Literal: true to fact; not exaggerated; actual or factual: a literal description of conditions. Being actually such, without exaggeration or inaccuracy.
I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about my mission this next year at Eastside Assembly of God. And I am convinced that what God wants from me it to teach Christian doctrine to the church. I know, I know, it sounds really boring. But I am realizing that too many people who attend church, not only Eastside, do not know what it really means to be a Christian. And the reason is because we avoid the doctrine, or the beliefs of the church. I am surprised in my conversations with people who are regular attendees of church at their beliefs concerning God, the Bible, The Church, life, death, the world, heaven, hell, tithing, the Holy Spirit, etc. So this next year I am going to put a real emphasis on teaching the doctrines of the Church. I will try to make it exciting too!
So with that said, here is why I am really writing this…I want to be a literal Christian. Not just the kind of Christian who was born into a family that goes to church. But I want to really live the Christian life. So I believe every word of the Bible to be the Word of God. I take the Bible literally. Now I know there are some symbolic things in there, but most of the Scriptures are to be taken literally. And when they are symbolic it is clear that they are not literal.
UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.
The reason God gave us the Scripture was so that we could have intimate knowledge of Him. It doesn’t make any sense for the Bible to be hard to understand. I do not believe that God made the Scriptures hard to get. It doesn’t serve His purpose! And the easiest way to understand the Bible is the read it literally. Read it for what it actually says.
On December 5th I wrote on here some crazy things I believe. They aren’t really crazy but the world thinks they are… I believe these things based on reading the Bible and taking it literally. In other words, I believe whatever the Bible says!
So for 2011, my mission is to convince the church to be literally Christian! It will be interesting and it will be fun! Literally!