After reading a passage of Scripture have you ever been accosted with wild and strange thoughts that contradict your beliefs and training? Let me give you some examples. I will quote the passage and then mention the thoughts that may have come to your mind, (with tongue in cheek blurbs from me).
PASSAGE
Matthew 5:6
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
THOUGHTS
It is possible for me to actually hunger and thirst after righteousness.
(crazy ain't it? but if you ask God, maybe He will forgive you for thinking heretically),
Jesus was saying that I could actually be filled with righteousness.
(reckon where these thoughts come from)?
People who want to be and expect to be righteous are BLESSED OF GOD.
(don't get carried away now).
PASSAGE
Matthew 5:8
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
THOUGHTS
It is possible to be pure in heart.
(you know that can't be right, right)?
But Jesus said it is possible.
(yes, but what did He really mean)?
PASSAGE
Matthew 5:16
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
THOUGHTS
But I can not do good works.
(yeah, hold on to that thought, what does Jesus know, anyway)?
PASSAGE
Matthew 5:48
48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
THOUGHTS
No one can be perfect.
(well, He was talking about PERFECT IN LOVE, but it is all the same. Jesus just got carried away. He was preaching here, not really telling the truth).
But He said perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.
(see, you know that can't be right, it goes against your training, your beliefs and the teaching of your HEROS IN THEOLOGY... but it still bugs you, doesn't it)?
PASSAGE
Matthew 6:15
15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
THOUGHTS
This sounds like a condition, but I know it cannot be, or I know it cannot apply to me, or I know that it cannot mean what it says.
(yeah, sure wished these confusing verses were not in the Bible).
But this implies "works salvation."
(too bad Jesus wasn't more precise and accurate in His teaching, like the great Bible teachers that explain this passage away).
WELL, IT GOES ON AND ON AND ON.
Don't be drawn into sinning religion, as Eve was. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul said,
2 Corinthians 11:2-4
2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
I just thought I would address some passages that get explained away by sinning religion. I don't really explain the passages as much as I mock the foolishness in denying what the Bible actually says. You know me. I kind of approach things a little differently.
