Thursday, January 29, 2015

Marsha's Musings: Testing the Spirits to See if they are From God. (1 John 4:1-3 ESV)

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. (1 John 4:1-3 ESV)

Christianity:  
>Jesus is co-equal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. While on earth He was fully God and fully man as evidenced in Mark where the scribes says only God can forgive sins and Jesus had just forgiven the sins of the paralytic. Then to drive His point home He healed the man.  Mark 2:5-12. 
>Jesus is the only way to the Father. John 14:6

Hinduism:
>Devine is in everything and everything is Devine "Worship your own inner self. God lives within you as you."~ Muktananada. No mention of Jesus Christ.

Buddhism:
>Pursuing or knowing God is irrelevant and can even impede one's quest for enlightenment.  No mention of Jesus Christ.

Freemasonry:>"When the Bible is quoted, references to Jesus are omitted; public prayers must not use Jesus' name. In several rituals Jesus is made equal to Zoroaster, Buddha, or Mohammad. Salvation to the "Grand Lodge above " is achieved by living an upright life, without explicit faith in Christ."~Rose Book of Bible Charts

Jehovah Witnesses:
>Jesus Christ is Michael the Archangel. While on earth He was merely a perfect human being.

Mormons:
>Jesus is the literal son of God conceived by a literal sexual union. He is just one of many spirit children of God, which includes Lucifer. He secured immortality for all whether they believe in Him or not.
>Heavenly Father, Holy Ghost and Jesus Christ are three separate gods United in purpose as the one Godhead.

Catholics:
>Elevate Mary and other saints to a status equal to Jesus Christ when they pray to Mary and other saints to intercede to God the Father for them. Hebrews 4 speaks only of Jesus in this capacity, indeed the whole book of Hebrews points to Jesus being the only intercessor for us to the Father.
>They add ritualistic works to the work of Christ for salvation, while the Bible says, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us..." Titus 3:5 
>They believe the wafer and wine of communion is actually turned into the body and blood of Jesus Christ through transubstantiation when they take it. This is found no where in the Bible.
>While they say they believe Jesus was God in the flesh and is God now, they negate that statement by bypassing Jesus to pray to Mary and other saints as their intercessors to God the Father. This demotes Jesus to a lower level and takes away His status as being equal with God, because these others are put in that place. They also negate the statement that they believe Jesus is God when they bypass Jesus and confess their sins to the priest and he tells them their sins are forgiven. Even the scribes in Mark 2 knew that only God can forgive sins. So here we see the priests elevating themselves to the status of God when they "forgive" the sins that their parishioners confess to them. They might say the priest is only God's representative and He gives the authority to forgive sins in God's place. Hebrews teaches that Jesus is the One we are to go to for intercession.  He is the only priest authorized to represent God to us because He is God the Son.

The above are just a few examples of how you can " test the spirits to see whether they are from God". You must study the Bible and compare what you hear to what you have studied. It takes hard work. It's important that you study the Bible as a whole so you get to know Who Jesus really is. Many religions will say they believe Jesus is from God and He is God the Son, but there is a lot more to it than just that...you must take into consideration the rest of the Bible and dig a little deeper into what a person is telling you to determine if their belief system really teaches that or if it's just lip service and the other tenants of their religion negate it.



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