I have had more Christians than anyone else come against me for speaking scripture and exposing truth.
When they tell me of a false worldly way of thinking and I correct it with the Bible they rage as though I did something wrong.
I didn't rage when they told me their false doctrine, I listened and then calmly told them they were wrong because the Bible says the opposite of what they just said.
Most "Christians" today do not want to hear the Bible they want only to think according to their own desired belief unconcerned at whether or not God said it.
We live in a world of fantasy thinking in which most people, Christians included, are easily offended if someone attempts to bring rational, logical, and truthful thinking to a discussion. They love their personal fantasies more than they care to know the mind of God.
2 Timothy 4:3 "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but having itching ears, they shall heap to themselves teachers in accordance with their own lusts."
We can discern a false believer though how adamantly they oppose the teachings of Christ. An authentic born-again believer loves to hear about the things of God, although sometimes they have been influenced by false teachers and it will take a strong conviction from the Holy Spirit to convince them the teaching they heard was not from God but from the devil.
I knew a lady once who had attended a "prayer seminar" on how to pray. The seminar was a week-long and the syllabus that she purchased was 700 pages or so thick. She was excited to boast to others that she had taken this seminar and was reading the notebook feverishly to learn every nugget of information. There is no fun in taking such a seminar unless one can boast about it to others, its an effective attention getter for them.
Sadly, she did not need this fancy syllabus, all she needed was the Bible. Christ Himself taught us to pray in a very simple way, that is to address the Father with praise and thanksgiving, asking for His will, not our own, requesting our daily needs, asking forgiveness for any sin in us while forgiving others who have requested our forgiveness and keep us from temptation and safe from evil.
Matthew 6:9-13
The Lord’s Prayer should have been called the Lord's teaching on prayer.
9 “Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father, who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil."
If all we ever knew about prayer was this teaching it would be all we need. Christ kept things simple, they were not complicated, but in pride, many people want to make things complicated to sell books, appear superior and gain a following to themselves.
God is not glorified when we go beyond His teachings, embellishing and expanding them into our own ideas. In fact, this is sin and adding to the Bible.
Deuteronomy 4:2
"2 You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I am commanding you."
Beware of those who come with extra-biblical writings to impress others with their false knowledge.
Sadly too, so many people who follow these fancy and contrived ideas with scripture mixed in, are doing it to appear special themselves. They cannot attend these seminars without coming back to share all their new knowledge with boasting as though one cannot know how to pray unless they have attended one of these seminars.
I am here to tell you that we do not need these self-elevating seminars to learn how to pray. All we need is the Bible and the Holy Spirit.
John 16:13-15
"But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you."
The Holy Spirit disclosed to us everything we need to know within the pages of the bible. The writers of the Bible did not write from their own minds, they wrote what the Holy Spirit told them to write. After this was finished we had everything we will ever need, that is His Word the Bible and the Holy Spirit to guide every aspect of our lives.
We need not go to seminars that add to what God said nor do we need monstrously long modern writings to explain what He plainly said in His word. It is valuable to go to the original languages from time to time to discern the mind of a Jewish writer to clarify the meanings.
Too many people add their own ideas based on psychology or secular thinking to the Bible to make it say what they like, this is sin and will be dealt with eventually.
Revelation 22:18-19 "18 I testify to everyone who hears the words of prophecy in this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19 And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and the holy city, which are described in this book.…"
It is not possible to develop a book of 700 pages on prayer without adding to the Bible, even God didn't give us that many pages so why would we need more than what God wrote. Just Saying!
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