Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains” (John 9:41).
We all know people who claim they can see but who are, in fact, blind. Their guilt remains. You may not know this but here in the United States there is a geographical area in which the entire culture (social, religious, political, and business) claims to see. It is the Mormon culture that controls Utah and the contiguous areas of Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada. Backslidden Mormons are more willing to admit that they cannot see.
We have one mission station in this area: Oasis Books in Logan, Utah, the location of Utah State University. Please pray for our staff as they work with people who do not know that they are guilty of Romans 1:22-23: “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man…” Their idea of God is one that is physical and looks like man. They deny the efficacy of the cross, saying that the atonement did not take place on the cross. They deny grace by saying, “We are saved by grace after all that we can do.” They have many biblical words in their vocabulary. Almost all of them have a definition different from the ones in the Bible.
We do not wish to win arguments with these blind people who think
they can see. We wish to help them see.
If you would like to support Oasis' evangelistic outreach to Mormons, visit ccmbooks.org/donate.
This post coordinates with today's reading in the To the Word! Bible Reading Challenge. If you are not in a daily reading plan, please join us at TotheWord.com. We would love to have you reading with us.
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God’s enemy is the voice of skepticism about God’s goodness, which includes His generosity and joy. The apostle Paul says Satan counterfeits God’s righteousness, which includes every aspect of God’s goodness (2 Cor. 11:3). Satan does that with one simple trick: hiding the standard of purity.
The apostle Paul again gives us an insight when he commands us to rejoice in the Lord always. (Philippians 4:4) That means that God’s joy cannot depend on your circumstances and how others treat you. True joy also cannot be related to your performance. If your joy depends on how well you obey God or how comfortable your life is, then that is counterfeit worldly joy.
Worldly joy is based on human performance or desirability of circumstances, all of which are always competitive.
Let’s look at Christ to discover Satan’s simple trick. Christ was the happiest person who ever lived, we find out in Hebrews 1:9. His joy was not worldly because He always saw life in the presence of God. James says (James 3:17) that the difference between heavenly and worldly wisdom begins with purity. This means God’s presence and wisdom are free from contamination—they are free from imperfection. That’s the point Satan blinds people to.
Christ always measured life by God’s standard of moral wholeness, which requires moral flawlessness right now. Isaiah looks forward 700 years to Christ in speaking about God’s pleasure and joy (Isaiah 42:21): "God is well-pleased for His righteousness’ sake to exalt the law and make it glorious." How does God make the moral law glorious? God simply exhibits in the perfect life of Christ the standard of the law as freedom from moral imperfection. Because love fulfills the whole law (Galatians 5:14), the sin-bearing death of Christ is the surprise in perfect law.
In short, the two ways of wisdom and joy are: (1) heavenly wisdom and joy are experienced while measuring by God’s presence (by the moral perfection of Christ); and (2) demonic worldly wisdom and joy are experienced while measuring by some lower and imperfect standard.
Are you persuaded that God requires you to be morally flawless right now like Christ? I do and my heart explodes with joy when I consider that reality. That reality is the substitution of Christ (His perfection and proxy work on the cross). If you don’t like or use that standard, then any joy you experience is worldly because it’s based on measuring yourself compared to yourself or to other imperfect people.
Every year I lead 300 Mormons to discover and declare that they should always bring Christ into the conversation and measure by His perfection. That really surprises them as the mantra of my Mormon culture seems to be: “God wants you to do your best but don’t worry about being perfect like Christ right now. Just work on it.”
Moral perfection now is the presence of God in Christ and is the experience of fullness of joy right now. God wants that for you and calls you to abandon all hope in your imperfect performance and trust Christ’s death in your place as your only possible hope.
Why not join me in praying the following and see what happens:
“Father in heaven, thank you for making it good to always bring Christ into the conversation and measure myself by His moral perfection now.”
Because your question is a very Mormon one (see The Plan of Salvation, which is also called the plan of happiness), I wrote the above assuming you are a Mormon.