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THE INITIAL AGREEMENT

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What does the mechanism of an agreement suggest? It suggests responsibilities of both parties, conditions of fulfillment, expectations, punitive sanctions in case of breaching the agreement, and finally, blessings in the result of fulfillment of the agreement. As you already guessed, we’ll be speaking about the initial conditions, — expectations, agreement between God and man at the time of repentance and in the process of salvation.

 

One of the reasons of existing of numerous churches and confessions is a different devotion and readiness to serve Christ and His Gospel on the part of man. Somebody says that he is ready for God to be present at Sunday sermons only, and to serve God by making the sign of the Cross on himself with three fingers (which was the password of the first christians). And that’s all! Somebody is ready to go to the church more often and to read the Bible more often. Somebody visits the night prayers on Fridays. And so on. All these limitations of believers towards God is their agreement at repentance time or the maximum, on which God can rely in our future salvation. But if during our life it turns out that God expects from us much more than this, and it contradicts the picture, which we painted for ourselves initially, it can mean the breach of agreement on our part — «goodbye my Lord, this is not what I expected»! Or if my dreams as to what my fleshly desires from Him don’t come true, again we can say — «good-buy, my Lord!» And so on. This is only the foundation of the sermon yet to come.

 

The sermon itself.

 

I knew many pastors and I can tell you, that if they only knew what God expected from them in real fact, they would never have repented, or would have put off repentance for an unlimited period of time. People are ready to say «good-buy» to their sins (to repent). They are ready to lose something, which is dear for them (relatives or work), but in no way and for no cost (including for the Gospel) they are not ready to say good-buy to their earthly well-being. And in case they lose their well-being, it can mean they will say to God: «Good-buy, my Lord!» It doesn’t necessarily mean their returning to the world (although it also can be so), but their inspiration in ministry can disappear. I set the examples with pastors purposefully, so that you could understand the situation with ordinary believers. It’s twice as worse. When somebody takes a decision to repent, nobody talks to them about their responsibility, which follows repentance, for all their life long. It’s only important for us that a person gets saved, and we think that all the rest will be done by God. This is our attitude to the matter. That’s why we see no quality. All is very conditional and superficial.

For example. For the period from 1990-2000 people were coming to the church in big quantities. I ask you a question — who led them to the church? (this was a cursed land of the former USSR). And who started churches? The correct answer — it was the Lord! But what was wrong then? There are many reasons, but this is not the first ruined revival on earth. But here we shall touch upon one reason. This is our initial agreement with God at the first steps of our salvation. Quite often pastors are hunting «sheep from other churches» (and I was doing the same as well). And when they get the desired, it doesn’t bring blessing. You can try to encourage and motivate the believer, whom you have «stolen» from another gathering, but he will stay indifferent all the same. And only later on you suddenly realize — he has the foundation of quite different expectations and responsibility. He has the understanding of the Gospel, which had been put into him by other people. But this understanding is wrong. And now nobody, including the Lord, will move this stone from its place. A person had certain expectations, and somebody had already put into him the understanding of faith, its purpose and its perspectives. While repenting, he could feel like under «anesthesia» (from physical pain, pain of his soul, depression, alcohol-dependence, drug-dependence etc.). And when the anesthesia stopped its action, when the state of the first emotional love disappeared, then reality showed its face again. It turns out, Jesus has certain requirements to me, and He has His will on my whole life. And a person goes through re-estimation of his former position: was it worth to come to the church, or maybe there was some other method to fight the problems, which came to his life? Maybe, I could do without Jesus somehow? The price when believers lose all the sweetness of life and all its advantages is not even regarded by christians. It’s too heavy for them. And then a question sounds from inside: Lord, we didn’t agree with you for all this! And it turns out, that the quantity of those who have fallen apart, is much more and is constantly growing, than the quantity of those who stay faithful to Jesus and the Gospel.

 

Why am I writing about it in such a detail? Because it’s the reason of disappointment of many believers, and it depends on us only. Before a person’s salvation it’s necessary to explain to him the reality of the Gospel and to lay down the right foundation of the Gospel during the time of the first love. It can change the percentage of those, who have fallen apart, and it will lift them to the new level of ministry and devotion. I know the church, which is preaching Gospel all the time and asks God to take new people to the church, in order to be saved. And they are always gathering money for the new evangelizations. But the percenatge of those who have fallen apart in this church is 99%. This church is all over in blood of the newly-borns, because of its negligence and lack of responsibility before the newly-borns, because it hands over its responsibility for them into the hands of God. This church is living according to the motto: «the main thing for a person is to repeat the «prayer of repentance». And what is coming next — they don’t care, saying that God will take care of it. In this way they are gathering blood of the newly-borns onto their hands.

So, the relation of a person to the initial agreement at the first steps of repentance must be added by the church to its armoury, at whatever cost. AMEN!

 

P.S. In the developed countries such notion as «marriage contract» exists. This is a prototype of the future blessings and realities in faith (it’s a joke). A Covenant means inviolable responsibilities, taken by us before God and His Gospel, where there is no place to one-side responsibility because of the lack knowledge.

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