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Addendum

 

 

This book will always be a work in progress. As long as there are those persons, being led by the Spirit of God, who both desire and have the freedom to ponder, discuss and work out the scriptures; for those seeking the truth of God, it cannot and will not be finished. We will not be complete nor satisfied until the people of God attain the perfect man the Apostle Paul reminds us is the goal. When the goal is reached, there will be no more need for books such as this one. In truth, the need for any one book will have been superseded by the one Book that truly matters, the Book of Life, where the names of the people of God are found.

It is the scriptures where the knowledge of the Creator, His will and the purpose for man is discovered. The authority of this knowledge is based in the God who is infinite in wisdom and knowledge, and who has revealed Himself to the finite creature He desired to create in His image and likeness.

But here lies the conundrum we face. Because God has done so, man has been driven by the compulsion within the heart, to search Him out and describe Him. Alas, anything that you or I do will fall far short of describing God, His will, and the glory that is God. But try we must. To be fair, if fairness is what it can be called, God has not left us completely helpless in our efforts.

First there are the Scriptures, as much-disputed as they have been, with their legitimacy challenged from every side, even by those who claim to believe them. It is true that there are good reasons to believe the scriptures of old have been tampered with, especially in light of the many variations of those copies that are available to us. The hard fact is, and one that few seem to recognize, the original drafts from the original scribes have not been available to us for a very long time now. If one is to be honest about what we do have for the scriptures, much has been lost because of the way language changes, and in the translation of those languages.

But, and here lies a second factor, God has granted His Spirit, the Helper, as Jesus called it,[1] specifically to His people. Without the Spirit of God, the Scriptures are of little value, demonstrated by their misuse by men devoid of the Spirit who twist them for their own agenda.

For those sons and daughters of God who have been granted the gift of the Spirit, the Word of God is alive and powerful,[2] with the promise from God, “…so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”[3]

With these words, those who have been granted the spirit can go forward, comforted in the knowledge that God the Father's will, shall be done and not one of His children will be lost. It was the Fathers will that He sent His beloved son, the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth, the man through whom is the salvation from sin and death. Jesus reminds us of the promise, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand,”[4] the hand of the man to behold.

 

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