My meticulous flight instructor, Mr. Bob always knew precisely where he was at any given moment in the air. His precision came from a thorough knowledge of navigation systems and techniques and many years and hours of experience. He could calculate course corrections in his mind faster than most pilots could with their trusty E6b computers, or GPS systems. The FAA requires that you know every form of navigation in the event of a failure of electronics.
The plan this day was to fly over to Madison Georgia my home town about 47 Nautical Miles from our home base, Peachtree Dekalb Airport in the Brookhaven area of Atlanta. Before I had even gotten to the airport, Bob had checked weather reports and plotted our course. Bob wanted to teach me about pilotage. Pilotage is a system of navigating by known landmarks or way points, from one to another all the way to the destination.Bob had demonstrated this technique to me several times and I felt fairly comfortable with my capabilities. This is a very elementary form of navigation. Kindergarten stuff. In an emergency such as an outage of onboard navigation systems it is a reliable alternative mixed with dead reckoning.
We took off, made a right turn out and locked on an Easterly course. I was doing a good job of finding and checking off land marks and we were on course and on time. We passed hog mountain on our left, right where it should be, found the railroad tracks where they were supposed to be, found our two water towers 5 miles apart and bingo, I had the airport. I notified the local traffic, entered a left downwind then base and final. I made a perfect landing right on the numbers. The airport only had one runway, so after I landed I had to back taxi to the other end of the runway. As I looked out my window, I saw a sign at first vaguely, then clearly. The sign said “WELCOME TO MONROE!”
Bob was hysterical! He knew exactly what was going on the whole time. He was laughing so hard I thought he would wet his pants! I was 6 shades of purple embarrassed. I had committed a fairly common idiotic mistake made by boneheaded student pilots. I forgot to calculate for course deviations caused by a right quartering headwind. Monroe is about 15 statute miles to the west north west of Madison.
As Bob kept guffawing, I made the course corrections took off and flew straight to Madison without error, did 5 or 6 good touch and goes. But it didn’t matter. I had committed a serious blunder using rudimentary navigation, in front of my Instructor. Bad.
We all get blown off course often for the same reason. Bad information or ignorance. Bob knew we were off course because he was reading the magnetic compass and checking constantly against the course he plotted on his map. He knew how far off course we were and where we were by making deviation corrections for drift. I didn’t have that information, so I fell into the bad data/ ignorance category.
The same is true in the world of theology. James referred to it as being blown to and fro by every wind of doctrine. In order to stay on course in our Spiritual lives, we have to know the real Jesus through His Word and keep our heading locked on Him. There is so much non-sense and so many NBC’S (Non-Biblical-Cliche’s) that have been perpetuated on Christians, that it is no wonder so many are living dis-empowered, hopeless and sad lives.
Here are a few:
“GOD IS IN CONTROL!”
Yikes, this one leaves me in stunned amazement at the very inanity of the phrase. Nothing could be farther from the truth!!! The implication is that God is complicit in every evil or bad thing that happens. He must be, He is in charge, right? WRONG!
If God were in control, earth would be heaven! Everyone would believe in Jesus. There would be no false religions. There would be no abortions. There would be no illness! There would be no dis-unity, unhappiness, competition, hatred, envy, greed, fear, anger, bitterness, un-forgiveness, score keeping, revenge, meanness, smart assedness, no theft, nor murder, no racism, no abhorrent, deviant sexuality, their would be no addiction, there would be no violence. God gave man free will to live as he chooses and to come to Him and do well, not grudgingly or out of necessity, but cheerfully out of love for our Dear Sweet Lord!!! No God is only in control of what we give Him control of! He intentionally gave us free will!
“FAITH COMES BY HEARING AND HEARING AND HEARING!”
This one makes me really nuts! It is a horrible mis-reading of the 10th chapter of Romans which is about SALVATION not faith. The chapter talks about how faith comes by hearing and the Word is heard because a preacher brings it, and how can a preacher preach unless he is sent? It is true that faith comes by hearing the Gospel. But it comes ONCE! When you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you get His Faith!!! (2Peter1:1, Ephesians 2:8&9, Hebrews 12:2, Romans 12:3)
“WE CAN GROW, EXPAND, MULTIPLY AND INCREASE OUR FAITH!”
Pure Bovine Scatology. How pray tell can Jesus’ faith be expanded, grown, multiplied or increased? The problem is not that we need more faith! The problem is that we need to use the faith that we have been given!!!!!!!!!!
“THE LORD GIVETH AND THE LORD TAKETH AWAY!”
This one is a humdinger! It is in the Bible, but God, The Holy Spirit, and Jesus never said it!!!!!!! Job said it in the oldest book in the Bible and he said it in despair then recanted it. UNDERSTAND THIS, GOD DOES NOT DO EVIL!!!!!! God does not kill, destroy or steal!!! Nor does he allow evil!!!! The Evil One does all of those things through the only power he has, to Lie and Deceive! Believe it or not, I know some poor fools that believe that it is in God’s will when a baby dies, or that God burnt their house down to teach them something or that God murdered their relative. Amazing! And they use this false statement from Job to establish and validate their crazy belief! They actually believe that God is a Killer, Liar and Thief! They actually teach that crap from the pulpit and then they don’t understand why their flock is dying and organized religion is declining. Would you worship a killer? I sure wouldn’t,
(John 10:10)
“GOD TESTS HIS PEOPLE/GOD PUT ME TO THE TEST/GOD WAS TESTING ME”
This lalapalooza is pure hooey. “Let no man say when he is tempted or tested, that he is tempted or tested of God, for God is not tempted nor tested by evil, neither does He tempt or test any man!” (James 1:17) Then there is the corresponding:
“YES PASTOR BUT GOD PUNISHES HIS PEOPLE!”
Did Paul say that God punishes His people?Yes. But which people? Not Christians !(Romans8:1) Every living being is a child of God. It is not so much that the unbeliever is punished by God as that he punishes himself by forsaking the mercy and grace of accepting our King. As for Christians, there is now no judgement or condemnation. In fact the correction God brings to Christians is through His Word:
“Every Scripture Is God Breathed And Is Good For Doctrine, Correction, Conviction And Instruction In Righteousness” (2Timothy 3:17)
“YOU CAN BLOCK YOUR PRAYERS (by sinning)
If you believe this non-sense you really know nothing about the Gospel or the Nature of God! “God Hath Already Given Us All Things That Are Necessary For Life And Godliness.” How then can he take it back in violation of His own Word? If you believe you can block your blessings, please study these scriptures: (2Peter1:1-3)
“GOD DOES NOT ANSWER OR DID NOT ANSWER MY PRAYER!”
This one is a doozy! It completely contradicts the Gospel of Jesus. If you believe this then you clearly have never heard the Gospel properly taught.
If you actually think that God hasn’t answered your prayers, or you are “Believing For Something” (Which is stating that you do not believe you have received,which means you will not receive that thing because of your unbelief;and that you are permanently postponing that thing. Jesus answered your prayer before you asked it!
Study these scriptures: (John 14:12-14, Mark 7:7, Mark 11:24, John 6:33, Psalm 37:4)
“YES PASTOR BUT YOU MUST PRAY IN HIS WILL!”
This one is drawn from one scripture (1John 5:14) in the Gospels. It is based on a comment that John made that “If We Pray In HIs Will We Know He Hears Us” Note that John did not say that “YES BUT YOU MUST PRAY IN HIS WILL!” and neither did Jesus! What he did say was that this is the confidence we have in Him that if we pray in His will he hears us.
Lets agree on something. If you have Jesus in your heart, you are a new creation, old things have passed away and all things are new and of God. And, it is not we who live, but Jesus who lives in us. We have died to self. We were crucified with Him! We have been delivered from the power of darkness into the kingdom of His Dear Son! How then, or why, would we ever pray for anything outside of His will. If you are still not convinced and you insist on praying in His will. It would be well to learn what His will is. Here it is: Peace On Earth Good Will To All Men. That You Would Have Life And Have It In Abundance, That You Would Ask That You May Receive That Your Joy May Be Full but most important; That You Believe On Him Whom He Hath Sent!
“MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL”
Holy Shamoakes! That is not what Paul said!!!!! What Paul said, is that THE LOVE OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL! What he meant was that when we love money and money becomes our God, we are worshipping an idle and that leads to tragic thinking and thus behavior! In fact, God wants us to prosper and be in good health! Jesus came so that we would have abundant life! (John10:10)
There are literally hundreds of cliches and miss quotations, made up junk, and misinterpretations of the Gospel. The way to stay on course is to Listen to Jesus and the Holy Spirit and Daddy God! And to study and know Jesus’ last will and testament. If someone tells you something is in the Bible make them show you where. Make them explain the context of the statement and to whom Jesus or God or The Holy Spirit spoke, and why.
For instance, many times Jesus spoke to different groups for different reasons. Sometimes he was teaching Jews that were under the commandments. Sometimes He spoke to us. Sometimes He spoke to Gentiles. Context is urgently important. Don’t let the evil one deceive you into believing bad teaching. Old Scratch has been using the same tricks forever. His favorite weapon is to call into question the deity of Jesus. His next favorite is to use the same line on us that he used on Eve. “Surely He Did Not Say!” Doubters, Teachers who wish to put a performance based relationship with Jesus on His followers,and those who wish to keep the body of Jesus disempowered always call into question the veracity, sanity and credibility of the Word!
I pray that this teaching has blessed you, and if it has that you will pass it to another who will be blessed.
We invite you to visit our website: KnowJesusKnowGrace.Com where you will find literally hundreds of teachings on various topics. The teachings are in video, audio and written formats. You may also order our book: “What If Jesus Told The Truth?” on our site or on Amazon.com. When you read the book you will learn if you truly believe Jesus.
Here is a link to a great teaching delivered by the Holy Spirit at our last Sunday Service:
https://knowjesusknowgrace.com/635
Our primary ministry is to Pastor and Counsel Business and Community Leaders so that they may lead others by their example. We minister in Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Businesses, Homes, Restaurants, Recovery Centers, Churches, Bible Study Groups and to whomever and wherever the Holy Spirit leads us. Through our web-site, we reach thousands of people in more than 100 countries around the world and in every state in the United States. We have sent more than 300 prayer blankets to critically ill and needy folk. We minister In person and by social media, Internet and Phone.
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Thank You,
Pastor Allen Fleming
Throne of Grace
P.O.BOX 669153
Marietta, Georgia
30066
