To Know Jesus is to know the CAUSE and not the EFFECT...

My brother in Christ, Tim Shey, Sawman,  did a nice Blog (***see it below) from a Mr. Michael Boldea Jr, giving  Christians, both true and fake,  a good tongue lashing of good ole fashioned "get yourself righteous"  now before God. 

 Surely, this man, Mr.Boldea Jr. is a godly man who I believe was inspired by the Holy Spirit and no doubt felt led to kick us in the rear end and to go after those who are "playing church"and living a lie.  Praise God for that and for him.  After reading his letter, I felt compelled to search my own heart and continue in my effort to "work out my salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12)  I was even led by the Holy Spirit to post this remark:

Examine me dear Lord. Create in me a clean heart, Oh God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Amen. Psalms 51 partial.
With love in Christ,
Andrew Lee Sheets 

Then, something very interesting happened to me...The Holy Spirit prompted me to dig deeper for some reason and so...

I read Philippians 2:12 AND THEN... verse 13 caught my eye: "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.....  What? I thought I had to to "do it"...


Once again, here we find a powerful PARADOX. I.E., Here we are told to work out our salvation which means WE HAVE TO DO IT... and then in the next verse we're told, "God works it out. (As Christians we live in a world of Paradoxes.  A paradox is something of two truths that, when laid side by side, appear to contradict. However, upon reflection, understanding and revelation, they prove to be compatible, not opposing each other.   For more on Paradox in the Christian life please see my brother Ed Beck's Blog here. sober souls. 

Knowing a paradox is indeed involved here, I knew there's a flip side of this coin. "The other side of the coin"  "The God does it all for us, side"    Then, I remembered this morning, (truly, just this morning) for my devotional time, I was reading Oswald Chambers and wouldn't you know it?, He was discussing this very thing, Check it out:

(And know this brothers and sisters): "And it is not repentance that saves me - repentance is only the sign that I realize what God has done through Christ Jesus. The danger here is putting the emphasis on the effect, instead of the cause. Is it my obedience, consecration, and dedication that make me right with God? IT IS NEVER THAT! I AM MADE RIGHT WITH GOD BECAUSE, PRIOR TO ALL OF THAT, CHRIST DIED. SINFUL MEN AND WOMEN CAN BE CHANGED INTO NEW CREATIONS, NOT THROUGH THEIR REPENTANCE OR THEIR BELIEF, BUT THROUGH THE WONDERFUL WORK OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS WHICH PRECEDED ALL OF OUR EXPERIENCE (see 2 Corinthians 5:17-19) The unconquerable safety of justification and sanctification is God Himself. We do not have to accomplish these things ourselves - they have been accomplished through the atonement of the Cross of Christ. The supernatural becomes natural to us through the miracle of God, and there is the realization of what Jesus Christ has ALREADY DONE - IT IS FINISHED .. JOHN 19:30.... For He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  The teaching is not Christ for me unless I am determined to have Christ formed in me... See GALATIANS 4:19 QUOTE TAKEN FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS' MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST.. 

See,  the danger in getting hooked on our own activity bringing us into a right standing with God (justification) and our own righteousness to be approved by God is it MAKES US RELIGIOUS... and actually we're no different from the pagan catholics, fake christians and other false religions: 

See Ed Beck's point taken from Sober Souls: Walking with God.  Quote: "The antichrist is little more than a man independently expressing himself; being designed to express ourselves in concert with God alone, we, by default, make ourselves god when we do so without Christ.  Satan is always looking for someone to express their fallen nature under the guise of a proper and legitimate expression; he knows the power of mankind’s soul and is always trying to get mankind to use it unlawfully.  Watchman Nee, in The Latent Power of the Soul,expresses deep concern about mankind’s latent potential and our unlawful use of it; he said:

The Babylonians, the Arabs, the Buddhists, the Taoists, and the Hindus all try in their respective way to release the power which Adam has left to our soul.  In any religion, using whatever means or ways of instruction, there stands a common principle behind all their apparent differences.  The common principle is to aim at overcoming the outward flesh so as to deliver the soul power from all kinds of bondage for freer expression.  Some lessons of instruction given in these religions are directed at destroying the obstruction of the body, some at uniting the body and the soul, while some are aimed at strengthening the soul through training and thus enabling it to overcome the body.  Whatever the ways may be, the principle behind them all is the same.  It is important to know this or else we will be deceived.    "

THEREFORE,  WE NEED TO MAKE SURE WE KNOW " IT "(it means being righteous and holy before God; i.e., justified) IS ALL ABOUT THE CROSS... IT IS JESUS AND WHAT JESUS DID ON THE CROSS.. THIS IS THE CAUSE WHICH MAKES THE EFFECT OF US BEING HOLY AND RIGHTEOUS..JUSTIFIED BEFORE GOD.... THE CAUSE IS NOT ...REPEAT  NOT...OUR OWN EFFORTS OF RIGHTEOUS LIVING TO BRING THE EFFECT OF BEING JUSTIFIED BEFORE GOD AND KNOWING THE CROSS...  

To me this means each day I depend on my Lord Jesus to help me through the Holy Spirit to have the faith that it has already been accomplished.

here's TIM SHEY'S BLOG POST" ***


I have come to loathe these tired clichés
> 
> I have come to loathe these tired clichés we Christians are starting to throw around. Its time to stand for righteousness. Really, is it? Has there ever been a time when it wasnt the right time to stand for righteousness? Did it suddenly become the appropriate time to live the gospel, and not just talk about it? 
> Jesus didnt say, if you love, Me, tell Me so repeatedly, sing it to Me, put it on a t-shirt, or tweet My name ten times per day. What Jesus did say, was, if you love Me, keep My commandments. 
> The new crop of the stupid and the perverse we are seeing come into their own, is the byproduct of the churchs silence, and unwillingness to live the gospel it preaches. 
> Sorry to break the news, but a good three quarters of our spiritual betters dont have a leg to stand on when it comes to sin, lawlessness, or other forms of rebellion against God. 
> You cant really become a dyed in the wool moralist when youre on your fourth marriage, being investigated for fraud and embezzlement, and the words righteousness and holiness havent passed your lips in at least a decade.  
> Just this morning, another mega-church pastor was fired from his post for having an illicit affair with a sixteen year old parishioner. 
> The world is evil…the word of God tells us that it will be. The germane issue here is that the church isnt the beacon of righteousness and holiness that it ought to be. It is not what God calls it, and even demands that it be, and so at best were just a bunch of blowhards pointing at the worlds perversions with one hand while trying to sweep our own sins under the rug with the other.
> This is largely the reason judgment begins in the house of God. He hates hypocrisy, loathes it even, and when His righteous judgment begins to descend, the first stop on its world tour is the household of faith, where it will thoroughly clean house in a very public, very dramatic, and very complete way. 
> Im sorry to burst a bubble or two, but sin isnt what we define as being sin, sin is what God defines as being sin, and by Gods definition, much of the church needs to first repent before a living and omniscient God, before they begin the herculean task of converting the world. 
> What made the Apostles so effective in their ministry was not their vast intelligence, their witty repartee, their skills in delivering engaging exegesis, or their mastery of hermeneutics. What made the Apostles so effective was that they lived the gospel they preached, and because they lived the gospel, signs and wonders followed them, and when they opened their mouths to speak the name Jesus, they did so with authority and power. 
> Man is no more evil today than he was two thousand years ago. The only difference between now and then is that the watchmen have stopped watching, the guardians have stopped guarding, and those who ought to have been lights, and who ought to have stood for truth, discovered the hugely entertaining and mildly addictive game of golf. 
> We can keep thinking we can wish the world into being a better place, or positively affirm that its not as bad as all indicators confirm it is, but the reality of the situation is that change begins with us  with the individual  and as long as we are duplicitous of heart, and only partially committed to truth, the enemy will continue to gain ground and conquer territories the household of faith should have held with little effort. 
> The persecution that is soon to descend upon the church is not only beneficial in that it will separate the wheat from the chaff, it is vitally necessary, deserved, and long overdue. 
> With love in Christ,
> Michael Boldea Jr. 
>