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Topic: Crime and Punishment (not about the book) (07/21/11)
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TITLE: Spiritual Crimes and Spiritual Punishments | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ramona Cook
07/22/11 -
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The messages from God are laced with promises of love and instructions in problem solving. They are laced concurrently with warnings of chastisements and destruction when the wrong choices are made, which are those choices that were made which disagree with God’s ways.
We then, as messengers must also confront the innate desire of all human beings to decide for themselves what they think is “the right and the wrong” of life’s choices.
For the messenger who desires to present the ‘whole counsel of God’ this effort becomes somewhat of a verbal jig in trying to get God’s entire message properly stated. We must say, “This is the truth, and also this is the truth, and the truth you will experience is dependent upon which Fact Path you choose to walk upon.”
The written Word of God is vast in its examples of God’s interactions with diverse groups over many hundreds of years and yet, the message it contains is repetitive, the message is simple, it is strong, and the message always contains these elements:
*God loves mankind with His whole heart;
*God knows that mankind has his back up against Him and He wants to help us get back into fellowship with Him as He originally intended; He knows it is only a matter of our will and what we will to choose.
*God desires to bless us with all good things but cannot if we will not get into agreement with Him;
He wants desperately for us to live with Him forever;
*He shows us A Way to get right with Him and at the same time warns us that if we do not, there will be a terrible price to pay for not doing so.
We love to hear of the love of God; but we are not too keen on the rest of the message. Consequently, the messages presented by us tend to be only on the love God has for us; that is NOT acceptable. It is not acceptable because it is not complete and the hearers or readers do not then know all that God says about Himself and about the expectations He holds for mankind to turn from sins and to choose His Way. They also do not hear of the warnings of punishment and the end results of choosing to ignore God’s warnings.
Who then is the fault of this mono-focused presentation of God’s message?
Is it not the writer or the speaker? Surely it is!
We who preach and teach and speak God’s Word are the withholders of God’s messages when we do not present the ‘whole counsel of God.’ We are warned of the perils of doing that; we are told that we are held to a higher standard and our punishment will be greater for the act.
Why do we then omit the unpalatable parts of the message? Is it not because we are deceived into thinking that they won’t hear us? That they won’t like us? That they won’t come back for more messages from us? They won’t buy our books and we won’t be famous authors? Is it not all about US?
There are some of us who tell ourselves that we do not want to ‘make God look bad.’ How brilliant is that? We certainly can say about God what God says about Himself! God says we must, or pay the price.
I remind us everyone, who carries the message of God to the people of Earth’s population, we have been entrusted and gifted by the Holy Spirit of God to listen to the counsel of God, and by His Spirit present the entire message in the method He gives to each one of us. We each carry a sparkle reflection of Him and those who hear will hear, and they will read, and we will have presented the entire and complete message of love and of judgments.
Some people need a reason for making choices. Some people are comfortable and the love of God does not really impress them, they need to hear about how their sins will bring God’s judgment upon them.
We must interlace our message in the same proportion as God has given it to us in His Word.
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I really appreciated the article and I think the writer put it really well.