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     <h3 class="panel-title">[[File:Page.png]] '''January's''' featured article</h3>
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     <h3 class="panel-title">[[File:Page.png]] '''February's''' featured article</h3>
 
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===='''Faith'''====
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==Behavior Matters==
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)
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Many modern doctrines say that it’s okay with God if we sin. Now, Satan is wise enough to not be that blunt. So he has given us subtle doctrines which on the surface appear true and scriptural. But logically they infer that it’s okay to sin, but they never explicitly say that. Since most people do not logically think through consequences, but simply accept what they are taught, these doctrines lodge into the back corners of their minds. Satan knows that when such people are tempted to sin, that they will have no reason to say "No" to sin. Their defenses have been removed by Satan’s popular lies that surreptitiously teach that nothing bad will happen to us if we sin.
  
Faith is to be in the Lord, not in spiritual principles. We are to call upon the Lord. The Scriptures do not counsel us to attempt to learn how to manipulate the spiritual realm. The Scriptures direct us to put our faith in the Lord and to wait upon Him. This is a different approach than learning how to work miracles by understanding how the spiritual realm operates.
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Satan’s goal is to make Christians sin. He knows that a sinful Christian can not enter God’s kingdom (Gal 5:21, "those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God"). Thus, Satan is removing rulers who will replace Satan’s rule on earth, thus delaying the overthrow Satan’s kingdom. To prevent his overthrow, Satan desperately wants to destroy those who are to replace him. Thus, he desperately tries to make Christians sin.
  
Faith in the Lord brings glory to the Lord Jesus. The working of spiritual principles exalts the adamic man and leaves him in the bondage of sin and self-will.
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And I must admit that he has been surprisingly successful. American and Europe have reached the point where even many Christians do not know that sex outside of marriage is sin. Because the Christians’ light of good behavior has gone out, the non-Christians have no concept of sin, and simply assume that sex outside of marriage is fine. The AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is due to rampant fornication, and the decades of missionary effort there have clearly failed to prevent that. Why? Because the missionaries unwittingly taught the Africans that it’s okay to sin. So they are sinning.
  
Have you ever defined faith as a sort of magic that you can work once you know the tricks? If you have you probably have given up in despair, being somewhat condemned that you "do not have enough faith" to get your answer. Faith is not magic or a metaphysical principle, it is our grasp on God's Character and the faithfulness of His promises.
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As a result of the lies, we Christians have lost the fear of God. Jesus taught, "I’ll tell you who to fear: Fear Him who has power to cast body and soul into Hell." We’ve lost this healthy fear of God’s judgment, and so our country has lost it too.
  
The Scriptures promise great joy to the believer. One of our favorite passages is as follows:
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Many years ago, the following words entered my mind: "Religious leaders are usually wrong. Jesus blasted the religious leaders of his day. They were wrong through the middle ages. And they are wrong today. So you must think for yourself, and not merely believe what they tell you." I don’t know if this was the Lord speaking to me, but I think it’s true either way. Much of what religious leaders teach these days is wrong. We must not unthinkingly believe them, because Satan has mixed and supplanted God’s truth with his lies.
  
Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. (Psalms 37:4)
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Let’s look at some of the lies which Satan has infiltrated into Christian teaching. These lies all have the same logical conclusion: Nothing bad will happen to you if you sin, so it’s okay to sin.
  
Another is:
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'''Lie: All our righteousness is imputed.'''
  
For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. (Psalms 84:11)
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The concept of imputed righteousness is only taught by Paul in Romans chapters 3-5. Romans 4:7-8 equates imputed righteousness with forgiveness. And that is because there is a place for forgiveness; how else could we get a fresh start when we repent and turn to God? Romans 3:25 states that he has forgiven our past sins. Imputed righteousness is needed at the beginning to get the guilt behind us so we can get started with serving God righteously.
  
God will withhold no good thing from the individual who walks uprightly.
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But Satan has pushed imputed righteousness far beyond its boundary of a fresh start after repentance. Interestingly, Paul teaches us about imputed sin in Romans 3-5 also, but you’ve never heard it taught in your church. Look at Romans 5:13, "but sin is not imputed when there is no law" (KJV). The flip side of this verse says that sin is imputed when there is law. That is, if you know an action is sin, and you do it anyway, God will consider you guilty of sin (i.e., impute sin to you). The Bible explicitly says this in James 4:17, "to him who knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin". And also Hebrews 10:26, "If we sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth, there is no more sacrifice for sin."
  
We know that God answers prayer. Though it may take a long period of time we are to wait for the answer. In God's Presence there is fullness of joy. He eventually heals all our diseases and fills our mouth with good things. The Lord delivers us from all our afflictions.
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An important question is: What happens if we sin accidentally? Let’s say you were suddenly tempted and before you knew it, you had sinned. First John 1:9 gives the answer: Confess the sin (repentance is implicit in this), and God will forgive you and clean that sin out of you.
  
Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; (Psalms 103:3)
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What is imputation? Imputation simply means how God considers us. God imputes sin when we knowingly sin. God imputes righteousness when we repent of sin. He also imputes righteousness to us when we do His will, be it large or small. For example, in Romans 4:22-24, righteousness was imputed to Abraham because he did what God wanted of him, which was to believe His promise.
  
The key to fullness of joy, to the rewards we hope for and pray for, is faith. Perhaps you have had your hopes deferred and your heart is sick. You may have had to labor in a hated situation for many years. You have trusted that you would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. That expectation has kept you from fainting. But time goes on and on and there is no answer.
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Finally, what about deliberate sin (which God imputes as sin), if we repent afterwards? If we deliberately sin and repent, He might forgive us, He might not. Deliberate sin is a dangerous area, as King David discovered the hard way after sinning with Bathsheba, when God said, "The sword will never leave your house." David suffered badly for that! If God is good to you, he’ll give you so much suffering that you’ll sorely wish you had never sinned. If God is not good to you, He simply won’t forgive you of the deliberate sin
  
How are we proceed? Is it possible we have not known how to press forward in faith? Let us look at some of the comments made in the Book of Hebrews to see how faith in God truly operates.
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[[Behavior Matters]]
 
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Confidence
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Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. (Hebrews 10:35)
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The Word of God makes many outstanding promises to the believer.
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And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. (Matthew 21:22)
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And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. (John 14:13,14)
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Perhaps a Christian told us the above verse is a "blank check." "Just fill in the amount." We did, and nothing happened.
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Why did nothing take place? Is the Word of God not true? Don't we have enough "faith"?
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The Word of God is always true. Heaven and earth shall pass away but the Word of the Lord Jesus never shall pass away.
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What, then, is the solution?
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The solution is we are not to cast away our confidence for it shall be richly rewarded.
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[[Faith 2|Next Page]]
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Copyright © 1997-2007 by Trumpet Ministries Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
Copyright © 1997-2007 by Trumpet Ministries Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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Page.png February's featured article


Behavior Matters

Many modern doctrines say that it’s okay with God if we sin. Now, Satan is wise enough to not be that blunt. So he has given us subtle doctrines which on the surface appear true and scriptural. But logically they infer that it’s okay to sin, but they never explicitly say that. Since most people do not logically think through consequences, but simply accept what they are taught, these doctrines lodge into the back corners of their minds. Satan knows that when such people are tempted to sin, that they will have no reason to say "No" to sin. Their defenses have been removed by Satan’s popular lies that surreptitiously teach that nothing bad will happen to us if we sin.

Satan’s goal is to make Christians sin. He knows that a sinful Christian can not enter God’s kingdom (Gal 5:21, "those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God"). Thus, Satan is removing rulers who will replace Satan’s rule on earth, thus delaying the overthrow Satan’s kingdom. To prevent his overthrow, Satan desperately wants to destroy those who are to replace him. Thus, he desperately tries to make Christians sin.

And I must admit that he has been surprisingly successful. American and Europe have reached the point where even many Christians do not know that sex outside of marriage is sin. Because the Christians’ light of good behavior has gone out, the non-Christians have no concept of sin, and simply assume that sex outside of marriage is fine. The AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is due to rampant fornication, and the decades of missionary effort there have clearly failed to prevent that. Why? Because the missionaries unwittingly taught the Africans that it’s okay to sin. So they are sinning.

As a result of the lies, we Christians have lost the fear of God. Jesus taught, "I’ll tell you who to fear: Fear Him who has power to cast body and soul into Hell." We’ve lost this healthy fear of God’s judgment, and so our country has lost it too.

Many years ago, the following words entered my mind: "Religious leaders are usually wrong. Jesus blasted the religious leaders of his day. They were wrong through the middle ages. And they are wrong today. So you must think for yourself, and not merely believe what they tell you." I don’t know if this was the Lord speaking to me, but I think it’s true either way. Much of what religious leaders teach these days is wrong. We must not unthinkingly believe them, because Satan has mixed and supplanted God’s truth with his lies.

Let’s look at some of the lies which Satan has infiltrated into Christian teaching. These lies all have the same logical conclusion: Nothing bad will happen to you if you sin, so it’s okay to sin.

Lie: All our righteousness is imputed.

The concept of imputed righteousness is only taught by Paul in Romans chapters 3-5. Romans 4:7-8 equates imputed righteousness with forgiveness. And that is because there is a place for forgiveness; how else could we get a fresh start when we repent and turn to God? Romans 3:25 states that he has forgiven our past sins. Imputed righteousness is needed at the beginning to get the guilt behind us so we can get started with serving God righteously.

But Satan has pushed imputed righteousness far beyond its boundary of a fresh start after repentance. Interestingly, Paul teaches us about imputed sin in Romans 3-5 also, but you’ve never heard it taught in your church. Look at Romans 5:13, "but sin is not imputed when there is no law" (KJV). The flip side of this verse says that sin is imputed when there is law. That is, if you know an action is sin, and you do it anyway, God will consider you guilty of sin (i.e., impute sin to you). The Bible explicitly says this in James 4:17, "to him who knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin". And also Hebrews 10:26, "If we sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth, there is no more sacrifice for sin."

An important question is: What happens if we sin accidentally? Let’s say you were suddenly tempted and before you knew it, you had sinned. First John 1:9 gives the answer: Confess the sin (repentance is implicit in this), and God will forgive you and clean that sin out of you.

What is imputation? Imputation simply means how God considers us. God imputes sin when we knowingly sin. God imputes righteousness when we repent of sin. He also imputes righteousness to us when we do His will, be it large or small. For example, in Romans 4:22-24, righteousness was imputed to Abraham because he did what God wanted of him, which was to believe His promise.

Finally, what about deliberate sin (which God imputes as sin), if we repent afterwards? If we deliberately sin and repent, He might forgive us, He might not. Deliberate sin is a dangerous area, as King David discovered the hard way after sinning with Bathsheba, when God said, "The sword will never leave your house." David suffered badly for that! If God is good to you, he’ll give you so much suffering that you’ll sorely wish you had never sinned. If God is not good to you, He simply won’t forgive you of the deliberate sin

Behavior Matters

Copyright © 1997-2007 by Trumpet Ministries Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED