Censorshipis the suppression or prohibition of any part of the original work or information. Censorship when used positively is used to protect innocence, and when used negatively it is used to control or manipulate. While censorship may be wise when it comes to movies, television or music for entertainment by parents to protect their children, it is not needed when it comes to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
You might be thinking, only those who aren’t believers would want to censor the gospel, but that is not true. Many who are devoted to God have been in the practice of censoring the gospel for thousands of years and it continues today.
Pharisees = Fair-I-Sees
Those who rejected the pure and true message of of the gospel which is God’s Grace 2000 years ago were the Pharisees and those who reject the message of Grace today are the “Fair-I-Sees.”
Most of those who proclaim Christ understand and teach that there’s nothing you can do to save yourself. No works. Only the blood of Jesus. It is a Grace gift.
We are saved by Grace through Faith. (Ephesians 2:8) He paid for all of your sins in your past and gives you eternal life.
This is absolutely correct information! Only it’s not all of the information! The rest of the information, the rest of the truth of the gospel, is that not only did Jesus pay for your yesterdays, but he paid for your present and your future too. He not only paid for the sins you already committed, but the ones you will commit today, tomorrow, and 30 years from now as well. His righteousness is a gift to you for your past, your present, and your future. (Romans 5:17)
See Pharisees 2000 years ago didn’t like that this gospel put them on equal playing ground with the other Jews (and heaven forbid Gentiles), and now Fair-I-Sees today don’t like that it puts them on equal playing ground with everyone who hasn’t “worked” as hard to be holy as they have!
It just doesn’t seem fair. And the truth is it’s not fair.
It’s not fair that we inherited sin. The sin that Adam committed was handed down to us before we even did one thing. (Romans 5:12) That’s not fair. But what is infinitely more unfair than that is the fact that Jesus paid the price for all of my sin. He didn’t sin once, yet He paid the price that I owed. He gave His righteousness to me. I inherited His gift of righteousness by Grace through faith. It’s so unfair. Beautifully and Abundantly unfair! (Romans 5:15) Thank You Jesus!
The Pharisees and the Fair-I-Sees today can’t rest in the fact that Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice for sin once for all time and that there is never anything we have to do to please God. Once in union with Him, He works in and through us as we are at rest with our eyes fixed on Jesus – The Author (Creator, Starter) and finisher of our faith. (Hebrews 12:2) See, He is the One doing the work in us.
The true power and flow of the Holy Spirit is Him working in and through you without any striving or trying. It’s what you can’t help but do. You do it because of who you are – your identity in Christ. You are in union with Him. Of course, good works will happen through you. That’s what the Holy Spirit does.
To teach that Jesus paid for your past sins but now you have to “work” (do things) to please God, “earn” His favor, or “get right” with God is a false gospel. It’s simply not true. It’s based out of fear and manipulation. It’s an insult to the cross as though Jesus didn’t do a good enough job or His blood didn’t quite pay for your constant right-standing with God. (As if there is anything you could ever do to “earn” those things).
The idea that we can manipulate God to force a certain preferred outcome is preposterous. But unfortunately, many Christian churches and communities teach that if you do certain things (pray, read Bible, lay hands, serve, fast, tithe, speak in tongues) that you will “earn” God’s favor or your desired outcome in a situation. This is an underlying belief that when you earn His favor, He will do what you want. That is not practicing faith, that is practicing magic. That is the opposite of faith.
Believing that what you do can earn God’s favor and achieve a desired result from Him is boiling God’s goodness down to a spell released by formulas or potions. No wonder the lost don’t want any part of it. What is the difference? They can go practice magic instead of jumping through these proposed “God hoops.” What a sad portrayal of our loving Father.
This wrong view of God also suggests that it’s possible to “earn” things from Him. It puts Him in the perceptive role of employer! An employer is contractually required to pay an employee what they are owed once services are rendered. At that point in the contract, the employer is indebted to the employee – meaning the employee is “one up” on the employer until payment is rendered.
What a sad and distorted view of our God. Not only sad and distorted, but completely false.
God is never indebted to us. We have never “earned” (as if we ever could) our approval or blessing wages that He is “required” to give us in response to what we do.
No, No, No. Jesus did it all. All the work was done by Him. His sinless life and sacrifice on the Cross was perfect and complete. It is a finished work. We don’t need to, and couldn’t even if we tried, add anything to it – ever.
When we freely let the Holy Spirit work through us good works come out, but God loves us and is at perfect peace with us all the time (even when we mess up) because of the blood of Jesus.
When our old thoughts and flesh get in the way and the Holy Spirit is blocked from working through us in that moment and we sin, God still loves us just the same and is at perfect peace with us still because of the blood of Jesus alone.
That is faith in Christ and what He did for us. To believe that you have do good to stay right with God is placing your faith in your faith.
Does God get mad at us? No – All of His wrath for all of our sin was poured out at the cross. God did get mad at sin. Very mad. And Jesus stepped in and took the punishment of all the wrath for all time. It’s already been paid for. He didn’t save any wrath for you or for me.
So, is God ok with me sinning? Of Course not. He knows that sin hurts us and those around us. He calls us instead to run to His open arms and rest in Him rather than running down a path of sin. But all of our sins are and have been paid for. He’s not mad at you when you sin, He’s calling you back to His loving arms.
Once in Christ, sin no longer separates us from Him because of the price that Jesus paid – Nothing can separate us from His love. (Romans 8:39)
Most churches and preachers are scared to preach these truths. The truth of the pure and naked gospel and the freedom that comes with it. Why? Because they don’t trust you to not sin. And they can’t manipulate you to do what they want you to do. In actuality they don’t trust the Holy Spirit in you. They don’t trust that the Holy Spirit will give you wisdom and discernment. They don’t trust that the Holy Spirit will live out His good works through you that God prepared in advance for you to do. (Ephesians 2:10) They think you (who is in union with Christ) will choose a life devoted to sin. Absurd. The Bible tells us that once in Christ we have died to sin and are alive in Him. (Romans 6:11)
Let me give you two scenarios:
Scenario Number 1:
Preacher gives you a list of rules ( or a “life-giving” preacher gives you a list of “practical steps”):
– You try hard to obey/do them.
– Often times you exhibit good works that reflect Christ.
– Sometimes you mess up.
When you do good, you feel good about yourself and pat yourself on the back. You view God and others as pleased with you. When you mess up you feel guilt, shame and condemnation. You feel like God and others are disappointed with you (or that others would be, if they only knew what you did). You feel like a failure and try really hard to do better next time.
Sound familiar? Pretty exhausting, right?!
Scenario Number 2:
Preacher gives you a list of rules (or a “life-giving” preacher gives you a list of “practical steps”):
– You look to Jesus and rest in Him.
– Often times you exhibit good works that reflect Christ.
– Sometimes you mess up.
When you do good, you praise God for working in you. You view God as pleased with you and you know that’s the only opinion that truly matters. When you mess up you look to Jesus and thank Him for paying for your sin on the cross. You still view God as pleased with you because of the blood of Jesus and you release others freely to their own opinions. You rest in the confidence of knowing that your Daddy in Heaven sees you as perfect and you trust that the Holy Spirit will continue to reflect Christ through you.
Which scenario does God want us operating in? Which scenario does the enemy want us operating in? Which scenario do you most often operate in?
(Before you feel guilty- and please don’t; there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus -let’s evaluate why)
The reason we operate in the first scenario is because we’ve been taught to. We haven’t been taught the rest of the Gospel. The whole Gospel in its pure entirety brings rest.
The problem is that a partial gospel focuses on you and your works. It tells you that you received the blood of Jesus to cover your past sins and get you into heaven, but from now on you have to work really hard to be good and do good.
The whole gospel, the pure, naked, uncensored, truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that He did and still does all of the work. We place our trust in Him.
The finished work of the cross teaches us that we all need a Savior and that once we accept His Grace Gift by Faith, our past, present, and future sins have been paid for! We are in constant “right-standing” with God earned only by the blood of Jesus. Period. (Not the blood plus my good works, not even the blood plus my confession of sins.) Only my confession of His blood making Him my Savior plus Nothing – Forever.
So what is the difference in the two scenarios?
The difference is Peace. The difference is Rest. The difference is your understanding of the Gospel and your view of God and yourself. In both scenarios we are talking about believers. In both scenarios we reflect Christ and mess up. In scenario one you have a works focus which leads to lack of peace and rest. In scenario two you have a Christ focus and enjoy His peace and rest in your life. In scenario two you have a true understanding of the uncensored Gospel.
The question: do you have a works focus or do you have a Christ focus? This focus affects how you see God, how you see yourself, how you read scripture, how you view others, and how you view your circumstances. It literally affects everything in your life.
Paul calls Christians with an incorrect focus: focus on self and self works, carnal Christianity. (1 Corinthians 3:1) Still Worldly – still viewing righteousness as the world views it – by earning it through good deeds and disciplines and avoiding bad deeds and disciplines.
I lived a carnal Christian life for over 30 years without knowing it. I deeply and passionately loved and served the Lord, His people, and my church wholeheartedly, but the entire time I was living in scenario number 1 until the scales fell from my eyes. (It was my moment like Paul in Acts 9:18)
The scales didn’t fall until I got to a point that I was too exhausted from the cycle and cried out to the Lord to show me what I wasn’t getting. I asked Him to show me why I wasn’t experiencing the REST that He speaks of in Matthew 11:28. When I cried out, He showed me the uncensored Gospel.
If you aren’t exhausted yet (or won’t admit that you are) then you will probably argue against all that I am saying and could give Biblical arguments to the contrary which I’m sure would be backed with plenty of out-of-context scripture. The problem with using scripture to back up your argument is that often times, one can twist and manipulate scripture to make any point they want. If you don’t study the context of the scripture, who it was written by and to whom they were speaking at the time and why, you can actually make scripture say anything you want.
Once the Lord opened my eyes to the truth, He showed me things in scripture that I had read a million times but had never really seen. Things in scripture that before I could see, I would have probably been using to argue against teaching such as this. But once He opened my eyes, He taught me how to study scripture for the true and deeper meaning, it’s origins, and verb tenses and how that affects the meaning and gets lost in some translations. Most of all, He taught me that all scripture points to Jesus. Jesus is the Living Word. (John 1:1) All scripture is to be seen through Him and His work on the Cross (Not to be seen through a lens of what we need to do – that is works focus).
Trying to read scripture without viewing it through Jesus is like trying to read an encrypted code without its cipher. Jesus is our cipher for all scripture as He is The Word That Became Flesh. (John 1:14)
If you want to argue with this teaching, then this teaching is not for you yet! Just hold on and hang tight…You’re not quite ready. This teaching is not intended for those who are happy in a works-based theology. It is not for those who are focused on “excellence” and a leadership gospel. It will be offensive to those who want to argue that even once we are in Christ that sin still separates us from God, or that God expects us to behave, or is pleased with us when we do or don’t do certain things! It will also offend those who think it’s possible to get “closer” to a God that we are already in union with. It will offend all those who prefer a performance-based relationship with God in order that they may maintain some control in the relationship.
No, this teaching is not for anyone like that….yet. This teaching is for those who are ready to give up. Give up on performance, give up on religion, and give up on themselves – their own strength and ability.
This teaching is for those who are ready to Surrender to a life filled with the Love, Joy, Peace and Freedom that only Christ brings through the entire, pure, unfiltered, Uncensored Truth of His Gospel.
If that is you, I pray that the scales fall from your eyes too (Acts 9:18) and you see your loving Father and the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as pure and as good as they truly are.
On your journey consider this…
On your journey consider this…
The biggest hinderance to the Truth of the Gospel is everything that religion and religious people have attached to it. In its true and pure form, His Love and Grace is irresistible to those in need of Love and Grace.
“May your journey bring freedom and your mind be ever renewed to His truth!” – Angel
Journey to Grace Land 