I figured out something this morning while worshipping…When I see my Savior clearly, I am totally consumed with Him, as I should be. His brightness & holiness & God-attributes cause within me a weakening of all of I am. I instantly recognize I am nothing, bring nothing, can do nothing. Similar to when people in the bible see God or an angel from God, they drop to the ground on their face. In Revelation, the elders are constantly falling on their faces. Here’s my point, when someone is enamored with someone they talk about that PERSON. They can’t not talk about the person and how amazing that person is, what they love about the person, how they don’t deserve that person, how they can’t wait to spend time with that person. They do not talk primarily about what must be done for that person and what is expected by that person. Instead of talking about what they must do for that person, they spend their time talking about what that person has done for them. The person so consumes them, all that the person has done & is, they DO things for them; BUT all they have to talk about is the person. The Son shines so brightly & is so powerfully everything I am not, I must shine light on HIM, the person. I can’t help but think, see, talk, and worship HIM. He so fills me provoking in me love in heart, mind, soul, & strength, that yes I DO for Him, obey Him, listen to Him, but my entire focus is HIM. NOT the doing for Him. My eyes behold HIM, not all I must DO. I am only acceptable to Him because of Him. My obedience is only acceptable because His grace has made it so. Not because there is anything inherently good in my obedience. Question: Do you primarily love God’s law? Or do you primarily love God? Hint: Of which is you heart most enamored? Of which is it hardest not to speak? Which is most in your writing & your speech. Your answer is the clue to whether you love the God who makes you come to Him only through grace, where no works count or whether you prefer achieving by keeping the Law & the sense of righteousness you believe it gains you. And most poignantly, if the Law of God is most important to you, it is idolatry. Idol worship. And you are among the ranks of the Pharisees who clung to God’s Law instead of loosening their hands from it and embracing their Messiah. They had no inheritance with the Son, although they believed every word of the Law. What or Whom do you love most?
Aug1
A Rebuttal of 119 Ministries 
No where does 119 ministries say that you should love the law more than god. I don’t agree with everything they say, but you are bearing false witness against your brothers in Christ. What they say is actually that you are saved by grace through faith. once saved, you should desire to live as sinless a life as possible. Since the New Testament definition of sin is violation of the law, that means endeavoring to keep the law To Show Your Love of Jesus! Knowing that you will fail, but striving to emulate his walk. I pray heaven forgives you for your breaking of the commandment to not bear false witness. (Exodus 20:16). Perhaps you should look at the “what we believe” on their website before you continue on your path.
They don’t come out and say they love the law more than God; but their entire focus is on the greatness of law keeping not on shining a light on the greatness of Jesus. It is this unhealthy infatuation with how closely man can keep the law and gain increasing righteousness in God’s eyes by doing so that derails their beliefs and puts them outside the realm of the grace that brought then to Jesus in the first place. You cannot begin in the spirit and be completed in the law. “Let me ask you only this: “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
-Galatians 3:2-4
By the way. 119 ministries has a video teaching available on the verse you quoted in Galations freely available on u tube. It answers your question from their perspective far better than I (an un affiliated person) ever could.
Yours in christ
It’s interesting that you quoted the John 14 passage including the verses that say the Comforter will teach us all things, yet you’re suggesting that I need to be taught by 119. My biggest hope is that all believers will read the Scripture themselves and allow the Holy Spirit to teach them best.
Thank you for admiting your putting of words in their mouth, confession of your sins is healing. However, you completely misunderstand what 119 ministries and others of their mindset are teaching. Jesus himself told us : John 14
“15If ye love me, keep my commandments.
16And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
18I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. 19Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. 20At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. 21He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. 22Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? 23Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. 24He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
25These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. 26But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
The greatest honor and love we can show is to live as HE lived. Showing our faith keeping the law as he did. Not relying on it for salvation, but knowing salvation through grace, living a Christ like life to be a light to reveal him to the nations. I think you should reexine the 119 ministries materials, because they say exactly that. They are Christ centered. Perhaps you have met some of their students which are new in that walk and didn’t express it to you correctly. All the apostles. Especially Paul, kept the law. As did Jesus. Not to be saved, but because they WERE saved. I hope you look into this before you again misrepresent a ministry, Hebraic roots or other. We are warned about this. Praying for you and yours.
Sorry to cause confusion, but I wasn’t making a sinful confession. I was explaining how what I said about 119 Ministries was calling out their deceptions as they’ve woven them into truths. My hope in doing this is that believers who aren’t sure, can be helped to see where the truth they share gets infiltrated with erroneous beliefs.
The passages you’re quoting from John are wonderful. They don’t refer to the Torah unfortunately. This discourse begins in John 13 with the last supper and continues into John 18 where they all leave and go to the garden where Judas betrays Jesus.
When Jesus tells the disciples to obey his commands, they don’t even know he’s God fully. They would have not connected his commands with Torah. In fact he just told them in John 13 what he was commanding them:
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
-John 13:34
Strange that in this whole discourse he wouldn’t mention one thing about obeying the laws of Moses. This was his last speech to them, the time to say his most important last words. Instead he tells him a Comforter is coming to do what? Remind them of what Moses wrote in the law? Well, no. In fact it’s to teach them all things & to remind them of Jesus had said. Why do they need to be taught all things if Moses already laid it out clearly? What things did Jesus say that wasn’t written in Moses’ law? The clarity here that this is NOT referring to the law is very simple. It’s just not there. Jesus himself said there is a new covenant brought about in his blood. THAT needs to be taught through the Spirit. The law wasn’t completed until after Jesus’ death. And once it was, that’s when the new covenant began. But there is the Spirit in believers who leads us and teaches us what is sin and what is good; no longer an external shell to guide us (the law). We do good now because we are saved, as you mentioned. But the law isn’t needed anymore to be our guardian. Now we have the Holy Spirit INSIDE us.
My husband and I are completely new to the 119 ministries. And listening to some of their stuff and then doing what they say test everything we hear from man to the word of God, I decided to search what others have to say about 119 ministries also. Not far in my search I came here and immediately already found that you have misunderstood what they clearly spoke about. They clearly do not idolize the law. They may speak a lot on it but they make it clear that through faith in Christ we will want to live for Christ and follow his example. What was his example? He followed the law and he did it perfectly. Of course we cannot do it perfectly and scripture is clear that is it not the way of salvation. 119 makes that clear as well. We see Christ in the law. 119 ministry makes it clear that the law is not the way for salvation but a result of our salvation. How did you misunderstand what they were saying? I understand you don’t like their emphasis on the law so you think it takes away from Jesus. But they are doing exactly the opposite. They are bringing to light that if we love Christ and he is the most important thing in our life we will want to OBEY him. Well that would be God’s word. What does His word SAY. Well that is what my husband and I are searching out. On our journey we have not encountered anything that is a red flag according to 119 ministries that goes against God’s word. So far they have brought scripture and not their opinions. Your argument about them taking the emphasis off of Jesus and his power to do righteous works through us takes away the importance of our responsibility. I understand where you are going with this and you want people to know that what Christ did should be enough if we love one another and show that light to the world, but where then is our responsibility? So far what you stand for one sided. Yes Jesus makes our works righteous. It’s all about Jesus, but that does not leave us with no responsibilities. Jesus = salvation= faith=OBEDIENCE. We still have a responsibility to obey him. We just need to study and see what we are to obey. 🙂
Amanda, that was very well said! “Jesus = Salvation = Faith = Obedience” I cant for the life of me understand why professed Christians get so worked up by people seeking to love God. If I understand correctly, the premise of this website is to give people ideas on how to argue with family members that they believe are misled? Quoting Bible verses that both sides interpret differently isn’t going to change anyone’s mind. The Holy Spirit is the only one who can change hearts. My advice to anyone who feels like a family member is misled in any area of life is to pray. SINCERELY (with an open heart) pray that IF your loved one is misled God would change their heart and If YOU are misled God would change your heart.