TITLE: The Word of God, Part II By gene hudgens 05/04/08 |
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Part II of IV
It is never my intention to contradict the Word of God, but even as a layman I feel that the printed words in the Bible (which are not quotes from Jesus) are not the “Words” of God.
The words spoken by Jesus are the “words” of God. To me the words of God are in the spirit. When I talk with God He talks with me through the spirit and I hear His words. This, the spirit, is the source of the “words” of God.
I feel something is lacking when Christians think every Bible scripture, in its self, is the Word of God, when the references really mean going to God directly and listening to the Word of God speaking to us through the spirit.
The Holy Spirit’s purpose is to have oneness of faith. Is it possible that the Bible has caused confusion among Christians? Before the Bible was published there were less than 100 sects in all the areas where Christianity is the chosen religion. Today, 500 years later there are 30,000 sects in Christendom, each with a different set of beliefs in how to please God, how to worship God, how to seek God. What can Christians do to make the Bible more effective as to accomplishing “oneness of faith”?
Jesus said “have faith”
(Excerpts from John Fox’s Journal, Concerning the ‘Word’. In the beginning God created the earth and all life on it. God gave us His Son Jesus, who spoke the Words of His Father and gave each of us God’s Words; the Word of God.
This is the word that was long before any Letter (scripture) was written. Is possible that today people put the horse before the cart. Is it possible that Christians today quote and live by the written scriptures and have not learned that they must first talk one on one with Jesus and His Father and know and feel the Word of God?
I feel we must understand the difference in man-made and God-made.
All of our preaching, all of our praying, all of our reading, all of our singing, all of our expounding, all of our churches, all of our worships, all of our teachers, and all of our baptisms seem to be man-made inventions from the Letter (Bible).
All of us who live in this first nature, not knowing the word of God as spoken by Jesus and all of us that do not “feel” the Spirit of God, and the Holy Spirit and the Spirit Christ…in our hearts (where it lives and abides) do not make Jesus pleased. No Christian can afford this.
It seems to me that Jesus himself distinguished between the scriptures (the Bible) and the word, when He addressed the Bible scholars and Bible students of His day. John extensively quotes Jesus.
(John 5:37-44) “And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in you; for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. I receive not honor from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only?”
So Jesus, and his Spirit, is the Word of God, not every scripture in the Bible! Thinking that only the Bible is the Word of God is a dangerous invention of man. God wants us to seek Him directly in our heart, not seek only knowledge about him from the Bible. The way to seek God is to go to him, talk to him, listen to him, and treasure the words we hear him speak to us.
It seems to me that too often we make learning scriptures a rival to learning directly from God by coming to Him. Reading scriptures is not wrong; it is the way we idolize scriptures that is wrong. Since the Bible wasn’t printed until 1516, it is not logical to say that all early Christians had no faith. Of course it is not logical. Remember that the early Church thrived with faith for hundreds of years before the Bible was printed in 1516. Prepared by Gene Hudgens
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