The Church of the Beyond, vol. 6

Life

By Benjamin F. Hoogterp

Paperback: 334 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace ((December 24, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1470010429
ISBN-13: 978-1470010423
Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.8 inches
Release Date: 12.24.12

Available on Amazon.com.

Description:

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. John 17:3 Ever wonder what makes the difference between having church and having church? I mean, those glory times, where everything seems fresh, clean, and like God’s presence is there as something special, unique, and real? What is it about the special and unique touch of the Spirit that makes every time life-changing? This is life, to know Him and to make Him known. There is no other purpose, there is no other destiny, and there is no other calling. Giftings may come or go, but only through Jesus do we come to know the Father (John 14:6).

A man asked Jesus what it took to be perfect. Jesus responded, do the commandments. The man replied that he had, and Jesus said he lacked one thing, that he was to sell all, give to the poor, and follow Him. You see, you can’t get anywhere without His heart, you have no life in you if you do not have His, His name, His Character, His Will, His desire. It is in giving everything, absolutely everything, that we receive Him, for we must live as He lived, and walk as He walked. In doing this, we show that we are His disciples, and we will abide in His love.

It wasn’t for a show, and it wasn’t for an institution that Jesus died, but He came and lived as a man for men, that we, men and women, might know His true love, be set free from the deceptions of this age, and come to know true life, Eternal life, Himself. For, there is life in no other, nor is there salvation in any other name than Jesus Christ. Whoever believes on Him shall be saved, and all others shall be damned, even as the scriptures say, in Mark 16:16. For to one, He says come, and he comes, and to another do this, and he does it. The greatest key to life could be summed up in one of Jesus’ statements, saying that all of the Father’s commands lead to life. Even the command to the cross, though it went through death, lead to life, and we live today because of it. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

John 1:9

Man, the carnal man, lives in darkness.  All mankind has turned aside from the truth, the true light, and has gone to corruption.  There is nothing wholesome about man, and nothing good in what he can do.  Ever.

The Spiritual Man, however, as Paul described, has died to it.  He has died to himself, to the world with all its desires, and has died to himself.  The case is so edged that Paul states that he is crucified to the world and the world is crucified to himself (Galatians 6:14).

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I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.

Luke 13:5

Take an apple, cut it open, and put it on the counter.  Leave it there, say, for a week, or a month, and you will notice something. The apple is no longer the apple you left it as, but it is now destroyed.  Further, there is no repairing that apple to it’s original golden deliciousness.  It is now, if you leave it long enough, brown slime, and food for the bees.

This world, like that apple, is broken like that apple.  And, in fact, it was God that broke it for His own justice at the beginning, when the man fell.

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He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Mark 16:16 KJV

Lest we forget our place, let us remember Jesus words.  He did not come to condemn, because He didn’t have to.  We already were, all of us (John 3:17, Romans 3:23).  Lest we lose our moorings, let us remember the foundations of our faith.  One of the foundations upon which all else is built upon is Eternal Punishment (Hebrews 6:2).  Without these things, we are in error, and we cannot grow into maturity in the things of faith.

None of us can boast about our place in God, for no one is righteous on their own merit.  Paul wrote, “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded.” Romans 3:27.  Even in evangelism, while it is true that we have what everyone else is looking for, and we must not get into fruitless debates, it remains upon the finished works of the cross.  We tell others that they are sinners and condemned to hell, not because we are righteous in our own merit, but because of the very hope we preach.

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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus;

Romans 8:1

But, there is condemnation for those who are not in Christ.  Jesus said,

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Mark 16:16

Jesus said that those who do not believe in Him, the Son of Man who was God Himself, would be eternally condemned, bound in an eternal hell for Eternity.  Paul, writing later, said that it was on the six foundations of the Christian faith, without which, one could not move on to maturity (Hebrews 6:2).

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Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

James 1:27

Paul wrote that the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love (Galatians 5:6).  True religion is a good thing, as opposed to the thing commonly called the “religious spirit”, aka, the demonic force of blindness, deafness, and mere rules.  True religion expresses faith through an attitude of love.  The word “expresses” here means it does something.  As James wrote elsewhere, faith without works is dead (James 2:26).  Religion does something, it is both forward and reserved, but always after some goal.

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I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.

John 3:11

One of the tenets of the Gospel is faith.  This can mean many things to some people, but a Bible definition goes something like this:  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1).  While many people claim to have a “faith”, their claims prove to be nothing at all.  They are houses built upon sand (or worse), and they have no ability to stand up for the Truth.

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Now, Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

Substance is “hypo-stasis” in the Greek.  Hypo meaning “beneath”, and stasis meaning “the state, status, or structure of a thing”.  That is, the underlying, inherent nature of an object, its foundation, its unseen, non-physical yet spiritual essence.  Whether it is an apple, a thought, or a person, to have faith in or for something is to have it for real, whether or not you see it manifested in the natural.  For example, if you say, “I believe such and such will happen”, that is hope.  If you have the substance of the thing hoped for, the very reality of that thing, though yet unseen, that is what Faith is.

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