Defend the Scriptures not the Mantras

I am always grieved when someone fights to defend wrong doctrine without using scripture. We see so much of this, let's be diligent to use Scripture to defend the truth.

Also, there is a strong movement that takes events from the Old Testament to apply them to the New Testament believers today.

When God gave a direction to the Jews as a picture of Christ to come, this was the picture, not the substance. We no longer place the blood of a lamb on the doorposts so the angel of death will pass over us. It wasn't the blood that had power it was God who commanded this picture of His Son to come in the future. It was their obedience in placing the blood that blessed God and caused Him to overlook their household in the judgment.

We need not do this ritual now because that action in the OT was a picture of what has already come. Christ's blood paid for the sins of mankind and covers the born-again believer Who has trusted in Him.

There is a movement that loves "mantras" and "rituals" to express matters of the Bible that the Bible never gave. The need for mantras and rituals do nothing except make the one doing them feel spiritual and superior.

Using mantras is nothing more than expecting the magic of saying words to manipulate God into acting on their behalf. The goal is their own will not God's.

It is superstition to use mantras that have no clear use in the Bible. It goes along with the Charismatic movement that teaches our words have power and can produce whatever we want.

God is powerful and all our utterances toward Him ought to be understood that He answers His way according to His will and that should be our desire, for His will even if it is not our fleshly hope.

Isaiah 55:8-9

8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.

9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways

And My thoughts than your thoughts."

James 4:7

"7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."

Here is the key to our prayer life, that we submit to God no matter what He has in store for us. We do not need to know ahead of time what will come except what is already revealed to us in the Scriptures.

We walk by faith, we accept the trials, difficulties and blessings as His will. When we are sick we pray for healing but also pray His will, perhaps our trial will show others we can remain faithful to Him even when life is very difficult, He gets the glory instead of us.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

"9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in distresses, in persecutions, in difficulties, in behalf of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong."

Those who wish to pray a mantra to eliminate trials are not seeing the bigger picture. They are focused on this life and their own comfort far more than the will and purpose of God.

There is no greater witness for the believer than to be praising God in the middle of difficulties that others would melt and be destroyed, who do not have Christ.

James 1:2-8 "2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,

3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do."

Even if we lose all we have we have lacked nothing in terms of our walk with Christ. We are counted as Spiritual beings not according to this world.

1 Corinthians 2:14 "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

2 Corinthians 5:15-17 "…15 And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again. 16 So from now on we regard no one according to the flesh. Although we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!…"

Those who need continual mantras and rituals to heal problems are more focused on this earth than they are on Spiritual matters. There is a greater purpose than comfort and possessions here.

That greater purpose is our Spiritual growth and usefulness in growing the Kingdom of God that many people will become born again before the rapture.

We are living in times that are difficult, mostly through our own sinfulness. Families in America have all they need but they are grabbing at every physical and emotional desire rather than seeking Christ.

Our families are ruined, every venue we encounter is full of clamoring after worldly pleasures and personal freedom. Little thought is given to what happens after they leave this life.

The mantras and rituals to appease and manipulate God are all focused on this life and its comfort and pleasures.

It is when we begin to think entirely in Spiritual terms to please God, walking with Him daily, moment by moment that we see what real blessing looks like. We can do this even if we lose everything and everyone because He lives in us and it is His will we should be desiring.

1 Corinthians s13:1-2 "1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not to love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not to love, I am nothing.…"

If we can heal every ailing person, fix all the finances of the poor, and even feed the world but if we do not have Christ and we do not have the fruit of His Spirit, it's the same as doing nothing.

The greatest blessing we can give anyone is the knowledge of Christ and what He did on that cross for us and for them. Then they will choose and either learn the blessing of Spiritual change within them or they will discard the message and go to hell. But at least we obeyed God, that is our blessing to be in obedience to God.

1 John 5:3

"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome."

1 John 3:24

"Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us."

11