They Never Knew Jesus

They Never Knew Jesus Juanita Bradshaw 4 pages THEY NEVER KNEW HIM Do you really know Yahushua / Jesus the Messiah? If put to the test will you deny Him, or will you deny that you ever knew Him, or will you discover that you actually never knew Him? I know too many who professed to be born again Christians, who even loved the Bible and hungered for Biblical truth, who were passionate about serving the Lord, laid down their lives sacrificially, were even leaders in ministry, who forsook worldliness and pagan traditions in the church, who sought after true Biblical authenticity for godly living, community life and worship, -- yet they lost Jesus, and got lost themselves. Some were carried away into error, - so far that they followed another Jesus, worshiping a figment of their imaginations, or a god like themselves, who was in fact Satan, the great rebel and master deceiver. Some abandoned the Old Testament and the fathers of the faith, studying the New Testament with guesswork, believing doctrines of demons. They despised the origins and true beginnings of God's testimony about mankind and Himself, and threw out the compass, so could not find true north to get them to the right end. They did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. Some had pleasure in unrighteousness, so God sent them strong delusion to believe the lie and be condemned. Such are those who will be seduced by the lawless one (the Antichrist) when he comes, and will not discern the workings of Satan's power, signs, lying wonders and unrighteous deception. Some professing Christians got so engrossed in the Old Testament that they minimized the New Testament and forgot about Yahushua. They lost sight of the Lamb of God, and were captured by devils. They came to believe that they were deceived by Paul and his "false" messiah. They call the glorious risen Son of God an idol. I have witnessed this firsthand more than once. Just last week a friend who had been a Christian for 44 years years told me these things face to face. He and his wife and two young sons have forsaken Jesus and converted to Judaism. They now await another Messiah. It is shocking beyond measure and heart-breaking. My heart pains to discover that they never knew Him! __I pray that God would open their eyes before it's too late, and those of every other blind person. I had thought they were my brothers and sisters, but now find them to be aliens and antichrists (anti Messiah). _They came under a demonic spell in idolizing the fathers of the faith, such as Moses --who spoke of the Prophet to come that would be greater than he. In digging for the roots of the faith, their learning led them down a very deep rabbit hole with its bottom in hell. They looked for the true pattern instead of searching for the true God who is a spirit Person. They became obsessed with the form and were seduced into a vain faith void of real godliness. They strayed by gazing too long at the shadows, and then the sun set on them. They looked for light, but eventually worshiped darkness, and so their god overshadowed them. Perhaps they got so busy straining out gnats that they swallowed camels, and died spiritually. Some who professed to know Yahushua /Jesus tried so hard to build God's kingdom, but got into fleshly striving and lost synch with the Holy Spirit and the Lord, who is the actual builder of all things eternal. Many became barren of the written and living Word of God, having once known it and lost their hearing, or having majored on selected portions while neglecting the full counsel of God. Others isolated themselves from wise counsel or couldn't find it although they searched. Others rejected prophets, apostles and teachers who inconvenienced them, or made no room for them. Even the Good Shepherd of God's flock, was left outside the door knocking. Others treated the Greatest Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, Teacher and High Priest, who is the Son of God, as their servant, and not their Master. They refused God's appointed King. If the Devil cannot get believers to sin, he tries to get them to operate in the flesh. Even tongue-talking believers can operate in the flesh. If the Devil can't get a man to become self-righteous in pride, he tries to get him to do so in false humility. If the Devil cannot get a man to believe that he is righteous by faith in Jesus/Yahushua through repentance and calling on the Saviour, then he plagues him with condemnation and constant sin-consciousness. Otherwise he gets him to believe that he can no longer sin, and is righteous even when he sins. His forgiveness from God is in the past, from the Cross or the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Sorrowful repentance is not needed in the present, only ignoring his sin, guilt and condemnation. Such believe that they can never lose their salvation no matter how much they sin. They get so proud of their own version of righteousness, that they forget that they ever were sinners in need of rescuing from death. Is it any wonder that so many today no longer believe in a hell? Some who do believe in hell say that it is not a place of torment for the wicked, but simply a state of not seeing truth. Their truth is not God's. There is no light in them. The Devil also gets some professing Christians to believe that they have always been innocent, but just didn't know it. They believe that Adam and Eve's death was only in believing the Serpent's lie that they were not like God. They do not see their sin as their personal choice and action in disobeying God by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but merely in their misunderstanding. They think Adam and Eve were only deceived and believed a lie and so fell into darkness, lack of understanding and perception. Their version of redemption is simply in the enlightenment of a mind in believing the truth lost, that they have always been gods, --not only made in God's image, but just like God, --and that man never lost anything more than the knowledge of God being in them. They think that God never departed from man's temple, his sanctuary of body, blood and soul, and that death is just deception. They think that this knowledge is eternal life, instead of eternal life being in knowing God and His sent Son. Theirs is another kind of life and light. Jesus/Yahushua the Messiah is merely a reference point for finding their god-hood again. His crucifixion was a marker in time, and his suffering simply indicative of man's blindness to God who came into their midst. They do not grasp the import of Messiah's physical and soul suffering. (Isaiah 53.) Theirs is a bloodless faith. They fail to understand the need for the blood sacrifice of a sinless man to pay for the soul of a sinful man. They do not grasp the fact that their sin is inherited via their blood from Adam and Eve, and that there was none but God's only begotten Son who could redeem mankind from his sinful state and death in sin. Only a man born of a virgin, with new blood from God the Father, and who lived a sinless life, could offer His human life and perfect spirit as a willing sacrifice to pay man's ransom price. Man's debt to God was too great. Only a perfect life could buy an imperfect life, and restore it to right standing with God his maker. Some believe that they need to sacrifice themselves to conquer their sinful nature and make themselves righteous and acceptable to God. They do not understand how to trust in the saving power of Yahushua /Jesus, through whom they may be justified and receive His free gift of righteousness. They do not know that the Holy Spirit can be sent to fill them with God's presence and power, so that they may live the life that God wants them to live through His Son. They do not know the power of God's Word to transform their minds and give them their inheritance. They do not understand the grace of God and His unmerited favour accessed through a living and personal relationship with His Son. They do not know that God's mercy is readily available to the repentant. They do not realize that those who enter into the new covenant through faith in the blood of Yahushua / Jesus, may escape the wrath of God immediately. They do not know the saving and keeping power of the Saviour of the world, Yahushua / Jesus the Messiah. The Devil gets some to believe that Jesus Christ has come in them, having arrived the second time, so will never return again as an individual person. Some even say they ARE Jesus Christ, and these days there are many. Some believe that they are immortal or should never die if they keep believing, even without a rapture. If they read their Bibles (1Corinthians 15) they would wake from their stupor. Some think that redemption is entirely complete since the death and resurrection of Messiah Yahushua / Jesus, failing to see the full picture. Although the kingdom of God is within all who believe in Yahushua / Jesus, the kingdom of God is still coming in all of its fullness, and we still await the redemption of our mortal bodies. The Holy Spirit in believers is their guarantee of this and of all that they will inherit. They have been purchased by God and belong to Him. (Ephesians 1:13) He has promised to raise them from the dead and bring them to Himself in heaven, where they will marry His Son. Do you know Him? Have you seen Him who alone can give a man sight to see the true nature of his condition and its remedy? If you have met Him, has He changed your life? Are you changed externally or internally, - or both? Real external change can only follow real internal change. Even after salvation there is a journey of sanctification that each believer must traverse to ensure that he makes it through this world where Satan roams. Believers are sanctified through their faith in Jesus/Yahushua, but this must be sustained. They must endure to the end and possess their souls. Many believers do not know how to add to their faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control perseverance, and to perseverance godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. If these things were theirs and did abound, they would be fruitful in the knowledge of their Lord. (2Peter 1:5-8) Many believers also do not know how to cleanse their defiled generational foundations and need help. The Body of Messiah with its many members, is meant to help in this process, but few are equipped. Some curses continue to affect believers even when they believe that this is impossible. The remedy must be properly applied. We live in darkening days when sin abounds and Satan rages relentlessly, - capturing and killing souls to share his own bitter end. Because He cannot attack God directly, he attacks man created in God's image. Satan knows his time is short, so is angry, and ruthlessly harms and corrupts wherever he can. Worst of all those who think they know and serve God. Jesus said: Matthew 7:18 "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 "Therefore by their fruits you will know them. 21 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but HE WHO DOES THE WILL OF THE MY FATHER IN HEAVEN. 22 "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' 23 "And then I will declare to them, 'I NEVER KNOW YOU; depart from Me, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS!' "Lord help us not to be among those." In spite of thickening darkness in this world, the light of God is shining brighter and brighter in the hearts of multitudes daily. More and more captives are being set free and delivered from the power of darkness and Satan's clutches, to find themselves in Him, in whom is no darkness at all. All around the world people are being transferred into the kingdom of God's Son of love. Where once they walked far from their creator and dwelt in darkness, now they have seen His great light and drawn near. He rescued them from perdition (eternal damnation), and so they help rescue others also, eternally gratefull for their salvation. They want everyone to join them in their new world of truth, holiness and love, and long for others to share in God's righteousness, peace and joy. Although they have only tasted a little of the world to come, they are satisfied that it will be truly glorious and blessed beyond their present comprehension. These are the saints, those sanctified through their faith in Jesus / Yahushua. They have seen Him and know Him. _But they must remain in Him to make it all the way to the final judgment. It is such a privilege to know Yahushua and believe that He is the Messiah. I understand how lost I was and that I was dead in sin, and that through my faith in Him my spirit has been raised from its death, and born again by the Spirit of God. The Great Saviour has saved me from eternal death and separation from God. I am now a child of God and am hugely grateful. I must vigilantly guard that which has been given to me until that glorious day when I will be with Him in heaven, in an incorruptible body, married to the Son of God together with all who have believed. The Father and the Lamb will be all the light and life we ever need or have. Revelation 21:22 But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. _______________________________ [...Incomplete I know, but I must race to church. I've missed most. It's Sunday 22 January 2017 at 9.03am. I wrote most of this last Saturday, and then on Sunday night the preacher at church asked if we really know the Lord. He spoke about knowing Him intimately. I was greatly encouraged to see God's guidance in the timing of this essay. It has taken me lots more hours since yesterday to finish this for posting now. I'll probably edit it again at another time. God bless you! Shalom.]