The One True God

Really the concept of “the One True God” is about the future final state which will then continue constantly, in which one god will become utterly dominant and solely worshipped, in the prophecies it will be the Father as God together with His Son as Lord. 

Utmost Importance

Extremely important: you think about it, there is a possibility, deep down, you might some day do something that makes you so guilty it would be only right for you to die for doing it. And furthermore, think about it, you might not be able to stop yourself doing it repeatedly. You would likely get caught. It is not really possible to say it won’t ever happen in your life. It might have already started. Dealing with this is of utmost importance. Read Gospel of John chapter 8. Jesus has it covered.

“Fires of Hell”

Hell seems, in the first instance, to be for those who have escaped justice in this life. It catches up. Karma and all that. Justice is like fire. Recompense owed stays around like any debt that is not forgiven. Fire symbolises this in ancient religions such as Mosaic Law and Zoroastrianism. So the fire of hell need not only be interpreted literally but symbolically too. Fire comes out from the offended towards to offender, says the Law of Moses. Trial by fire comes to all says Zoroastrianism. Not literal fire but spiritual recompense debt attribution manifesting in all kinds of ways. The hell teaching says something of you survives death and this fire can follow you into that further existence if justice is not satisfied in this life. There is then, later, an ultimate settling up beyond this hell season in the Final Judgement (or judgements, since there may be several stages of this - see Book of Enoch).

The Mystery of Children of God and Prayer

God wants servants with the potential to be friends and sons. This means growing to know His will and learning to do it. He will have others alongside Him and His Son. The family will be huge. He loves the potential children He raises to be adopted as His own. To be His own means learning to pray in line with His will within the teachings and name of His Son. The Lord’s Prayer is an example. So He will share ongoing life in His great kingdom with many. These will always have a say.

The Rise of Culture

A lot of people, I think, are baffled by time and space and matter and energy around them and how it works. Not on a scientific level but a more metaphysical and spiritual level of chance and outcomes of the vying of hidden wills. Seeing how chance is not enough to explain order and grace the feeling is that patterns control outcomes and patterns significant to outcomes might be reproducible. The baffling but compelling curiosity is to try and guess what constitutes a significant pattern conducive to an either positive or negative outcome, irrespective of the complexity of hidden factors determining such an outcome. Can outcomes be influenced? When outside forces offer advice on how to determine such complexities the natural human reaction is to lap it up and play along and so cultures are formed and are surprisingly persistent. Cultures include divination, charm tokens, totems, beguiling alluring techniques, idolatry, metallurgy, weaponry, martial arts, medical procedures, expertise in herbal poisons and remedies, esoteric knowledge of the spiritual realm, enchantments, invocations, shamanism and the like. These things have diminished morality but raised hopes of elevated prowess of humanity and have matured into the sciences.

The Real Thing

You hear it said “Believe in God or go to Hell”
That oversimplification falls a bit short. Many believe in God existing but still go to Hell. Satan believes in God’s existence. The thing is to believe about Jesus that He is and was (even much much longer ago than when He came) and died and lives forever because that will colour how you take His teachings such as His qualifications for what He says. Then holding to those teachings in the light of this.

Don’t Trivialise Baptism

Actually using baptism correctly to identify with Jesus Christ and indicate commitment to His teachings is powerfully beneficial in uniting the person so baptised with Jesus Christ. If that person then continues permanently to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ this unity is completed and the person so identified with Jesus is made part of Jesus. Now since Jesus is with the Father and spiritually in unity with the Father, blessed by the Father, pleasing to the Father, eternally living in the Father’s power, having purified sin by His death and having been raised to life once and for all by the Father, happily considered permanently Son of this Father, then yes, that is a blessed state of love to live with permanently and the Son continues that state by keeping you in good standing with the Father by corrected sins.

The Ongoing Gospel

Let the ongoing gospel story record what happens today in Jesus’ ongoing eternal life. How there are many He meets and how He teaches us miracle-working and faith. How He is still in the Father and the Father in Him and He in those of us who have Him as our teacher and we in Him. How the Holy Spirit builds us up and brings to us the mysteries Jesus knows and tells us the power of Lord Jesus Christ’s name in Nature. Have it include the workings of the Father in all this and His appearing to those of us who believe and His rebuking of sin and ongoing command to love Him with all our hearts and souls and strength and mind - and Voice. Have it include the ongoing judgments of the Father, God, in this world where His own people still sin despite all this and have to be monitored by the world’s surveillance systems. Yet those who know Him and fear Him are daily protected like in a fiery furnace by His angelic messenger so we are not destroyed. The gospel that began in the first century goes on and on forever.