A Message…

Let him who has a vision tell the vision; Let him who has My Word declare My Word

Jeremiah

In 2016 the Lord made it clear to me that I would be going to the American Church with a message. He pointed me to the book of Jeremiah. Then He made it clear that I would be “uprooting false foundations, tearing down idols of the heart, building up the Church, and planting seeds of hope.” This is like a New Testament version of Jeremiah 1:10. A couple of years later that ministry became a reality.

I have sought to testify to the Truth no matter what it cost me. Throughout my history, whenever I was confronted with a truth that I had not previously realized, I would immediately adjust my beliefs to align with the truth that I had now realized. I have indeed discovered that God will not “force” us to change our thinking or beliefs if we are stuck on believing something, even if it’s only partially true. In fact, we only know what we know, and don’t know what we don’t know until we know it.

Admitting we were wrong about something confronts our pride, doesn’t it? And because of this fact, we resist searching for more truth if we believe we have the truth. I carry a message to the Church to uproot beliefs that are not grounded in the truth. I carry a message to tear down every idea set against the knowledge of God’s Word. I carry a message to build yourself up in the truth of God’s Word, to build yourself up on the whole counsel of God, because this is God’s will. And I carry a message of hope to the hopeless. My ministry is based on bringing light where there is darkness and truth where there is error within the Christian community. Some may ask, “What makes you so qualified to do this, Mark!?” I would respond with this: Honesty. God saw that my heart was honest. He saw that I honestly desired the truth, the whole truth, no matter what it cost. And it cost a lot! It has cost years of digging, prayer, persecution, and research. It has cost years of facing my own ignorance and areas where I thought the Bible taught something only to learn it did not. I have not ceased challenging my own knowledge of God’s Word. I have not stopped learning. God saw that I loved the TRUTH. I’m not saying I am the only one who loves the TRUTH. There are plenty out there! And they have gone out with a message, confronting the Church with the truth. Like Jeremiah, I have a fire within that cannot be quenched. I open my mouth and truth comes out. I live as an open book. I do not have secrets. I cannot lie. I love the truth.

Here are a couple of truths: Calvinism has some things correct and others incorrect, according to the truth. God does pre-destine, choose, elect. God is in heaven; man is on earth. God is outside of time. Therefore, time has no constraint on Him. Also, He knows every heart and motive of man. But He also made man in His own image. He made man to rule the earth, order it, and subdue it. This responsibility required man to make wise decisions. This required man to make choices. Choices come from a will. Like God, and like the angels, we have free choices to obey or disobey. We have free choices to love or to hate, to steal or to share. We get to have a “relationship” with God. Relationships are freely given and freely received. Love requires the will. God willed to love us, and we “will” to love Him back. Therefore, salvation must be received by the will.

Next: “Abraham believed God and this was —— as righteousness.” If we fill in the blank, we get the words “credited to him.” What made Abraham righteous before God? It was “Abraham’s” faith. We all know the verse in Ephesians that says “We are saved by grace, through faith, this is not of ourselves it is a gift of God, not of works…” Some well-meaning, God-honoring pastors and Bible teachers have taught for years that the “faith” in this passage is God’s gift to us. However, if we go to the original language of Greek, in which the New Testament was written, and study this passage we will discover that the “gift” God has given us is “salvation” not faith. So this passage could read: God has “graced us” with salvation, and therefore it cannot be earned by works, it is a gift, and this gift is received when we believe God for it. Why is this important to know? Because if you want to rightly interpret difficult passages that say a person can “leave the faith, fall away from grace, harden their heart to God’s warnings, shipwreck their faith” and the various passages found in 2 Timothy, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Hebrews, and Revelation chapters 2-3 then you will have to accept this in order to rightly see what God is saying in these passages. “Our” faith is credited to us as “our” righteousness when we trust in Christ’s finished work. So then, the gospel of God brings light. It exposes us to who God is and who we are. We are then confronted with a choice. God draws us by His grace, and we respond, or accept this gift by faith. So how can we then KNOW we are sealed, chosen, elect, or eternally secure? You will know because the Bible tells us our faith will be tested and proven genuine. Our faith must be tested by fire, and if it stands the test, it is genuine. Peter exhorts us to make sure we are among the elect, and this is in the context of trials, which are designed to test our faith. If our faith is a “heart” faith and not a “head” faith, we will sit in Jesus as we sit in a chair. We will “sit down” in Jesus. Like we trust a chair to uphold us, we must put our full weight in Jesus and not in our own goodness or works. So now go and read the “Parable of the Soils” in the gospels and you will see that the “Seed” is the “Word of God” (one of the terms John, Peter, and Paul use for the Gospel) and when it goes out from Christ’s mouth (and now our mouths) it falls on diverse types of soil (meaning hearts). And we need to recognize that one of those soils makes it clear that some will believe for a while “but in times of testing” will fall away. Other seeds will stop growing, this could be compared to shipwrecking your faith. And some have traded in their faith for the love of the world, only believing for a time. But God’s chosen ones will endure to the end. Their faith will be tested and proven as pure gold! So then let us examine ourselves often.

Of course, I could continue on all day long. But I’m done for now. Thanks for reading.