Thank you to my wife Denise, to Niketa Wharton, and to Brian Craig for their help and support, and for their patience and input in staying the course in order to ensure that this project came to a positive conclusion.

So many people are living in fear today. So many people are confused. So many people are afraid of the direction this world is heading, but if we look to the Word of God, we can find the answers that we need, answers that will take us all the way into eternity.

In 2 Timothy 2:15, the Apostle Paul speaks to his friend Timothy, and gives him some advice on how to handle the ministry, how to handle his life, and tells him that he needs to accurately handle the Word of God so that we please the Lord. When Paul tells Timothy to “accurately present” the Word of God, he uses the Greek word orthotomeo, which means “to cut it straight”. In the same way that a farmer would need to plow a field in a straight line, and in the same way that a carpenter would need to cut a board straight, so we also need to cut it straight, to accurately present the Word of God to the people. That is our responsibility.

May this book help us all to better examine and to understand the issues and concerns of our times, in the light of the Word of God.

There are many opinions, and many philosophies, and many directions that people are presented with today, and for many people this can be very confusing. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone thinks that his opinion is the right opinion, but what really matters is God’s perspective, what He has revealed to us in His Word; how He sees us, rather than how we see ourselves. It seems like we have lost what true biblical Christianity really means, and how the people in the Bible lived their lives for Him.

Some people don't believe that God has actually written the Bible, which the Bible itself claims to be true. Others love their sin or their lifestyle so much that they are concerned they will have to give up something that they love in order to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ, not understanding that in the end, without a relationship with Him, they will be condemned to an eternity in hell.

God does not want anyone to perish. He does not want anyone to spend an eternity in suffering. That is why He has offered us forgiveness through His Son. That is the only way that we can get into heaven. Jesus Christ Himself said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”.

We need to remember that true biblical Christianity is all about having a relationship with Jesus Christ. It is not about religion or about going to church, though we are told to fellowship with other believers. It is about establishing a relationship with the God of the universe. The way that takes place is if we realize how God sees us. He sees us as sinners, as rebels who are rebelling against Him, with no way for us to get to Him because of our sin. That is why Jesus Christ came to this earth. He came to bridge that gap by dying for our sins. If we will come to Him and believe what He has done for us, then that will establish a right relationship between us and God.

Salvation is not based on our ethnic background. It is not based on our church affiliation. It is not even based on the many good things that we may have done for other people. Good works will follow true salvation, but first we need to establish a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We must surrender to His will.

That is why there is hostility towards the gospel. The enemy of our souls, who is Satan, understands that without having a relationship with Jesus Christ we will spend an eternity with him in a lake of fire. He does everything that he can to change our mind, to change our perspective, to keep us busy with other things, and to put doubts and fears in our mind. Once we come to Jesus, Satan no longer has any power or control over us.

Those who come to Jesus Christ realize that things have become different in their lives. They realize that they are different. We are told in the Bible that we become a new creation in Christ, so things begin to look different to us. We are also told that there will be “fruit” or “evidence” of salvation in our lives. One of the first things that becomes evident is that we don't want to do the things we used to do before we knew Him and that can become a problem for the people around us, which can result in rejection and misunderstanding, and sometimes even persecution. But we have to realize, now that we belong to Christ, the most important thing is that we follow Him.

The word “obedience” comes to mind. As Jesus Himself said, “If you love Me you will keep My commandments” and so, as we read His Word, we begin to see where our lives are not reflecting the path that He has for us, and we don't want to continue to do those things because we love Him above all else.

Obedience to Him might separate us from our friends and it might even separate us from our family because they might misunderstand us, and that could be very hurtful to us because we love them, and we want them to have what we have in Christ. Sometimes they will reject the Word and so they will reject us. But God always has our best interests in mind. He has told us that even those things that are hurtful will work in our lives for our growth, for our benefit, and for His glory. Continue to look to Him and know that He has saved you, and by His grace He will keep you.

Living for Jesus Christ and getting to know Him better becomes our number one priority in life. How do we get to know Him better? We get to know Him through His Word. We get to speak to Him through prayer. Then we live out our faith in our lives. That is how we become a testimony for Him. We become a witness. The Bible calls us “a light”, or “a lamp”, that is set on a hill. We become those who give evidence that Jesus Christ truly does make a difference in our lives.

It can be a battle. We might become tired and weary in our daily walk. The enemy loves to make us think that we should just give up or quit, but we need to stay diligent. We need to stay focused because we have been left here on this earth for one reason: to glorify our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Christianity, at its core, is a relationship with God, and not just another religion. All religion is false religion except for Christianity and at the heart of all of those doctrines and teachings is the idea that we need to do something in order to make ourselves acceptable to God. False religion wants us to measure up to a certain standard by participating in rituals and in ceremonies or by doing acts of kindness, but in biblical Christianity, we recognize that we do not measure up to God's standard of holiness at all. Therefore, He had to do something for us, and that was to send His Son to die for us so that we could have a relationship with Him.

Maybe you've heard of the term sola scriptura. It means that the Bible alone has the final word, the final answer for us. Anything outside of the Bible is really man's opinion, or man's attempt to distort the teaching of the Bible. Some people who teach false doctrine do use the Bible, but they have distorted it to the point where it is no longer biblical Christianity. We need to get into the Bible. We need to get into the Word of God and to begin to look and to see what God has said rather than what man has to say. After all, it was God who inspired men to write down what He wanted recorded in the Bible.

Religion involves a process of doing things or not doing things, but true biblical Christianity is a relationship where our entire life has changed. We become a new creation in Christ. Therefore, everything that we were no longer exists and everything has become new. Some people find that very threatening.

If we look at what the Bible says, the perspective God has of us is that we need a relationship with Him in order to become His children. Without that relationship, we continue to be enemies of God, and that's a difficult thing for some people to accept. It seems a lot easier just to follow rituals and ceremonies than have our life turned upside down by a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Since God has given us the truth in His Word, He expects us to read it. Then He expects us to apply what we have read, and then to obey it. If we have neglected a relationship with Jesus Christ, we have, in a sense, told God that we don't believe that the sacrifice of His Son is worth anything at all in our lives and we will have to answer for that when we stand before Him. The Bible further says that without a relationship with Christ we will find ourselves separated from Him and in torment forever, which is not a pretty picture.

So then, according to the Bible, we are saved by grace through faith, and not by religion or by what we do. We read in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of those who believe not”. In that particular passage of scripture, the Apostle Paul is saying that Satan gives the appearance of a god to people. He is not a god, but the way that people live their lives testifies to the fact that he is their god, whether they know it or not. All of the ideologies, all of the false religions, all of the education in this world revolve around a perspective that is contrary to the Word of God. Therefore, as people begin to absorb this false information, they accept it as the truth and they do not realize that the truth has been concealed from them. It is only when God opens our eyes to the truth that we see how far off track we were, how wrong we were, and by the grace of God we see the truth of what God has done for us.

Communicating the necessity of having a relationship with Jesus Christ to someone who is religious can be very difficult, because they believe that they either have no sin or that their sin has been taken care of by the things that they do or by their church affiliation, so they do not see their need of a Savior. One thing that we can do is to point out to them the condition that we all find ourselves in, which, according to the Bible, is that we are all sinners who are lost without Jesus Christ. That's a good place to start.

But, ultimately, it is only the Lord who can persuade us to seek Jesus Christ. We only seek Him because He has first sought us. Sometimes people have to reach the point where they have no other place to go, except to cry out to Jesus for salvation. Many times when we are doing well we don't see our need to cry out to Him. That is a deception of the Enemy. We need to pray that God would open our eyes to the truth.

What strikes me is the number of people who have opinions about many things in this world, about the problems that we see all around us, and about solutions to those problems, but yet, they do not want to hear about the only solution for our sin. It’s time that we stop listening to men and we start listening to what God has said and to find out His perspective in His Word. Only He has the answer. After all, who knows better what we need than the One who has created us?

When we give our lives to Christ, we enter into a relationship with God. When that takes place, we do not always realize what has happened to us. Everything becomes new. We see things differently. We talk differently. We act differently. We have become a new creation in Christ. We don't always understand these things so it's important that we get grounded in the Word of God.

It is important that we spend time with the Lord to understand what this new life is all about. When we become a Christian, trusting Christ as our Savior, we agree with God that we need forgiveness for our sins. We agree with Him that we need a Savior or we will be on our way to an eternity in hell. Once we have asked for forgiveness of our sins, the Lord comes and He lives within us and we begin our new life in Him.

Reading the Word of God is important. It becomes our spiritual food. Just as we need physical food for our bodies to grow, we need spiritual food to grow in Christ. We need spiritual food every day. For those who belong to Him, that's not something that is a chore or something that we dislike doing. It's something that we want to do. We want to spend time with our Savior. We want to get to know Him better. He is the One who saved us.

One thing that will help us as we spend time reading the Scriptures is to make sure the Bible we are reading is a translation and not a paraphrase. A paraphrase just summarizes what the Word of God says. Pick a Bible that you're comfortable reading on a daily basis since you will be spending a lot of time in God’s Word. The Lord speaks to us when we read our Bible, then we speak to Him in prayer. Many times our prayers are what we have read in the Bible, being prayed back to the Lord.

It is also important for a new believer to get involved in a church fellowship. Getting involved with other believers is important because the Lord has told us that it is one way that we can help each other grow in our faith. Hebrews Chapter 10 speaks about how we help each other to arrive at the point where we are exhibiting love in our life. We help each other to be involved in things that are really important to the kingdom, things that have eternal value. Other believers can help us stay on the right track. New believers are babies in Christ, and as babies we need help in order to grow.

The Bible speaks of who we are in Christ, in terms of the human body. Just as the human body has various parts, we also have different gifts and talents. When we work together, the Lord can use us to exhort one another, to correct one another, to encourage one another and to be there for one another. Without being a part of that body of believers, we are not only hurting ourselves but we are hurting others in the body of Christ. If we isolate ourselves we won’t have a brother or a sister to pray with, to read the Bible with, or to learn from. Even worse, we won’t have any accountability. We need to be accountable to each other as believers, since we all tend to stray and to get off track.

A major problem that we see today in the Body of Christ is that many of the churches are not teaching the truth. If the Word of God is not being taught with clarity and with accuracy, people can become discouraged, which might cause them to stumble into sin. The key is to find a place that is teaching the Word of God and to stay there.

So, reading the Word of God, spending time with the Lord in prayer, and fellowshipping with other believers are all necessary in order to grow as a Christian. The Holy Spirit guides us in this growth process.

God has chosen to manifest Himself in three persons, as The Father, as the Son Jesus Christ, and as the Holy Spirit. We cannot fully understand this, but this is what the Bible teaches. The Holy Spirit is a Person who comes and who lives within us and who guides us into the truth. He is the one who helps us to understand the Word of God. He is the one who helps us to pray. He alerts us if we need to change our behavior. We can grieve Him since He is a Person, so we weep and mourn over our sin. It grieves us when we grieve the Holy Spirit. That's one difference between someone who is truly a Christian and someone who is not. We cry out to the Lord for forgiveness when we sin. He forgives us and we desire to get back on track again.

He wants to help us. He wants to speak to us through His Word. He wants us to speak to Him in prayer. He wants us to fellowship with other believers. He also wants us to share our faith with other people.

As believers, we are heading in the opposite direction from the rest of the world. Those within our family, in our work environment, or in our school who are offended by the relationship that we have with Jesus Christ may begin to see us as their enemy. Behind the scenes the one who is influencing their perspective is Satan, the Devil, the one who is the enemy of our souls.

In the Bible we read that Satan was created by God as a beautiful angel, a powerful angel, who is called the “star of the morning” and the “son of the dawn”. Satan wanted to be exalted above God and to be worshipped above Him, so God banished him from heaven because of the sin of pride, along with the angels who followed him.

The Devil wants to influence everyone that he possibly can so that they do not exalt God. People often get offended when we reflect the characteristics of God. We are told in the Bible that when we don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ, we are under the power and influence of Satan. He directs our steps and moves us in a direction that is antagonistic to the gospel.

Satan has been at war with God, and so with us, for a long time, so he has a variety of methods and tools to use in an attempt to get us to distrust God. The enemy is subtle and very patient. We need to know the Word of God well enough in order to be able to defend against his attacks. He uses tactics to make us unprofitable or unfruitful for Christ.

He will attack our thoughts to try and deceive us into having a perspective that is opposite of what the Word of God teaches. Sometimes he will use physical sickness in order to get us to become discouraged, to think that God doesn't care about us. Sometimes he will accuse us of doing wrong, even if we are innocent. Sometimes he will attempt to get us to lift ourselves up in pride, which was his sin, so that we exalt ourselves instead of exalting Jesus Christ. He may influence us through a TV show, a radio broadcast, or a book. He may side track us with recreational activities. He may even use false teachers to confuse us. Christians who have been influenced by the Devil and have become ineffective for God have not only hurt themselves and other people, but they have disgraced Jesus Christ.

Sometimes we hinder ourselves. We may compromise on what we know is right and do the wrong thing. Sometimes we simply choose to sin, lusting after the things of this world.

We need to be aware of what we are doing, where we are going, and what we are watching, and avoid those things if necessary, or at least be on guard for the Devil’s attacks. He doesn't know everything, but he knows the types of weaknesses that we will succumb to.

We need to be on guard because Satan is more than a myth. In the New Testament we find that Jesus Christ Himself referred to the Devil many times, so He believed that Satan is real. Jesus Christ always speaks the truth. We do not need to fear the Devil if we belong to Christ, but we need to understand that he is powerful, and know what our response should be when we encounter him. Being in the Word of God, meditating on His Word, and memorizing His Word are all important things to help us in this battle. We need to realize that we are dependent on the Lord. We are dependent on the Spirit of God in this spiritual battle. We cannot do this on our own. We need the Lord's help if we are to stand firm against this enemy.

Ephesians Chapter 6 talks about putting on the armor of God to protect us, because the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion. He is looking for opportunities to cause us to go off course. Stay in the Word, stay in prayer, and be aware that the Devil is real and that he is our enemy.

We must embrace God's plan for us. Satan, the enemy of both non-believers and believers, attempts to thwart that plan. Satan knows his fate. According to the scriptures, he is only a ruler on this earth for a time. He will eventually be thrown into a lake of fire along with the other fallen angels. There's no party in hell, and he does not rule in hell. He would like as many people as possible to join him there for an eternity by keeping them from trusting Jesus Christ for salvation. That is Satan’s ultimate goal. We can defeat him by following the example of Jesus. Jesus defeated him in the wilderness by using the Word of God. Satan quoted and misquoted the Word, but Jesus always had an accurate response from the Word. So we too need to use the Word of God against him.

The Lord allows Satan to operate in this world for this time, but for His own purpose. In the Book of Job, we read that the Lord allowed Satan to do things to Job and to his family, but He only allowed Satan to do those things for a certain length of time. Our response to these things should bring glory to the Name of Christ. The enemy wants us to doubt God and His goodness. He wants us to doubt that the Lord has our best interests in mind.

While there is evil in this world, and we are part of that evil system if we do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ, if we turn from that evil and turn to Christ, we will be saved. Remember who Satan is and who we are in Christ. Christ is the Creator, Satan was created. The good news is that we already have the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. The world in which we live is not a playground, it is a battleground.

Whether or not we believe that it is true, Satan, who is called the Devil, is our greatest enemy. However, the Devil doesn't work alone. The Bible tells us that he has an army of fallen angels called demons who were removed from heaven by God along with Satan, because of their rebellion against God. There have been many differences of opinion over the years concerning the existence of angels and of demons, but the bottom line is this; the Bible recognizes that they are real. In fact, angels are mentioned over 300 times in the Bible. In addition to that, Jesus Himself spoke of angels and of demons, so He believed that they exist.

God created angels to worship Him and to serve Him as His messengers who would carry out His will, but not all of them chose to obey God. There was one angel, in particular, who decided that he wanted to be worshipped as God. He was a powerful and a beautiful angel by the name of Lucifer. He was thrown out of heaven because of his pride and his rebellion, and now he is called Satan, the Enemy, and we are told that a third of the angels followed him. At this time, the fallen angels are on this earth along with God's holy angels, and so there is a spirit world that is all around us that normally we cannot see. We would be amazed if we could see the angelic conflict that is going on around us every moment of every day, though at times, the Lord allows us to see a glimpse of that world.

Ultimately, Satan would like to take as many people as possible to hell with him, so demons are involved in every aspect of life on this earth in order to try to accomplish the goal to derail the plan of God. They have studied the people of this world for a long time so they understand our weaknesses. While we can’t always identify demonic activity, a good place to find understanding is in the Word of God. If what is being done is contrary to the Bible, then it comes from the one called “the Liar”, who is Satan.

It doesn't have to be a blatantly evil practice that someone does that identifies a person as being evil. Satan’s army of demons might use the Word of God as a starting point for an attack, the same way that Satan did in the wilderness when confronting Jesus. The Enemy will sometimes even try to disguise what he is doing as being good, as being harmless. Consider our TV shows, and our movies, and our books. Look at the curriculum in our schools. If something is contrary to the truth of the Word of God, then by definition, it is evil.

It seems that we are living in a day where good is being called evil and evil is being called good. We are living in a day where people feel that they have the right to decide for themselves what is true and what is not true, what is good and what is not good. That lie makes truth relative to the individual, rather than absolute for all of mankind. The Bible says that the Word of God is absolute truth. It is black and white. It is either according to the Word of God or it is not.

So why does God allow the Devil and his demons to attack, to harass, and even to oppress people? God could have destroyed Satan because of his initial rebellion, but instead He chose to throw him out of heaven. By doing this, God has shown us that He desires that we love Him from our heart, that we willingly love Him. He chooses to allow the Devil to exist, at this time, in order to show us that He is a God of love and not a God of fear. If He had destroyed the Devil, the angels certainly wouldn't have rebelled, but only out of fear. He has allowed Satan to exist until the day when he and his demons will be thrown into a lake of fire along with those who have rejected Jesus Christ. We have to remember that demons are not all-powerful beings and that God is still in control.

All religions have a concept of angelic beings, of supernatural celestial beings, but these false religions do not accept or understand the need of Jesus Christ for salvation. To many, angels have become a means to approach God, without having to have a relationship with Him. Some people even pray to angels, but angels have no authority to answer prayers. Angels are not a substitute for a relationship with Jesus Christ.

One common Jewish tradition is the teaching that one or more guardian angels are assigned to each of us from birth. This is not true. We are told in Scripture that there are angels who stand in the presence of God and who are sent out by Him to minister to us, to help us, to protect us, and to do whatever the Lord desires. Therefore, it is possible that, at times, we may have had a number of angels who have come to help us.

We can have peace and assurance in our hearts in knowing that God cares about us enough to have angelic beings at His disposal, to help us as we go through the difficulties of this life. We might even have the opportunity to interact with angels without even knowing it, as we are told in the Bible, to “entertain strangers”, who are in fact angels. Angels are real. Demons are real. Satan is real. But God is also real, and He is the Lord of the universe.

So for now, the battle rages on. Earth is not a playground, it is a battleground. The Lord Jesus Christ will emerge victoriously from this battle forever.

The Book of Revelation gives us the sequence of events that will come upon this world according to the timetable of God. However, many people avoid reading this book because the events that are written in it seem too far-fetched, or too confusing or too difficult to understand. This book was written to seven groups of believers in the area of Asia Minor, which is in present day Turkey, who were under severe persecution and pressure for their faith in Christ. It was written to them and to us in order to encourage us; that even though things may be getting worse day by day, in the end, we will be vindicated.

The Lord tells us in the Book of Revelation that He wants us to understand what He has written so that we might be confident in our faith. Though it is difficult and it is challenging, once we understand it, it will provide hope and comfort for us knowing that God's plan is being brought to fruition. It is being concluded on this earth and will result in the reign of Jesus Christ forever. We look forward to the day when our Savior will return, but at the same time there is a sense of sadness because there will be many people who will be in torment and in pain forever because they have rejected Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

The images that we find in this book sometimes have a spiritual meaning which can be difficult to discern, but if we put in the time to study, we can understand much of it through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Some people have decided that they would like to make these pictures into allegories, or stories, but this is a very dangerous thing to do and should be avoided unless the Lord specifically tells us that it is just a story. These are pictures of real events that will take place on this earth and in heaven.

Some people are fascinated with the future and what it holds for mankind. They think that given enough time, man will solve his own problems, or someday all of our problems will be solved with the right leadership, but the Bible doesn't lay out that kind of scenario. The fact is that the world is in for a rude awakening.

We are in what you might call the church age, the age of grace, or the time of the Gentiles; the time when those who belong to Jesus Christ are still here on earth. The next event in God's calendar will be “the rapture” of the church that will take those who belong to Him to heaven. The word “rapture” which is derived from Latin actually means “to snatch away,” so it would be more accurate to say that the church will be “snatched away” from this earth. Once the church is gone, a series of events will unfold which are called the time of tribulation, which will last for seven years, and will culminate in the physical return of Jesus Christ to this earth to rule and to reign for a thousand years. Those who belong to Him will be with Him.

Forget the imagery that the entertainment industry portrays of the time of tribulation, which often does not line up with what is taught in the Bible. The events we see in Revelation will take many forms: famine, hunger, death, violence, and natural disasters. These hardships are another opportunity for people to turn from their sin and to turn to Christ for forgiveness. He desires for people to come to Him. He does not want anyone to perish. God is patient, yet we are told that many people will curse Him rather than turn to Christ.

It is better to come to Christ now and escape the wrath to come. We are told there will be great persecution against those who turn to Jesus Christ during the time of tribulation, and as a result, many will be killed. We can point people to Christ, but ultimately, it will take the Lord to open the eyes of the people. If we live our lives in such a way that testifies to the return of Jesus Christ, others may want to find out more about what is to come.

It is important for those of us who belong to Jesus Christ to realize the urgency of the situation. Perhaps if we had a sense of urgency regarding the times, we would change the way that we think and the way that we live, which would change our priorities. We need to take the time to find out what the Bible teaches in the book of Revelation. We should be able to articulate it and explain the truth of the Word of God so that people have a clear understanding of where this world is headed.

The Lord reminds us in the Bible not to be deceived, yet many people are deceived into thinking that things will continue on this earth as they always have, or that things may get worse but they will eventually get better. Some people have the idea that a decision to accept God’s gift of salvation and follow Christ doesn't need to be made today. This is the greatest deception of all. Tomorrow is not promised to anyone.

We must remember that there is no way to accurately understand the Word of God without having a relationship with Jesus Christ. If you are at a place where you are looking and searching for answers, cry out to the Lord and ask Him to give you understanding. Ask Him to help you in your unbelief so that you might truly come to Jesus and realize your need for a Savior. This is the only way your eyes will be opened.

In the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John was told that the words he received would be sweet in his mouth but that they would be bitter in his stomach. And so it is with us. We can rejoice in knowing that we will be with the Lord forever, yet at the same time, we mourn for those who will not turn to Him for forgiveness.

Christ will return and He will reign forever. All of heaven and all of earth will fall down and worship before Him. This begs the question: Will you be with Him?

People have been taught many things concerning worship, but much of what they are being taught isn’t based on what the Bible teaches. The Bible defines what true worship is all about. Throughout both the Old Testament and the New Testament we find that a common characteristic of worship is the attitude of falling on our knees, falling on our faces before God, looking to Him for direction, looking to Him in reverence and in awe. We look to Him because we realize that without Him we are nothing, we have nothing, and we can do nothing. Another aspect of worship that we find in the Bible is the idea of serving Him with our lives, living for Him, in everything that we do.

Worship is looking to God as the unique One, the only One who is holy, the One who is unlike anyone or anything. We fall on our faces before the God of the universe knowing that our very next breath comes from Him. Worship is an attitude that inspires action. Whether we happen to be in a worship service in church on Sunday morning or whether we are on the job during the week, it is the attitude of our heart; that everything that we think about, everything that we talk about, everything that we do we offer up to the Lord in reverence and in adoration for Him.

If we focus on ourselves, then we are focused in the wrong place. Some people worship things other than the One True God without even realizing it. Everybody worships someone or something. Even those who do not believe in God worship their unbelief, so we are all involved in lifting up something or someone in worship. Whether or not we worship the One True God is the question. Sometimes we worship things that are not necessarily bad. For example, we may worship our family, or our wife or our husband, or our children, or our grandchildren, but that is not who we are called to worship.

The Lord takes worship very seriously. Jesus told a woman that God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. This woman was in an area called Samaria, and the Samaritans had an understanding that they were supposed to worship only on a mountain. The Jews believed that they were to worship in Jerusalem, but the fact is that forty years later Jerusalem would no longer exist. The Lord was saying that worship is not so much focused and centered on a place, but rather, it is centered on the condition of our heart. Those who come to Jesus Christ have the Holy Spirit living within them, so He helps our spirit to be able to worship in a way that pleases the Lord, according to the Word of God.

There is a right way and a wrong way to worship God. Many people think that they are worshiping God, when in fact they may be worshipping a god of their own imagination. One of the biggest problems in the church today is idolatry. Some people think of idolatry as worshiping an object of wood or of stone but that is not always the case. Idolatry is worshiping God in a way that does not line up with who He is. We often do not understand who God really is according to the scriptures. That is the area that we need to focus on. If we could understand, to the best of our ability, what He is like, then we would be able to worship Him in a way that pleases Him, in a way that is more in line with who He is. It might be helpful to examine the life of Jesus for us to understand what God is like, because Jesus said that if we have seen Him we have seen God the Father.

Who we worship and how we worship will affect every aspect of our life, and that will affect every aspect of the life of the church. Worship is much bigger than just going to a church service, where many times we compartmentalize our worship. Sometimes we are even more concerned about what we get out of a church service rather than what we give to the Lord.

In the church today we tend to think of worship as the time we sing hymns or songs. Worship is a lifestyle. True worship involves every aspect of our life. It affects what we do, how we do things, and why we do them in the first place.

We should seek to make our worship more pleasing to the Lord. The psalmist said that we are to be still and to know that He is God. In our world it is sometimes difficult for us to be still and to focus on God. We are often overwhelmed with too many activities in our lives. We want to rush into the presence of God, but He requires that we take the time to be still before Him. After all, He is the God of the universe. The psalmist also talks about longing and thirsting for God. We should long and thirst to know Him better. That should be the constant desire of our heart. Worship is spending time with the Lord, waiting on Him, where our heart overflows with praise. The psalmist said that his heart boiled over with praise, with adoration, and with thankfulness to Him.

God is Almighty. He is present everywhere and He knows all things. He will never leave us and never forsake us. If we know that since God is for us, then none can stand against us, maybe we would reverence Him more and respond to Him with a sincere heart of worship.

Obedience is a major factor in worshiping God. Only those who seek to glorify Him and to be obedient to Him can truly worship Him. If we go to church but we practice disobedience in our lives, then He will not accept our worship. We need to confess and repent of our sin so that it does not get in the way of our time lifting up His Name. We all know people who go to a worship service appearing to be reverent, but their lives do not reflect that worship. We might examine ourselves to be sure that we are not one of those people.

If we would realize that we are always in the presence of God, then our lives might truly be lifted up to Him. He sees everything that we do, and hears everything that we say. He knows our secrets. He knows our hearts. He is our God. He is our Lord. We have been saved as His children to worship and to glorify Him, and someday, we will worship Him for all of eternity.

For those of us who truly belong to Jesus Christ, it's settled. We are saved and we are on our way to heaven for all of eternity, which is the greatest gift of all. But we're not there yet, so on this side of eternity, we must be committed to Jesus Christ every day of our lives. This life is a journey where we encounter difficulties along the way so we need help from Above. We are told by the psalmist that the Lord was holding on to him and upholding him, but at the same time he said that he was clinging to the Lord. The word for “clinging” that is used there conveys the idea of “sticking like glue”. That is an excellent picture of our commitment to Jesus Christ. We are to stick to Him like glue.

Many times, we have a choice of what to do with our time. We all have 24 hours in a day, so what will we do with our time? The Bible talks about the fact that Jesus Christ is the Word of God in the first verse of the gospel of John, where we read that the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus spoke the entire universe into existence, and He still speaks to us today through His Word. If we are ever to understand the purpose of our lives, we need to know what He has to say to us in His Word.

The problem that we face is that often we are too busy, or we are too skeptical to listen to Him as He speaks to us through His Word. Perhaps we are afraid that He might say something to us that we don't want to hear, but the fact is that the only way we can make any progress in this life is if we spend time before the Lord in His Word. We must seek His face with all of our heart, and then listen as He speaks to us. We are told in Hebrews Chapter 12 that we are to look to Jesus, who is the author and the finisher of our faith. That is to be the priority of our lives.

Maintaining our focus on the Lord with so many demands on us and so many responsibilities in our lives can be challenging, but Jesus Christ needs to become our priority in order for us to be fruitful, to be productive, and to be faithful servants of God. We need to have faith in Him. He will help us. We are told that without faith it's impossible to please God.

Wrapped up in the idea of faith is obedience. If we are to follow Christ, we must have the desire to be obedient to Him and to His Word. The Bible tells us to desire the sincere milk of the Word. That desire is given to us by the Holy Spirit. The more that we get to know Jesus Christ, the more satisfied we become, and the more we hunger and thirst to know Him in an even deeper way. True believers in Christ have the desire for a stronger commitment to Him.

Following Christ comes with a cost. Jesus said that those who follow Him will experience the same kind of things that He experienced. He said that if they hated Him then they will hate us, so we can expect that some people will disagree with us, will misunderstand us, or will not want anything to do with us. While there are many costs that we experience as believers, the greatest cost is denying ourselves and focusing on Jesus Christ. John the Baptizer said that Jesus must increase in our lives and we must decrease. That is what happens as we draw closer to the Lord. We begin to decrease, as His presence overwhelms us and overwhelms our lives. We will walk with Him in intimate fellowship, minute by minute, day by day.

There are many obstacles that can discourage us as we walk with the Lord, and it can be a challenge just to keep following Him. We are moving in one direction, while the world is moving in another direction. In Matthew Chapter 5, Jesus described those who belong to Him as being humble, calling them “poor in spirit”. We are those who realize that we have nothing good within ourselves to offer, and He is the One that we need. We fall into pride when we begin to focus on ourselves, rather than to focus on Him and remember that we belong to Him. We need to submit to whatever He chooses to do with us.

Our commitment to Christ has a lot to do with the condition of our heart. We need to remember that as those who belong to Jesus, He is working in us. He is molding us into His image, which takes time. Everything that is happening to us has a purpose and that purpose is for our good, for His glory, and to make us more like Him.

Our culture wants us to find self-fulfillment and to live for the moment because we only live once. In contrast, the Bible teaches us to live with the perspective of eternity. We must endure until the end because we know that in the end things will work out according to the plan of God. Part of our commitment is continuing in our walk even when things get tough, knowing that the more that we commit ourselves to Christ, the more we can expect opposition from our enemy, the Devil.

We need to remember that Satan is our real enemy, and he is powerful. He will try to hurt us or to destroy our effectiveness for Christ. He is like a roaring lion prowling around, looking for someone to devour. We need to remember that Jesus Christ has already defeated Satan at the cross, and since we belong to Christ, we are told that nothing can separate us from Him, which includes the attacks of the enemy. We must also remember that the Lord will only allow the enemy to go as far as He chooses in order to accomplish His purpose. While most of us don’t like opposition, if the Devil isn’t opposing us in some way, it could mean that we are not really living for Christ.

Sometimes we begin to focus on the things of this world and begin to adopt the attitude of this world, which many times is an attitude of greed or of hatred. Fellowship with other believers can not only encourage us, but it can also help us to stay focused. But if we do stray, the Lord is faithful. He will continue to bring us back to Himself because He loves us.

We are told in the Bible that whatever we do, we are to do it as unto the Lord. Everything that comes into our lives isn't just by accident. God can use it for our development and to help us to grow in Him. Our response needs to be one that glorifies Him in every way. So the question is this: How many of us who claim to belong to Jesus Christ really believe these things and live according to our commitment to Him?

Of all of the thoughts that we entertain, the most important are our thoughts concerning God; who He is, how He acts, and what our response should be to Him. What do we really know about Him? We cannot understand everything about God since He is infinite and we are not, but He has chosen to reveal Himself to us in certain ways. But even as He has revealed Himself to us in a small part, we need help from the Spirit of God in order to accurately understand who and what He is.

In spite of all of the problems that we read about or see around us, the greatest problem that is confronting believers is the fact that we have lost a sense of the majesty of the glory of God. We have taken Him down to a place where we have made Him understandable to us, and have diminished His majesty while doing so.

A lack of sound biblical teaching concerning God, concerning what the Word has to say about Him, has led people to interject their own opinions and preconceived ideas about who God is. Therefore, we may end up worshipping a god of our own imagination rather than the God of the Bible, which amounts to idolatry. Although we cannot completely understand God, we often don't even have a sense of awe for those things that have been revealed to us. We need to have a correct understanding of who God is because we need to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Since God is infinite, He must have an infinite number of attributes; things that we know nothing about. To help us understand Him better, God has revealed to us some of His divine attributes in scripture. The difference between a divine attribute and a characteristic is that a characteristic relates to things that are created, which may change from day to day or year to year, but a divine attribute doesn’t change because God doesn't change. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever, so we can expect Him to act consistently according to who He is; each day, each year, and in every circumstance.

One of the divine attributes of God that everyone can understand and identify with is the holiness of God. For us, holiness is being set apart from sin, whereas God is the standard of perfection. Even the angels around the throne cover their face because of His holiness, His purity; which is unlike anything that exists in the universe.

One word used to describe God is omniscient, which is a Latin word that means God knows everything, or is all-knowing. He has always known everything from eternity. He knows all about us. He knows what will happen tomorrow before it even takes place. God has all knowledge of everything. Another word used to describe God is omnipotent. In English, we use the word Almighty or all-powerful. This means He has all power to do all things in all circumstances, and to bring them to the best possible conclusion. The word omnipresent as you might guess, means He is everywhere, all of the time. For those who know Him, He dwells within us. It’s comforting for believers to know that wherever we are and whatever circumstance we may be in, God is still good, He knows what is happening, He is in control, and He is with us.

Understanding the divine attributes of God helps us to understand the love of God. But, in order to help understand the love of God, we need to understand the justice of God. He is holy and His universe revolves around the purity of that holiness. We have violated that standard and have chosen to sin against Him. We have chosen to go our own way even though He has created us. We have chosen to ignore Him.

Therefore, as the just judge He must punish sin. But at the same time, He loves us. He displays His justice and His love together. We must each pay for our own sin, but the only one qualified to meet that payment is Jesus Christ, who is perfect. All of our sin was put on Him, and He paid for that sin by dying on the cross. Therefore, we now have the opportunity to come before God, to live with Him just as if we had never sinned. This is the love of God, that He would send His son to die for us.

There are many people who assume that the love of God will cover any amount of sin that they may have committed or continue to practice, or anything that occurs as a consequence of our sin. Remember, we may have a god of our own imagination that we have constructed to fit into what we want to believe. We have to understand that not only is He a God of love, but He is a God who is holy and just. He requires that we answer for our sin. If God was only love we would be worshipping love rather than worshipping Him. God is not a collection of parts, He is one. Therefore, all divine attributes operate together as one.

An additional attribute that a number of people might not understand is God being sovereign over all things. Sovereignty means that He controls, He rules, He reigns over every situation, over every aspect of the universe. While we may not understand why some things take place, the fact is, nothing takes place unless He allows it. At the same time, He gives us free will and allows us to make choices for ourselves. We can’t understand how these two things work together or coexist, but the Bible is clear that they do. This is where faith comes in.

When we don't understand certain things in the Bible, we approach it by faith. And if we approach it by faith, He will honor that faith. We don’t have to understand everything in scripture to worship Him, but we need to know Him better so that we might worship Him in a way that is consistent with who He is and how He has revealed Himself to us in His Word. We must examine ourselves to see if we are even in the faith.

The topic of water baptism has caused much confusion within the Christian culture. Let’s bring a little clarity to this subject. The first thing that comes to mind is 1st Corinthians Chapter 1 verse 17 and there the Apostle Paul makes a very interesting statement, where he said Christ had sent him not to baptize but to preach the gospel. Paul differentiated baptism from the gospel. As important as baptism is, it is not the gospel. It is not salvation. That's where some of the confusion comes in because people want to equate baptism with salvation.

Baptism originated with the Hebrews. We're told that when someone who was a Gentile, a pagan, wanted to become a Jew, they went through a ceremony which consisted of three parts. The first part was circumcision, where they not only physically identified themselves with the nation of Israel, but also made a spiritual statement; that in the cutting of the flesh, God was telling the nation of Israel, and telling all of us, that sin needs to be cut away. Every child that is born is conceived in sin. The second part of the ceremony was baptism, where the Gentile went under the water. By doing this he was saying that he was no longer a Gentile, he was no longer a pagan, and he has died to that way of life. Coming out of the water he was saying that he was now a Jew, he was a new person, and he was a follower of the One True God. For the third part of the ceremony, this new convert was brought into the temple where an animal sacrifice was made. Some of that blood was then sprinkled on this new convert with the idea being that the animal died as a sacrifice in place of that person, and indicated that there needed to be a daily cleansing from sin.

When John the Baptist was baptizing, the Jews were familiar with what he was doing and the reason behind it. But the Gentiles were being baptized instead of the Jews, so he turned their perception of baptism upside down. John said they also needed to be baptized and that it was called a baptism of repentance. John the Baptizer said to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He was letting them know that the Messiah was on the way. In fact, He was already on the earth and they needed to be prepared for His arrival by forsaking their sin. By going under the water, they were saying that they needed to be cleansed of their sin, and as they came out of the water they were saying that they were ready to repent of their sin, to turn away from it, and to wait for the Messiah to come.

The word baptism is a transliteration from the two Greek words bapto and baptizo which both mean baptism. If you wanted to translate the word for baptism, you would translate it as immersion or submerging. Outside of the Word of God, it was used by the Greeks to describe a ship that had been baptized or sunk under the water. Since baptism doesn't always refer to water baptism, it can cause some confusion. For example, if we are baptized into Christ, we are immersed in Him.

For many Christians there is the issue of whether or not salvation comes from faith alone or from being baptized. Jesus wanted John to baptize Him, and John said he needed to be baptized by Jesus. Jesus said for John to let it be this way for now, because they must fulfill all the righteousness of God. He eventually would die on a cross to pay for our sin, but He satisfied the righteousness that God demands for our forgiveness. By going under the water, Jesus was picturing His own death. By coming out of the water, He was picturing His resurrection from the dead.

In the book of Matthew in Chapter 28, Jesus commanded His disciples to go into the world and preach the gospel, and to baptize their followers. It is probably one of the most basic commands that He has given to us. When we are baptized we are identifying ourselves with Him, saying that we have no life apart from Christ, we have died with Him, and we are a new creation in Christ. Baptism is a picture of what has taken place in our heart.

We see in scripture that when possible, people were baptized immediately after their profession of faith in Christ. However, many believers have never been baptized and don't see the need to be baptized. Maybe they feel that they are too old or they've been a Christian for so long that they feel embarrassed about being baptized. Maybe they don't want to be baptized because they're living in sin and they don't want to be hypocritical by publicly stating their faith in Christ. Maybe they are concerned about the negative consequences of living in a country that is hostile towards Christianity. Regardless of the reasons not to be baptized, or consequences of being baptized, we are still commanded to do it.

In some denominations, people who don't even belong to Christ are baptized without a proper understanding of the full meaning of baptism. Some are sprinkled with water as an infant or as an adult because baptism is taught incorrectly. The individual being baptized should be able to know what he or she is doing and why he or she is doing it. Again, baptism is a picture of what has already happened to us spiritually.

Some people equate baptism with the Spirit of God either indwelling us or filling us. According to scripture, in Chapter 8 in the book of Romans, God indwells us when we are saved. We are told that if we don't have the Spirit of God, then we don't belong to Him. Our decision to follow Christ is prior to our baptism, so we already have the Spirit of God living within us. There is no evidence in scripture that supports an additional outpouring of the Spirit when we are baptized.

So as believers, we have the Spirit of God. We are told to be continually filled with the Spirit throughout our entire life. Ephesians Chapter 5 talks about being filled with the Spirit, speaking in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Colossians Chapter 3 talks about being filled with the Word of God and uses the same wording; speaking in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So, being filled with the Spirit has to do with being filled with the Word of God. The Holy Spirit will use the Word as He uses us to proclaim the Gospel to the world.

If you’re a believer, ask the Lord to give you an understanding of the need to be baptized, as an act of obedience. That will set you on the right path as a believer, because it will then be the desire of your heart to be obedient in other things.

Many times when we’re dealing with the Word of God we come across things that are a mystery to us, so it’s not surprising that there have been many speculations on the subject of numbers in the Bible. Sometimes we can unravel these mysteries and sometimes we cannot. The problem that we see with the use of these numbers is that many times people want to attach meaning and significance to numbers that are just an opinion or speculation. They often draw from material outside of the Bible and come up with a theory which may or may not have anything to do with what the Scriptures actually teach.

We have to remember that numbers were put in the Bible by the Lord and do have significance. They are important for us to know because we may be missing out on something that the Lord has for us by the use of those numbers. As we would do with any study in the Bible, we first need to understand them literally. Numbers are mathematical values. For example, there are dates, there are numbers that have to do with population, numbers that have to do with armies, locations, and measurements; all of these numbers are literal.

Sometimes the problem is that even though numbers are used literally we have difficulty in accepting them, because to us they seem unreasonable or hard to grasp. A good example of this is found in Genesis Chapter 5 where we are told that the ages of people were rather long. Think of Methuselah. We read that he lived to be 969 years old! But since we find nowhere in the Bible that tells us that his age was symbolic, we need to accept it as being a literal number.

We are sometimes given indefinite numbers to help us understand the intensity of something. In Chapter 5 in the Book of Revelation, we are told that around the throne of God there are thousands upon thousands of angels. Literally, there are thousands upon thousands, but the idea there is that there are so many angels that they are unable to be counted. This gives us a feeling of the extent of the vastness of those who surround the throne.

In certain passages of scripture, we find numbers like 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, or even 1,000, that have been rounded off to give us a picture. For example, in John Chapter 21 Jesus told His disciples to go to Galilee where He would meet them. When they got there, Jesus wasn't there yet, so they decided to go fishing. We are told that the boat that they were in was a hundred yards, or two hundred cubits, from the shore. It’s not likely that anyone got out of the boat to measure the distance from shore, so we can safely presume that the distance given is an approximation.

We must be aware of the danger in discussing or understanding the symbolism in numbers. Many people have assigned symbolic meaning to numbers in the Bible. Many times, people will draw from cultural references, or from other resources that are from outside of the Bible to understand the symbolism of a particular number. To understand the meaning of a number in the Bible, we first have to consider the use and context of the number in a specific verse.

A number may be used symbolically in one instance, but then to take that number and to transfer that symbolism every time that number is used would be a mistake. For example, the number eight has been called the number of new beginnings. Part of that is based on the account of Noah, where there were eight people in the ark. Therefore, the conclusion is that those eight people provided a new beginning for humanity. But in order to apply that same conclusion to every use of the number eight, we would have to twist the scripture in order to support that theory. Another example is when Scripture says that Jesus was raised from the dead on the first day of the week. Some people will say that because the seventh day is Saturday, Sunday is actually the eighth day, so it's a new beginning.

There is symbolism in the Bible, but we need to have a balance in our understanding. We should allow the Bible to interpret itself. We are told in Genesis that the Lord created man on the sixth day of the week, and on the seventh day He rested; not because He was tired, but because He had completed His work. The number seven then is the number of completion, the number of perfection. We see the number seven used throughout the entire Bible, and it seems to be the only number where we see a consistent relationship between its literal meaning and its symbolic meaning.

In Revelation 13:18 we are told that the number of the Anti-Christ is the number 666, and that it is the number of a man, so we don't have to look any further for the meaning of that number. People at that time will look at this man, the Anti-Christ, as a god. The Lord is reminding us that the Anti-Christ will be mortal just like every other man. The number six was repeated three times to show us that he will always be a six and he will never be a seven. He will never have perfection. He will never be God.

Beyond the symbolic interpretation of numbers, many people are preoccupied with a mystical use of numbers in the Bible. Many people want there to be mysticism involved in the Bible. They will take numbers and come up with formulas, sometimes transferring them over to letters, sometimes using Egyptian methodology in order to assign a meaning to those numbers. All of that mysticism is called numerology, which is outside the scope of the Bible and should be avoided by the serious Bible student.

Christians should not utilize numerology for any numbers that are in the Bible. Numerology is from a Latin word that simply means the study of numbers. That word has come to take on a mystical quality, which means it has taken on a satanic quality as well, so it might be best to avoid using that word.

We should look at numbers in the Bible literally unless there is an indication that we should look at them in a different way. The indication would be how the numbers are used in the context of what's being talked about, or if there's something else in the Bible that would help us to understand that a specific number has taken on an additional meaning.

We read in John Chapter 21 that when the Apostles were in Galilee, they had fished all night but didn't catch anything. In the morning, the Lord instructed them to throw the net on the right side of the boat, and we're told that they caught a massive amount of fish. We're told that when they got to shore, the net wasn't broken and there were 153 fish in the net. There are those who say that there are 153 different species of fish in the Sea of Galilee, so therefore we will reach the entire scope of man. This event was indeed a miracle, certainly an indication that with the Lord's help there are many things that are possible that otherwise would be impossible, but we should take this account literally since there is no other place that the number 153 is used in the Bible. Apparently, they just counted the fish.

Beware of what people want to theorize concerning numbers in the Bible. Many times their speculations are not only wrong or unbiblical, but they may actually be satanic.

The church has always been a mystery. There is no mention of the church in the Old Testament, and even the prophets had no idea that there would be a church. The idea of a mystery, at least in the Bible, is the Greek word musterion, which means something that is hidden, that only God can reveal. It is in the New Testament where God has revealed the church, and who or what the church is to be.

Many groups of people today call themselves “the church”, though these groups seem to differ dramatically in terms of what they believe and how they operate. So, who or what is the true Church of Jesus Christ? The Greek word for church is ecclesia, which has nothing to do with a building or an organization. The word itself means those who have been called out; those who have been called out of this world, and called into a relationship with Jesus Christ. So, at a basic level of understanding, the church is comprised only of those who belong to Jesus Christ.

In Matthew 16:18, Jesus Himself said that He would build His church. He wasn’t talking about a building or a cathedral or an organization. He was talking about adding to His believers; drawing people to Himself and bringing them out of darkness into the light of a relationship with Him. That is how He builds His church. First, we have a relationship with Him, and then we have a relationship with those who are also the redeemed. The New Testament refers to the redeemed as a body of believers, unified just as the human body is unified, but with varieties of personalities, gifts, talents and functions. That is who and what the church is.

In Acts 2:42 we're told that the church was continually devoting themselves to four things: to the Apostle’s doctrine, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. The Apostles were the ones doing the teaching at that time, so the doctrine that they were giving the people were the teachings from the Old Testament, the teaching of Jesus, and how the prophecies were fulfilled by Him. The second aspect of what was going on in the church was fellowship, or sharing. Believers were together as a family, though many of them had been disowned by their biological family. The third thing that they were involved in was the breaking of bread, which is communion, or the Lord's Supper, so they remembered Christ through that ordinance when they met together. The last thing that characterized the church was prayer; they spent time together in prayer.

As they were living out their faith, they were sharing that faith with those around them, so there was outreach. There was evangelism as they brought the message of salvation to the people at first in Jerusalem and Samaria, and then further out from there. The church was doing what it was supposed to be doing.

The church today still seems to be performing its primary function, but we have a situation where the church has also taken on the perspective of the world and is involved in many other things. Entertainment is one example of how the church wants to mirror the world and the business model of this world. Christ never said that the church should do these things. Many have diluted the original perspective of the church that we find in the book of Acts.

Those who comprise the true church meet together to worship, to be taught the Word of God, to fellowship, to break bread, and to pray together; by doing these things, people will know that we are those who belong to Jesus. The problem or the confusion is that what is visible to the world is often not the true church.

You recall in the book of Acts in chapters 1 and 2, that as Jesus was about to ascend back into heaven, He told His followers to wait in Jerusalem until they received power from the Holy Spirit who would descend upon them. They would receive power in order to live for Him and in order to bring the message of salvation to the world. We are told that 120 believers were waiting together in an upper room for this to take place, which is amazing considering that hundreds of thousands of people were affected by the work of Christ; He healed them, He fed them, and they heard His teaching. But we are told that as this small group of believers were devoting themselves to prayer, the Holy Spirit descended upon them and the church was born. That was the beginning of the New Testament church.

We see that a great deal of false teaching had crept into the church almost from the very beginning, so we must remain watchful to protect the church from false teachers. A verse that might be helpful is the first verse in Titus Chapter 2, where Paul had been speaking about false teachers to Titus, who was an evangelist and a teacher. Paul told Titus to speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine. The Greek word found there is hugiés, which is where we get our English word hygiene. Paul said that by healthy teaching and sound doctrine, we preach and teach and live out the truth of Christ. Now that we have the New Testament, we have a guide. We can help protect the church by giving sound doctrine from the Bible. Otherwise, people will gravitate towards false doctrines, which leads to confusion.

We also see that today there is a great deal of separation in terms of different denominations in the church. This has occurred over time as different groups of believers have interpreted scripture in different ways, and have then separated themselves into that particular denomination or sect. This causes confusion because people aren't sure what the correct teaching is. The Word of God makes it clear that there is only one true church. If we follow Jesus Christ and we follow His teaching, we won't have any confusion. We won’t have any denominations because everyone who is truly saved and who has the Holy Spirit living within them will be able to continue to know the truth.

For those of us who belong to Jesus Christ, the most important thing for us to have is the presence of Jesus among us. Without His presence, we do not have a church. Unless He is in our midst, which He has promised to be in the Book of Revelation, there is really no point in meeting at all. We read about how Christ was outside of the Church of Laodicea, knocking to get in, and they were not even aware that He was not part of their fellowship anymore. It is sad and dangerous that so many people who call themselves the church do not have Christ in their midst.

We have to remember that those who truly follow Jesus Christ have always been in the minority. Therefore, it becomes easy to get discouraged because we are not following the pattern of the world, and even the pattern that the world has superimposed upon those who claim to be the church. The encouragement is this: If Christ is with us and in us, and we lack everything else, in Him we have enough. We have what we need to be who He wants us to be, and not what the world or what other people think we should be. He will continue to equip us and to work in us and through us to accomplish the things that He asks of us. We will give an account for what He has given us and equipped us to do.

Since the time that the scriptures were written, the truth of the Word of God has been attacked by those who question and who reject the facts that are written in the pages of the Bible. Some of those attacks are obvious and some of them are a little more subtle. Sometimes the teaching sounds like the truth, but after a careful analysis we find that the teaching is wrong. The problem is that in the world in which we live there is the belief that there is no absolute truth, and that whatever we believe is acceptable just because we believe it. So, we end up with a melting pot of confusion, and as a result many people who think that they are on their way to heaven are in fact on their way to hell.

In regard to false teaching, many people have heard the terms “cult” and “false religion”. The word cult has generally been defined as a system of religion, or it can be a social movement with a group of people who follow the direction of a person or even of an idea. We can trace the origin of that cult back to a person or back to a group of people who claim that they are the only authority that has been ordained by God to interpret the scriptures. Generally, cults are groups with practices and with beliefs that are outside of the mainstream of accepted Christianity, while false religion has generally been defined as an established group, sometimes a larger group, spread out over a large geography. The people who follow those false religions often give the appearance of the truth and some may even be a part of mainstream Christianity. But the fact is, what they are teaching is not the Word of God.

They teach things like the worship of man-made images or of created things or of people. That group may have taught the truth at one time, but over the years false doctrine and false practices have crept in, so the fact is that now it is a false religion. Our best defense, and perhaps our only defense, is to know what the Bible really teaches. That's the only way that we can identify those who would seek to lead us down a path of destruction. The challenge comes when those who teach this false doctrine mix it with the truth, and so it may sound like the truth. One thing is certain; that where the truth is being taught there will be those who are not far behind teaching lies. So, we have to think of the words of Paul who said to Timothy in First Timothy 4:16, we must pay close attention to our doctrine. We must pay close attention to our teaching. Then we can confidently stand up for the truth of the Bible, and so we will stand up against the lies of false teaching.

Cults and false religions continue to multiply and to flourish all around the world because we are approaching the end of the age. We are drawing closer to the return of Jesus Christ, and so the enemy has stepped up his efforts to draw people away from Jesus, away from the truth, and into an eternity without Christ. Also, these cults continue to multiply because the true church has failed to understand and to accurately teach the truth. We have left the door open for error, even among those who do know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Many of these cults even use the Bible as a part of their teaching.

Each cult and each brand of false religion has its own unique belief system, and so they are not receptive to the facts of scripture if they differ from their interpretation of the scripture. When they are confronted with these inconsistencies, rather than use the Bible they tend to fall back on the teaching of their founder or of their leader and his or her particular interpretation of scripture. That leader usually claims to have divine authority and understanding of the scriptures, having the only correct interpretation. As a result, the people in that group tend to feel isolated from everyone else because they believe that everyone else is being deceived.

Here is some guidance to help understand some of the core beliefs that we should be aware of among these cults. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is God. Some teach that He is not God. Some teach that He was created by God. Some teach that He did not die to pay for our sins. Some teach that He did not physically rise from the dead. There are others who use books in addition to the Bible and they claim that they are divinely inspired, and then they use those books to validate their false teaching. There are some who believe that their founder or their leaders have been enlightened by God and therefore they cannot be questioned. There are others who focus on things like self-improvement or on good deeds as the way to reach heaven or to reach a state of what they would call “cosmic consciousness”. There are some who also believe that everyone goes to heaven; that all faiths will take us there. Some believe that man is basically good and will become like a god. Some teach that there is no such thing as sin, only sinful actions. All of these things are marks of false teaching.

Many times, those who follow the teaching of cults or of false religions are sincere in what they believe, but they have been taught to think of the words of the Bible differently than what the Bible actually teaches. For example, a word like “salvation” has a different meaning to those false religions. They sometimes teach that salvation means to become one with the universe, or to become one with God, or to become one with themselves. They stress words like “love” and “tolerance” and they tend to avoid words like “sin” or “evil”. Some deny the necessity of the sacrifice of Christ as the only way for us to be saved. Some even teach that there is no such thing as heaven or hell. To begin our discussion with them we must find some common ground and we must work from there, carefully defining those words, and clarifying as we go.

Despite what many people think, all roads do not lead to God. Jesus Himself said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”. The Bible is in fact God speaking to us, but there are those who have distorted the truth of His Word. We need to remember that a lie sounds like the truth to those who do not know the difference. It is our responsibility to prayerfully present the truth of Jesus Christ, as it has been revealed to us in His Word; to reach those who are sitting in darkness, and to reach those who've been blinded by the lies of the enemy of our soul.

Of all of the things that we have lost along the way: our youth, our health, our strength, our friends, our financial security, even our family, perhaps our greatest loss of all is the loss of our awareness of the majesty and of the glory of God in our lives.

We have lost our sense of awe. We have lost our sense of wonder. We have lost our sense of worship of Him. We have lost our desire to take the time to be still before Him, and in many cases our idea of what God is really like is not accurate at all.

So we worship Him, but it is not true worship. Instead, we worship a god of our own creation, a god of our own imagination. And if right now you are saying to yourself, “This does not apply to me” or “I'm not like that”, ask yourself what comes to mind when you think about what God is like. It is a fact that our worship will reflect our thoughts and our perceptions of Him, so we need to purify and to elevate our thoughts about God according to the truth of His Word.

The foundation of true worship is the right perception of Him and we need to get this right. Our real purpose for living on this earth is to worship Him. It is to love Him. Above all else it is to seek to serve Him and to obey Him with all of our hearts.

Lord, teach us to know that we do not know. Reveal Yourself to Your servants so that we might know You better. Help us to leave our misconceptions of You behind, to leave our sins behind, and to commit ourselves to You, for Your glory. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we pray.

Amen

We invite you to utilize all of our resources available online, to help strengthen yourself and others as you continue to grow in the truth and understanding of the Word of God, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.