“Did Jesus have to forgive God for putting Him on the cross?”
No!!!
So why do people incorrectly think and say that they have to “forgive God” as if God has done something wrong?
God NEVER sins. God NEVER wrongs us. God is good. God is love. God is just, perfect, holy, and righteous. There is no fault in God. None.
I know that it is a reality that people get angry with God when they are sinned against and mistreated by evildoers, but it is still NOT right. It is a reality but it is NOT justifiable since God is incapable of doing wrong even IF a person thinks God is wrong.
This type of incorrect thinking reveals at least 3 things about a person: (1) Wrong view of God where He is lowered to man’s level and even below man’s level. It’s as though God is less than man. (2) Wrong view of God’s grace because they think that we deserve God’s grace when in fact, we deserve His wrath. He graciously gives us His grace and not because we have been mistreated but because Jesus was mistreated on the cross. (3) Our understanding of Who God is and His truth does NOT come from our own understanding. In fact, the Bible warns us NOT to lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3). Knowing the truth comes only from the Holy Spirit revealing God’s Word to us!
Even if you feel angry at God, remember God did NOT harm you. He allowed you to suffer at the hands of evildoers.
If you have been unfairly victimized and harmed by someone, your suffering is due to the sin of Adam and Eve and the sin of mankind. If you are angry at God, it is misdirected. It may be righteous anger that you feel against the sin and mistreatment you received from the hands of another person, but you must never be angry at God. Mankind is responsible for sin.
It’s not ok to be angry at God. Ever. Yet I acknowledge that people do get sinfully angry at God, but they need to repent for that attitude against a holy, loving, and righteous God.
We NEVER EVER have to forgive God since He NEVER EVER does anything wrong.
God allowed a sinless Man, the Son of Man, to die the death you and I should have experienced because of our sin yet Jesus was never angry at God. Jesus never had to forgive God for the suffering He experienced at Calvary. To think that Jesus was angry or had to forgive God for His death on the cross is ludicrous.
Jesus experienced God’s wrath on the cross for the GREATER GOOD – God’s forgiveness of our sins! That was God’s greater plan: the plan of salvation for sinful mankind who needs a Redeemer! Jesus was NOT angry about that because He was SUBMITTED to God’s plan for the greater good. You and I should be, too. We should trust God and His sovereign plans that they are for God’s greater good and His greater plans than our measly, little ole understanding. Our perspective matters not. God’s perspective is all that really matters.
Let me urge you NOT to believe the lie that you must forgive God. You don’t have to forgive God because He has never and will never do anything wrong. In fact, even if you hate God right now at this very moment, He is the REASON that you are breathing and that your heart is beating because you are sustained only by His power!
God never sins.
God is never wrong.
God is always right.
Only God is righteous. We are unrighteous until He makes us righteous through Christ.
Anything we receive from Him is merciful and gracious and only because He loves us first while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8; I John 4:10).
God is love (I John 4:8b). Love is His character.
You never have to forgive love!
-Mark (recognizing the holiness of God and His sovereignty while acknowledging the responsibility of mankind at the very same time)
What is your hope in?
Is your hope in the economy? Is your hope in your job or finances?
Is your hope in the government? Is your hope in someone you know and love? Is your hope in temporal things on this earth?
Why not “hope” in the character of God! God will be just as wise as He was last year. God will be just as good to you as He was last year. God will be just as faithful, loving, kind, just, holy, and righteous as He was last year. So place your hope in Him because He never changes.
That hope is different from the world’s idea of hope which really means a “hope for” or “hopeful.” Our hope in Christ is a sure thing. It’s a done deal because of the character of God.
-Mark (hoping in Christ not mankind)
Challenging T-Shirts (not for the weak of heart)
What t-shirt would you design to make a STRONG statement about your faith in Christ?
One preacher I know suggested:
On the FRONT: “STOP JUST GOING TO CHURCH AND…”
On the BACK: “START BEING THE CHURCH.”
That’s strong!
Another friend of mine suggested this one: JESUS IS MY SPONSOR.
To explain, in secular self-help addiction circles, you must have a sponsor. A sponsor is someone to mentor the newcomer by teaching them the core principles of the secular program. Brian S. had the idea of “Jesus is my sponsor” t-shirts. I thought this was a great idea because Jesus is not just my Higher Power in self-help groups but He is my Lord and Savior and Sponsor, if you will, which shows the intimate nature of knowing Him.
What ideas can you come up with for a bold statement of your faith in Christ to refute the lies of this world?
-Mark (being transformed daily by Christ)
I hate psychology, not psychologists…there is a difference!
Please understand that my strong blogs are against the THEORIES and IDEAS of psychology NOT the people who believe them. I love psychologists and have some great brothers/sisters who are doing their best to help people as psychiatrists and psychologists. In fact, Dr. James Dobson has been a man I have admired for many years though I disagree with some of his beliefs. He is a precious man!
We love people, even those we disagree with.
Also, we love people who are lost like those who trust in false religions like Buddhism. We love athiests and agnostics. We love people not the ideas they represent.
Pray for those who believe the lies of FALSE RELIGIONS. I pray for the people but I hate and oppose their ideas with the Word of God. Do you think Jesus would shy away from speaking the truth in love about false religions and false ideas in psychology and in the world like “man is born good” or “alcoholism is a disease” and the like?
Strong blogs lately because we have a strong enemy in Satan the father of all lies.
Let’s stand for truth of God’s Word. Let’s stand for Christ. Let’s oppose the lies of Satan that were propaged by Freud, Skinner, Wundt, Adler, Jung, and Maslow…but let’s pray for and love the sinner!
-Mark (recognizing that most people in the church do not see psychology as an enemy yet, but they will when the Holy Spirit opens their eyes)
The real tragedy in Haiti…
All of the death and destruction in Haiti really breaks your heart. It’s difficult to watch it all. Devastating and very sad.
It’s a reminder of how fragile life is and how close we ALL are to death. Death is a reality due to Adam’s sin and our sin. The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23) and we are all simply one diagnosis away from the reality that we all face.
But the real tragedy is not simply the physical death in Haiti but the eternal deaths meaning that all of the lost souls who did not know the Lord Jesus Christ died and went to hell.
The reality of hell as a real place is daunting to us. As believers, we must be more urgent in how we spread the Gospel to all nations. If we believe what we say we believe, then we have no excuse for not reaching out to lost souls and to places where the Gospel is not easily accessible.
I urge you to prayerfully support missionaries all over the world. In fact, you can support TIL as we are planning to plant churches with biblical soul care ministries in Kenya for it, Uganda, and Tanzania and in Japan!
We’ve got to get the message out that Jesus is Lord and heals the brokenhearted souls of all people groups.
-Mark (it’s urgent; the end is near)
Biblical Soul Care is TIL’s new term!
Psychology means the “study of the soul” and quite frankly, that’s all secular psychologists do. They study the inner person of man that we call the soul. Some psychiatrists can give medicines but is that helping the soul or the body?
When a soul is troubled and needs Christ, does that soul need medicine or Christ? The truth of God’s Word must be delivered in the love of the Holy Spirit. Only the power of Christ can heal the human soul and He works through His body to do just that.
Therefore, what we do must be called “biblical soul care” because that is what we are doing. We are caring for a person’s soul with an ETERNAL perspective in place.
We sometimes call it biblical counseling or discipleship or mentoring and it is all of that but the over-arching term must be biblical SOUL CARE. You will be hearing us say this term a lot from now on because this is what we do under the authority of the local church.
We care for your soul and want to train you to care for the souls of others. Every Christian must care for souls!
-Mark (thankful for the great responsibility the Lord has entrusted to me to care for souls)
How many marriages will end in the next 24 hours?
This is a quick excerpt on why we do what we do and why we think the CHURCH is the answer as the body of CHRIST and not psychology. Read below:
“In the next 24 hours, 1,200 Christian marriages in the U.S. will end in divorce. Study after study proves that the children of these divorces will be far more likely to struggle with sexual promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse, difficulty in school, and subsequent divorce in their own marriages. This family carnage has got to stop, and the key is the local church, God’s “plan A” for equipping and assisting his people to deal with relational difficulties in a fallen world. This new video series (called “Biblical Soul Care for the Local Church”) provides a biblical, gospel-centered, and easily applicable way for churches to build real community and train gifted members to provide soul-care to struggling saints. I highly commend this material and encourage every church to take advantage of this life-changing, marriage-saving, church-building teaching.” - Ken Sande President, Peacemaker Ministries
In a few months, I will be hosting a DVD series at my home or someone’s home where we will be watching this DVD series. If you are interested, stay tuned as we’ll post the dates soon! This will be a deeper study for us.
For more information from the website where I excerpted this quote by Ken Sande, go to:
http://www.biblicalsoulcare.org/10440/content/content_id/180442/Why_Biblical_Soul_Care
I recommend this DVD series for your local church. The hope is Christ. He is the answer. Not secular psychology or unbelievers.
-Mark (thankful that the local church is reclaiming the care of souls and that some of those 1,200 marriages have not ended by His grace through TIL)
