If Anyone Is Thirsty

All of us are taught from birth that this world is the center of everything. As each of us grows up, we measure and compare ourselves with the standards, values and opinions of this world. From first grade through high school and college, we are taught to highly value the history and sciences set forth by this world. Every one assumes you are to be engrained into the thinking common to all men. This thinking encompasses every area of life; from marriage, to the work ethic, to things over which you reject or laugh at.

Graphic by Joshua Woroniecki

We identify the goal of all our efforts as a noble one by our recital of the common cliché “I want to make this world a better place”. No matter how self-centered one’s occupation may be, when questioned as to its purpose, one will find a way to squeeze out something that he says benefits others. So is helping others really the primary reason one endures whatever work load is required for a paycheck? Such thinking may work to motivate the naïve, starry-eyed high school or college student, but for one seeking the truth, the consequences of grave disillusionment is a high price to pay for such deception.

Everyone goes to school for one’s self. Everyone works for one’s self. Everyone lives for one’s self. God says “each one has gone HIS OWN WAY” (Is.53:6). In fact, the ultimate problem of each man is himself (Rm.6:4ff). The very reason Jesus came to earth is because all men are infected with the “disease” of sin, which has corrupted our entire nature with evil (Rm.7). We are not “basically good” but “basically evil” (Ecclesiastes9:3/Rm.3:10ff). This world in which we live revolves around the ultimate driving machine called SELF.

It is necessary to differentiate between the earth and the world. God made the earth and all it’s glory (Gen.1:1). It is a constant physical witness to all of God’s marvelous attributes (Ps. 19:1ff/Rm.1:20). Beyond the physical properties and elements of this earth is an unseen composition of man’s soul. The song “We Are the World” defines it in simple terms. In a nutshell, the world is the heart of sin in the heart of each sinner. It is the direct result of what happened long ago when Eve disobeyed God and led Adam to do the same (compare Genesis 3:6 with 1 Jn.2:15). Adam and Eve began to build a world in rebellion to God; the world of SELF. Thus all men were corrupted through their seed (Rm.5:12ff).

The apostle John warns all men not to love the world and defines it as “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life” (1 Jn.2:15). He says these things are not from the Father but from “the world” (ibid.). Jesus says “My kingdom is not of this world…” (Jn.18:36). What can such a statement mean? It is a shock and slap in the face to all who make this world the center of everything.

Jesus did NOT come to make this world (self) a “better place” but to offer a new world. There is the soul (self) and there is the spirit (2 Cor.5:17). The first man, Adam, was a living soul and the second Adam, Christ, was a life-giving spirit (1 Cor.15:45). Jesus says “He who loves his life (soul-self-sin) shall lose it (“the wages of sin is death” –Rm.6:23), he who hates his life in this world will keep it” (“the gift of God is eternal life” ibid.) (Jn.11:25). To “lose” your soul is to discover a spirit (Jn.4:24). To render your sinful self to the vicarious work of Christ on the cross, is to make room to “find” the power of resurrection life (Phil.3:7ff). It is to be “born again” (Jn.3:3).

I realize all this stuff is quite “heavy”. It took me years of study to digest such weighty matters. It can not happen over night. It only takes childlike faith to begin. Just believe and in time, you will understand how marvelous it is what God has done to offer you eternal life. Like everyone, I too was raised to believe that God rules this world. Thus, when things did not go well for me, I questioned God. I was stunned to discover the revelation of the Scriptures.

It is Satan who owns and rules this world (Jn.12:31/16:11/1Jn.5:19). Just look at people. Just look at the world. Listen to the sounds of the city. Chaos, desperation and loneliness rule this world of men. It is foolish to hope in a world soon to be destroyed (2 Pt.3:7). It is wise to prepare according to a future God has already revealed. Jesus was hated because He declared that this world is evil (Jn.7:7). He says the same thing will happen to anyone who says such things (Jn.15:18-19). My family and I have surely discovered this reality (see Controversy). Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world “in a moment of time” and said “…it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish” (Lk.4:5).

Which world will YOU choose?

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

What I have written here has been revealed since the writing of the Scriptures in the first century. It is nothing that I have invented. There are over seven thousand denominations and cults all believing some kind of variation of this. To the one who looks closely, the obvious lack of the truths of the gospel is seen. Any call to repentance of self-life is omitted. Even if the words are present, the life of obedience is not. How does one know the truth and how does one apply it in practical, everyday life?

Paul said that he appealed to every man’s conscience (2Cor.4:2). Man’s conscience and soul is what differentiates an animal from a man. Each man is created with the faculties necessary to find God; to know the absolute truth. However, along with these faculties is the capability of man’s free will to choose evil or good.

I am a simple man. When I began to seek God, I did so on the basis of what my conscience dictated and the witness God gives to a man in regards to His creation and to His truth in the Scriptures. I read various other writings of eastern religions. None of them had the witness of truth. When I was just a little boy, I remember having the innate awareness that the flowers, trees and sky all carried a witness to an all-powerful God.

It wasn’t until I was a sophomore at the University of Central Michigan that I began to read the New Testament and seriously ponder the life, words and work of Jesus Christ (see “War”).

The matters of how I should practically live and what I should practically do, became secondary to my love and fascination over the Scriptural revelation of the Person of Jesus. When I was born from above in the football stadium at the University of Notre Dame, I was changed forever (See “War”). I went from being a wicked man, living according to moods and feelings, to a man of faith “reckoned” with the righteousness of Christ (Rm.4). In one moment of time, I discovered the living Jesus. God had mercy on a wicked man like me, just as He did with Peter (Luke.5:8).

I figured that if I could actually know Jesus, everything else would fall into place. He promised that I would “hear” His voice (Jn.10:4, 27). That it would not be about trying to live a lifestyle of a Christian but to simply believe He would develop a relationship, where my heart was one with His, like a branch on a tree (Jn.15). Indeed, after some thirty six years, this is exactly what has happened. Jesus says “Seek first the kingdom of God….and all things will be added to you” (Matt.6:33). God does not call a man to be perfect but to believe His revelation in Christ is perfect.

Sad to say, the opposite is usually what men do. They consume themselves with a certain lifestyle of striving to do or not do certain things. No matter what these things might be, the end result will always be the same; legalism. People think that being a Christian is TRYING to be a Christian but this is nothing but living under the law. There is the OLD Testament which contains not only the 10 Commandments but some ten thousand other laws. There is the NEW Testament in which God Himself came to earth in His Son Jesus Christ. Faith in this Person and the work He did on the cross is now what saves a man. God chose Paul to explain how the Law is meant to expose man as a sinne, so that he will then believe in Christ rather than in his own moral conduct (Romans/Galatians). Today, people use New Testament terminology and philosophy but even though it is “right” terminology it is nonetheless in reality, Old Testament legalism.

Striving to make one’s SELF righteous is rebellion to God’s revelation and born out of pride. It only results in depression and failure. This world wants to do things their way and then, wave a “Christian” wand over it and say its God’s way. However, the Spirit always bears witness to the truth (Jn.14:17/15:26). A true Christian must be willing to “carry the cross” of Jesus Christ (Mt.10:38/16:24, Mk.8:34, Lk.9:23). The two worlds collide in my heart each day.

As Paul says “I die daily…” and “I have been crucified to the world and the world to me….” (1Cor.15:31/Gal.6:14). In the light of sin, Paul says “the very thing I want to do, I do not” (Rom.7:19). To be led by the Spirit of Christ in this world of darkness is no little thing but neither is it a fearful or burdensome thing. Jesus says “My yoke is easy and My burden is light…” (Mt.11:30)

The work Jesus did on the cross and through His resurrection renders all powers of this world defeated (Heb.2:14). Nonetheless, the powers of darkness continue to wage their doomed attempts against the children of God. All victory comes down to one simple but profound substance called faith (1Jn.5:4).