The Four Spiritual Laws:
1) God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life;
2) Humanity is sinful and separated from God;
3) Jesus Christ is God's provision for our sin; and
4) We must individually receive Jesus as Savior to experience God's love and plan.
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Whose spiritual laws are these?
--- ANALYSIS ---
1) God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life;
How is that working out for you?
Is your life wonderful now? Somewhat, hopefully.
But it's probably not the promised bliss you were expecting?
No, he doesn’t have a wonderful plan for our individual lives, (i.e. he did not create us individually with our life all mapped out) but he did have wonderful plans for humanity who began that life in paradise conditions, wanting for nothing.
Through disobedience, they lost that life, not just for themselves but for all their children. So that is not working out well for anyone.....God’s Sovereignty was challenged by the abuse of free will in both realms, and only a difficult object lesson would answer the challenge, and put it to bed once and for all time.
2) Humanity is sinful and separated from God;
Who's idea was that? Humankind "falls short of the glory of God"?
I suppose that should have been obvious, but why is that a crime punishable by death?
Humans lost their perfection and alienated themselves from their Creator. There was only one negative command given to them in the garden, and free will meant that they had to make the right choice, or lose their lives....choices have consequences...good and bad.....so what kind of fool would deliberately make the wrong choice?
The first “fool” was of course, the devil, imagining that he could gain worship from the lower life forms that God had created.....if only he could separate them from their God. As a covering cherub, he was there on duty as a guardian in Eden and he began plotting his course. (James 1:13-15)
He couldn’t force the humans to disobey God’s command but he could use temptation to achieve his goals, after all, he had abused his own free will, so what was to stop these humans from doing the same thing?
He approached the woman and used her ignorance to gain her confidence...as the second fool, she believed what he said and saw the fruit as desirable and with the added attraction of being “like God, knowing good and bad”. She fell for it, but Adam did not. (1 Tim 2:14) He, as the third fool, was forced to divide his loyalties and chose to join his disobedient wife rather than remain obedient to his God, and lose her.
They were now in a hopeless situation from which they could not extract themselves.
3) Jesus Christ is God's provision for our sin; and
Okay, at least there is a solution to the predicament we didn't create.
Some good news, I suppose. ???
Some good news? It’s the only good news!
God provided the rescuer who would pay back the equivalent to what Adam lost for all his children.
Sinless human life was lost, and there was no sinless human life to offer as a ransom for the hijacked human race....so Jesus was sent from heaven to provide that ransom.....”a life for a life”. The balanced scales of God’s perfect justice.
What humans have to deal with is the timeframe. Have we never wondered why it has all taken so long to complete? It only takes this long in earth years, but that is not the realm in which God dwells. He and his spirit sons dwell in a realm where time is not relevant. Peter tells us that “a thousand” of our years is as “one day” to God.
In universal time we are still in the first week. So patience is needed on our part to “endure till the end” as Jesus said. (Matt 24:13) From the Bible’s prophetic perspective, we still have a thousand years to go before the earth is returned to the perfect state that God first intended. Where the coming of God’s Kingdom will see God’s will “done on earth as it is in heaven”.
4) We must individually receive Jesus as Savior to experience God's love and plan.
Individually? Seems to be a Protestant view. Why not corporately, like the Catholics?
Couldn't salvation be a group decision? I suppose not. (just an obvious question)
Since each one is tried as an individual, ‘corporate’ salvation of label wearers means nothing has to be proven on an individual basis. All you have to do is hang on to the coattails of those who bother to follow the rules that Jesus laid down. The first rule was to “love God with our whole being” and the second was to “love our neighbor as ourselves”. Label wearers do not qualify under that requirement.
So, what does God want from his children? Obedience and loyal commitment....right from the beginning, that is all he has ever asked of his children....to trust him enough to obey him without question....and without hesitation, knowing that he always has our best interests at heart.
The Law stated above seems to infer that we can save ourselves by an act of our own free will.
And that only those who have heard the presentation and responded positively will be saved.
The Bible itself states that by using our free will in a way that pleases the one who created us, it will result in everlasting life, whereas failure to obey results in the loss of life. If we appreciate the gift of life, we will not use it selfishly nor will we dictate to God the terms for our compliance.
As the Creator, God has the right to dictate the terms for our existence. We have no excuse to disobey him.
But how many down through history have heard the presentation? Or even know who Jesus is?
Seems very limiting that salvation would hinge on that idea.
Where are all those who have heard the presentation down through history, where are they right now? What presentation have they heard? Was it accurate?
In today’s world we have more factions of the Christian Faith than we can count.....Jesus and his apostles foretold that in these end times, the devil would have the majority of mankind, right where he wants them......”few” will actually find the right path and stay on it. (Matt 7:13-14) Why? Because it isn’t an easy way to live. Just as the first Christians experienced, the road to life is cramped, and the gate narrow.....can you create a mental picture of one who is loaded down with way too many doctrines, trying to enter a narrow gate....and then trying to navigate a cramped path with obstacles constantly placed before them?
The path is not narrow because God wants us to suffer....but because the devil wants to make the truth as difficult as possible in the way genuine Christians seek to live. False Christians are everywhere trying to seek an easier way to salvation, but the easy way leads to death. If we do not stay on the cramped road to life, we will not be granted salvation. This is the test of our mettle.
Think of the ways that true Christians have to navigate this world which is ruled by a powerful enemy of God. He has henchmen to do his bidding, and a relatively free hand to do to humans whatever he wants to make them give up. (Luke 4:5-7)
Read the account of Job and see what satan is capable of doing to any of us, and why God prevents him from stepping over a line that prevents him from annihilating us.
God does not expect us to walk this path alone....Jesus is leading the way and God, by his spirit, will give us the strength to endure whatever the devil throws at us.
If we stay on “the straight and narrow”, we will be the tried and tested resistors of satan’s efforts to tempt us onto the easy path.
Salvation came at great cost to God, so qualifying for it in a world that the devil has created, is going to cost us something too. The reward will be great, and God’s Sovereignty will be upheld for all time to come.
