By looking at the overly seeker sensitive Evangelical church today, if you didn’t know better, you would think that the life of the Christian is to try desperately to find the mysterious purpose that God has for you so that you’ll be able to peacefully live within the world. But then, maybe what the born-again believer in Christ needs to do is withdraw further into himself in a frantic search for a deep mystical communion with the presence of God where you find Him. Or, perhaps those in the true Body of Christ should begin once again to trust in God–just as their Lord did when He was here on His earth.

The Human Side Of Christ

Our subject in this article involves your primary responsibility to your Lord Jesus as one of His chosen. By this I am referring to the main reason that God Almighty didn’t just immediately rapture you up from this earth when you first surrendered your life to Christ, why it is that He leaves those of us who are Christians down here in this sinful cesspool of a world system. As we begin, let’s turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 14, going right to the top, and verse 1. Christ Jesus is speaking – Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me. A very good idea right here is to be sure and simply take Jesus at His Word. The wonderful truth is that no matter what this world may throw at you just remember, you truly can overcome worry, anxiety, confusion–whatever it is that may be upsetting you–just by making a conscious decision to place your complete trust in God the Father, and God the Son, by the power of God the Holy Spirit.

There you go, the Holy Trinity: The one true and living LORD God Almighty; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, living within those of us who are Christians. So, using some basic logic here, since God is the Creator of this entire universe, exactly what can happen to you that He wouldn’t be able to take care of? And that’s the security all of us have as His dear children eternally sealed in Christ. Beloved, may we always remember to encourage one another to trust in God, just as the Lord Himself is asking us to do here in this passage of John, and especially so as this apostasy continues to spread like spiritual wildfire.

Let’s go a little further down in John 14 as I draw your attention to what the Master would have us do as we place our trust in Him. Look for a moment at verse 12. Jesus continues – I tell you the truth, anyone – [obviously this will include you and me, because we are this anyone] – I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing. Space doesn’t allow us to go into all of the “what” that Jesus of Nazareth had been doing, but what I would like to point out in particular is that Jesus, in addition to His essential nature as God, also added a human nature. Sadly, so many Evangelicals are now beginning to be adversely affected by what can only be called atrocious doctrine, which has slithered in unaware, for example Open Theology.

The Modern Mythology Of God

The “openness of God,” a nebulous type of mythology which attempts to instruct us that the LORD God Who created this immense universe is not entirely in charge of all events within it because He cannot be everywhere present. And further, this fatally defective view concerning our Creator’s true nature actually goes on to teach that God Almighty can’t foresee the future either as He doesn’t know everything that is going to happen because of the fictitious “free-will” of man. However, this idiotic theology is in reality merely a philosophy (aka doctrines of demons) that is part of Satan’s ongoing attempts to lessen the infinite omnipotence; omnipresence; and omniscience of our Lord, thereby endeavoring to make God seem more like human beings. So it should immediately become evident to the discerning Christian that this heresy is in fact simply the flip side of the Devil’s oldest lie to mankind: And you will be like God (Genesis 3:5). Will these fools ever learn?

And astoundingly, right on top of this kind of nonsense, largely through the inroads made by LDS apologist Robert Millet within the increasingly ineffectual Evangelical community, there are even members of the Body of Christ who are currently making previously implausible preparations to embrace the non-Christian cult of Mormonism as a legitimate form of orthodox Christianity. My point here being, as this spiritual lunacy continues to grow, it becomes more imperative than ever that we come to fully comprehend the Cardinal doctrine of the full Deity of Christ as taught by the classic historic orthodox Christian Church for some two thousand years now. For our purposes right here though, I just want to emphasize that as a Man on earth, Jesus chose to set aside His “rights” to act as God and was willing to function just the same as you and I do in our day to day lives. The fact is that the Bible quite plainly teaches that Christ Jesus of Nazareth lived on earth as a Man indwelt by God through the Holy Spirit just as we are presently doing.

In Philippians 2:5 we read – Your attitude – [yours and mine as Christians] – Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus; Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. There are other ways that we can go here, but I want you to see is, the Bible unmistakably teaches that Jesus of Nazareth, verse 6 – Who, being in very nature God…verse 7 – became made in human likeness. In other words, in His incarnation–His Virgin Birth–God the Son, second Person of the Holy Trinity, voluntarily chose to “empty” Himself of His right to act as God and agreed to live on earth as a Human Being, exactly as you and I as Christians can right now. Of course He didn’t have our sinful nature because of His nature as Deity, but it is important for you to keep in mind here that Christ Jesus was in actual fact a Man. As such then, the Master truly was the second Adam. Do you see what I’m getting at? God the Father, because of the saving work of God the Son–His living the perfect life as a Man and then dying in our place–substituting His life for ours–God desires to “recreate” the life of the Son of God and the Son of Man in each of us by the power of God the Holy Spirit!

I pray that this is making sense for you now? The Bible tells us – Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17), and again – [you] have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Colossians 3:10). And God’s Word is not speaking of some abstract concept here, for the glorious truth that Satan does not want the Christian to understand is this: To the exact proportion that each of us will surrender control of our “old” lives to Christ Jesus, God the Holy Spirit will then fill that space in you. More and more each day as we then let God transform us in our inner nature, which we refer to as our spirit, we will receive His power to live as the Master did while He was here on His earth. Let me ask you a question: Do you seriously think you need a better purpose for your life than that!

Since this most basic issues of the Christian faith has become so clouded in the bad teaching currently perforating the contemporary Evangelical community, let me remind you of the Lord’s plan for His adopted children in Christ in our daily lives. Come with me to Romans, chapter 12, and verse 1. Many Bibles will have a heading here that reads: “Living Sacrifices.” Romans 12:1 – Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy – [His mercy in saving you, which none of us deserve] – I urge you, brothers [and sisters–the girls don’t get out of this one] – I urge you [all of us who are Christians] – in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. [You may recall we have just seen this in Colossians 3:10 as well.] Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will. Now can you begin to see why the average Evangelical “Christian” in this country is so clueless?

The Rapidly Shrinking Standard Of The Christian Church In America

If the Lord is willing, another time we’ll dive into this deep passage of Scripture, but for now, let me just tie up this part of my teaching here with John 14. This is what I would like you to remember. If we, who are called into Christ’s Church, will merely allow God the Holy Spirit to continue to fill us, then we–and yes, I do mean you and I–we truly can become more and more like Jesus every single day! We have now brought to light what has been so glaringly missing from far too many Christian’s lives right now in this pitiful and pathetic narcissistic nation. And this is also exactly where the seeker sensitive Church Growth Movement went so off track.

The Purpose Driven Life as taught by Rick Warren completely misses the mark [hamartia] of the sacrificial nature of the life to which the true believer in Jesus Christ is called while still on this earth in order to demonstrate before the world the power of God in our lives. The Bible says – But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us (2 Corinthians 4:7, KJV). The true Christian is to surrender his life to Christ as a “bond-slave” (doulos in Greek) for their Lord and Master, offering it up in gratitude to His Savior–and letting God do whatever He will with it–just as Jesus Himself did while He was on earth. But let us contrast this with what we are told by Warren, who has this entire process backward in his book The Purpose-Driven Life:

[God] created the church to meet your five deepest needs: a purpose to live for, people to live with, principles to live by, a profession to live out, and power to live on. There is no other place on earth where you can find all five of these benefits in one place (p.136, emphasis added).

And Richard Bennett, a former Roman Catholic priest, is telling us the absolute truth when points out the grave flaw in the self-centered philosophy of the Purpose Driven Life and its putrefying ecumenical root:

Warren is dead wrong in his list of “deepest needs”. On the authority of the Bible, the first and foremost need of any man is perfect righteousness before the All Holy God. It is Christ Jesus’ righteousness alone that God will accept as a propitiation for any man’s sin and sin nature. This primary need of man is constantly shown in the Bible but Warren does not even mention this foundational truth in his list of “deepest needs”. Warren’s quick switch from God’s purpose to man’s methods falls under the first temptation ever recorded in the Bible. Satan offered to Eve the fruit as the way of achieving a spiritual purpose, “in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Warren teaches that God “created the church to meet your five deepest needs” just as the Roman Catholic Church says, “The Church is the mother of all believers.” Warren, like Rome, has switched from obedience to the Word and Person of the Living God to submission to a church to achieve one’s needs. It is the oldest and cleverest temptation known to man (http://www.bereanbeacon.org/articles/rick_warren_purpose_driven.htm,bold in original).

This is what I alluded to earlier. It will be helpful for you to come to know that Satan has had a two-pronged strategy right from the very beginning of his dastardly assault on mankind: A) Get man not to believe what God says. If he is unable to do that, then the Devil immediately turns to plan B) Get man to misunderstand what God means by what He says. And it is this second plan that the enemy of men’s souls is joyously accomplishing right now through Rick Warren, perhaps unknowingly; but nonetheless, for those with ears that hear and eyes that see (Proverbs 20:12), it has become painfully obvious that Satan’s diabolical scheme is working to an terrorizing degree in the mega-churches of this ill-advised seeker sensitive movement.

As Matt Costella astutely observes in his An Analysis Of Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life:

For any true believer embarking on a “spiritual journey,” nothing is more foundational, and thus important, than properly understanding the Word of God, for God’s Word alone provides the believer with inerrant instruction for Christ-honoring Christian living. In other words, how to properly understand and interpret Scripture is a vital part of one’s “spiritual journey.” Promotional material for The Purpose-Driven® Life and the 40 Days of Purpose campaigns frequently stresses the Biblical nature of the program, for Warren cites over 1,200 Scripture verses in his book. Yet The Purpose-Driven® Life is seriously flawed, hermeneutically speaking, in three ways: First, Warren completely misinterprets and misapplies certain texts; second, Warren presupposes his own ideas and beliefs and then “proof-texts” his points rather than exegeting the Scriptural text in order to discover its true meaning; and third, several paraphrases and translations used by Warren may prove his points, but they fail to relate even remotely the true meaning of the underlying Greek or Hebrew text (copy on file).

Years before A.W. Tozer made this poignant observation about the Evangelical church as it began its erosion in this nation:

At this hour in world history the state of religion is such that the Church is in grave danger of losing [the spiritual treasures of God’s wisdom]. Her gold is being turned to copper and her diamonds to glass. The religion of Cain is now in ascendency–and marching under the banner of the cross.

Even among those who make a great noise about believing the Bible, that Bible has practically no influence left. Fiction, films, fun, frolic, religious entertainment, Hollywood ideals, big business techniques and cheap, worldly philosophies now overrun the sanctuary. The grieved Holy Spirit broods over the chaos but no light breaks forth. “Revivals” come without rousing the hostility of organized sin and pass without raising the moral level of the community or purifying the lives of professing Christians. Why?

Could it be that too many of God’s true children…are sinning against God by guilty silence? When those whose eyes are opened by the touch of Christ become vocal and active God may begin to fight again on the side of truth (Tozer On The Holy Spirit, September 5)

All of the above also explains why the Evangelical church is embracing the messed up mysticism of the Emergent Church Movement, which is playing the same dangerous game of trying to be Christian while not having the Christ of Holy Scripture. In his very insightful article The Death Knell for the Emergent Church Movement faithful pastor Ron Gleason is so right when he points out:

Bad theology usually manifests itself in an attack on the ordinary means of grace that God gave to the Church of Jesus Christ. We also need to understand that when such an attack occurs, it is not an isolated event. Rather, it extends its tentacles across a wide range of biblical truths and everything-either directly or indirectly-becomes infected, tainted. Whatever the current language of the attack is-either frontal or subtle-we should not spend a lot of time attempting to “appreciate” what precious little good in found in the movement itself…

The latest shenanigan of the movement is to speak of the Bible not as the Word of God, but as “God’s story.” The argument runs something like this: “The real Word of God is Jesus, not the Bible; that’s what John 1:1 teaches.” I chuckled a little as I read a recent email about his very subject. The ECM adherents claim that this paradigm shift in no way changes their views on inerrancy or the authority of the Bible or does it deny the fact that Scripture is working in their heart…

In November 2004, Christianity Today (or Astray) carried an article on the Emergent Church Movement. The author, Andy Crouch, focuses [part of] the article on…Rob Bell, the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church… Bell told Crouch that “after launching Mars Hill in 1999, they (Rob and his wife Kristen) found themselves increasingly uncomfortable with church”… Whatever happened, the Bells did the unthinkable: They “started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself.” Uh-oh… The Bells began looking at “the Bible as a human product…rather than the product of divine fiat.” Surprise! Surprise! Rob explains, “The Bible is still the center for us, but it’s a different kind of center.” No further explanation? That’s it? A different kind of center is like a square circle. It’s in the center, but it isn’t. Cute. Cutting edge. It’s the sound of one hand clapping-in the center that’s the center except it isn’t the center. Got it? Continuing Rob says, “We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it.” I’m guessing that he means the mystery of the Trinity or predestination. (http://www.challies.com/community/archives/001187.php)

And Now We Can All Unite Around The Big Man Upstairs

Dear Christian, it is way passed time to wake up! How can one possibly claim to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and then not have the same view of the Holy Scriptures that their Teacher taught His disciples to have? The Scriptures that He inspired I might add! What in the world will have to happen for the Church of Jesus Christ to finally say: Enough with this mockery of everything our Master stood for! Once and for all, think about it– please. If Jesus of Nazareth was actually like the pathetic effeminate mealy-mouthed caricature that is portrayed by the cardboard cut-out Christian Church in this timidly tepid generation, who in the world would have feared Him enough to engineer His brutal crucifixion? Instead, would not the Jewish leaders of our Lord’s day have quickly made Jesus their chief spokesman, for He would have been the ultimate politician – “Yeah, tell everyone exactly what they want to hear, and they’ll all love you!” Please!

And the fact that the Word Faith Movement is even considered as any part whatsoever of the Evangelical church just shows how extraordinarily low the standards of discernment of professing Christians has sunk in this era. Here is a so-called Christian theology that has all the marks of a non-Christian cult, in fact Dr. Walter Martin, who was the leading authority on religious movements originating in the United States, even did label this spiritual bowel movement exactly that in an audio tape entitled “The Health And Wealth Cult.” Current cult leader Kenneth Copeland has taught–among a number of other blatant heresies–that God the Father “has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s.” Oops, I’m sorry–that quote actually came from the “Prophet” Joseph Smith, founder of the non-Christian cult known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Here is what Copeland has said:

God is a being who stands approximately six feet tall, weighs some two hundred pounds, and looks exactly like a man (as cited in Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, p.497)…[God is a] being that is very uncanny the way He’s very much like you and me. A being that stands somewhere around 6’2”, 6’3”, who weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple hundred pounds, little better, [and] has a [hand] span of nine inches across (Kenneth Copeland, “Spirit, Soul and Body I,” audiotape #01-0601, side 1).

Oh sure, we are told that this “Evangelical” doctrine is much different than the LDS Church’s absurd presumption that “as man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.” No wonder that spiritually obtuse Evangelical leaders are now getting ready to welcome the Mormon Church into the fold. So what lunacy is next; a final Crusade for the compromised with Billy Graham sharing the platform with the Vicar of antichrist Pope Benedict XVI, the Pied Piper of Purpose Driven Rick Warren, the Submergent Church with Brian McLaren, the Tall Tales of Brother Kenneth Copeland–with a closing appeal for all of us to become gods of our own planets from God’s mouthpiece of earth LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley? Dr. Martin, who must be rolling over in his grave by now, was once asked if believers in Christ could actually be involved with this aberration or that heresy? He replied: “Oh yes, Christians can do a lot of stupid things.” How tragically right he was.

What needs to be reintroduced into the Church of our Lord here in America is that our Creator is not the least bit worried that His children may suffer a bit as we make our pilgrimage through this cursed creation. Although man-centered (read that self-occupied) theology has been able to convince much of what is passing for the Christian Church in this country that this is not so, the stone cold fact remains that the mere repetition of a false message–no matter how vociferously it may be presented–will never make it true. And the absolute truth is that the Evangelical community decided long ago that the key to “success” was to play to mankind’s sinful selfish nature, which has always wanted to believe that we have a mandate from God to just take it easy today. However, the Christ we say we love is not fooled, for He knows that the Bible says of Him:

During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered (Hebrews 5:7-8)

O how fortunate it is for today’s compromised Christian that we don’t have to do anything but to make the ultimate “sacrifice” of enjoying all the best creature comforts this world has to offer, and then we get to go home to glory! Wow; just think of it, the peace and joy of heaven on earth, and then eternal bliss in Heaven forevermore. What a deal. Why, with an unbeatable offer like that, it’s no wonder that America is a Christian country! Remember: One Nation Under God, and other such frivolous fantasies.

Now More Than Ever We Must Do Greater Things

As I stated previously, the standards of what constitutes the Church of Jesus Christ have tumbled so low–a spiritual “all the oxen in free” approach to Christianity–that we have forgotten what Christ Jesus is going to remind us of right now. We turn our attention back to our passage in John 14. With all of what we have just learned fresh in our minds, now verse 12 should come alive for you. In point of fact, it should even go right into you, and hopefully it will also become your goal from now on. In John 14:12 Jesus Himself is quoted by the Apostle John–our eyewitness to this teaching from our Master–as saying: I tell you the truth, anyone – [remember; every Christian is included as this “anyone”] – anyone who has faith in Me will do what I am doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. Now you might ask: What does Jesus mean here by greater things? Oh, and that’s such a great question! I’m so glad you asked. Our Lord is trying to get us to understand that because He has sent God the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, God the Father can now replicate Christ Jesus in each of us, and then spread the Gospel message through all of us who are His children! Just as Jesus Himself once did, we who are His regenerated disciples can also tell others about God in the places He has planted each of us; because instead of the Master being limited to a human body in 1st century Palestine–Jesus now lives inside His children all over the world!

In commenting on this verse 12 Dr. Edwin Blum of Dallas Theological Seminary writes:

[Christians] would not necessarily do more stupendous miracles that Jesus did (e.g., feeding 5,000) but their outreach would be greater (e.g., Peter in one sermon had 3,000 converts). This was because Jesus had gone to the Father and had sent the Spirit. Miracles are important, but [we] have done even greater things than these by preaching the good news to [virtually the entire world now].

As Christians then, our primary responsibility is to be living sacrifices, allowing God to transform our minds to think as He does as we read and study the Bible, and to allow the Holy Spirit to transform us inside, so we will then live as Jesus would live, wherever it happens to be that the Lord has placed us. Does this all make sense now? For this is the life of the true Christian in a nutshell; so to speak, and it is at precisely this point that the American Evangelical Protestant church is so demonstrably failing God today.

Do you remember the What Would Jesus Do campaign? Regardless of the obvious excesses that went with it, this is what they were talking about. And if we truly do want to fulfill the actual biblical mission Christ has for His Church as we near the end of this Age of Grace, then we need to ask ourselves this question before we do anything that we prepare to do each day. But for now; we look back up to verse 10 here in John 14 where Jesus says – Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in Me? The words I say to you are not just My Own. Rather, it is the Father, living in Me, Who is doing the work. This is a very, very important thing to understand if you’d really like to please God, and to have an intimate relationship with the best Friend you could ever have!

Our Lord Jesus is teaching us here that by the very same Source of power He lived in while on here on earth–God the Holy Spirit–we also can unleash His very same power into our own lives by being obedient to the Word of God, as was our Lord. We are to follow His Example, because the Bible tells us, as we saw earlier, that as born again Christians we have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Colossians 3:10). And John 1:3 enlightens us that Christ Jesus of Nazareth is our Creator as – Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. Beloved, the time has arrived for us to stop listening to the defeated Devil and to finally remember who we are in Christ!

I leave you with this: It is written – this is how we know we are in [God]: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk [in this life] as Jesus did (1 John 2:5b,6). Noted Christian writer Elizabeth Elliot, whose missionary husband Jim was murdered–literally giving his life to Christ–in the course of his work for Jesus, has said:

The relationship between God and man is a very practical one. It finds its sphere of operation in the common life. Let’s not forget that any relationship whatever between God and man rests today on the fact that God Himself lived the life of a common man. Jesus of Nazareth was born in a stable, sweated in a carpenter shop, preached from a little fishing boat, sat down tired beside a well and conversed with a courtesan, ate and drank and walked with ordinary men, and submitted to an ignoble death–in order that we might recognize Him. Nobody called Jesus a hero or a martyr. He was simply doing what His Father told Him to do, and doing it with delight.

Those who want to know Him must walk the same path with Him. These are the “martyrs” in the Scriptural sense of the word, which means simply “witnesses.” In life, as well as death, we are called to be “witnesses” to bear the stamp of Christ, and to walk with the Father just as Jesus Himself did.

May the Church never forget, that as His Christians, we are the world’s “Bibles,” and every day people around us are carefully “reading” our lives. So let us turn our backs–once and for all–on these things taught by demons and return to living in such a way that the lost people of this pagan nation that our Lord has sent us to serve God in can “see” Christ Jesus more clearly as we go about our business each day. Beloved remember, it is our mission as the Body of Christ to lift up the banner of our great God and Savior for this whole world to see–no matter the cost–for the only hope these doomed people have of avoiding an eternity in the fires of Hell are found in these Words from the Master: “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32).

Or…do we even believe this anymore…