truthsower

[truthsower]

Hi friend! I'd recommend the apocalyptic trilogy "Survivors"- "Listening" - "Destroyers". They are short novels that will help you to have a closer picture of what it is going to be alive during the Tribulation times as a follower of Jesus. Adventure, wisdom, suspense, faith, love... all in these three free books.

You can read/download them for free here: https://bit.ly/The_Survivors_Trilogy_BOOKS Enjoy them! =)

Hey guys, can you recommend some of your favorite Christian books 📚?? Dm me or write under this post. :)

[truthsower]

[truthsower]

PRIDE

Greed is the biggest stumbling block to following Christ. But of those who respond to his call to live by faith, very few are able to clear the second hurdle, which is pride. (Watch this video to know more about it: "Is It Really Pride?") The world has made pride into a virtue instead of the damnable vice that it is. Sure, it's easier to be able to do things your own way, to come and go as you please, to call all the shots. But what does it do to your spirit? God isn't so concerned with the normal measures of efficiency. He doesn't care how many tracts we get out, or how many converts we make. What he is interested in is what kind of a spirit do we have? Is it a broken and humble spirit, or is it a proud and arrogant one? The best way to learn humility is to learn to live with other people. Pride is what it makes it so hard... Living in community provides great fellowship; and it certainly improves our effectiveness in many ways. But even when it slows us down, it is filling one of the great spiritual needs we all have, and that is to learn to wait on one another, to sacrifice our own personal freedom for the greater good of the community.

These are areas of spiritual growth which can so easily be ignored in the secular world and the Sunday-go-to-meeting church, where people with enough money rarely have to humble themselves to anyone, and seldom are they called on to account for such pride to church elders. And this is the over-riding reason why most people leave our community. But the demands made on our pride by living in community seven days a week are really what make us so effective. Where else can you find people who are able to work together the way we do? We have learned this just by being willing to sacrifice our pride day after day for the sake of the larger community.

Dictatorships are the most efficient form of government (because there is no wait for approval and consensus before decisions are made); but they are notoriously bad for the dictators. God prefers for us to sacrifice freedom and efficiency in order to give him the gift that he really desires: a broken spirit and a contrite heart.

What do you think? Share your thoughts below =)

Interested in more? Visit this website: https://bit.ly/JC_Web

[truthsower]

WHAT IS FAITH?

CHECK OUT THIS INSPIRING VIDEO ABOUT FAITH: https://bit.ly/3rHPu1p

"When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8)

On the island state of Tasmania there used to be a native dog, called a thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, because of the black and white stripes on the back half of the animal. The last known specimen died in captivity more than fifty years ago. However, there is now talk of cloning more Tasmanian tigers through DNA taken from a preserved specimen. Embryos could be implanted in other dogs, until a pack of Tasmanian tigers could be produced. The film Jurassic Park was based on a similar concept for bringing dinosaurs back. Whether or not such a feat is a realistic scientific possibility, there is no doubt that the only way to bring back an extinct species would be to have some reliable specimen or other link with the original, from which you could make copies. Unfortunately, the world today is going through a time when genuine faith is going the way of the dinosaur. People have something which they call faith today, but it is almost universally a counterfeit of the real thing. Because of that, we are going to try to give a description in this article of what genuine faith is like, so that the world will not be without a link to the real thing, even if all genuine possessors of faith die out.

(The most amazing thing about faith is just how simple it is. Unlike currency or great works of art, which are very hard to duplicate, it is the various forms of counterfeit faith which are complicated, while the genuine article is really quite simple. To understand the difference between the genuine and the counterfeits, think of the difference between the words "believe" and "belief". When you use the word "belief" it conjures up a picture of a formal statement, usually one that has been well thought out, which states, often in legal jargon, exactly what someone believes on a particular subject. That pretty well describes the counterfeits. The world is cluttered with various "belief systems", but they tell us very little about genuine faith. In fact, our experience has been that the bottom line to all the so-called Christian belief systems is that they invariably oppose genuine faith in Jesus Christ. We will explain more about that in a moment. But first, consider the word "believe". We use it all the time, with very little confusion about what it means. It is amazingly simple. Whenever someone says something, you either believe it or you do not. Jesus described faith as a tiny seed which grows into a huge tree. He was saying that simply believing the things that he said seems so insignificant that most people are inclined to overlook it in favour of something more complicated to describe faith in Jesus. But if we would simply "believe" him when he says something, out of that would grow everything that God really wants to see in his followers. It is unfortunate that most translations of John 3:16 say, "Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." I have strong suspicions about that word "in" having been placed there by a zealous scribe who took exception to the word "believe" on its own. The word "in" gives the impression that we need only believe in the existence of Jesus and we will have everlasting life. (See this 1-minute video about John 3:16 meaning).

James wrote that even the devils have that kind of faith. (James 2:19) He argued, instead, in favour of faith that "works". (James 2:18) Sadly, the people who preach John 3:16 most strongly also argue most strongly against just about everything that James wrote, and against the whole concept of "good works" having anything to do with salvation. Their counterfeit belief system systematically attacks the idea of simply "believing" Jesus, and then acting in accordance with what he has said. As we said above, the counterfeit belief systems which are supposedly built on believing "in" Jesus all seem to oppose "believing" Jesus. They have elaborate ways of justifying their traditions, but none of them come from the teachings of Jesus himself. Did Jesus tell us to build huge cathedrals, to recite prayers, asking him into our hearts, to bless bombs and become involved in world politics? What exists today in the name of Christianity bears very little resemblance to the early Christians. Of course, if the Bible really does teach that faith is a belief system more than childlike faith in the things that Jesus said, then who are we to argue against it? But take another look at the third chapter of John's gospel, to see if that is what it really teaches. The last verse of the chapter (John 3:36) more or less repeats what the 16th verse says. But in the second half of that verse, the infamous little word "in" (or "on" as used in the first half of this verse) does not appear. It merely says, "He that does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." Believe in Jesus if you like. Believe on him too if you like. But unless you simply believe him, you are lost. And how can we say that we believe the things he says, when our belief system says that we must not try to obey the things he says, or we will lose our salvation? You are going to have to throw out the counterfeit in order to find the real thing. (NOTE: Some translations actually have the word "obey" in the second half of John 3:36, in the place of "believe", which further supports what we have been saying. Whosoever does not "obey" the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on them.) True faith in Jesus means believing everything that Jesus said. And true faith in God is believing everything that God says. As the words to the song go, "Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey." True faith just naturally leads to obedience. If I say that there is a bomb in the room and it will explode in ten seconds, you do not sit down and have a discussion about it. Your faith in what I have said will instantly be transformed into action. You will race out of the room. One could say that your faith in what I said is what saved you. But there would be very little difference between saying that and saying that your action (i.e. the act of leaving the room) saved you too. It was an action based on faith. Martin Luther once said, "Faith and works are two sides of the same coin. You cannot separate one from the other any more than you can separate the ability to give light from the flame on a candle." As James put it, if there are no works (or obedience), it is evidence that there is no faith. And as Paul put it, in Ephesians 2:8-9, if there is no faith, there is no grace, for God's grace is only available "through faith". When you remember these two points, it becomes easy to see that any teaching about grace without works (or worse still, any teaching about grace which opposes works) is based on a counterfeit belief system, and has not come from genuine faith in Jesus. That really is about all you need to know about faith. Faith in Jesus Christ means believing everything that Jesus Christ said. At the moment there are still Bibles around, if people would only open them and turn to the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) to read the things that Jesus said. Over and over he said things that require genuine faith in God for people to literally do them, which is why counterfeit faith is so much

more popular. What Jesus said is so simple and so clear that we do not even need to elaborate on most of his teachings. We have the confidence to tell you to just open the book, read it, and then do it. It is the counterfeits who must give you complicated explanations about how the teachings of Jesus don't really mean what they clearly say. When Jesus says, "Love your enemies," it is the counterfeits who must explain how that means we should have strong armies who are prepared to kill our enemies. We have often quoted Luke 14:33 ("Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my disciple.") just as it appears in the King James Version of the Bible, only to have people respond with, "Well, that's your opinion." No, it's not our opinion. It's the opinion of Almighty God, as expressed through his Son. It is his unconditional requirement for anyone who wishes to follow him. It contains the same "whosoever" that appears in John 3:16. Whosoever believes it (and acts accordingly, of course) will not perish. But if you do not believe the Son, you shall not see life, and the wrath of God abides on you. This article is being sent out like a message in a bottle to a world that has been almost totally stripped of genuine faith. If you find it, and if you believe what it is saying, it can bring you new life. We are praying that you will find it, and that you will believe what it is saying. The rest is already programmed into the tiny seed of faith.

[truthsower]

Eight Ways to Know God's Will

*FOR A VIDEO VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE CLICK HERE: https://bit.ly/39zuUtB

If I told someone that God speaks to me and tells me His will, they would probably think I was crazy. The truth is, though, that God can speak to us, and he will if we're sincere about listening. Not much has been written on the topic of how to hear from God. Churches give some clues, but they tend to focus on one area to the exclusion of others. This study is an attempt to share our experience of hearing from God, so that you can put it into practical use yourselves. We list a number of different ways God can speak, so that you can get a more reliable understanding of what God is saying to you. Perhaps you can think of more ways than what we have, or you may word some of the ways listed here slightly differently. That's fine. Also, not all eight ways that we have listed here are equal in value, so we have listed them in order of importance. 1. Jesus' Teachings Jesus, the Word of God, was God's mouthpiece on earth. When wanting to know God's will, who better to turn to? (John 14:6-7) If Jesus told his followers to do something, then you should seriously consider doing it too, if you want to be one of his followers. If you are considering doing something that goes against what Jesus taught, then you should seriously question it. It's as clear as that. Jesus gives us really good general guidelines to follow. He couldn't always give us instructions for specific circumstances we find ourselves in though, and that is where the rest of the ways to hear from God can be helpful. (See also The Word of God.) 2. Your Conscience This one is almost as important as the teachings of Jesus. However, a conscience can be "trained"-- for bad as well as for good (1 John 3:20). So we need the teachings of Jesus to train our conscience at times. As you study the teachings of Jesus, you will see that they speak to your conscience. God's Spirit, speaking through your conscience, will tell you that what he is saying is true. You should heed that voice and not sear your conscience by listening to arguments against what Jesus has said. (Romans 1:18-21) (See also The True Conscience.) The next five categories are all similar in importance. Problems can result with any of them, if any one is followed to the exclusion of the others. 3. Advice from Godly People We should listen to the advice of godly people such as those who wrote the Bible or people around us who have proven themselves to be trustworthy spiritual advisors. It's easy to be a "loose cannon" and want to do things "your own way", but by accepting advice from others, you can get a "second witness" about God's will for you (2 Corinthians 13:1). The weakness with this way of listening to God is that someone you've trusted in the past could give you advice contrary to the rest of what God is saying. It may go against your conscience or against the teachings of Jesus. St. Paul said that if he or an angel from heaven should say anything contrary to the gospel of Jesus then we should reject it and curse him in preference to rejecting Jesus (Galatians 1:8). (See also Loose Cannons.) 4. Direct Revelations God can speak to us through dreams, visions and prophecies. We should take the time to listen to what he has to say. Ask God to give you dreams when you go to sleep; and each day when you pray take time to clear your mind of its busy thoughts and allow God to speak to you. You may see a picture, have some words come into your head or have a little daydream which you have not consciously created yourself. In direct revelations God often speaks in "parables". In this way, he can get a message through to you that you may have resisted when it came through other means. Once you have the revelation it is important to ask God for an interpretation of the lesson behind it and then to pray for an application of that lesson in something that has been happening in your life. You will need to do so with a willingness to accept the truth of the revelation, no matter how difficult it may be, because often the things God most wants to tell us are things that we are most likely to resist. A

weakness with direct revelations is that they may just be an expression of our subconscious, or in the case of dreams, they could actually be an attack from the devil (e.g. nightmares). A dream that is from God will provide a solution, and will not cause us to experience irrational fear. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). A combination of methods 3 and 4, can be quite reliable. If several godly people receive similar revelations in a community listening time, you can feel pretty confident that it is from God. (See also Hearing from God.) 5. Circumstances God can set up circumstances to assist you in doing the right thing. Open or closed doors can make his will quite obvious. If, for example, you think God wants you to walk on water, but you try it and it doesn't work, then he probably wasn't the one telling you to walk on water! Easy, eh? The weakness with this approach (if followed exclusively), is that there is a chance that God will want you to persevere under difficult circumstances and the devil will tempt you to give in, just on the grounds that it is too hard. Or the devil could tell you that a golden opportunity to do something that is wrong amounts to a set-up from God when it isn't at all. You can't rely entirely on circumstances, or you will end up just doing whatever is easiest. 6. Coincidences Coincidences are a bit like circumstances, except that they are a lot more subtle. It has to do with the timing of a circumstance more than the significance of the circumstance itself. For example, if you're considering visiting relatives and you happen onto something in the Bible or elsewhere where it talks about families drawing closer together, you could take it as a confirmation from God that you should go. Under other circumstances the passage in the Bible would not have had the same meaning for you. It's easy to become side-tracked by coincidences though. Some crazy people spend their whole lives looking for God to speak to them through coincidences for every little thing they do. You don't need to create the coincidences. They will happen by themselves when they are from God, and it will be clear when they are. 7. Desires God can speak to us on an emotional level through his Holy Spirit. This may be expressed in subtle ways, such as an interest in a particular activity. God wants us to enjoy what we do and we will do best what we enjoy doing most. This one is similar to conscience (when we feel a strong conviction to either do something or not to do something), but it is more passive. If, for example, you like working with children, and if there is an opportunity to do so, and if God does not use some other direction to stop you from doing that, you should not feel bad about doing what you like doing. The weakness with this is that the devil tempts us by making sin look enjoyable. Our interest, or motivation, in doing something will not always be pure; we need to recognise when that is so. Following our desires should only be used when it does not contradict other leadings from God. 8. Miracles, or "Signs" God may choose to use a supernatural experience to reveal His will to people. At times people have asked God for a "sign" to confirm His will for them (e.g. Gideon, in Judges 6:17, 36-40). This is a practice that we have discouraged because it can easily turn into "tempting" God, and people have been punished for doing that (e.g. Zechariah, in Luke 1:18-20). The only times that God seems to have tolerated people asking for a sign, have been times when he was asking them to do something that goes very strongly against their natural reasoning. Jesus warned that an evil generation seeks a sign. He said that instead of seeking signs or miracles, we should rely on the words of God's messengers to know God's will (Matthew 12:39). If God has already spoken through other means, then it is wrong to demand that He do a miracle to confirm it. (See also miracles.) When trying to hear what God is telling you, think about all eight ways that he

could speak to you, and weigh them up against each other. There will not always be unity between all eight ways, but there should be a fairly strong leaning in one direction or the other. It is important that you approach the matter of finding God's will honestly and sincerely, being willing to interpret revelations etc. with an open mind and a willingness to do anything for God, no matter how hard it may be. The purpose of these eight different ways is to use them to get an overall idea of what God is leading you to do and then to act on it. If you do that, you can be sure that God will not fail you. Jesus said that if we ask God for the Holy Spirit, it is like a child asking her father for a fish. He will not give a serpent to the child (Luke 11:11-13). (See also The Reno Principle.) If you consider only one way of hearing from God to the exclusion of others, you can easily delude yourself into thinking God is saying something that he is not. Once you know what God is saying to you, you have a responsibility to follow it. If you ignore what He says to you, then chances are that you will gradually stop hearing from God (because you will destroy your ability to hear him) and you will become dead spiritually (1 Timothy 4:2). So what are you waiting for? Tune in to what God wants to tell you today. =)

[truthsower]

THE TRUE CONSCIENCE: CAN YOU HEAR IT?

It has struck me that I must have failed somewhere in my attempts to teach people to recognise and follow what we call our conscience.

We have talked about obeying God in terms of principles laid out in the teachings of Jesus, and we have warned against the deceptions of a "social conscience"* as opposed to what God wants. But in between these two concepts is a genuine inbuilt alarm system that God has given to us which can tell us when we are doing something immoral, unethical, or dishonest. (*We are not referring to concern about social injustices, but rather to doing good only because of what others will think of us.) Generally speaking, this alarm is more or less a "silent system". In other words, it's a very "still, small voice" that we need to be listening very carefully for, if we are to hear it.

If we ignore the alarm, the still small voice appears to disappear; but a screaming siren of a different sort often takes its place. The problem is that, having initially ignored the still small voice, most people just see the siren as a nuisance, and it is only those around you who are bothered by the siren. This siren produces acute anxiety in place of the original conviction, which we have ignored for so long. For someone looking on, the anxiety seems to be clear warning that something is seriously wrong with the alarm system; but for the person suffering anxiety, it is difficult to find a satisfying explanation for it. I'll explain it in another way. You have an angel on one shoulder whispering in your ear and telling you when you have done something wrong. But you have a devil on the other shoulder, who appeals to your pride and tells you that you must defend yourself when you are criticised. The angel tries to point out the truth in the criticism, but the devil tries to get you to defend yourself against the criticism. The devil may allow you to give lip service to some bits of truth... especially if he sees that there will be punishment from the group if you don't own up to them. But on the whole, the devil doesn't want you to get serious about changing. He won't give an inch unless clearly pressured to do so.

Criticism usually is aimed at getting you to change something. But the devil will point to all the ways you have changed in the past, and give you strong arguments to show that you are humble, teachable, sincere, and just generally good enough that you don't really need to make further changes. All of this has the effect of making the criticism seem unfair, and the anxiety justified. Yet the anxiety comes because the criticism threatens to expose a "blind spot". The blind spot often is nothing more than your pride. But often, anyone with a bit of common sense can see that you behave irrationally whenever someone gets too close to the truth about a blind spot. It is your irrationality that most convincingly proves the existence of the blind spot. It just takes gentle probing around the borders of the blind spot (e.g. your ego or self-image) to keep getting the same irrational reactions and defensiveness, which work together to destroy your conscience. It is the job of a Christian counsellor (or team of counsellors) to first locate the blind spot through patient questioning, and then to bring this blind spot to the attention of the person suffering from it. It is not easy; but until it is accomplished, the true conscience will remain buried under it. Remember, the true conscience wants to tell you the truth about yourself, and your need to change; but listening to the devil has taught you to run from the truth, and to create a false self-image which must be defended, lest the true conscience come back to life and the devil be destroyed. If you are going to change at all, it will only be when you are forced to do so. All of this comes from lying to yourself. If you read Gandhi's autobiography, you will see that he was very sensitive about telling the truth in his childhood. I had a similar attitude toward telling the truth when I was young. However, as I grew older, I realised that it was necessary at times to hide the truth from people (often for their own good). So I developed the teaching about being "honest about our dishonesty". I think that even Gandhi may have missed that aspect of honesty, thus deceiving himself into thinking that he was more honest than he really was. But the main point is that, we must do our utmost to never ever lie to ourselves or to God. For each time we do that, we create a blind spot in our personality which can easily spread to other blind spots, until it has destroyed our whole personality, and made total fruit cakes out of us.

Systemites do this all the time; so that they are all crazy to some degree. They have run away from all kinds of uncomfortable truths, leaving many of them free to only carry on very basic animal-like functions from day to day. They cannot face up to important subjects like death, God, and the teachings of Jesus. It has caused them to turn to myths like money, evolution, and selfishness to stuff in the gaps in their understanding of life. For religious people like ourselves the replacement for the truths we have shut out is self-righteousness of one sort or another. Basically, our conscience tells us when we are doing something wrong, or even when we are getting close to doing something wrong. But we need to "practise" listening to it. Practise thinking about things that you have done wrong, or things that you feel a little uncomfortable about spiritually. Practise thinking about whether or not you are applying the same principles to others that you apply to yourself, and vice versa. If you haven't already done so, practise opening up to someone (preferably someone you can trust deeply with such secrets) about things you have done wrong in the past. Practise going to people and confessing things (even very little things) that you have done wrong recently and gotten away with. In conversation practise listening to your conscience, asking it if you are being totally fair and honest in your responses and criticisms. Especially practise listening to your conscience when someone is criticising you, to see if there isn't some truth in the criticism. You may need to stuff a sock in the mouth of the devil who is telling you that the criticism is too harsh, that it exaggerates some things, etc. But if you will do it, you will start to discover a spiritual freedom and confidence that you never had before. It may help to understand that the social conscience and the true conscience are closely linked. The social conscience does the "right thing" as defined by the group, whether it be society as a whole or our own little fellowship. It may actually be the right thing that to do, but if you are primarily looking to others in the group for reassurance that you are doing the right thing, it is an indication that your conscience may be more "social" than godly. We never totally outgrow our need for a social conscience. However, there needs to be a steady growth in our ability to know what is right, and to act on it, simply because our conscience (i.e. the true conscience) tells us to do so. This is particularly important if you are going to try to lead. Leadership brings far too much freedom and power for you to avoid corruption if you aren't controlled directly by God in how you use that power and freedom. So, in conclusion, can I call on each of you to make serious efforts to listen more to your conscience, and to hunt down and eradicate the blind spots that are crippling so many of you in your walk with God? I think we will find the results positive and encouraging. Happy hunting!

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