What is needed is our death, not us

 

The most serious fetter of most faithful is that we want God of our preference rather than being faithful to God’s preference. There are things that we love and prefer - like our identity, nation, culture, ideology, wealth, power, knowledge, and soon – then we want God who affirms our identity, nation, culture, ideology, desires for power, knowledge, and money, and soon. What God wanted, however, is faithful who affirm him and live to glorify him.

 

God is happy with nobody except his perfect self, as everything else is imperfect. His children, therefore, do often need six wings. Two wings to diligently work for God 24/7. Besides, they need equal effort to cover their eye when they look into God as they cannot handle his brain power to see to it. That is why it is always right to say you know better lord and to have the first wisdom, which is fear of God that will make you accept what God says even when it makes no sense. Then after, they also need equal power of two wings to cover their shame when they are working with and for God. When they address God, think about God, obey God, and talk about God, they have to be very careful to speak, think, work, and obey right. In simple words, you need to know that you are a worthless being standing in front of the only worthy being there is, God. You have to deny yourself and affirm him. This is the right way to live with God.  

 

Even Jesus, to be a good example for us, lived that life. He did not focus on what he wished and wanted but on what the Heavenly Father wanted. Though he is God, he does not present himself as equal but humbles himself as a slave to be a perfect example to us. When they call him kind, he did not admire himself but he admired the Heavenly Father as the only kind being. If Jesus, the God and the equal of Heavenly Father, is presented as such, what is our worth by ourselves in front of God? The only thing worthy about us is that we are saved by grace through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and we have to die with his death so we can rise with his resurrection.

 

What is needed is our death. We are not needed. Our baptism in the water will wash off our sins and symbolically us too. Then after, we have to be born in spirit, in spiritual baptism. The purpose of the spirit is to kill the sinful us and to raise the holy Jesus in our lives. It is to kill us, so we can be remade in the image of Jesus. God cannot see us, but he loves the Jesus in us. The Holy Spirit is given to transform us into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is not sent to make us religious people who attend church, speak nice, give to the needy, and soon, not to make us like Jesus.

 

Can we be like Jesus? Can a man be God and perfect? No, and that is why the Holy Spirit is given to us forever. Our spiritual growth does not end here in earth, it will continue forever in heaven with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That is why our prayer should be to grow faster toward the lord and his identity. Hate your ignorance, but desire to have the intelligence of the lord. Look down on your human ethics and morality, but pray to have the pure ethics and morality of God. Despise your incapability, which you actually think is your capability, but look for the capability of God. Look down on you, but desire to be reborn in the image of the lord. Be hungry for spiritual growth by being poor in spirit.

 

If you are becoming more like Jesus, God can easily work with you. The more you grow toward the lord, the more God can trust you. This means your today has to be more Jesus than your yesterday, and your tomorrow has to be more Jesus than today. The image of Jesus has to grow in you, step by step. Does this mean you will never sin? Dear, as God is not a liar, you will sin. Until you become as perfect as Jesus, you will sin here and there. That means even angels are not perfect, let alone us. And who is perfect and holy except God? But the one who is born in spirit cannot sin, as there is no mix-up of light with darkness, and there is no darkness in light. If you sin, it is the undead you, and if you have light it is the born-again spirit of yours.

 

Spiritual growth is needed for our born-again spirit to be fully manifested in the image of the lord and to slowly conquer our soul, so our soul and spirit can perfected in the image of the lord and both can have full control of our body rather than being controlled by wimps of the body. This process is not to affirm our old soul and desires of our body. The idea is to kill them so they can be remade in the image of the lord. Our flesh has its proper time for complete transformation when we are fully baptized in the Holy Spirit to swim in the sea like fish. At that time, as Jesus can pass through the wall, we can pass through the wall. We have flesh but it is heavenly flesh and its perfect form is the form seen in Jesus after his resurrection. Then we will be angels (messengers) of God, children of God, children of the light, the stars in the sky, and there are many names to use for us.     

 

This is the narrow road to salvation, it is not a wide road but just as narrow as it used to be. What we are given is a guide to lead us on the narrow path, train us with a way of the path, and wash our sin in mean meantime as we grow toward it. The purpose of grace is not to affirm us and to late us to be the sinful us. Can Jesus produce evil fruit? If grace is from God, it has to produce the fruit of God. If grace does not allow us to be more and more like Jesus over time, either we have to question what we have inside or we must be disobedient to the spirit of the lord. Either way, our salvation is questionable.

 

Can you claim to know the lord or to have his spirit without love? You have faith, good but without love it is worthless. You have faith that Jesus is lord so act on that faith and obey your lord. If you say Jesus is lord but you don’t obey him, your faith is a lie. His commandment is that we should love each other. As your lord, therefore, obey his commandment by loving God, fellow faithful, people around you, and your enemies. How? It can be done through a spiritual growth process. Start from people you can easily love, then grow it in depth, in number, and in kind (to include up to the enemy). If you do this you will not stumble, will be fruitful, and the gates of heaven will be widely open to you. It is a narrow path dear, fortunately, we have the shepherd to guide us if we follow him rather than trying to lead him or trying to wander around in disobedience.

 

The purpose of Jesus is to lead us on this narrow path to salvation. He, therefore, is looking faithful of his preference, but what we want is God of our preference. We want our God to develop Ethiopia, like the Israel people of exodus want water, food, and comfort. The people of Exodus want God of their preference, but God wants people of his preference. In the case of Moses, God was angry with those who questioned him and his authority. This is because Moses was a man of God’s preference. For other people, God is angry when they cry for water, food, a shorter path to the Promised Land, and even a life of slavery in Egypt because what they want is a God of their preference.

 

Moses was doing what God desired and crying to God when there was a problem. God was happy to help Moses so Moses could help God. Moses was a man that God desires. The people, however, want God of their desire. That is why the idols are better-fit gods to them than God himself. God is making his people out of former slaves and idol worshipers. They want water, food, comfort, prosperity, and a God of their preference who can give them when they wish so. God is going to the North, and they never stop to cry about the South. Is water, food, comfort, and even prosperity a challenge to God or a problem to God? The problem of God is the disobedience of these people.

   

I am sure if Moses told God that he desired meat, onion, and soon, I am sure God would give him. The heart of Moses, however, is in serving God, and it is easy for God to serve him when needed. Moses has major issues that are bigger than meat, onion, and soon, and those things are beneath Moses. Who do we want to be: faithful that God desires or faithful who needs God of his desire? Do we want to regress God to our level of ignorance or do we want to progress to the perfection of God?

 

Our limit is not Luther so we are not Lutheran. Our limit is not Calvin so we are not Calvinist. Our limit is not Paul and Apollos as none of them die for us. Our limit is the Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t see any man of God as our final goal, but only as an intermediate target if necessary. It is impossible to admire a small spring of water after watching the Nile. One Lutheran may think one Lutheran killing and hating another Lutheran is politics and war, we say the killer and hatter of brother is not faithful. A Lutheran may be sad why people do not promote political faith but a faithful of Jesus is angry why the faithful kill and hate each other for worthless politics. The Lutherans may think about the political right of the faithful, the faithful of the lord however is sad why politics is the source of division and fighting in those Lutheran churches. See the difference. The Lutheran is being made in the image of his teacher and father, Luther; but we have a father in heaven, the Heavenly Father, and teacher in heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ.

They are willing to buy swords by selling their cloth to be necked in the coming of Jesus, after all, they were not ordered to have more than one cloth beforehand. We are willing to die than to kill for the faith because we don’t want to be necked in the coming of the lord. Our way is ignorance for you because Luther said so, but your way is sin for us because Jesus said so. I hope we all agree that Jesus does outrank Luther. You have a mountain-sized giant of the faith, I have a giant of all giants who has a name above all names. We are slaves of Jesus, not Lutheran, therefore. There are a million things that could be said about many Churches, but we should not weed the good with the bad, because God, in proper time, will identify his own from the devil's own, dears. The net has all kinds of fish, for sure, and only God knows who is who.