If God has revealed His character through the inspired writings of the Bible, how is it possible for denominations and pastors to remodel God to fit their marketing and outreach needs? How much different is that than the average person desiring to model God to accommodate their personal moral standards?
Marketing is the foundation of spreading the word about your business. One way to gather a customer base is to look for all the people who have a certain need and create a product that appeals to that need.
Steve Jobs had another way of looking at product marketing and that was sort of the opposite, Create a product that is visionary that no one directly asked for but it was transform your life if everyone had one.
In the church, in the liberalized western church, there is a strong tolerance for a diversity of lifestyles, particularly those founded on some form of sexual immorality. The church should accept all people, but we accept all people as sinners. Love has morphed into accepting people the way they are and then attempting to teach and educate, re-educate or indoctrinate people to accept the behavior that church leadership has chosen to become a protagonist for.
If this sounds messy, it is. Not only messy but it has undermined the true message of the Church and that is the Gospel and the unchanging nature of God which has been supernaturally preserved in the Bible.
God IS love, but most parents know by nature that love establishes limitations on what a child, self-centered by nature, should do. God is a personification of love and wisdom. Jesus Christ stated “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.” – John 14:6.
Christ set limits and is exclusive, “No one comes the Father but through Me”. So What does that mean “through Me”?
The Gospel is pretty concise, it doesn’t recognize anyone group of people, it includes everyone, no matter what ethnicity, nationality, faith or religious background, political or even sexual persuasion. No one these people are specified. The Gospel is nicely summarized in several passages but the most popular and well known is John 3:16-17.
God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever should believe will not perish but have eternal life though Him. For God did not send him into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
Jesus-Christ-of-Nazareth.com
“So whoever believe will not perish…” Perish because of what?
Along with belief comes repentance. John the Baptist led the way by warning people to repent, to turn away from sin. In order to know what sin is, we need to strive for a clear conscious, one that seeks to honor God by being obedient to His moral law and to “sin no more.”
He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are [your accusers]? Did no one condemn you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go, and from now on sin no more.” – John 8:9b-11
The greatest commandment Is to love God with all out heart, mind and soul. Though we can never achieve such spectacular obedience, it does mean that in our immense and humble gratitude we turn away from sin as we become aware of it. The Holy Spirit helps us in that effort. The good works we do, even if you are classified by society as a Saint, are made possible through God’s grace and those “works” can never be a payment towards the salvation. We simply cannot possibly ever achieve on our own what God in his infinite capacity has made possible for anyone who comes to Christ and God by faith.
Only Christ can bridge the gap between fallen humanity and God’s holiness.
Turning from sin is a life long fight with some sins, but one’s heart and soul transforms by the Holy Spirit making it a daily calling to continue the turn away from sin and toward the Lord.
So yes, God IS LOVE in perfection and is also merciful but God is also a perfectly Holy and Righteous Judge who must judge all sin. In His grace, God offers us the good news that Christ died for our sins that we may be covered by His righteousness throughout eternity and especially in the Day of Judgment.
For a one minute explanation of the Gospel from the late Pastor John MacArthur, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCP9UcC7BzE
For a review of the Ten Commandments: https://www.challenyee.com/the-ten-commandments/
All quoted excerpts have footnotes removed, usually from Legacy Standard Bible (LSB), sometimes from New International Version (NIV), on rare occasion the Amplified Bible (AMP).
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5.10.2024