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The Book

     One can spend every day at church and never get close to God. You can read every book written about the Bible and never have a pure knowledge of God, and resulting in a strong possibility of confusion in the process, the reason being, man is imperfect and you will become contaminated with the opinions of man and fall short of the truth God has intended for each one of us. There is only one sure way to achieve clarity and closeness with God and His Son, which is, reading all the words Jesus gave us from His Father and about His Father, Jehovah God, "the One whom God sent speaks the words of God; for God does not give the Spirit by measure." (John 3:34), "I have spoken these things to you in allegories. An hour comes when I will no longer speak to you in allegories, but I will reveal the Father plainly to you." (John 16:25). All truth is only found in only one place, Jehovah's word. Also to complete the needed circle of communication with God, Jehovah wants to hear from us, you personally, no matter who you are, praying to the Father, Jehovah, in His Son’s name is the only way to speak to God at this time. Studying His word and prayer go together perfectly, one without the other would be a sad waste. Reading the Bible without prayer, one forfeits the needed blessings of understanding, which is truly a gift from the Creator Jehovah. Prayer without knowing how and for what to pray can also render pointless and disappointing, if ones prayers are self-centered or insincere.

      Studying, accompanied with prayer establishes an important element, a needed personal relationship with Jehovah. It is very important to please God, but not for the reason of obedience, even though He has commanded these rules, obedience is not His motive. The rules He has given us are for our benefit, they are to protect us, to guide us to a loving and righteous state; to bring us to an understanding of His perfect way; they are to prepare us for the Kingdom that He will setup after death is destroyed, "And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of Fire. This is the second death." (Revelation 20:14). God’s rules are for our satisfaction, our benefit and for our co-existence with the other inhabitants of God's kingdom, Jehovah's angels, plus those who also made it their focus and effort to seek God. To conform to God’s statutes and commands are to be in sync with His character, and His system, just as Jehovah's Heavenly angels are at this time. Anything contrary to His design, if they would be allowed to enter God's kingdom, they would destroy God's perfect and pure environment, this is why Satan and his followers were cast out of Heaven. In our accepting Christ, God’s Son as our Savior, it is necessary to make a voyage, similar to the Israelite's journey from Egypt to the promise land, but our trek would be a spiritual journey, altering our character to be as Christ has shown us. This is a difficult and treacherous path we are called to take, not to turn from its intended direction, to keep our eyes on the leader, Jesus, following in His footsteps and instructions, “For narrow is the gate, and constricted is the way that leads into life, and few are the ones who find it.” (Matthew 7:14) and “Do not turn to the right or to the left; turn your foot aside from evil.” (Proverbs 4:27). This again brings us back to the Bible, this is where we learn how to follow Jesus, our Sheppard, by reading His Book of Instructions, and the Old Testament is just as important as the New Testament for a total view of Jehovah's message to His created human beings. The Old is filled with examples for us to understanding God's ways. Many times God passed immediate judgment to show those during the Old Testament of their error, and for us now, to know the sure and serious result of sin. Once the Savior of this world arrived, at His first advent and accomplished His tasks, establishing His Father's salvation, we were each given a lifetime (which varies for each person) to prepare ourselves, to cleanse ourselves from sin, to prepare for entrance into God’s pure kingdom. This involves shedding all our sins so we can live in harmony with our new neighbors, those who also have cleaned themselves, plus God's angels, and our Shepherd, Jesus, who showed us the way home, and God Jehovah Himself. Without this map, God's word, one cannot find Jehovah's kingdom. This is our personal decision to make, and our responsibility to our selves to learn. To follow someone else, who may believe they know the way and project this to others, but even our leaders could be off the course and will miss the intended destination, God's kingdom, along with us if we choose to follow man and not Jesus, therefore, the only sure way is to follow only Christ, "Then Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world; he following Me in no way will walk in darkness, but will be the light of life." (John 8:12). Christ is our only leader for this journey, because He is the inspirer of all the Bible's human writers, both Old and New Testaments, being the Word of God, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God..." (John 1:1) and there was no distinction between New or Old Testaments. The church is not our leader, nor is our pastor, nor are the millions of books written about God's word, which cannot be trusted for the pure truth, including the variety of humans who claim to be a prophet, but are only humans, void of any valid credentials from a deity, Jehovah or His Christ.

     Jehovah, our Father sent Jesus, His Son, to direct us home to the kingdom of God, to the final home we were designed for, an eternity. God's Book tells us all these things in a multitude of levels; it describes how to take this journey to our future home, the future "Promise Land". This spiritual journey is to a destination, to a real place, not yet created, the new earth, "For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make stand before Me, states Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name stand." (Isaiah 66:22), "But according to His promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells." (II Peter 3:13), also revealed in God's last Bible book, Revelation, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and the sea no longer is." (Revelation 21:1). The Bible, not only provides us with hope, but blesses us with clarity and peace in this life, during our cleansing process, which we should be on. This Book provides the way to Heaven, which is only accessible through the door, Jesus, the Christ, unlocked for us, by Him personally paying the price for our repented sins. However, we still need to arrive at this door in order to enter, cleansed and willing to leave this current life and its shallow attractions. This journey is not without danger and pitfalls, but the Book Christ gave us warns us and shows us the way home; and if we put our trust in the Sheppard, Jesus will surely guide us along this narrow but necessary path. Christ now speaks to us through His spirit, as we consume the Book He personally inspired, just for this purpose, for man's salvation, This is our decision to make and our efforts in casting out our sins. Christ's power is available upon our request, but He will only accompany us, along with our efforts on this road home, which God Almighty has designed just for those who truly want to be in His presence. We need to show this to Jehovah now with our efforts and our commitment in our walk, initiated by our understanding and resulting in our love for Jehovah, Jesus and the souls around us.