sorry but your doctrine does not pass the test.
Why would Jesus exhort his follows to strive to be perfect if it was impossible for them to be perfect?
Do you know how hard it was for the doctors to get my mentally ill stepsister to take her medicine? She said she didn't need it. She said she wasn't sick.
What was the 613 commandments for? To show you your condition. The law was a mirror to show us our condition but you don't go to the mirror to get clean. You go to the mirror to see that you are dirty.
No chuck, the law was given as a light to the nations. The law was given to teach people to distinguish between clean and unclean, right and wrong, true and false, good and evil so they might learn to be holy as God is holy in a world that had been for billions of years without shape and void; and darkness covered the face of the deep.
Listen Chuck, it is well known that Jesus taught that obedience to the law, according to his divine revelation, is the way to life.
If you don't care to observe any of the commands of God that scripture teaches is the only way to eternal life, go for it. Just don't blame it on Jesus......Anyone who cares to check the facts will realize that you have either made great errors in your own speculations or you have been misled yourself.
Either way for you to mislead others at this point amounts to intentional sin, specifically murder.
Your answers are astonishing me today, Hobelim. You are very, very close to the truth here. What Jesus taught was that "He" is the way to life. He is the the truth, the way and the life - and the door through which we enter in - by His Blood - into the Most Holy Place - having fellowship with G-d the Father. You are right on the mark with your quoting of 1 John 1 : 4 - 10, Hobelim.
Jesus also said, If you love me? You will keep my commandments. He didn't say he would keep them for us. He said to his followers, YOU WILL keep them. If they don't? Well, this is why Jesus said, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would be in heaven where as those who didn't strive ( agonize ) to enter in the strait gate but chose the wide path instead - were cast into outer darkness where there would be weep and gnashing of teeth.
It is our Love for Jesus Christ that will assure we keep his commandments and obey Him. It is the desire of our heart to obey God! It is not a heavy burden but a very light yoke! Those that are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God. Doing the will of God is not works but effortless in that it is not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit sayeth the Lord. We delight to do His will.
The carnal man who desires to live the fleshly life does not delight to do the Will of G-d. He delights in serving G-d according to his own will. Much as Cain offered what he wanted rather than what G-d had asked for. Abel delighted in obeying G-d and Cain did not. Therein the difference of the too. One loved God while the other really didn't. That is why Cain was always worried about what Abel was doing. He could not rest in his own relationship with God because truthfully he didn't have one. So instead he sought to murder his own brother. Did you know that God considers slander to be murder too? He does. Those who slander ( speak falsely against another person ) are murderers in Gods eyes. It is written in the bible.
While you are right that those who teach others they can sin their way to heaven - are guilty of murder - you can expect that they will come back with accusations of legalism, tell you that you are teaching something, under the law, that their doctrine is under grace, that Jesus kept the commandments so they do not have to obey them.. it is a perversion of the truth and Jesus warned the church in Matthew 24 chapter no less than 5 times that the number one challenge of the end times church would be deception.
This is what you are looking at. The church has fallen into great deception and because of this when true persecution comes and the rapture doesn't? The great falling away will happen.
These people you see defending the sin in their lives - who have an entitlement mentality that "God owes them" because they said a Jesus come into my heart prayer a few decades ago...... will be the very same ones who will turn in the true believers in order to save their own lives.
And just as Jesus warned, they will think they are doing God a favor by getting rid of us. Yes, the true believers are going to suffer the exact same fate as the true believers in the book of Acts did. It is a small company of believers - a remnant - but a mighty one. The greatest persecution Jesus and his followers endured came from religious zealots who had no personal relationship with God. Not the average out there lost soul. It is the same way today. Nothing has changed. There is.........as the writer of Ecclesiastes lamented.....nothing new under the sun.
- Jeri
