Mat 12:46-50
46 While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. 48 But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

I have seen people using the term brother, sister, mother, father, uncle and aunt in referring to others with endearment. A believer who grows up in these cultures, also naturally follows these same terms of endearment in referring to others. The problem however is not in the endearment but in expressing love which is devoid of truth because when a person is saved, he is no longer in fallen family of Adam but in saved family of Christ. The Bible says life is in the blood (Lev 17:11) but the Bible also says that the Spirit of Christ is a life-giving spirit (1Cor 15:45), which every true believer shares in. So, just as people can be related by a bloodline which they share in, so too people can also be related by the Spirit of Christ, which they share in.

Gen 17:4-5
“Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

Gal 3:16
16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.

If you were to dwell a little on the above two verses, you will understand why Islam is a liar concerning Ishmael being the promised son of Abraham because Christ who is the seed of Abraham came through the bloodline of Isaac not Ishmael. So, today you have Christians all over the world because they all share in the living Spirit of Christ, who is the seed of Abraham. However, it seems Mohamed did not think his lies through in denying God-the-Holy-Spirit because with Mohamed denying the Triune Godhead, it implies that Muslims all over the world are all of the bloodline of Ishmael.

Psalm 61:5
For you, O God, have heard my vows; you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.

It is said blood is thicker than water because it is far easier to be thick with someone you are related to that be thick with someone you are not related to by blood. So too, it is the same for those who are share in the Spirit of Christ. It is not that we are not to love those who are not in Christ. People who are not in Christ but within our area of influence, are our neighbours and these we are to love as ourselves (Mat 22:36-40) but what you do for a brother/sister in Christ is akin to doing it for Jesus himself (Mat 25:40). That is how thick we are commanded to be with our brothers and sisters in Christ (1Jn 3:23), because after all the life that is in the Spirit of Christ is greater than the life which is in the blood. I must however repeat saying that this does not mean we are to hate our own family, on the contrary that is for your family to naturally do for seeing the expression of God’s righteousness in your life (Mat 10:36), which they will unrighteously try to suppress unless God grants them repentance (2Cor 7:10). Despite this as a believer, you are not called to hate your neighbour but love them and be concerned about them as you are about yourself (Luke 6:27-33).

Mat 23:9
Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.

Eph 5
8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light 9 (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), 10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

James 1:17
Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

If there is one peculiar thing about family, it is that they share certain common traits. The world recognizes Pathans for instance are brave, simple and sincere in their dealing with others, as these are the values inculcated in them by their parent in their upbringing. Similarly, there is a certain amount of pride that runs in the family. For example, Pashtuns swear before the world that “Pashto is the language of lions, jackals cannot understand it”. So also, as God has fathered/adopted us in His son Jesus Christ, by the very design of family, there are certain traits, which inherently exists in every believer (Eph 5:8-10 & James 1:17); and as much as a Pashtun will never be proud of calling himself a Pathan, so too a believer can never ascribe to the values he has learned as coming from the world. Rather the Christian is proud that he is taught of God (John 6:45 & Mat 23:9) and takes immense pride (Jer 9:23-24) in knowing Almighty God revealed to him in God’s Son Jesus Christ.

Jeremiah 9
23 Thus says the Lord, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.

Another detrimental aspect that exist in a believer calling a non-Christian a brother or sister is that calling someone brother is synonymous with sharing fellowship but as much as the Bible says light cannot fellowship with darkness (2Cor 6:14), so to a person who delights in sin cannot share and enjoy fellowship with one who delights in exercising the righteousness of God. So, the next time you as a believer wants to call someone who is not a believer with endearment, call them either politely as friend if you don’t their name or call them respectfully by their name but never as brother, sister, uncle, aunt, mother & father, that is unless they are related to you by blood in that way.

John 15
13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

Today, we have such a thing called #BestFriendsForever and the truth is there is no best friend forever but Jesus, because we human beings while we were still in the loins of Adam, we disobeyed God in the garden of Eden. How? In the same way Levites paid Melchizedek their tithes in the loins of Abraham (Heb 7:9-10). So, coming back, the wages of that sin is death, which the God-the-Son bore in our stead, by taking on human flesh in the womb of a virgin, to become that perfect substitutionary sacrifice and save us from our sins. You know, there is this saying “a friend in need is a friend indeed”. The fall of Adam sold us into the bondage of sin & our very nature turned sinful, to the effect that every child born to this day, is born into sin. Nobody needs to teach a child to be disobedient, they naturally disobedient thanks to the fall of human kind in Adam. It’s almost like we are locked up in this prison called Sin & no one is willing or able to bail us out, but then Jesus comes, and He doesn’t just bail us out, but clears us of every charge by take all those charges upon himself, which were all deserving of death because whom we have sinned against, is a holy God. Take a look at what the prophet Isaiah prophesied about Jesus who was to come…

Isaiah 53
4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
6 All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him.

The above scripture shows you that there is no true friend like Jesus. To proceed, the Bible says that Jesus is the only mediator between God and men (1Timothy 2:5), interceding for God’s elect (Rom 8:34), before God. Not just that, He has been the very medium through which God-the-Father has revealed Himself to humankind from the very beginning (John 1:18). In the Old Testament, He was known as the Angle-of-the-Lord, where He promised to make Ishmael a great nation (Gen 21:18), & He could only do so, because the Angel-of-the-Lord in the only begotten Son of God, who is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. In the New Testament, we know Him as Jesus, as He took upon Himself human flesh to be that perfect/sinless sacrifice for all sin (Luke 1:35/Mat 1:21). So, it is by faith in Jesus, that we human beings who were spiritually bastardized by Satan unto death in the fall (Rom 5:17), are adopted into the family of God unto eternal life through our Lord/King & Saviour Jesus Christ (John 1:12-13).

1Peter 2
6 For this is contained in Scripture: “Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.” 7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,” 8 and,“A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.

On expounding the above scripture, I would first like to say that though the prophet of Islam’s Allah: Mohammed, who often tries to duplicate Biblical Christianity is claiming to be sent by God. This Mohammed tried to replicate the citation of this corner stone as being the Kaaba, when Biblically this is actually, the Son of God: Jesus Christ (Eph 2:19:20), upon whom the believer builds his life and is not disappointed (Mat 7:24-27). This Rock is not the Apostle Peter either, whom Roman Catholics claim was the first Pope so as to bring the Church under the Pope. The Church is not under the Pope but under Christ, & the scripture (Mat 15:16-18) which Roman Catholicism misinterprets to support its Papacy [since they claim Peter was the 1^st Pope], actually refers to the rock like foundation of the apostles have laid (Eph 2:20), in building the Church (body of believers), as established through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.

Ezek 36
27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. 28 You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God. 29 Moreover, I will save you from all your uncleanness; and I will call for the grain and multiply it, and I will not bring a famine on you. 30 I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field, so that you will not receive again the disgrace of famine among the nations.

A beautiful aspect about friendship is how you rub off on each other, and how the happiness of the other becomes your own. So, when you are brought to desire what God righteously desires, you are filled with more joy than you could ever hold because which fool can stop God from getting what He wants. In knowing Jesus as a friend, it so happens that we don’t have anything to offer Him but our sin, which He willing took upon Himself at the appointed time (Rom 5:6), and what He offers us instead is a new spirit, a heart of flesh, in exchanged for our hearts of stone, which He bore almost as though we stoned Him with our sin filled stone hearts, by which He suffered death on the cross for our sins. So, while Jesus bore the chastisement for our sins, He offers us a new Spirit, a spirit of righteousness, a spirit of obedience unto God, where we delight in the righteousness of God & His Law, instead of our sin. This is what is theologically referred to as the double atonement, where on one hand Jesus pays the penalty for all our sins, and on the other hand, He shares His own righteous nature with us through God-the-Holy-Spirit. Where can you find such a friend, but in Jesus!

Mat 11
28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Mat 6
31 Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

So, if you are genuinely looking for friends in “high places”, and I mean genuinely looking, then look no further because Jesus is all you need and when you have a friend in Jesus, then you will also find a friend in fellow believers, who although not as perfect as Jesus, delight in the Law of God and fear the Lord (Ps 119:74, 79) unto receiving wisdom and understanding (Ps 111:10) to love the Lord with all their strength and second their neighbour just as they love themselves (Mat 22:36-40).

Happy Friendship Day!

I have always felt my calling lies in feeding Jesus’ flock (John 21:17). I have no seminary degree but I have studied my Bible from cover-to-cover, studied the Westminster Larger Catechism, read a few Reformed authors, spent a lot time in reformed circles/discussions, & the fear of the Lord governs my life. I love feeding his flock with spiritual meat but once in a while I feel the strong urge to feed malnourished and stunted believers some spiritual milk… this is one of those times where I feel the urge to exposit on God’s Triune identity.

Gen 1:26 (Old Testament)
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Col 1 (New Testament)
13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Rom 8:29 (New Testament)
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;

Gen 1:26 sites the creation account of man, stating that God created man in His image, an image which was broken in the fall of Adam because in the fall when Adam ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, in doing so he (Adam) forsook the nature of God and God’s Law to become a law to himself and serve himself chiefly in all things. So today, while God teaches us not to steal, commit adultery, murder, covet, steal and put God before all things even ourselves… what we do is murder and support murder through abortion, so we could continue with our lifestyle of fornication… then we steal through piracy… we are also covetous by nature which is evident through the friendships we maintain because we don’t want to hang out with nobodies, we want to hang out with people who have something we are running after… & we do all this by denying abortion is murder, denying piracy is stealing, denying our self-centered friendships is covetousness… but how is this possible? It is possible through that misplaced knowledge of right and wrong which Adam received to himself in forsaking God’s Law, & so today man is as Satan tempted him to see himself… as a god to himself (Gen 3:5), because it is in being a law to himself that man commits the most heinous of atrocities in serving himself as the chief end of his being. So as God serves Himself through righteousness because the truth is the Triune God Almighty is God, man on the other hand serves himself through deceit and wickedness because there is no truth in the law (knowledge of right & wrong) he lives by, estranged from God in the fall of his great forefather Adam. Another destructive outcome of this law which man received in the fall of Adam is unbelief, since fallen-man doesn’t believe that his best interest lies in putting God first, even before himself that is. Why?… because the Triune God Almighty is God & man is not God.

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

Mat 28
18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

John 14:26 (Jesus is Speaking)
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

You might wonder why am taking you through all this to explain God’s Triune identity. Well, the Bible clearly sites the role of Father, Son & Holy Spirit, and a person cannot be saved if he/she denies the Three Persons of the Trinity, who are the One Godhead. The Bible says that in God’s salvation involved sending His Son to take on Human flesh in the womb of virgin Mary because He being God could not be stained by human procreation through which the nature of fallen Adam is passed down to all of Adam’s posterity. So, in this manner Jesus was both fully human and fully God. The Bible says that none but God is perfect in God’s sight, so if you go by the sacrificial requirement, you understand that the animal had to be without blemish (fault), & this was so simply because they were a shadow of Christ who was to come (Heb 10:1)… the lamb of God who was perfect in God’s sight (1Pet 2:22) because Jesus was God Himself, and One with the Father (John 10:30). This spotless lamb of God bore our sin though He was sinless Himself and God the Father crushed Him under the weight of our sins because the wages of sin is eternal death and as much as God is perfect Love, His Justice is perfect as well… His justice demanded the wages of sin be paid but His love provided us His own Son to be that substitutionary atonement for our sins. Yet, I feel what must hurt Jesus most were not the stripes He bores for our sin but the broken communion in those moments in which God-the-Father forsook God-the-Son on the cross as He poured out the full force of His wrath which Jesus endured because it was His Father will (Luke 22:42) to bear His strong right arm Jesus and save His people from their sins (Ps 44:3 & 98:1).

John 10 (Jesus is speaking)
27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are One.”

Now look closely at Mat 28:20 & John 14:26… the Holy Spirit is a person, which you can tell because the Holy Spirit is referred to as a He. Also notice that Jesus says in John 14:26 that He is leaving us with the Holy Spirit who will bring to mind everything He has taught us… and then when you look at Mat 28:20 Jesus says He will be with us to the end of the age… by which He (Jesus) is implicitly saying that He and the Holy Spirit are One just like He said that He and the Father are One in John 10:30. Hence proved the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity are One Godhead.

Dedicated to my friend Daniel Friedemann, who is struggling with Unitarianism.

I have been meaning to write on this topic for quite some time now as I have noticed most humanist Churches have a significantly large female attendance as over a male attendance & then when you listen to the preacher preaching, he is doing nothing more that sharing a load of sentimental mush that’s shared by people over the internet. Today, I attended a Good Friday Service at this Anglican Church and I was left distraught at the preacher focusing on the Agony of Mary at the foot of the cross. I mean, just think of it, this fool misses the whole picture of Jesus being scourged and beaten beyond the point of not being recognizable as a human being (Is 52:14), He is dying on the cross, an innocent Man given the death penalty of the most vile criminals in his time and this fool on the pulpit misses all that and focuses on the heart-breaking agony on Mary, and that too on Good Friday where we are to be moaning for Jesus, not Mary. This preacher then goes on to call the Gospel a Feminist Gospel and said he wished a woman, either Mary the mother of Jesus or Mary Magdalene would have written one of the Gospels, fully forgetting that Bible commands women are to shut up in Church (1Cor 14:34), so that they may not try to self-righteously dominate men in the house of God.

Gen 3:16
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”

Mat 19 (note that the eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven, are not castrated men but celibate men & women who are not overpowered by sexual lusts)
10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

1Cor 7
8 Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

In the light of Gen 1:28 & 1Timothy 4:3, 5:14, I would like to state that I am in no way forbidding marriage and I do recognize men and women as having equal dignity before God but differing in the roles lived out for the glory of God, where I have a problem is that in an unbelieving atmosphere where people have no sight of God and find no fulfilment in obeying His commandments. In such an atmosphere, equality is not considered from the sight of God as revealed in the Bible, rather it is seen from the perspective of doing what the other is doing. So it follows that today, humanism/feminism encourages women to wear men’s clothes, do men’s job, play men’s sport, smoke, drink and hustle like a man because human equality supposedly comes from being like a man and doing as men do.

So having stated the above, I would like to come to what this post is about and that is this humanist feminism that is this rotting the Church from within. This world loves to entertain thoughts of a god, who is so full of love that he is ever ready to forgive whenever you feel like coming to him. With this kind of sentimental mush preached in humanist Churches today, it is no wonder that Church pews are filled with twice as many women as there are men because the women of the world love baseless sentimental nonsense. The Bible teaches on the contrary that the Triune God Almighty is a formidable (Heb 10:31), who’s every attribute is perfect. His justice is as perfect as His love and that is why Jesus died that we may have life. It was our sins He bore in all that scourging, beating, humiliation and death on the cross. If you understand this, it should be clear that sin, or shall I say immorality is not something God takes lightly out of love.

If you were to read the account of fall in Genesis 3, you would notice that God first curses Satan, then the woman & then man. The severity was also likewise and the reason I am stating this because I would like expose self-righteous feminism/humanism for what it really is. Now from the fall, be it the fallen angels who followed after Satan, Adam, Eve & their posterity, they are each a law to themselves, for they foolishly forsook God & His Law to be a god to themselves. So, the woman’s curse as sighted in Gen 3:16 mentioned above is that, from the fall she is not God-centred but self-centred & since God has decreed that man is the head of woman (1Cor 11:3), from her guilt she is subconsciously driven to rebel against what God has decreed by trying to dominate the men her life, whether that be her father, her son, her brother, her friend or even her colleague for that matter. The worst case scenario is her husband/boyfriend, he bears the worst of it because here she feels the need to rebel very strongly against submitting to her man (Eph 5:23) and so from self-righteousness she will dominate and belittle him to make herself feel in control. Now, here’s something interesting, though all women do their best to control the men in their lives, the natural response of the unbelieving man is to savagely silence the woman who is trying to dominate him, despite which she will stay but only if she really loves him. This rebellious desire for absolute control over her man which arises from a woman’s self righteous insecurity, causes a lot of infighting among women, like a mother who has held the reigns over her son suddenly has to deal with a daughter-in-law who is even more desperate to dominate her man and so there is a clash between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law concerning who the son/husband should listen to. This is precisely why advises men and women alike not to marry, unless they are burning with passion and this why Jesus also says that who can accept living a celibate life, should accept it. Just in case you’re curious to know how a guy ought to handle things between his mother & wife, the guy calls the shots, he is to honour his mother but makes his own decisions as per what he believes would honour God best, he protects his wife from his family but at the same time he lets his wife know who wears the pants in the house because the man is the head of the house/family.

1Timothy 2:11-15
Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

It’s funny that Churches today believe that humanism/feminism is the right approach to the Gospel and then go about sucking up to patriarchal (male dominated) societies like Muslims and Punjabis. This very much reflects how counterfeit Christians (Ps 49:14-15 & Jn 10:25-27) are not as Sheep unto God & His true Gospel but lions, while being sheep (not Lions) unto Satan’s lies & his tyrants. Like the Serpent who was cursed to slither despite being a vertebrate, is the humanist who appears to have no backbone to live in the truth and believe in a God who is formidable, a God who curses Satan, binds him in chains (Mark 3:27) and makes him do His will in the area of sanctifying His people (1Cor 5:5). Whenever I have been invited to Churches, I have seen people texting, playing with the slippers, looking around when the preacher is preaching and this is understandable when you consider, the preacher almost never admonishes his congregation against the evils, or shall I say the immorality that is so prevalent in society today. You know, when Charles Spurgeon would preach, people in his congregation would actually grind their teeth in anger against what he would preach from the pulpit & Spurgeon to then preach saying you may grind your teeth now at the Gospel but if God has counted among His elect, you will love Him… then there was also Martin Luther, who actually forbade people from participating in the Lord’s Supper, if they were leading an immoral life, this given because at that time the Church was pretty close-knit, just like a family. Today nobody wants to preach out against homosexuality, fornication, piracy (stealing) & abortion because all these things are prevalent in these humanists congregations itself, & so the elders are given not to admonish immorality and lead the people to repentance but only to supposedly keep encouraging them so that they continue to occupy the pews during Sunday service and make the Church seem full, so as to outwardly reflect well on the Church leadership.

Hosea 4:6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

To conclude, I would like to say that though we are not saved by the moral law of God but by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Moral Law gives us that picture of what man or woman should be in the sight of God. As Paul said he would not know covetousness is sinful had the law not forbade it. So, I believe Churches today should use the Moral Law as guideline to admonish the believer that he/she may repent in his heart (without performing any Charismatic backflips over the chair) in feeling no longer ashamed of the Gospel but of his/her wretched state before God and graciously receiving Jesus’ mercy to live righteously for the glory of God.

Gen 3 (The Biblical account of the fall of man)
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from [a]any tree of the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” 4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 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 desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

The reason I have sited the Biblical account of the fall of man above is because I want to show you that in the fall, man became a law to himself, he became a god to himself, from the fall the chief end of man is to serve himself and he does so through the most devious means because from the fall there is no truth in him and so man can only pursue his own selfish interests through the most devious means. Unlike the Triune God Almighty, who radiates righteousness in pursuing His interest, man does not radiate righteousness but exudes wickedness in the chasing after his own interest because the truth is man is not God… the Triune God Almighty alone is God. Men & angels were created to serve God and it so happens that it is in our best interest to put God before ourselves (Mat 6:33).

John 12
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. 26 If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honour him.

Psalm 37:4
4 Delight yourself in the Lord;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.

The problem with loving and believing in yourself is that people of the world don’t understand that this is not the solution but root of the problem. We were made in the image of God, as human beings we were made to carry His own image/nature as if it were our own. This gracious privilege has only been given to mankind, even God’s holy angels were not blessed with this purpose. In this unbelieving world, it so happens that people are spurred into this believing & loving yourself nonsense when they are spurned by their peers. So, these people are then moved to prove themselves and the means of doing that is by believing in themselves and loving themselves but even if one should succeed in the material world while remaining spiritually empty, what use is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul (Mark 8:36)? That spiritual fulfillment can only be found in relationship with God, which is only possible through Jesus Christ. To console a person by urging him or her to believe and love himself will only light up his/her eyes for moment just as it did for Eve who was deceived by Satan into believing that she was the chief end of her own being (Gen 3:6) and we know how that went for her because we are still bearing the consequences of the fall of Adam.

Jeremiah 9 (Stressing on put God first)
23 Thus says the Lord, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.

Luke 17 (Stressing on the fact that God is our King)
7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

From the fall, man has this perspective of God that he will only believe in God if God will prove himself to him through some miracles & the reason man feels this way is because from the fall man foolishly believes he is a god to himself and even Almighty God must serve his interests, for a man to believe in God Almighty. When the people of the world are rejected by their peers, they do not turn to God instead they turn to people who are blind guides just like themselves, who fill them in how special they are, make them feel proud of themselves and in doing so teach them to love and believe in themselves. However, if you were to read Jeremiah 9:23-24 you would understand that for a man to boast in his wealth or strength or intelligence is shallow and cheap but for a man to boast that He knows God revealed to him in Christ, is to truly lead a rich and fulfilling life. From the fall of Adam, we are by nature sinners, we naturally hate God because we naturally love sin, that’s how corrupt we are. What we need to focus on is how great, loving and merciful God is, that for a bunch of worthless wretches who hate Him, He offered up His only Son, that by His blood we would have atonement for our sins. He certainly did not do this because we are special but because He is a great, merciful and loving who ransomed a people for Himself from the damned family of Adam, saving us from our sin. Take a look at Luke 17 mentioned above, this does not fit the world’s perspective of God in anyway because it shows we were made to serve God and not the other way around. To give you a gist of what your conduct should be before God, I would like you to consider yourself as citizen of a country that is ruled by a monarchy, the respect, awe and fear you would have for your king in that land is the honour, respect and fear we are to have of God & it is in our own best interest to put His interest before our own.

Mark 10
29 Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, 30 but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last, first.”

Mat 13
45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, 46 and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

The Bible teaches us that there are two great commandments in Mat 22:36-40, the first is to love God with all the strength our being can muster and the second is to love our neighbour as ourselves. However, for the person who learns to love and believe in himself, he loves his neighbour only in a manner where it will serve himself in return and so this person loves out of covetousness, honouring and pleasing only those who are in a position to serve his purpose because the man of the world from the fall, is a god to himself and in learning to love and believe in himself he excuses every sin, simply because that is the only way he can continue serving his own interest. The Man of God on the other hand is commanded to love his neighbour as himself, even if that neighbour is in no position to return the favour & so the man of God is called to help the destitute because of Jesus, whom the Man of God puts before himself, commands him to do so (Luke 14:13). A look at Mark 10:29 mentioned above shows you the extent to which we are to put Jesus first, that even if following after Jesus with the regenerated heart we are blessed with to keep His law, makes us fall out of our peers with whom we previously shared the likeminded pleasure for sin or if our family abandons us, so be it, because Jesus comes before ourselves. This is emphasised beautifully in the parable of the precious pearl mentioned above in Mat 13:45.

Acts 16
29 And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, 30 and after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

Acts 4:11
11 Jesus is “‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.

If you are familiar with masonry, you will know that the cornerstone is what determines the entire architectural structure of a building because the entire structure is built in reference to it. Now the Bible says Jesus is the cornerstone of our lives and we to build our lives in reference to what is taught to us in scripture. Jesus is that precious cornerstone which was tested through the suffering that bore the chastisement for our sins. On this Jesus, those who rest their faith in Him are saved, as God blesses them with a new heart, on which is written His law that the believer may live a life of natural obedience in building his/her life in reference with God’s word given to us in the Bible. Like in James 4:13-15 it teaches us that if we are to undertake a certain task, we are to speak of it as if “the Lord so wills”, or if we are employed somewhere we are to work sincerely as though working for the Lord, that’s in Col 3:23. We also have to take care of our bodies because the Holy Spirit of Christ dwells in our bodies working His Salvation in our lives (Eph 2:8-10). We are taught not to look lustfully at women, so that we do not commit adultery in our hearts. We are also taught to honour the Redemption Sabbath and keep it holy & so we have a moral code that teaches us to put God first and love our neighbour as ourselves while the State is given the judicial law that those who transgress the Moral Law by committing murder, stealing or fornication are convicted in an attempt to hedge the Moral Law.

Luke 6
46 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? 47 As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. 48 They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. 49 But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

I would like to leave you with some advice for those times you feel dejected and rejected by the world. The solution is not loving and believing in yourself but instead loving and believing in the Triune God Almighty because as much as reading the manufacturer’s manual helps you understand your appliances, so too reading and mulling over what is written in the Bible will teach you more about yourself than you every knew or cared to realize. However, loving and believing in the Lord is something that is going to take you a long time because you need to acquaint yourself with scripture from cover to cover and understand that character and nature of God which will slowly rub off on you in time because the very work of Salvation is to restore that image/character of God that was broken for us all in the fall of Adam.

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.

Eph 2:8-10
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

From the fall, man in receiving to himself a righteousness of self, is a law to himself and a god to himself. It is no wonder that a natural man’s attitude is indifferent towards God owing to that fallen need to serve himself in everything he does. Hence, fallen man has made the pursuit of serving himself as the chief end of his life, a wicked end justified no doubt by the most devious means because the truth is that man is no God and so his self-centered pursuit of life is nothing short of dastardly. Even when he does something good, it is with the motive of serving his own interest, so there is never anything that is genuinely good that comes out of man because man doesn’t believe God is God, man on the contrary feels that he is god and that is why he rejects the truth about God because he sees no point in serving God’s interest over his own.

Mat 6:33
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Luke 17:10
So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.

The other day I called Amazon to thank the advisor, whom I had fired the previous day because of the delay in delivery of my order. The advisor escalated my complaint and my order was delivered the very next day. I thought it would please God to display some neighbourly love by calling Amazon and appreciating that advisor for being patient with me and doing his job. So, I passed on a note of appreciation to his colleague over the phone and through an email feedback form as well. When I had finished the call, I felt almost in the 7th heaven (figurative) for doing this but I soon realized that the glory of the good I do belongs to God and was not for me to wallow in and delight in concerning how good I am myself. This incident brought me to write on this subject that the glory of the good we do belongs not to us but to God.

Mat 10:42
And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.

Mat 6:5
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their reward.

True religion is about pleasing God and serving His interest, for hypocrites however, religion is all about pleasing people and serving their own interest. So, just as there is such a thing as temporal blessing, we ought to understand that these hypocrites who do good to serve their own interest and rewarded in full here on earth itself, where their every blessing is susceptible to the destruction/corruption of moth and vermin, possibly reflecting their own spiritual condition before God. I once attended a Bible study in Mumbai where a UK national asked this question: “Is it ok to serve God out of the desire of being rewarded?”, I then happened to understand that the fall of Adam is so ingrained in people that many Seek the Lord out of covetousness, & these people wish to serve the Lord with the intention of actually serving themselves. Indeed, God is no man’s debtor (Rom 11:33-35) and he will pay us back according to our deeds but Salvation is when we have the mind of Christ and God’s interest become our interests (Ps 37:4).

Mat 6:19-21
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

We must understand that the power to covert the heart, is of God (Ezek 36:26-27), we know that God does not look at outward appearance but at the heart (1Sam 16:7). Also, the Bible teaches us that life is in the blood, so figuratively the heart which pumps the blood in our bodies is seen as the source of our being. Therefore, the evil thoughts and actions that proceeds from the heart of natural man (Mat 15:18), shows he is corrupt at the very source of his being. However, since God has the power to covert the heart, when He looks at a regenerated soul, what God is look at or looking for is His own handiwork within us (Phil 1:6) and there is none can thwart (Job 42:2) His mighty saving right arm i.e. His Son Jesus Christ (Ps 98:1).

Jer 31:33 (in the context of Eph 2:11-16)
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

To conclude, we can never freely obey God unless we are brought to desire it and enjoy it, which is what God brings about in His people. He gives us all a heart that seeks after Him and prizes Him over everything else in our lives (Mat 13:45-46). Out of the this regenerated heart flows our actions and intentions, which are God’s handiwork and for His own glory, making evident that His elect are a new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17) because the glory belongs all to the Triune God Almighty for our Salvation.