Christ came to break the chains of religion as much as anything else provided in the atonement.
Don’t allow legalism to creep into your revelation of God’s Grace.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Author: Joshua Maynard
If you stand on the Word, but that Word isn’t LOVE, you are standing on man’s word, not God’s.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
To question the Bible the way you’ve been traditionally taught and seek out the truth of God for yourself is a huge step into understanding your existence in the world.
It is liberating.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
If your inner circle of friends believe exactly what you believe, there is little to challenge your convictions, and you leave little room for God to correct you either.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Sin is paid for, but make no mistake, when you exchange Life for more death by making bad choices, you will not be free of consequences.
Choose Life!
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
We must all pay a death.
Grace does not spare us from this fate, and rejecting the Truth for sin will surely hasten our departure from this world.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
It isn’t about how much sin you can get away with.
It’s about how much Grace you have to turn away from to keep on sinning.
Grace increases as sin increases.
When Grace wins, you have abundant life.
When sin wins, you have death.
Choose Life!
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
God has faith in you.
He trusts you.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
No good, loving father would molest his children, make his loved ones sick to teach them a lesson, allow his wife to be raped or commit murder.
Yet somehow, God, who is Love, is accused of these things and worse according to a belief called “sovereignty”.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
When you see God as the direct or indirect cause of all the pain and suffering in the world, you have ceased to worship your Heavenly Father and have exchanged Him for a bastard father of lies called the Devil.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
If God caused or allowed all of the tragedies and evil that He is accused of, then He is not as loving as His own creation.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Churches that are packed full on Christmas and Easter Sunday to the extent that people have to reserve their seats in advance speaks volumes about the church’s failure as a whole, not their success.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Faith that is kept out of fear, whether real or perceived, is not faith in God.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Repentance isn’t about feeling ‘sorry’ for your sings.
Repentance is about recognizing that Christ has forgiven you and that you are the righteousness of God in Him.
Wail and wallow at the alter all you want, but if you don’t recognize who you are in Christ, you won’t be any more repentant than you were when you started, and sin will persist.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Sin-consciousness begins with the introduction of the Mosaic Law and ends with the new birth in Christ, unless you willfully choose to continue in the Law.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Don’t remind yourself or God of your sins.
He has already forgiven and forgotten them.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
The freedom TO sin is the freedom FROM sin.
What then is to keep us from living in sin?
The same grace that gives you the freedom TO sin constrains you by the love of God NOT to sin.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
‘Grace’ has been called a ‘License to sin’ because it will forever be free of God’s judgment.
That doesn’t mean that you can do whatever you want without consequences.
It means that your salvation is not tied to your performance.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
‘New Testament’ does not equal ‘New Covenant’
Not everything you read from the books of Matthew through Revelation is ‘New Covenant’.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Everyone picks and chooses what scriptures to believe.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are any different.
Once you can accept this, you may find you pick and choose less and believe more.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Everyone interprets scripture.
Some may interpret better than others or have revelations that are easier to understand, but who is to say which ones are correct?
Thery are all merely different perspectives of the same book of faith.
Let the Holy Spirit be your guide.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
An America governed in Christian values as they stand today would have no religious freedom because Christianity has become one of the most intolerant and non-inclusive religions.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
When people say they want America to return to our “Christian heritage”, what they are really saying is that they want Christians to turn from Grace back to the Law.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Returning to the “Jewish roots” in Christianity is not unlike an adopted pet choosing to return to the cage at the shelter.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
“All things work together for good” was never meant to become synonymous with “God allowed or caused this tragedy to bring about some greater good”.
Such misinterpretations of scripture have led to attributing the works of the Devil to God.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Religion says, “Live holy”.
God says, “You are holy”.
Religion says, “You aren’t holy enough.”
God says, “You are holy.”
Religion says, “You are still sinning.”
God says, “You are holy.”
Religion says, “God isn’t pleased with you.”
God says, “Stop listening to religion.”
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
Jesus has set you free.
Free to live.
Free to love.
Free from sin.
Don’t let religious traditions make you a slave to a different sin called self-righteousness.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
When you believe that you are in a covenant with God, it is easy to fall into condemnation when you mess up.
The covenant is really between our Heavenly Father and His Son.
You are a partaker of its benefits, and you can’t mess it up.
That is why “there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
It seems easy to poke holes in the beliefs of others.
You can claim the absurdity of virgins waiting for you in paradise, divine words given by an angel on golden tablets or reincarnation as an animal among other things.
Silly, right?
All the while forgetting that as a Christian, you believe in a God that made the Earth in 7 days; a snake that talked; a tree with divine fruit; a flood that covered the Earth and killed everyone except a single family and two of every animal in a big boat; the Son of God that was born of a virgin who was impregnated by the Holy Spirit; that same Son of God who then killed Himself for mankind and raised Himself back to life and ascended into the clouds.
No, we must come to terms with how absurd these beliefs we hold so dear must sound to others and let go of our pretentious arrogance.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard