Trey Knowles: RISALA 9 - IMAGE OF CHOICE

Why do you leave what is good to pursue what is harmful? Why do you spend money on what my Father in heaven has already given to you freely?

Is it not written in Genesis 1:29–30 that my Father said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food”? And it was so.

What has happened to you? Why do you pay for what God has already provided? You were made in the image and likeness of God the Father. What kind of person have you become? Who colonized your thinking? Who made you different?

My Father created you in His image and likeness, yet you have changed. You no longer depend on my Father in heaven, and you no longer live according to His image and likeness. I now see you walking in spiritual idolatry.

What was given to you freely by the Father in heaven, you now labor for—enslaved and controlled by your colonizer. You work and, in doing so, support your enemy. You pay taxes to your enemy. You invest in systems that enrich your enemy, making them wealthier while you receive little in return—if anything at all. You cannot even count your own days; you do not know whether you will be here tomorrow or the next.

You continue chasing the ways of your colonizer. In fact, you have begun to resemble your colonizer—one not living according to the image and likeness of God, but after another likeness, the likeness of the evil one.

So I, Trey Knowles, remind you of the words of Yeshua in Mark 8:36–37:
“For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet loses his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Qur’an 8:36 – Surah Al-Anfal

إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ يُنفِقُونَ أَمْوَٰلَهُمْ لِيَصُدُّوا۟ عَن سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ ۚ فَسَيُنفِقُونَهَا ثُمَّ تَكُونُ عَلَيْهِمْ حَسْرَةًۭ ثُمَّ يُغْلَبُونَ ۗ وَٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوٓا۟ إِلَىٰ جَهَنَّمَ يُحْشَرُونَ ٣٦

Surely the disbelievers spend their wealth to hinder others from the path of Allah. They will continue spending until it becomes a source of regret for them. Then they will be defeated, and the disbelievers will be gathered into Hell.

Look at yourselves. I observe you with pity. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Do they not arise from your desires battling within you? You desire and do not have, so you harm. You covet and cannot obtain, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, intending to spend what you receive on your pleasures.

You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture speaks without reason when it says that He jealously longs for the spirit He has caused to dwell in us? Yet He gives more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the colonizing devil, and he will flee from you. If the devil were imaginary, you would not be told to resist him—how can you resist what does not exist? What is outside the likeness of God? You will recognize it by its character.

My people, if you desire a way out, draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Be born again.

Grace and Peace,
TREY KNOWLES