My Christian Answers

Meaning?
So what is the meaning of life? A little high for you? Maybe we should start as to what is the meaning for which you wake up in the morning. Why do you make the effort to get out of bed? Does it make you feel better than if you stayed in bed? Perhaps you would say that if you stayed in bed you would not make it to work in time and or not at all so therefore you would not make any money. Also you would have to deal with the guilt that would come as a result of not showing up to work, by family members who rely on you and to that nagging voice that is telling you to get up and do something. Now take all those things away and tell me why would you ever get up in the morning or why would you even go to bed at all. If you say that one or the other feels good so therefore you do it then you are telling me that the meaning of you life is to feel good. FEEL, that is your motto, feel good whatever the cost. You must weigh everyday the cost of guilt vs. the feeling good. You must constantly compromise with yourself. You are in a continual quandary. Maybe you are one of those that feel a duty and so therefore you must do your duty, duty to family, friends, work, and church….again it would be to flee from the feelings of guilt. So therefore the answer is that you are driven by guilt in fact the whole world is driven by guilt. But your true desire is to FEEL good! To feel good is why you get out of bed in the morning. Now is feeling good a “good” thing or not? That is a loaded question because we could ask a rapist if it feels good to rape an innocent victim and he or she might say yes and since you are a rational person you would in turn say that that was a bad thing (at least I would hope so because if you did not then you have other issues and you need to get professional help). We all know that raping is wrong and so that FEEL good thing would not be “good”. So to say all of this is to come back to the original question, what is the meaning of life? Why do you get out of bed? The answer probably is because the guilty feelings that would come as a result of you not getting out of bed outweigh the feelings of pleasure by staying in bed. Now that those feelings are a “good” thing is not the question the question is, how can this be all that there is to live for? What if the guilt feelings were not there or what if they were to go away, you would most certainly be in a most difficult situation. It would be like taking the frontal lobe of your brain out. You would have no inhibitions. There must be another way to live and something else to live for and if you want nothing else then stop reading now because you have no need for anything else.
What is the opposite of guilt? Is there anything that can combat the monumental hurdle of guilt? The answer is of course yes. An emphatic yes in fact and it is not a metaphysical absurdity or fog in which you can try to hurl yourself. No it is set in a personality. A personality that lived and breathed and walked on this physical earth. The name of this personality is love; He came and gave His life for the whole world. You know His name as the Christ. He is the personal being in which we can experience LOVE. The opposite of guilt is love and love is Christ. He gave Himself for you and for your brother, sister, mother, father….He alone can combat the feelings of guilt because He alone is the only other option. He gave Himself to His Father as an offering for guilt so that you may have a choice other than the ugly feeling that we call guilt. He allowed Himself to be sacrificed so that you do not have to sacrifice yourself everyday as you get up out of bed for the philosophy of guilt, the philosophy that attacks relentlessly on your soul everyday as you make that decision to get out of bed. He can give you the other option as you wake up, the decision to do it out of love for Him. That act can become an act of construction or it can be an act of meaningless destruction for if you do it out of guilt than you are giving up an offering to the god of guilt. You are giving yourself to yourself in theory but in reality you are hurting yourself, you are trapped in an endless circle of altar worship. You can never worship yourself enough because you will always want more and you are finite, therefore the meaninglessness. On the other hand Love is infinite and in this you can throw yourself by His offering to Himself, and never find an end but in that you can find redemption for in endlessness comes filling. There is an endless person that embodies Love, and this Love can make the temporal disappear and the eternal present. You do not have to live in bondage to yourself and your feelings, you can accept the feelings of the Eternal God and merge with Him. By His sacrifice you can now become one with love and separate yourself from guilt. Guilt is an illusion, I pray you choose Reality. For this is meaning. Meaning can only be found in reality and not in illusions. The basic definition of illusions is that they are not reality therefore cannot be trusted, an illusion means nothing, it is meaningless. Now reality is meaningful and has a purpose. The choice is either illusion or reality. Illusion equals guilt and reality love. So which will you choose the next time you get out of bed?

There are a few main beliefs about the forgiveness of God and to whom it is given. First, there is the belief that anyone who asks for forgiveness is forgiven. This point of view puts the work of forgiveness in the hands of the person asking. If he wants it, he can get it. If not, he won’t. That is where this belief is extremely flawed. God gave the forgiveness of sins when he applied the blood shed on Calvary to the mercy seat in heaven (please see Part 1). Man has nothing to do with whether or not he is forgiven. God expects us to forgive others when we are wronged by them. Would God be just in asking us to forgive without others asking for our forgiveness if He did not do the same? If God wants to forgive, there is nothing in man that is going to stop Him.

Another belief that people hold is that of Calvinist doctrine. That belief states that the sacrifice of Christ atones, or provides forgiveness for, a limited number of people. They call these people “the elect”. While the bible does use the terms chosen and elect, that is an entirely different subject and deserves an article of its own. So, I will not go into that right now. Calvinist are right about when people were forgiven they just miss the mark a little bit when it comes to who.

Christ is portrayed as the second Adam. Adam messed us up and Christ fixed us up. “Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Romans 5:18). Adam, the first man, plunged all of humanity into sin. From Adam all the way up to this very instant, man is born into and lives in sin. Each of you reading this sin more often than you would like to admit. It all started because of Adam. Christ, like Adam, did something that would affect all of humanity. He, instead of plunging man into sin, redeemed man; he purged sin, put it away by the sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 9:26). Just as Adam’s fall affected ALL, Christ’s offering affected ALL.

“Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Romans 5:18)

The word used for justification in this verse is the Greek word “dikaiosis”, which means acquittal, or to declare not guilty. Notice that in this verse the righteousness of one, that is Jesus Christ, causes the free gift of being declared not guilty to pass upon all men. The Calvinist would say, “That really means that the free gift passes to all of the people chosen before the foundation of the world to be saved”. The person who believes you are forgiven upon asking would say, “That just means it passes upon whosoever will ask”. The bible does not support either of these answers. God inspired men to write this book; his word is perfect. Therefore, we should not have to explain anything in his word by adding something to it. We should be able to explain anything in his word by comparing scripture with scripture, no adding or subtracting. If God in verse 18 did not mean all men he would not have said all men. This passage proves something that most people would consider absurd; that removal of sin does not mean the addition of righteousness. Therefore, while all men are forgiven, not all men are saved. God said in verse 18 all men are declared not guilty, but in verse 19 many are made righteous. God used two different words for a reason. Some people will tell you that they are interchangeable words, but that is only to make the scripture fit their beliefs. People are not willing to just believe what the bible says.

Keeping in mind that God means what he says in his word let us look at another verse. “He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). God told believers that Christ was the propitiation for their sins and FOR THE SINS OF THE WORLD. Without adding or taking away from the word of God try to explain that verse. I have never heard a Calvinist try, but I am sure they have some very unscriptural explanation to give if you will listen to them. I know what most other people will tell you. They will tell you that by propitiation it is meant that Christ made forgiveness available for the whole world, but that is not what the word means. The word propitiation in the verse above means, “an atonement, or an expiator”. Look it up for yourself if you do not believe me. Atonement or an expiator is something or in this case, someone, that makes amends for or brings into concord. So Christ made amends for the sins of the whole world. The verse clearly states that. Why not believe it.

“Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). God took away the sin of the world. If he did not then this verse need not be in the bible. Many other verses tell us that Christ died for the world, by that I mean everyone. “For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe” (1 Timothy 4:10). Christ is the savoir of unbelievers according to this verse.

I could go on and on with forgiveness being given to the whole world, but that would do no good. If you want to find Christ, if you want to get out of traditional lies and believe the truth, then I have given you enough information to provoke you to look for yourself in the scriptures. Jeremiah 29:13 gives us the promise that if we seek him with our whole heart, we shall find him.

The big question going through many of the minds of the readers of this article is this, “If everyone’s sins are paid for, then why does anyone go to hell?”. I mentioned something a little earlier in this article that touches that topic, but if you will continue on to part 3 I will explain it in detail.

If you are like anyone else in this modern world you most likely woke up this morning and ate breakfast, took a shower, kissed your wife or husband goodbye, got in your car and drove to work or school. Everything you did this morning and all day for that matter, required motion. From moving your toothbrush across your teeth (hopefully you did this at least some point in the day), to walking downstairs and ultimately getting into your car. These activities necessitate motion. Now what if I were to tell you that motion is an absurdity, maybe you would call me crazy, maybe you would be more kind and call me misguided for you know that you got out of bed and brushed your teeth, walked downstairs and out to your car. How could you not believe in motion for you could not even read this post without motion being possible for your eyes must move to read. So am I talking in circles or am I just pulling your leg? Humor me and read a little story written by a man named Zeno a few millenniums ago…….

“Achilles was the track star of antiquity, and the tortoise was not. But what the tortoise lacked in speed, he more than made up in intelligence. Relying, therefore, on his brilliance, he challenged Achilles to a race. It was in the terms and conditions that the tortoise knew he could get the best of Achilles. These terms were, simply, that the tortoise be given a head start of a certain distance, and that Achilles should not be considered the winner unless he could overtake the tortoise. At the crack of Zeno’s pistol the two racers were off. Now, when Achilles by fleetness of foot arrived at the point from which the tortoise started, very obviously the tortoise was no longer there; during the time that had elapsed the tortoise had gone ahead a little bit; there was no denying that it was only a little bit, but there is no denying that the tortoise was ahead. However, the race did not slow up, as we must slow up in order to explain the situation; the runners kept on with their same speeds. Now when Achilles, fleet of foot, arrived at the point at which the tortoise started, very obviously the tortoise was no longer there; during the time that had elapsed the tortoise had gone ahead a little bit…Well, to shorten a long story, every time Achilles got to the point at which the tortoise was, the tortoise was not there. And if Achilles failed to reach the tortoise every time, then there was no time at which the atomistic Achilles over took his Eleatic rival. The moral of the story, aside from the fact that it is better to be an intelligent tortoise than a stupid athlete, is that the concept of motion leads to absurdity. That Achilles’ defeat lay in the terms the tortoise imposed can be seen from a second argument that divests itself of picturesque trappings and goes straight to the mathematics involved. Instead of athletes, consider a point or atom, and see what difficulty it would have in trying to move from here to there. Before the atom can cover the entire distance, it must go halfway; and before it could reach the halfway mark, it would have to traverse a quarter of the distance; and before it covered this quarter, it would have to move an eighth. This also is a long story; but the moral is plain. Before the atom could even start from its original position, it would have to exhaust an infinite series. Unfortunately for the concept of motion, an infinite series is inexhaustible. And an atom cannot start.”(Thales to Dewey, Gordon Haddon Clark. The Trinity Foundation, 2000.)

In this blog I want to take you through a few verses and the conclusions we are forced to make by these verses about the forgiveness of God.

The first verse is Hebrews 1:3

“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high”.

While looking through the verses in this article please keep in mind that cleanse, purge, remit, and forgive are all words that imply the same action, FORGIVENESS.

Hebrews 1:3 says that when Christ had PURGED our sins he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. By this we must admit that anyone who will ever be or has ever been granted the gracious gift of having their sins purged, or forgiven, had that gift granted and given when Christ sat down at the right hand of the Father. Therefore any sin ever to be purged by the blood of Calvary was purged about two thousand years ago. There are some other verses that prove, if you study them out, that sin was paid for in full by the blood of Christ. By saying paid in full, I am saying completely forgiven.

Read these verses and think for yourself. If Christ is God, the Bible is the Word of God, and God is inerrant and perfect in every way, then the things Christ came to do he did. With that in mind take these verses into consideration.

John 1:29 “…behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Did he do that which was said that he would do?

Hebrews 9:26 “…but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Did his sacrifice accomplish what it was supposed to accomplish?

If the answer to either of these questions is no, then Christ would be less than God, and God’s word would have no power. God is sovereign and all powerful, but God chose in his sovereignty to give us his word. In his word He tells us what will happen to man and what He is going to do. By giving us his word He put limitations on himself. To remain true and just God must abide by his word. After all he did put his word above his name (Psalm 138:2).

Hebrews 9 describes what happened when Christ died. The old testament was a shadow of things to come, a shadow of the work Christ would come to do. Christ was the owner of a will, or testament (vs17), he had to die for the inheritance of that testament to pass down to the beneficiaries. Just as the beneficiary of a will receives the covenant of that will immediately upon death, those whose sins were put away by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross were put away immediately upon the death of Christ and the application of the blood to the mercy seat in heaven (vss18, 24). For “…almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.” (Hebrews 9:22). If all things that are purged, are purged with blood, then you must ask yourself the questions, “When was the blood shed in order to put away sin?” and “When was it applied to the mercy seat in heaven?”. For, if by the law, the law having a shadow of things to come, the sin offering was completed when the blood was applied to the mercy seat, then the offering of Christ was complete and accomplished all it was intended to accomplish when the blood was applied to the mercy seat in heaven.

I end part 1 of “Forgiveness of God” with the answer that must be concluded from the above, forgiveness was given to man as Christ laid his blood on the mercy seat for us before he sat down on the right hand of the Father. Forgiveness of sins is finished, see who is forgiven in part two…

Has someone recently done or said something to hurt you? Maybe you went into work or came home and someone who you care about launched into you with a torrent of hurtful accusations and verbal barbs. Maybe you did something to bring on the attack or maybe you are completely innocent, either way the pain has been awakened deep down in you emotions perhaps even as deep as your soul. You can feel all over again as you read this, that icy grip that encloses itself around your throat, the tingles that flows through your body, the spiked beating of your heart, and the ensuing sweat that breaks out all over your body. This is emotional pain that can bring one to the brink of sanity. Has any of this been a part of your life recently? Perhaps in the distant past, regardless you probably have felt this pain, this friend that may come back to bestow his “loving” arms around you and squeeze you till your joy morphs into a thing that was never born. Call it what you will, this is hurtful and we have all at one time or another felt it. The question then becomes, what do you do or not do when this is the case in your life. Let’s deal with the fact that you were the one who was completely in the wrong and the other individual is angry and disappointed in you.

A. Breathe - this is important because breathing will help regulate your heart beat and the sensations that are coursing through your body. You will feel like doing one of two things, running or fighting. This is the fight/flight mechanism that God has given to you for your survival. It is employed throughout your system when your mind has reason to be afraid or angry, such as in a mugging or car accident. This mechanism can save lives but in some cases it can be detrimental to the individual who is employing it. Though you will want to one or the other, you will do NEITHER. You will Breathe.

B. Accept - this is what you will do, don’t fight back and don’t run away, accept that you are wrong. Let the feelings that will come with that decision course through your body, EMBRACE the sensations! Do nothing just embrace. Agree and Accept.

C. Look and Listen - do not avert your eyes, let you eyes do the talking. Let the other person vent, do the right thing - do not retaliate and do not run.

D. Answer - respond after a time, which you will have to decide depending on each situation it will be different, with a measured, calm response. “A soft answer turneth away wrath” is a proverb greatly used and completely true. Tell the truth for the truth will be your redemption.

E. Ask for Forgiveness - If you are truly in the wrong then you need to ask for forgiveness. Be honest and tell the person you were wrong and are in need of forgiveness. Time cannot be taken back. The water has already passed beneath the bridge, never to come back. All you can do is ask for forgiveness, this is the only right answer, this is truth and again truth will be your redemption.

If you will do these five steps when you are in the wrong then you will become right and a person in the right has nothing to fear and nothing to be angry about. You will be free for you have done right and the guilt will pass, the anger and fear will dissipate. You will be free and the decision to do right or wrong will fall on the person who has been wronged by you for they now have a decision, will they accept you and do their duty and forgive, or will they become a slave to the bitterness and anger. Now if you have been wronged and attacked without cause there is a whole different set of steps you must take. These will have to be saved for another time.

TO BE CONT.