My first rambling. I am new to this. I wrote this on my friend’s blog in reply to people struggling with the Christian walk.

Everything is taken care of in the new creation. You know were God Lives. The problem is most Christians know the words on the page that list 2 Corinthians 5:17. You have heard it and may have memorized it! Yes like a lot of other scriptures, huh. The sad truth is the new creation is just words on a page.

Words on a page like Christ in me, my hope of Glory. Christ in me? The whole godhead lives in me, your joking! The word says that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to live in me not Him and the Father too. Hey let’s not go here, let’s go back to that judgment stuff with my neighbors and others; I do that effortlessly and besides that I’m good at it. I also have some paybacks planned. That new creation thing is beyond me. You know we shouldn’t be so heavenly minded we are no earthly good, right.

The previous diatribe is sadly characteristic of many believers’ thinking. Why do you think this is? I have been saved since age 12 and it took 13 more years until Jesus Christ was finally given control of my life. Even then I knew nothing of how this Christian walk/life really worked. Every church group I was affiliated with had a common thread – Get to work! There was witnessing, get those sinners and lost souls to church so we can gett’em saved! Bless God Amen. Then there was Sunday school teacher even though I knew nothing. I thought I needed teaching! Brother just learn as you go. I thought a Yugo was a cheap foreign car made of plastic. Then there were the committees: Men’s Club and Ladies Auxiliary, parking Ministry, maintenance committee, and on and on and on. After all this was God’s work and Ministry, right?
You surely came to know everyone as you participated in ‘church activities. Defect, defect you are so busy doing the work of God you cannot even apply what you have learned, if anything.

Oh yes we have learned we are still sinners saved by grace, we have learned we need to tithe, after all you can’t out give God and you certianly do not want to rob Him do you? We have learned the need to buffet our bodies, run the good race, and oh yeah, crucify the flesh daily! Again we are so busy in the Lord’s House we don’t have time to apply any of it in our lives. We have learned to be fruit inspectors; after all we will know them by their fruit. Doesn’t everyone produce fruit? I thought I heard somewhere we were to bear fruit. Sound bizarre it is. This is the result of one very basic failure. Matthew 28:19-20
19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. 1995 (Mt 28:19–20). LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

What does Jesus say here? Basically to make disciples of all nations…What is a disciple? In simplest terms a person who knows God and follows Him. What is the church doing? Yes trying to fill the church by getting people saved! This is not our instruction. And two salvation is God’s business. Our number one is to make disciples!

Everyone has had BAD teaching including the pastors and teachers. The problem cascades. The people assume that pastors and teachers know what they are talking about and they certainly know more than them so just take good notes. Now use that exponential multiplier and here is what you get: tired, frustrated, disenfranchised, defeated, hopeless and dispersed walking churzombies, dropouts. They believe the Church for the most part is illrelavent for today. The lost see hypocrites! This ought not to be.

What’s the problem – most do not know God and John 17:3. …. To know God is eternal Life. You cannot know God via your own corrupted intellect. Oh, you can know about Him. Why besides delivering us from sin and getting us to heaven did Jesus die for? He laid His life down for us, in order to give His life to us. Why? So God Himself could live His life in us and recreate us in His image! GraceGal quoted 1 Corinthians 13 above. In reality as we live in His Life our new creation fulfills God’s Love expressed in that chapter. In fact in our new creation we are entirely righteous and entirely holy! We are complete in every way and need to learn to live there by faith. This is where all of God’s fruit, gifts, and blessings are – right now! I will ramble more tomorrow. I’ve got tons more to share.

God Bless
Brad Heath