1^st day of August 2012 and no sign of  Jesus our Lord returning yet .I naturally as a Christian am not saying this in any sarcastic way for I know I will (as you will!)stand before GOD, for  as Jesus Our Lord said : “at the end of the age the Son of man will separate the sheep from the goats as a shepherd does “ then as we know there were some surprises for those who thought they were followers of Jesus ,perhaps the same ones that Jesus referred to when he said “not everyone who says to me Lord ,Lord shall enter into the kingdom of God “, with even those who had apparently prophesied in his name or cast out demons NOT being accepted, for they had not Jesus said, “done the will of the father .“ In this End Time parable  Jesus specifically tells us, as we know, that feeding the hungry , giving drink to the thirsty , clothing the naked ,visiting those in prison etc had a direct relationship to whether a person ended up in paradise or not .

OUR GOOD WORKS CAN NEVER GET US INTO HEAVEN ((for as Apostle Paul says in Galatians : “ through righteous acts of the law shall NO man be justified”) BUT  A LACK OF GOOD DEEDS CAN KEEP US OUT IT SEEMS .

Orthodox doctrine of salvation is that we are being saved and shall be saved and although Christians can use the terms “I am saved “ it is more theologically correct, according to the Doctrine of salvation to say “I am saved yes but am being saved and shall be saved “ =  I am washed ,sanctified ,justified  by the blood of Jesus yet I am called to be holy and even then will never reach perfection until I am saved by entering Heaven. As Orthodox we may possibly at times over emphasise our  sinful nature with the Jesus prayer of “Lord Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy upon me a sinner, “ usually said dozens of times a day by many of us , aware as we are of our sinfulness, yet we are also those who  seek to do as Jesus said : “be holy as I am Holy .“

Holiness for me is in no way gaining me forgiveness, but it is part of me ‘being saved’ for we all know that our receiving of the Holy Spirit does not immediately cause us to be Holy. Holy as I am sure we know is set apart for God , and as so much of our lives after initially being saved(I prefer to say confessing Christ as our Lord and saviour) is not doing the right thing , it is something we all need .Jesus said “if you love me you will obey what I command (do we all obey all the time !? NO so we need mercy so for me the Jesus prayer)and I will ask the father and he will give another councillor to be with you forever , the Spirit of truth , he will lead you ....”.  I say this, yet sadly some Christians ,whether Pentecostal , Catholic , Methodist , Anglican , Orthodox , Baptist ,free church etc etc come across so arrogant causing me to wonder if they have ever been to the foot of the cross even though calling Jesus Lord . Well maybe some of these will be those Jesus spoke of as the wonder workers who called him Lord yet were told to go away from him “you evil doers for I never knew you.”NOT my words but Jesus’!

 Yet our gracious Lord does not want us to go around in fear thinking: “Oh no I hope I am living a good enough life to please our Lord (that is the feeding of poor etc as in parable of sheep and goats) for else we get WRONGFULLY  into salvation by works which means, why did Christ die. YET if we do not humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God then I believe scripture shows we can be like those who said Lord Lord yet do not get into the kingdom. So this means losing our salvation. Some will say “oh well these who end up this way (like those who we may know so called got saved, yet now clearly do not confess Christ  , did not really get saved or born again initially) . BUT  this will not do, for there are those who I know of  (and you will to maybe)who had it seemed come to repentance but have now turned away from Christ .

For me it does matter that we as the apostle says “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” in this way, to avoid wrongful complacency, believing indeed that as a saved person they will be raptured regardless .

Funny thing this rapture doctrine and I was so pleased that the Orthodox church that I belong to DOES NOT follow this teaching . In fact even a number of Pentecostal denominations looking at the whole of the teaching on End Times, concluding that in fact none of us can think we will be spared suffering for the sake of Christ, if it is that we happen to be part of the history just before the Bridegroom Christ our Lord comes to take the Bride (body of Christ) to glory. We are called to victory as believers yet also to suffer too if necessary. It is interesting to note how relatively recent teachings such as these have been around like the rapture teaching (in Pentecostal /charismatic and other circles ) just as the wrongful teaching on purgatory from the Roman Catholic church is recent. The Orthodox church which split from Rome in 1048 holds no such belief in spending hundreds or thousands of years being punished in such a place before being able to enter into heaven for it is not scriptural and not what the early church fathers taught .

  Our lord Jesus spoke   various parables clearly showing basically that we do not know when our Lord is coming back so basically to live good lives so if he comes at a time we least expect then  we will be ready. This is shown through the parable of the owner who planted a vine yard  built a wine press, then sent his servants and then his son and the 10 virgins parable  and parable of the talents .

Hopefully many of will know that as an Agriculturist (and former Agricultural Lecturer) I oversee the TOM Agricultural Forum. Although in no way saying that we should all be involved with farming issues ,I do believe that the way we treat the land and the animals entrusted to our care does have a direct in put whether we live in the countryside or not . I have listed below the articles I have SPECIFICALLY  wriiten for TOM to hopefully be a helpful source of relevant information to you . They are :

Variety is the spice of life : Plant breeding in agriculture 

Living with a pig! : Problems of alergic reactions as we move away from living close to animals 

Water footprint : Water a scarce resource 

Tractors helpful and harmful: Mechanisation not always a good thing

Artificial fertilisers : Problems of pollution of body and land 

Value of small farmers: NOT not short ones in height !

Pig production problems

Food Waste

The affect of the Enclosures of 16-18 Century in Britain

On HOME page of TOM website you can find my articles under Agricultural Forum 

May OUR Lord and Saviour Bless you as you seek to “be holy as he is holy “ as we allow the Holy Spirit to  empower us .

Brother Andrew