Posted on 02/23/2015 5:15:08 AM PST by Gamecock
Full Title: Do We Deserve Heaven? Thinking that I deserve heaven is a sure sign I have no understanding of the gospel.
Religious people are always profoundly disturbed when they discover that they are not, and never have been, true Christians. Does all of their religion count for nothing? Those hours in church, hours spent doing good things, hours involved in religious activity—do they not count for something in the presence of God? Do they not enable me to say: “Look at what I have done. Don’t I deserve heaven?”
Sadly, thinking that I deserve heaven is a sure sign I have no understanding of the gospel.
Jesus unmasked the terrible truth about His contemporaries. They resisted His teaching and refused to receive His Word because they were sinners—and slaves to sin.
Some years ago, the British media reported that a Presbyterian denomination had pulled fifty thousand printed copies of an edition of its monthly magazine. The report indicated that the author of an article had referred to a prominent member of the British royal family as a “miserable sinner.”
Intriguingly, the member of the royal family, as a member of the Church of England, must have regularly used the words of the Anglican prayer book’s “Prayer of General Confession,” which includes a request for the forgiveness of the sins of “miserable offenders.” Why, then, were the magazines pulled? The official comment: “We don’t want to give the impression that the doctrines of the Christian faith cause people emotional trauma.”
But sometimes the doctrines of the Christian faith do exactly that—and necessarily so.
Or should we say instead: “How cruel Jesus was to these poor Jews! Fancy Jesus speaking to them in this way!”?
Jesus did say, “You are miserable sinners.” He unmasked sinners and drove His point home: “You have no room for my word” (John 8:37, NIV). They had heard, but resisted it. Later, He described the result: “Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say” (John 8:43, NIV).
Jesus had already patiently explained this to Nicodemus: “Unless God’s Spirit opens your eyes, you cannot see the kingdom of God. Unless God sets you free from the bondage of sin, you will never enter the kingdom of God” (see John 3:3,5). “The truth is,” Jesus said later, “you do not hear what I am saying because you are not really the children of God” (see John 8:41, 44). They were, to use Paul’s language, spiritually “dead” (Eph. 2:1).
Some time ago, while relaxing on vacation on a wonderful summer day in the Scottish Highlands, I sat outside enjoying a morning coffee. A few feet away I saw a beautiful little red robin. I admired its feathers, its lovely red breast, its sharp and clean beak, its simple beauty. I found myself instinctively talking to it. But there was no response, no movement. Everything was intact, but little robin red-breast was dead. The most skilled veterinarian in the world could do absolutely nothing for him.
So are we, spiritually. Despite appearances, in my natural state I am dead toward God. There is no spiritual life in me.
Only when I see this will I begin to see why God’s grace is surprising and amazing. For it is to spiritually dead people that the grace of God comes to give life and release.
I was responding to your assertion that if God made men perfect they would be robots.
As for holiness, all religions regard their Gods as holy. Perhaps you regard yours as different from other Gods, just as other religions regard theirs as different.
The following description is true of all Gods, except the one you believe in of course:
“All their gods are like themselves, petty, neurotic, thin-skinned, and vindictive. Their gods demand veneration and worship, as if a god would need to be honored by such worthless creatures. Their Gods fly into rages like children at the first hint of contempt. Insult one of their pitiful gods, and you’ll be tormented forever, because all their gods are like themselves, spiteful, and so insecure they require the constant praise of others, because within themselves, they are nothing. Well... they are nothing!”
And that is what they call Holy.
I have no idea what you mean by Holy.
I didn't say that.
**I have no idea what you mean by Holy**
If you really want to know I suggest you start here.
This thread is posted on the Religion Forum of Free Republic which is pro-God meaning the Judeo/Christian God. If you are atheist then do not post on the Religion Forum.
Actually, Jesus was God’s gift to us.
His gift is so monumental .. there is no ACT we can do that could ever outshine that gift.
That’s why the Bible clearly states that Salvation is by GRACE from GOD, and not of ourselves. In other words, there is NOTHING WE CAN DO in the natural to deserve the gift of Salvation through Jesus Christ.
Perhaps if I let Paul speak for me, you'll understand why I speak so strongly of the false gods:
Acts 17:22-29 "Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.' 'Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising.'"
The problem is THERE ARE NO GOOD PEOPLE ...LUKE 18:19 Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone.
Really? Do you not have PERFECT freewill?
It is what you choose to do with that perfect item.
Understood - the book was written by a Jewish Rabbi, but the insights are still valid regarding the reason that we suffer from sin and that we have free will.
He wrote it to answer one of the most asked questions he received. Something along the lines of: If God is omnipotent why does he let people suffer? from an innocent baby in the world less than x months to a sacrificing adult...he used a number of examples from his rabbinic service. He said the hardest were the parents asking about how their children could warrant it - and he had a personal example as well.
Still a good book
We are not sinners because we sin..we sin because we are sinners..
What we all deserve is hell
Bad things do happen but they happen to bad people that deserve everything we get.. and we deserve hell ..Thank God He has rescued some of us
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