Month: March 2026

Faith’s Hearing

eejoseph, , , ,

We have thought that Abraham was a man who was an unusual recipient of grace as far as we can detect in the aspects of his life we have on record

James’ “faith and works” is a nothing burger.

Abraham was not called to believe. He was called to leave his home. The stages of his life do not include his witness of a large family dwelling in the land of Canaan. Here are the stages of the man’s life.

  • The call and election
  • The journey to Canaan
  • The promise of greatness
  • The promise of fame
  • The promise of blessing
  • The promise of land
  • The promise of multitudinous progeny

Reality is not from obedience or hearing

If obedience and loyalty are the guaranties of real divine wealth this  is not demonstrated in the Bible, because Abraham did not set foot in the promised land and never saw the multitude of us family for which he believed God.

Hearing God’s voice= compliance

Reading that the blessing of all the earth’s families is a result of Abraham’s attention to YHWH’s voice comes as a surprise because the idea that Abraham earned these outcomes seems antithetical to grace. The fact however that this particular promise is guaranteed by an oath makes debt or performance irrelevant.  James, the Pharisee brother of the Lord Christ makes shipwreck of this abundant grace when he equates works (of any kind) with faith.

Oaths override regulations

Genuine happiness – blessedness – will appear at God’s prerogative, not as an earned reward

“What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, And whose sins have been covered. “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. (Romans 4:1-8, NASB)

Far too many people are swimming in a puddle and they are convinced that the actions they carry out will impress people that they are swimming in the wide open and beautiful ocean of grace. Hearing God’s voice does not mean juvenile obedience. In the case of Abraham and the list mass of mankind, hearing God’s voice means abandoning the current life support: one’s country, one’s relatives and one’s ancestral ties.

Stop being ridiculous with born again 2.0

eejoseph

Many believers are obsessed with death and dying and often they’re off on the wrong foot.  When believers are born again or converted they do not merely acquire a new set of behaviors or find themselves free from unhealthy patterns of behavior. They are actually renewed, made new, from above. Believers are not contributors to conversion: Christ does that in a sovereign manner apart from the will or willpower of any human being. So why are so many people talking about dying to themselves every day as if they did not die with Christ and were transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, and removed from death row as it were to complete freedom and vindication? If you are one of those who think a person can be born again again this is for you.

Not accepting Christ as the truth

Paul talks about people who came to see or recognize God but they didn’t configure their minds to embrace him as absolutely unique. That response resulted in darkness enveloping their mind and God gave them up to think whatever they wanted to think and to behave in whatever way they wanted to behave. God is decidedly not a creature, is unlike human beings and angels.

Didn’t Christ say that everyone who has taken a bath only needs to wash his feet?

Jesus said to [Peter], “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” (John 13:10)

Nobody needs to be born again again. Only the totally brainwashed people think like that. I will tell you how deadly that avenue is.

We know that God expects diligence from the followers of Jesus and circumspection to interact with other people. There was no command at the creation of human beings “You shall not sin”, so to argue that sinlessness was a goal is ridiculous beyond measure.  If the same conditions are extant in the new covenant unveiling we have no reason to see anything besides failure.

On the wrong road again

eejoseph, , ,

Baptism counts can be useful for some things, but on their own they are a very unreliable measure of genuine evangelistic or discipleship success.

Talk about baptisms in your church and the only time that you will hear a Thank God or a Hallelujah is when the numbers of baptisms are mentioned, no matter how small that number.  Do you realize that this is the cover story for an operation off the rails?

Most churches are not making disciples of jesus, but they are doing is actually having members to the church based on the acceptance of the churches doctrinal statement.  It is time for a true confession from the leaders of most of the churches that are claiming either to be the true church or to have the Spirit of God as their distinctive feature.

Imagine that a church can point to its large conventions or its weekly fellowship meals as signs of evangelistic or pastoral success, and you have a revolving snapshot of churches in failure mode.