I'm long gone, in a far away place, literally mentally and spiritually,

Yet I still find myself thinking about my old friends sometimes. Laura, Josh, Rosie, Emily. Even Anna and Anthony. They are all gone now, all because I did something wrong. To some I may have disapeared without explanation. Some didnt want me to leave. Some turned on my as soon as I was out of the picture.
Do they know where I am now? What do they think of what I've done, and where I am? Do they think about me as often as I think about them? Do they regret losing our friendship?
Do they look down on me?

A girl in our group was working in the hospital today, and she was proposed to by an Israeli man. He said that the woman he loved had left him while he was away and she ran off with his best friend. That story struck close to home for me. Didn't expect to be reminiscing THAT much about thins, but G-d saw fit to remind me.
So now what?

Becky In the caves

The Porch

Us

Zero

Us: "G-d, My sins are so heavy. No matter how hard I try and can't be righteous; I can't do what you have asked me to do. I don't seem capable of it."
G-d: "I know. I saved you anyways. I see your sin. They were nailed to the cross. I know you cant be good enough to earn my favor, So came as Yeshua to show you that my love is greater than you sin. Your sin put me on the cross, so be done with it."
Moralism is a very common form of idolatry for the believer. One of the primary messages of the gospel is that we cannot save ourselves. We are not capable of doing anything worthy of G-ds love, favor, and mercy. Even if we don't activly commit any sins (which we all do in abundance anyways) we cannot be good enough to join with G-d or enter his presence.
This helplessness is a hard thing for many believer,s including me, to face. Even after salvation it is hard to accept. Many find themselves studying the bible and becoming more and more aware of more and more sin in their lives. Our conviction and hatred of their sin grows at it should. That is the sanctifying power of the holy spirit, revealing areas in our lives that are just messed up. This is a wonderful thing, being show how to improve, but also very hard, because as we see more and more of these sinful areas, and have a greater desire to be free of them, the harder the struggle seems to become.
See, when we are made aware of new sin, and have in increased hatred for that sin, it is very easy to become discouraged when we can't overcome those sins. The flesh is put to deaht with Yeshua, the sinful parts are no longer in control, but sin is a hard habit to break. Time after time the believer can struggle with their failure to overcome sin, their percieved lack of progress and wonder if they are really saved or not. They Do so out of a desire to please G-d. The thought is "I'm reading and praying and trying to be righteous, but it isn't working. I want to make G-d happy, and for him to be pleased with me." But remember, one of the essential parts of the gospel is the concept that we can't make G-d happy. But then, we dont have to.
Yeshua was righteous for us. When he died, and we trust in his death, our sins die with him. When G-d looks at us, he knows about our sin, but he doesnt care anymore because He sees that we have clung to the freely offered righteousness of our Messiah.
Justification and sanctification are not the same thing. Justification is what happens the moment we accept what Yehsua did for us and cling to his righteousness. G-d then sees us as Justified, and our sins are no longer relevant to Him. Sanctification is the process of cleansing that happens here on earth. Because we see what Yehsua did for us, and how our sins were the cause of His death, we learn, by the training of the Holy Spirit, to hate that sin. That process i talked about before, the process of becoming aware of more and more sin and hating it more and more is sanctification. Thats what happens here on earth, as we continually put to death the old self and take on this new creature we have become in Yeshua.
Romans 3:20-24 Says it this way;
"For in his sight no one alive will be considered righteous on the ground of legalistic observation of Torah commands, because what Torah really does is show people how sinful they are. But now, quite apart from Torah , G-d's way of making people righteous  in his sight has been made clear - although the Torah and the Prophets give their witness to it as well- and is is a righteousness that comes from G-d, through the faithfulness of Yeshua the Messiah to all who continue trusting. For it makes no difference whether one is a Jew or a Gentile, since all have sinned  and come short of earning G-d's praise. By G-ds Grace, without earning it, all are granted the status of being considered righteous before him, through the act redeeming is from our enslavement to sin that was accomplished by  the Messiah Yeshua."
All our righteousness before justification were tainted by sin, but after justification we are free of that taint. We cant earn G-d's love, but we have it anyways. Amazing is his grace.

Three

Hell is not unreasonable. We all have sinned. Even just once, we fall short of the perfect standard. More than that, we are just messed up imperfect people, and we just dont deserve heaven. Hell, created for the devil and his angels who rejected G-d, is the only place for us. Every sin is a rejection of G-ds laws, and if G-d created this place to send his angels to because they reject his ways, it is inly fair that he gives everyone of us the same treatment. Only a fair and loving G-d would send people to hell.

It is because G-d's wrath against all sin is real that his love is relevant. Were it not for the curse of sin and hell, Yeshua would not have needed to die. We sinners reject G-d my even existing; we consume His air and His food ususally with ungratefulness and and the assumption that we somehow deserve them. Yeshua is not dying for decent people who just went wrong. THe level of hatred we show G-d by our sin changes the comparison. let me put it this way: Yeshua was a Jew. He died to save Hitler. Hitler simply rejected that. It's the same for all of us. Yeshua not only died for unworthy people, He died for people who killed him, hated him, and reviled himWe are the people who killed him hated him and reviled him. This is G-d's love. That while we were yet sinners, Yeshua Died for us.

Yes G-d loves us, But not with a pandering love, but with a perfecting love. He is not pouring wrath out lavish love on the world, at least not the way humans think of love. G-ds anger and are signs of his love, that he would make us perfect and offer us a way to perfection that we are not capable of and reject on our own. Unless you have real Justice and wrath, the concept of G-d's love is robbed of its meaning and importance.

Six

Righteousness works. The bible outlines G-ds standard of perfection. The old testament outlines both a socio-political order for the specific culture of the time (the Ancient Hebrews) as well as a master list of laws form living. From money to cleanliness to diet to interpersonal interaction. Yeshua further defines these laws, taking them beyond action and challenging them down the the heart of every individual. THeology aside for a moment, the laws of G-d and Yeshua work. Not even in a miraculous way, necessarily. Man age your money according to biblical rules and It will grow. Righteous parenting rears godly children, G-d Centered ideology brings strong culture. G-d’s laws lead logically to beneficial results.

Yet the bible is more than a pragmatic rulebook. Many evangelical leaders look at the bible with such rosy glasses on, and produce lists and collections of pragmatic ideals that ignore the sinful reality of the world. “Ten steps to a better family”. “G-d’s way to get wealthy.” “Defeat seven stresses that cause your unhealthiness”. “The 49 words of Christ that lead to success.” Scripture never promises success and prosperity. In fact Yeshua said “In this world you will have problems.” THis pragmatic view of christianity leads to many of the false converts in the world. They are taught to believe that if they live a certain way then bad things wont happen, but this just isn’t true.

Yes, if the world followed the righteousness of scripture, then there would be no bad things, but the world actively rejects righteousness. Even if we could all put on a facade and act godly for a day, evil is bound up in the heart of a man. Men dislike righteousness so they moralize the ideas of abortion, banning prayer in schools, Self esteem, homosexuality, and the unbiblical construction of family.

Christians are commanded to walk in righteousness and be perfect. But it is more than a command. Evil is bound up in the heart of a man. Even after redemption, repentance and salvation, every christian still does evil. Remember that no amount of righteousness can earn the perfect approval of G-d because there is still evil inside that brings about that element of imperfection. We will never be righteous enough to earn the easy life that righteousness would bring. We will never be perfect enough to earn salvation. It is not possible.

See, being striving for righteounsess for these reasons are inherently self serving. “I am holy so I will be saved,” or “So I will be prosperous.” Such righteousness is only further tainted by evil selfish desire. Instead, the Christian should pursue righteousness out of a hatred for evil. We see that our evil causes the hardships of the world. We see that id causes separation from the only source of good; the perfect G-d of heaven. The repentant believer turns from sin out of love and desire for the Savior, and Hatred of the sin that killed that Savior and is killing this world.

Seven

Beware the "outpouring of the spirit". Yeshua promised the spirit of his presence to all believers. The event of Pentecost brought the fullness of that spirit too the believers, but was a unique event, and is and will always be a unique moment in church history. In Acts 10, peter does not instruct gentiles to seek a second experience after salvation because they received the fulness of the spirit the moment they believed (10:44).
All instances in the scripture of healing and speaking in tongues were specific. At pentecost, the disciples spoke clear languages. There is no point in scripture where speaking in tongues is defined as unintelligible babbling, and no place do the disciples heal indescriminantly. There were specific times and specific places for these gifts, and Paul even further limits the use of these gifts. 1 Corintians 12-14 was written to those who had those gifts at that time and used them improperly. Such gifts were temporary. 1 Cor 13 8-10 are pretty clear that upon the completion of the new testament canonization (the "Completeion") all of the gifts, which were partial anyways, would be done away with.

The fact is that high emotional experiences, "slayings in the spirit", speaking in tongues and healings do happen, but not just within christianity. Mormons rely heavily on the emotional outpourings of "the spirit". Muslims, Buddhists, and New age atheists all report people with the ability to heal and speak in "tongues". The fact is that G-d cannot be defined by these events, because the pagans have experiences so similar that they are frankly undifferentiated and indistinguishable from their christian counterparts. If these things were of G-d, then there should be a noticeable difference in the outcomes and processes of these occurrences, "avoid the appearance of evil".
This is not to say that the spirit cannot or does not act in the supernatural. But the expectation, even necessity that the modern pentecostal movement places on such gifts and events is borderline heretical. G-d doesn't change. His presence never changes. Having a moment during worship where you feel closer to Him is not his movement or the movement of the unchangeable  Holy Spirit, it is a movement of the human heart, which is "deceitfully wicked". Defining G-d in any way by the emotional expiriences of the human heart is the same concept as secular dating; "I'm going to love this person because they make me feel good and like me."

Eight

People love themselves. If the didn't, they wouldn't complain about how bad their lives were. Because people love themselves naturally, they reject bad times, which from G-d perspective, they deserve. G-d sees us all as wretched and pathetic, which we are. All good things in life are blessings from G-d that we do not deserve. We are sinners at the mercy of an infinitely loving G-d. All of our hardships and pains are the result of the flesh and sin nature that He has provided freedom from.