way they were written. The letters by Paul were letters,
and while the historical understanding that theologians might (or might not)
have helps, it isn't necessary to understand most of the points he's trying to make.

For instance, in his letters Paul refers to not defiling the body of the Lord. He's
talking about the body of believers, the church. Many preachers use this to tell
you it's a sin to smoke or drink. If you hear this from a pulpit, you're listening
to someone who hasn't even got the slightest clue what sin even is. They would
have you begging forgiveness over and over, even though the Bible teaches our
forgiveness is once for all time. When you have been forgiven in Christ, sin is
no longer in your life. It's a concept that teachers of law can't grasp, because
human nature being what it is, you will naturally go out and do things that
would be considered breaking the old law. But if there is no more law, there
is no lawbreaking. The idea is that you are free to be in the presence of God,
without guilt. Being in his presence starts a transformation in you, but it's a
process. A lifelong process.

Most people who grow up in stable homes, and who lead stable lives, don't
really 'search' out God. The people who really search are the people who
have trouble, at least at some point. And finding Christ really is a life
changing experience. And so, having gone through this, you naturally
have a certain loyalty to the church or people who led you down this path.
This is a good thing, and it takes a ton of courage to be able to continue on
in search for the truth, because the fact is that noone has ALL the truth.
So at some point in your growth, to continue growing you have to learn
from the only one who does (God Himself). If He teaches you something
that contradicts what you've been taught, you must understand that your
teachers are His as well, and were bringing you along as far as He would
have them do His work. That's kind of what my writing is about, I need
to continue my own growth and this is a tool to help me do that. If I get
into a dialogue with someone else who is searching, then that would be
awesome. I have no desire to get into any arguements with anyone who
is going to be dogmatic and stunted in their opinions, especially if they're
grounded in what they've been taught by their denominational doctrines.
Been there done that. I'll do it if necessary for someone else's benefit,
but I'm past it for myself.