STAY ON THE ROAD!
STAY ON THE ROAD!
Jesus is talking to His disciple Thomas and in John 14:6 He says: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
We Christians should walk on “the Jesus-road.” We have an expression saying that all roads are leading towards Rome, but all roads are not leading to Rome and not to Heaven either, but if we walk on the “Jesus-road”, we will get there. The headline of my writing might indicate that it is easy to fall off the road, but I would say both no and yes to that. When you have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you are a child of God. You are born again and belong to the Lord. When we have become a child of God, we are under His love and protection and He is the best father we can have. We are never left alone and we have angels around us watching over us and ministering to us. The Holy Spirit is our Helper and we can talk to the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit all day long. What a privilege! The Bible describes in Luke 15 how the father was waiting for the lost son to come back. Another story describes how the shepherd leaves the 99 sheep in order to find the lost one. I seriously do not believe that you are a child of God one day and get lost the next day. I myself had a time when I was young. I didn’t live right, but hadn’t denied God. I wondered if God had cut me off as a branch from the tree, but He said that I had lived in a time of grace. He gave me a choice to return to Him fully and I confessed my sins and asked both Him and people for forgiveness. I know the Lord much better today and I have tasted that He is good and if I should have done the same sins today, I seriously believe that the time of grace would have been much shorter. May God keep me on the road in an intimate relationship with my Jesus.
My Father in Heaven loves me and will try everything He can to keep me as His child,
but if I choose to live a life in disobedience, it will have consequences and can lead to the fact that I become a backslider and eventually a non-believer.
How can I say that it is possible to lose the membership of the Kingdom of God? You can read Matthew 7:21-23. It says that there are those saying that they have prophesied and driven out demons in the name of Jesus. Others have done wonders in His name, but the Lord says that He never knew them. They live a lawless life. We can also read about the ten virgins, but only five were allowed to the wedding in Heaven. I am so thankful that I am not allowed to make the final judgment.
When we are walking on the “Jesus-road”, we might easily fall in one or the other ditch. We might overemphasize one thing and ignore another thing and that creates an unbalance. I will continue to write about this.
The Bible describes what all believers should do and then it describes the different functions, callings and gifts. Some things are for everybody and some things are different according to the calling of the individual Christian. Mark 16 says that everybody believing in Jesus should be baptized. I seriously do not believe that a small baby has any faith. Then it goes on to mention the signs that should follow the believers in Christ. They will cast out demons, speak in new tongues and lay hands on the sick. Neither deadly poison nor snakes should harm them. I react when they talk about demonology as something special or call those speaking in tongues for super Christians. All Christians should speak in tongues, cast out demons and lay hands on the sick with a promise of becoming well.
I have been to quite a lot of churches and congregations and I have not found many with a healthy balance between the different callings and gifts of the Spirit. We are calling some churches for faith-churches and others have a prophetic mark on them. Some churches think mostly about the young people and others on the families. Some churches have their focus on getting people saved and coming into the church while others become introvert. Some are focusing on receiving and being in the presence of the Lord while others focus on doing.
When one is supposed to give birth, one pushes and then relaxes. One is constantly changing from one to the other. They are both equally important in order to get a healthy baby out alive and whole.
I believe that we should change between resting in faith and working for Him. Some people have their identity in what they are doing and their focus will be in what they are doing then. Do you know that you are loved no matter how little or how much you do? The letter to the Romans 5:8 says that Christ died for us when we were sinners. He loves us, but He is totally dependent on us and it is therefore very important that we do what we are called to and asked to do. We should have our identity in being His loved child, but we are His mouth, hands and feet and to do the things He can’t do because He is in Heaven.
If we only are lying in His presence and enjoy Him, we are doing one thing that is necessary, but that is only one side of the “coin”. The Bible says: Pray and work. We must be with the Lord in order to know what to do and we need His anointing to do the things we should. One ditch is only to receive and to receive. The other one is to be so busy that you forget that He is the One giving you the power and wisdom. We must receive in order to give, but we should not be so egoistic that we keep what we have gotten for ourselves.
We have many ditches. I myself do quite a lot of deliverance, but I cannot look for the devil everywhere. He is not behind every bush. I must be careful in order to avoid an exaggerated focus on the devil. Our focus should be on Jesus. I love Him and serve Him. He lives in me and has saved me. If I only should be busy with deliverance, I would have fallen in a ditch. I must praise and worship my Lord, read the Word, speak in tongues and be with other fellow-believers. I should also be a witness to non-believers and take my time with the Lord, Himself. What does He has to say?
Some people are so focused on people being saved that they forget their own time with the Lord and the fellowship with other believers. Others are so introvert that they forget to give birth to spiritual children. This is not healthy. I know people giving birth to new believers that forget to train them. They are so afraid of becoming religious that they do not tell the new born children what is wrong and right. Religion is a snare, but so is lawlessness. Newborn babies need love and support, but also boundaries.
I do not like religion, but I do not want to fall in the ditch of chaos and lawlessness. Some people talk only about the grace. We are born by grace and we are dependent on His grace every day, but we the Bible is full of spiritual principles that should be followed. God is also a god of order. We must not say that we are led by the Spirit as an excuse for our flesh. I believe that there should be certain boundaries without stopping the Holy Spirit.
Some are only singing new songs and choruses and throw away a treasure of old songs and psalms. Others throw away everything new. We have a tendency to say either this or that. I could have written pages about ditches, but I think you got the point. Jesus wants us to have our focus on Him without any prejudices and selfish barriers. Jesus is both the Way, the Truth and the Life. He will help us in our daily walk. He will help us with our calling. He will help us helping others. Let us open ourselves for all of Him.
Jesus says:
HERE IS THE WAY, WALK ON IT!
Mother Else