BIBLE VERSE DRAWN TODAY FROM THE SCRIPTURE BOX: Luke 21:33
"Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away."
PRAYER ON CARD FROM SCRIPTURE BOX: Lord, help me to keep my mind fixed on the true way of salvation.
The true way of salvation is through being born again when we BELIEVE and accept Jesus, the only begotten son of GOD, as our personal savior.
This prayer is appropriate as we watched the docuseries, The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin Lara.
Gwen Shambin ADDED Lara for her last name after divorcing her husband David and marrying Joe Lara. She was known as the weight loss guru who died in May 2021 in a airplane crash. Her personal belief was that you had to be skinny to be holy to get to heaven...which is a lie. We get to heaven by being born again with a spiritual birth through Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of Almighty God, who died for our sins and after three days in the tomb, Jesus rose from the dead.
You do not have to clean up your act before God will save you. He is in the redemption business. He'll take you right where you are and accept you as you are THEN you will change for the better when being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Remnant Church was founded in 1999 by Gwen Shamblin Lara, who created a controversial diet program called the Weigh Down in 1986 intended to “teach people how to stop bowing down to the refrigerator, and how to bow back down to [God].”
GWEN SHAMBLIN LARA counseled that genetics, metabolism, and behavior modification did not explain why some people were thin while others were overweight. Lara founded the Weigh Down Workshop, a weight-loss program with no food restrictions, exercise regimens, weigh-ins, or calorie-counting in 1986.
Her WEIGHT LOSS information through classes which met in churches became extremely popular in the 1986. Later she wrote books, made videos and started a church of her own which she was the head minister.
After she emailed her followers on August 10, 2000 that she believed the doctrine of the Trinity was not biblical, many evangelical churches dropped her program like a hot potato. Thomas Nelson Publishers canceled the publication of her next book and she was removed from the Women of Faith website. Some of her staff left.
I hadn't thought of her in years.
About two weeks before she died in a airplane crash, she came to my mind. I wanted to know what had happened to her. Seeing pictures of her hair piled up on her head similar to the late TBN founder Jan Crouch's, I blinked and said, what has happened to you? Her make-up was wickedly sloppy. Skinny as a rail, I seriously thought she'd fall over dead one day. She starved herself to the size she was and was getting skinnier by the minute. She needed assistance to walk as her balance wasn't stable.
I was wondering just how much weight are you suppose to lose in order to qualify as being skinny enough to go to heaven when one dies? Is this the good works the LORD is talking about? No.
In Gwen's world in order to get your prayers answered, you had to go through a number of people before God would hear your prayers. According to the Bible, we are blessed to be able to enter into the throne room of God through our personal relationship with Christ Jesus being our Savior, not through a hierarchy of people. Not through asking someone else for permission to enter into prayer so God hears us. We do not have to ask someone's mother for God to hear our prayers or by weighing oneself on weight scales. God hears our prayers when we are in a rightful relationship with HIM when we are BORN AGAIN through Jesus.
How many people believe that you must go through a teacher, preacher, religious figure of hierarchy, a church member or leader, etc. before GOD hears you? What nonsense to think that you have to pay money to be heard, Pay money to be righteous, Pay money to go to heaven, Pay money to be holy. What nonsense to think being skinny makes you holy making a way for salvation.
Gwen became a big figure in the weight loss world years ago as she was considered a Christian that helped many lose weight using the method that you could eat just about anything, but needed to wait until your stomach growled indicating that it was time to eat and eat until you were full then stop eating. I don't know if she ever indicated how much weight one was to lose before they satisfied God's desire to save them.
Gwen for the longest time preached that you should not get a divorce yet she would after getting involved with the television actor TARZAN that had a history of a having affairs with older woman that were similar to being like a 'sugar daddy' making him a kept man. Gwen was still married to her heavy set first husband when she actively had an affair with Tarzan. She would justify this how? You Tarzan, me JANE! Come, let's dance about my mansion and swing from the chandeliers then make a video about God?
Cult leaders do not want you to know that you can have a blessed LIFE without them. According to them you must include them in your lives giving your financial support to them, work for free for them and volunteer your life away within their reach. They appreciate your financial support so they can play and be merry.
SO to focus on the true way for salvation through the LORD JESUS is a wonderful thing. Staying focused on the way, the truth and the life is a blessing. Reading a BIBLE for yourself is necessary. You should. The Holy Spirit can guide you and help you to understand what you are reading. Spending time with the LORD is a true blessing.
Gwen twisted scripture to line her pockets with money and be viewed as a god for power. She stood on a elevated platform up front of her church and lead so many astray from the truth. Cult leaders do this. They are willing. We don't have to be willing to listen to them. We have the ability to leave and stay away. God is good. Yes HE is.
You might want to have a come to Jesus meeting with the Lord and ask HIM to open your eyes to the untruths being preached that you think are true, but aren't. What is a Christian suppose to believe according to the Bible?
We can learn of HIS ways without listening to overly skinny cult leaders or those that wear bluejeans with cowboy boots singing melodious tunes, those wearing bright red lipstick with bleached blonde hair, those that have had a multitude of cosmetic surgeries and facelifts until they can no longer blink their eyes correctly, those that sometimes wear robes with fish hats on their heads and the list goes on. It doesn't mean a teacher/preacher is sharing God's truth just because they have charisma and a huge following.
It isn't the norm today to hear balanced teachings. The teachings have been polluted with false teachings that twist God's Holy word to line their pockets with filthy lucre. There is a common theme that all ways lead to GOD and you have to earn your salvation. Jesus is completely left out of their fairy tales. It is a lie that our good works gain us entrance into heaven to where we will spend eternity with the great architect of the universe having a planet of our own.
Holy holy holy, Lord God almighty. I worship you and know that humans are capable of deceiving others.
1 comment:
This is a wonderful post! You are so correct..accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior is the first step!
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