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Recent Emails

Below are emails sent to keep people informed of the new developments of Living God Ministries. To sign up to receive these emails when they are sent, use the Newsletter link found at the top of our pages. Several ISP's are censoring our emails, such as .msn, .hotmail, .live, .outlook and .aol. If you would like us to send you this emails directly, you may need to use an alternative email address and have them forwarded to an account of your choosing. .gmail is the most friendly to our communications.

**** The following was emailed on 11/04/20 ****

My Dear Friend,

I have uploaded 4 new radio programs to the Living God Ministries radio archive: Having a Relationship with God. I am not including a link to these programs in this email because it tends to trigger spam filters easier, and we are already dealing with censorship problems from .msn, .live, .outlook, .earthlink, .hotmail and .aol. You can find the link in the second section of the radio archive, about midway, just below the programs on Expectations. I also updated the podcast file. Please do listen to them and tell me what you think. If you have additional questions, or other aspects you would like me to speak on, let me know. I can compile them in the notes file and perhaps add an additional program or two to the series. These will be broadcasted next year, which is soon approaching.

There has been a lot of volatility in donations for the past six months, so we are not in a very good position to make long term station commitments yet. We have canceled broadcasting on a few of our stations in response to this uncertainty, but more importantly because we genuinely think we will be able to get much better rates if we wait to renew some contracts until next summer or fall. We have seen a major increase in stations inviting us to broadcast on their stations. One station recently offered us a 75% discount and part of our agreement would be that we give them the full year in advance. This is an exceptional offer and there will be many more like this to come. We will not be accepting this offer, only because we are not very confident this station will be able to stay operational for another year, but 6 months from now, we might take it. For those of you in areas where you are no longer hearing the program on your local station, do continue to donate and we will build our war chest to perhaps make a better agreement with your station soon. There is one major station we are looking at getting on soon. They are normally all filled up, but I checked their schedule recently and they already have several openings at very good times. For us to take a position on this station would be worth not returning to a few others, as it would give us a larger listening audience with more additional opportunities. In the mean time, I will be developing more new radio programs in the coming months to prepare for a time when we will be able to take better positions at a lower cost.

With Thanks,
Aaron, Teaching Pastor for Living God Ministries

**** The following was emailed on 7/17/20 ****

My Dear Friend,

I have uploaded a new program on the subject of sanctification. It is a supplement to the series on Overcoming Sin. You can find it here:

https://www.livinggodministries.net/living_god_ministries/radio_archive/overcoming_sin.htm

Also, we are deciding on which radio stations we will renew with next month in the next couple of weeks. The decision will be made according to the amount of donations we have available to work with. Please do send in what you can to help us continue to broadcast on as many stations as possible.

With Thanks,
Aaron

**** The following was emailed on 6/11/20 ****

My Dear Friend,

With so many changes taking place in the world, I thought I would take some time to share some things with you that will likely be of help to you, or perhaps others around you. I will tell you a story about one of my times of significant life change and some of the things I learned when going through it. I think you will find a few things that can be applicable and helpful with people you know. Before that I would like to remind you that Living God Ministries is still operating stronger than ever. We are encountering new people from all over the world, answering a lot of questions and continuing to contribute to the faith of a lot of people just like we always have. There has been a lot of volatility with donations for the past couple of months so we are having some difficulty when it comes to budgeting and planning, but we still have a couple of months before we need to make major decisions concerning where we will continue to broadcast. Please do not forget us, and donate to our work when you are able. I would prefer not to use ministerial time doing fund raising, so please do take responsibility on your own to do what you can to help us continue to meet our contracts and perhaps be able to expand in the coming months.

It has been about 25 years now, but during one of my transitional experiences in life I lost a high paying job. What happened was that I was offered a higher position because of my experience, training and productive successes, but I turned it down because it was the kind of position that would make it very difficult if not impossible for me to be available to do things for my God if He would ever call upon me to do something with Him. The result was that I was no longer a part of the organization and I entered into this transitional experience of life. It was a very difficult time so I decided to take a, "break" and homesteaded some mountain property deep in the Rocky Mountains. I built a small cabin and was there for about nine months before I returned to civilization and started a new life again.

I have done a lot of camping in my time, but living in the forest is definitely a different experience. I learned a lot that I never would have without living through it myself, but what I think may be useful at this time is for me to share with you what it was like to make the adjustment from one life to another in this circumstance. It took a few days for me to get settled in and start on the new adventure, but about two weeks later I started to have this feeling of, "ok the vacation is over, it's time to go back to civilization." It was noticeable for me and it was an interesting adjustment to realize this was not just some little adventure but a whole new way of life. After about four weeks of this I started to really question what I was doing there. I really was pondering, "why am I here?" I began to seriously question my purpose, my objectives and poor answers could have really led to some serious depression. Once I hit the six week mark, I entered into a new phase of acceptance of the new reality of my life. It took a couple of more weeks from there and then I had my routines and projects to keep me more occupied and I would say that was when I genuinely started living there. About six months later, winter was coming so I decided to return to civilization to start again after my break. I sold the property for a profit and built a new life in nice community.

I am telling you about this because for the past two months I have seen these same transitions in a lot of people I have been corresponding with. I think you know people going through changes like this also, if not yourself, and you have access to them, to be able to encourage them in some very profound ways. We are at that time now when a lot of people are just starting to accept the reality they have and are at risk of accepting the way things are for them. They may enter a serious form of depression and fail to engage the world in a new way and build a new life for themselves. They might feel a sense of deadness within themselves and fail to see new directions they can take. If you have the opportunity to talk with them, remind them that they are alive. Living things grow and living things change. Being a living person means by definition that you will experience growth and change in your life throughout your life from the womb to the tomb. When a former life definition is lost, it is necessary to define a new one and considering the way the world has changed this must be as intentional as possible with focus, conviction and diligence. Most of the time people have to learn how to do something new, according to the kinds of work available in their region, or move to another one where they can continue to do what they did before. It is important to be aware of the changes people are going through around you.

This is the time when people would normally start going to church. People begin to accept the reality that their lives are now different and they will either embrace it, move forward and build something new, or they might move into depression and even despair. Even now suicide rates are competitive with virus infections and deaths. What is different now compared to any other time in history is that churches are closed. Some jurisdictions are allowing some churches to operate in a limited way, but with the social distancing and restrictions on children's programs, this is just not going to be the same. Many churches are facing bankruptcy and with the flu and cold season approaching soon, and a second wave of Covid 19, with uncertainty about #1-#18, and who knows how long it will be before Covid 20, I don't think church life is going to resume for at least another year at best. By the time permission is granted for normal church life to resume most churches could be already closed due to bankruptcy. Normally, this would be the phase where people would consider including God in the redefinition of their life, but this time, with the limitations placed on churches, this will be harder for most people.

Here at Living God Ministries we normally see people who go through this transition after a few years. The usual cycle is that a person goes to church, gets saved after 6 months or a year, they live the, "Christian Life" for one or two years before they start getting a little tired of living by the church law. This is when they will start the church hop dance and move from one church to the next on average every two years. They enter a new one with enthusiasm of the promise of grace but return quickly to the cycle of repent, obey, sin, forgiveness, repent and so on. We normally hear from them after a few laps in this wilderness, but in the coming years, we might not see the same pattern we have seen in the past. With the limitations placed on churches, there is a high probability our position on radio will become more important but an economic downturn will make it more difficult for us to hold our positions well. We are monitoring these trends closely and hope to have a better understanding within the next six months or so.

In the mean time, I would like to emphasis the importance of your inviting people to your homes to have discussions about life changes and the Gospel. You have access to people in ways that others do not and it is important not to underestimate the influence you have when engaging one person at a time with a personal conversation. Small groups in homes having Bible studies have always been the most effective way to expand the Kingdom of God. You can use the messages available in the radio archive to facilitate group discussions or contact me for where you can find video content that is a replacement for the traditional in person Sunday sermons. Contact us periodically to let us know how you are doing and also if we can be of any help.

With Thanks,
Aaron
Teaching Pastor for Living God Ministries

**** The following was emailed on 4/18/20 ****

My Dear Friend,

On August 24, 2019 I emailed out an article on why people go to church. I am going to copy it below for a closer reference and to just remind you of what I said. Some of you are new to this email list so it is an opportunity for you to read it also. There is a brief paragraph about me being interviewed and then the rest follows. I got a lot of very positive feedback from it, to include from a few radio station managers and owners. The world has changed a lot now, and I think it is a very good time to review this and reflect on it for a little while. It will help you to understand the changes people are going through and the struggles they are having as they are rethinking their lives. I have been absolutely flooded with new people who are dealing with these very things, and the world events are opening up enormous opportunities for me to help more people than I ever imagined in such a short time. I have been studying the decisions of the people who are contributing to the stay at home orders, and it really appears that these decisions are going to prolong this crisis for quite a long time. Considering that, you have access to people I do not have access to. you have friends, family and the means to engage in personal one on one dialogue with folks, and I want to encourage you to use your available time well and pursue conversations with people.

Now that the churches are relatively empty, the reasons why people go to church are obsolete. I gave several reasons below, but they all depended on having physical access to congregations of people. Those congregations are no longer in existence. Even when the stay at home orders are rescinded, it will still be quite some time before people congregate in large numbers, and many churches may not be able to survive depending on their debt loads and government financial aid. Pastors are now teaching through video with hope they can still be of service, but what they are discovering is that most of the members of their congregations only tolerated the sermons to obtain the advantages and opportunities I described below. So the number of people viewing is substantially less than the number of people who were in the buildings, and this will continue to decline for most. I of course am an exception, like normal, with an increase of around 8 to 10 times the number of people, but I am so unusual that it would not be fair to make comparisons. What I want you to know is that a lot of people are rethinking their lives, and seriously thinking about what they are hearing in the sermons they have always listened to. This is a time when a lot of people are re-evaluating their beliefs without the social pressures and religious pressures of a traditional congregation. Do be attentive to this, and be available for opportunities that would not otherwise come into your life. Talk with people, and reach out to them with the truths you have learned that have set you free.

With Thanks,
Aaron
Teaching Pastor for Living God Ministries

**** The following was sent on 8/24/19: ****

The Interview with Roger Marsh

On July 24th I was interviewed by Roger Marsh on his program, "The Bottom Line." It was an opportunity for people to learn a little more about me and some of the history of Living God Ministries. It was a record breaker for them in terms of the response and the follow up downloads from their archive. That was encouraging for us. It was pleasant for me to reminisce a little of the happy struggles. One thing very few people know, and I did not mention, is that the opposition to the work I did was equal to the impact in people's lives, and it came in a way and from a direction you would least likely suspect. Fortunately, this has changed a lot in the past several years and the future recordings I do will likely have a noticeable change in my tone with the lack of beyond Olympic level forms of opposition for now. I genuinely look forward to the next 10 years of ministry.

Where do I go to Church?

When I was interviewed by Roger, I mentioned that one of the projects I am working on is with helping the church I pastor in Denver to re-organize a little. We are working on a different fellowship model that can perhaps be duplicated in a way that we can help plant churches in different parts of the country and the world. This is very experimental and will take a lot of time to work through, but it is something we have been working on. I received a lot of requests from people to be a part of this, and I do hope that we are able to help others build communities of believers in their local areas. I will certainly let you know when we have something good to report. When I mentioned I was working on this, it turned out to be a tremor that inspired an avalanche of correspondence and phone calls of people wanting me to connect them with a local church. Only a small handful were geographically close to one or two others, but this is certainly the most common question we get here. I studied several attempts by other ministries, to include People to People who tried to build Bible studies and plant churches by just connecting like minded people who were in local areas and the results were certainly not what people hoped for.

Connecting people together to build a Bible study or church is very difficult. It is not just a matter of believing the same Gospel and everything works out from there. Everyone is in a different stage of life, faith, maturity as a believer, and there are various types of personalities that do not blend well with others. People sometimes have different goals in mind and they won't tell you what they really are. If Living God Ministries was to spend donations received to do the work of advertising you or your neighbor to others in your local area, we could quickly start looking like some kind of "dating service," and I have personally seen a lot of people in small groups struggle with the question of, "why is this person here?" when attempts like this by other ministries have been made before. We understand full well the loneliness felt by not having someone in your life who shares your faith and the desire for a church is a healthy and wonderful thing. However, you are going to have to get in touch with the fact that not everyone shares your values, interests and purposes when it comes to this. If you want to assemble with other believers who believe the truth of the Gospel, freedom from the Law, the complete forgiveness of sins, living in the inheritance we have in Christ and growing to know the Living God as a person, you are without question not going to find a large group of people in your local geography who have the same thing in mind. That's the way it has always been, and if you think it's going to be much different in the near future, I don't think you are really paying attention to the people around you. Now, I realize some of you might be thinking I should sugar coat this a little and not just hit you between the eyes with this reality, but trust me, this is the sugar coated version.

Most all of you have spent a significant amount of your lives in the churches around you, and I know you have asked yourself the question of, "why am I here?" several times. What you might want to think about also is, "why are they here?" Visit any congregation and ask the Lord to give you discernment concerning why each person is there. Why do you suppose people go to church? Do you really think it normally has something to do with people wanting to know their God as a person and the truth of the world around them? This is not how churches are normally built or sustained. People go to church because they are looking for business or job contacts. People go to church because they like the music and just want to enjoy a concert. People go to church because they want a break from their kids and just want them to be involved in the activities there. People go to church because they want to be a part of a community of people. They go to church just so they can tell others during the week they are a good person who goes to church. They go to church because they are looking for a spouse or they want people to attend their funeral when they die. They go because they want a preacher to tell their spouse how to be a good person or God will punish them. They go just in case there is a God because they don't want to miss out on a blessing or two from Him. People go to church just to get the free pastries that are found next to the coffee and their spouse can go find someone else to talk with for a while. Don't be fooled by enthusiastic religious exhibitionism that hides the emptiness a lot of people feel deep inside. Every once in a while you find a person who is starving for the truth and a personal connection with their God, but they normally don't last in a church longer than two years before they move on to the next one, and the next one, and on and on until they run out of places to go. This does not mean they themselves are ready to build healthy relationships with others who are like minded and spend time building a church with them.

I encourage people to go to their local churches. Enjoy the music and enjoy the people. I know it can sometimes be unpleasant worshiping with people who don't know your God very well, but you can get through it. I think it's wonderful to be a part of a community of people and find job leads or business contacts there, or be there for similar reasons most everyone else is there for. Instead of being there for their, "service" perhaps you can think about how you may be able to be of "service" to someone there. Most of the people might be a little confused (or a lot) when it comes to the New Covenant, but even I will stop by and spend time in the local churches in my area just to see another part of the body of Christ and see the various stages people are in while they are growing to learn more about Him and discover who He is. Sometimes I meet someone who is relatively like minded with myself and I encourage you to search for people you can build friendships with in the same way. Keep in mind that if you want to have a church just like the others around you where the New Covenant is taught, you will still likely have a a large group of people who are really there for reasons other than that. This is the same as people being in churches now for reasons other than what is being preached from the pulpit. My church and I are struggling with this because we just want a couple of hours a week with like minded people only, but we know we can probably find ways to include others and we are praying for wisdom concerning this. I encourage people to stick it out as long as they can, and a lot of you and I have talked about this. Most of you eventually have told me, "I just can't take it anymore!!!" and I can understand that, but after a sabbatical and time of recovery, try to remember that you will eventually find one or two people who are about to leave that church also, and the few of you can encourage each other greatly. The greatest growth people experience when it comes to their relationship with their God takes place in small groups, small Bible studies and in the midst of casual conversations with one or two other people. Think about the tone of my programs when you listen to them, and you give me a chance to explain something that requires some uninterrupted time. Have you not noticed that sometimes it is as if I am sitting right there with you in your car, or with you at your kitchen table? Just because there is a lot of religious dysfunction out there around you does not mean you will not be able to find one person to connect with, and then another and another. Once you have six to nine people in your life you will find you don't have much time for more. If they have the same number of people in their lives outside of your small group, then evangelism and growth in the Kingdom of God is taking place regardless if you know about it or not. Many of you listen to me and are benefiting from the work I have done, and you have lots of friends who do not listen to me at all, and you are having a profound impact on their growth and maturity in the Lord Jesus. Listen to me very carefully please; there is nothing wrong with the Body of Christ. It is fully functional, living and growing just fine. It is a force to be reckoned with already, even though it is not publicized. Jesus is the head, so if you feel on occasion that He is not reporting to you properly what He is doing with the world and how the entire Body of His is doing, I think you are not paying attention to what your place is in the Body of Christ.

Perhaps one day you or I may have a formal church home with a glorious choir and/or worship band with hundreds or thousands of people attending all the time. There could be the maximum opportunity for the gifts of the Spirit to be shared among us with a dynamic environment for our children. These can be wonderful things and not having them may protect you from having people in your church for the wrong reasons. Not having a church home can be a good thing if the risk is that you get too comfortable with your church home and rarely spend time with lost people so you can encourage them to be saved. In the mean time, just be sure you're not waiting around for me or someone else to build a church for you to walk into and park at. I have no way to determine the likelihood of failure or success with what I am working on. Be sure to use your time well and be as resourceful as you can with what you have. The program I recorded on Where Two or More are Gathered will give you more insight into this.

I hope this helps,
Aaron
Teaching Pastor for Living God Ministries

**** The following was emailed on 04/07/20 ****

Hello Folks,

Just sending out this brief email. With the changes going on in the world today we have been flooded with correspondence. Fortunately, we have been working hard to make changes for several years to be able to handle the additional work of an expansion. We are not expanding to new stations right now but we are hearing from a lot of new people. There are a couple of things I would like to mention considering everything going on.

Living God Ministries is operating just fine. We have had no disruptions to our operations at all. Our architecture, the flow of work, division of tasks and the complete absence of employees means that for this global event - our operations are not being interrupted at all. Everything is running great people. Please do not worry about us and send us notes of, "hope you are going to make it !!??!!??" Of course we are!! We can thin out all the way to one radio station if we have to and still continue to do our work. It is way too early for us to be able to determine what the decline in donations will be, or if maybe there will be an increase averaged out over the next few months. We have no idea, but we will use whatever we receive to broadcast the radio programs as much as possible like we always do.

The bulk of the correspondence I have been engaged in for the last couple of weeks has been with older people and Pastors. A lot of older people are very concerned about their health right now and as a result are really thinking about the end of their lives. I have been talking with a lot of guys in their 70's who have lived their whole lives either ignoring the Lord or living on the edge thinking God would never want them. The radio archive is perfect for them and there is a huge surge in downloads from the radio archive now. I am so thankful I was able to build it over the past 14 years of Living God Ministries. It is really being used heavily now. Special thanks to all of you who donated over the years to make this possible. It is paying off in a big way. A lot of Pastors are, "rethinking their lives" right now as their entire model of ministry has effectively evaporated on them. Please do pray for these guys. They are a lot more free right now to think about what the Gospel is really about and the differences between the Old and New Covenants. If their congregations disband their entire lives are going to be turned upside down (especially with divorces), but there is a short interval during this process that they are going to be much more open to the, "way of God more accurately [Acts 18]." I am having a lot of very productive conversations with a few who in the past I would not have even replied to their emails or taken their phone calls.

So, do pray for these people please, and for me that I may be guided better by the Holy Spirit to help direct them to Him.

Also, just a reminder that on the YouTube channel, "Aaron Budjen Live" I am presenting a formal message on Sunday mornings starting at 10:15 Mountain Standard Time.

With Thanks,
Aaron
Teaching Pastor for Living God Ministries

**** The following was emailed on 03/26/20 ****

My Dear Friend,

I was just informed that Crawford Broadcasting Company has temporarily given us the 5:00 - 5:30 pm M-F time slot on KCBC 770 AM, broadcasting to central and northern California. We will be right in between James Dobson and Tony Evans. This is an exceptional privilege and is part of the changes taking place in our country right now. According to the correspondence we receive from listeners to this station, this region has the highest percentage of people listening to our programs on radio instead of listening through the radio archive. Being given this spot for now means we also get commuters both coming and going, at 8:30 in the morning and 5:00 in the evening.

Here in Colorado we are under stay at home orders from the Governor, but this is not disrupting the operations of Living God Ministries in any way. With more people on temporary leave from work we are being flooded with correspondence from people listening to the programs, asking important questions about the Scriptures and what it means to have a relationship with the Lord. This is a time when donations to keep us operating are needed more than ever. We have an enormous amount of work to do and with several ministries cutting back on broadcasting, we are going to have serious opportunities to take key positions on stations. What we are being given temporarily right now at 5 pm could be permanent if we could raise enough donations to take it by contract before another ministry does. If you are donating to our work, this is a good time to maybe increase it a little. If you are not a part of this ministry yet, this is the time to start. Either way, do so now, with either a one time or monthly amount.

Also, it is getting more and more difficult for us to communicate with people. Do add this email address to your approved sender/white list. This is especially true if you have an email address with .msn, .hotmail and .live. We are working on making improvements and I will let you know as soon as we increase our means of sending notifications to people about the work we are doing. I am using Twitter now, and hopefully we can get a facebook page open soon for members of the facebook tribe. Physical mail has been too expensive for us with a high cost/return ratio. Now, it is looking like this is going to go higher. Please encourage people to connect with us through online correspondence and notifications.

With Thanks,
Aaron Budjen
Teaching Pastor for Living God Ministries

**** The following was emailed on 02/17/20 ****

My Dear Friend,

It has been about two and a half months since I sent the last email out. This time of year is normally quite busy for us, closing out the previous year, starting a new one, and keeping up with the regular daily activities. This time it was more of everything than usual. The rework of the will of God series was put on hold during this time, but I should be able to return to it in the next few weeks. In the beginning of the 6th program I referred to it as the 5th, which will be the first correction I will make. Understanding the inheritance we have is a fundamental part of our growth in the faith and our relationship with our God.

I received a letter recently that really demonstrates the importance of understanding our inheritance in Christ. This person has asked me many questions over the years with the same theme of, "this person says this, so what do you say?" Sometimes I hear from people who do not really want to take personal responsibility for their own faith, decisions and beliefs, and the probability of this person being in this category is starting to go up. Sometimes I feel as if they are trying to get me to debate or defend to see who wins by argument, and then he will just believe whatever the perceived winner says. This is definitely not what the Lord had in mind, and when he stands before the Living God personally, I will not be standing there with him. Still, this is a fantastic example of the importance of understanding the will of God in the context of the inheritance we have received as a result of the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross.

There are three ways of life that a person can choose to live. We can live according to the indulgence of the flesh, the restraint of the flesh or according to the inheritance we have in Christ. It is unusual to find someone who understands the life according to the inheritance, so most people live a life that fits somewhere between the first two of indulgence or restraint. This can be described as those who live by religion and those who do not, and they often compare themselves with the others. The non-religious compare themselves with the religious and the religious compare themselves with the non-religious. This can be illustrated with a line segment with the indulgence on one side and the restraint on the other. When a person is resurrected by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, their life can be illustrated with a triangle instead of a line. We will then fit somewhere in between these three points that form a triangle, and the more we grow in our relationship with our God we will move further from the life according to the flesh (indulgence or restraint) and more towards the life according to the Spirit.

In the letter I mentioned above, there is certainly no argument that living a life according to the indulgence of the flesh is not the way to live at all. In this example then, it starts to look like a single line segment with one end being the religious pursuit of holiness according to the restraint of the flesh, and the other end being the life of peace, rest and thankfulness through living according to our inheritance in Christ and through the growth and increase in maturity through our living spirit. In other words, he fails to see that his endpoint is another way to live by the flesh through the pursuit of religious pride and the end result of the Law stirring up more sin. People do not directly say things like, "this is a way to live according to the flesh to try and put God in debt to you for your obedience, that He will either pay through blessings before you die or rewards afterwords." You don't often hear people say things like, "the grace of God is that He was so gracious in giving us His Law, so we can repent and obey and be as much like Him as we can, by our self effort." It is as if there there is an art to saying things like this so people don't notice that is really what is meant.

In this example, the objective of the person I was being questioned about said that the fear of God is the proper motive to develop godly character and have holy and righteous living. He defined the fear of God as acknowledging His majesty, holiness, awesomeness, glory and power. I certainly agree with this definition of the fear of God, but I disagree with it being the motive to develop godly character and live in a holy and righteous way. The programs I recorded, "Overcoming Sin" were produced to describe how godly character and a change of life takes place in a believer, so I won't take up time and space to address the topic here. What I would like you to notice is that the life of trying to restrain the flesh requires a motive, and eventually, the author of this approach will have to state there is something wrong with you if you do not develop godly character and live in a holy and righteous way. You will then have to fix this or God will reject you to some degree. This will then require a sacrificial system of some kind, such as confession or some appeal for forgiveness. Therefore, through sincerity of engaging in the pursuit of the, "practice of godliness," a person will have to eventually reject the complete resolution to sin through the one sacrifice of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus. During my decades in the faith, I have watched an uncountable number of people follow this path, and they always end up feeling further away from their God than how they felt when they first got saved. This is why people have to continually return to the beginning of their faith, and start over again.

Consider some of these example phrases:
"God desires that we grow in holiness and godliness" This is very open ended, but eventually the burden will be placed on you to achieve this. Holiness and godliness are what we have because of what He did for us, not because of what we do for Him. From the religious point of view it is something to be pursued that will never be achieved. From the New Covenant point of view, it is something that has been given so you can begin to grow in your relationship with your God.

"What or whom we worship determines our behavior" I know of several people who reject God but their behavior is much more godly than others I know who worship Him. This is another example of the objective of the Christian life being about your behavior, instead of knowing your God and Him doing a work in you. The series Overcoming Sin addresses this subject.

"In practicing godliness, we must seek to both grow in the fear of God and in ever increasingly comprehension in the love of God" I can't help but first think of what John said in 1 John 4:18, that perfect love casts out fear. Still, by using the alternate definition given above, the love of God will continually be diminished through the practices that are encouraged. There will be failure to obey and this will result in a lack of acceptance and rejection, a decline in the love of God. There is no way to avoid this. If there is success then they have achieved something they can use to establish a claim on God and his blessings and there is no way to avoid this either under these beliefs.

For a person to devote their lives to repentance, obedience, the development of godly character and the such does require a commitment of sincerity. Just because a person is sincerely wrong, does not mean they are intentionally deceptive. Our God has provided us with a lifetime to work through these issues and have the opportunity to eventually come to the knowledge of the truth. I do want to discourage people from taking too much of their life to pursue these dead end paths. We have wonderful opportunities to grow in a knowledge and understanding of who our God is, and for Him to change and transform us in very profound ways. These opportunities are only present during the time we are physically alive here. When we enter into His kingdom there will be a new life to experience, and these opportunities will forever pass away. For this reason, and others, I want to encourage you to commit to the New Covenant more, sooner rather than later. It really does make a difference.

Hope this helps,
Aaron
Teaching Pastor for Living God Ministries



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