Can You Handle It?

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend of mine.  During the course of the conversation, my friend mentioned a common theme that many people believe is true but one that I am not so sure is.  The idea is this; that God will not give you more than you can handle.

This is a pretty common theme that I hear all the time.  I hear it from both church goers and unbelievers as well.  It is one of those "universal" themes that people seem to have about God.  I think that also in time of great difficulty it is kind of comforting to ones self to think that I can handle this because God would never give me more than I can handle.  Is this true?

The concept come from I Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.  It certainly seems here that this is indeed a statement right out of scripture that God will never give you more than you can bear.  But we need to look a little closer.

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.  When we start out here we find the people to whom this is written in the same plight of those who use the saying, in a position of troubles.  But, what kind of troubles?  These are very specific issues with these people.  They are temptations that they have fallen to.  The temptation to which they have fallen, and so many others is the temptation to sin; or go against God's will.  We often find ourselves at our wits end in a situation where we have made a decision and are suffering the consequences thereof.  We've all been there and it is nothing uncommon.  We have all been disobedient and had to suffer the consequences.

but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able...  This is the part people like to take out.  We can handle anything because God won't let us get in over our heads.  We have to think about this one here a minute.  Yes, God is faithful...  faithful to whom?  God is faithful to His children.  If you are not a child of His, God is not obligated to be faithful.  This verse, after all, was written to believers.  It was for believers.  It is believers who will not be tempted above what they are able.  Unbelievers will not even see a temptation as a temptation.  It will not be something they would even be interested in avoiding.  An unbeliever will plow full steam into temptation and revel in it.  They might comfort themselves with these words, but they will continue doing the same things.

For the believer,  "but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."  The question is, what is that escape?  For the believer, that escape is the Word.  In Mathew 4 we see Jesus being tempted by the devil.  With each temptation, Jesus gave example for us on how to escape temptation.  It is written, it is written, it is written.  And it wasn't just the words, but also the fact that Jesus believed the words and obeyed the words.  Obedience to the word of God is the way of escape from temptation that will allow us to bear it.  If we are not going to be obedient to the word, we will not be delivered from the temptations.

The truth is this, God will allow us to get in way over our head.  He will let things get so bad sometimes that we have no clue what to do.  Everything will seem out of control, topsy-turvy, and one thing right after another until our heads are spinning.  We know from Romans 8:28  that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.  If you don't love God, God may be using those circumstances to force you into a corner to make a decision.  The way of escape that God has for mankind is through His son Jesus Christ.  That is the whole point.  Without Jesus, we can't bear it.   The load of our sins that we have will cause us an eternity of torment beyond anything we can imagine.  We don't have to bear that weight though.  We can give it to Jesus.  Jesus is the way of escape from all the temptations we have fallen into, and obedience to God's ways will keep us from further temptations.

2 Peter 2:9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

Does the Church have it Backwards?

Colossians 2: ¹⁶ Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
¹⁷ Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.


Most of the time when people use this verse, they are generally making the case that we are no longer under the law, that the law has been done away with, and that we therefore no longer have to be obedient to what God has said through the law.  But, is this what the passage is really saying?


I propose that it may be saying just the opposite of what most people use it for.  It may just be saying to let no man judge you for KEEPING the Sabbath and FOLLOWING the dietary commands, or using the Jewish calendar to denote holy days and keeping them.  Some of the biggest debates in Christendom surround the idea that we need to be obedient to the whole Bible.


Many Christians today have been taught that they no longer have to do what the bible says to do because certain parts of the Bible have been done away with.  Is this so?  Christians often use the previous verses to substantiate their claims.  
 

¹³ And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
¹⁴ Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
¹⁵ And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

The argument is that the OT laws were blotted out.  The truth is, what was blotted out was the penalty for violation of Gods commands.  Jesus himself said,  Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.  That fulfilling was His substitutionary death in our stead.  In no way were any of Gods commands declared null and void.  

 

this easy believism and grace without responsibility is what has watered down the churches message.  It has destroyed the witness of Christians.  Rather than being separated from the world through obedience to God, the church has become part of the world, nearly indistinguishable from unbelievers.  The rates of sin within the church are just as high, if not higher, than outside.  

 

There is no more fear of Yahweh in believers any longer.  The salt has lost its savor and is being trodden under foot.  Every vestige of our heritage as Christians is being removed from society.  Over the last 50 years God has been removed from nearly every institution.  Where have the Christians been?  

 

Believers!  It is time to repent and return unto the way of the Lord.  Time is short and the harvest is ripe.  Turn away from the lie of grace as a license and do as thou wilt churchianity.  It is time to submit yourself to do what God has commanded you to do.  We serve a might God, not the other way around.  God is not our magic genie to make us feel all warm and fuzzy and give us the things we want.  We are His servants who are to do as HE commands of us.  Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.  ² And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Athletic Analogy

When I was a young; I played in a lot of sports.  I played football, baseball, and basketball. One of the most important qualities that our coaches tried to instill into us was discipline.  Everyone on the team had to know the part they played and be able to properly execute their job properly for the team as a whole to succeed. To do this, you had to show up at the practice every day.  You had to read, study, and know the playbook. You had to participate in the drills, and practice and work out on your own outside of the sport too.  



To be successful, you had to be committed to putting in your full effort.   If you did not put forth your full effort and give it your full attention, You would end up being an inconsistent and unreliable player.  In all likelihood you would be replaced as a starter by someone who was disciplined enough to do all the necessaries to make themselves and the team better.  The amount of effort and discipline you put in directly effected the amount of success you had.


This lesson was not just about sports, but it was about life in general.  In school being disciplined led to great success.  On the job, being well disciplined can mean promotions, opportunities, and responsibilities (as well as more cash).  Being disciplined in your eating will keep you healthy and trim.  Your amount of success in anything is equal to the amount of discipline you have in learning and perfecting whatever it is you have set out to do.


Of course, I found out the hard way that the opposite was true also.  If you are not disciplined enough to put forth the effort, failure was surely not far behind.  You certainly won't get that promotion if you have not even taken the time or effort to learn and master the one you are already working.  In fact, you could even lose your job if you are undisciplined.  Employers tend not to like employees who are regularly tardy and sloppy in their work. 


One area where many people tend to not think about discipline is in their faith.  There are a lot of sloppy christians out there who don't take their discipline much beyond making it to church most Sundays.  We Christians tend to get lazy in our faith.  Let go and let God is a common phrase.  While there may be a time and a place where that is necesary, that is not what the walk of a Christian should be.  From our very creation we were given things to do, and we needed to be disciplined enough to do it. Well, that didn't quite work out, huh? Chaos ensued.


I am not a person of great discipline myself.  Somewhere since my youth I lost it.  Although, I never really had a lot of pressure to be disciplined in what I did.   It has been on my heart recently though that discipline is important in the life of the believer.  I've been nagged by little things like, Do I pray consistently?  Read my bible consistently?  While I can say ye

s, sort of; it is not like I have a time set aside to do so.  As a result, there are days where I forget a prayer, or slip away from my bible studies for a while.  I hear of and have known folks though who will pray or study at the exact same time every day.


To me though, I have to harken back to my youth sports days.  I feel like there should be a set time for practices (prayer, praise, study, etc..), that we need to study our playbook (the Bible), and that we need to be fully prepared for that time that we are put in the game so that we may be successful at what we do and help our team to win.  Without the discipline to practice and prepare, we will not be ready for the time God wants to put us in the game.  We don't want to be just bench warmers, do we? Don't we all want to get in the game and help our team win?  ( I hope you are all shouting in agreement)


Let's get in that playbook (bible) and learn the plays (what we are expected to do).  Learn what the rules are so you are not committing dumb penalties (sinning).  Those rules are not just there to be looked at.  They are expected to be followed and you will get flagged for violating them.  Talk (pray) to the coach (God).  Find out what position you are supposed to play and how you can play that position to help the team.  Make sure you are on time to practices and games.  Wear the proper equipment (Ephesians 6).  And give it your all.


I know, getting started is the hardest part.  Training camp is a time where you get yourself in shape, get yourself game ready.  It is where you do the basics over and over until they become second nature, where you don't have to think about what to do twice as it has become instinct.  It can be hard work and some days you just don't feel like doing it, but to make the team and avoid being cut, you have to be disciplined and persevere.  You can do it though, and before you know it, you'll be in the regular season.

Perfect!

per·fect

[adj., n. pur-fikt; v. per-fekt] Show IPA

adjective

1.

conforming absolutely to the description or definition of an ideal type: a perfect sphere; a perfect gentleman.

2.

excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement: There is no perfect legal code. The proportions of this temple are almost perfect.

3.

exactly fitting the need in a certain situation or for a certain purpose: a perfect actor to play Mr. Micawber; a perfect saw for cutting out keyholes.

4.

entirely without any flaws, defects, or shortcomings: a perfect apple; the perfect crime.

5.

accurate, exact, or correct in every detail: a perfect copy.

 

When people consider G-d , I don’t think many really take into consideration the perfectness of Him.  YHWH is in every way perfect.   He is the absolute ideal.  Jehovah is complete.  The great I am exactly fits every need in every situation.  Elohim is entirely without flaw, defect, or shortcoming.  Adonai is correct in every detail.  The Ancient of Days is the definition of perfection.  El Shaddai stands alone in perfection.  His thoughts, His ways, his words, His judgments….  Everything about Him is perfect.


Man; man is not so perfect.  There was a reason the phrase came into being, nobody’s perfect.  We all make mistakes is a common theme we humans say.  It’s not that we don’t try, we do.  It is just a fact that we are not perfect.  Not a single one of us is perfect.  Most of us don’t even always try.  C’mon now, let’s be real.  You know that’s true.  In fact, a portion of us enjoys our imperfection.  They even revel in it.


There is an old saying that goes something like this, everyone wants to heaven, but nobody wants to die.  Unfortunately, death is one of those imperfections we inherited.  Our bodies are not perfect either and eventually they decay, or get damaged, to the point that life can no longer be sustained in them.  We die.  Then comes the tough question…  then what? 


We’d all like to think we could go to heaven, but there is a problem.  Heaven is perfect.  That is where the perfect El-Elyon lives.  If I have a glass of pure perfect water, nothing but straight H2O, and I add something to it that is not H2O, then that perfect glass of water has been contaminated.  It is no longer perfect.  That is the dilemma we face concerning heaven.   G-d, being perfect, cannot allow something that is imperfect into perfect heaven.  If He did, it would no longer be perfect.


I’ve seen people complain about this.  They say God is evil because he doesn’t let everyone into heaven.  Fact of the matter is, in our current state, no one is going to heaven.  We have all fallen short of perfection.  I don’t care how good you have been in life, you were never perfect.  Being imperfect, there is no way you can enter into a perfect place without corrupting it with your imperfection.


Yahweh understood this dilemma too.  God loves us and He wants us to love Him and spend forever with Him.  We can’t be together though as long as we are imperfect.  We will always be separated.  Or will we?


The Father, in his love and wisdom, made a way so that imperfect man could be made perfect.  He loved us so much that he sent His son into the world to live that perfect life we are incapable of, and then to shed his blood and die, substituting His perfect self in place of our imperfectness.  If we accept that trade, we are then covered by that blood and are made perfect so that we can then have fellowship with a perfect God, forever, in a perfect place, heaven. 


John 3” ¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
¹⁵ That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
¹⁶ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
¹⁷ For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
¹⁸ He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
¹⁹ And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
²⁰ For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
²¹ But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

Come Out

Revelation 3:1-6 The message to Sardis.  It is likely that the problem at Sardis was a strong tendency to compromise Christian faith for the sake of conformity to social and cultural standards set by Asian society and the Roman Empire. This spirit of compromise was linked not to one particular faction in the Christian community (as at Pergamum and Thyatira) but to the majority. The ones who had not soiled their clothes had become marginalized. They were the small faction.

This commentary on the Sardis church sounds very much like the churches today in America.  Many have compromised the faith to include societies sins in acceptance, and not in acceptance alone, but even promotion of sinful activity.  Many have compromised the faith by accepting pagan ideas to be mingled into Christianity.  It is time to purify yourselves, to come out from amongst them and be true to the faith. 

 

1 Corinthians 5:6-8

⁶ Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

⁷ Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

⁸ Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.



Has your church accepted the Babylonian goddess Ishtar into its belief system?  Are they celebrating Easter?  Or are they promoting Passover?  Are you told to be tolerant of the homosexual lifestyle and agenda?  Some churches have even embraced Baal in acceptance of child sacrifice in embracing abortion.  How many churches have slipped into embracing the humanist psychology where self-esteem is esteemed higher than esteeming our savior?  There are so many ways that the Christian churches have compromised themselves.



Each of us as individuals are going to be held responsible for our own lives though.  We have choices to make whether or not we will compromise the truth or not.  We have the ability to come out from among them and speak the truth in love to not only a lost world, but a lost church.  We have the scriptures before us.  Study them.  See if what your pastor is saying is true or not.  You don’t have to go to seminary school to understand scripture.  Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you and He will show you the truth.  Ask and you will be answered, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened up to you.



2 Timothy 2: ³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
⁴ And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
 


We seem to be living in that time.  What I am saying is that we as Christians must not endure false and misleading compromised doctrines either.  We need to turn away from error and find the truth, for the truth shall set us free, and whom the Lord sets free is free indeed.  I desire in the end to hear those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.  Enter into thy rest”.  To do so we must be willing to separate ourselves from false teachings.  It may cost us family members and friends to do so.  We may be ostracized by the churches.  We might be called crazy by our co workers or even disciplined and fired from our jobs for speaking truth.  The time is coming where we may even be jailed or killed for it; hunted down like criminals.  
 

Revelations 3: ⁵ He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

We Want Information

A while back I turned off my TV.  I haven't been listening to the talk radio much either.  The only real news I get is from people posting on the Facebook pages.  During that time of not having any talking heads whispering in my ear, I have found a difference in the way I am viewing things.  It is a little more discerned, I think.


This is what I am seeing when it comes to information lately.  I see a lot of people making personal attacks.  People attack the President, congressmen, some guy in a court case, whoever they don't agree with.  When I say attack, I mean that they will not say anything about a policy, a position,  but it will be just like, they guy is a bum (or many worse things)because I disagree with him.  That type of thing goes nowhere.  It does not advance anything, build anything, or mend anything.  It just destroys and divides.


The other thing I see going on is the promotion of news that isn't news.  There are numerous sites out there that put out ridiculous stories that are just flat out not true, or are only partially true, and people are reposting these things all over the internet as if they were true.  These often revolve around political and/or religious issues dealing with conspiratorial type subjects.   I've been fooled by a couple of these myself from time to time mainly because I want them to be true.


These types of things in their volume make it difficult at times to discern what is really true and what is not.  It all just becomes a big clanging bell that everyone just becomes deaf from.  Information has become so watered down that people get to where they don't believe anything anyone else says and only believe what they want to believe, deceiving themselves and others.


Philippians 4:8 says, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."  It would be wise to examine what we are posting and passing along to see if we are meeting this mark.  Are we sharing truth, honesty, justness,lovely, virtuous, praise worthy items of good report?  Or are we sharing trash that isn't true, unfairly puts down, ugly, questionable things from questionable sources with no virtue?

Conversation on the Free Gift

The following is a conversation I had in a group concerning the free gift of salvation.  I post this just as an example of how hard it can be to witness to others, especially those who have made up their minds that there is no God.  The unbelievers just cannot seem to grasp the concept of a free gift, and in the end, reject what that free gift is, Jesus Christ, the son of the living god who laid down His life substitutionally to pay the penalty of death that was meant for us; who then arose on the third day, defeating death and giving the path to reconciliation with God and eternal life through Him.
BP:  I think it's extremely sad that those people who have faith in God don't have enough faith in him to believe that he would be fair. That is, he wouldn't give a damn whether you believed any of these high drama stories about him. He would only care about one thing - did you do your best to live your life the best way you knew how. Why is that so hard to believe?
JS:  BP, I don't know how much more fair God could be. He offers a free gift of forgiveness and eternal life for whoever wants to accept it. There are no conditions attached to it. You can't work to attain it because it's free.

HH: Um, there are conditions

HH:  If it were free you would get it without doing anything or having to agree to anything. 'Agreeing' is, in fact, a condition.

Jeremiah Spotter:   You can't do anything to get it.

HH: You just said you have to accept it.

HH:  I think the problem is, the idea of saying it is without conditions, is what you want it to be, but real examination shows that this idea doesn't apply.

Jeremiah Spotter:   That's not doing anything. You can always say, no thank you, though.

HH;  Hello, that is a condition

HH: What if you just say nothing? Do you just receive it?

Jeremiah Spotter:   Hello, no it isn't. That is rejection.

HH: So everyone gets it then?

Jeremiah Spotter: It's available to everyone.

HH:  Answer my question

Jeremiah Spotter:  I just did

HH:  No, you responded, you did not answer. If you say nothing, you get it, yes or no.

Jeremiah Spotter:   A gift does nothing for you if you just let it sit there.

HH:  So you aren't going to answer, then?

Jeremiah Spotter:   I just did

HH:  If it just sits there, you still have it.

HH:  The giver does not get to decide what you do with a gift once they give it to you, do they?

HH:  "Jeremiah Spotter I just did"
The question needs a 'yes' or 'no'-only response.

Jeremiah Spotter :If you just let it sit there and say nothing, it has not transferrred posession and they can do what they want with it.

HH: So, teh answer is actually 'no', then. It's not a free gift. It's conditional.

HH:  It has not transferred possession', that's a pretty poor effort.

Jeremiah Spotter :  No, it is unconditional. Someone rejecting it is not a condition. It is a choice by the preson who it is offered to.

HH:  'Someone rejecting it' means a condition is that it must be deliberately accepted.

HH:  From your own posts it MUST be chosen. That's not free. You must agree to something.

HH:  .. and since we all know its really a whole shitload of things one must agree to, this argument was never really going far ;)

GA:  Free burgers at Burger king! !! All you have to do is accept your free burger with no strings attached. Failure to accept free burgers will result in the kidnap and murder of your children. Free burgers!!!

HH:  Essentially, this 'free unconditional gift' is really like a zero-money-down car ad which also has a twice-speed verbal disclaimer at the end read over a huge paragraph of text which is of a font size too small to read on any television.

 

Jeremiah Spotter:   You can do a whole shitload of things, hammer, but that does not get you the free gift.

HH:  I should already have a free gift

HH:  One generally doesn't work for a gift. One works for a reward.

Jeremiah Spotter:   Exactly. there is nothing one can do to earn a free gift.

HH:  facepalm

HH: Subtlety is lost on you, isn't it?

BP: Why is this even being discussed Jeremiah? We all know that in order to receive the gift of forgiveness we have to accept Jesus Christ as the son of God who was sacrificed on the cross to pay for our sins. That is most definitely a condition.

BP:  I think we have to say we believe he was born of a virgin too. That's real important.

Jeremiah Spotter:   Bob, those are facts, not conditions.

HH:  Facts exist independent of our acceptance.

Jeremiah Spotter:   exactly

HH:  Therefore we don't need to accept them to get this free gift

HH:  BOOYAH

Jeremiah Spotter:   You don't need to accept it for the gift to be real, but if you don't even believe the gift exists, how can you recieve the benefits thereof?

HH: If it were real it would affect me regardless.

Jeremiah Spotter: It most definitely does effect you, either way.

HH:  Then I don't need to say anything. I already get the benefits. There is no 'either way' involved in a 'free gift'.

Jeremiah Spotter:   You could ignore it.

HH:  Im not sure why you keep trying to argue it, I QED'd this one for like the third time 7 posts ago

Jeremiah Spotter:   If that's what you feel you did....

HH: More than a feeliiiiiiiiiiiiiiin'...

BP:   If my grandma gave me a birthday gift, she doesn't say but you can't have it unless you first pinky swear that you know without any doubt that your grandpa worked his fingers to the bone to pay for this gift. She just gives it to me.  If I have to pinky swear then that's a condition. And it's an unacceptable one because I have to swear that I know something that I don't. I might believe it's true if she says so but since I didn't witness him doing that, she's demanding that I lie to receive my gift. That's immoral.

Jeremiah Spotter:   If your grandma gives you a gift, but you don't believe the gift exists, then you do not get the use of the gift. It just sits there. If you ignore it, you don’t get the benefits of the gift, it just sits there. The third option is to happily receive the gift, give thanks to grandma, open it up and enjoy the gift to its fullest. receiving it is not a condition because the gift has already been given.

GA:  Does god know the difference between reluctant acceptance of him and the sort of "happy-clappy-glazed-eyed-furiously-masturbating-while-shouting-god-forgive-me" acceptance of him?

HH:  "It just sits there"
HH: Again, the giver has no control over what someone does with a gift they receive. Secondly, 'forgiveness' cannot simply 'sit there'. Using a physical gift as your analogy isn't valid. It's God's personal feeling to forgive, and if its a free gift he'll just do it.

BP:  I don't know why you keep arguing about it Jeremiah. The gift is conditional and no amount of weasel wording or spin doctoring is going to convince anybody otherwise.

HH:  ^ true story

Jeremiah Spotter:   Heathen, He did just do it. People just refuse to believe it. As you concede, the giver has no control over what the receiver does with a gift given. The forgiveness is there, just ignored or disbelieved.

HH: I cannot disbelieve in something someone else feels. That makes no sense, as I've already pointed out.

HH:  If he feels it, he fells it, and I already have it regardless of what I believe.
Seriously man, you lost this argument long ago, let it be.

Jeremiah Spotter:   Bob, there are no conditions. You not believing what is said about the gift does not change what it is. When Jesus said, it is finished, that is what he meant. the gift was given.

HH:  When Jesus said 'it is finished', he meant his life, and he died.

o    When Jesus said 'it is finished', he meant his life, and he died. People don't get all metaphorical when their guts are hanging around their knees.

Unless it's a Tarantino film.

GA: He gave the gift already? ?? The gullible twat. That means I can deny him and still get into heaven with Andy Williams...oh, fuck that.

Jeremiah Spotter: If you reject the gift, you don't get the benefits thereof.  Thus, you can spend you eternity separated from Andy Williams.

GA:  I've taken the gift but then decided to deny him. Brilliant eh?

Jeremiah Spotter:  If you throw the gift away, you no longer possess it. Right?

GA:  I'm not throwing the gift away. I'm keeping it but denying Jesus.

Jeremiah Spotter:  Jesus IS the gift. Deny Jesus, you deny the gift.

HH: "Jeremiah Spotter If you reject the gift, you don't get the benefits thereof."

Im not rejecting it, Im saying nothing. Since you never answered that question I still get the gift. It's free and unconditional, after all.

Jeremiah Spotter:  and it sits there useless, and you do not get to enjoy the benefits of it.

HH:  I don't want Jesus as a gift, I have dogs. And besides in my country its unethical to give another person as a gift.

GA:  So I can accept the gift then when I get into heaven I can call him a dick?

Jeremiah Spotter:  It is finished. Meaning I am done with the conversation.

HH:  "Jeremiah Spotter It is finished. Meaning I am done with the conversation."

Thank Gods.