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Gerry Gutierrez' Update
“It
is not enough to say Jesus is God.” In order to be saved some have reduced to its minimum expression
the conditions to be saved. “Believe in God and you shall be saved.” But even
the devils believe in God and tremble before God, yet they are not saved and
shall never be saved. “And in the synagogue
there was a man, that had a spirit of an unclean demon; and he cried out with a
loud voice, Ah! what have we
to do with you, Jesus the Nazarene? art thou come to
destroy us? I know you who you are, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him,
saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the demon had thrown him
down in the midst, he came out of him, having done him no hurt.” When two armies are face to face in the battlefield, one army
knows and believes in the existence of the other army as real as they are
themselves and they know to be mortal enemies of one another. For saving faith to be effective; belief
as ascent is not enough. Belief translated as agreement is the only thing that
matters for oneness. For example, let us take the Lord’s Prayer. It is
not God who needs to know the content of our prayers in order to answer
according to our will the best of our understanding of what his will is as taught
by Jesus. It is us who need to know and accept and agree with what we say to
believe that in reality is “empty bobbing” apart from my agreement with every
word spoken by Jesus. True and saving belief is to trust and come to agree with
what I said to believe with my mouth. The theologian’s endless originalities are often more of an
invitation to claim to every trees of the forest to understand and see as far
as they can see. It is wiser to chose the one tall tree of Prayer in the forest
and cling to its top and that will make me see what everyone else are trying to
stretch their neck to see and obstructing each other in the process. Prayer is knowing the God I love in my
heart and confessing it with my mouth to my own ears until faith comes by
hearing and hearing by the word of God. Prayer is not a matter of things never
spoken or never heard from expert in “bobbling.” Prayer is to believe and trust
in complete agreement in a childlike manner with Jesus and all that he has taught
us. When prayer causes you to sleep, it is the best evidence that
prayer is that “holy other thing” that God wants me to do knowing I do not
understand and that makes me sleepy. On the way to the mountain of prayer, most
are left in the cities, some are left at the bottom of the mountain, a hand
full claim the mountain but only three get to the top but even they are so
tired and over whelmed with grief that fall sleep within one hour. Only he who in agony draws near to God has God drawing near to
him. Even then it is not to negotiate a new deal but to be strengthened by the
fellowship of him who listens prayers and has already answered prayer before
the world begun. Prayer does not persuade God of anything. Prayer persuades us of
the love of God in Jesus as it was back in the garden at the cool of the day.
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