The Test Of A True Or False Christian

1 Timothy 6:2-3 BSB
“3 If anyone teaches another doctrine and disagrees with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and with godly teaching, 4 he is conceited and understands nothing. Instead, he has an unhealthy interest in controversies and semantics, out of which come envy, strife, abusive talk, evil suspicions”

The test of a genuine Christian is in what they believe, teach, and preach. If they adhere to another doctrine, alienated from that which Christ preached, and reject the core and fundamental message of the gospel with the rest of the New Testament, it reveals their spiritual condition. Tread lightly from such people, or they may entrap your soul with deceptive words.

Advertisement

The Importance Of Reading The Scriptures In Context

5 And the disciples came to the other side of the sea, but they had forgotten to bring any bread. 6 And Jesus said to them, “Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 7 They began to discuss this among themselves, saying, “He said that because we did not bring any bread.” -Matthew 16:5-7

What happened to Jesus’ disciples can happen to any one of us if we don’t see the context of what we are either reading or hearing something being explained to us. Jesus was teaching His disciples to be careful of the Pharisees’ false teachings through their traditions that they added to the Scriptures. Jesus’ followers didn’t pay attention that He was talking about religious leader’s teaching which automatically makes the word leaven to be spiritual and not literal. Now, if the person Jesus was talking about were in the business of baking bread, then we can conclude that he would mean literal bread, but since the men were spiritual leaders, it makes the word spiritual as well. That is how context works.

Jesus clarifies their misunderstanding and says…“11 How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you about bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 12 Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” -Matthew 16:11-12

Apart from the Holy Spirit living inside of a person to understand the Scripture, context is essential to know the meaning of words and phrases. Without context, you can cause the line to tangle up, making a mess. What you will get is whatever you want the Scriptures to say. That is very dangerous as you can cause people to believe in false doctrine, having a part in sending them to hell for all eternity.

This is how context works. Let’s say that I put a cup of water in front of you. The water inside the cup is measured half way. I precede to ask the following. Is the cup of water half full or half empty? What answer would you give? One would say half empty and the other half full. No one will know exactly the right answer. Why? because there is no context to the question. Sometimes when we are reading the Scriptures, we can come to a verse or verses that might seem hard to get the correct meaning of it.

The first thing to do is to pray to the Lord for understanding and the second thing is to ask certain questions about the passage you are having a hard time getting like I need to know the meaning of this word in the original language? Why did he say this or that? What is the back story to this verse? Many questions to ponder. If the verses above or below the passage you are trying to understand is not made clear, then you have to go back a chapter or maybe two to get the whole story behind the verse you want to understand.

So, let’s get the context behind the cup of water that is half filled. If the cup was full and half of it was emptied, you can rightly say, it is half empty. Now, if the cup was empty and someone filled it half way, you can say, it is half full.The context will give you the right answer. That is what you have to do when you are studying the Scriptures.

Being Followed By New Age People—Satan’s tactic (Part 1)

I have noticed that many New Agers are following my blog and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are following other Christians’ blogs as well. The question becomes, if they believe in the opposite, why do they click like on a Christian post? I say this because I had a discourse with one named 1On1Wisdom and the moment I told her that she needed Jesus Christ for salvation, mind you, this woman is the one who decided to follow me, she responded like this: “Lol is this a scam because you sound like a scam…. Jesus n God isn’t found in a church where it was built using materials from the physical world that God didn’t want us to follow in the first place.”

Do you see how deceived this woman is? Now, if she felt this way, why follow me? I think I might know the answer. The devil is putting his people in Christian blogs to click like so that others who read the post of the believers might, out of curiosity, click on their icon to deceive them.

1On1Wisdom continues to say…“The bible has been changed n twisted.” Now we see why people end up believing in New Age fairy tales. In 2 Corinthians 4:4 tells you why, “In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

The “god of this age” refers to Satan. The devil has blinded this woman’s mind to believe that the lie is the truth and the truth is the lie—getting everything backwards. The moment the devil makes you believe that the Bible has errors, it will take you into deep darkness.

She continues to say…“The real truths to life is inside of one. God is in you and apart of you.” The New Age religion teaches that you are God, just like the serpent told Eve in Genesis 3:5 which says “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Satan got Eve to eat from the forbidden fruit by telling her that she can become like God, or better yet, that she can become her own god—no longer having a need for the LORD. That is Satan’s tactic.

“I definitely gotta unfollow you.” This quote from 1On1Wisdom is pretty interesting—I have actually had to delete many New Agers from following me as their icon’s description was way too blatant—promoting demonic worship. I have a New Ager that after deleting them from following me, they continue to refollow me. This happened more than 10 times, with the same person. I think that Satan has an agenda and we as Christians need to be careful who we allow to follow us because they can bring your readers to believe in Satan’s lie through your post. That is how slick Satan is, using your own post to deceive people by clicking on their icons.

Now, this next statement of hers is so demonic that you will understand what is in the hearts of the New Age people. “Plus the church worships n uses the cross… The very thing that should be hated bec it was used to shame n torture Jesus for saving us bec the world thinks he is so crazy.” Here, the woman has come to a point in her life to hate the very thing (the cross) that paid for her sins if she would accept it. Satan has convinced her to detest the love of God for us as stated in John 3:16 which says “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus loves us so much that He chose to die for our sins so that we may have a chance to have our sins forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ. The cross is a symbol of Jesus’ love for humanity, but Satan turns it in people’s heart into hatred so that they won’t come to Jesus for salvation.

This will be the end of Part 1. I will continue tomorrow with more of her quotes, to go through them and expose Satan’s plans.

My brothers, be very careful because just like Judas who was planted by Satan in Jesus’ circle, so will he plant his people in your circle to undermine your ministry—deceiving people by association.