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I have learned over my years of walking with the Lord that I have often spoken truth, but not always at the right time. I also have learned that I have spoken out of frustration rather than out of wisdom. I am amazed that God uses people like me and you, who, more often than not, use words poorly that end up hurting our pursuits rather than helping them. The words we speak can end up cutting people rather than healing them. This does not mean we should never use “Tough Words,” but we should seek the guidance of God and not just act out in a fleshly way.

I am glad that most churches conduct baptism during their Sunday services and not at some small service during the week but I  am usually disappointed when I see them because they are so hurried.  Sometimes they ask the person who is being baptized a few yes or no questions.  Why is it that something as significant as baptism is rushed through quickly? 

Have you ever focused on the difficult passages of scripture in which Jesus said things that seem difficult, if not impossible, to live out practically? I know I have, and I continue to circle back to them throughout my Christian walk because I know the more I try to understand the scriptures the better I am able to understand God and my walk with him.

One thing I discovered studying the scripture over the years is that when considering Jesus Christ and his offer to be my sacrifice for my sin it is clear there would be an exchange. I would be exchanging my way of life for his and that meant appreciating who and what he has done and will do in my life.

This is the third article on myths we believe in. If you have not read the first two, please read them first to understand why I am calling these topics myths. When Christians read the scriptures we take our cues about how to understand what God is saying from so called “Intelligent” people who claim they know Greek and Hebrew words and sentence structure. But, have we been brainwashed to believe false ideas about what God is saying? History is not always right, especially when it comes to scripture. 

We have been seeing violence on the daily news lately with all the chaos and protesting on university campuses in America, which in my mind is the result of poor parenting. The rioting of students on the university campuses is not a surprise given that parents have believed in the lie that providing college for their kids is the best way to love their kids.  This, I believe, is a clear deception of Satan. When parents turn over their children to atheistic teachers to be indoctrinated in twisted and evil thinking, the end result is that their children become God haters who no longer understand how to reason truth from error.

When you listen to many in the Christian community who profess they believe the Bible is the word of God and the ultimate authority in their lives you might want to dig a little deeper to see if that is in fact the truth or if  what they really mean is they support their Christian doctrine with their particular slant.  There are many who profess they believe that scripture is the final word in their lives when it is not.

We live in a time in history when we are so attached to our technology that we are losing our ability to truly care for one another in meaningful ways. Our addiction to smartphones have beguiled us into an insatiable hunger to be informed about what’s happening in the world, and people in whom we are interested, that we are unaware of how separated we have become from the people right around us.

Just because people surrender to Jesus Christ doesn’t mean they are living and thinking like the Lord would desire. The apostle Paul spoke about the need to “NOT” be conformed to the thinking of the world but to be “TRANSFORMED” in our thinking so our choices and actions would be pleasing to the Lord and our lives would be blessed. The problem is that we so often exchange transformation of thinking for learning doctrine, which often hardens our hearts rather than making them softer towards the Lord. Transformation is a process rather than a belief and transformation doesn’t happen without God’s help and our cooperation.

If we are honest, all of us know we have messed up in some areas of life, and some of us have messed up a lot. When we consider being held accountable for our actions I think we all want, or hope, for mercy to win over judgment.  Just how or why could that be the case if we are brought before a judge about our actions? What about being brought before God over our lifetime of actions and words? Will we receive justice or mercy? How do we define what justice and mercy are?