More On Teleios

We are vessels.  The world knows this about us and fills us with the idea of what it looks like to become mature:  Put away the former, childish ways of fantasy, and become a person oriented with the realities of the world.  You must lie to each other sometimes, you must steal in a cunning and guarded way that is difficult for others to pin down, you must malign your neighbors, clients, and co-workers when the time is right in order to achieve greatness, and above all when God is brought up, in order to protect your way of life you must deny the importance of supporting Him.  You must recognize Him as nothing more than a childish fantasy with a following of people who are childish and not connected to reality.  These are the true qualities of the mature man and woman, and what you should seek when finding mates, friendships and business partnerships.  This is safe.  This promises wisdom and honor, fulfillment and self worth.

Convincing, is it not?  That was taken straight out of the book. What the enemy relentlessly enamors into people all day everyday. For a short time, a season, or even a lifetime, it is safe, depending on how you define safe. Unfortunately though, we reap what we sow. When reaping time comes we recognize that tragedy strikes those around us in equal fashion. This leads us to chalk it up to “the way life is.”  Folks who think like the world are surrounded by the world and do not know anything better than the rhythm of tragedy.

Without faith and hope, worldly folks (including those in our churches, yes, especially dem folks) will never experience what it is like to live life with a light and easy burden.  The world is taught to believe that a light and easy burden either does not exist or is childish and immature.  What a laugh.  Immaturity is the very act of carrying the weight of the world and living through constant tragedy.  Worldly maturity does have it’s rewards, riches and glory, but in the kingdom of God it is childish, a result of pride and spiritual weakness, and can be thwarted by admitting one has not been trying to live in perfection and accepting The Savior as one’s boss again.

Behaving as described is exactly the way one must behave in order for God to lovingly lift His protection, allowing the enemy to do what he does best. Satan has come to lie, kill, steal and destroy.  Satan uses cunning metaphors and many psychological devices to keep the world sick.

When a person comes to God he or she begins to mature in a different way.  Godly people’s actions begin to illicit hatred from the world around them.  The Spirit begins to grow and in all things we find joy and steadfast love.

When God is bringing us to Teleios, the world will see us as immature.  If you are a pastor, look for this in your congregation and encourage that man or woman.  Spilling the beans is a sign of a man being brought to Teleios.  If you have one of those men in your congregation than you have one of The Savior’s own in your midst.  That man suffers everyday for the sake of the gospel.  Deep within, every Teleios man or woman knows that the behaviors of the world encourage the poisoning of the mind, the filling of God’s vessels with anything except for what it is meant to be filled with.  Housing The Savior in a suitable home requires a lot of beans spilling.  He knows what beans to throw out and what beans to hold onto.  What kind of crop is growing in your mind? Consider the following points as we wrap up:

• If one spends their time in and around the things of this world, dedicating themselves to those things or even just skating along without The Savior, one will become like the world.
• Contrary to this, if a man or woman spends most of their time around the things of this world, while just spending a few hours a day or even a week in fellowship, scripture, and prayer, the maturing process of God within that man or woman is guaranteed.  Literally guaranteed.  If you spend time with God you will become teleios like if you are alive you will breath.

It is by no work of man that he becomes evil or good, it is the work of the evil or good within the source of a man’s surroundings that does the work.  The only power we have over becoming perfected in evil or perfected in good is to choose to use our rudders to give our life to The Savior.  At that point the impossible to avoid work of salvation in life will take hold.  It is the rigorous work of truly choosing to give up every day that causes us to live.

Who is your God? Church or God?

Today I had a really great conversation with a Muslim.  He was about my age, and we had a lot in common.  We both agreed to disagree on many topics, but to tell you the truth I learned from that boy, and he admitted, whether he wanted to or not, to have learned from me too.

He, on his own accord, without me doing any mental work at all, consistently brought up points that I was prepared for and was knowledgeable about.  Some of them I had literally studied just hours before.  The confidence this brought was key.

Because of some things God showed the muslim boy today through me it will be easier, more sensible even for him to join the good guys.  One of the points brought up in this conversation is this:  What happened at the crucifixion seemingly causes us Christians to feel as if we are not responsible for our actions.

It is easy to fall into a Muslim’s trap when they bring up anything.  They have studied themselves approved in a much greater way than the average Christian.  They tend to spin a yarn that makes us look like irresponsible children and our doctrine like an unrealistic fairy tale.  Once this point is made by a Muslim (and they will make that point, trust me) it is important to recognize that any Christian who has given their life to a church, a denomination or to any representation of Christ will be obliterated by the Muslim in that argument and rightly so.  Why? Because those Christians have not yet experienced how God actually handles sin.  To those Christians, the gospel more or less is a fairy tale.  Forgive me for putting it that plainly. But most people have not explored the realistic nature of the cross. Their own lips are being used to lie to them when they say they believe in the salvivic nature of The Savior’s death.

The Bible very subtly warns us of the difference between copy catting others who have given their lives to The Savior and actually giving up one’s life for Him.  In Genesis we learn of Abraham walking with God.  When he is in the maelstrom that was Egypt during a famine, he withholds information from his enemies in order to both save himself, his wife, and his obedience to God. He tells strangers and those who have not proven to be trustworthy yet that Sarah is his sister and moves forward trusting God will do the rest.  God does, and in magnificent fashion.  Abraham does it again when in the land of king Abimelech and the outcome is exactly the same, extreme blessing in every way for the patriarch.

Fast forwarding a few chapters we find Abraham’s son, Isaac in the same situation, with the same king even.  Isaac’s wife is on the line because she also is beautiful like his mother, Sarah.  Isaac probably thought quickly this worked for my dad and he tells the king “She is my sister.”

Uh oh.  Isaac’s copy catting does not quite work, spiritually, as Abraham’s did. She was his cousin, not his sister. Withholding information and speaking something that is untrue are not the same thing.  A copy catter might do well verse for verse defending their beliefs against another’s beliefs, here is the problem with that though:  If we have not truly given our lives to The Savior we will leave that conversation worried about some of the points the Muslim had.  That will show through, subtly in our body language, the Muslim will pick up on it, and the Muslim will walk away with more faith in their religion because they noticed that they got to another Christian. They will remember that conversation and bring it up amongst the other wolves they feast with.

Please forgive me if that point was sort of rough.  Rectifying it is between you and God.  If you have had a lengthy and good relationship with Him (not your church, but Him) you understand what it feels like to no longer deal with guilt or shame. If you are not yet on that boat you can easily search your heart to avoid the worse of two outcomes for an unavoidable event: meeting Him. Is church your God, or is The Savior your God?

That was point A.  Point B is more of a sword for your arsenal than an abrasive questioning of where you stand with God.  Please forgive me.  Muslims have taken our patriarch Abraham and twisted it to seem like He is their Father instead of ours.   The father of their faith even.  They are fighting for what Ishmael never had so many years ago.  There are a lot of similarities in the Muslim and Christian faiths.  There is a reason for this.  Abraham is the father of many children.  Isaac is the child that God instructed Abraham (even against Abraham’s will at points: Genesis 21:8-14) to favor.  Ishmael is Abraham’s firstborn son.  Ishmael is the root of the nation of Islam (Genesis 21:13 & Genesis 25:12-18).  The Torah tells us that the sons and daughters of the slave women were not treated the same as Isaac.  The servant women’s children were given gifts  but were driven out of their home with Abraham while Abraham was alive.  On the other hand, Isaac was given the inheritance (what Islam is fighting for). (all of this information can be found in Genesis Chapters 12- 26)

The Faith is displayed in this line: Abraham to Isaac to Jacob (called Israel).  Keep in mind that most of the sons and daughters of this tribe are disobedient children of God, but children from Abraham’s inheritance none-the-less.  On the other hand, Islam comes from Ishmael.  Why not Abraham to Ishmael?  Because there is a division between Abraham and Ishmael.  The difference in the parting Ishmael took from Abraham and the parting Isaac took from Abraham is this: Ishmael was:

• Driven away
• Given gifts
• No inheritance.

There is a nation that comes from Ishmael (Genesis 21:13).  The nation of Israel and the sons and daughters of God comes from Abraham: Genesis 12:7 combined with Genesis 15:1-6 and is contextually accurate.

 

---

****Correction (2/28/017)***** Today I read Genesis 35, where God speaks to Israel describing to him that a nation will come from him as well.  The only difference then, between the sons of Ishmael and the sons of Israel are that God intended to bless Israel with the inheritance, whereas God intended to make a nation out of both of them giving only gifts but no inheritance to Ishmael. *********

---

 

Muslims are still fighting to take over the inheritance that is not theirs.  They have the option to come to faith in The Savior, bringing them into the inheritance that they are fighting for.

I do not think you will adequately defend the faith after reading this article.  Adequately defending the faith would be more well done through prayer and reading the scripture from this angle, knowing that Muslims like to say “Islam comes from the faith of Abraham”  or is “The Abrahamic faith.”  They berate Christians by telling them a bunch of stuff (mostly true stuff) the Christians haven’t heard before. Keep in mind the basis of a muslim’s tactics were sprinkled with a lie or two. Do not let them fool you!