Response to those who think Jesus is not God

Dear Mr.Pastor,
First of all I would like to ask you, “What does it mean to be a Christian?”
Second I would like to define who God is. God is made up of three entities God the Father, Jesus Christ (God the Son) and the Holy Spirit. This is what we call the trinity or the tri-unity. Although this word is never used in the Bible we see that there are three entities that make up God.
Third, one of the rules for understanding the Bible is that Scripture interprets Scripture. Another is to look at the context.

[1 John 4.15]
You say that Jesus is “the Son of the ONE God”. First of all it does not say “the One God”. It says the Son of God. This verse in 1 John 4:15 can also read that Jesus is God the Son.

John 10.36
If you look at the whole passage you can see that in John 10:30 that Jesus claims that He and the Father are one or another definition for the greek word is “a unity”. If Jesus claims to be one with the Father but then it says that He is the Son of God how can that be? The only answer is that Jesus Christ is both God and man. He is Son of God and part of the trinity Otherwise your claim says that the Bible contradicts itself.

(1 Cor 8.4,6)
You have neglected the last part of these verses. “When Paul says that there is one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, he does not mean that the Lord Jesus Christ is not God. Rather he simply indicates the respective roles which these two Persons of the Godhead fulfilled in creation and in redemption.” (Believers Bible Commentary)
If you are saying that God can only be used of the Father then you have to say that “Lord” always refers to Jesus. What about when it says Lord in the Old Testament.
If Jesus was just a man he could not have been perfect.

He learned to obey the Father day by day. He went through the same things you and I went through, the same temptations but He remained perfect through them. He came to earth perfect, He did not deserve to have the sins of the whole world laid on Him but He willingly took them on Himself so that we could have a perfect stand before God. I don’t believe that He came to earth knowing how to do everything. He had to learn how to walk and talk. He had to learn how to read. It didn’t just come instantly. He had to learn to obey the Fathers will because there was temptation not to.
If you had studied Greek translation of this verse you would know that this translation of the word “perfect” is an unfortunate translation. The word here should be “complete” instead of perfect. Jesus was always perfect. He had to suffer and that is what made Him the complete sacrifice for our sins. Without His suffering there would have been no sacrifice and without a sacrifice there would have been no salvation and no Christianity. If you must insist on using the word “perfect” then you can still say He is the perfect sacrifice for all time. (Hebrews 1-13) How I get this is because it talks about Him being the author of eternal Salvation later on in the verse and before it talks about His suffering. In between His suffering and the authorship was His death, the sacrifice of His life.

Now if you are saying this you are saying that Jesus was just a man. If Jesus was Just a man then we should all give up Christianity. There is no way that Jesus Christ could be sinless. You see in the Old Testament the Sacrifice for a sin offering had to be unblemished and spotless. If Jesus was just a man and not God, He could not have been unblemished and spotless. Jesus Christ is the second Adam. The first Adam had the chance to be perfect but he messed it up and sinned. Jesus Christ was perfect and through His perfection He was able to be the perfect, complete sacrifice to satisfy God’s wrath. These verses are talking about Jesus coming down to earth as a man. Jesus Christ gave up His glory in heaven and came humbly to earth as a man because God the Father wanted to show His love for us by sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my sins.


This man, Colin Brown, needs to study his Bible a little more. Let’s look at the Beginning.
Gen 1:26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
Who is the OUR speaking of here? It has to either be more than one God or there has to be more than one being that makes up God.
If Mr. Brown had looked farther down in His study of John 1 He would have seen verse 14. But first I want to look at verse 2. HE was in the beginning with God. Who is HE? The Word is HE. If you say that the He is God you are saying that God was in the beginning with God. It doesn’t make sense. “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” Apart from HIM nothing has been created. Now in Verse 14 “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The Word became flesh. The Word was in the beginning with God and was God. If the Word was with God and was God and then the Word became flesh there is no explanation but that the Word is the pre-incarnate Christ. This proves that Jesus Christ is God. The Word dwelt among us and we saw His glory. The glory of the Only Begotten from the Father. This proves that Jesus Christ was both God and man.

If the Word was not a living being (but only a Word or Thought), then that Word / Thought was called God. You have just defied a Word and called it God.

If we are talking about the deity of Christ then let’s look at Colossians 2:9 “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,”. Try to explain away that one. Jesus Christ fully God and fully man. I know that it is hard to understand and even I cannot understand it fully. It is just like thinking of eternity. It will go on and on forever. There is no way to explain it. There are many things that we cannot explain. We would like to try to explain them away and understand everything.

John 5:18 “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” The Jews wanted to kill Jesus because He was making Himself equal with God. Jesus claimed that He was equal with God. The only way this could happen is if He was part of the Godhead.

These verses say that Jesus is God.
Colossians 1:15 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”
Hebrews 1:3 “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”
Titus 2:13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,
These verses make the claim and the Greek connects God and Savior into one person -- Jesus Christ.
Consider Revelation 22:13 along with Isaiah 41:4; 44:6-8; 48:11-12.
Jesus Christ is talking in Revelation 22. If you decide to overlook these things then you are picking and choosing what scriptures make up your stand. You are not looking at scripture as a whole. You are only taking what you want, what fits your view. You are not letting your view be fit by what is in scripture.
Sir I have already found the truth. The truth is that Jesus Christ, both fully God and fully man, died on the cross for my sins, was buried and rose again to show that He had conquered sin and death. If one puts their faith and trust in Jesus Christ they shall be saved. If they don’t they will be damned in Hell for eternity. You deny that Jesus Christ is God then there is no way to heaven for you because there is no way that He could save us unless He was perfect. If you refuse to believe this what are you going to do about John 10:30? Are you going to Say that Jesus is a liar? If He is a liar then He is also a sinner and therefore cannot be the perfect sacrifice and cannot take away the sins of the world. If He is a liar then there is no hope of salvation because there was no perfect sacrifice. If Jesus was lying then there is no Christianity. Just something for you to think about.

Also if you want to learn more listen to the message The Triune God and look at the study notes at this website. http://cbf.thelivingword.us/Messages/StudyDays/TheologyProper/TheologyProper.html
Scott has posted the verses for you to look at and if you cannot accept them to be true then you are saying that the Bible contradicts itself and therefore you cannot be a Christian.
I have presented my stand. I have showed you what God’s Word says. If you have questions I would be happy to answer them.
T.J. Kerttula

As I Am Over the Ocean and Over the Sea

As I am over the Ocean and over the Sea
I want to bring you back with me
To a land that is foreign to both you and I
To a land that needs love from a new supply
To a land that needs Jesus as the Christ
And all that His love has given for a price
That we might have compassion and strength
To carry the load of the sleeping saints
That have died in the jungle giving all their life
To the work that has given hope to many lives
To the work that has given hope to many lives
As I am over the ocean and over the sea
This what I pray for you and me

Let Your Light Shine

I was thinking about a discussion we had on Monday night it was very interesting. It was on Matthew 5:26. Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify the Father who is in heaven.
Your light is not your works. It is how you do your work. If you are going it with a cheerful heart and do the best you can do then you are letting your light shine through you. If your work is glorifying to God then your light is shining but if you grumble and complain then your light is not shining in you. If your work is glorifying to God then it is worthy to be glorified. Notice all the glory goes to God the Father who is in heaven. It is not glory to yourself it is glory to God. If you work for God’s glory then God will get the glory. What an amazing verse to think on. So let us glorify God in our work because He deserves all the glory for saving us from our sins.

What?!! You don't have to go to a different country to be a missionary???!!!

I find it amusing when people say that to be a missionary one must go to different lands or cross cultural borders. I whole heartedly disagree with that. I will explain why in a bit first I want you to look at three passages.
Mat 28:19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Mat 28:20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Mar 16:15 And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.

Act 1:8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."

The word missionary is never found in the NASB, NKJV, ESV, or NIV. So where did it comes from. Our Lord Jesus entrusted us with a mission or a charge to preach the gospel. That is how we now get the word missionary which literally means one who carries out a mission. If one is a missionary of Jesus Christ, then he must carry out the mission of preaching the gospel. I would say that anyone, who preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ whether in the US or any other country is a missionary.
Looking back up that these verses we have to assume that not all of these things happen all at once. First we go. Go doesn’t necessarily mean to go a different country, or different State or even a different city. To be a missionary you don’t have to cross cultural boundaries or go to distant lands. It just means to go out wherever you are to preach the gospel. To go where the Lord as put you at that time of your life. If you think about it someone had to stay in Jerusalem and share the gospel with the Jews. We see that there was a Church in Jerusalem. How did that start unless someone was preaching the gospel there?

Go where? Into all the world, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the remotest parts of the earth. Many people think that go means to go to Africa or to South America or to anywhere but the US. The fact of the matter is that although many people in the US say they are Christians they have no idea what the gospel is. The US is in need of missionaries as much as many other countries. All of you that preach the gospel here in the US are missionaries as well as those that preach it in other countries. We must GO. We must preach the gospel to the world. Those that come to Christ are baptized and taught to observe everything our Lord commanded. Why should or would the Lord send you to a different country to preach the gospel, if you are not preaching the gospel where you are at now. Everyone that preaches the gospel is a missionary. No matter where you are in this world, that is where the Lord has put you and you need to go and preach the gospel. Those people need to hear the gospel to. So as fellow missionaries let us all go out and preach the gospel in the towns, cities, and countries where the Lord has put us for the time being. Let us be missionaries where we are at and if the Lord works out opportunities to go other places them let us go to other places.

January Evangelism Part 1

I haven’t written a note on the evangelism going on around Helena so I decided that it was time to update everyone. Just about every week I go out sometime to do evangelism. All of those time have been very good times. Although the work has been going on for a long time here we have not talked to most of Helena and the surrounding area.  When people see that it is a “religious thing” they either throw the tracts away or they give them back. My heart goes out to all of those people. A couple of weeks ago I walked up to this African American and gave him a tract and he said is this a religious thing or something. I said yes. He said so If I were to point a gun to your head right now and tell you to deny Christ what would you say. I simple said “NO”. He asked why would you say that. I said I know where I am going when I die. He said Praise God, Your ready to go right now. That is a good thing brother. I was just testing you. He said with a big smile on his face. That is the first time I have ever had a believer do anything like that to me.

On Saturday we went out and again met people that say that they believe in Jesus Christ but they do not know what the gospel is. As I was talking to a kid I asked him what the gospel is. He said it was in the Bible, the first 4 books of the Bible. I then asked him what the word gospel meant. He didn’t know. He guessed it was an account of something. I told him it is the Good News. Then I asked him what the Good news was. He didn’t know. I asked him why he called himself a Christian. He said because the people at the church he went to said to pray this prayer and then you are a Christian.  Oh what a deception. It makes me want to weep for those that are being led astray by these people. They are no better than the Catholics, who believe that good works get them to heaven.  I got to share the gospel with this young man. He told me that it made sense to him more than what the people at the church he was going to said. It seemed to be a day full of people from this same church. As we went on, we met some kids in front of the movie theater. They were also people that went to this church.  There were 4 kids and all but one of them was goofing around the whole time. As I was talking to them about the Ten Commandments one of them pipes up and asks aren’t you TJ. I said yeah not really knowing who this girl was.  I kept going and gave them the gospel and they told me that that’s what they believed. I then asked them if they were living a life that God would want them to live. All of them said no. I said why not. They told me that they didn’t need to because Jesus had forgiven them already so they could sin and still be forgiven. I told them you know as far as I am concerned I can’t tell that you are different from the world and the Bible tells us that we are to be in the world but not of the world. They were kind of like whatever and started goofing around again. That’s when it hit me. The girl that asked me if my name was TJ is one of the girls that went to Frontier Bible camp when she was younger.  She had heard the gospel but still did not know it. I talked to them for a little bit longer about random things and then said good bye.  It has made an aching in my gut that this church is leading people astray. I only wish there was something that I could do about it. The only thing right now is to keep proclaiming the gospel and praying for those people that we would be able to proclaim the gospel to more of them. Remember just because they say they are a Christian doesn’t mean that they are saved. The Lord is working. Pray for all of us here in Helena. That is the latest in the Helena Evangelism. For more stories from one of the guys I go with. Go to http://2alltheworld.blogspot.com

Hiding or Shining

As I woke up I looked out the window and I saw blackness. So thick that it kept even the brightest lights from shining. Staring out into the early morning there was nothing but blackness to see. I got ready for work and went out to get into my car. The fog is what made the morning so thick I couldn’t see very far. As I drove to work in the thick fog I thought about the fog and then suddenly as the sun finally started to rise it started to get lighter. I was thinking about how the world was so black, without hope before Jesus Christ came. I thought of how the disciples and all of the people that followed Him felt as He gave His last breath on the cross. What a dark world that was. What were these people thinking as Christ died? They were thinking there is no hope. Our King is dead. We are left with nothing. As the fog melted away the sun started to rise over the majestic mountains and my next thought was. There was hope because Jesus Christ rose from the dead, just as the sun was rising. The darkness melted away and the light shown bright. That Light passed its light on to others who passed the Light onto others so that there are lights shining all over the world even in the darkest parts. The next thought that came to me was how the Bible tells us to be “in the world but not of the world.” But do we let our lights shining brightly or do we hide them so no one can see then, because we fear what man can do to us. We fear what man might think of us. It causes us to go with the flow of the world instead of standing firm as a beacon on a hill. My favorite verse is Matthew 5:16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Are you letting your light shine before men? Or are you hiding it? As for me I will let this song tell you what I am going to do. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine Hide it under a bushel? No! I'm gonna let it shine Let it shine til Jesus comes, I'm gonna let it shine Such a simple children’s song but we can learn so much from it. I hope that you will think about whether your light is shining as bright as it can be shining because Jesus is the Light and we should want to share the Light with everyone.

NIGERIA

For those of you who have not heard I am headed to Nigeria the first of February for three months. Our visas came through this morning. I will be traveling with my younger sister and my grandparents. My grandparents used to be missionaries there. We will be visiting Ministry of Mercy orphanage and traveling the bush. I have been asked to give a few messages during my time there. I am super excited about all of this and I can't wait. I think reality hasn't hit me yet but I am sure it will soon. Thank you all for your prayers.

I Hope I Go to Heaven.

I was downtown doing street evangelism this afternoon. It was cold and not many people were out but as the Lord allowed me to talk to three people, I noticed a phrase that all of them said. You can probably guess what it was by the title of this note. They all said, “I hope I go to heaven.” That is an interesting phrase. I got to thinking about it and I realized that many people have this same mindset. They say they hope they go to heaven. If we truly believe in Jesus then we should know that we are going to heaven. When we say I hope I go to heaven, there is some doubt involved. It is like saying I hope I win the lottery. There is a HUGE chance that we will not win the lottery. When we say I hope I will go to heaven we are saying that there is a chance that we might not go to heaven. Are we saying that Jesus might not be able to save us then? Is our faith so small that even though we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior we still are not certain, not convinced that we will go to heaven. It seems like we are showing that our faith is not fully in Christ. Like there is a chance that Christ might not be able to save us. I am convinced that Christ has saved me and that I am going to heaven. I know for a fact that I am going to heaven because I have put my faith in Jesus Christ. Christ Alone can save us. So when asked where I am going when I die I will say I am going to heaven. What will you say?

Atheists Doubt?!

It’s funny how sometimes people seem so confident. I meet a lot of confident Atheists and there is no used arguing with them. They think that they are always right. I think that just planting a seed of doubt in their mind is the best way. Just by presenting the gospel. When I was a kid I used to doubt whether I was saved or not (now I know that I am for certain).Why couldn't Atheists also doubt? I am certain that Atheists also doubt their beliefs and think that there is a possibility that there is a God out there somewhere. They shove that thought down and say there is no God. When they doubt they loose their confidence. So if you can plant a seed of doubt about whether they are right or not then it might get them thinking. I think this is a better approach rather than arguing with them. Arguing never gets anyone anywhere and most Atheists don’t listen to logic anyway. These are just some thoughts I had the other night and I wanted to write them down. Let me know what you think. Am I totally wrong about it?

Isaiah's example

As my dad was preaching this morning I was very convicted about this and wanted to share it with you all. The message was on Isaiah 5 and 6. As we looked at the six woes on Judah in Chapter 5, we saw a parallel to the United States and where it is headed. It is crazy to look at it and very true. Then came the convicting part in Chapter 6.

Isa 6:8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
Isa 6:9 He said, "Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on listening, but do not perceive; Keep on looking, but do not understand.'
Isa 6:10 "Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes dim, Otherwise they might see with their eyes, Hear with their ears, Understand with their hearts, And return and be healed."
Isa 6:11 Then I said, "Lord, how long?" And He answered, "Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, Houses are without people And the land is utterly desolate,
Isa 6:12 "The LORD has removed men far away, And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
Isa 6:13 "Yet there will be a tenth portion in it, And it will again be subject to burning, Like a terebinth or an oak Whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump."

Are we like Isaiah? Do we say here am I Lord send me!? Or do we make excuses like Moses made. I can’t speak to people. I’m afraid. I just can’t do it oh Lord. Are we willing to go and do whatever the Lord wants us to do? Are we willing at all or do we just want to stay in our comfort zone inside the church and say They will come to us if they want to know about Christ. I want you to notice what the Lord said. He says “Go and tell this people”. Strangely familiar. Jesus Christ also told us to Go and preach the gospel; to go and tell the gospel to all creation. Obviously if we are to go that means that we have to go somewhere where there is people who need to hear the message. We aren’t going to give it to people we know are believers. Now let’s take a look at verse 11. Isaiah says “Lord how long?” The Lord replies until everything is utterly destroyed; until Babylon comes to take Judah captive. Isaiah never saw Babylon come which means he preached this until he died. Judah didn't even listen to him, but Isaiah was still obedient. Are we being obedient? Even though no one may listen to us we still need to preach the gospel. We also like Isaiah should preach the gospel of Jesus Christ until we die or until the rapture comes. What an amazing example Isaiah is to us. We should be following this example instead of making excuses. We should be obedient to Christ command even though no one may listen; though no one may care. So STOP making excuses and GO willingly!