These devotions uncover some very popular half-truths that many Christians believe. Dear Christians, let's make sure we are only promoting things that are actually found in Scripture - the full truth, not half-truths.
1- Only God can judge.
2- Judge sin, not sinners.
3- You can do anything if you believe in yourself.
4- You can't love others if you don't love yourself.
Half-Truths Many Christians Believe (#5-8)
5- God loves me just the way I am.
6- We're saved by grace. Good works have no place in the Christian life.
7- God sees all sins the same.
8- God sees all Christians the same.
Half-Truths Many Christians Believe (#9-12)
9- God is never disappointed in me.
10- God doesn't punish Christians.
11- A good God wouldn't send anyone to Hell.
12- God doesn't send people to Hell. They send themselves.
Half-Truths Many Christians Believe (#13-16)
13- Our words have the power to change our destiny.
14- God won't give us more than we can handle.
15- God wants to give all Christians wealth.
16- My entertainment choices don't affect my life.
Half-Truths Many Christians Believe (#17-20)
17- I only need to honor parents who are worthy.
18- God's love is unconditional.
19- God literally forgets my sins when He forgives them.
20- We shouldn't talk about Hell with unbelievers.
Half-Truths Many Christians Believe (#21-24)
21- Building Self-Esteem is Essential to Our Well-being
22- God Wants Me Happy
23- When God Looks at Me, He Only Sees Jesus
24- God Heals Everyone Who Has Faith
Half-Truths Many Christians Believe (#24-28)
#25 - We are worthy of Christ's love.
#26 - God expects us to be positive about other faiths and lifestyles.
#27 - If we raise our children properly, God guarantees they will become godly adults.
#28 - Homosexuals, transgenders, and sexually active singles can be genuine believers without changing their lifestyle.
Dear Gail,
ReplyDeleteI have been enjoying your devotionals for over a year now and am grateful for your succinct and timely gift of giving God's truth! I work with kids mostly, and am so challenged by simplifying yet staying truthful--I have a master's degree in theology and love the complexity of seeing how all God's Word fits together so brilliantly and brings out more truth. So I appreciate how hard it is, and the way you condense and hit home!
I really believe what you have to say about 2 issues is very important but in your work to address clearly how far wrong we can get it and many are falsely teaching it, you are losing important qualifiers:
Re #18--God's love can be rightly said as unconditional because even when He punishes us or hates or abominates our sin, He still loves us and all that He has made; His hatred of sin is so great precisely because He loves us. He will not ever accept sin, so anyone who won't repent and let Him cleanse them of it, will continue with God's wrath upon them and will end up in Hell--God still loving them but refusing to let anyone ruin Heaven by their rejection of Him and His ways (John 3:16-21; Revelations 22:14-15). This is like a godly parent who loves their child but will not let them live at home doing drugs or sexually sinning.
That relates too to this Bible half-truth #28. Just as a genuine believer who is an alcoholic or parent who idolizes their child or person who cheats on their taxes (the greedy) might not yet be convicted or healed is still a Christian, a homosexual, transgender or sexually active single might have truly repented of their rebellion and the sins they know of and be trusting in Jesus to save them, but might not yet have the good teaching or help to be delivered from their bondages to those sins. However, those sins are no longer their main identity (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) and if they are genuine believers, they will get to changing their lifestyles with God's help because Jesus is truly their Lord and the Spirit is working in them. Given what society and so many churches are teaching, I think God will be drawing to Christians more and more people who have taken on these ungodly identities for years and we need to be ready with compassion to speak the truth but also to trust God's timing! Just as He hasn't shown me all my sin at once, and had His priorities for how to clean me up, He has that for each one.
We just can't change the Biblical truth and your writing makes that clear! But the whole truth includes God's love and patience with us, and we need to show that along with holding to His standards and our high calling.
I know you are writing in response to those who are aggressively teaching the opposite untruths--I just don't want to undercut any of the wonder of God's love and mercy in the process.
With thankfulness for your ministry and respect, Jane
Thanks for your mature and gracious response.
DeleteI think we still disagree, but perhaps it is only about word use. I still feel unconditional is not the correct way to describe God's love, firstly because it is not used in Scripture and secondly because I do think it misleads people.
The meaning of unconditional is without conditions, and that means without conditions. John 3:16 tells of of the greatest love and the greatest condition (whoever believes). To say God's love is unconditional but His salvation is conditional is impossible since His salvation flows from His love but is only given to those who believe.
Does God love those who permanently reject His Son and His free gift of salvation? I don't think you can prove that from Scripture. True love hates evil, and some people are evil, permanently and unrepentantly.
John 14:21
"Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him."
My concern is also with the fact that Christians have adopted a description that is not found in Scripture. Surely we don't believe that modern man can better describe God's love than God Himself. God doesn't use the word unconditional because it is misleading. His love is better than unconditional....it is pure, gracious, and free to those who believe. But it is not unconditional.
Regarding #28, Scripture is so very clear that we cannot love God and continue in sin, whether sexual sin, greed, or other evil. We can fall into sin, but we cannot accept, approve, and live in it. Can a homosexual fall into sin in the sanctification process....surely. Can he choose to live as a homosexual? No. Nor can an unmarried man and woman choose to live together and claim to be a Christian. Scripture says it's impossible. Love for Christ compels us to change. We may fail, but we don't approve our sins.
John 15:9-10,14: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love...You are my friends if you do what I command."
1 John 3:9: No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.
I thank you again for your thoughtful comment, and as I said at the beginning, I think our differences may simply be over word usage, but I think the words we use are extremely important and we should stick with the descriptions of God's love found in Scripture.
God bless you.
I greatly appreciate your response here to Jane.
DeleteI was married 24 yrs. to a very mean-spirited and abusive man. I was often counseled along the lines: 1-if you just love him more, perhaps he will change (1 Cor. 7:14, 1 Pet. 3:1-6; 2-'Is there any more you could be doing?' Being a 'good Christian girl', I never believed in divorce (Malalchi 2:16). Wanting to do the 'right thing' and knowing I was imperfect and could always find things I could do 'better' kept me in an endless cycle of abuse because I could always find something I could improve. It took me many years to understand that God had not called me to be a 'punching bag' and that no matter how much I loved him, I did not have the power in myself to stop his endless affairs. It was only after he had put a knife to my throat one night and my eldest son saved my life that I finally separated. Even then, I didn't want divorce but rather that he got some help. Thankfully, he filed for divorce and I could freely then 'let the unbeliever go' (1 Cor. 7:15).
The counsel I had received throughout all those years almost got me killed. I'm sure the counsel was all with good intentions, however, the misuse of God's Word kept me a 'prisoner'. Also, my husband was a Pastor and I was 'in bondage' to the belief that I must protect his reputation which enslaved me to a life of silence leaving only a few 'overseers' in whom I could confide.
Then the Lord showed me Heb. 6:4-6. That passage, in my opinion, would strike the fear of the Lord in any heart that truly wants to please Him.
In one sense, we are all God's children because He created all of us in His likeness. Yet, He also created 'vessels of wrath fitted to destruction' (Rom. 9:22). He loves all His children and 'desires all to be saved' (1 Tim. 2:4). Yet, we know, not all will be.
Paul, on at least 2 occasions per Scripture, handed someone over to satan because they refused to stop their sinful 'lifestyle' (1 Cor. 5:5, 1 Tim. 1:20). God 'gave them over to a reprobate mind' (Rom. 1:28) when some refused to repent. We are to 'expel the wicked person from among us' (1 Cor. 5:13). I don't find any 'exceptions' such as spouse, adult child, etc. in any of these passages. In my 'experience', half-truth counseling can be extremely detrimental causing many to stumble and even possibly lead to their demise.
When we are faced with such situations, especially with a loved one, it causes us much grief to take such action. Such teaches us of the great Love of God and how much it must greatly grieve Him when He must take such action. After all, Jesus suffered greatly when He was whipped, spat upon, had a ring of thorns jammed into His head, carried His Cross, and then hung on that Cross for hours as He slowly died such a torturous death for each of us so that we could one day join Him in eternity in Heaven.
Yet, many still reject Him and His Love. We 'grieve the Spirit' (Eph. 4:25-30) when we choose to continue a life of sin. Does God still love us? I believe He does. I also believe He loves us enough to let us go if we choose to hurt and abuse Him and His Love. (Gen. 6:3)
'We shall know them by their fruits'...not by what they 'profess'. (MT. 7:16-23)
(((HUGS)))
Thanks, Jude, for offering those additional thoughts and insights. I'm so sorry that you suffered abuse and weren't protected from it!
DeleteThank you, Gail, for your kind words. I had been quite traumatized by that 'knifing event', so much so that every time the memory began to surface, I found myself literally clinging to a doorway. I later realized that it was some unconscious reaction since doorways are often the strongest structure in a house.
DeleteThis reaction continued for about one year until I attended a conference at the Church I was attending at that time. It was there I had a vision. The memory resurfaced while I was receiving prayer but this time, when the knife was coming down toward my throat, I saw Jesus standing between my assailer and myself. The knife then went into the nail wound in our Lord's wrist. Though 'man' neglected to protect me, I instantly then knew that my Lord had. I was instantly healed and no more 'doorways' were necessary.
It's been 28 yrs. and as a result of all of this, which I rarely speak of, Jesus has become my Husband, my Lord, my King, my best Friend, my everything. I could never be grateful for the 'event', but I am eternally grateful for how God has used all of it to draw me closer to Him...'a pearl of great price'. :) (((HUGS)))
I'm so glad that God gave you this assurance of His love, Jude.
DeleteVery interesting commentary! Thank you for all your insights and making quick little "Bites". It always seems to make me dig deeper!
ReplyDelete