1John 2:16
For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.

The above scripture shows you what exemplifies a great life in this sinful world… the lust of the flesh (that desire for wicked pleasure), the lust of the eyes (that thirst for corrupt power), the pride of life (selfish pride), which is nothing but the veil that blinds the unbeliever to the redeeming merit of the Lord Jesus Christ as presented in the Gospel (2Cor 4:3). The Bible teaches us that the believer must walk by faith and not by sight (2Cor 5:7) and in doing so, it qualifies saving faith as that sixth sense which overrides all our five senses because our flesh naturally from the fall of Adam, is wired to resist the good pleasure of God, but faith teaches us to say no to ourselves and say yes to God. In any case, when you take a look at the end result of our indulging in our own pleasure, when you have had all that you have wanted, whether it be: drunkenness, gluttony, drug addiction or nymphomania, when have had all of what pleases you personally, you are left feeling very squeamish if not diseased. The reason our pleasures handed to us from Adam are so morbid is because we are not God, we weren’t meant to serve our own interest. Instead we were made to serve the Lord and make his pleasure our own (Psalm 37:4).

John 12
24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.

Rom 5:17
17 For if by the one man’s (Adam’s) offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)

When we look at the above two verses we realize how the free will of man traces its way after the sovereign will of God, like water flowing through a channel made in the mud by hand (Prov 21:1). Keeping this in mind, when we look at the above scripture we realize that the dying to ourselves, which must happen in the life of a believer, is not God calling you to commit social suicide but instead it is the saving power of the Jesus’ Spirit working in the believer (Phil 1:6), in the bringing the believer to repent and believe in God. When Jesus said He didn’t come to call the healthy but sinners (Mk 2:17), we realize that we cannot receive the righteousness of God unless we lose our terribly fraudulent self-righteousness & acknowledge we are nothing but sinners in turning to God. Take a look at the thirst for corrupt power, people will do anything to climb the corporate ladder, sleep with their bosses, bribe their way to get a promotion, bear false witness against their colleagues, then when you look at politics we know that in most socialist countries the best upgrade a gangster or religious baba/conman can get is to become a politician, the whole world practically goes about trying to gain the whole the world at the cost of losing their soul (Mk 8:36).

Gen 3
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

The above verse sights the Biblical account of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Notice how Satan baits the woman, he says you will be like God, in the sense you will have your own standard of what is right and what is wrong, separate from what God has set. Verse 6 of Genesis 3 is where the fall happens because the woman actually believes Satan and all the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and pride of life appears to take root in Adam & Eve here. In doing so the living faith that was in them perished but not just for them but for us all who are their progeny. Ever wondered Jesus was born of a virgin? It is so that he would have no part of Adam’s sin (Heb 4:15). It is no wonder that today people are more willing to listen to spirit mediums who communicate with demons impersonating the dead but these same people have the least interest in knowing what the good Lord says in the Bible, because it doesn’t quite whet their rebellious appetite, which is all thanks to fall of Adam.

Romans 8:28
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

When you look at the above scripture, you might begin to realize that unlike man, the reason good comes from God pursuing His own purpose/interests, is because the truth is God and God, man is not God, and to go against this simple and yet critical truth/principle is to dangerously err but we do it everyday unknowingly, and the Bible in this context is quite right in saying: the fool says in his heart- there is no God (Psalm 14:1); because that is the kind of ungrateful lives we are living and then we wonder where’s the joy all gone and why the suicide rates are so high. Still, God in his mercy keeps us alive each day, blessing us with sunshine, rain and all the other pleasures of life, which we can never put a price on. Now take a look at our selfish pride, besides it flying in the face of the Almighty Triune God, you also come to realize that selfish-pride and self-respect are mutually exclusive, the things selfish pride will make an unbeliever stoop to, is something no self-respecting believer will have anything to do with. For any person who takes pride in being very smart/learned, strong or attractive will senselessly speak ill of the other in his attempt to sabotage people’s perception concerning how the other excels in that field, which that person himself self-relates with so proudly. You will also notice that people who speak with great haughtiness concerning themselves can actually do very little, even for themselves. It is as the Bible says that the truth in not in them.

Psalm 37:4 (Pleasure)
4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Romans 8 (Power)
15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Do you remember the parable of the pearl of great value in Mat 13:45-46, the Gospel is compared to this pearl of great value, where a merchant in realizing its value (1 Cor 2:14) relinquishes his self-righteousness in receiving Jesus Christ as His Lord/Master & Saviour? From Jesus we learn that a man cannot believe in the Gospel unless he repents (Jn 12:24-26), which is to say that he willingly and happily renounces his self-righteousness in receiving the righteousness of God. The scripture I have quoted above, tell us what exactly is the pleasure, pride and power a Christian is genuinely brought to yearn for. We must remember that we were made in the image in God (Gen 1:26) that was broken in Adam but restored in Christ (Rom 8:29), and so the pride, pleasure & power we ought to reflect must be all for the glory of the Triune God Almighty.

P.S. I DON’T SUPPORT #GayRight or #GayPride for the same reason I DON’T SUPPORT the Right to murder, or the Right to rape, or the fallen Pride murderers/rapists take in their capacity to sin. After all these are all sins deserving of death but our world is lost ever since the fall.

​Acts 4
18 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! 20 As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
21 After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. 22 For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old.

Roman 13
13 Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. 2 So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished. 3 For the authorities do not strike fear in people who are doing right, but in those who are doing wrong. Would you like to live without fear of the authorities? Do what is right, and they will honour you.

The above verses helps us understand the role of government and in what manner we are accountable to them and in what manner we are not. As you read further on, you will see that what we owe the government is obedience to the Moral Law of God (Mat22:36-40), where God is first and concern for neighbour is at par with self. A Godly decorum for government may seem appalling for many but that is because we are so used to a system of government that runs almost every aspect of our lives that we have grown used to our chains. We live in a society where it is taboo for one to criticise the government while the people’s indifference towards God is an atmosphere we are all very familiar with. In a true Biblical Theocracy however, it is God who is above criticism, not the government. In a Democracy, the state is accountable to the people and so if the people are a licentious lot then the state sets Laws to appease the people’s immoral appetite, which in God’s time incurs God’s deserving justice. To site a few examples, the legal age for sexual consent in Nigeria is 11, while it is 12 in the Philippines and Angola, and 13 in Burkina Faso, Comoros, Niger and Japan. The cost of licensing such immorality then amounts to licensing murder through abortion. WHO estimates that 125,000 unborn babies are aborted everyday across the world! Can you imagine, how such a genocide would reflect in the newspapers daily, if society only accepted: unborn babies are human beings? As much as a baby can kick in the mother’s womb, it can also experience pain but the only reason we look the other way concerning abortion is because, in a democracy the individual is sovereign, being a law to himself/herself and so he/she does as he/she pleases. The media too goes on, as though covering wickedness is a priority over covering righteousness in society. Take for instance the #lgbt population in the USA, which is about 3.8%, yet these wicked lot get about 70% of media coverage over everything and everybody else. In India, the LGBT is about 2.5 million in a population of 1.25 billion and the media here too uses celebrities to condone the destructive and sick LGBT ideology in society.

Isaiah 9:6 (A prophesy concerning Jesus)
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

In a theocracy, the State is accountable to Christ and we understand that the Bible serves as a framework for civil law from the appointment of Judges by Moses to settle civil disputes in Exo18:13:27 but ever so often, the Sacred Cow for many professing Christian happens to be Religious Neutrality, which is far from the truth in any culture because though society may claim such a thing as religious plurality, it is alway one religion that remains dominant over the rest. It is as Jesus says in Mat 12:30, if you are not gathering, you are scattering, if you are not with Him, you are against Him because if God is not first in your life, anything else that rivals God’s right over your heart is idolatry. The State is purposed to serve one duty only and that is to punish lawlessness and protect the lawful but this is not true of the modern state which purposes to terrorise good people. Take Sweden for example, a country of 9.8 million people, their government in claiming to be a Humanitarian Superpower plans to spend about 3 billion Swedish crowns of tax payers money in 2016 to house refuges in the country, while about 34000 still remain homeless in Sweden. We therefore see that it is essential for the State to stick to what is right and wrong as defined in the Bible (Is5:20) because the Law of God is infallible.

Exodus 20 (Moral Law given the believer in serving God’s interest)
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Deut 12:1-3 (Judical Law given the state in serving God’s interest)
These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess—as long as you live in the land. 2 Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. 3 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.

Besides, bringing wrath upon those evil doers, the state is also given to protect the interest of religion, not just any religion but Biblical Christianity because if truth be told, worshiping any other God than the Triune God Almighty is damning and so the State is given to reflect God’s justice in safeguarding the worship of God Almighty. So, a State that functions under God has the power to execute people on proven charges of blasphemy (Lev24:16/Mk3:29/Jn4:24) and though the worldly Christian may find this appalling, he/she ironically finds himself/herself at home with counterfeit political power executing people on charges of treason, which only happen to prove detrimental to the interest of the State, not God.

Rev 13
11 Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. 12 It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. 13 It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, 14 and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain.

Now the beast of the sea mentioned in Revelation 13 is apostate political power, so coming back to the fable many are led to believe concerning religious neutrality and religious plurality, we understand from Revelations 13 that only apostate religion (the beast of the land) is given to exercise the corrupt power of the beast of the sea (apostate political power). Nonetheless, knowing that it is not the State which is Sovereign but God, we understand that the State’s duty is to protect God’s interest in society. In this sense, the Civil Law is set in place to hedge the Moral Law. To give you an example, Mat 5:27-28 teaches us to guard even the motives of our heart in dealing with adultery. However, unlike the Moral Law, the Judicial/Civil Law cannot function as a thought police but if we were act on those wicked intentions viz. murder, adultery and covetousness, it is then that the Civil Law has the power to punish such crimes because the State is an instrument of God’s deserving justice here on earth.

1 John 5
16 If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

1Cor 15:56
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

1 Timothy 1
8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. 9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine 11 that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

From 1John 5:16-17, 1Cor 15:56 and 1 Timothy 1:8-11, we see that what the Christian owes the government is obedience to the Moral Law of God because the believer who showcases the fruit of Holy Spirit in his/her life (Gal5:22-23) has nothing to fear concerning the Judicial Law exercised by the State. Today, in refusing to be a conduit of God’s righteousness in society, most governments ironically find it is a herculean task to enforce Biblical Judicial Law, which are only a few hundred morality based laws, while these same governments zealously impose thousands of new laws each year to serve their own vested interest. For any minister, whether that be of the Church or the State, his/her duty is always to administer, meaning he/she only exercises that which is already written. Unlike what is happening today, a minister can never write his/her own laws whether it is to govern the State or Shepherd the Church, the purpose of the minister is to only administer the Law that is already revealed to the Church/State in Christ.

Rev 22
18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

Like Apostate Egypt during the time of Moses and Apostate Assyria during the time of Daniel, the State today claims to be omnicompetent in the control it exercises over its people, which is as though it were a god. A government can only tax that which it lays claim to but today we have taxes like Income Tax, Inheritance Tax and even Gift Tax. Though these taxes may claim to secure financial spending in the country, it so often turns out to only help ministers within the government accumulate the most money for themselves that remains unaccounted for in Swiss bank accounts. These taxes only keep on increasing as the days go by and the worst thing is we are all ok with this because most of us don’t know any better. Biblically in Exodus 30:14-15, only a Census Tax was to be collected, which was within every person’s reach and the same was paid by every person, it wasn’t the same percentage but the same amount.

Exodus 30:14-15
14 All who cross over, those twenty years old or more, are to give an offering to the Lord. 15 The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less when you make the offering to the Lord to atone for your lives.

The State today covers up it robbery by providing Healthcare and Education. However, it must be understood that the State cannot provide unless it first takes from the people. Also, healthcare and Education are vocational institutes and being institutes of vocation they are not to be usurped by the State. For those of you care to notice, the state has only made life worse when it chooses to leave aside its given duty of bearing the wrath of God against the wicked and usurp duties of the Church to excuse itself from further taxing the people.

Luke 3
12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.
14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

To conclude, when it comes to understating the Godly Decorum of the State, there are three aspects to learn: its Origin that is God; its function that is to terrorise ungodly evil doers; its powers which talks about its ministry, its authority to bear the sword of God’s good/deserving justice and the power to tax without extorting (Lk3:12-14).

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.

1Cor 1
2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you have been reading the news, you will know Pope Francis is going to be canonizing Mother Theresa on Sept 4th 2016. Now I have no trouble relating to Mother Theresa as a Saint but are Saints the making of the Pope? No! Saints are not even self-made but made and sanctified in Christ for the glory of God. I have noticed Roman Catholic priests love to site Mat 16:19 concerning the authority they are entrusted with, that what they bind on earth is bound in heaven and what they lose on earth is lost in heaven. However, this authority is undergirded by the fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnate is our Saviour and everything but is that so with Roman Catholicism? No! Roman Catholicism implicitly believes that God is not competent enough to handle the earth’s enormous affairs but needs the assistance of the Saints, which is why He makes them. With such a lofty view Roman Catholicism sees its saints while having such a small view of God but this is so simply because Biblical illiteracy is rampant among the majority here.

Ephesian 2
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

The Roman Catholic Clergy does nothing but leave the people spiritually distraught when they impersonalize the people’s relationship with Jesus, by running the Church like it were some massive conglomerate, where employees only know who their CEO is without ever getting to know him personally. If you would go through the internet, you’d learn Roman Catholicism has a massive list of patron saints whom you instructed to pray to depending on your particular situation. So, if you are in love you would pray to St. Valentine, if you are an addict you would pray to St. Maximillian Mary Kolbe, if you were desperate for hope you would pray to St. Jude and the list goes on. As ridiculous as this may sound, Roman Catholicism has used the saints to blaspheme the worship of God. Biblically however, Jesus is present with every believer in Spirit because God is Spirit (Jn4:24), He is Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent; God is God and I hope we can come to terms with what that means because it is by His might that His Saints changed their course of lifestyle from the fallen nature of Adam unto God’s own righteousness (Rom5:17/Phil4:13).

Psalm 139 (Right hand in verse 10 ascribes to Jesus)
7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
9 If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
10 Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,”
12 Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.

All this about the Saints (beyond the grave) interceding for us because they are in a better standing with God is a load of nonsense because beyond the grave is a place of no return. Meaning, beyond the grave those who are heaven bound are set free from all the cares of the world and so they cannot hear prayers (Rev21:3-4). You may ask me then what about the stories about all these apparitions of Mary and the Saints? Well, I do believe that Mary is a Saint, the most blessed among women (Lk 1:28,42 & 11:27) but as much as Jesus has warned us about false Christ’s who will come and deceive the people with a different Gospel (Mat24:24), so too these apparitions are nothing but demonic deceptions because they have transpired things, which are contrary to what the Bible teaches.

Gal 1
8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!

2Cor 11
4 For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.
…
13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
14 No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

You may refer to saying the Rosary as a veneration but saying 10 hail Mary’s and 1 Our Father, says you have been deceived into putting Mary on a higher pedestal than God but God Almighty shares His glory with no other (Is42:8) because the truth is: none but God is God! Yes, I may be quoting from the Old Testament but if you know anything about theology, you should know that God is unchanging i.e. He is perfect from eternity past to eternity beyond; because He is God and so the God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament. God did not change, neither did He have a change of heart. Please understand that the Bible harmonizes in itself when read in its context because the Bible is the complete word of God and so the Bible harmonizes in itself because God does not contradict Himself as hypocrites do.

Col 2
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.
9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,
10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;
11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;
12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

The hypocrisy in Roman Catholicism is so brazen that on one hand they believe that one can be good without knowing Christ while at the same time Sainthood is an authority given, only for them to recognize. Just imagine the audacity of these depraved papists that the record of every Saint that has ever lived on earth is theirs to make and keep! In the midst of all this, is also the Pope’s desire to welcome homosexuals whom God righteously hates (Lev20:13/Rom9:13-24), to fellowship with the Church. It is clear as day that the Pope is operating not to please God in His righteousness but to please the world in their sin, which all emerges from his (Pope) own standard of self-righteousness from fallen Adam. To counter my argument, you may say but Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them. Yes, He did but the difference between sinners whom Christ has received to Himself and the sinners of the world, is that we who belong to Christ are repentant (Rom3:23-26), no longer walking in our old wicked ways but delightfully following now the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph2:1-7).

1Cor 6
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,
10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

To think of Sainthood as being God’s superman is only to look at His Church from the perspective of a faithless self-serving world. Saints are not super Christians, every true Christian is a Saint and every true Saint is a Christian. Even the Saints of the Old Testament, their faith rested on Jesus (Is53:5) who was to come and propitiate their nature, from fallen Adam unto the righteousness of God (1Jn2:1-2). In Jesus, we not only have forgiveness of sins but we are also imputed His righteous nature through spiritual rebirth (Jn3:3,16).

John 15 (Jesus says)
5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

To conclude, if I were to go by the Biblical definition of the word Catholic, it means a countless multitude of people from every tribe, language and nation (Rev7:9), who worship God as one body in Spirit and truth (Jn4:23-24). These are Saints by their calling through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (2Pet1:1-3). So by this definition every true Christian is Catholic and yes, I too am Catholic. We must understand that sainthood is by the power of God, accomplished in Christ that we who believe may live for the glory of God. So, as it is none but God who makes Saints of His people (Jn15:1-8), so too it can be none but God who attest to their Sainthood (Jn10:14).

Phil 2
12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

We live in a world that requires us to take a righteous stand without having the masses back us because God makes it to be so that we don’t trust in people but trust in Him alone (Jer17:5, 7). Though we are saved by grace (2Tim1:9), works is the evidence of our change in heart (Ezek36:26-27/Jn3:3/Phil1:6), which turns from serving ourselves to serving God.

James 2
14 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

If you look at the definition of Israel from the perspective of Phil1:29, we get a glimpse of God’s might and sovereignty. The Church is the new Israel (Gen32:28), whose name signifies one who strives against God and men, and prevails. This is best explained from Dan 3:8-28; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into the furnace for not paying homage to the golden statue of King Nebuchadnezzar. Now you see, to the world this may seem as the repercussions for being righteous. However, this is merely God sanctifying His people in the furnace of affliction (Ps119:71-75). Why, because God is worth it (Phil1:29). So, who sustains His Church in the furnace, it is God Himself. He is like a silver smith who fans the flame of the furnace while holding the silver in a crucible to purify the silver. So it is with the Sovereign Lord, who sanctifies us in this world into the likeness of His Son (Rom8:29).

Heb 12
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

In Jesus is life and in Him we turn from serving ourselves to serving God. In serving God we acquaint ourselves with holy fear, which drives us to live our lives according to the Moral Law, not because we otherwise don’t want to but because we realize the sheer weight of God’s good pleasure in our existence. The world lives by a counterfeit standard of religion, where wickedness is the very means of their survival and so they are given to act unrighteously under the sway of Satan (1Jn5:19). True religion on the other hand understands our life and its sustenance is practically in the hands of God and so just as the world is given to unrighteousness from unholy fear of wicked repercussions, so too the Godly are given to act righteously from the holy fear of God.

Mat 10:28
Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

This is what separates the world from God’s Church, the world is given to wear the mark of the beast on their right hand and forehead from their fallen desire for counterfeit religion (Rev13:16-17), while His Church is given to wear the Moral Law on their right hand and forehead (Deut6:8) owing to Jesus who has propitiated their sinful nature (1Jn4:10) unto the righteousness of God (Rom5:17). Please note that to wear something on the forehead and right hand symbolizes one who thinks (wear on the forehead) and acts (wear on the right hand) from that particular standpoint.

Isaiah 40:31
Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.

If you were to go through the TULIP, you would come across the Perseverance of the Saints and this is precisely it, because to Persevere in His righteousness in the midst of Trial even with fear and trembling is to wait on the Lord, just like the parable of the ten virgins, where the righteous five are given to burn the oil in their lamps in waiting for the Lord (Mat25:3-4) because I guess burning the oil in their lamps is synonymous with exercising the righteousness of God while waiting on Him and trusting in Him to bring that breakthrough in His time.

Acts 16
29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33 At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized.

To conclude, Salvation is in knowing Jesus Christ is Lord over your life, meaning your life is accountable to Him. With such a godly bearing on life, we are to persevere in the righteousness of God because though the godless masses may seem like Goliath before you, it is only to provoke that holy fear in you to God’s own glory because He is worth all your anxiety in following after Him. After all, He is God! In any case, knowing Jesus as Lord over your life empowers you by His Holy Spirit (Phil4:13), making you capable to do His good pleasure and who then can be against you when God is for you (Rom8:31) because you are learning to want what God wants (Ps37:4) and there is no stopping you then.

Rom 8:28
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.