This article is not just about having a better standard of living. (But following its advice should improve your lot in the long run.) This article is directed toward giving you the best quality of life possible. Too many people focus only on their standard of living, and neglect their quality of life.
Throughout all history, experience has shown that the best quality of life results from following the Bible. Are there church people who have done you wrong? They probably were not following the Bible. That means that those people were defective, not the Bible! Matthew chapter 23 and Romans chapter 2 both strongly rebuke those sort of people. Look past them. Follow the Bible.
The Bible is a fairly thick book. To help point you in the right direction, the rest of this article will emphasize several passages that are clearly labeled as being the more important ones:
Matthew 22:34-40 says that the greatest commandment is that you shall love God with everything you have, and that the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Everything else (including the original Top Ten list, in Exodus 20:1-17) is based on these two commands. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus tells you how you will be judged. Did you or did you not help those in need? "Whatever you do (or don't do) for the least of these, you did (or didn't do) for me."
Matthew 18:1-6 commands you to become like children (like you were before you got all messed up), and to welcome them, not have contempt for them. To do otherwise is to reject Christ!
Matthew 23:23 tells us what are "the weightier matters of the law." Make sure you can recite them instantly. Guide every thought and action by them! They are: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
Justice basically means to treat others at least as well as they deserve. Justice should guide every thought. What is right and wrong? What makes something good or evil? That should be the starting point of every thought. The Bible and your experience will give you enough material to keep that subject interesting for the rest of your life.
Mercy basically means to relieve suffering. It sometimes means to spare others from the justice they deserve. We are all receiving mercy from God right now. We are all defective, and deserve to be destroyed. God is now sparing us, giving us time to turn to him and learn to do right. This article should get you pointed in that direction.
Luke 10:25-37 is the classic example of mercy. A "good Samaritan" finds a man who has been beaten and robbed, and helps him get back into good condition. If everyone who is well off would provide help to those who really want to get their lives in order (and not just take advantage of the help) most of the suffering in the world would be eliminated!
Faithfulness means to be loyal to God and to others. It means to be honest and trustworthy, and to keep your word. It means to do the right thing even when it's not convenient, even when it costs you something (money, time, reputation, etc.) It means to be loyal to the truth, regardless of the cost.
There can be no justice without truth. (Isaiah chapter 59) John 8:31-59 tells us that truth and good are virutally identical, and that lies and evil are also the same. Truth and good must be upheld at all times, in every area of life. Of course, this must include your overall framework of thinking about life. The book of Romans lays out basic Christian doctrine. Here is a short summary:
All have disobeyed God and done wrong, and thus we all deserve death (chapters 1 through 3). Mercy is available by trusting God (chapter 4), specifically, by trusting in the sacrifice Jesus made of himself, paying the penalty of our sin for us (chapter 5). Mercy does NOT mean we are excused from obeying God, but we are to obtain mercy by being immersed ("baptizo" is Greek for "immerse") into Christ (chapter 6). We stay in mercy by striving with all our might (not just casually) to obey God (chapters 6 through 8). God's offer of mercy to other nations does not break God's covenant with Israel, but Israel broke the covenant by rejecting Christ, and are separated from God until they obey him (chapters 9 through 11). Chapters 12 through chapter 15 verse 13 summarize how to obey God. The rest is personal greetings.
Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, often called "the sermon on the mount," are also a basic course on how to obey God. This article can never be good enough to replace that! You need to read the Bible!
Just as there are three main components of good (justice, mercy, and faithfulness), there are three main areas of evil to avoid. 1 John 2:15-17 identifies them as lust, greed, and pride.
Lust of the flesh is obvious. Our bodies have built in desires that must be controlled. They cannot be eliminated; they need to be controlled and directed and used properly. Sexual lust is designed to bond a husband and wife together, and to be a great blessing. Hunger is designed to get you to eat the food you need, but not to be a glutton. You need to control your flesh, not let it control you!
Lust of the eyes (greed) means to want things not because you need them, but because having them somehow makes you feel good. Happiness does not consist of getting what you want, but of wanting what you have. 1 Timothy 6:6-10 tells us that contentment is great gain. Get things to put them to good use, not to adore them. Get things that will serve you. Don't enslave yourself by serving things.
Pride of life basically means to think of yourself as being "better" than other people. If you think you're "too good" to associate with someone, you're guilty of pride! You should always try to be the best person you can, but let others do the talking about it. (Proverbs 25:14, 27:2) Anyone can talk big about himself. It actually means something when someone else, on their own, notices your good behavior!
Turning away from lust, greed, and pride, and turning toward justice, mercy, and faithfulness requires you to change the way you look at everything. As it says in 1 John 2:15-17, lust, greed, and pride are of this world, and are not of God. This world's system is based on exploiting your lust, greed, and pride to manipulate you! It distracts you with lust, and enslaves you with debt to finance all the greed and pride the media constantly tells you to have! Materialism is a hard master!
The world system is all based on lies. You'd be amazed to find out how much the world system has lied to you! You must seek truth! (Hebrews 11:6 says that God rewards those who seek him.) The world will not bring truth to you! The world is doing everything it can to keep truth from you!
Without truth, there can be no freedom (John 8:35) or justice (Isaiah chapter 59, especially verses 3, 4, 9-11, and 13-15) That's why God will destroy everyone who tells or believes lies! (Revelation 22:15)
The world system is lying to you to deceive you into acting in their interest, not yours! What's their interest? Their lust, greed, and pride! They want to own the whole world (greed), and be your master (pride)! God's way has always been for individuals to own everything they need, free and clear of all debt! (Numbers 26:52-54, 33:53-54, Leviticus chapter 25, Deuteronomy 15:1-6, and Joshua chapters 14-21)
The world system wants you in debt to it. They want everything owned "in common" so that actually, a small "elite" owns everything you need, and so owns you! God is the only one who has any right to own you! "You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men." (1 Corinthians 7:23)
Communism is not "a nice idea in theory that doesn't work in practice." It is completely evil all the way to the core! It wants to own you! It wants to take the place of God! Communism has killed well over 150 million people forcing people to accept it, not including the wars! That's just in their purges!
These "political issues" are not "add-ons" to Christianity! They are basic issues of morality! To sympathize with communism and socialism is to endorse mass murder! It is to hate God!Good and evil on a large scale are at least as important as good and evil on a small scale. As we have already seen, every one of is already directly involved, whether we want to be or not! (Proverbs 24:10-12)
The fact that a politician wants to do something immoral does not make it any less of a moral issue! Ephesians 5:11 commands everyone: "Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them." (Also see Proverbs 28:4, and 29:27) Any preacher who tells you to ignore these issues is telling you to disobey God! Do not waste any time or money with such charlatans!
Jesus is lord over every area of life! That includes public life as well as private life! Everybody needs to realize that every good thing we enjoy as Americans comes from the fact that our founding fathers established a Christian republic!Tremendous benefits would result if the whole nation would go back to obeying God's laws of finance and social order! Oppressive government could get no power if people would govern themselves! Everybody practicing justice, mercy, and faithfulness would kill communism!
To get the majority to obey God, first you must obey God! Then you can promote the benefits to others. Matthew 28:19-20 says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you ..." Now what had he just told them to do? Go make disciples! Then he applied the same command to every believer!
Likewise in 2 Timothy 2:2 "And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also."
We see this obeyed in Acts 8:1 "And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles." Verse 4: "Therefore those who had been scattered went about preaching the word." Then in verses 14 through 17, then the apostles went out to pass the Holy Spirit on to those whom the believers had baptized in Jesus' name.
Any church that says it's the preacher's job to do the evangelizing is teaching you to disobey God! Dividing a church between "priests" and "laity" is a pagan idea! The Bible says of the church in 1 Peter 2:9 "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession ..."
But only if you turn to God! In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus says "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Obeying God is what you were designed to do! It is a great challenge! (Matthew 10:37-42, Luke 9:23-26, Luke 14:25-35) And very worthwhile! (Matthew 19:27-30, Mark 10:28-30, Luke 18:28-30) ("Give up everything you have" does not mean to become a pauper, it means to use everything you have to serve God.)
This article is just enough to get you started. Now you must go on and seek truth! First, start reading the Bible, especially the passages to which I have referred. Try to find a church that will support everything in this flyer. (They are extremely rare!) See my website http://come.to/J.E.F.F./ for more articles to turn America back to God and away from the evil world system. How do you get everything you need? The ONE thing you really need is eternal life! All else should come from there. (Matthew 6:25-33)
This flyer is on the internet at: http://come.to/J.E.F.F./
Please visit the web site to see other articles about how your rights and well being depend on obeying God.
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