Very often I come across people who don’t have their own lives in place but find themselves in the position to comment on God, saying religion is merely a fabrication of the masses. However this is only true when talking about religions people have fabricated in their rebellion against God. Take Sati for instance or the offering of female neonates to Hindu goddesses by drowning them in milk in presenting the family’s request that the next child be a boy. Or Buddhism or Jainism, where roaming nude has more to do with enlightenment than morality itself. It is no wonder that their temples are filled with erotic sculptures that decorate their façade. What about Islam, where bestiality is allowed to whet the individual’s appetite for sex, as though the devout Muslim was no different from animals so as to be joined with them.

Mat 22
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

When it comes to Christianity, the code we are given to live by is the Moral Law, where we treat the people around with the same concern as we treat ourselves. However, the world is so blinded by unbelief that instead of painstakingly weeding out false religions, it chooses to carpet bomb religion all by itself, when it is actually the fabricated lies of men about God that needs to be dealt with. It is funny that the same people who say religion is fabricated by men, turn out to be the same who take immense pride in their own religion under the banner of culture and so it seems that these people are nothing more than hypocrites.

Mat 5
36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

Today, the reason people have to makes promises is because the rest of the time what they say has little substance or relevance. These people cannot be held for what they say because they speak that which is only most convenient to them in serving their own godless purpose in that moment. Owing to their unbelief, people think that if God was out of the way, people would be able to relate with each other much better and build society on a better social platform. However, the only reason people want God out of the way is because they choose to live as they please. Be their own boss even when it comes to morality.

John 14:6
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Another thing people misconceive about religion, is that it has been the cause for all the wars. According to the Encyclopaedia of Wars, from the 1763 wars recorded in the world only 123 of them had a religious motive, which is about 7%. Now I don’t know from where secularist get their facts but it looks more like they speak only that which is most opportune in that moment, being removed from all truth, thanks to their broken communion with God, which they would rather not admit. The Bible teaches that man in his fallen state in Adam is given to Anarchy, man loves senseless chaos and this is what man supposes to achieve by discounting genuine faith in God.

James 1
26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Like the term “gay”, which today has been abused beyond genuine recognition, so too is religion. There was a time when the word “gay” was associated with joyous festivity like the Deck the Halls Christmas Carol which had the verse: Don we now our gay apparel. Today, such a statement would be met with ridicule but that is because the homosexual community has hijacked the word gay is associating it with itself, just as it has also done with the rainbow, which Biblically is God’s covenant with mankind, saying that He would not destroy the world with a flood as He did in the time of Noah. Imagine today, if people look up at the rainbow in the sky and associate that with the gay community; that would be so typically of the world whose mind-set is naturally given to blasphemous unbelief from the fall of Adam. The same world who like a bunch to hypocrites deny God on the count of all the suffering in the world.

2Peter 1
19 So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. 20 But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

To conclude, religion that is fabricated by men who fashion their gods and stories of them after their thoughts, can never be trusted because they choose to mislead people to eternal damnation from their own fallen nature. Contrary to what people generally believe, God is an absolute reality and the only reason people choose to deny it is because it is God who stands between them and the lives they choose to live as they please but just because God stops you from the living as you please, it doesn’t mean God doesn’t exists. On the contrary, it is because God exists that you cannot live as you please. Remember, life belongs to God to the extent that even suicide is a sin and there is no way you can get around having your own way in life. The only thing you can do well, is live on God’s terms and that is only possible by setting your heart straight with God through repentance unto Jesus Christ. You must understand that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, so unless you abide in Him (Jn15:4), you really haven’t lived life in all its fullness.

Job 2
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!”
10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

It’s popular among Charismatics who love to cherry pick their scripture, to believe that adversity shows a lack to faith because according to these, faith in God is a Shangri-La where no sorrow is allowed to touch them. We however understand from Phil1:29, that we who have received Jesus as Lord over our lives, are given to strive for His righteousness in this world, to this extent is righteous suffering on our part, that it showcases our devotion unto Him in Spirit and truth (Jn4:24), which He is absolutely worthy of (Rev5:9-14). The lives of the Godly thereby exhibits how we live for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rom 14
7 For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself;
8 for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

If we look at Gen32:28 & Mat16:18, we know the Angel of Lord is the Old Testament Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is known to swear by His own name (Gen22:10-17) because He is God and bring things to pass by His own power (Gen22:17-18). What’s most interesting is God’s promise to the children of Abraham in Gen22:17 is “…and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies” while in Mat16:18 Jesus’ promise to those who believe in Him is “…and the gates of Hades will not overpower His Church.” This truth is so essential to the Christian faith that it is echoed again by Paul in Gal3:16 because Jesus is the victory God promised us from sin. In Him is God’s Salvation and victory over our enemies and even death (1Cor15:54-57). From the above we also realize that the Church did not begin with Pentecost, as many are given to believe but the Church began with Adam because the promise of Christ redeeming His people is sited in Gen3:15 when God righteously judges Adam and Eve for their disobedience.

Hebrews 12
3 For consider Jesus who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;
5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

I’d like you to see Job2:9-10 which I mentioned in the beginning of this post in the light of Hebrews12:6-7 mentioned above. Unlike the Prosperity Gospel heretics whose doctrine emerges from the choicest picking of scripture while having no harmony with rest of the Bible, the Bible on the contrary, holistically teaches that there is such a thing as righteous suffering (1Pet3:13-16) because we who are His sheep are the New Testament Israel. Biblically, Israel is defined in Gen32:28 as those who strive with God and men and prevail. Now, this definition ought to be seen from the perspective of God’s unconditional sovereignty because in sanctifying His people, God subjects His Church to affliction from the world (as though it were a controlled environment – 1Cor10:13), while the redeeming power of Christ sustains us through these fiery trials. This is beautifully picturized in Dan3:8-28. Look at it as a silver smith who fans the fire in a furnace while holding the silver in a crucible, the silver from which the dross is to burned out (Job23:10).

Ps 119
73 Your hands made me and fashioned me; Give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.
74 May those who fear You see me and be glad, Because I wait for Your word.
75 I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are righteous, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.

Take a look at the above scripture. In the context Jn 1:18 & 14:13-15 we see verses 73-74 above offers us a lot of spiritual meat because Prov9:19 teaches us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom unto an understanding of His commandments (Moral Law). For you see, who David waited on in his moments of trial was Jesus Christ (Jn1:1), in whom God and His Salvation is revealed to all mankind. So to what effect is the Moral Law you may ask! Well, the question is what would you cling to when you are tried by the Lord our God. Would you hold to God & His righteous in the midst of trial as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did in Dan3:16-18 or as Paul did so in prison by writing joyous letter to the Churches (Plmn1:1,7). The Lord Jesus teaches us in Mat22:36-40 that the Moral Law requires you to love the Lord your God first and above all things even yourself and next to love and be concerned about those around you as you are about yourself. This sums up the Ten Commandments for us. So the question is would we hold to Jesus’ Commandments (the Moral Law → 2Jn1:5) in the midst of trial?

John 8
31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

John 15
16 “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

Well, unlike the humanist approach to Christianity, which discounts the Sovereign will of God for the free will of men as though they were mutually exclusive, the Bible teaches us that Salvation is 100% by the power of God because you see the living Spirit granted us (Ezek36:26-27/Jn3:3,16), is by the merit of Christ who overcomes our hostility and damn indifference towards God and propitiates our sinful nature unto the righteousness of God (Rom3:9-26). It is He, who has begun this work of Salvation is us (who truly belong to Him – Jn10:14,26) and it is He who shall bring it to completion (Phil1:6).

Rom 8
28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

To conclude, while the world excuses its unbelief with the suffering present in the world, most of which is its own handiwork, the godly are given not to complain through the wilderness but to pray and ask God to see life from the perspective to faith and not sight (2Cor5:7) because we are not living to serve ourselves but God (Jn12:24-26). The world is filled with people living for themselves and this is where they err because the truth is only God is God and so unlike sin which we propagate in serving nothing more than ourselves, the righteousness of God on the contrary transcends all, in bringing creation to serve God, who righteously serves Himself in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (Col1:16-20).

Mat 25
24 “And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed.
25 ‘And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’
26 “But his master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed.

The above scripture is taken from the Parable of Talents and God here is compared to a hard man who deals severely with those who are wicked. Today, people have this notion of God’s love as though it licences you to live the way you please. Though we may have scripture like Rom5:8 which says to this effect that: God demonstrates His love for us that while we were still sinners Christ died for us; it does not in any way imply that God loves unbelievers in their wickedness. To convey the transforming power of God’s love I would like you to picture this: you and me are lepers/beggars sitting on the street among other lepers/beggars, this philanthropist approaches us, washes us, treats and shelters us until we are able to find our feet. Now, how far does this contrast with passers-by who just throw you a rupee or two just to escape that guilt they experience from their unwillingness to step out of their comfort zone and help in a manner that makes a difference. By this, I am in no way implying that the godly are obligated to take every beggar on the street to their house, clean them up and care for them because each person has a different calling in the overall development of the body of Christ, which is His Church. What I am alluding to, is the propitiating power in the love of Jesus (1Jn4:10), which siphons people from spiritual depravity in fallen Adam and joins them to the family of God, which is His Church… making them able bodied men and women of God with a spiritual capacity to think and act according to God’s good pleasure. As much as people who pass a beggar a rupee or two, don’t really care for them, I must say that you are only fooling yourself if you believe God expresses his love to you by letting you remain as you are (Rom9:13-15).

Rom 6
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

We ought to understand that there are three aspects of Biblical Law: Ceremonial Law, Moral Law and Civil Law. Rom6:15 is speaking in the light of 1Tim1:9, that the reason we abstain from wickedness is because we are a new creation in Christ (2Cor5:17) brought to delight is in God in thought and deed (Ps37:4/Jn15:5), our abstinence from wickedness does not come from the fear of being caught and punished by the State (1Pet3:17), which is given to act from the Civil Law. Yes, Jesus ate with sinners but these were sinners who welcomed Him and acknowledged their shortcomings through repentance before Him (Rom3:23-24) and if you know the Jesus of the Bible, He was not out to sweet-talk society but He welcomed these who repented in the midst of His fellowship for all to see (Mat21:32/Jn3:26-30). If you were to take a look at Prov26:12 & Mark2:17 you will get the drift of who is welcome in Jesus’ fellowship and who is not.

Luke 19
3 Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature.
4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way.
5 When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”
6 And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly.
7 When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”
8 Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.”
9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.

Today, we have people who are scared to speak out against the world and they will not admit their fear but excuse themselves saying God loves everybody. However, this doesn’t indicate their love for God but only their unbelief because what is more prominent in their sight is their setback with society as over the fear of God (Mat10:28). The world is filled with such hypocrites that with the same mouth they deter Christians from speaking out on socials evils like idolatry, abortion, the #lgbt, euthanasia and against capital punishment, all from their self-righteousness; and then with the same mouth they manage to question what God is doing, when they see a rise in the rate of crime but why talk when you don’t listen and if you think you know better, own up then to everything you do. Unlike hypocrites who are given to make the most convenient statements in that moment of time, emerging from nothing but their vacillating emotions, the true Christian on the other hand is given to judge based on the very code he/she himself/herself lives by (Mat7:2). This is called preaching what you practice or walk the talk.

1 John 2
4 The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
5 but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:
6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

1 John 3
4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.

The antinomians use the pretext of preaching the grace and love of God to excuse standing firm for the righteousness of God in society, and they hate it when genuinely concerned Christians admonish them using scripture. To defend themselves they quote Mat7:1… “Do not judge so that you will not be judged”. However, this warning is not given by God to His sheep but to those hypocrites, those stubborn goats who unrighteously find fault with His sheep and use the Word of God, not for God’s glory but for their own vested interest. If you were to look at the very crux of the Moral Law in Mat22, you would come to realize that Love is as God (1Jn4:16), whose saving knowledge is revealed to us in Jesus Christ (Jn1:18/1Tim2:3-4), that we may be adequately equipped for every good work (1Tim3:16-17). The world in their broken communion with God, has no clear definition of love because they can only know/relate with things from the perspective of how it serves themselves, not God. So to these, love turns out to be the means of serving their own lusts and from this ungodly mindset, broken homes and single mothers become a cultural norm because to these who are a law unto themselves, love is nothing more than a vacillating feeling that is here today and gone tomorrow. For the Godly however, love is duty and by this I do not mean devoid of emotion but grounded in the joy of the Lord, which is its strength (Neh8:10) and personally I must say, there is true joy to your hearts content to be found in diligently seeking and exercising the Moral Law of God.

Ps 119
97 O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.

Mat 22
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And Jesus said to him, ” ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
38 “This is the great and foremost commandment.
39 “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

To conclude, God hates sin and loves the sinner is nowhere in Bible. God loves Himself and He is right in doing so because He is God. It is from this love He has for Himself that He made man in His image… for His own glory. The fall of Adam, granted men a righteousness of their own, separate from God but a man who serves nothing more than himself spews nothing but evil through the course of his life because man is not God. The truth however is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God who added to Himself the complete nature of man but without sin and presented Himself to be that substitutionary sacrifice and atonement for all sin, that man would be restored to God from the fall of Adam. To the world love is blind but this is so because the world is blind to God, who is love and so also the world sees no purpose in love but to those who know God, love serves it purpose in Jesus Christ.