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?

I think there are many instances in our lives that God is probing our hearts and minds to see if we will participate in a creative miracle with him or deny participation because we only see the natural. Being spiritually minded is not denying the natural but working in tandem with the natural.  However, learning how to think both naturally and spiritually together takes a lifetime of training and discipline.

If you find some things in scripture that are hard to swallow, or hard to apply, you are not alone. I have walked with God since 1969 and still find some things difficult that God calls me to do or believe. Some things cause me to outright argue with God or at least invoke in me desire to avoid them. Why? Because my salvation is still in progress and God is not through helping me to get a Kingdom mindset rather than a selfish worldly one. This leads me to voice a concern I have with modern preaching and teaching in the body of Christ.

If you gave your life to Christ your heart had to go through a transformational process where you changed from wanting to live for your self-interest to wanting to please God as your top priority. If your heart didn’t change salvation was never truly realized regardless how many times you prayed the sinner’s prayer. After all, God is more interested in transformation than he is in just forgiveness.   

This is the second part in a series on the “Myths” we as Christians have embraced as if they were biblical when in fact scripture speaks otherwise. The hard part is to know what is biblical and what is not in our beliefs when the only sources we rely on are sermons on Sunday morning or various books pastors might recommend. No pastor or teacher has a market on the truth of scripture and that includes me so what I’m advocating is to study the scripture and not just rely of what others say just because they are good pastors or good teachers.

I think when we consider acting in love towards others we think about what act of kindness we could demonstrate towards them or for them, but should we, or could we, be looking at only certain obvious aspects of what it means to love others? What about things we “DON”T SEE” in others that call us to extend or demonstrate God’s love to people who may appear undeserving? What if they appear to have a weakness of faith, should we love them in spite of that weakness?

Some people want to believe that a belief in God is not necessary in order to have good morals. They believe their morals are correct because they want to believe them regardless of whether these morals are based on something more solid than just their feeling. Thinking God is necessary to help us construct good morals is different than thinking that God exists. Remember, Satan believes God exists but he and the other fallen angles don’t live or exist with any morality other than to steal, kill and destroy. (John 10:10)

This is the third part in a series that asks the question, “Does God change his mind?” The purpose of writing this series is because many believers have been taught a mixture of concepts and doctrines so that their theology doesn’t work in real life. As a result much of what they have learned doesn’t produce the maturity God wants and expects, and our ability to change the culture is, for the most part, nonexistent. Instead of being salt and light to our culture, we are changed by the humanistic culture we live in.

Many of us probably would say very strongly that we don’t believe in myths but if we looked closer at our beliefs we might find out that our strong held beliefs are based on someone’s ideas or desires, rather than on history, fact and what comes from the word of God. Many of our beliefs have been constructed by what we have been taught rather than from what we have observed. When it comes to biblical beliefs the same holds true.  We have constructed a belief system which was gained from pastors and teachers throughout our lifetime. These people may have taught us the word of God or they could have mixed truth with myth without even realizing it.

This is a multi part topic and this is the second in the series in asking the question, “Does God Change His Mind,” or has God set in motion everything that ever will happen? The “CHANGEABLENESS” of God is not in question as to whether God is reliable and consistent with his character and action, but does God change with regard to our behavior or heart attitude.