Reaction to the lost gospels

Reaction to ”The Lost Gospels”


Who is Jesus Christ?

This may seem to be a trivial, uninteresting, boring question to some (or most perhaps). But to anyone who made statements like “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” “I and the Father are one.” “Your sins are forgiven.” “Before Abraham, I was.” and all those claims of divinity, one must seriously consider who that person really is. Was he just a liar for making such claims if he knew they weren’t true or a lunatic or was he simply saying the truth and therefore he is the Lord? 

I’ve read the four gospels in the New Testament already and I personally believe it with all my heart. Although I’m not a theologian or anything like that, I’m ready to make a defense of my faith, the very reason of my choice of existence.

The Gospels of Thomas, called Didymus, Peter, Philip and Mary Magdalene as well as the other gospels which were not presented in the documentary like gospel of Judas caught my attention. One thing is certain for those gospels: they existed. Therefore, the question regarding were they really authentic and not plagiarized should be answered truthfully. Of course, I, being a deeply-rooted believer of the Bible am expected to reject anything that is not in accordance with the teachings of the Bible, such as these gospels. 

I surfed through www.gotquestions.org and www.carm.org to have additional insights regarding these lost gospels. As expected, they (or we) regarded it as heretical. From what I’ve read, there weren’t proof that those were really authorized by Thomas, Philip and Mary Magdalene. Its first writings according to scholars were dated within 4th Century unlike the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John which were written between 50 AD and 100 AD, making the four gospels more reliable than the “lost gospels”. In addition to that, it wasn’t new to me to hear such documents for there were heresies from the start of Christianity.

I believe that the gospels in the New Testament are sufficient documents. I believe that the canonization of the books of the New Testament was guided by God and not for selfish gain of any man. Though we may never really know what exactly happened, we can choose which to believe. We are not historians and even if we were, I believe historical facts are not enough to build the foundation of our faith. I believe truth is one but falsehood is manifold. Truth is a mystery. Only those with hearts with dedication of knowing the truth will truly find it. As the LORD promised in Jeremiah 29:13-14 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD, and in Jeremiah 31:33-34 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

It’s encouraging and liberating to know that you can really know the truth but how difficult and confusing the journey of knowing it is so hard. For now, this is my reaction. There is so much I would like to share but little time to do it. As I conclude, I’d like to share my conviction- that I believe in Jesus Christ not because of the compelling reasons or evidences to believe it but because I believe the Spirit testifies to me that it is the truth.

I do pray that all those who want to know the truth will come to know Jesus Christ. For he himself has said, “I am the Truth.” From then on, we will embark the journey of knowing the truth.
-G

"Dinner is ready. Are you gonna eat or what?"

Normally every night, my mom would let me know if dinner is ready. (Aww.. i'm a grown man and still relying on mom's cooking. not cool.)

-Start of the story-

Mom: "Dinner is ready."

Me: "Alright. Thanks mom!" (Then i sing the "thank you mom" song, salamat nanay salamat nanay salamat nanay! lol)

and then we eat together.

-End of story.-

That was a very deep and powerful story wasn't it? Did you get the meaning behind that ordinary scene? Probably not. Let me help you understand:

"Dinner is ready."

A natural man would acknowledge that yes, there is God and he is content with that knowledge alone hoping that he will be saved in the end if ever there really is a judgment day. Maybe he has an idea that God is good and He will save him because after all, he believes he is good in his own standards at least. He kinda believes he is better than the sinners around him. He KNOWS THERE IS GOD AND IS CONTENT WITH THAT KNOWLEDGE ALONE. (No action involved, just knowledge that there is God.)

..and then we eat together...

A natural man, since being content of the knowledge of existence of God (existence of food) will normally not seek God (eat the food)  and understand what the existence of God really means in his day to day life and he's ok with that.  Again, it is because HE IS CONTENT, DOES NOT WANT ANY CHANGE IN HIS LIFE. (You know what i'm saying? He's just chilling.) 

In the same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead.- James 2:17

Now, what good is the food if we didn't eat it? It's useless. If I keep on being content of the idea that there is food and not eat it all the rest of my life, I will die soon. If I acted like the natural man, how would I get physical nourishment? In the same way, how can we be nourished spiritually if we don't eat the spiritual food? How can we be nourished if we don't seek God and understand Him through His Word? (Yes His Word I said because He talks.)

Aren't all humans from one Creator? Regardless of anyone's belief, it does not change the truth. The Master Jesus Christ Himself said, 

"It is written: 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4:4,  Deut 8:3)

Through the sense of hearing (mom told me dinner is ready) i believe the food is served. Through the sense of sight, i see the food. Through the sense of taste, I taste it and get nourishment out from it. Similarly,logically or through mental understanding, we see creation everywhere which means there is a Creator. Spiritually, He will help us understand who He is and what nourishment He can bring to us.

This is my prayer to everyone who is reading this:

 "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may KNOW HIM BETTER. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people," 

-Ephesians 1:17-18

He who has ears to hear, let them hear.

Yes God exists my friend, but that knowledge alone is not enough. Wisdom is supreme, therefore get wisdom. (Proverbs 4:7) 

Eat that food alright? ;)

What shall we do then? Well, the question is simply, "Dinner is ready. Are you gonna eat or what?" 

nice haircut!

"Nice haircut!"
I recently (and finally) got a haircut and some people complimented me for that.
I thanked them and said "Yeah, my barber did a really good job on my hair. He's cool."
I feel good about my haircut but very thankful to my barber for what he's done.

"You're such a good, nice man, Gi." Some people would say.
I thanked them and said, "Yeah, God is doing a really good job fixing my sinful character. He's cool."
People would think I am religious for saying that. That ends our conversation because I mentioned God.

It makes sense to me that eternity is man's choice. It's pretty much the product of our choice here on earth. Don't want God in your life right now? Then that's what you get in eternity.
Want God in your life right now? Then that's what you get in eternity.

"We're gonna have a very bad snow soon."
Great. That's totally inconvenient. So what should I do? Sleep and hope it's not gonna happen? Sleeping won't change the upcoming snow so it is with our meeting with Our Creator when this dreamlike temporal life is over.

Call me Jesus Freak for sharing my faith. I'm cool with that. But please understand that my confidence is not in my own thinking but in Christ alone. I am concerned most deeply with the fate of human soul more than anything physical or temporary. I pray that your understanding will be opened my unbelieving friend. Truth sets us free from the thinking that we are right just because we think we are.

Questions, violent reactions, objections are always welcome. My Master was mocked, ridiculed, laughed at when He walked this earth. It just makes sense to me if the same thing will happen to me if I  follow Him. And hey, I'm cool with that. "Father, forgive them for they don't know what they are doing."
It's not right to hate someone if you really don't know who they are.

Real men read Bible???

I just wanna address the posts saying "Real men read the Bible."
Really? So if I don't read the Bible I am not a real man?

I won't let the focus of reading the Bible be swayed away. We read the Bible or written word of God to know the Living Word, who is Jesus. Our love for God is equal to our love for His Word. Let us not make this fancy just to make ourselves feel better than the nonbelievers.

With all respect my religious brothers, I believe it would be better if we stop saying "Real men read Bible". As adopted children of God, we are to attract all men to Christ and not push them away by saying in our heart that we are better than anyone.

How can we be better than anyone? Did we not receive Jesus free? His salvation, His grace,  His love, His wisdom and all those gifts He is freely giving by grace? How can we boast about it?

We don't follow God to make ourselves feel better than anyone. Instead, we are humbled because we were once under the autthority of our corrupted thinking and now under Christ, who loves us and is willingly sharing His Divine mind with us.

We don't share Christ to make people morally upright. That's cute but we share Christ because all of us are dead spiritually and in need of Savior and again reading the Bible draws us closer to Christ.

So please, simply stay focused in Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.  Don't give room for pride in your heart.

Real lovers of Jesus read the Bible. Period.

OMFG!!!

OMFG! Oh my Father God in Heaven, teach us how to treat your Name with all respect and love we can possibly give because you are more than deserving of that. Thank you for the life you have given us. Thank you for your neverending mercy even though we don't acknowledge You as much as we should.

"You must not misuse the name of the LORD your God. The LORD will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name."- Exodus 20:7

Confidence

I have a friend who built himself a chair from scratch. I was surprised cuz you know, we usually don't build chairs. Right?
So I was impressed cuz it looked well built and sturdy enough just by itself, with no one sitting on it.

So I asked him how he built it and if it's strong enough for me to sit on it. But he told me "Well, you know you can build your own chair." So I asked him if he could sit on it instead because I just want to make sure how strong it is but he said something like "oh well it's just a chair. I don't really sit on it that much."
I was a little confused about the strength of the chair and so it seemed untested and not strong. I'm not confident to sit on it.

What is the story about?

Like what I said, we normally don't make chairs from scratch right? Cuz we just buy them at store and trust  that it is strong enough to hold our weight. We normally don't make chairs and if we do, we might most likely have the tendency of building a weak one.

So it is kinda like the truth. We don't make "our truth". Faith is about putting your trust on what we believe is true. Everyday we exercise faith- we have faith that the alarm clock will wake us up in the morning, faith that our car's engine will work and take us to work even though we don't know how the car's engine operates exactly. Our daily lives are filled with faith, not necessarily religious or faith in God.

Now, faith does not change anything. I mean, it only concentrates on what is already there. We have faith that microwave will warm our food because a microwave is designed to do that. If we have faith that our food will get frozen when we put it in the microwave, no matter how hard you convince yourself that it's going to happen, it's not going to happen.

So what we should do with faith? We should put our faith on what is true, secure, strong and trustworthy and that is the Word of God, which is the Bible, written Word or Jesus Christ who is the Living Word. (John 1:14)

Like the chair, we have no confidence if we build it ourselves, in fact, we don't necessarily have to build our own chair. We can buy a chair and trust that the maker that it's strong and reliable.

We don't have to make our own beliefs or truths. That's dangerous. We just need to focus and trust on what's already there and that is the Word of God.

Having said this, I welcome you to the group "Confidence."

Jeremiah 17:7 says "Blessed is the person who trusts the LORD. The LORD will be his confidence."

Together, we will learn more about God through our Lord Jesus Christ and as we know Him deeper, we become more and more confident in Him.

Please feel free to interact, invite people and encourage other believers in this group. God bless you guys.

I pray that your faith will not fail.

My friends, I pray that your faith will not fail.

Let your thinking be soaked with God's Word. The Word is so powerful that God spoke and everything came into existence. (Scientists call it Big Bang. Fine, but what provoked or started the Big Bang? Science or our study of things answers the question how and our faith and understanding of who God is answers the question why. Science, if understood from the right perspective gives the undeniable evidence of an intelligent Designer. Therefore, science is in the side of God.)

Talk to God endlessly my friends. Pray for one another. We all desperately need the help from one another, unless you are proud and you think you are strong enough by yourself.

"The one concern of the Devil is to keep the saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayer-less studies, prayer-less work, prayer-less religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.” - Samuel Chadwick

"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel,"
-Ephesians 6:18-19