Unstable Foundation of Faith

When talking about Christianity one thing must be made clear. The faith is built on one foundational truth. If your brand of Christianity is not built on this truth it is an unstable faith and may not be the faith at all. One question answered with sincerity can determine if your building your faith on stable and sure grounds. The wrong response, not just from your mouth, but from your lifestyle will mean your building on something that's sure to collapse. It will collapse before God as He judges you with righteous judgment during the course of your life and after you die. This question was posed by Jesus to his disciples over 2000 years ago and the answer has still been debated by the unregenerated hearts of mankind since. "Who do you say I am?'' Jesus asked. He first asked his disciples what everybody else during their time thought of Him. During Jesus' ministry people supposed he was Elijah, John the Baptist, or one of the other prophets. Today people suppose Jesus is the key to worldly success. It seems most think Jesus is the sugar-daddy in the sky that you believe in to make your dreams come true. You want a husband, a wife, more money, a car, a big house, a better job, your own business, an escape from all hurt, healing from all disease, and fire insurance so after you get all the stuff you don't burn in hell; just try Jesus. Is this the Jesus of the Bible or as Paul states in Galatians another Jesus. Let's examine our text found in Matthew 16 and see what we can conclude from the infallible word of God and not of man. After Jesus asked the question Peter recieved revelation from God by the HOLY SPIRIT; verse 16 tells us this. Notice where he didn't receive the revelation from. He did not receive it from a man nor from any demonic spirit. Some of our perceptions and so called revelations of truth come straight from Satan himself through the mouths of ungodly and unlearned preachers. Peter, by revelation of the Holy Spirit, said that Jesus was and is the Christ the Son of the Living God. But what connotations does this statement carry with it. Peter called Jesus the Christ. The word Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word messiah. Messiah or Christ means anointed one, chosen, or qualified one. What is Jesus anointed to be? First of all He is the anointed KING of Heaven and Earth. Anyone that He rescues from the power of darkness and puts into His kingdom owes there complete allegiance to Him. In a Kingdom you do what the king says. Another word for king is Lord. Romans 10:9 states that "if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus ( or Jesus is Lord) and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved." Notice closely what the scripture is teaching us. To truly be saved you must not just believe that Jesus is the Son of God. James tells us that "even demons tremble and believe" that Jesus is the son of God. But you must make Christ Lord or King over your life by repenting or turning away from sin and turning to Him. So the moment you decide to make Christ your Lord you are truly saved. I'm so tired of hearing preachers and believers say to unsaved people that all they have to do is just believe. That's not true! You cannot just isolate one passage of scripture and make a blanket statement like that. Everytime Jesus, Peter, Paul, or any other apostle preached the Gospel they called people to repent. True repentance is changing your mind. To be saved you must change your mind that you are in charge of your life and turn it over to YESHUA (Jesus). If believers do not submit their lives to the lordship of Christ they will live sinful, fruitless, directionless, powerless, and defeated lives. A believer who does allow God to call the shots in their life will live just the opposite. They will truly be a living demonstration of Matthew 16:17-18:

¹⁷Then Jesus answered him, Blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied) are you, Simon Bar-Jonah. For flesh and blood [men] have not revealed this to you, but My Father Who is in heaven.
¹⁸And I tell you, you are Peter [Greek, Petros--a large piece of rock], and on this rock [Greek, petra--a huge rock like Gibraltar] I will build My church, and the gates of Hades (the powers of the infernal region) shallnot overpower it [or be strong to its detriment or hold out against it].

Christ tells Peter that upon the revelation that He is the Christ ( anointed King and Lord of their lives) he would build the church. The word church has nothing to do with a building. Church in the greek means "called-out ones". Anyone saved has been called out of the power of darkness in the awesome Kingdom of Light. So this scripture is a promise of God to individual believers as well as corporately to the whole body of Christ. A believer submitted to Christ as Lord is built on a foundation that is so strong that the very powers of hell cannot prevail or stand up against it. Sometimes when passively reading scripture or reading with a preconceived notion about the future of the church we miss what God is revealing to us. Look closely at verse 18 above. Who's got up gates, the church or the powers of hell? The correct answer is satan and his kingdom. When an army is attacking a territory or kingdom one of the first things that has to be taken down to enter in that kingdom is the gates. Once the gates come down the fate of that kingdom is sealed. They are about to be plundered and taken over. The amplified version brings out the meaning of this passage when it says that the gates cannot hold out against it. That means that whereever satan has illegal authority on earth whether it be in a family, city, state, country, or in your own personal life you can overcome him. The bible says in 1 John 5:4 says that whatever born of God overcomes the world, and what is this victory even our faith. Our faith is built on the fact the Jesus Christ is God, King, Lord, Saviour who died for the sins of the world and was raised from the dead with all authority given to Him on earth and in heaven . The word overcome in this passage is from a greek word "nikeo" which means to overcome, conquer, and subdue. Church (called out-ones) we have been called to subdue the earth just as God told Adam to. Adam lost his authority through disobedience but now that which was lost has been restored to us by Jesus Christ. It's no wonder why christians these days are so plaqued by sin, addictions, confusion, and defeat. It's because their whole view of whom God is is faulty. They only know and want one side of God. The material blessings of God is all they wont, and its sad to say that most preaching today satisfies their sugar tooth. But as in any relationship, if you do not know who that person truly is it wot work. It eventually crumbles. We must embrace the fact that Jesus is Lord and that He has chosen us and not we ourselves. Preachers we must stop preaching the American dream and preach the pure Gospel of The Kingdom of Christ. He is King right now and has sent us in the earth as His ambassadors to reclaim what is rightfully His! Pray this prayer from your heart

Father God I thank you for sending your Son JESUS CHRIST. I humble my self under His mighy and loving hand today. I declare that you are Lord and King of my life. I pray that you would help me to die to self and live for you. I repent for viewing you as a sugar daddy. I realize that you died for me so that I might experience a relationship with You and that I might do what you have created me to do. Lead me and guide by your Holy Spirit for the rest of my life. Amen

Who's Yeshua?

Welcome to this blog. For my first posting I feel led to bring a little clarity about my use of the name Yeshua. One thing that grieves me today is that the name of Jesus has been so polluted and profaned by the church that many non-believers detest it. Not because of a hardened heart towards God but because they've been in contact with so many religious freaks that toss the name of Jesus around like it gives them license to be rude, self-righteous, hypocritical, loud without a cause, judgmental, greedy for money, and the list of fleshly fruits goes on and on. So sometimes when reaching out to people I use Jesus' original name Yeshua. I find it quite sad but amusing how some non-believers are willing to listen to you if you don't bring up Jesus but instead talk about Yeshua. Jesus and Yeshua are the same of course but somehow Yeshua doesn't have all the baggage attached to it that so-called believers have put on the name Jesus. Ultimately its our responsibility to uphold the name of Jesus (Yeshua) by being His living love letters to the world. When they observe your godly lifestyle it makes it easier for them to recieve your message of Jesus.
Yeshua is what God told Mary through the angel that the Messiah was to be called. The name Yeshua means "salvation" or "the Lord saves". So believe it or not, no one in the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) that came into contact with Christ actually called Him Jesus. He was known only as Yeshua. Even after his death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven, when Christ confronted Paul on the road to Damascus, the Bible says Christ spoke in Hebrew saying "I am Yeshua of Nazareth whom you are persecuting." In the Hebrew language the letter "j" does not even exist. When the new testament was written, it was written in Greek because it was the dominant language of that age; much like English is today. So the Bible writers in an effort to reach as many as possible wrote it in the most popular language. Yeshua translated from Hebrew to Greek turns into Ieousus. From the Greek translation to English we arrived at Jesus. I'm not in any way suggesting that we should not say the name Jesus and begin only saying Yeshua. I personally use Jesus a majority of the time instead of Yeshua. It's not the translation or language that the name is being translated in that makes the name of Yeshua (Jesus) any more powerful, but it is only the fact that Christ was obedient to the father to death and because of that He was given the name that it is above every other. His name is above denomination, religion, America, George Bush, AIDS, and anything and everything else. All must and will bow to the name of JESUS CHRIST!!!!