<\/p>\n
There is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.<\/p>\n
\u20131 Timothy 2:5<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
According to the false teaching of mysticism, faith in Jesus Christ is not enough to be a spiritual Christian\u2013you also need some kind of supernatural experience. Paul battled mystical teachings in the church at Colossae. In Colossians 2:18, he wrote, \u201cLet no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
One component of mysticism in Colossae was \u201cself-abasement and the worship of angels.\u201d In the New International Version, the phrase \u201cself-abasement\u201d is translated as \u201cfalse humility.\u201d My predecessor at First Dallas, Dr. W. A. Criswell, kept a beautiful, leather-bound book in his office titled\u00a0My Humility and How I Achieved It<\/em>. When you opened the book, all the pages were blank. That book could have easily been written by the Colossian mystics. They prided themselves on their humility.<\/p>\n
How does that relate to the worship of angels? These mystics were saying, \u201cGod is so great that we could never come to Him. So instead of worshiping God, we will worship the angels.\u201d That tendency continues even today. There are people who say, \u201cWe can\u2019t approach God on our own; we need a go-between.\u201d So they try to come to God through angels, saints, or spiritual leaders.<\/p>\n
The fact is, God\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0too holy for us to approach Him. We do need a go-between. But that go-between is not a priest, a saint, or an angel; it is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says, \u201cThere is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus\u201d (1 Timothy 2:5).<\/p>\n
The Bible talks about the reality of angels, but they are no substitute for Jesus. Hebrews 1:5 says, \u201cTo which of the angels did [God] ever say, \u2018You are My Son, today I have begotten You\u2019?\u201d God never said that to an angel\u2013only to Jesus. The writer continued, \u201cAre [angels] not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?\u201d (v. 14). Angels are like God\u2019s AAA service: He dispatches them to render service for those of us who belong to Jesus Christ. But as wonderful as angels are, God never meant for us to worship them. We are to worship only God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. \u20131 Timothy 2:5 According to the false teaching of mysticism, faith in Jesus Christ is not enough to be a spiritual Christian\u2013you also need some kind of supernatural experience. Paul battled mystical teachings in the church at Colossae. … Continue reading “Pathway to Victory – Devotion”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192787,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192786\/revisions\/192787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}