Archive for the ‘Salvation’ Category
Preaching For Itching Ears
In many denominations there is on going preaching that is designed to make the church fit the world. The reason for it is so that no one will be offended in hopes that the world will like the church and will let it alone. I call it “Preaching For Itching Ears”.
In 2 Timothy 4:2-4 we read the following:
“Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”
It seems that the time has come when no one wants to hear sound doctrine. There is no rebuking, no exhorting to abstain from all that is evil, there is no patience with learning the deep things of the Gospel of Christ. In short, there is no Biblical teaching being served.
In the Bible we are told that marriage, ordained by God, is to be between a man and a woman, but the church is teaching that marriage can be between two men or two women. The Bible teaches that homosexuality is wrong and that those who practice it will not enter Heaven. The church teaches that homosexuality is OK if it is in the confines of a loving relationship.
The Bible teaches that women are not to be in a position of leadership or to teach. The church says that women have a right to be a Pastor and to teach God’s Word. The Bible is clear on the qualification on being a Bishop, Pastor or Deacon – Men who are married to one woman and head up their home in a loving relationship. The church teaches that it is Okay for women to be in those positions, even though they do not meet the Biblical qualifications. The church, thumbing its nose at God, says that it is Okay for lesbians and gay men to be ordained as Ministers of God’s Word.
Why would God be happy with, and accept with kindness, something that He has specifically called an abomination?
Why would the church preach something that is not biblical? Because it is something that they do not want to hear due to the fact that the “world” says that this kind of teaching is wrong, hateful and intolerant teaching, and the church does not like it when the “world” is against it. The church no longer stands up for the sound doctrine found in God’s Word and instead it preaches what the world tells it that it should preach. God be damned as sinful man cowtails to itching ears. To them, the truth is no longer relevant.
Preachers would rather hide behind their pulpits than engage the world and what it believes. Preachers would rather have the church fit into the world view of things, instead of the church engaging the world in a way that it will view things through the eyes of God’s Word. In short, Pastors have become afraid of the “world”.
The church is slowly loosing its moral compass – the Bible. It is fulfilling the prophecy of what Jesus said in Luke 19: 14:
“But his citizens hated him, and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us.’
When one gives up on its leader they will no longer listen to, nor obey, his teachings and commands. The church is doing just that. Sound doctrine is tossed aside and pulpits are being used to entertain those sitting in the pews telling them what they want to hear and not what they should be hearing. As long as the ear is tickled the people will stay, if not they will leave. Either way the church is dead for they look to, and trust in, themselves and not to God in teaching sound doctrine that will save people from facing the punishment for their sins.
What is being taught now is just the same as the blind leading the blind, and the only place they are all going is straight to Hell for they turned away from the truth to appease those who are offended by true Christian doctrine. The problem is they don’t know it.
Are You Still In Darkness?
So many people believe that all religions lead to the same source of life, but do so by different paths. Is this something that you believe? If you do then you have answered the question of this article. Yes, you are still in Darkness.
The darkness of which I speak is not the darkness that is the opposite of being a lighted room. The darkness of which I speak is the darkness that one has who is spiritually dead as opposed to those who have been made alive by the Light of life. In the Gospel of John, chapter 1 and verses 1 through 5 we read:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
The Word of God created life and in this creation He became the life that brought light to sinful man, after the fall into the darkness of sin. Without this Light sinful man, of which you and I belong, would remain in the darkness of our sin, not knowing that life was available; life that makes us alive and show us the way back into the family of God having been forgiven for our sins and born again in newness of spirit.
So, who is this Word that brings this life and light into man’s life? In John 1: 14 we read:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
As man we call Him Jesus. About Him we read the following:
He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Think for a moment about what you just read. Jesus made the world in which we live. He came down to us, lowered Himself to be one of us, in order to bring light to our sinfulness and to make us alive and to bring us back into the family of God. But we do not want Him. We don’t recognize Him and we will not receive Him into our lives. Because of this we will remain in our sins, living in darkness believing that all is well only to find that when we die we have been deceived. And we will only learn of this as we spend eternity in Hell because we rejected the Light of Life. By then it will be too late. Your eternal destiny will have been set with no chance of parole or forgiveness, and no one will be able to change that. Is that what you want?
However, you may have noticed that all who will receive Him, He will give them the right to become children of God. You will also see that even though you many have been born into a Christian family does not give you this right, nor can you will this to be done by your own desires and you cannot will this to be done by your own thoughts. Only God can do this for you.
Your only hope is to cry out to the Father and to ask Him for the faith with which you will need to believe in Him. This is the faith by which you will be able to confess that Jesus is Lord and that you can believe that God has raised Him from the dead. Unless you can do this, unless you are born again by the Spirit of God, you will die in your sins and you will remain in darkness for all eternity.
No other religion can make this promise. All religions but one tell you that you can do this by your own will, by your own goodness. But they all deceive you into rejecting the One to Whom you must fly to receive the Light that gives life. In Him is life and only Jesus can do this as He is the creator of all things.
All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
There is only “one” path to Heaven. That path is lit by the only light that reveals the truth. That light is Jesus. Won’t you submit to Him now? Will you not bow the knee and proclaim Him to be the only Lord and Savior who can save you from your sinfulness, and Who will shine the true light into your life and bring you out of darkness and into His glorious light so that you may have life in Him.
Why remain in darkness and spend eternity in Hell. Cry out to Jesus and come out of the darkness and enjoy the wonderful light of God. Behold the glory of God. Call upon Jesus and confess Him to be Lord and His light will bring you into the presence of God where there is no darkness. Jesus is the only way, the only path to Heaven. All other paths are false and will only lead to destruction and more darkness.
Ask God for the faith with which you will need to call upon Jesus. Come out of the darkness into the shining light of Jesus and be saved.
How To Have Peace With God
You can be at peace with your mate, you can have peace with your kids, you can have peace with the world, but if you don’t have peace with God – you have no peace at all.
Now why would I say that? Because when you have peace with God you know that you will go to Heaven when you die. If you don’t have peace with God, your destination after death is Hell. In this life you will sense that, even if it you do not know or understand why you feel the way that you do. Sometimes you may feel a sense of unease, maybe the nervousness of an impending doom, or even a moment of fright when danger is near. It is because you are afraid to die. And you are afraid to die because you are not sure if you will go to Heaven or Hell.
Hell is real. It is a place of eternal torment, sorrow and grief. It is a place that you do not want to go when you die. Did you know that Jesus spoke more about Hell than He did about Heaven? Because he knew what Hell is like and He wants to warn us of the dangers of what we are doing that will send us there when we die. Hell does not have to be your destination. You can know that you are going to Heaven and you can enjoy peace with God now, in this life and in the next.
So, how can you have peace with God and be assured that you will go to Heaven and not Hell when you die?
In Romans 5: 1 we read the following:
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Being justified is the act, whereby God, through the faith given to us with which to believe, forgives us of our sins, makes us alive in our spirit – the instance of being “born again” – and saves us from the wrath to come on those who disobey Him. This is what allows us to know that we have been brought into the family of God, and in this knowledge we are given the assurance that we now have “peace with God”.
You will learn through God’s Word what Jesus has done in order for us to have this peace. Death will be something of which you will no longer be afraid, for you will know and understand that, in this life, we are only passing through and that our Home lies beyond this life. You can live and enjoy this journey not worrying whether death will visit us today, tomorrow or years down the road. You will feel a closeness to God wanting to be with Him and you will come to know that in His time, according to His will, the time for you to go home will come at the appointed time for you; and you will look forward to that time knowing that you will then be with Jesus – the one to Whom you owe your life.
Now you are probably thinking, “how can I accomplish this? What does it take?” Actually it is very easy to enter into having peace with God. In Romans 10: 9 – 10 we read the following:
9 …. if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Will you do this now? If you will do exactly what these verses say you will receive forgiveness for your sins, be saved from facing God’s wrath that is to come and you will finally experience knowing true peace with God. If you won’t, if you say you can’t or do not want to, you will never know this peace and you will have no hope of eternal salvation and of spending eternity in Heaven.
Is it worth denying Christ? Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” There is no other way to Heaven. There is no other way to receive forgiveness of your sins. There is no other way of having “peace with God’ except through Jesus.
Do you want to have peace with God? Well. you now know the way to having it given to you. The question is – how bad do you want it?
Marriage – One Man and One Woman
This month, my wife and I celebrated our 44th Anniversary. It is hard to imagine a time that we haven’t been together. Not only is Mary my wife, but she is also my best friend. We like being together, we go almost everywhere together, we cook together – although I like her cooking better – and we can just be together and do nothing. We truly have become one.
In the Gospel of Matthew chapter 19 and verses 4 through 6 we read the following:
And He (Jesus) answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
We had a Church wedding and we are both Christians. As we have grown in our marriage, and as I’ve grown in my Christian submission to Jesus, I’ve come to realize what Jesus was saying when He made that statement. My wife and I have become one in our marriage.
In our natural state of male and female, we were made to come together physically, physiologically and psychologically; two men or two women can not do this.
No matter what this world says, two men or two women cannot achieve this same kind of relationship. It is unnatural for them to come together in a physical way and they are incompatible physiologically and psychologically. To say otherwise is just refusing to face the facts in order to indulge in a perverse relationship.
However, the biggest reason that Marriage is to only be between one man and one woman is because God has commanded it to be so. Jesus, the Creator, knew this and in the passage above He makes it very clear that God the Father made them male and female, and that for this reason – Marriage – a man will leave his family, as will the woman, and be joined together to become one.
So, marriage is to be between one man and one woman. God made us different and He made us to complement one another. And in that difference God will only bless the union that is between a man and a woman. The union that my wife and I share has been blessed, and we thank God daily for His blessings. No other relationship can expect to receive the same blessing. for God cannot, and will not, bless that which is contrary to what He has ordained.
If you think otherwise, if you believe that marriage, especially one that will be blessed by God, can be between two people of the same gender, you are only fooling yourself. You have been deceived, and more’s the pity…
God’s Valentine
“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us,”
1 John 3: 1
Do you know this love? What a gift this is that God has given to His people. For the verse, quoted above, continues this way:
“that we should be called children of God!“
They who belong to God are His children. Would you not like to be a child of God?
When we were not seeking God, He was seeking us and He found us. When we could not come to Christ on our own, God drew us to Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. When we were not willing to come to Jesus, the Father worked in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.
When our heart was cold and not able to believe the Word that we heard, God removed that cold dead heart and provided us with a new heart; a warm living heart that was able to receive the things of the Spirit of God, so that we would understand our sinfulness and our need for a Savior.
When we were dead in our sins and unable to respond to the call to “come forth”, God made us alive and broke the chains that bound us. He then set us free from being a slave to Satan and from being a slave to our sins so that we could “come forth” and cry out to Jesus to “save me or I shall perish.”
The work of salvation is all of God. He seeks us, we do not seek Him. He draws us when we do not want Him. He makes us alive when we are dead. He sets us free as we are chained. He gives us a new heart as we have a heart of stone. He makes us willing when our will is not free. He places within us the Word of life when we are devoid of ability. He receives us as we call out to Jesus to save us.
Truly it is a wonderful thing to know what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us. He has done so because we are His children. He has known us since the beginning of time. He keeps us safe until it is our time to join His family. He then calls us to come to Him when the time is right and He gives us the ability to respond according to His will.
We all love Valentine’s day as it is a day of love. We give our loved ones gifts from our heart to show our love for them. How much more does our Father love us? When we are saved and forgiven for our sins, when we know how the work of salvation is all of God, when we realize that we are called children of God, how much more can we praise our Father for His love for us than by saying:
“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God!”
No greater Valentine can be received than the love which the Father has given to us so that we can be called the children of God. How about you? Can you make that claim? Only if you have submitted to the Lordship of Jesus and have believed on Him to be your Savior can you be called a child of God. There is no other Name given among men by which we can be saved. There is no other way that we can receive the gift of God’s love; God’s Valentine.
Begin The New Year With Joy In The Lord!
A Psalm of Thanksgiving.
Psalm 100:
Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands!
Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before His presence with singing.
Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting,
And His truth endures to all generations.
Only those who belong to Jesus can sing such praise. For it is He who died for sins and it is only by Him can any of us enter into Heaven. There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be, or can be, saved.
Bow before Jesus and proclaim His Lordship over you and believe in Him as Savior and you, too, can sing these praises unto the Lord our God. So, make a joyful noise, come before the Lord of the universe and sing His praises. It is God Who has made us for Him and we are to be His joy, but only if we belong to Jesus.
Come into His courts with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. The Lord is faithful. He will keep us for all eternity. Thank Him for His mercy and forgiveness. Come, now, kneel before the King of Kings and cry out for mercy and forgiveness of your sins and submit to the Lord of Lords to receive salvation that is offered to all who will come.
Begin the New Year with a new heart and a new song. Love the Lord and be thankful to Him. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth does, indeed, endure to all generations.
Begin the New Year with joy in the Lord!
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This Is Christmas
It is not about a Nativity scene. It is not about Shepherds. It is not about Angels on high. It is not even about three Wise Men. If it isn’t about any of these things, then what is Christmas all about?
The answer is quite easy…
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth… (John 1: 1, 14)
Christmas can be celebrated anytime of the year. The day doesn’t mean anything. What is important is what happened. For what happened is that God became a man. He lowered Himself from His glorious throne to become one of us. He did so to talk to us on our level and, as man, His name is Jesus.
The reason He came down to us is very simple.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners… (1 Timothy 1:15)
Are you a sinner? Then He came to save you. That is what Christmas is all about. All you have to do is to bow before Him, admit you sinfulness, ask for forgiveness and submit to Him as Lord of your life and He will be your Savior. It’s that easy.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14: 6)
There is no other way. God became man. We call this man Jesus, and Jesus came into this world to save sinners. That is what Christmas is all about.
To celebrate Christmas is to celebrate life, eternal life and forgiveness of sins, given because God became man to save sinners from their sins. The question for you is this. Will you join in on this celebration and have peace with God, or will you reject Him and face the penalty for your sins?
My prayer for you is that you will be among the many who will come to know what it is to have peace with God, and who will know the true meaning of, and be able to wish us all, a very “Merry Christmas”… 🙂
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Christmas Ambivalence
Ah, Christmas! Lights, Santa, a Nativity scene, not to mention greed, sorrow and stress. Why? What for? Sometimes I wish that Christmas never happens, and I say that as a Christian. So, what gives? No, I’m not a Scrooge nor am I heartless. Just seeing the holiday a little different.
Christmas, while being a Christian holiday, was never celebrated in the early Christian Church. In fact, it is not known exactly when Jesus was born, only where and that is in Bethlehem. Even though there is an account of the birth of Jesus in two of the gospels, the early Church never recognized nor celebrated the birth of Christ. In fact, Paul the Apostle, in 1 Corinthians 2: 1, 2 made the following statement about Jesus and the teachings about Him:
And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Paul made it very clear that what is important about Jesus is that He had been resurrected from the dead. Our “faith” depends on it. In 1 Corinthians 15: 14 Paul tells us:
And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.
What Paul made clear in all of his teachings is that Jesus was crucified, He died, was buried and was raised again to save people from sin, and to give life eternal to those who would believe in Him. Paul never celebrated the birth of Christ as well as none of the other Apostles or even those who were taught by them. Christmas is not a celebration of the early Church and was not commanded by God to be observed.
Since that is the case, should Christmas be celebrated today? It depends.
If you believe that we need to celebrate Christmas, in order to be an obedient Christian, and it is something that should be done in order to gain favor of God to be allowed into Heaven, the answer is no. Think of this.
In Galatians 4: 9 – 11 Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said the following:
But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.
In other words, if one celebrates Christmas because they feel they have to, they are doing so for the wrong reason and it could even call into question whether or not they truly are a Christian.
However, in Romans 14: 5 – 7 we are told this:
One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.
Here we see that it is OK to keep one day special, if we do so to the glory and honor of God. Likewise, if we decide not to honor that day and we do so to the praise of God that, too, is OK. For we do all these things to honor God and not ourselves.
To celebrate Christmas then is OK if you do so to honor God and to give Him praise. If you feel that you do not want to celebrate Christmas and you do it to honor God and to praise Him that, too, is OK to do. For both reasons are done to give God the glory, honor and praise that He so deserves.
But, what has happened to Christmas? To many it has become a time of greed, stress and sorrow. We worry about making sure we have the right decorations, the best gifts and going into debt just to give something that is fleeting, never lasting and gone in a moment of time. Christ is being pushed out of the public view, placed on the back lots and pushed back into buildings that never show His glory to those who truly need the Gospel message which is about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
If it were not for the crucifixion of Jesus – His death, burial and being raised from the dead – Christmas would have no meaning at all to Christians, and it would be nothing more than a meaningless holiday worthless to the salvation of anyone.
Could you celebrate Christmas if you had none of the glitter and glitch of decorations, the trappings of the commercialization of expensive gifts and the need to please others? What if all that was needed was to fall to your knees and give thanks to God for sending His own Son into the world to save sinners?
It’s OK to celebrate Christmas as long as your priorities are in the right place. You can do the decorations, buy the gifts and celebrate the birth of Jesus as long as you do so to the glory and honor of God. If you do, I think you will see that all of the trappings that make up the Christmas holiday is really not needed at all.
Christmas is a day that can be celebrated – for the right reason. We only need to honor Jesus for giving up what He Had to become what we are. That alone is enough for celebrating the birth of Jesus. But, then again, we could do that anytime that we wanted, any day of the year. And we can do so without all of the greed, sorrow and stress that comes upon us this time every year.
Wouldn’t that be great? It can be if you celebrate Christmas to honor Jesus and not to sacrifice your wallet to ease your conscience or place an offering on the altar of greed in buying the biggest, the best and the most. I’m sure you will find it more satisfying and not stressful at all. At Christmas time it would be best to practice what we read in Hosea 6: 6 where God says…
For I desire mercy and not sacrifice,
And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
Make this Christmas the best ever. You can take away the greed, the sorrow and the stress. You can do so by giving the best gift you will ever know – yourself to God. Ask Him to forgive you for living a sinful life ( we all do ), submit to the Lordship of Jesus and receive the gift of life – eternal life. You will know a love that you have never experienced and you will have made peace with God.
May you have a most wonderful Merry Christmas and celebrate it for the true meaning behind it – the day that God became a man and we call his name Jesus…
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Must You Die In Your Sins?
In the Gospel of John Jesus makes a very simple, but life saving, comment. If you read it, think about it and just dwell upon what Jesus said it will make you face your eternal destiny, and will give you a quick insight as to whether you will go to Heaven or Hell.
In chapter 8 of John Jesus is talking to some Pharisees. They had been accusing Him of falsely bragging about Himself and they wanted to know who He was and Who His Father was. To answer them He said:
“You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.”
Simply put, Jesus basically told them that the only thing that can be done to keep them from dying in their sins and being condemned to Hell was to just believe that He is God. Now, unless you know the Bible and unless you are a Christian you will not understand this nor see where it is that Jesus said that.
What He said was:
“if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.”
So you are saying to yourself, “believe that Jesus is what?” That is the secret that only God can reveal to you, but I’ll give you a clue as to what Jesus is saying with this.
In this same chapter the Pharisees and Jesus were talking about Abraham and the following conversation ensued:
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”
57 Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”
58 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”
Now when Jesus said this the Jews took up stones to throw at Him in hopes of killing Him. Now why would they do that? Well, here’s another hint.
In Exodus 3, at the Burning Bush Moses is talking with God. Then, when God tells Moses that he is to go to the Jews in Egypt and bring out the children of Israel we read the following:
13 Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”
14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’
Moses is to tell the children of Israel that the great “I AM” has sent him, meaning that it was God Himself that told Moses to do this. So now you should see why Jesus said:
“Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.”
The reason that the Pharisees took up stones to throw at Him is that Jesus was proclaiming that He was God. And that is why Jesus said, “for if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.”
And the same goes for you. Unless you believe that Jesus is God and bow before Him and submit to His Lordship over you, you will die in your sins. It’s that simple. There is no other way. If you deny Jesus, He will deny you.
This is why God tells us in Acts 4:12:
“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
So, why die in your sins? You cannot earn your way to Heaven, you cannot will your way into Heaven and you cannot work your way into Heaven. The only way you can get there is by believing that Jesus is God, and you will easily show your belief by submitting to Him as Lord of your life.
The simple Gospel message is this… Believe and be saved… Why die in your sins? Just believe in Jesus and you will spend eternity in Heaven. It’s that easy. It’s that simple.
Just believe!
Do You Know The Father?
Do you really know and love the Father?
You say that you are a Christian and you follow Jesus. You go to church and maybe even sing in the choir or teach a Sunday School class. You say grace over meals and read the Bible on occasion, but how well do you really know the Father? Maybe you don’t know Him that well and that He is Someone out there somewhere and you feel that just talking with Jesus is enough.
However, if you don’t know the Father, it may be an indication that you may not be a true born-again Christian after all. You see, it takes the Father to bring you to Jesus and it takes Jesus to reveal the Father to you. If you are born-again you will know the Father because Jesus will reveal Him to you, and only Jesus can do that.
In Matthew 11:27 (as well as in Luke 10:22) we read the following:
All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
Once you have been born again, once you have submitted to Jesus as Lord of your life, Jesus will reveal the Father to you. You cannot, and will not, know the Father unless Jesus reveals Him to you and you must be born-again in order for that to happen. Think about that for a moment. If Jesus chooses to reveal the Father to you it is because the Father has brought you to Jesus to be saved.
In John 6:44 we read the following:
“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him;”
Then, in John 6:37 Jesus says this:
“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”
First the Father draws you to Jesus and, if you are drawn, you will come to Jesus; Jesus said so. But look at what else Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him;”. Before the Father draws you, you will not, of your own free will come to Jesus. Not only that but you cannot come to Jesus. It takes the Father choosing to draw you before you can come to Jesus and, when drawn, you will come to Jesus to be saved.
You see, first it takes the Father to bring you to Jesus, and then Jesus in turn reveals the Father to you, so that you will know the one who has done this for you. For, if the Father does not bring someone to Christ first they will never be saved, they will never be forgiven for their sins, they will never experience the new birth and they will not spend eternity in Heaven.
The Father chooses you, He brings you to Jesus, He makes you alive in the spirit so that you will see Jesus and so come to Him for salvation and, in return, Jesus reveals the Father to you so that you will know who to worship and whom to give thanks for your salvation. If you truly know the Father you will have a desire to talk with Him, to seek guidance from Him, to cast your cares upon Him, to love Him in a way that you could never love anyone else.
You will know and experience His love, a love that cannot be surpassed, an everlasting love that will care for you, guide you, seek out the best for you and for His glory. You will seek Him in the morning and say goodnight to Him as the last thing you do at night. He will constantly be with you and make His presence known when you drift from Him, and He senses your distance, and He will lovingly bring you back to His arms and give you the feeling of peace when you least expect that you need it.
Jesus reveals the Father to those who are being saved so that they will know the One Who has done all of this for you. Your salvation begins with the Father and the keeping of your salvation ends with the Father. No one can take you out of His hands. If they could, they would be more of a god than God Himself, and there is no one who can do that.
The fact that you know the Father is evidence of your salvation. If you sense that you really don’t know Him, this would give rise to the possibility that maybe you are not saved at all, and that you are just a Christian in name only. Remember, Jesus did say in Matthew 7:21:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”
What is the will of the Father? That everyone He draws to Jesus will come and be saved, and then Jesus reveals the Father to us so that we can thank Him and worship Him for what He has done for us and for Who He is.
“Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”
Do you know the Father? Do you love Him? Do you really? How often do you pray? How often do you read the Bible? How often do you take some time and just talk with Him; to share your joys, sorrows, thoughts and concerns? How well do you know Jesus? You cannot say that you know Jesus and not know the Father; for Jesus will reveal Him to you.
So, let me ask you one last time. Do you know the Father?
Riff's Christian Journal 