Posted on 02/16/2012 3:57:28 PM PST by wmfights
You're not here by accident. God loves you. He wants you to have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus, His Son. There is just one thing that separates you from God. That one thing is sin.
The Bible describes sin in many ways. Most simply, sin is our failure to measure up to God’s holiness and His righteous standards. We sin by things we do, choices we make, attitudes we show, and thoughts we entertain. We also sin when we fail to do right things. The Bible affirms our own experience – “there is none righteous, not even one.” No matter how good we try to be, none of us does right things all the time.
People tend to divide themselves into groups - good people and bad people. But God says that every person who has ever lived is a sinner, and that any sin separates us from God. No matter how we might classify ourselves, this includes you and me. We are all sinners.
"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23
Many people are confused about the way to God. Some think they will be punished or rewarded according to how good they are. Some think they should make things right in their lives before they try to come to God. Others find it hard to understand how Jesus could love them when other people don't seem to. But I have great news for you! God DOES love you! More than you can ever imagine! And there's nothing you can do to make Him stop! Yes, our sins demand punishment - the punishment of death and separation from God. But, because of His great love, God sent His only Son Jesus to die for our sins.
"God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8
For you to come to God you have to get rid of your sin problem. But, in our own strength, not one of us can do this! You can't make yourself right with God by being a better person. Only God can rescue us from our sins. He is willing to do this not because of anything you can offer Him, but JUST BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU!
"He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy." Titus 3:5
It's God's grace that allows you to come to Him - not your efforts to "clean up your life" or work your way to Heaven. You can't earn it. It's a free gift.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9
For you to come to God, the penalty for your sin must be paid. God's gift to you is His son, Jesus, who paid the debt for you when He died on the Cross.
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:23
Jesus paid the price for your sin and mine by giving His life on a cross at a place called Calvary, just outside of the city walls of Jerusalem in ancient Israel. God brought Jesus back from the dead. He provided the way for you to have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus. When we realize how deeply our sin grieves the heart of God and how desperately we need a Savior, we are ready to receive God's offer of salvation. To admit we are sinners means turning away from our sin and selfishness and turning to follow Jesus. The Bible word for this is "repentance" - to change our thinking about how grievous sin is, so our thinking is in line with God's.
All that's left for you to do is to accept the gift that Jesus is holding out for you right now.
"If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." Romans 10:9-10
God says that if you believe in His son, Jesus, you can live forever with Him in glory.
"For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16
Are you ready to accept the gift of eternal life that Jesus is offering you right now? Let's review what this commitment involves:
I acknowledge I am a sinner in need of a Savior - this is to repent or turn away from sin
I believe in my heart that God raised Jesus from the dead - this is to trust that Jesus paid the full penalty for my sins
I confess Jesus as my Lord and my God - this is to surrender control of my life to Jesus
I receive Jesus as my Savior forever - this is to accept that God has done for me and in me what He promised
If it is your sincere desire to receive Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior, then talk to God from your heart:
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wmfights wrote:
“Are you ready to accept the gift of eternal life that Jesus is offering you right now? Let’s review what this commitment involves:”
My question would be this: What precisely is it that accepts the gift God offers? In other words, what makes the gift He offers ours?
I am not asking frivolously.
Which is precisely the definition of obedience. If you're "in Christ's keeping," you're no longer your own master. You have a master, because you have been "bought at a price," and you owe him your obedience. That's why Paul writes in Romans that he came to bring "the obedience of faith to all the nations" (Rom 1:5)
It's very dangerous to take single Scripture verses out of context and string them together to try to justify a theological point.
A classic case is Ps 14:3 ("there is none who does good, no, not one"), which wmfights "Gospel" quotes almost immediately. Looking at it in context (which is certainly how Paul understood it), you find that it's hyperbolic. Ps 14 contrasts the wicked, of whom "none [do] good" with "my people" (verse 4) and "the generation of the righteous" (verse 5), so 14:3 is clearly not talking about all people, everywhere, without exception, for all time.
Placehold post.
You’re very welcome. Thank you for your input.
Amen, Amen, Amen.
Thank you for taking the time to read it. FWIW, I've found that when you post threads there are a fair number of posters who jump in without having read the thread and that's usually where the animus begins. I think your summary of the article is spot on.
Does anyone have a good explanation how God could come up with the magnificent creation of man, and relatively speaking, the whole plan literally went to hell 5 minutes after creation when Eve came into the picture?
And also, why didn’t God send Jesus instead of trying again with Noah and the flood?
Ephesians 1:3-14
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
We do not have the mind of God, nor the capability to understand God's ways. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so far are his ways above our ways and his thoughts above our thoughts. If we receive his grace through Jesus Christ as our Savior, one day we WILL be able to grasp it all. You ask the $64,000 question. One day, we will know even as we are known. Until then, we trust that the God of all does right.
I appreciate you spending the time to reply.
Grace follows repentance.
That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
That is good enough for me. God bless you, bramps, I hope you have a good night!
Interesting. As if it’s Jesus’ fault, as if Jesus is a “No Call, No Show”. Thanks for the comment.
Wmfights, another excellent thread.
I’m glad you enjoyed them. It seems to me sometimes we forget the most important truths.
“Because the truth is... There is more to being saved than by simply asking Jesus into your heart and praying the ‘Believer’s Prayer’.”
Yup. Here ‘tis, straight from the horse’s mouth ... make that, the Lord’s mouth:
“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observed all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’” (Matthew 28:18-20)
The soul.
Are you ready to accept the gift of eternal life that Jesus is offering you right now? Let's review what this commitment involves:
1st, faith is not as much a commitment as much as it is a resting in what God provides. Our volition is exercised by resting in Him, not by something we work at in order to be saved, or work to remain moral. When we rest in Him, the fellowship occurs by His blessing and faithfulness.
I acknowledge I am a sinner in need of a Savior - this is to repent or turn away from sin.
Repentance involves focusing on the person of God, not ourselves independent of God, but communicating to Him in our thinking and exercising our volition that we turn away from anything other than Him. The next step is confession and this is where we submit our sins to Him.
I believe in my heart that God raised Jesus from the dead - this is to trust that Jesus paid the full penalty for my sins
This is very misleading, because the natural man doesn't yet have anything righteous in his heart by divine standards. Rather, when we believe, exercise faith, we are in the process of thinking. The hear the Word, we comprehend the Word, we accept the Gospel message of God the Son, Jesus Christ, in his humanity, receiving all of humanity's sins and being judged for them on the Cross by God the Father. Accordingly, all sins, past, present, and future have been legally judged already.
I confess Jesus as my Lord and my God - this is to surrender control of my life to Jesus
This is misleading as it promotes Lordship salvation. There is nothing we can do to earn salvation. That would make it a work, implying God would be a debtor, which is blasphemous. When we confess to God the Father, we are confessing, stating our known and unknown sins to God, through faith in what Christ has done on the Cross, ...we rest in what He has done regarding the judgment of sin and personally place these before God in that faith.
I receive Jesus as my Savior forever - this is to accept that God has done for me and in me what He promised
This is fine, but not mandated. As soon as we exercise faith in Him, God who knows our heart, immediately recognizes that faith for righteousness.
Rom 3:22-23
(22) Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
(23) For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
The quoted statement manifests that faith, but there may also be other methods to also manifest faith in Him. Baptism is such a manifestation, by which we are identified with Him.
If it is your sincere desire to receive Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior, then talk to God from your heart:
The heart is essentially an output chamber from the soul. Our perceptions bring ideas into our thinking, a process in the soul and it's interior chamber, the mind. As we process the thinking with memory, recall, faith, belief, those thoughts then are processed into the heart, from which we (our soul) can then act and manifest our thinking to anybody outside us.
Technically, the heart is part of the soul, and everybody has it. All unbelievers have a heart, which lacks righteousness.
An unbeliever can make the above statements without thinking through faith in Christ and still not be saved, but a believer, having been exposed to the Gospel, exercises faith in Christ, and receives everlasting life.
Now for those who want identify the Gospel, consider the parable of Mark 4:11.
For those who want to study the theology of the Gospel, consider the mystery of the Gospel and the above parable.
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