IT’S ALL GOOD NEWS – The Great Mystery – Chapter 1

 

THE GREAT MYSTERY – Chapter 1

 

WARNING: Enter at your own risk. If you will, read, pray and meditate on the words of Jesus from the book of Matthew, chapter five, and absorb them into your mind, soul and spirit, then you may begin to experience a transformation, which at times will be exhilarating and at other times may be some of the most bewildering and difficult days of your life.

This experience has been, inadequately called, by many theologians and Bible teachers, ‘the process of sanctification’. (The process of making or becoming holy, set apart, sanctification, holiness, consecration; the believer being progressively transformed by the Lord into His likeness, and the similarity of His nature.) And, indeed, it is. But when you make this personal, it becomes much more.

Yet, herein lies the source of this great mystery. It requires we take a great journey which will take us back in time. We will travel back over 2,700 years to find the first words written about this greatest of mysteries. But the Bible says it existed long before that time. That it has always existed.

It is good to know about this oracle, but even better if you can discover it for yourself. Just knowing about it, however, can be of little use unless you know what to do with it – and then only if you actually do something.

One of the central obstacles to finding and deciphering this mystery is that it is indeed a mystery!. Its secrets are only revealed by God and only to those who are His own and who are spiritually minded. It has been stumbled across by many people, but understanding and applying this mystery to one’s life is the most difficult undertaking. This mystery and its power, with a few exceptions, have been almost universally misinterpreted, misunderstood, and misapplied.

Many people have tried to make sense of this mystery throughout the centuries, but by way of their own contemporary lens or paradigm. So, using their humanist viewpoint, many have come close, but most have failed.

Undeterred however, religious people have endeavored to codify this mystery into their own theologies, (studies of God), with their own doctrines, confessions, creeds, catechisms and liturgies. They have reformulated the Words contained in this Mystery, and restated them to fit their particular views. They have argued among themselves about it all and have started wars over its meaning. And there have been divisions and splits or schisms resulting in the creation of over 45,000 different Christian denominations, (see Wikipedia.com), each with their own set of values and practices ranging from those which are similar to those that hold weird and vastly opposing views.

Jesus, however, clearly taught and demonstrated the way to correctly appropriate, and to be appropriated by, this mysterious transforming power. He personally trained, equipped and sent eleven men into the world to propagate this message, to teach its mysteries and to submit themselves to its amazing powers. But almost from the beginning of this great commission to take this message to the world, it was being blurred and then was muddled into man’s view of what Jesus must have really meant.

Please know that I am certain that the efforts of many good people to understand and to spread this message of Good News were, and are, sincere and well-intentioned.

But the sad results we are dealing with are that people who are claiming the name of Christ are more divided than ever in their biases and their prejudices. They have become what the Bible describes as lawless and cold toward one another, lovers of self, greedy lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. And this is within the Church!

The only distinction from many churches and any other social event is that in some churches, you might hear a sermon or see bulletins lying around which reference upcoming religious activities.

It seems to have come to the point that Christians are little different from the pagans of the world! So what chance is there of transforming the world around us?

Yet, despite these things, there is Good News. Hidden within the clamor of pseudo-religious beliefs and practices, there still lies this mystery. One could say it remains hidden in plain sight. It is ever-present, waiting to be discovered or re-discovered. And, when you encounter this mystery, there will be no doubt that you have found “the treasure hidden within the field”, “the pearl of great price”. Its radiance is greater than the brightest star, and its difference is that of the day from the night. You will have found the source of the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control you have been seeking.

So, how do you begin your search for this mysterious and wonderful power? Jesus put it best when He said you must first “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is now at hand”.

If your life is absent the permanent and continuous flow of the fruit of the Spirit, you must repent, for the kingdom of heaven is now at hand.

If your life is missing out on the works that Jesus did, and even greater works of teaching and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, healing all kinds of sickness and diseases, you must repent, for the kingdom of heaven is now at hand.

If you are living in loneliness, fear, doubt, lack and want, then you must repent, for the kingdom of heaven is now at hand.

If you and your behaviors are “friendly” with the world but at odds with the Words and Teachings of Jesus, you must repent, for the kingdom of heaven is now at hand.

Jesus is saying that you must begin by willingly and purposefully turning away from your current and closely held opinions and “religious belief systems” that do not align with those of Jesus the Christ. You must be able to honestly admit that what you have thought and practiced to this point is a failure. You must ‘deny yourself of your worldly attitude and dispose of your current ways of thinking and acting’, and start anew. This, however, is the reason most people who are being held by a religious spirit will not be able to discover this mystery nor can they understand it.

Additionally, you must know that you will find It only when you search for It with all your heart. You must search ‘like a deer, when it is dying of thirst, will search for water’.

Even then, it usually takes a crisis of some sort to bring a person to the point of surrendering to this process of discovery. So don’t be surprised or dismayed if that crisis occurs during your search. In fact, this anticipated crisis is actually part of God’s preparing you and enabling you to submit yourself to God and to receive.  Please see “The Sermon On The Mount”.)

You must come to realize that this greatest of mysteries is only to be found within the person of Jesus Christ. And, the one who comes to Him must believe that He exists, and it is only then that He will prove to be the One Who rewards those who seek Him. (see Jeremiah 29:12-13 and Hebrew 11:6).

Once again, I tell you that this will be especially difficult for the person who has been inculcated with a contemporary, modern or postmodern view of Christianity. So, don’t lose heart as God strips away these layers of old religious varnish.

Your Brother and Friend,

Mike Young.

NEXT: It Is (coming soon). All Good News – Chapter 2 – THE WILDERNESS

PREVIOUS: IT’S ALL GOOD NEWS – An Introduction.

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