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Too often the Easter message is made rubbish by preaching to people to try harder. Let's see what the Easter message is really.
On the cause of all the appalling things that we seem helpless to prevent in this world, Jesus pin-pointed self-dependence - the "fallen" human condition where people insist on letting their minds and emotions rule their lives instead of testing all knowledge via the Spirit.
In their fallen lives, people try to get their desires met by themselves interpreting all knowledge, instead of putting it to test via the Spirit. Every time happiness again eludes them, they try even harder.
Knowing that Jesus was coming to raise people from their fallen lives, John the Baptist told them to get ready by repenting - meaning be ready to re-think this wrong belief that they held to so religiously.
That belief is the original lie that success in life comes by self-improvement through knowledge independent of the Spirit.
Instead of getting happy lives by work and self-effort, people find themselves needing more and more money to try to succeed in living independently.
This doesn't just concern money. The more we have of all manner of things the less happiness we get - a fact that business people in this marketing age exploit to the full.
More and more alcohol, drugs and all kinds of things make people addicted to trying even harder to get free from unhappiness and depression. Always trying the same old way expecting a different result is insanity! There IS NO dependable source of happiness for people who insist on independent use of their minds and emotions.
Enlivened human condition
According to the New Testament, every person has a human spirit in addition to a human soul (with mind, will and emotions). Slumbering through dis-use, this spirit can be enlivened when a person believes into who Jesus of Nazareth was and what he did as commemorated by Easter.
Simply put, Jesus is scary-God made attractive. God put all of Himself in Christ to be available as the change-agent to raise all of us.
Jesus was resurrected and ascended by the same Spirit that now raises mankind so that in our enlivened human spirits we can communicate with His Spirit in all of us, both one-to-One and one-to-many.
The real church is this one-to-many communication. Its a spiritual body not a religious tent, church hall, Christian community center, mega-church or cathedral.
Christ isn't about helping us to do better in ourselves. That's the old situation before Christ came called the Old Covenant. Too often the Easter message is made rubbish by calling on people to try harder.
The New Covenant is God's promise through Christ to set us free from religious self-dependence and all the appalling things it attracts in our world.
These things go beyond even what the Old Covenant Ten Commandments first implied. As Jesus pointed out, anger that kills relationships is also murder. Sexual adultery includes the mere looking lustfully at another person's partner. The list goes even further, considering that sin is defined as anything apart from what God desires.
With such a heap of possibilities it's impossible to avoid doing some of them. And they come like a flood when by our self we can no longer hold them back by being resolute.
Forget about New Years resolutions and trying even harder at Easter. Change from religious self-determination to spirit-tested reality.
The same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead promises to raise every one of us too.
CRJ President, Hank Hanegraaff
If priests, pastors, preachers, etc, dismiss this principle, tell them about these new findings of a respected evangelical research journal that used to oppose it.
The First Century bible principle is that Christians should meet simply on the basis of locality, which is all-inclusive, not based on organizations divisive by denomination.
Christian Research Journal December 2009 issue admits to decades of wrongly opposing this. Only a year ago, they and about 70 other denomination-based leaders co-signed an open letter calling on all local church people to cease from preaching these matters to denominational Christians.
After decades of being part of the organized opposition, Christian Research Journal is to be congratulated on the turnaround. It now sees the biblical basis of what's involved and is coming to see spiritual things local church people speak about despite all the opponent-spread confusion.
Simple test for your own church
Here's a simple test for whether your own church leader is still blinded - ask him/her about it. The local church proponents don't have an organizational name - that's the whole point. But one way to identify them is to mention their leading advocate, a Chinese man named Witness Lee (deceased).
The politic response to local churches is they're a cult or at least an aberrant lot. But the principal organization that fed the "aberrant" label, the Christian Research Journal, now officially admits "we were wrong".
It's December 2009 issue states the simple truth: "It's about the recovery of the 'local ground' as the biblical basis for organizing a church. The LC (the journal's tag for local church proponents) believes this to be perhaps the greatest contribution their movement has to make to the larger body of Christ." The journal said this in Part 4 of its detailed self-correction. (Get PDF copy.)
Do not talk about all those doctrines
Substantiating what the local church is about, the Christian Research Journal's "We Were Wrong" quoted Witness Lee (circa 1980): "Do not ask what kind of baptism others have had. Do not talk about all those doctrines. They have all been redeemed by the same blood; therefore, they all have the same life within. We are all one in this all-inclusive faith.
"Today there are many different backgrounds of the saints. Some have a Presbyterian background, some have a Baptist background, and some have other kinds of background. But regardless of the background, if they are saved, they all have the same faith, for they all believe in the same Lord Jesus Christ.
"As long as they are saints who are not sinful according to 1 Corinthians 5, we must recognize all of them as dear brothers and sisters."
I'm bewildered by the times that appear as I'm about to pre-post. It doesn't look like Australian Eastern Standard Time, or is it? If it offers me say 10:01. Does this mean it's 10:01 AEST, in which case choosing 12.00 would put my headline post in an Orble site at midday - is that right?
Travellers participating in the ships entertainment suddenly find there are zombies on board drowning them out. A dream, this illustrates todays church, drowning because of individualism.
We Christians are at risk whenever we think we are alive like Adam, because this makes us walking dead! Instead of walking in the Spirit of Christ, we become zombies joined with the spirit of death, whose deception makes us cry oh my god to the god we think is in spiritual control
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Two leading American economists say the baton for the world's leading economy could this Saturday effectively be passed from the US to China, at the G20 New York meeting of world leaders hosted by US President George Bush
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What lies ahead with Obama was covered on SBS today by PBS's News Hour.
American Public Broadcasting Service's insight on the matter came from New York Times columnist David Brooks and syndicated columnist Mark Shields (4.30-to-5.30pm today Aust EST
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Sad at so many friends leaving
Big Cat's third go at finding the Spirit came after Scientology did its engram-seeking thing, only to find all the confessing apparently didn't impress the Holy Spirit, who he still couldn't find.
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September 28th 2007 02:43
Abuse and crime: Big Cat journeys from his "truth" closer to real truth. About bad conscience, learning from Scientology and (next) Christianity.
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Comment by Big Cat
on Easter time - get lost you New Years resolutions
Chatterpillar