For the Record

Spiritual Lessons

For the record –

God's primary purpose in saving us in NOT to unfold His wonderful plan for our lives.

Jesus is not the way out of life's problems.

Christianity is not the answer to our unhappiness.

We do not need to accept Christ in our life to find peace and joy.

Depression is not of the devil.

Jesus does not save the righteous from less sorrows than the wicked.


I needed to get that off my chest. If you listen long enough you find that the popular Christian message seems to say otherwise. And it's despicably wrong.

It sounds nice to imply that sinners will find better lives if they trust Jesus as their savior, but it's simply not true. It doesn't matter how many times it's promised from the pulpit or guaranteed in a tract, or taught from a life coach. Reality shatters every delusion.

In my own very short life I have experienced grief. I've watched others face tragedies. I've heard nightmarish accounts. And I've wept with heartbroken people. Christians – all of them.

And yet “a life of happiness” and a “wonderful plan” is still what is offered to the unsaved. If only they will believe on Jesus.

We'd better hide the Foxe Book of Martyrs then. And it would be a good idea to ignore how the disciple's lives ended. Better stop our ears when the prayer requests are read at church. Smile when we are actually hurting inside. Disfellowship with the depressed Christian.

I'll never forget the homeless man in Portland that I talked to.
As soon as I brought up “Jesus” he stopped me and smiled wanly – “Don't tell me Jesus is the cure. Don't talk to ME of happiness and joy. Don't give me promises. I've seen it all. If Jesus is escape from suffering why does He allow suffering in “the saved”? Why does the Pastor have cancer? Why was that little child abused? Why are they homeless?”
He was bitter from all the hollow promises he had heard over and over from Christians.

And he's right. Why do Christians promise something they themselves don't have?

History proves Christianity to be a cost, not a self-help program. All you have to do is look at the suffering of the underground church today to know that Christianity isn't a bed of roses.

Instead, all have fallen short of the glory of God. All are guilty enemies of God in need of righteousness. Mankind is condemned to Hell. The wages of your sin is death. But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die in your place. The only way to accept such forgiveness and payment is to repent and believe. You won't find an experience; a way out of your problems; or a life of happiness. But you will be given a new life restored to your Creator. You will still have heartache. Still have tragedies. Struggles and sorrow. Just like the rest of the world. But unlike the world, you will have His mercy, and He can work your heartache for good.

Give the true gospel and you won't have bitter unbelievers who spit at your hypocrisy.
Share the truth and you won't have disillusioned Christians falling on the wayside when persecution comes.

Stop making false promises and you won't have false conversions.
Get off the conventional Christian bandwagon. It will only lead you to misery and lead unbelievers to Hell.


Related Posts:

Spiritual Correctness


When Surrender is our Idol

A Broken Roof

A Broken Roof

“ In the second chapter of Mark we read the interesting and instructive story of four men who brought a paralytic to the Lord Jesus Christ by breaking the roof of a house. Jesus had been teaching in a home in Capernaum. A great crowd soon assembled until they filled the house, and were crowded around the outside, making it impossible for anyone to get near the door to see and hear Him. But in Capernaum there was a man who, because of a sinful life, was afflicted with a dreadful disease. He was humanly speaking, hopeless. He could not walk. He had no means of getting to the Lord Jesus, but he did have four friends who were interested in him. The other folk had all flocked to hear the Lord Jesus for themselves, and had forgotten about the poor man who had no way of enjoying the same blessing. I fear that in these days there are many similar situations. There are many people who are so busy learning theology and feeding upon the blessed truth of the Lord Jesus Christ that they forget their duty toward the poor sinners round about who have never gazed in faith upon His blessed face.

Can you not see them coming down the dusty road? They had made an improvised ambulance, probably similar to a stretcher, and on this the poor fellow lay. But, as they came to the house, they found so many folk crowded around the Lord Jesus that there was no room to bring the poor sinner to Him. What a tragedy! There were so many people who wanted to hear teaching that there was no room for a poor sinner to come to Christ! We are living in a day similar to that, I fear. Amid all the divisions and separations among believers, both in and out of the denominations, we are so busy defending the Book and discussing fine points of doctrine that we have forgotten the greatest desire and commission of the Lord Jesus. That this interpretation is not incorrect is clearly borne out by the fact that Jesus immediately stopped teaching the crowd and applied Himself to the more important business of saving and healing this poor paralytic. Again the story emphasizes the need of our bringing men to Christ if they are ever going to come. The Lord has so ordered the plan of salvation that men and women are saved only as we bring them to the Lord. Man by nature is not sick. He is dead! He is impotent and as unable to find Christ without help as a dead man is to come forth from the grave. 

Because four men were more interested in this poor man than they were in hearing Jesus, this fellow was saved. Humanly speaking, the poor man would have died in his sin and disease were it not for the interest these four men had in his condition. 

God can make a bumper crop of wheat grow on the pavement of Fifth Avenue in New York City without help from man, but He has never done it, and He never will. God’s way of raising a crop of wheat depends upon man. It is only as the farmer plows and drags and sows and cares for his acre that the Lord gives the increase, though He is omnipotent and needs no help from man. So, too, it is in the spiritual realm. God could save every human being without the help or aid of His children, without a tract, a dollar or a missionary. But God does not do things that way. It is God’s plan that man will be saved only through the instrumentality of others. His commission is ‘Go ye, go ye, and preach the Gospel.’ ‘Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.’ God has given us the commission and placed at our disposal the only two necessities for soul-winning: the Word and the Holy Spirit, and if men are not saved, it will not be His fault, but ours, and our alone.

A broken roof was the only means of getting this man to the Lord Jesus. These men were in earnest. The matter was not a side issue with them; they forgot everything else in their eagerness to help the man. They could not get through the door. Evidently a window was not available, either. What could they do? Necessity is the mother of invention, so these men made their way to the roof and the friend was lifted; then they began to break the roof. Can you imagine the effect on the crowd? Can you no hear a grumbler demand that someone make ‘that bunch of maniacs quit disturbing the meeting’? But not a word from the Lord. He must have been pleased. Notice the conduct of Jesus. Not a word of surprise. Not a rebuke for breaking up a Bible class to save a soul. Not a word because the decorum of the meeting had been disturbed. But Mark tells us: ‘When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.’ (Mark 2:5) Two words need special consideration here: ‘Their faith’. Not the sick man’s faith, but their faith. I know that men are saved by their own personal faith in Jesus Christ, and that you cannot be saved by my believing, and yet it is true as well that men and women are being lost because of our lack of faith. It is equally true that men do find Jesus through the faith of others. Men are perishing because we have not faith. 

Oh, God, make us dead in earnest! Set us on fire! Help us to break up our homes if need be to bring this paralyzed, dying word to Christ. Many of us have pleasant roofs over our heads. With much labor we have made a comfortable place for ourselves while the world is perishing for lack of Christ. Oh, for a zeal that will make us willing to ‘tear up the roof’ and forget all false propriety and selfish endeavor to bring the message to those who never heard it! Think of Christ. It was He who said, ‘This is my body, which is broken for you.’ He had a home in heaven, but He left it all and came and dwelt as a man despised and rejected, a friend of sinners, and went all the way to Calvary to die that you might live.
Here is what is wrong with the Church. We have lost our vision of the reality of the terribleness of the condition of lost man. Sin is real! Hell is real! The danger is real! Yet too often we are more concerned about the roof over our heads than the foundation under our feet.

Oh, God, help us to break the roof of materialism and worldly interest and open up the house to heaven until the answer comes down! We are not in earnest as we should be. Oh, God, break our hearts for Thee! Grant us visions of Thy compassion for the souls of men!
How richly these men were repaid. While some might have thought that Jesus would surely reprimand them for their clumsiness, He honored their faith and not only forgave the man’s sin but healed his body. When the Church of Jesus Christ gets so dead in earnest that it is willing to leave its beautiful self-made ritual and refinements of architecture and external worship and stop its quibbling about doctrine and let the ‘zeal of the house eat it up,’ we shall have the greatest revival the Church has ever seen.”

-M. R. DeHaan (“Broken Things” p. 61-66)

A Divine Appointment

Maybe this will encourage someone.

Sometimes it is a Divine appointment. Sometimes it is just being willing to listen to someone...to ask questions...to think for yourself...to put yourself out there...or just to care enough to be someone's friend.

I don't like Walmart. In fact, I hate that store and typically never shop there. But I found myself there after work the other night running errands with my sister. I went up to the photo counter. Just a few quick prints while I was killing time waiting. It was after hours, and so usually the photo department would have a sign that said something like "see electronics for assistance". Well, sure enough there was that sign. But there was a young woman still working behind the counter. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun and she was wearing a long black skirt. I smiled at her and she came over to assist me. We exchanged the usual "Hello, how are yous". Usually only "Christians" of some flavor wear skirts anymore. There was a pause in conversation...so I asked her. "Are you a Christian?" She looked up surprised. "No. I'm agnostic. I don't believe anything." "Oh." I said. She continued...."my husband and I hold a bible study once a week at our house though." "Oh, okay." I was surprised. "So... if you don't believe anything, what is it that you do at your bible study?" I asked. She looked even more surprised. "Good question". She said smiling. "We just ask questions. We try to figure things out by discussing questions with each other." "So... have you found any answers?" She smiled again and said, "Good question!" (She had a thing for questions. :)) She nodded her head and said how that they had all decided that there would be enough room on earth to hold all the people who have ever been born when the Resurrection takes place. (Wow. That was the first time I'd heard that one.) "Oh, really? Well, why would you need space on earth if we are being resurrected?" I asked. She looked dumbfounded for a second and then said again, more emphatically... "That's a good question! I don't know." She was smiling at me. She seemed both happy and surprised that some random person in Walmart would care to talk to her about her religious views...or lack thereof. "Well, I'm a Christian. Can I give you a book to read?" I said...searching my bag for the copy of the book "DONE" I had ready for such occasions. (For those who don't know what that book is... it is basically a short read, giving the gospel of Jesus Christ and explaining how there are only really two religions in the world. Those who believe you DO something to earn God's favor and those who trust what Jesus has already DONE on the cross. It's an awesome tool for evangelism.) "Yes!" She said. I was so excited she would take it and that I wasn't hauled out by a Walmart manager for "distributing christian literature"! Haha"I hope this helps you find some answers", I said and then asked if I could give her my phone number. We exchanged names. I don't normally give my phone number to strangers...but I've taken to doing it quite often lately when the appropriate occasion presents itself. "Do you text?" She asked. "Yes. And I'd love to talk to you more if you have any questions." She was so appreciative...and I really believe sincerely seeking. I paused before leaving. "You know, I really believe that God wanted me to talk to you today...and to give you that book." She just smiled at me. She knew I cared. She knew I was sincerely concerned for her soul. And she thanked me.

Sometimes God just throws someone in our path. Sometimes not. Jesus went to SEEK the lost...He didn't just wait around for some special feeling of "this is my one supernatural opportunity for the week". He went looking for sinners. In fact, He was a FRIEND to sinners. We should be careful not to be more concerned about "spiritual separation" than the souls of men. We are not to be OF the world...but we are to be IN it. But it is so exciting when you get to see a Divine Appointment play out. God gives us a free will. He gave us a choice to obey. Or to disobey. To be silent. Or to speak out. One thing I have learned with all my heart...is that God loves to use people who are willing! Any time I've ever asked Him to use me...He does. Any time I've really honestly been open...He takes me up on it. Why? Because He cares about lost souls. He loves them. Unlike us. He doesn't waste an opportunity to reach someone with the gospel of Jesus Christ...no matter where it is or what it is or who it is....and neither should we.