Before you say anything else about Jesus, tell the listener that He is God. To use Isaiah's words, He is Mighty God or Almighty God .
If you don't believe this about Jesus yourself, keep your mouth shut until you do. Otherwise, you will be denying Him even while you are touting Him.
Jesus cannot be Saviour unless He is truthful. He said:
➛ I and My Father are One .
➛ If you have seen me, you have seen the Father .
➛ I have all power in heaven and earth .
Jesus is Saviour because He is the Creator , sustainer and Righteous Judge .
➛ Because of who He is, what He did is sufficient for our salvation.
➛ Because of who He is, what He said about us is True.
Try this:
➛ Tell a Muslim that Jesus is God and Allah is not.
➛ Tell a Jew that Jesus is YHVH.
➛ Tell every Buddhist they are going to hell.
➛ Tell every Hindu that they are going to hell.
➛ Tell every Catholic who subordinates Jesus to Mary they are going to hell.
➛ Tell every atheist that they are going to hell.
➛ Tell every New Age person they are going to hell.
➛ Tell every denier of the Holy Spirit Of Christ Jesus that they are going to hell.
➛ Tell every 'believer' who compromises the Word that they are going to hell.
You will be offensive in so doing.
Repentance from wrong belief systems is critical to being Born Again. Any belief system that denies Jesus as Mighty God is a denier of Jesus. That is the criteria Jesus defined for rejection by Him.
You cannot be accepted by Christ Jesus by simply giving Him a nod. He is not interested in your tacit approval of Him or your kind words about Him. He expects you to repent of your false theology and believe on Him - the Lord Jesus Christ . And I might add, ON HIM ALONE .
But what about love? Aren't we supposed to tell the Truth in love?
Did Jesus come preaching love? No, He preached repentance.
Did Jesus come preaching prosperity? No, He came preaching that we seek His Kingdom and righteousness.
Did Jesus come preaching forgiveness of sins? No, He came preaching repentance which appropriates forgiveness of sins.
Everything that Jesus taught was on the assumption of repentance and turning toward Him as Master, Saviour and Lord.
Stop talking about God. Who is he anyway? We find the only True And Living God In Christ Jesus.
Hopefully this very offensive point has been made.
What is the second offensive point? Be Baptized In The Holy Spirit.
Unbelievably, the church has not even recognized who the Holy Spirit is! In 325 AD the Council of Nicea relegated the Holy Spirit to God 3rd class behind the Father (whoever He is) and the Son (whatever He is). This was obviously the workings of Satan to obfuscate the identity of God!
If you understood the first offensive principle of Christianity from above you understand the demonic nature of the trinitarian doctrine. Instead of receiving Jesus as God, they threw Him into the mix with two other persons whom we know very little about.
I have a whole series of articles on this but let me just say this:
Jesus is the Spirit Soul And Body of the One True And Living God. His Body is in heaven (the Spirit Realm). His Spirit is omnipresent and was offered to abide in us and us in Him through faith in Jesus Christ, His express image, but by request only .
OK. Assuming you grasp who God is now and understand that His name is Jesus, what is meant by being Baptized In The Holy Spirit?
When we hear the Gospel we believe the Truth about Jesus and accept the Gospel account of who He is and what He did. That is the operation of the Word.
A gate is opened into our soul by the Truth of Christ Jesus.
The Holy Spirit Of Christ Jesus then creates a New Spirit within us and we say we are Born Again. But this New Spirit is in some ways restricted by a soulish embryonic sac such that its potential is not realized. In some sense, we only 'see' the Kingdom Of Heaven .
When we ask the Lord Jesus to baptize us with His Spirit, we surrender our New Spirit to the Holy Spirit who then envelops (seals) us and fills us with His Himself (Spirit Of Christ Jesus). In Spirit Baptism we 'enter' the Kingdom Of Heaven where the Holy Spirit is all and in all .
At that point we are fully Born Again as New Creatures with our spirit renewed in Him and eternalized by His presence in us and us in Him. You see, the Holy Spirit Of Christ Jesus is the life force, the essence of Christ Jesus and so becomes our essence and our life force.
Christianity is NOT a religion. It is a New Creature joined with Christ Jesus and made a part of His Body.
Stopping here in the hoping and assuming that you grasp what has been said, it must be abundantly apparent to you that these truths are offensive - not just to the ones cited about, but to most nominal Christians.
If you believe what has been said here and speak it, you will offend everyone except a relative few people on this planet.
Why? Because false prophets and false teachers who rejected the Truth have propagated half-truths and wholesale lies.
Just as the political swamp is more pervasive that we would like to believe, the spiritual swamp is even broader and deeper that we can imagine.
Jesus did not talk about the Broad Way and Narrow Way and the Wide Gate and Strait Gate because He only wanted a few to really believe on Him and receive Him in Truth and light. Rather, He was warning us of the fake, the easy, the half-hearted and the weak substitutes that would be promoted, deceiving the masses .
So, to make it clear, we are not offensive for offensive sake. As our Lord did everything He did to heal, to set free and to impart life, so ought we to be motivated by the Holy Spirit Of Christ Jesus and to operate within the framework of His Words as we go forth.
Offenses will come as Jesus is only able to effect peace in the hearts of those who receive Him. Those who reject Him will want to destroy Him and anyone representing Him.
Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name`s sake. |
If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. |