Fishers of Men - Evangelism in 21st Century/Apologetic 101

I thought of sharing a post I wrote in 2011 in a restricted forum. For this reason, I will keep names in original article out but I will keep the first letter of the names though. Miss J had asked the group a pertinent question on how to do effective evangelism for those who have no access to pulpits in order to share the good news of Jesus Christ. My response was only of the different intervention to her so I only spoke of what I thought was missing on previous interventions. The basic biblical text I based my response was this, 

"And He said to them, Follow Me, and I will make you FISHERS OF MEN"- Matthew 4:19

Enjoy!

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Introduction to conversational evangelism

Today, I thought it was time to answer 'J' question as promised. Few have attempted to give her an answer and some informed me that they were unsure if they would have been successful in touching the nerve of the question as raised by our sister "J" from Europe.

Nevertheless, three persons - R, O and M - have contributed with good advises and to those I will add nothing. I particularly was interested by the practical and culture-sensitive approach advises from R. R gave us a beautiful illustration on how you have to stay in touch with your unconverted audience and be sensitive to his/her culture, ideologies and interests in the process of bring the good news of Christ. That was just excellent and I'll follow his example below.

I have had the privilege a) to sometime bring people directly to Christ, b) sometimes indirectly to Christ and c) sometime never to Christ but left them respecting my faith as being a dependable and intelligent one. However this ability to bring people to Christ from very different persuasions from mine didn't come overnight. There was a time when It was not always the case. Hence I can understand "J" frustration as well as others who might feel overwhelmed by the task on how they could possibly become fishers of man in this complex 21st century! 

If any one of you want to bring people to the saving faith in Christ, you will have first to make them understand what this faith of yours entails which means you'll have to be able to give an answer - a credible answer to the skeptic you are evangelizing. It seems to me through my observations, personal and through hear-say and readings, that the westernized skeptic is a new type of skeptic. This kind of skeptic doesn't just want to hear old tales of a dying God who came back to life. What they want to know among others things is how on earth can you believe that and secondo why should s/he care? The first question voice the rationality of your beliefs and the second the relevance of it. You see now why I like them? 

As Christians, we should be up to the task, for in a way their salvation depend on how serious we believe in this bible verse quoted below: 

"But in your hearts set Christ apart as holy [and acknowledge Him] as Lord. Always be ready to give a logical defense to anyone who asks you to account for the hope that is in you, but do it courteously and respectfully." - 1 Peter 3:15 Amplified Bible (AMP)

1 Peter 3:15 is the apologist maxim. It is his 21rst Century credo for evangelism. Any Christian apologist (i.e Christian Thinkers) knows that in our age, skepticism has known a veritable renaissance - hence the need to change our approach to bring the good news to the people. The essence of the message must remain the same but the form will have to change and the evangelist will have to adapt depending on who s/he meets. Take the example of a fisherman. Sometime a fisherman will use a simple fishing stick but at other time a net. Sometime the fishing is done close to the shore, sometime away from the shore. Sometime it is done at night, sometime during the day. The purpose remains the same, but the methodology changes as the environment changes.

Practically, what does it mean? 

Lee Strobel the bestselling author of the books, 'The Case for Christ', 'The Case for Faith', 'The Case for the Creator', 'The Case for the Real Jesus' comments: 

"When 1 Peter 3:15 tells us to "always be ready" to defend our faith—well, here is the kind of preparation that all of us need ... issues as the existence of God, science versus Christianity, and the reliability of the Bible, but ... also ... touchy social topics such as abortion and homosexuality."

In brief, you have to know your target. You have to understand your prey so to speak before you decide to start hunting or fishing them out of their natural habitat and comfort zone. They like their comfort zone - for it feels comfortable and they'll fight to stay there. Some will even give you the fight of your life and unless you are ready they'll make mince-meat of you.

In Mark Mittelberg's book, "The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask", there is an interesting story that I suspect most of you can relate:

"I first experienced that phenomenon when I was a young Christian and volunteered at our church to respond to questions submitted on cards at our weekend services. One Sunday I got an inquiry from a twelve-year-old girl who said she just wanted to know more about Jesus. When I called her, she invited Leslie and me to her home to talk with her and her father about Christ. "Aw, isn't that cute?" I said to Leslie as I hung up the phone. "This is gonna be fun!"

But as her father ushered us into their apartment, I glanced at the coffee table and saw stacks of heavyweight books. It turns out her dad is a scientist who had spent years studying scholarly articles and weighty tomes attacking the foundations of Christianity. Over a dinner of pizza and soft drinks, he peppered me for hours with tough objections to the reliability of the New Testament and the divinity of Jesus. While I was able to answer some of his questions, he kept raising issues that I had never even considered. Before long my head was starting to spin—and I began to experience spiritual vertigo.

Here's my prediction: if you've never felt this sort of divine disequilibrium, the chances are you will and soon, because challenges to the Christian faith are coming fast and furious in best-selling books, popular magazines, college classrooms, television documentaries, and on the Internet. Your family members, friends, neighbors, and colleagues may be influenced by what these skeptics are saying and they may very well come to you with their doubts and concerns."

Here is my question to you, when those question comes what are you gonna do? My lady friend "Y" made me laugh few months ago when she told me that her Christian life took an unexpected turn when she went to Singapore and lived with a Muslim girl. I could relate since I was myself 'baptize' in that fire when I went to South Africa and realized with some horror for the first time in my life that I couldn't use the Bible to preach to people the Gospel because they just didn't wanna consider the Bible as a source of authority on true spirituality. In one of my encounter with a pastor from Europe in visit to South Africa, I was left laughing when he told the audience that it is even difficult to speak about God as a Father in certain places where he lived in Europe. Here is one of his stories. 

He approached a group of young people and started sharing with them the love of God when one of them raised his hand to interrupt him with these questions.

'Sir', the young man asked, 'when you say God - are you talking about that divine Guy who had only one Son that He loved so much?' The pastor said 'yes'. Then the young man proceeded. 'The Dude had only one Son and he gave that one Son to be killed by people who didn't know him nor care about him?' The positive answer came at once, 'yes'. Then the young man shook his head and waved him away saying, 'if that is the God you are talking about I am not interested in Him'. 

'A guy who sacrifice his only son to strangers is a mentally sick dude!' The pastor was in shock! He didn't see that coming. When He reported that to us telling us how close hearted people hearts have become, I  couldn't help myself but laugh. Actually, I sympathized more with the skeptics than with the pastor. I guess I would have reacted similarly if I didn't know better. Those guys were not rejecting Christianity nor Jesus' gospel. They were showing their revolt against a concept that didn't make sense to them and I could understand them and probably sympathize with them to an extend.

Lesson: Find Common Ground

Don't assume that people you preach have the same theological or the same historical background knowledge as yours. To the immortal words of Ravi Zacharias, 'Don't give too much too soon' when you preach the gospel to skeptics. First find a common ground, find a point of reference and proceed from there. 

I brought once a young man who was into 'Black Islam' literatures à la Malcolm X, Minister Farrakhan, etc - to consider Jesus teachings while playing chess with him. I didn't bring him to Christ that day, but the day that followed he gave his life to Christ publicly in a Church I visited with him. Another time I brought similarly a young man to faith by talking with him regularly about his favorite subject that I happened to like too - 'Latino dancing', 'movies' and else. The year was 2006 at Randburg / Jo'Burg. 

I can't emphasize enough the importance of R's advise. Find a common ground and you won't even have to compromise your faith and your Christian ethics.

As 1 peter 3:15 states, be prayerful and in a good holy communion with the Lord. Though I was playing chess and in full conversation I was praying in my heart for the gentleman for almost the whole duration of the mind game. You have to train yourself if you want to be a good 'hunter'. 

Practice the few points I have shared and you'll be better at it with time. Don't be in hurry neither. Be patient too, just like fisherman are. 

A last example, I met twice a month with a lady sharing my faith and responding to her objections for 4 months. It went from August 2006 to December 2006. On the first week of December 2006, she gave her life to Christ and I prayed for her though still amazed by the impossible miracle that had just happened. She never gave me even the impression that she was agreeing with any of my answers all along, but she surprised me by her conversion. God works in mysterious way. God will do his part, let us do ours which of being always 'ready to defend' the hope that is within us from all attacks foreign (skeptics) and domestic (sects).

May the Lord bless you all in Jesus' name.

Fake Grace: Jado's False Teaching

I recently heard an audio by a certain man calling himself pastor Jado (I don't know if it is his true name) from a movement called "zeal of the gospel" church. He made some disturbing comments in his audio and since couple of people were talking about it, I decided to respond to his pertinent points in a brief posts. 

1. Abandoning Sin?

Jado insists in his audio that people should take at heart that they cannot change their life of sin nor should they even try. He quotes partly the book of Jeremiah which states that a leopard cannot change its spots and he assumed therefore that people cannot change and abandon sin. But a correct reading of the book of Jeremiah doesn't imply that. See the full text and I will give a brief context of what Jeremiah was talking about.

Jeremiah 13:23,  "Can an Ethiopian change his skin, or a leopard his spots? Then you who are trained to do evil will also be able to do good[?]" 

The prophet Jeremiah is making a point about those people in Israel who rebelled against God and showed unwillingness and stubbornness to change from their evil ways. Chapter 13 comes after a series of texts where similar point is raised in different ways (Jeremiah2:30; 6:29-30), here is another example 

Jeremiah 5:3  "LORD, don't your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they didn't flinch. You brought them to an end, but they refused to receive discipline. They made their faces harder than stone, and they refused to repent." 

Jeremiah even though a citizen of Israel was not like those who didn't want to repent. Nor was Daniel, nor was David or the many biblical example we have of people who repented of their sins. Jado is making a mistake to assume that what Jeremiah spoke about is how all people are behaving all the time. I hope Jado doesn't consider himself an unrepentant sinner who refused to repent. But that is the problem of reading the Old Testament verses out of context, people tend to make it says what it doesn't say.

The plain teaching of the New Testament is to encourage Believers to changes and to reject the evilness of sin and to practice good. Here are two examples from St. Paul,

Romans 12.9, "Your love must be real. Hate what is evil. Do only what is good"

Romans 12:21, "Don't let evil defeat you but defeat evil by doing good."

Here Paul clearly ask the Christian in Rome that after they have changed this mind (renewing their mind) in verse 2 of this chapter, they should now practice what is good and not what is evil. St. Paul does not believe the same thing as Jado believe, this is abundantly clear from these two verses above.

2. Practicing sin is normal?

Jado insisted in his audio that people should believe in doing sin and not in not doing sin. His rationale seemed to cling to his reading of Paul that speaks of the weakness of the carnal nature to do what is good in Roman 7 by partially quoting Paul who said that he did the things he didn't want to do. Jado sees in this a license to discourage any attempt in search for change. He believes that doing sins are normal and trying not to sin is what is the problem. It is astonishing that someone can come to such a conclusion particularly someone who calls himself a pastor. One can almost think the guy was joking until one realize that he is not, he really believe that there is no problem for someone who claim to believe in Jesus to continue in sin as long as sometime in his past he converted to the Christian faith.

But this is a foreign belief to what the New Testament teaches. Here is an example,

1Jn 2:1, "My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." 

The whole purpose of John writing his epistle and training the Christian community in the first century was to make them able to ultimately live a life away from sin as they mature in the image of Christ, and not to feel comfortable in their sins. Clearly St. John did not believe the same as Jado believes. This is the second example we see where Jado belief is totally contradictory to the belief of the first century disciples of Jesus, first St. Paul and now St. John.

3. Embracing a life of sin?

Jado insists that people should embrace their life of sins and any attempt to confess a sin makes the person confessing its sin some kind of a rebel against Jado's 'god' and he believes to confess sins is a display of doctrinal error.  One wonder if he has even taken the time to think and reflect about what he believes. Let say a sin such as a crime should not be confessed as being evil? or should one not look for forgiveness of that sin through repentance? Does Jado believe that those who sinned by committing let says, Genocide or rape should also not stop doing them nor confess those sins? This is a totally a foreign belief from the Bible and I hope this is not what Jado really believe. 

The error of Jado is that he believes that nothing can be done to remove your ability to sin so he literally ask people not to try to stop their sinful acts and worse to avoid to repent of their sins. No wonders he mocks the whole concept of forgiveness of sins. But he is mistaken. The bible shows that the same blood of Jesus that was shade once and for all 2000 years ago continues even today to cleanse those who walk with God. It has a continuous action. See the verse below and be careful on the verb tense used,

"But if we (believers) walk in the light, as He (God) is in the light, we (believers) have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanse (present tense) us from all sin." -  1John1:7

The verse does not say that the blood "cleansed" us in the past tense but that the blood "cleanse" us in the present tense. It is not talking about a past action of the blood but a present action of continuous cleansing by the blood of Jesus the son of God. The verse in the present tense is clear, except for Jado.

An additional rebuttal for all that he said is found in 1Jn2:1-2 where it is clear that believers have always access to the cleansing blood of Christ just like the unbelievers. See the pronoun "our" that St. John use to includes himself in the sentence when he speaks of the benefit of the blood that cleanse our sins.

"And [Jesus] is the propitiation for OUR sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." - 1John2:2

"If WE confess OUR sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us OUR sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."  - 1Jn 1:9 

In this verse St. John inform the Christian audience that Jesus' blood has the capacity to clean not only the sins of the world which means the unbelievers but also OUR sins. "Our" means the sins of the believers. St. John is putting himself in it after making the distinction between the sins of unbelievers and the sins of believers. And St. John clarified that the cleansing of sins follows the confession of sins. Hence we see that confession must be done before the cleansing with the 2000 years old blood of Jesus may do its work on us. The text is crystal clear. Which makes one wonder why does he ignore the teaching of the bible?

4. Don't Rebuke the Sinner?

Jado is against any rebuke of sins or any experience of bad conscience when someone sin. So people according to Jado's theology should not for example have a bad conscience when they rape a baby or commit genocide? I really hope this is not what he means, 'coz this would be totally Unbelievable! Jado said that no one should feel any bad conscience when they do sins and anyone trying to rebuke an evildoer is against his 'god'. Which makes one wonder who is his "god"? Certainly not the one from the Bible. 

The logical rebuttal of his insane claims are found in all the epistles of the bible. Let me choose 3 examples for the sake of space: 

A) Paul rebuked evildoers in 1Corinthians 5:1-5. 

Exampe1: Paul rebukes a Corinthian believer, 

"For I [Paul] verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him [sinful believer] that has so done this [evil] deed," - 1Co5:3

B) Peter rebuked Simon who were then a baptized Christian in Acts 8:22. 

Example 2. Peter rebukes Simon who had just believed under the ministry of Phillip, 

 "Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee."Acts 8: 22,

C) Jesus himself rebuked all the 7 churches in Revelation 2-3. 

The Lord Jesus rebuked believers in the Church of Laodiceans. 

"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent." - Revelation 3:19

Clearly Jado must believe that all the apostles and Jesus himself were wrong rebuking believers for their sins. What is clear, Jado contradicts the Lord Jesus and his apostles. Who should we imitate between Jado and the Lord Jesus and His disciples? The answer should be evident. We should follow Jesus and his disciples and not Jado's heretic beliefs!


5. Jado's internal contradiction

Finally, Jado shifts his argument by using the sayings in the last super by repeating Jesus words that the wine represent the blood that was poured for us. And Jado said that when it was being poured all sins (I think he meant all sins past, present and future) were being forgiven immediately. That is his understanding he repeats in different ways. It is clear he does not make a distinction between the provision of forgiveness by the shading of blood and the experience of forgiveness through the shading of the same blood. He thinks both are the same. That is his obvious mistake. 

Secondly, he falls in his own trap. If pouring the blood meant instant experience of forgiveness to all humanity, then why does he believe that unbelievers need to ask for forgiveness of their sin of unbelief? Were they not also forgiven when the blood was poured out for the ransom of many 2000 years ago? Of-course Jado cannot answer this. And more importantly if the blood provides instantly the forgiveness to all humanity sins immediately and not the provision of forgiveness to all, why would anyone go to hell according to his theology? 

He should be a Universalist and be against the book of Revelation of John that shows clearly that they are people lost in the lack of fire due to the judgement of their sins. He is simply inconsistent in his reasoning and wrong in his application of biblical truth. Last, why would Peter asked specifically to Simon to repent in order to receive forgiveness in Acts 8:22 if the blood had already cleansed him instantaneously from all his sins in Golgotha? Remember that Simon was not in the sin of unbelief, he was already believing in Jesus and was baptized by Philip the evangelist. So John 16 admonishing of the Holy Spirit convicting the world of sin doesn't apply to him. Simon's sin was about buying the gracious gift of the Spirit through laying of hands and not unbelief. Why? Jado can't possibly respond to this with coherence either.

Here again we see Jado's incapacity to hold to a coherent view on biblical doctrines or read the bible with consistency through its many applications! People who are regularly listening to him should be aware of this.

How Fake Grace preys on Innocence

Early in life, we learn quickly how to align ourselves with those we admire most. I remember hearing parents trying to convince children on doing homework in a certain way that were different from what the children remembered their primary school teachers had taught them. The kids just rejected
any attempt by the parents to do the homework in any other way. Why? Because the teachers said so.

Look at the teenagers who changes their wardrobes to the dismay of their parents, why? 'cause they have found new admiration toward a celebrity clothing style.

Authority figures come in all shape and form: teachers, celebrities, an alpha friend in the pack, religious personalities and more. Authority figures usually work on impressionable mind, when individuals have yet to master factual information. This makes perfect sense. Since they can't arrive to a conclusion by following a string of factual information by themselves, they have no other choice but to rely on another form of authority beside facts for their belief. This is standard normal practices for humans. We have learned as much since early childhood. When we don't know much about any given topic or subject, we rely on people whom we believe know more or better. Example of subjects that requires learning mostly from authority until people masters the facts, Chemistry, Biology, Economics, Astrophysics, etc.

How do people end up embracing dangerous ideas or bad habits? Same short answer, the influence of authority figures. These later figures usually hold and/or encourage dangerous ideas or bad habits. For an untrained mind, these dangerous people becomes like drugs.

Just as it has been difficult to change a child's mind about a certain way of doing calculus because of the way the kid learned it from his teacher, so I have encounter difficulty helping young folks when it comes to understanding the scriptures because of their fanatical embrace of a certain religious leader or religious figure. You can easily tell if their embrace of a certain view is a result of personal thinking or a mindless adherence of what they heard.

A case in point.

Not long ago, I was in a dialogue with some youth discussing some biblical concepts. But it became clear that I was not discussing with them, but with the ghost of their teachers. I couldn't reason them, they mindlessly abode to their position. One of the best evidence of that came during the rather elongated dialogue, when one of them made an appeal to history, unfortunately for him it was fake history.

In our effort to establish the right context for the epistle of John which discusses the problem of sins in many of its chapters, the gentleman I was debating openly claimed that John the writer of the first epistle of John was writing against Gnosticism. I easily pointed out that this could not be possible since Gnosticism didn't even exist in the first century. It was a second century philosophy by all account. I pursued with the correction by pointing at him that John in his epistle was fighting Docetism which was a first century heresy that denied the humanity of the person of Jesus Christ. The young man refused to admit this simple kernel of historical truth despite internal evidences to the texts that I raised to his attention. Later on, I found out in my reading research about the counterfeit grace movement that this belief of gnosticism as being a first century phenomenon was not peculiar to my then interlocutor. It seems that this misinformation has been moving from one person to another without any of them actually stopping and thinking for themselves by asking if this statement could be true or not. Frankly, with the advent of internet and google search engine, this would have taken them less than 5 minutes to find out. But as I came to realize, it is not truth that they searched for but it was a form of theological comfort. A theology that didn't call them into repentance as part of the good news of the gospel. They collectively didn't care about truthful statement, or contradictions in their argumentation or incoherence in their thinking, I finally came to realize. All that interested them was to repeat what their authority figure had told them. If it feels good then it must be good they seemed to be thinking.

This is quite a difficult situation to be in for a parent and a family member and friends, when they see their children or brothers, or close friends taking the dishonest path of 'fake grace and/or hyper-grace'. I have been lucky enough that not many people close to me, either family or friends have ever gone the deep end and get totally lost in this fake grace dishonest teachings. But I also know that this is not always the case for some people that I meet who have lost their whole team and club of friends into this intellectually dishonest and spiritual predatory and bankrupt movement.

For this reason, I would like to start a series of posts that will deal with some of the most popular themes that are staple food to the fake grace movement of Rwanda. I hope that by providing these resources, some of you will be equipped to dialogue and exchange with those you have lost to the destructive lies of the 'fake grace' message. And who knows, maybe the Lord will be gracious to them and restore many of your loved ones to reason, truth, light and love of God and of God's Word.

The purpose of my series of posts is not to close or shut the conversation with those of the fake grace movement. The intention is to first equip the untrained Christians who meet these type of fake grace proponents at schools, workplace, choirs, charity club, youth clubs with a sound biblical background so that they may be immune of the the lies of the fake grace movement and so that if they ever get engaged by one, they may know how to respond to them with full conviction and clear responses. I will encourage all my readers in this series to adopt the Berean's attitude. I will quote and link as much as I can to all my sources for your information with the hope that you can go read them and verify. Let us not be like those of the fake grace movement who do not verify what they are taught or what they hear! The first antidote for what is fake is to display what is true, and secondly it is to teach people on how to distinguish between the two.

"The people in Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica. They were so glad to hear the message Paul told them. They studied the Scriptures every day to make sure that what they heard was really true." - Act 17:11 - ERV

Blessings, Spiritual Walk and the Kingdom

A) Unnecessary Distinctions, They are both biblically acceptable!

I am not dogmatic when it comes to some Christian practices. I don't mind when someone tells me, "God bless you" or "Stay blessed" when they wish me well. I sometimes return the blessing in that same format. My problem arises when someone tries to make me choose one of those two statements namely "Stay Blessed" as being the only appropriate way to speak. 

Some seem to have just discovered a great truth about our spiritual position in Christ (Ephesians1:3) and think that this should be the only truth to be believed at the exclusion of all other biblical truths. The reason goes a bit like this, if we are already blessed then there is no more reason to ask for more blessing. Hence the only acceptable way to speak will have to put the blessing in the past tense hence 'Stay blessed'.

Ephesian 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ; 

St. Peter in 1 Peter 1:2 tells us that Grace and peace can be multiplied. This means that a person can have more of these two blessings (grace and peace) which also implies that a person can have less of them as well. And how can a person get more grace? multiplied grace? Peter says it is through the knowledge of God and Jesus that Grace upon ones life can be increased or multiplied. 

"Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord" - 1Peter1:2. 

Hence someone who wish you well by these formula, "Stay blessed" or "God bless you" are both biblically correct. The first one in the past tense, 'Stay blessed', emphasize the truth found in the epistle of Ephesians while the second one, "God bless you", reflect the continuous experience of receiving more blessings as found in the epistle of Peter. Don't let any one cage you or force you in choosing either way of formulating your blessings!

B) Effort and Diligence in our Spiritual Walk

2 Peter1:10, "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:"

St. Peter an old disciple have seen all just like the apostle Paul. People who started in faith and fell away from grace (Galatians 5:4), other who had started their walk with the Lord by faith but never went far because they loved the world more (2 Timothy 4:10). Knowing all these, he pressed the Christian community to make sure and make all effort and be diligent to add godly attributes to their faith (2Pete1:5-7) in order to make their grace given election and calling certain and firm. The logical conclusion from what the apostle Peter is saying is that by lacking in those godly attributes, it will make their election less firm due to their unfruitfulness (2Peter1:9). However, He even promise the Christian community to whom he was writing that by so doing, meaning practicing and incorporating godly attributes to their faith life, they will never fall (2Peter1:10). 

This is a blessed assurance from one of Jesus original apostle himself. A good advise to shout out to all churches in contemporary time and particularly to those movement who could care less about adding to their faith virtues, knowledge and other godly attributes because they don't understand that the grace of God doesn't remove our responsibility to aspire to spiritual growth.

C) The Kingdom of God belong to the Overcomers

From a New Testament perspective, there is a different between the Kingdom of God and Eternal Life. There is a difference between the Kingdom of God and Salvation. It is important to point this out before I proceed discussing below about taking hold of the Kingdom of God before I hear the typical objections about receiving salvation by grace, freely. I agree about salvation being given to us freely (Ephesian 2:8) but this is no the topic I am discussing about below.

2 Peter1:11, "For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

St. Peter is encouraging and reminding believers that by so doing their entrance (which could very well means their call and election they had already received initially when they started believing) into the kingdom of God will be abundantly given to them. God will not deny them to experience what they had been promise if they keep their faith by adding to their faith virtues, knowledge and other godly attributes.

2Peter1:5 (ISV), 'For this very reason, you must make every effort to supplement your faith with moral character, your moral character with knowledge

St. John also heard Jesus warning believers in the Asian Churches with similar saying, reminding them that reigning with Christ (Kingdom of Christ) is not about dead faith which has no deeds/works, but it is about having an active faith. The Kingdom is for the overcomes and that is the themes of the Lord Jesus messages to the 7 Churches in Asia. Read for yourself below how He will give and reward loyalty of those who persevere with the Kingdom:

Rev3:11   " Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown."

Rev3: 21 " To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne."

Rev2:26-27  " And He that overcomes, and keep my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And He shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father."

This is biblical Christianity, not man-made Christianity! 

Biblical Christianity encourages believers to be faithful and active, to be "diligence, not slothful, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord" (Romans12:11) and to be overcomers (Romans12:21). 

However, man-made Christianity requires believers to do nothing because they do not understand what Jesus meant when He said on the cross 'It is finished". They entertain laziness and spiritual unproductivity because they don't understand the Grace of God they like to speak of out of biblical context. That is why many have been conquered by evil instead of overcoming evil (Roman12:11) and they rejoice in sin by refusing to confess their sins because they do not understand the doctrine of repentance of sins (Revelation 2:21) nor do they experience or value the biblical blessing on forgiveness of sins by the blood of Jesus (1John1:9; 1John2:1-2), that is why they are easily overcome by evil and continuously weakening their election (2Peter1:10).

                  Romans 12:21 says, "Do not let evil overcome you, but overcome evil by good".  

Thanksgiving 2016

Happy Thanksgiving to all. There is much to thank the Lord for. It has been quite an eventful year. Some of the things I am grateful for are as follow:

• Early this year 2016, I finally go my driving license. I have been after this one since 2005 when I was still a student in Pretoria. I frankly never thought I will ever see the day when I finally get it. I accepted it and even found a way around it by hiring a personal driver. Thanks to God, my wife wasn't willing to let these crippling experiences stop me. I went for my 'last' driving test warning her that if this failed as the others, I was done with it and she will have to accept it and live with it. That was end 2015. My last test turned out to be great. My execution was flawless. I got my Driving license finally! I still can't believe at time that I've got it. Now I understand why people in Rwanda celebrate as much when they get their driving licence as they do when they graduate from University.

• Talking about graduation .... since I graduated I have longed to go back to school but I was pretty unsuccessful to get an admission that fitted my career path and interest. I then finally got the opportunity to get my admission to one of our elite graduate Business Schools. The entry was competitive and the seat limited. Thanks to God I made it through the entry exams and secured for myself a spot. This was early 2014. Early this year I finally graduated, and got my MBA.

• I am grateful for the way God used this MBA to open for me financial doors since then. In one year, I got into two consultancy related Jobs that went a long way to cover all my outstanding tuition fees in less than a year. Not bad for a first Job. 

• I thank God for allowing me to put my spiritual gifting in the service of the Master for the progress of the Kingdom of God. I have been given opportunities to preach at church settings, christian ministries and christian associations. I have also been involved in Christian apologetic through prolonged debates online (Facebook and What's App). It is always a refreshing moment when the Lord grants me the opportunity to serve him. And for that I am eternally grateful to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

• I thank God for all the opportunities for learning, self-discovery and book readings. I thank God for the good materials that I came across throughout this year and for all the meaningful books and audio-books that were shared with me by good friends.

• How can I end my thanks without mentioning the U.S. Election. I thank the Lord for President-Elect Donald Trump. My friends and families know very well why I am grateful for it, they thought I would never shut up about Trump since I started talking about him in July 2015. It has been a long and tough full year for all Trump supporters, American and otherwise. The finish line on November 8th, 2016 made it worth it and it was unforgettable. I am not about to forget this year any time soon. It was a year of vindication.

I end this post by Thanking my wife, my kid, my friends and my family living in Rwanda and abroad for their love and graciousness. Thank God for all of you, for your good health and I pray that the coming year 2017 be a great and blessed year for you and your loved ones. I wish you all much prosperity and good tidings. God bless you all!

How LHT is trying to 'White-Wash' its History

Hi Joyking, i re-read your blogpost and it is a bit clear that you are being unfair in your argumentation and trying to tilt the balance on Living Holy and Transformed group's (LHT) favor.

I. "If sin was their primary goal i should have experienced quarrels, discord, heinous acts, & greed that can easily be spotted in many churches around."

Could you say that the carnal actions (sins) that you decry in many churches, you did observed them while they were doing their 'Church services'? I bet not. During church services people act and react religiously and present the best aspect of themselves. If you really believe that what you saw in a 'Church service' is a true reflection of people personal lives then I am afraid you give too much credit to human nature than you should. Go even to Jehovah Witness religious services, you will see peace, harmony and friendliness that you saw at 'Good New Missions'. And I bet even the churches infighting you mentioned are not seen nor occurring during their religious services. You can not prove moral uprightness of your movement by simply considering religious services that is designed to exactly look the way they want you to see it. You can't possibly know what is going on behind closed doors. Don't be naive about human nature.

II. "If the message Paul delivered caused people to wonder the same thing today’s people wonder when they hear the message of Grace, shouldn’t that show them people who advocate that message are on Paul’s side relaying the message entrusted to him by Jesus Christ himself?"

This is an excellent question, remain to be seen if the assumption are correct. Is St. Paul teaching on grace similar to LHT message on grace? Let's analyze it.

St. Paul (Bible)	Joyking (LHT)
Rom 6:1, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound?"	People often ask “Then should we continue in sin since all have been forgiven?“

It is clear from both quotations above that the reason those questions were asked were different in purposes. For St. Paul's audience in the first century, it was about the abundance of grace that came after the Mosaic law, while for LHT it is about their claim that all sins have been forgiven and now no more forgiveness is required. These are two different reactions. 

ST. PAUL:

The context of the epistle of Romans give the context on St. Paul question which is totally different from the question asked by Joyking. The verses that preceded Romans 6:1 says, "But the Law entered so that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,"- Romans 5:20. Here, St. Paul is explaining the reason why more grace were given to humanity, and his conclusion is because there were much sin in the world. It is a bit like saying this neighborhood had a lot of electrical power failures (Darkness) that is why we were given much more power generators (Lights) to power up the night. In risk of being misunderstood, one should add, please do not cause more electrical failures (Darkness) in order to cause us to provide even more generators (Light). It is a bit the same logic St. Paul is using.

After presenting the origin of sin in human history (Darkness), he presented the arrival of the solution which is God's grace (Light) through the person of Jesus Christ. That is why were read, "so that as sin has reigned to death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." - Romans 5:21. In fear of being misunderstood, St. Paul quickly clarify that even though divine Grace (Light) was a divine response to our sinful life (Dark), we shouldn't justify living sinful lives in order to see more grace coming our way. St. Paul makes a correlation between Sin and Grace, but reject the causal link between Sin and Grace. Sin doesn't cause Grace, even though the presence of Grace is correlated with the existence of sin. As it has been known in intellectual circle, correlation is not causation.

But this is not what LHT says and I hope no longer says even though there is some evidence that the wrong views that they used to espouse is not completely removed from their ever changing and morphing theologies.

JOYKING:

The context of Joyking statement, (a LHT proponent of the 'new grace' message), is about people legitimately asking them, if ALL sins (past, present, future) have already been forgiven as he claims, then the spiritual condition of someone who 'sin' and the one who doesn't 'sin' are the same. Then what would be the value of choosing one lifestyle over the other lifestyle since we are the same in the end anyhow? This is a legitimate question regardless of LHT side stepping this questions each time they have the opportunity to do so instead of dealing with that legitimate concern. Because if my moral and spiritual status is the same regardless of what i do, sinful or not, then there is no legitimate reason to choose one way of living over any other way of living. This is unfortunately not far from an Atheistic way of 'relativizing' morality. 

Case in point. A LHT lady who had at least the sense to recognize the problem tried to point out that there were a difference between a Christian who has sinned and a christian who has not sinned. She explains:

Does a young girl who sins against her father become a cast out of the family? No. A Godly father will forgive his children unconditionally. However, a good relationship between the child and the father can not be achieved unless they are in good terms. This is when the child confesses her mistakes to her father and apologizes. 

 She continues in her LHT typical rational, trying to obfuscate the obvious tension between LHT belief and Biblical scriptures:

Since Jesus died to pay the penalty for all of our sins, why we we still need to confess then?

 Her answer is nothing new since it has been the answers offered by the Christian community for as long as I can remember.

The same thing that happens when a child sins against her father is an analogy of what happens when we sin too. Our fellowship with God is hindered until we confess our sins. When we confess our sins to God, the fellowship is restored. 

The only way out she could find is to come back to what Christians have been saying all along. But she can't explain why confess a sin that has already been forgiven which is a sheer contradiction and an illogical thing to do if you think about it. The reason sins are confessed is for one purpose only, it is for forgiveness: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." - 1 John 1:9. 

The biblical logic is clear:  "We confess, He forgive". One action cause the other, that is why the verse start with an "IF" conditional. Action (Confess), Promise (Forgiveness). The LHT lady must have sensed that, when she read this verse for it was the verse that caused her to write that blog post in the first place, but she couldn't satisfactorily reach a reasonable, biblical conclusion while holding to her LHT non biblical views that all sins of humanity have already been forgiven and no longer need forgiveness. Joyking in the comment section of that same article by the the LHT Lady comes to her rescue by downplaying the value of confession. Here is what he says:

either u confess or not you will inherit the Kingdom of God through Faith alone in Christ… yet its always good to confess(Admit) your wrongdoing to God & if u find it convenient say “Sorry” as well to restore the sense of comfortable fellowship to yourself when you approach God to talk to him for any other reason.

It is clear that Joyking, I assume it is an LHT view he represents, do not see confession as St. John presented it, 'Confess - be forgiven'. Actually, he believes that confessing is always a good thing to do in order to restore a sense of comfort to one'self. Unlike the young lady who is trying to restore the fellowship between a child and her father, Joyking interrupts her thinking. 'No, not to you and God', he might have exclaimed. 'It is for your own comfort. For yourself. God doesn't care anymore for He has already forgiven all your sins that you will ever do', he is matter of fact telling her. 

WHY PEOPLE KEEP ASKING

No wonder people keep asking them if grace means we have an open door to do anything we want as long as it doesn't disturb our mental 'comfort'. Joyking regards Confessing as a modern day self therapy. Apparently, not all LHT members are aware of that yet, for some are still trying to humble themselves to God in order to receive forgiveness of theirs sins as the bible teaches and restore their fellowship. "No consequences can ever come from your sins, for after all you have been forgiven", they try to reassure themselves. Hence flying against all biblical admonishment about sins in the holy scriptures. St. Paul takes great pain to correct Joyking almost 2000 years in advance that, 'Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor abusers, nor homosexuals,' -1 Corinthians 6:9. It makes one wonders why would Joyking who think that he is thinking in the same line of reasoning as the apostle Paul would clearly and explicitely contradict St. Paul with a statement such as this: 'either u confess or not you will inherit the Kingdom of God through Faith alone in Christ'. So much for 'Living Holy'.

This is exactly why people are asking you those questions. Are you promoting sins? Or to better rephrase it, are you promoting the view that there is no consequences to any sins Christians might do? St. Paul answers to that was crystal clear then and it is crystal clear now, 'Do not deceive yourselves ... those who practice sins will not inherit the Kingdom of God' unlike what LHT and all those 'new grace' movement are saying. 

So Joyking, please stop trying so hard to 'White-wash' your anti-biblical doctrinal history. It is clear your movement (LHT) has made a progress though since 2012, at least you now admit the existence of sins which you denied with all strength and might then, and you now can conceive of a 'good' reason for confessing sins; which was the subject of ceaseless debate then. That's already a start. However, you still have a long way to go through in integrating all biblical truths to your LHT doctrinal arsenal which I fear is still lacking.

In all good conscious you shouldn't compare what St. Paul was saying and what LHT and its 'New grace' movement are saying. It is totally different as day and night.

Let us echo St. Paul's admonishment,

 "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under Law, but under grace? Let it not be!" Romans 6:15.