God is sovereign. Is humanity sovereign as well? We are made in his image and likeness. How about when we become Christian? Do we become sovereign or free agents to do whatever we will?

God created angels as sovereign beings. He gave them wisdom that Satan had corrupted. God gave the angels a light that differs from the stars in the sky that Satan uses to deceive man. God gave incredible power to the angels and then zipped them up to do his will, but they do the will of Satan. After the angels came man. Some translations read a man was created a little lower than the angels or a little lower than God.

Man was created lower than God and the angels. This man was not given the wisdom, light, or power that angels were. This man wasn't given anything except the opportunity to grow into the image and likeness of God and someday be exalted to sit on the throne with Jesus. This man was created as an empty vessel to be filled with whatever he allowed. Be careful how you hear because it is what you will become if you accept it. Loose and bind accordingly.

The man brought nothing into this world. There is nothing we have that we didn't receive. We haven't anything to boast about. Maybe the scripture where an angel asked God, 'Who is the man that you walk with him?' was a little jealous; after all, angels were created much more spectacular than man. We were created from the dust of the earth and the breath of God.

We are saved by Christ alone. We have our doctrine correct, but our message is not Christ alone. We add a lot of water to Jesus to dilute the true gospel because we can't or won't drink the cup of suffering that goes along with the consecrated life of a disciple. Like Andy Stanley, who has the correct doctrine of a marriage between one man and one woman, but his fruit bears LGBTQ+ meetings in his church, so goes much of the church in the Western world; biblically sound statement but a tree that is not producing the fruit of the spirit or true seed-bearing disciples of Christ. Jesus claimed He is the true vine for a reason.

Christ alone is the truth, but we don't preach Jesus crucified in our churches. We preach a message mixed with whatever itching ears of people we wish to influence. Our Jesus has become a Barbie Jesus. A different Jesus that fits our crowd. A political Barbie Jesus, a social justice Barbie Jesus, a country club Barbie Jesus, a new age Barbie Jesus, a group therapy Barbie Jesus, and even a Barbie goes to Hollywood Jesus.

Last week, the church had another wrinkle and spot on her wedding gown. There was a fallout between two ministers at the 'Stronger Men's Conference.' I'm not taking sides of either because my point doesn't have to deal with the ministers but rather the state of what we call the church. I don't understand why Jesus isn't enough for a man to be strong enough that we need to include Vegas entertainment in a Christian conference. There is plenty of time in a week to see a clean Vegas event. Why must we upsell Jesus after an entertaining event or whatever else we can conceive?

Unless we hate our father and mother, brothers and sisters, and our own life, we can't be disciples of Jesus Christ. We can't be his disciples unless we take up our cross and follow Him. It is not a problem in the modern-day church where manmade doctrines of salvation without discipleship rule the day. I call it the thief on the cross theology: ask Jesus to remember you with your last dying breath, and you will be saved. Not everyone is moved to repent on their deathbed. Today is the day of salvation, maybe not tomorrow. No one can come to the Son unless the Spirit draws him. How often one has quenched the spirit or the knock at the door will determine our dying words.

Why become a disciple if it is optional and has a prerequisite of losing one's life to find it? Why not lower the cost and take the easier bronze package? Leave the silver and gold packages for extra credit and the overachievers. There are no different classes of Christians, only the poor in spirit.

Eternal life is free for those who believe Jesus paid it all. But discipleship seems to be the cost of leaving the gang life we were born into. To follow Jesus means to be crucified with Him and resurrected with Him. Freedom always carries a cost. Jesus paid for the new life, and we are paying the cost of disposing of the flesh called living the crucified life. Both are by grace through faith.

"I have my issues with Jesus," West began during the interview, which lasted for over an hour. "There's a lot of stuff I went through, and I prayed, and I ain't see Jesus show up."

https://www.christianpost.com/news/kanye-west-says-he-has-issues-with-jesus-im-god.html

Countless Christians worldwide think quietly like Kayne West recently said about Jesus, God, and himself. I can see the silent agreement and nods permeate the atmosphere. Issues with Jesus and Jesus don't come through.

I give people a lot of grace when it comes to communication. You have to say something repeatedly for me to assume you know what you are saying. And sometimes, once if you are articulate and brass. The quote above I give Mr. West room to explain. Maybe he is frustrated like many Christians get when they find out Jesus is Lord and they are not, which leads to the second quote from Mr. West that I don't give a pass.

'Cause I'm God," he said when asked about his success in the music industry and how he hasn't "disappeared." "And anyone who wants to disagree, I'm the God of me. You can't tell me who I am. I can't tell y'all. I could tell y'all. It's your job to listen. I'm the God of me. I don't know if I'm in heaven already." – Kayne West.

Mr. West seems to have revoked Jesus from being Lord in his life and has returned like a dog to his vomit, thinking he is god, at least thinking he is god over himself. And that is the quiet part out loud. I have no bone to pick with Mr. West; he has never been part of my world. But I hear and see what he said in the Christian world all the time, just not out loud. I do think Mr. West had an authentic encounter with Jesus. Mr. West has suffered a common Christian failure found in 1 Timothy 3. A new convert should not be given a place of leadership because of their wealth, place in society, talent, or communication skills. A time of discipleship in humility is required lest one falls into the same condemnation as the devil.

The hashtag #ChristisKing is making waves in the online world of social media. Some people who are using it are being called anti-semantic. I have checked some posts, and they might be. But most who are using the hashtag are confessing their faith in the resurrected Jesus as Lord of lords and King of kings.

The controversy mostly centers around Candice Owens and Ben Sharpio. I will let you search it out if you want to know. But my issue is with the devil and his ability to gaslight Christians. From the Garden, God has set life and death before us and given us the keys of the kingdom to choose life. Our adversary, the devil, who likes to co-opt the principles of God and use them for evil, is doing just that in the #ChristisKing controversy.

The devil sets before us death and death, giving us a sense of autonomy, and doesn't care about our choice because they both lead to death—more on this in a future newsletter.

Is Christ King? Well, that depends on who you are and the timing of God. We are celebrating Passion Week this week, and 'Christ is King' was the issue when Jesus took up His cross and died to take away the sins of the world. The governor Pilot didn't want to judge Jesus for the charges that the Jews accused of Him. Jesus was accused of blasphemy for claiming to be God and could rebuild the temple in three days. Pilot answered the Jews to judge him themselves because it wasn't a Roman issue. But the Jews then claimed Jesus said He was a king and was going to overthrow the Roman empire. The Jews started a political controversy that led to a riot that Governor Pilot could not ignore. History always repeats itself, but not in the same way.

Salvation is not about perfecting our doctrine while our heart is of no change. Customer service for businesses, credit card companies, and the like seem to have all their i’s dotted and t’s crossed on how to respond to customers, yet it feels pretentious. The language and response seem right. It is all about presenting your best but not putting the customer first. Doing the right thing without genuine love is manipulation. Jesus quoted the Old Testament: people say the right things, but their heart is far from mine.

I cannot teach doctrine as if it is a discipline of the world that comes to fruition through much study. Jesus is not a science that we gain information to earn a Ph.D. and a relationship. We must believe from the heart and confess from the mouth that God raised Jesus from the grave after paying the penalty for our sins on the cross. If Jesus is our Lord, it must be from a bowed heart before a bowed knee. Because of the fleshes' desire to cleanse its outside to have an appearance of salvation, I come from an abstract position that can be used to judge the hearts and attitudes of those I am speaking to.

You have your p’s and q’s, but do you? Is your mouth speaking from the heart, or is your mouth speaking from a Christian education?

What are you seeking to get out of life? What drives you to get out of bed? What are your heart's desires that you consistently bring before God? You may be mentally searching for the right scripture to respond to this question, but is it the answer of your heart, good or bad?

Let’s walk through scripture and look at what people in bible days sought.

Some people seek power. If their life was to be summed up by their thoughts and actions, it was one of seeking power. Now, I’m talking to people who have changed the trajectory of their lives to follow Christ. People who have decided to go a different direction when they met Jesus. Let me also remind you that Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, also left his life behind, took up his cross, and followed Jesus all the way short to the end. But what was Judas seeking? Was he seeking the Way, the Truth, and the Life of Jesus? Or was he seeking something else that derailed him before crossing the finish line of grace and truth?

There is much to teach from the Bible, so why am I belaboring Salvation for weeks? Because most people will be lost. Wide is the gate many will walk through to destruction, but narrow is the way, and few will find it. I don't want you or those you love to be lost. Before we start with the Gospel memes, let's look at the brief list of lost people going through the wide gate.

• The atheists who refuse to thank God and are given over to a reprobate mind.
• People who fail to love the truth to be saved.
• Other religions, ideologies, and philosophies that worship idols of their creation.
• The influencers who don't like the terms of Salvation, like the young rich ruler who walked away sorrowfully because he had too much to lay down.
• The called-out ones are no longer available but make excuses and ask to be excused from what God commands, like the servants of the wedding feast and those who wanted to follow Jesus but wanted to do something else first.
• The hearers and not-doers deceive themselves like the crowd banging on the door to be let in, but Jesus doesn't know them as His disciples.
• People who were motivated by everything but love and are nothing but a clanging cymbal.
• The ministers who have a form of holiness conformed to this world but are not transformed by the renewing of their minds to the Word of God. They, too, beat on the door to be let in, but Jesus doesn't know them as His disciples even when they forged His name to do their will and ministry.

Let's go with a summary from the past several weeks before going further. Leaving Egypt and crossing the Red Sea is a shadow of being born-again and water-baptized. The wilderness is renewing the mind: thoughts, emotions, and will. And entering the promised land is entering the kingdom of God, which is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, the peace of God beyond understanding, and the joy of the Lord, which is our strength to overcome the giants of sin in our life. Heaven and eternal life are waiting for the overcomer by the blood of the lamb, our testimony in the faithfulness of God, and loving not our life unto death but losing it for Christ's sake.

Heaven will not be Heaven if the flesh goes with us. The flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God. Iniquity would take over if we could take our choice of sin into the promised land. Let's look at a few case studies from scripture that were recorded for us in the New Covenant to glean from.

The first case is where eight people were saved from the destruction of a world where every thought was fused with violence. Noah was considered a righteous preacher. However, as soon as the Ark takes dock, Noah carries out the longest premeditated sin. After giving sacrifices to God, Noah plants a vineyard, gets drunk in his tent, and is naked. I'm unsure why the Bible details the nakedness, but it has something to do with Noah's son Ham. Both bring the old world into the new world.

The second case of leaving the flesh behind before entering the promised land is the story of Abraham and Lot. Abraham interceded to have Lot and his family delivered from Sodom & Gomora to restart the cities from within a cave. Lot and his two daughters escaped the destruction of four cities just to start the cities over with incest. Lot's daughters knew that God once destroyed the world with water to cleanse it for a new beginning. And Lot's daughters knew that God would destroy the world again with a more potent cleansing agent of fire. Maybe Lot's daughters thought the world was destroyed, and it was up to them to repopulate the new world. Whatever they were thinking, they birthed a new Sodom and Gomorrah. But that is what sin does to us: it causes us to think too highly of ourselves.

Knowing God in the wilderness, the womb, 2^nd trimester

The second trimester is about renewing the mind that we are the head and not the tail in Christ. We must not be conformed to the world we left behind but transformed by the renewal of our minds. God intended Israel to renew their mind in the wilderness before inheriting the promised land. At the last moment, even Moses conformed to the flesh in striking the rock rather than speaking to the rock.

In the wilderness, the second trimester of the new birth, we learn what it means to have Jesus as Lord and Savior for real and not just a confession we made once after walking down an aisle. Jesus is the Manna from heaven. Have our appetites changed? Do we hunger for every word from the mouth of God more than the bread that molds with the passing of time

Jesus is the living water that turns bitter water into drinking water. What do we thirst for when things are bitter in our life? Do we thirst for righteousness? Or do we complain about drinking from the cup of the word? Sweet in our mouth but bitter in our stomach. But after following Jesus, the bitterness is drinkable. Can you drink from the cup of bitterness of the Lord?

In the wilderness, Israel was given work to do. They were to carry the Ark of Covenant everywhere they went. And we, as Christians, are as well. Inside the Ark were God's commands now written on our hearts. The Manna from heaven was also in the Ark and the Christian's heart. And so is the rod of authority. Who is our authority? Who do we belong to? Who is our owner? If the answer is, Jesus is my Lord and my God. Then, we are under the correct authority, which shows when we speak to the mountain to be moved to the sea. The rod of authority is in our mouths when we obey Christ Jesus.

Most Christians don't make it full term. They opt out\aborted or miscarry their salvation before their race on earth is complete. This newsletter is about miscarrying the new birth, crowns stolen, entering heaven maimed, and losing all rewards but receiving eternal life because of faith in the work of Christ Jesus. God's mercy endures forever, and it has to be for all the premature Christians entering eternal life before God can fully form them into the image of Christ.

I'm dividing this teaching up into four sections. 1) Born of water in Egypt under oppression. 2) Leaving Egypt: The First Trimester. 3) Knowing God in the wilderness: the 2^nd trimester. 4) The 3^rd trimester: The promised land where we are fully formed in Christ.

Born of water in Egypt under oppression.

We are all born under the oppression of natural sin and the God of this world, Satan. We may be born in a free nation far away from tyranny. But inside the heart of man is the oppressive spirit of sin and death. The Pharisees proclaimed freedom under Abraham, but Jesus refuted this and said they were children of the devil in oppression. The same goes today in our Christian circles, with so many proclaiming freedoms only to go home and fall to the internal oppression of the things of this fallen world. Freedom from internal oppression is an ongoing work of the Holy Spirit that is finished at death.

Many in the church, conceived and born-again in spirit, in the first trimester, are deceived and being deceived while an unrenewed mind still binds them.

Like the disciples, we want to be delivered from the oppression of government tyranny, cancel culture, bully pulpits, and the like. But God had another thing in mind. Jesus will deliver God's people from the inside out. When God delivers a soul from internal oppression, they never again choose a tyrant as their overlord. I will be their God, and they will be my people by mutual choice. Even though God first chose us even yet as we were sinners.