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Column: If life in this world were all there was, it would be miserable.
“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most miserable” (1 Corinthians 15:19).
1. There was a time when I took pride in knowing the Bible better than others and being a good preacher.
I was the most immature of immature people.
I came to think that Christianity was too poor.
Dostoevsky is said to have said that he would be happy if he could have contact with the world to come for just one day.
Paul's vision of the third heaven and hearing inexpressible words (2 Corinthians 12:4) and the Apostle John being caught up to heaven on the island of Patmos, where he, like Paul, saw the inexpressible revelation of Christ, are prime examples of a connection with the world to come.
It is clear that the visible and invisible worlds coexist.
If this were not so, Paul would not be urging us in Ephesians, which it called the Holy of Holies of his epistles, to be saved by faith that has seated us in heavenly places by the grace of Christ (Eph. 2:6), to be united in the blood of Christ, reconciled by his cross, and to approach to God in the Spirit (Eph. 2).
This is the astonishing grace of God, the grace we obtain in Christ through the grace given.
The fact that we are being built in the Holy Spirit, with Christ as our standard, into a dwelling place for God is truly an astonishing miracle.
The same goes for the revelation of the Apostle John, which he expressed as something like something because he could not express it in words.
2. Without revelation, there's no difference between general religion and Christianity.
If believing in Jesus and obeying the Word is all there is, isn't that a religion?
A church received headlines for postponing the construction of a temple and supporting a non-self-supporting church.
If it's a temple, it should never be built.
It is a rebellion against the Lord, who destroyed the temple, presented his own body as a veil, and brought the anchor of our souls within that veil.
We shouldn't even mention a building as a temple.
That person is unknowingly under the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13).
The term "baptism in the Holy Spirit" is misused, as is the term "temple," and the manifestation (epi) of the Holy Spirit, a sign that allows those outside of Christ to know God's presence, is called "baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, it prevents the Holy Spirit, the other Comforter sent by the Lord, the Spirit of truth, from dwelling within us.
It rejects Christ's indwelling in the flesh.
That's the church like the Laodicean church, which believed only in Jesus and accumulated a lot of earthly possessions.
The Holy Spirit does not work within them.
They do not eat and drink of Christ.
Naturally, there is no happiness that connects them to the world to come.
3. Paul's rebuke of Peter in Antioch, who, out of concern for the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, slyly avoided eating with Gentiles, was not intended to surpass Peter.
It was a fear that the law would be mixed with the gospel accomplished by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was a pressing situation: otherwise, the Christian gospel would be obscured and unable to transcend Jewish legalism.
Even without this, the current Christianity is one in which the vestiges of legalism and Catholicism remain in the Reformed Church and are mixed together.
Where on earth did the phrase "believing in Jesus and obeying the Word" come from?
Are you truly obeying the Word?
So, when a pastor introduces a sermon, he tells people to check if he live according to the words he preached.
It is a typical 'believe in Jesus and follow his words' faith.
This person must endure long suffering.
He must fully taste the bread of suffering and the cup of tribulation.
Who in this day and age would teach people to "live according to the Word"?
That kind of person is a country bumpkin, like someone who shows up at a department store carrying a load of firewood.
Because Christianity is a nature-based education, disciple training, which is intellectual education, does not work.
Are there any churches that still practice discipleship?
4. Why does the Lord Jesus not say, "Live according to my word," but instead say, "Come to me and follow me"?
"If you love me, keep this commandment: I am in you, and you in me" (John 14:20-21)? Is this obedience to the Word?
Why does the Epistle of James follow the Epistle of Hebrews?
Dead faith is not dead without works, but faith that cannot be sanctified by the grace of Christ's atonement, and cannot approach God the Father in the Holy Spirit with Christ, and thus cannot receive life.
Therefore, dead faith has no life.
The life of all things in the world is an expression of that life.
A chick peeps, a sparrow chirps, a pig grunts. They live, unchangingly expressing their life.
However, only humans express their life inconsistently.
This is death.
If a Christian's only expression of a dead life is spiritual leprosy,
If his or her head is separate from his or her body, then he or she is paralyzed.
I do not speak of Christian ethics.
I only urge, through the grace of Christ's atonement, to become one with the Lord in the Holy Spirit and approach the Father.
People try to persuade others to obey the Word with all sorts of gestures, but this is not the essence of Christianity.
If you properly go through repentance and baptism according to the grace of the redemption of Christ's cross, you will receive forgiveness of sins and be filled with the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit.
Naturally, as we advance toward the throne of grace, all the words we have heard are combined into a unified faith.
The salvation of the whole person, spirit, soul and body, takes place.
Thus, we become people of love, the highest ethic of Christianity.
Those who have this love within them become goodness, righteousness, and truth (Ephesians 5:9) and live accordingly.
Please, throw the flimsy slogans about believing in Jesus and going to heaven into the trash.
I pray that you will receive Christ: the resurrection, eternal life, and heaven in you and discover the mystery of connecting with the world to come through the Holy Spirit and truth.
Through this mystery, you will become first-class through the various gifts you receive.
Written by Pastor. Yohan Kim
Translated by Missionary Sookyung Chung
COME AND SEE WORLD MISSION
TO GOD BE THE GLORY
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