Reasonings

  • SATAN’S EFFECTS

    World Wide

    I believe Satan’s effect on the world is constant, and felt by all of us on earth. We will be under his effect all of the time and from every direction. There is no escaping. We live in a world ruled by Satan’s system of things, designed to keep this world existing spiritually separated from God, our creator.

    There is only one way to cope with Satan’s effect on this world and to ensure we are chosen one of God’s children. It is through gaining faith in the gospel of Jesus. Satan’s effect on the world is to keep us from gaining this faith; everyone of us if possible. The only way is to choose God’s way of doing things.

    To make a choice we have to have at least two things to choose from. If we are going to choose between God’s way of doing things and Satan’s way of doing things, we will have to identify each way before being able to make our choice. No rocket science here eh? So how do we identify each way?

    God’s way is easier to identify but Satan’s effect has caused man kind to shy away from ‘how’, in hopes of keeping us separated from God in every way possible. I believe one of the effects Satan has over churches, is to have them skip over how to identify God’s way. Churches do not need to teach how to do this since they don’t recognize Satan’s effect on themselves. Churches don’t seem to recognize God’s Way or Satan’s way personally, but more as what effects everyone other than themselves. Church members are constantly rewarded and commended for already haven been chosen a child of God. To experience this is why many of them attend, sadly though, not realizing something very important is missing. We are told we must repent and follow Jesus but not a word of how to accomplish it, or what is means to follow Him, only that we must choose to follow.

    KU is unlike church because it teaches ‘how’ to identify both God’s way and Satan’s way. Choosing which one is better will cause our mind and heart to repent to His way. The two choices present an easy decision that becomes quicker each time. Once shown how to identify both ways the whole process becomes a natural way of thinking. Doing this as many times in a day is the way to repent and follow God’s way and to build trust and faith in the Word of God.

    Stay blogged to discover how easy it is to identify both ways.

    KU

  • True Faith

    I have found that ‘faith’ is one of the most misunderstood ideas at church even though it is the only thing God requires of those He saves to Himself for eternity. The Bible makes it clear that it is our faith in the gospel of Jesus by which we are saved, and not by works. Doesn’t it make sense to have a clear understanding of what faith is, how to get it, how to be sure you have it?

    I remember so well, all the times I asked questions about faith. The only answer I ever got is that it is something I just had to have…followed by nothing. There was no clear directions on how to attain it. In fact as far as I could tell it is just something church members had but could not tell me how, where, when, by who, or any tangible proof about it.

    This made no sense to me at all. What I have come to realize is that most people at churches have had Christian upbringings were their ‘faith’ was inherited from birth in much the same way as a child inherits their parents language. ‘Faith’ became something Christian upbringing produced in a child, just something they were told they had.

    I did not grow up in a Christian home but with the average secular upbringing as all my friends at school. The word ‘faith’ was simply not in my vocabulary, and in fact I can only remember ‘faith’ being used as a bit of a dig on someone…”just have faith” I would hear from time to time but it meant nothing to me.

    I cannot remember a time in my childhood that I did not wonder about church and God. Some of my friends went to church and it was always a different experience to visit their homes and see their customs, specially praying? I did a lot of wondering. At the young age of about 16 years I met a girl that attended a local catholic church. I decided to try going with her and her family. After a few times I was so shocked and confused by what I had heard I just couldn’t believe a word of it. This was the start of my desire to know what Christians seemed to know, but I couldn’t understand.

    My desire to know ‘faith’ along with the same confusing attempts at going to church, continued throughout life up to my 66th year. It seemed like forever that I had been searching for some sort proof. I wanted to believe. I wanted ‘faith’! One day while driving to Calgary God showed me the proof.

    That proof was life changing. It was not being born again, or a visit from an angel, or even anything detectable by my five senses. But, it was proof!

    That proof was like the proof I got when I knew for the first time I could ride a bike, when I knew for the first time I could start a car engine, or like when I knew for the first time I did anything in life. Those first times grew into my most trusted people and all the knowledge I have accumulated since birth.

    Recognizing that proof led me to another ‘first time’. It was the first time I trusted His Word. The Bible tells us that ‘trust’ is the beginning of understanding and of knowledge.

    Looking back on my search for understanding of faith in God’s Word, it is now obvious that I was never taught ‘how’ to trust His Word. Without trusting it I could not understand it.

    Trust, truly is the beginning of all I know and understand today. I was never shown how to trust His Word, and it is the reason it took me a life time to develop faith in His Word.

    Christians have learned to trust His Word through their upbringing, the rest of us need to learn it somehow else. That somehow else is KOOTENAY UNCHURCH, (KU).

    Following this blog will explain why you were so confused and unbelieving at what you see and hear on TV or locally at a church. Until you discover for yourself that you can trust His Word you will not be able to understand it. It is through the process of trusting His Word that we develop faith in it along with intense joy and piece of mind.

    KU

  • The Undoing: KOOTENAY UNCHURCH

    For years now I have been trying to teach what I believe God revealed to me, the importance of beginning to trust His Word.

    I now believe that teaching ‘how to begin’ is no more difficult than teaching a child ‘how to begin’ to ride a bike. What has become clearly evident is how difficult it is to overcome the misleading ideas churches have spawned over centuries. I found these ideas led me on a path far from anything I had already learned to trust in life. How was I supposed to believe the things I heard in church? It seemed to me that ‘faith’ the way churches portrayed it, was to accept what ever a pastor said as absolutely true, whether or not it made sense. To declare you believe it on his biblical reading and interpretation only, became the way to prove to yourself and others that you have ‘faith’ and are saved.

    Churches have held a position of authority and, the only way to God, for several thousand years gaining tremendous wealth and power world wide.

    The trouble with church teaching and preaching today is everything taught is what someone else has said, or interpreted, or declared. In our lives though, we do not develop faith or confidence in what others say or do but what we ourselves experience.

    In the Bible book of Jeremiah, God clearly says He will write His Laws in our heart and our mind so that no man shall call upon his brother or neighbor saying ‘know the Lord’ for they all shall know me from the greatest to the least. This means that it is through our mind and our heart that we will know the Lord, NOT that we will know the Lord by what a pastor says in church.

    Churches are made up of good people. They do good things, sing songs of love to the Lord, declare their faith, yet churches have robbed them of the kind of faith that comes from experiencing God’s Word in their own lives. Instead, churches give faith away to anyone like it is theirs to give, telling them anything they want about a persons faith when in fact they know nothing of someone else’s faith. Only using God’s Word and the laws He wrote in our heart and mind to guide our decisions in life can create faith in His Laws and His Word.

    kootenay unchurch.com (KU) teaches how to get in touch with what God wrote in our own mind and heart. Aside from the Bible it is the only unaffected source of knowledge about God, and the only knowledge a person can trust in these last days. KU will be highlighting the things churches do and say that I believe are constantly affected by Satan’s influences, deceiving all away from true faith in God’s Word.

    The second letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians declared that the god of this world ‘Satan’, has blinded the eyes of the unbelievers so that they cannot see light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God. Satan’s influence affects everyone and everything, even churches.

    KU teaches how to begin trusting God’s Word through the use of what He says He wrote in the Bible, on our own mind, and our own heart.

    Today’s churches bear the effects of Satan’s influences as much as anything else and can be unwittingly used to deceive people away from the only thing required by God; true faith.

  • Reasonings Chapter Three

    The universality of Trust

    All mankind shares a trust/faith process.  The trust/faith process is autonomic and constantly operating.  This process is as vital as a heartbeat; we accomplish nothing without it.  We understand this trust/faith process as learning.  This  process begins with everything we do for the first time.   To learn something we must first try that something to initiate this process.  Trust and faith increase each time that something is repeated until more trust is no longer needed, until you believe, then all future use of that something is done with faith alone.  Repeating in order to build trust is no longer required when you have enough faith.  We don’t have to build trust each time we add 1+1 or re-prove it, we believe it is 2 and have faith in that.  We only have to learn to trust walking until we believed we could walk and did so with faith from then on.  Progressing from this trust/faith process, to belief, is automatic with repetition and time.

    Faith in the Word of God uses the same process; the one God created us with.  Everything about the trust/faith process applies to the Word of God.  In order to learn any of God’s Words we must use it for the first time to initiate the trust/faith process.  Repetitive use will increase trust and faith until you believe, after which you have faith; all that’s needed.  Using the same Word of God repetitively initiates the trust/faith process with each use, building more trust and faith in the Word and its use until you believe and have faith, with no doubt about it.

    Matthew 22:36-40 provided me infinite opportunities for building trust and faith in His Word once God showed me how to find them. I fell in love with Him and His impeccable advice that became instantly available through His Word.  I wanted more and began using Acts 20:35.  The same process initiated, my trust and faith grew in these Words  until Thursday, March 28, 2019 at about 9:30 a.m.  I had enough proof and completely believed the Word of God, and received within me the promised Holy Spirit.  In the time it took to take one step down from the porch I was born of the Spirit.  I had gained enough trust and faith using only a few of His Words to believe all of them.  Each use required consultation of my heart where God has written His Laws, along with my mind for reasoning.  The result is loving  God and His Word with my whole heart, my whole mind, and my whole soul.

    KOOTENAY UNCHURCH

  • Reasonings Chapter Two

    Reasonings

    Chapter 2

    Reasonings or ideas, go along with the Lessons and are the thoughts that went into them.  I have struggled trying to decide which one is the horse and which one the  cart.  I wanted to introduce HOW we are going to begin trusting His Word but hope people use the ‘Reasonings’ at the same time.  The ‘Reasonings’ focus around many ideas churches have that I found so confusing it just causes more doubt.   They can leave you wondering how am I supposed to believe this?

    The answer is trust.  You can only believe someone or what they say, as much as you trust them.  Christians have developed enough trust in God’s Word, they believe and accept His Word even when it is beyond their current knowledge.  Non-Christians have not learned to trust His Word and cannot believe, accept, or understand it like a Christian can.  If you’re a non-Christian searching for God at church, you may be awash in ideas you struggle to trust or believe.

    Someone has to teach others how to begin trusting His Word.  Everyone has heard of God and His Word, sadly though only those that learn to trust it will learn from it.  So, just as the Bible tells us in Proverbs 1:7 Fear (old testament word referring to reverential trust) of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

    KU tries to overcome some of the things non-Christians have heard at church but don’t trust.  I don’t mean people mistrust His Word but if it is combined with messages only Christians might be able to comprehend it can certainly muddy up the waters.

    One of the ideas impressed upon in churches is that our faith must be based on the entire Bible and it is the reason they teach the entire Bible.  I can see how a Christian upbringing may help some believe this but for most of us, it’s an  impossibility.  Not an idea to build trust on. It would compare with having to trust math based on all the math ever known.  That is just not how we learn to trust things.  For me, a non-Christian, I have learned to trust His Word the same way I have learned to trust everything else in life; from the beginning and a little bit at a time.  Compare for yourselves things you have learned to do.  Do you have to be able to ride your bike in the Tour de France before you can have faith or confidence in it?  If you ride it only to school and not to the grocery store does that mean you don’t trust the bike yet?  Do you have to know all that mathematics can do before you trust it or have confidence using it?

    To say that our faith in God must be based in the entire bible is an irrational statement.  It does not come with any proof.  To say that our faith can be based in the entire bible is a rational statement accepted by Christians everywhere who would confirm they do not know the whole Bible.  This implies that their faith is not dependent on knowledge of the entire Bible but based on what they currently know, trust, and believe.  The statement that you can have faith in the entire Bible includes everyone in life.  The statement that your faith must be based in the entire Bible excludes…everyone?  Perhaps churches could clarify just what they mean in a rational way when they say this.

    It’s easy to see how confusing this statement can be if not clearly defined and how discouraged newcomers to God’s Word might feel.  Church sermons would mean more to people if they were rational, providing clearly defined proof.  The things to build trust in.

    Discovering how we Trust Anything

    KU encourages all readers to spend as much time as possible proving to themselves that their faith and confidence in anything, does not depend upon all the available knowledge there is  about a subject.  Proving this to yourself will also prove your trust in God’s Word does not have to be based on the entire Bible anymore than anything else we learn to trust in life.  In fact it will open the door to realizing your trust in His Word begins the moment you use it for the first time, just like your first bike ride.

    So, if you are searching for God at a church and hear about having to base your faith on the entire Bible please disregard this information.  Christians may understand this differently and prosper from the idea but, for anyone trying to learn to trust His Word and begin having faith, it simply does not apply.

    KOOTENAY UNCHURCH

  • Lesson one

    Why the Golden rule?

    I guess I used this scripture just because it’s familiar. Who hasn’t heard of the Golden Rule? Growing up a non-Christian, I only knew this little saying as a poke at someone, a bit of a snide remark.

    The Bible intoduces The Golden Rule (TGR) in the books (gospels) of Mark 12:30-31 and Matthew 22: 37-40 The Jewish teachers of the law asked Jesus which of the commandments is the most important? Jesus said” Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength”. The second is this “Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these”. In Mathew’s gospel Jesus says “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets”.

    This commandment became know as The Golden Rule. The lessons presented at KU revolver around this TGR but not all of it. I believe myself that practicing the second commandment is a pathway leading to accomplishing the first commandment.

    The second commandment tells us to love our neighbours as ourself. This commandment does not imply any physical action but tells us HOW TO LOVE THEM. We are to use our mind, heart, and our soul and to do it with all our strength. We are all pretty familiar with using our mind but our soul? Our heart? How?

    In the book of Jeremia God communicates the New Covenant to him saying, He will put His Law in our minds and write it our heart. He goes on to explain that no more shall every man teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying ‘Know the Lord’ for they all shall know me.

    KU does not know nor, will be trying to teach what God wants of us. KU teaches how to use the TGR as a tool to send our mind to our heart searching for what God has written there, His law. God has written all about love in our heart. If we want to know how to love someone as ourselves, our heart is where to discover how God loves us. This is where we learn to ‘love our neighbour ourselves’, how God loves us.

    KU teaches how to use this method to search our own heart for the information. I am not going to ask you to trust me, I’m asking you to try this method and trust for yourself what you discover between your mind and you heart. You might fall in love with it!

  • Reasonings Chapter one

    In my blog I will be trying to wean myself off of spell checkers and grammar correctors.  God completely influences me and my writing so, if you see a spelling or a grammar mistake it will not actually be a mistake but one of those beautiful little features of God’s influence.  God’s Word is the gold standard.  So, there will be no mistakes, only features.  This may seem unusual but so is the KOOTENAY UNCHURCH (KU).

    I have found it so difficult to try organizing 73 years of life data on how I came to faith in His Word.  I, being of sound yet stubourn mind took 66 years just to get to where I began trusting it and even then, it was one step at a time.  I was used to darkness, the light was shocking, overwhelming,…tantalizing.  My first glimse was the very first time I trusted His Word.  That day is the second most incredible day of my life.  The most incredible day came about 18 months later, the moment I fully believed the Word of God.  At that moment I received the promised Holy Spirit within myself. It took less time than it took me to take one step down off my porch but it changed my life for ever.  The event left me with a mental image of a war zone littered with piles of smoking debrie and ruin.  I knew this represented all of my failed attempts at finding God.  In the middle of this scene was a row of trees that had fallen in toward the ruins.  The trees separated  the other side of this scene which was about as distinct as a snow storm in a fog bank.  It looked completely blank.  It took a lot of thinking over time for me to finally realize it was blank because I was brand new, no history yet, I had just been born!  Just had the best day of my life!

    This would have been a great place to ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after but, that was not God’s plan, it was mine.  His was quite different.  After about six weeks of being awash in God’s love I began recognizing old characteristics popping up from time time.  They were disturbing at first, but things worsened in a hurry.  My old self seemed to be comming back into my life.  I dug my heels in and refused to acknowledge it but hopelessly desended from the most high of my life to what would soon be the absolute lowest, the bottom.  I was alone once more; just me, without God.

    Why had I lost Him?  I loathed myself, and with unbearable pain, Him too.  After about six months on the pitty pot my anger had beaten the stink right out of me.  I was weak and left only with the longing to be back with Him, to fall in love with Him once again.

    In my longing I reminisced about my skyrocketing ascent to Him, a whirlwind of love and passion like never before, how could I get back?  I set my mind to figure out how I did it before and to get back there, in love with my God.  It became all I could think of.

    The KU will present my epic journey to faith in God and His Word.  Covering 66 years of life that built a mountain of doubt and how faith the size of a mustard seed grew in me, moving  that mountain from between God and me to behind me until the day I believed, when I was born a child of God.  From this most high place I fell flat on my spiritual face, wollowed in pity for six months, emmerged weak but hopeful I could get back once again.

    The journey is more than just the travels along the way.  KU hopes to present a path of familiar travel all will recognize as their own, but show the spiritual view opposed to the secular one we all plod along with.   This view is locked inside of all of us, written by God on the tablets of our heart.  KU teaches how to send your mind searching through these tablets for God’s viewpoint.  Since His viewpoint comes from within, you know you can trust it.  It’s the beginning of trust in the Word of God.  From trust springs knowledge, understanding, and faith in His Word.

    I mentioned early on about how difficult it is to organize 73 years of data and present it in an orderly fashion.  It was too difficult, so I have given the reins to God.  All presentations will be in perfect chronological order, written in plain English, designed to be the most trustworthy and faith building, and all arranged by the Word of God.  I will be doing the writing only.