Mark 16:15 "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."Before us creatures can be enlightened we must hear the gospel. Some fail to even know what "the gospel" is! It's the truth about the life, ministry, death, resurrection and purpose of Jesus Christ, God incarnate. The job assignment of every Christian is to pass along the hope they have.
Lamentations 3:26 "It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord."Also refer to the "hope of salvation" in 1 Thessalonians 5:8.
Jesus came to provide "hope". The gospel is all about hope. Because God came to earth in a frail human body, he did certain things to provide hope to mankind. He was born of a virgin and conceived by the Spirit of God himself. He lived a perfect life without any sin. He performed numerous miracles; even raising the dead. he died for ALL of OUR sins instead of us. He was resurrected from the dead and still lives. Furthermore, he physically ascended to heaven, but if you are a Christian, he lives here still in your heart.
For God, his desire is that we should love him! That's his only expectation. For that love, God provides hope. He traded his only Son in exchange for our eternal life. It wasn't an even trade because Jesus was innocent, but we're as guilty as hell is real! He took all the sins of mankind on his back at one time and bore them for us.
Titus 2:14 "Who (Jesus) gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."Jesus redeemed, or shed us blood for us, meaning ALL mankind, from "all iniquity", or all our sins.
What must we do to be saved? We are to believe what the gospels say. Now, I'm getting to the essence of the problem!
Most people believe in God, but truly it is merely "God as you understand him.", according to the Twelve Step Program. First off, you will never UNDERSTAND God. God is magnificent. Man's problem all along is endeavoring to have the knowledge of God.
Genesis 3:5 "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof (the fruit), then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."Therefore, point #1 is that "God is NOT God as you understand him!" He is God who is beyond understanding. If you understand God, then why does he put up withe the shenanigans of Hitler or even you and me? Please tell me about it!
Therein lies a BIG problem. People believe in God, but make no attempt to understand he in whom they believe. God says "Look around at the creation. That's my doing. Search me out to find out more!"
Romans 1:20 "For the invisible things of him (God) from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse..."By what we see we have no excuse! We see what he created, and we are obligated to learn more about the Creator. Science has always sought to refute the Creator, but their research merely demonstrates that there must have been a Creator, even as they deny that they have failed to find the answer! It's their "god of Chance" who did it all, I suppose!
Therefore, the first thing to believe, as a Christian, is that God is the Creator! That's imperative because God said he did that! If that is wrong, then God is a liar and we shouldn't believe anything he says.
Our entire hope of eternal life depends on whether God has the power to make it happen. God said this:
Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."If you deny God the Creator, then the "God as you understand him" has no power. He can't provide a heaven for you because you are skeptical that there even is a heaven. Your faith is so weak that your God didn't even have the power to create earth, let alone the heavens and heaven! It's imperative that you believe in an almighty God because if he is limited, he cannot fulfill his promises and therefore you have no hope for eternity!
Let's look at "God as you understand him." He's a weak God who has not the power to create. It just happened and God claimed he did it. God is a liar. What is written in his book is all lies. It's not even the word of God. It's mere writings of men. However, because I need to believe in something to have any hope at all, I'll just say 'God does exist' and hope that he does so that I can escape whatever is after death!" Isn't that the way the "Christian" (sic) who believes in evolution thinks?
Believing in God is NOT enough. He must be the God as portrayed in Holy Scripture! He cannot be a God which we've created in our minds to fit how we think he should be! How is it that men believe he should be? He should be tolerant and put up with any sin we dream up. He should allow everybody to go to heaven. He should be kind enough to allow even those who deny and hate him to be rewarded. In other words, he should let me into heaven without regard to how bad I am. After all, what's so bad about sinning? Everybody does it! You see... that's the God you created, but he's not God; he's you Mr. and Mrs. Frankenstein. You created that monster who most people worship!
Believing in God is NOT enough.
James 2:19 "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble."If your belief is merely that God exists you're worse off than even the demons. Whereas, you merely believe, the demons "believe, and tremble"! If belief is not enough, then what does it take?
Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God..."Point #2 is that mere belief that God exists or even created it all, is not enough. To get your reward in heaven, you must have faith! Faith is a composite of belief and trust. You have confidence that God is all powerful, that he is always truthful, that he provided a way and that if you believe in God in that manner, you have a chance. That doesn't mean that you DESERVE a chance, but God gifts that for you! The concept of giving to you what you don't deserve is called "grace".
Doing "good" things to DESERVE heaven is not possible. All the "good" that you do is as filthy rags to God (Isaiah 64:6). It's merely accepting Jesus by faith which makes a Christian. It has to be by faith in Jesus since he was the sacrifice that God made for ALL men for ALL time for ALL sins ever committed.
John 14:6 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."Point #3. Believing in God, even the One True God, is not enough! You must believe that he provided a method of saving you. His method from Creation Day #1 is that he would provide the sacrifice. Jesus was always Plan A and the only plan. Everybody ever who is in heaven are there because Jesus is the Way and only way. Abraham is in heaven! He's there because he had enough faith in Jesus to be willing to do what God actually did to his only son. Salvation was always by Jesus. It's not a new thing! Christianity precedes Judaism in that "the voice" who spoke in the the Garden of Eden was "The Word" which was born Jesus (John Chapter 1).
Reading and applying John Chapter 1 is the key to understanding that the Old Testament is all about Jesus!
The next thing one must do is to accept "the gift". The gift is Jesus' sacrifice for me personally and you personally. You must believe that he is God incarnate (in the flesh) and that God died in your place. You must accept his sacrifice that he made for you. He did that to save you from eternal damnation.
Point #3 is that you must accept the gift Jesus made for you. His gift, saving you from hell, requires something. You must believe in hell and punishment for those who fail to accept Jesus. If a person doesn't believe in hell, what is it then that Jesus saves you from? It is eternal damnation. You see, that is your "hope"; that you don't spend eternity in hell. Without Jesus there is no hope because only God has the power to save!
Point #4 is that after Jesus made his sacrifice, if you accept him, you must love him because he saved you! It would be foolish and selfish to accept his gift to you and not love him back. God expects that!
The Greatest Commandment is to love God. Believing in him, is NOT loving him. To love God is being thankful that he provided a Way to save our wretched skins! How do we repay his love. We obey his commandments.
John 14:21 "He 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."Believing in God is NOT enough! We must make a living sacrifice; our self. We must quit doing the things "right in our own eyes" which satisfies the desires of the flesh and give them to God. That's how we show God that we truly love him! "Faith without works is dead." (James 2:26). By works (doing what God commands) is how we demonstrate to God that we're serious about our faith and love. If we're Christians and we're not obeying the Ten Commandments, then we must ask "Do I truly love God?" The willingness to sacrifice the things we love to show love to God is a measure of our sincerity. Those who merely believe without doing God's will fool only themselves. God, in the end, will say:
Matthew 7:23 "And then will I (God) profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."You can't fake being a Christian. You can't be a "Christian as you understand it!" You must be a Christian who accepts Jesus, trusts him and obeys! If not, the last words you'll ever hear from God is "depart from me" or plainly "get out of my sight!"
There is no "hope" in not believing. The only hope is in God as he IS. Your composite multiple choice weak god isn't God. You misunderstand him! He must be the God of scripture and he must be Jesus who made the sacrifice. You can only come to the Father through the Son (Jesus):
John 14:6b " No one comes to the Father except through me (Jesus speaking)."Point #5. Belief in God without accepting Jesus doesn't cut the mustard!
Putting it mildly, believing in God is NOT enough! One can only come to God through belief in Jesus Christ. He and the Father are one, and if a person fails to accept Jesus, they reject God!
I'm proud of my close relative for suddenly understanding why I've always been so adamant about doing what is right and not doing what is wrong. It's so easy to NOT do things. It's so hard to DO things! It's easy to NOT swear nor get intoxicated. It's difficult to love others. If I'm not doing the easy things, chances are that I'm not doing the hard things either.
There are things we just don't do because we say that we love God. For instance, because he says not to do the things the pagans do, I would never get a tattoo nor piercing. By abstaining from those things isn't a ticket to heaven, and he certainly forgives disobedience, but I obey because that's my only way to love and respect him!
That goes much further too! I control my anger because I revere God. I am faithful to my wife because God tells me to. I don't steal because that takes what belongs to the brother whom I'm supposed to love. Yes, I fail and you do to! However, sin is a choice. If we want to demonstrate our love to God and assure ourselves of our salvation, then we do as God wills us to do!
We will fail, but we don't have to. God loves us even when we fail and that's exactly why we shouldn't want to disappoint him! However, if there is no effort to please God, our love is obviously dead!
Point #6. Love God and respect him!
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