What Is This Universal Fatherhood Of God?

God that made the world and all things therein, 

seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, 

dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 

neither is worshipped with men's hands, 

as though He needed any thing, seeing He giveth 

to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath

 made of one blood all nations of men for to 

dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath 

determined the times before appointed, 

and the bounds of their habitation; that they 

should seek the Lord,...

Acts 17:24-27a 

     This is part of the speech Paul gave to the men in Athens, those philosophers and when Paul pointed out that they had an image depicting an unknown god, one whom they worshipped. Paul gave to them who this unknown God really is and how they are to understand that this unknown God is the only God. Throughout history, and throughout nations, in the many religions, God is known as Father, so then, it is not just a Christian theology. The problem is the doctrine, or belief in the Fatherhood of God. The problem of this Fatherhood of God is in a person(s) conception of God. Jesus in all of His teachings brought this incomparable enrichment of this term as is taught outside of Christianity. Yes, Jesus brought this incomparable term, this enrichment as to God as our Father, that it is a correct instinct in regards to our belief as God as our Father. Some Christian men, some denominations have become so obsessed with this term "Father" and regard it as the sum total and substance of the Christian religion. When the Gospel is replaced, at least in some way, that is, the doctrines of sin, and salvation, not interested in the Creeds of Orthodox Christianity and lesson the doctrine of the Atonement and only hold to the simple teaching as truth in priority of a Christian life, the Fatherhood of God, and its corollary, the brotherhood of man. It is true that all men are of the same blood, God made man in His image, and in this sense that He is the creator of man He is the Father of mankind. This does not mean that every man has God as His personal Father, for only if a person is adopted by God can a man/woman say that God is truly their Father. Remember once again, Jesus never taught this modern doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God, or the teaching of the universal brotherhood of man. God will save sinners from their sins but this does not mean that every man has God as their Father. God is good to all men, for men of every sorts has the sun, the wind, the rain, able to grow food and this is for the good and the evil, but God is not called to be Father of all. God then cares for those who are not a child of His, even those who persecute His children, but they are not a child of God, and God is not their Father. This teaching of the universal fatherhood of God, this universal brotherhood of man is not to be found in the New Testament. Yes, we all offspring of God for He is the creator of mankind (Acts 17:28) Those words that are recorded form part of an hexameter line and are taken from a pagan poet, they are not represented as part of the Gospel, rather they merely belong to the common meeting ground which Paul discovered in speaking to his pagan hearers. 

      This lofty term "Father" is used to describe a relationship, a relationship of an intimate kind, that relationship in which God stands to the company of the redeemed. This distinctive term "Father" or the "Fatherhood of God" only concerns those who have been brought into the household of faith. This term as applied by Christians may bring up an objection that this is a narrow teaching: well it is narrow for narrow is the road leading to salvation, but this road is open to all who wish to travel down that road and not the wide road to destruction. Yes, there is a similarity to this "Brotherhood of man," or this "fatherhood of God", but there is a wide chasm between the Christian use of the term and that of the world, for this term "the Fatherhood of God" offers infinitely more. 

     Socialism, Communism, this progressive movement teaches the world' understanding of the "brotherhood of man," and the the "fatherhood of God," and is a major problem within liberal Christianity. This world' teaching is not of Christianity, it is heresy. Run from such a teaching, return tot the truth: God will be your Father if you believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, repent of your sins, and deny yourself and pick up your cross and follow Jesus. This means that you are adopted by God and now are a child of His, and He is your Father. 

Know ye that the LORD He is God:

      It is He that hath made us, 

and not we ourselves; we are His

     people, and the sheep of His pasture.

                     Psalms 100:3

Build upon this relationship with God

Richard L. Crumb  

Called To Be Saints

Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ 

through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,

 unto the church of God which is at Corinth, 

to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus,

 called to be saints, with all that in every 

place call upon the name of Jesus Christ 

our Lord, both theirs and ours: Grace be 

unto you, and peace, from God our Father,

 and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

1Corinthians 1:1-3 

     A question to begin this blog: Do you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? If the answer is yes: you are then called to be a saint, and this is to be manifested in your life when you call upon the name of Jesus Christ everywhere you are at the moment. The Greek words: "That are sanctified" is a good translation but the Greek goes further inasmuch as it is a plural participle in the perfect tense, passive: so it means even more: it means that you having been sanctified, a completed work and a continuing work are to live as what God has done for you when you came to believe upon the One He sent forth to bring salvation. 

     Salvation is something that God gives to you upon your belief in Jesus Christ and at that time when you put your life into His hands and believed; it was a time of great joy and even of vision. This vision is often clouded over by life, those valleys that we must walk through, those times of disappointment, or trials that test our faith. The vision dims and often there is a turning back for the preparation for the blows, and they will come, was not done, or was not fully leading your life: you have not fully changed inside/out. If a person is living a life simply in the vision we will not be as what God wants us to be and that means that we must be willing to have our "vision" battered and shaped and then be of use to God. Those times of battering are things within the commonplace of life. 

      Character is formed by influences outside of ourselves and the question is: will we allow the vision to turn us into the will of God and this is not going to be because God turned us; no, we must turn ourselves. The old saying: "You cannot turn a parked car" so God will not turn you unless you are willing to be turned and are turning. If we stay with the vision, it will dim, it will not lead you to the will of God and if we remain in the vision we will not be of any good in the ordinary things that make up life. 

     Liberal Christians, those who rely on an experiential Christianity are attempting to live in the vision, or some vision that they have conjured up in their minds and to reinforce that vision they live in ecstasies, euphoric worship, upon "gibberish" rubbish language that is not to be found in Scripture, they live in some form of meditation as do the Hindus, the Brahams, the Buddhists, an attempt to live in the consciousness of God. What is missing is as an Authentic Christian we must live in the actualities that make of a true vision of God and live through the ordinary things of life until that vision becomes a veritable, that is, a genuine, a reality. Our training, our sanctification is in that direction. We must be thankful that God is allowing us to be battered, to be shaped into what He wants for us, His will for us. 

      It is easy to see in so many Charismatic, or Pentecostal Churches that their desire to be godly is not being led by God, by Scripture, rather to be a little "I am" and to being led by the great "I AM, THAT I AM" for it He who is sending you into the world to be a witness for Him. God will always be with you, and if you, only you, allow God to lead you by His Holy Spirit that lives within all person who have come to believe, put their faith in, Jesus Christ you will find the peace, the grace of God in ways that you will know but will not know how God has given you such a thing because you, and I, have often failed Him, but God does for He will hunt you down for you are a child of God, and as your eternal and heavenly Father, you have security in Him. God knows you, even more than you know yourself. 

     REMEMBER: YOU ARE CALLED TO SAINTS!

Hear ye now what the LORD saith; Arise,

     contend thou before the mountains,

and let the hills hear thy voice.

                                Micah 6:1

God will take out what you put in

Richard L. Crumb

Enduring To The End

And Jesus answered and said unto them, 

Take heed that no man deceive you. For many 

shall come in My name, saying I am Christ; 

and shall deceive many......And because 

iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall 

wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, 

the same shall be saved. And this Gospel of 

the kingdom shall be preached in all the world 

for a witness unto all nations; and then 

shall the end come.

Matthew 24:4-5,12-14 

     Yesterday I traveled to the Veteran's Hospital in Sacramento to have the surgeon look upon the surgical sight and to give to me the report from the second pathologist. Good news: no liposarcoma, cancer. Now on to the next possible surgery but not for another two months. It has been, and it is not over, two years of surgery, and treatments, and it is not quite over: But.....God has not given to us a life that is not to have trials and tribulations, but He has given us the fact: He will be with us in all things! Now, this last trip on the shuttle was different in that on the way back home only the shuttle driver and men were in the van and we have known each other from those other many trips to Sacramento, and this gave us a time to talk. You see: God engineers things and we do not see this engineering until it has been accomplished and over. 

     Let me start with this from Aristotle, in Metaphysics, II, (III),1.: "Those who wish to succeed must ask the right preliminary questions" (Italics and bold type are mine for emphasis). 

     The shuttle driver, a good man in many ways, has what is to be found in many people: they love conspiracies! Conspiracies do happen, they do exist, but to know if a conspiracy is truth or a lie, one must examine and find reverences to either support or debunk a conspiracy. How can this be done with some success? ASK QUESTIONS! Then listen! This is true in life, in the Church, in your Christian walk to become an Authentic Christian, to have Authentic Christian Faith. To just believe is not the way to truth. The opening verses tell us, Jesus tells us that there will be some who will be deceivers, even in the Church. These deceivers will say that they have the truth about Christ, that they are presenting the truth about God and even expect you to just believe them, especially those who are eloquent speakers. Jesus adds a warning: we who desire to hold to the truth as it is revealed in Scripture: MUST ENDURE TO THE END! It is ok to accept on the surface what a man preaches or teaches but then to "inspect" "inspect what you expect." Those who do, those who endure to the end "WILL BE SAVED!" Is this important, to check, to test all things and hold on to the good? (1Thess. 5:21), YES! 

     Authentic Christian, those who are seeking the truth abut God, about Jesus Christ, is to have a real existence of a personal God. Not some ideal about God, an ideal that there must be a God, no, to learn from Scripture that there is a God and that you must develop a personal relationship with God, and Jesus is God, therefore to have a personal relationship with God is to have a personal relationship with Jesus, and to have a personal relationship with Jesus is to have a personal relationship with God. Without that belief no person can rightly appeal to Jesus. Jesus was a theist, for He believe in existence of God, and He had a rational theism as the basis of Christianity. To have logical confirmation of the belief in God is a vital concern to a Christian. True religion can have or make no peace with a false philosophy, a false theology, or even a false ideology. There are several, if not many, methods of arriving at truth, that is if the methods are valid methods, for all methods in the end will arrive at a harmonious result. It is to be found that in agnosticism, or Atheism, or liberal Christianity, that which sometimes is called "practical Christianity" or a "practical" religion is not Christianity at all, certainly not Authentic Christianity. A belief that many have about conspiracies has led to much infighting among the many denominations, led to Church splits, for other forms of worship, and to examine is good, but to never find that some of the infighting is not about "truth", no, it is fighting over indifference, and the differences are given less importance. We must allow indifference so long as they are upholding Authentic Christian Faith, not demeaning Authentic Christian Faith, no leading people to rely on indifference but to remain themselves in a relationship with God, with our Savior Jesus Christ and follow His commands and precepts. We must set the example to the world, to be the light of the world, not seen as little "sects" of Christianity, rather as a catholic Christian one of a large family of men and women, of children who love God and who are allowed to have valid indifference. The basis of Authentic Christianity is a belief in God, in the One sent by God, Jesus Christ, God Himself in hypostasis with man. No other way could our salvation have assurance. Endure in this belief in God, in Authentic Christian Faith and you will in the end be saved. John writes in a most famous verse (John 3:16) and the Greek word for "believes" is in literal translation, he who is "believing presently," will be saved. 

    Is God real in your life, not by some experiential happening, is He real at all times, do you have a relationship with Him, or with some experience?

LORD, who shall abide in Thy tabernacle?

     Who shall dwell in Thy holy hill?

He that walketh uprightly, and worketh

    righteousness, and speaketh the truth

in his heart.

                   Psalm 15:1-2

The Most Practical Thing: Personal Relationship with God

Richard L. Crumb