July 2008

by Craig Marlatt © 2008

“While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. Then one said unto him, behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? And who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”    Matthew 12:46-50

Did you know that God has a will? You might even say that the New Testament scripture is God’s Last Will and Testament. Please don’t think me sacrilegious for thinking this way, for the writer of Hebrews himself spoke in this manner in Hebrews 9:15-17, saying in essence that the death of Christ was God’s signature upon the New Testament (covenant, agreement, will, etc.), that in his death He left an inheritance, and that the beneficiaries would be those of his immediate family.

Although most theologians might agree concerning the benefits of this ‘Last Will and Testament’, there is, as in many probate hearings, much disagreement as to whom the beneficiaries are. Yet I think that it becomes quite clear if we consider verse 50 from the scripture verses quoted: “For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother”.

            In saying this Jesus was not trying to belittle his natural family, but rather laying the foundation for entrance into the Kingdom of God. Certainly it would have been a blessing to be born into the family of Joseph and Mary and to be a natural born brother or sister of Jesus Christ. No doubt it was a blessing to be the chosen mother of the Christ child, but that in itself would not qualify one for an inheritance according to the New Testament. In fact there is an incident recorded in Luke 11:27,28 that substantiates this: “And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, yeah rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.”

Many hopeful beneficiaries of God’s ‘Will’ place their trust in church tradition, but Jesus made it clear that this was not the correct way: “Making the word of God of none effect, through your traditions, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye” (Mark 7:13; Matthew 15:5, 6; Isaiah 29:13). Neither can we obtain the inheritance through church attendance: “But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22).  Nor by lofty spirituality: “Many will come unto me in that day and say, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me ye workers of iniquity” (Mt. 7:22, 23).

There are no “4 Steps to Eternity” and no concept or success plan which can grant entrance into the family of God, or guarantee an inheritance which has been laid up for God’s children. We must have an absolute upon which we can base our faith, and that absolute is the Word of God. Isaiah said, “ . . . . the grass  withereth, the flower fadeth; but the Word of God shall stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8). Other scriptures confirm this thought repeatedly: (Matthew 5:18; 1 Peter 1:25, 26; Psalm 19:7; Isaiah 59:21). We can no longer settle for what others have told us that Christ said, or leave it to the preacher to get to know God for us. Every person who names the name of Jesus as Savior and Lord must give personal attendance to the words our Lord has spoken.

I used to think that saying swear words with the Lord’s name attached to them was taking the Lord’s name in vain. More recently I’ve come to believe that calling yourself a Christian without a real commitment to Christ is also taking his name in vain. We hate to say ‘Jesus Christ’ as a profanity, but we don’t mind calling ourselves Christians , even though our hearts are empty and void of any real love and dedication to the Holy One behind that wonderful name.

            This is not an easy message to share and I have no hopes that it will change the course of history and turn everyone into ‘Super Christians’. It is not a new message, which has not been heard, but rather an old one that has largely been rejected. I pray that God will find even one person reading this today that will listen to the Holy Spirit, and cast down the teachings and traditions of men to walk in the pure light of God’s Holy Word. May your eyes behold his Glory.

by Craig Marlatt  ©1984, 2008

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Galatians 4:4,5

MAN SEPARATED FROM GOD

            Did you know that man has been separated from his original relationship with God? If you have ever read the account of mans creation written in the Genesis Chapters 1 through 3 you will see that there was a time when the first man, Adam, had great favor with God. He lived in a place called Eden where there was an abundance of the things that he needed, and he had peace with all of God’s creatures. His only requirement was to keep God’s command not to eat of the ‘Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil’ – as God had told him that if he did that he would die.

            Adam (man) failed to keep his agreement with God and fell into sin, so God withdrew from man’s presence. He also made Adam leave his beautiful garden in Eden and go out into the wild to make it on his own.

MAN STILL SEEKING GOD

            It’s a very sad story but it’s true, and since that time  man has been striving to regain that original friendship he once had with God, but to no avail. It was sin that separated man from God and still today it continues to do the same. There is no hope for man to find favor with God again until this block of sin is removed.

ALL HAVE SINNED

            All sin stands in the same category with God. Sin is sin, whether it’s that of the drunkard or the prostitute; the man who cheats on his taxes (just a little), or the little girl who lies to her mother. There is no difference. All sin comes from the root of our fallen nature, and all sin has the same result: separation from God!

            The Bible tells us in Romans 3:23 that, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”, and in Romans 6:23 it say’s, ”The wages of sin is death”. If all have sinned, and the wages of sin is death, then all must die!

GOD IS MERCIFUL

            Does this mean that God is cruel and harsh? No! Because the same verse in Romans 6:23 say’s, “ . . .the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”. Though all men deserve eternal death, God has made an offer of the free gift of eternal life through his Son, Jesus Christ. This is our only hope of being joined again to a life in union with God. God in his mercy sought a way to restore man from his fallen state and there was only one answer: the Holy Son of God must take upon himself the limitations of the flesh and be born in the likeness of men.

LOVED BY THE FATHER, HATED BY MEN

            For over thirty Jesus Christ lived on the earth. He did many wonderful miracles while He lived and was very pleasing to his Father God. Above all Jesus Christ never sinned; not with his thoughts, words or deeds. He was perfect in every way. He was the Father’s perfect sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the world. God would be satisfied.

            The religious leaders of the time hated Jesus because He told them the truth about their own sins, and the truth about God. Because of this they had him beaten to a pulp and then nailed his bloody carcass to a wooden cross. Then they hoisted it up before a screaming crowd who jeered, and mocked, and shouted horrible blasphemous things at God’s only Son. For several hours Jesus hung there in excruciating pain, naked before the world. While He hung there Jesus said these words: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”(Luke 23:24) Before He died Jesus cried out: “It is finished” (John 19:30), signifying that He had completed the work of salvation which God the Father had sent him to accomplish. Three days later Jesus Christ arose from the tomb where He was buried, triumphing over death, hell and the grave.

BELIEVE AND BE SAVED

            All who believe these words in their heart and repent from their sins will receive the forgiveness of God. To repent means to have a change of direction: to turn from your life of sin and unbelief and give your will and the leadership of your life over to Jesus Christ.

            When you acknowledge that you are indeed a sinner in need of God’s salvation, and confess your belief that Jesus Christ has made the full payment required by God to atone for your sins, that He rose from the grave, and that you are ready to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of your life, you shall be saved. (see Romans 10:9-10) It doesn’t matter who you are or what you have done. The blood that Jesus shed on the cross nearly 2,000 years ago is still sufficient to remove your sins. You will be ‘born again’ and receive a new heart of obedience so that you can serve God and obey his word.

THERE IS NO OTHER WAY

This is God’s Plan of Salvation for you and it is impossible to be forgiven through any other means then through Jesus Christ.

You must:

1.      Confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus

2.      Believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead

3.      Repent from your sin and disobedience to God

4.      Receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior

Do it now! Don’t put it off. God is dealing with your heart and this is the most important decision you will ever make. Satan will try to make you doubt, but it is only because he desires to rob you of this gift of Eternal Life.

             Find a Bible believing and teaching Church gathering where you can  find fellowship and grow, and begin to study your Bible regularly. Ask God to direct you and He will lead you to the right people, but be careful as there are many wolves out there who want to steal what you have. Trust in the Lord and He will direct your path.

             Write or email me if you have any questions, need any help, or just want to share the good news of what God has done for you. Share your faith with others around you and God will surely bless you. May He keep you in his loving care,

Craig Marlatt   craig@craigmarlatt.org

“The greatest freedom is the freedom to believe. Without belief there can be no real freedom.” One might respond that the freedom to not believe is also a freedom, but it is not so. True freedom has borders. The borders are the will of God and the express purpose of God. Unbelief is the greatest of sins because it is in direct conflict with the revealed will of God. Unbelief is to freedom what wishing is to prayer. Wishing is an expression of a desire, frustration or imagination which may or may not coincide with the will of God. When it coincides with the will of God it is prayer.

Often wishing can be the discovery process that leads to prayer, but it can never be prayer. Prayer begins with God the Holy Spirit churning or calling within us or echoing His will through the spoken or written Word of God. God leads us through our frustration and need from imagination to prayer by revealing His will. Often we resist God’s Will because it does not meet with the expectation of our own desire. It is usually our desire that manifests the fallen nature of man and it is through the revealed will of God that we are called to ‘cast down’ imaginations and every thing that is in enmity (exalts itself) against the will of God. It is the nature of the fallen will to resist the borders of God’s perfect will. (2 Cor. 10:5)

Because God cannot be usurped, He is the only example of True Freedom. God is God and can never be less than God therefore He is in perfect union with Himself. He has no fear because there is nothing that can upset His reality. God is perfect love and “perfect love cast out fear”. (1 John 4:18) God is Reality and all that comes from His imagination is the lesser reality of the creation. It is not the Creator, but a manifestation of His expression, His idea. Because it is His idea it is His will that enables the creation to have existence. Because its existence is linked and supported only by His will, its freedom not only is in obligation to God but cannot exist without Him. There is no true freedom outside of the will of God.

It is the futility of man to resist God’s will by trying to usurp something that cannot be overcome. That is why many briefly successful (and horrible) expressions of human government are stolen from the principles of God’s revealed will. They are in fact attempts to capture God’s power without God’s will. For an example consider communism: this is merely an attempt to build governmental and human reality and authority without the revealed will of God. It is an attempt to accomplish the life of the early Church as recorded in the book of The Acts of the Apostles without God and without love. It is to human government what wishing is to prayer. Its history is based upon the frustrations of someone who liked God’s ideas, but not His borders.

Humans are the highest expression of God’s imagination in Creation for in them He has revealed Himself by imprint. Each is expressly different in some way as God himself differs from all things. Some have said that God is everything except that which is not God. But this cannot be true in essence, anymore than to say that a man’s ideas are not the man. Because they come from him they are indeed an expression of some part or idea which is him. Therefore man, God’s creation, is not separate from Him and cannot function or exist outside of Him. Even in complete rebellion from which there is no return he still exists only by God’s will. As David wrote, “Where shall I flee from Thy Spirit or where shall I go from Thy Presence Lord? . . .though I make by bed in hell, Thou art there”.

In marriage God allows the creation to create. God, being not endangered by the result, allows man to express himself in the fullest way through pro-creation. It is an opportunity for man to express his will through the act of creation. God does not interfere with the process but offers a blessing in marriage. In marriage I say, and not just sex, because it is within the boundary that God has supplied for the benefit of man and his offspring. By marriage I mean a union between two persons of the opposite sex who, under God, have covenanted together to form a family. Of course I don’t mean to infer that the laws of the land mean nothing, but since they differ from society to society let us presume that they are being upheld, Righteous Law being one of the clear borders the Lord has assigned for the benefit of man.

Through the act of union with one spouse, man can begin to exercise the nature of God that is given through imprint (Gen.1:26). He also can experience the complexity of that relationship in its development and growth. As man made God in His image and likeness, so has He made woman in the image and likeness of man and children in the image and likeness of their parents: the union of two expressed in one creation, a child.

Freedom, expressed through creation, is not exempt from suffering. God himself suffered separation and the loss of His son Adam in the Garden of Eden and later when Christ went to the Cross, because he endowed the man created in His image to have freedom of will. He could have avoided suffering by making him an obedient robot like creature, but in doing so He would have forfeited family. To create family one must accept with that the potential for disharmony and suffering when free wills come into conflict with each other. God proves His love for man in that He created him a free will creature, thus enabling man to cause suffering in and to God.

                             (to be continued)

Hi,

This is my first post on this or any blog site so I’ll try not to ramble as I tell you why I’m doing a Blog at all. craigmarlatt.org is the website I developed for Craig Marlatt Evangelistic Association (CMEA) for the purpose of ministering to those who spend time in this new world of Cyber Space, and to make my various teaching, ministry and music materials available for those who would enjoy and, hopefully, benefit from them. Having been now in the ministry for 30 plus years, there are many things that I want to share from my experiences in walking with the Lord, that hopefully may help someone else in their newfound, growing or even mature faith.

Having lived in this world now for quite some time I desire to share the things that I have learned – and still am learning – from experiences I have had and choices I have made (both good and bad)having to do with the Christian life, the Church, family, the world and the Scriptures. I have observed that many of us tend to make a doctrine out of [our] life, when instead we should make a life out of our doctrine. This, I think, is the true purpose of study, belief and practice.

Sadly I have seen that many Christians today have little ability to engage in dialogue without emotional attachment to a topic or subject. It’s as though we cannot speak of things objectively but instead take offense as though disagreement was in fact a personal attack. This I believe is the result of long periods of sitting in pews taking what was spoken from the pulpit as absolute rather than, like the Bereans, doing a little research of our own to see where the truth is on a subject. This is how doctrine is promoted and denominations solidified among the masses.

I have chosen a Blog rather than a Forum, probably because I don’t feel like spending a whole lot of time arguing with others, as I have found that there is no end of the number of people who preach their dogma on the internet and are not open to opposing ideas. There are many Forums where such arguing can take place but since I am not defending anything, I have chosen this format instead. So what you can expect here is more of a flow of ideas that I myself have discovered or even wrestled with in my own life.

I will try to post regularly enough so that someone who wishes to can use this as a sort of regular devotional study. If there is a topic of interest to you do not hesitate to ask me and I will do my best to share my thoughts on that subject. Being a spontaneous person who has lived a well varied life, I don’t think there is much that would surprise me, but please avoid things similar to the old ‘number of angels on a pinhead’ type questions. If you feel you must ask . .  the answer is 4.

So welcome to CraigsBlog and hopefully you will enjoy this and find it useful enough so that you may pass the link on to others who hopefully will do the same.

Until next time,

God Bless,

Craig Marlatt