RELIGION-----WITHOUT GOD
I was talking to a person who is fairly religious. They were telling me how God told them to fire one employee and by a miracle, sent them a replacement the next day who was a really nice person. I also remember the time my mom and dad were robbed and my mom said that God caused them to be robbed so they would finally make the move to town from the country.
I really doubt that God would line up some robbers to take every valuable thing in their house so they would make the move to town. The truth is, they never locked their doors, day or night or even when they were gone and it caught up with them. I’ve heard another person say that they don’t stub their toe without knowing that God is trying to tell them something. Is that how God works? We know God did deal with men like Moses and Abraham in a very personal way, but He was working on His plan. And, no doubt, God may be dealing with you in a fairly personal way if He has called you and is preparing you for the First Resurrection. But, we have to be careful about what people say and do in God‘s name. For example, when we hear a preacher on TV tell us to send him a thousand dollars, that seems rather suspect doesn’t it? He is doing a "religious" act, but people use God’s name in vain quite a bit...in other words, they use God's name for their own purpose.
Humanly, that minister is deceived by his own desires. He may not even know that what he is doing is wrong. Deep down, the human mind has an innate nature that makes us want to be religious. But, it is possible to have religion without God. Religious acts can be anything from lighting a candle, to flailing your back with a whip until it is bloody or climbing a mountain path on your knees to a shrine, to a hundred other such things, but just because something is religious, is it from God? No, of course not. Why would God be more pleased with you if you bloodied up your back? That practice is not condoned in the Bible anyway and was practiced by Baal worshippers. Remember Elijah and the confrontation with the prophets of Baal, they cut themselves, a thing which God actually forbade. Never the less, such things as this and many more are practiced as religion and are not even in the Bible.
God has a large and complicated plan for this earth and for mankind. What God is doing is so much bigger than stubbing our toes to get our attention. It is so much more important than getting someone to rob our house so we will move to town.
What is God's plan? He is going to pull off a great coup, replacing Satan as ruler of the earth and setting up the permanent Kingdom of God. He will do it on His own time schedule and probably without that much help, if any, from all of us. This plan He is working out, is a work of restoration and is such a massive project that only God could do it. One hint though, the whole Bible is about Israel and how God split them into two houses, the House of Israel and the House of Judah. He used the Assyrians to relocate the 10 Northern tribes (House of Israel.) The Jewish Encyclopedia calls it a mild deportation. It's purpose was to relocate 10 of the tribes of Israel far north of Israel, and from there they went into Europe. As proof of this, several European nations still call their seventh day of the week after the Hebrew Shabbat. *Saboda, Sabota, Sabbath, Shabat, etc...
Many prophesies indicate that God's purpose is to reconnect and rejoin the 2 houses of Israel again right prior to the return of Christ and make them into one nation again. Placing them under a new covenant, writing His law in their hearts and in their minds and they will never turn away from Him again to worship false Gods or to practice FALSE RELIGION. God will complete His plan, when He sets up the permanent Kingdom of God on earth. This is a plan that He has been working on for 1000s of years and it will finally come to pass that all mankind will be taught to practice true religion that comes from God, and not based simply on the traditions of men. It may not be as far away as you might think!
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