The Answer
A – ADMIT
B – BELIEVE
C – CALL
God deeply loves you. He knows everything about you and your past – EVERY thought, word, action, and motive. Despite all that you and I have done wrong, He loves us far beyond what we can understand (Rom 5:8). He understands that we are in a terrible position because of our misuse of the free-will that we possess (Deu 30:15). We have used our free-will to sin, and that has eternal consequences because there is a Spiritual Law that says the judgment for sin is Death (Rom 8:2). You and I and everyone else personally owe one “Death” for our sin. It is the formal legal penalty for sin. The “amount” of sin in a person’s past/current life is irrelevant; one “mild” sin receives the same death-penalty as uncountable “bad” sins because both break the Law (Jas 2:10).
God’s love is so great that He elected to leave Heaven, put on the human flesh He created, die, resurrect, and then return to Heaven (1Jo 4:9, Mat 1:23 → Rom 5:8 → Act 2:24 → Mar 16:19). He then offers people the option to use their free-will to come to Him and receive the Death He paid for each person (i.e., a holy “paid-in-full” Death-credit to be used on judgment day) so that each person is legally released from their death-penalty (Hell); OR they can intentionally choose to reject God’s offer and choose to pay the death themselves with their own eternal lives.
God interacts with each person in a myriad of ways, including direct visitations in Muslim countries where the God of the Bible is banned from being preached. We don’t need to worry about how He engages each person (that’s His job), we only need to focus on what He is doing to speak to us personally. If you have read this far, He is reaching out to you. You will be able to tell because there will likely be a stirring and compulsion inside of your heart now (1Co 1:9). That’s the Holy Spirit calling you. We were each specifically and uniquely created by Him to be with Him. Sin caused a division.
For those that feel an inner beckoning/desire to have a relationship with the Maker of all that is seen and unseen (including you), and to be saved from the eternal consequences of your sin so that your eternal residence is irrevocably established in Heaven with the God of the Bible, the process is simple. It is a conversation with God that covers the 3 points below.
- ADMIT to God that you are a sinner [This is where godly sorrow leads to genuine repentance for sinning against the righteous God and there is a change of heart; we change our mind and God changes our hearts and regenerates us from the inside out.] (1Jo 1:9)
- BELIEVE that Jesus is the Son of God. He died to pay the penalty of death that you owe for your sin, and then He rose and returned to Heaven. [God needed to put on human flesh in Jesus to pay the death penalty for His beloved human children] (Rom 10:9)
- CALL upon the name of the Lord [This is trusting with all of your heart that Jesus Christ is who He said He was. Every single person who ever lived since Adam will bend their knee and confess with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings, because it is true] (Rom 10:13)
Talk to God out loud the same way you’d talk to people (don’t be ashamed). He is Omnipresent – He is there with you NOW watching you read this…you may as well talk to Him! He is not looking for you to speak in old-english with “thees” and “thous” and “hithers”. He wants to hear from YOU – His beloved child! It can be as simple as this, focus on Jesus, and in a personal 1-to-1 dialogue with Him say:
“Lord Jesus, I confess that I have sinned and broken Your Holy Law. I understand that the judgement for breaking the Law is death. I also know that you are God and that you love me so much that you paid the death-sentence I owe and You offer Your death to me freely as a gift. You came to earth, put on the Human flesh You created, lived a sinless life, were brutally crucified and died for me, then You rose from the dead and returned to Heaven. Lord Jesus, I ask that you use Your death to pay the death-penalty I owe because of my sin. Thank You for loving me so much that You’ve saved me. Please draw me close to You, help me to know Your voice, and to walk with You now and forever.”
This prayer is a formal PERMANENT legal oral contract between you and God. Jesus established the contract, and then signed God’s part with His blood. When you are finished talking to God, you’ve formally “signed” your part of the oral contract and it is fully executed – YOU ARE SAVED! The Death-payment transaction is complete, paid in full, and it covers your legal Death-penalty owed for all your past, current, and future sin. The payment is made, it is a finished work. Jesus’ last words on the cross were “it is finished”.
“…He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.” Col 2:13-14
The Bible says there is a great celebration in Heaven when any one of His beloved children chooses to spend eternity with Him (Luk 15:10), He loves you more than you will ever be able to understand (far more than you love your children, spouse, parents, siblings, friends, etc).
“…neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:38-39)
Jesus knows you inside and out…every hair on your head and every thought in your mind…everything in your past. DON’T think He is mad at you for your past sin, HE IS NOT! Jesus is your greatest ADVOCATE…He died for YOU to prove it! Don’t think your past sin is too great for Him to forgive, IT IS NOT!…no matter what your sin history is, it is never too bad for God to deeply love you, forgive you, and want you forever. To establish the point, here are a couple “sin” examples from three great Patriarchs in the Bible:
- Have you ever lured someone into adultery (Bathsheba), and then murdered her honorable husband (Uriah) so that you could steal his wife? – King David did (2Sa 11:2-15).
- Have you murdered a stranger and then tried to hide it? – Moses did (Exo 2:11-12)
- Have you ever endorsed and aided in the murder of a Christian solely because they were a Christian? – The Apostle Paul did (Act 7:58-59)
No degree of “Bad works” can exclude you from the opportunity to choose to spend eternity with God in Heaven. Similarly, you CAN’T earn your way into heaven with “Good Works” (Eph 2:8-9)…they WILL NOT pay the “Death-Penalty” you owe. We don’t stand in God’s Holy courtroom for the “good things” we’ve done; we stand there for the “bad things” we’ve done that have broken the Law. God’s judgement for our “bad things” must satisfy the death-penalty requirement of the Law of Sin and Death or God is a liar (and that’s not possible). Not only did God make a way for our Death-Penalty to be paid using His Death; God is also able to turn our moral failures into good, and lift us up out of our sinful mire. Consider the “sin examples” above and look at what God did:
- The lineage of Jesus comes from Solomon, a child of David and Bathsheba (Mat 1:1-16)
- Even after Moses murdered a stranger, God chose Moses to perform great miracles, speak to Him face-to-face (Num 12:6-8), lead Israel, and deliver the 10 commandments to mankind
- God used Paul (formerly Saul) to reach the entire non-Jewish world with the Salvation message and to write the majority of the New Testament in the Bible under the direction of the Holy Spirit. (Act 13:47)
- On the personal side, I am a product of a rape that happened in past generations. I have a PhD in engineering, an awesome family, and we’ve been able to bless countless others in many ways.
It is also important to understand that Christianity is a Relationship, NOT a Religion. A religion stipulates compliance with a set of rules that direct what a person should “do”, or “not do”, to obtain some sort of reward from an obscure all-knowing book-keeping entity that settles accounts at a person’s death, e.g., better reincarnation animal, a bunch of virgins, a planet, merge to nothingness, godhood, etc.
God already gave Christians their “entry-pass” to Heaven through His Death (Tit 3:5). When a person chooses to accept the death-payment gift IT IS DONE…nothing to work for…they are going to Heaven (2Ti 1:9). Christians endeavor to follow what the Bible says because they know God loves them deeply and it is God’s “operating manual” for humanity that He wrote to protect His children and help His children to thrive in a world full of evil and painfully destructive lies (Jer 29:11). They don’t endeavor to do all the good things the Bible shares to get into Heaven (that was settled when they became a Christian), they do them because their loving Father said they should, and they love and trust Him.
Contrary to other religions, Christianity is an ongoing continuously interactive close RELATIONSHIP with the living God who loves His children (1Th 5:16-18). Talk with Jesus regularly, and listen to what He shares with you. He will speak in many ways when you focus your mind on Him and address Him in dialogue…e.g., thoughts, Bible verses, dreams, etc. Talk to Him throughout your day! He loves to hear your voice and wants to help you – you only need to ask (you are His beloved). When you are talking to God, understand that “The Father” is God, “Jesus” is God, and the “Holy Spirit” is God, and they are all ONE (Jhn 10:30, Jhn 15:26). This is called the Trinity. God made us in His image (Gen 1:26-27), likewise we are also 3 in one. We have our body, mind, and soul…all three make us one. Your mind is you, your body is you, your soul is you. As such, if you address Jesus, you’re talking to God…and if you say Heavenly Father, you’re still talking to God.
All other religions of the world focus on what people must “do”, and “not do”, for their god(s) to “earn” the advertised “prize”. Christianity is the opposite, it is about what “God DID” for mankind to enable their undeserved entrance into heaven (if they want it), as well as walking and talking with Him throughout our lives.
There is some helpful advice as you start your walk with Jesus in the short section “A Call” below that speaks to the topic in greater detail and shares what to do next. Since God speaks to us specifically and personally through the Bible (His Word), an important place to invest some of your time each day is reading the New Testament with Jesus (i.e., the last ~1/4th of the Bible). The Book of John provides a great overview.
For those that are genuinely seeking the truth, but have hesitancies because you struggle to believe that a God exists, or see Evolution as an alternative answer, or struggle with the belief that the Bible has been divinely authored and/or struggle to believe that the Bible has not changed over the millennia; then the brief discussion below (Existence of God | Bible Credibility | Evolution) should help you. As you will see, Science, Math, and Physical Evidence rigorously confirm the veracity of the Bible across academic disciplines, and thoroughly refutes the theory of Evolution and other atheistic paradigms. If you struggle with the question as to why a good and all-powerful God would allow the heart-wrenching suffering and evil that we see in humanity, thus you question the existence of God, then this link will shed insight into why (Why God Allows Suffering).
May God bless you and fully open your eyes, heart, and mind to His awesome nature, the Truth of His word, and the indescribable ocean of love He has for you specifically. I’m looking forward to seeing you in Heaven one day!
The key spiritual law that satan uses against everyone so that he can bring about their destruction is the Law of sin and death.
- “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom 8:2)
The Bible tells us that the judgment for sin is death. One sin gives the same penalty as 20 sins because they all get the same judgment (death). The number of sins is irrelevant to the judgment, as well as the nature of the sin. The Law doesn’t say “really bad” sin gets a different judgment than “less extreme” sin. They are all sin, thus they all have the same judgment (death). This is actually good, because if God made a solution for us for the death we owe, then it applies equally well to: 1) folks that have sinned an uncountable number of times with what we’d call horrible sins (e.g., murder); and 2) to folks that have not. It will cover everyone because everyone has the exact same penalty to pay (death).
You may have heard people say, Jesus died to save us from our sin. For a long time, even after I became a Christian, I could never understand why God made such a crazy rule. Why didn’t He make something else like…”if you sin, you must squash a pumpkin on your floor, give money to a poor person, and do 10 good things…then your sins will be forgiven”. I could never understand why He needed to leave Heaven, put on flesh, be tortured, and then slaughtered to pay for my sin. I just couldn’t understand why He’d make such a strange rule…at least if I smashed a pumpkin, gave money to the poor, and did 10 good things, then it would be “me” paying for my own wrong actions…that made more sense to me. However, I also knew God knows more than me, so I accepted that there was a good reason, and that He’d tell me about it when I got to Heaven.
I got my answer many years later in the form of a story. I will share it with you in case you have a similar question (I don’t know who 1st told it, but I’m sure the originator was the Holy Spirit).
A women was speeding in her car and was pulled over by a policeman. He gave her a ticket. Since she was going pretty fast she had to go to court.
The judge that presided over her case was a good judge, honest, very well respected, and always ruled consistent with the law.
She stood before the judge and he asked her, “were you speeding?” She said, “yes.” He slammed down his gavel and said you are fined $50.
He then got up from the bench, took off his judge’s robe, walked over to the county clerk, pulled out his wallet, and paid the $50 dollars.
The question is, WHY DID HE DO THAT?
The answer is, because it was his daughter.
The same thing happens when we sin. The law of sin and death stipulates that we owe one death.
When we stand before God, He will look at us with eyes burning with love for His beloved child, and ask us, “did you sin?” We must say “yes” because everyone has sinned (Rom 3:23). Then He must bang-down His gavel and say, the judgment is death. He must pronounce this judgment because it is the law and He is perfect, holy, and just. If God didn’t pronounce this judgement then He would be a liar, and that is impossible (i.e., He said the judgement for sin is death, as such, it must be exactly and specifically death, every time).
Then He took-off his heavenly form, put on human flesh in the form of Jesus and came to the earth He created, lived a sinless life and paid the “death” for us on the cross. With this ultimate act of love completed, He ascended back to Heaven and offers the free gift of one “death-penalty credit” to anyone that wants to receive it so that they can choose to go to Heaven instead of going to Hell. Jesus’ final words on the cross were “it is finished” (Jhn 19:30), i.e., the job He came to do was complete (“death paid”).
It is important to understand that we have the same option as the woman who was caught speeding. She could have said, “NO, I’ll pay the $50 myself, I don’t want or need your help Dad.” Likewise, people can chose to accept the free “death-penalty credit” offered through Jesus, or in their arrogant self-righteous pride, reject it and continue to chase after their personally hand-crafted god that they’ve created in their own image or the imaginary god satan made that makes them feel like they can work their way into heaven. If they choose the latter, their god is powerless and will not be able to pay their death-penalty and save them. They will pay it with their own lives and join satan for eternity in Hell (this has been satan’s ultimate goal all along). God has given us “free will” to choose whatever direction we want to go. God doesn’t send people to Hell, they choose to go there by intentionally erecting and worshipping their own god. A god that can’t save them.
God went through these spectacularly drastic measures to offer His children a permanent heavenly escape from the incredibly unthinkable consequences of their own actions. The Law of Sin and Death is just as real and unbreakable as the physical laws that govern the world we can see and can’t see (radio waves, etc.). God went through these extraordinary measures because of His immeasurable love for us. This is a video testimony (Segment 1, Segment 2) from a college professor that endeavors to explain the overwhelming love of God that he experienced when he died and returned to life (Note: he was an atheist before he died and visited the gates of hell and the gates of heaven before God sent him back to earth…he came back to life in the hospital as a Christian…much to the surprise and chagrin of his atheist wife).
Just think about it from His perspective…He left the perfection of Heaven, came to the earth He created in Jesus, humbly submitted Himself to the people He created, lived a perfect sinless life, sacrificed His life, and was resurrected by His own power enabling payment for each person’s death-penalty. Keep in mind, He did this all the while His children were cursing His name, worshiping satan, sacrificing their children to satan’s god named Baal by burning them to death, rejecting Him over and over again, doing the opposite of what He commanded them to do, etc.
This helps exemplify the incomprehensible level of love that He has for all His beloved children (no matter what they’ve done, or are doing…somehow He still loves us enough to die for us…mind-boggling love). The Bible says that when a single person uses their free-will to choose the Truth and is saved, the heavenly hosts rejoice (Luk 15:10).
God gives us a key test to discern if a teaching is the Truth, or lies. This test relies on the ONE thing that satan would never include in his plethora of invented religions…
- “By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.” (1Jo 4:2-3)
Some religions will say Jesus was good man, others will say He was a prophet, but none will ever say that Jesus is the Christ. This is the absolute last thing satan wants people to know. As you can see from all our previous discussions satan goes to incredible measures to keep this soul-saving Truth from people.
It is evident now why the Bible says that no one goes to Heaven except through Jesus (for obvious reasons). It is not possible. If it were possible, I’m pretty certain God would have worked the other avenues and avoided having to leave Heaven, put on flesh, be tortured, rejected, and mercilessly slaughtered in what doctors say is the possibly the most painful death (i.e., because it took a very long time to die on the cross, and the nails were driven into the main nerve channels in both the hands/wrists and feet, so the pain was excruciating as the weight of their bodies hung from their nerves).
- Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (Jhn 14:6)
The non-Christian Christians will say that there are many paths to Heaven. They must think God is a masochistic idiot for coming to earth, putting on flesh, and being gruesomely slaughtered on the cross…for no apparent reason. As we discussed, non-Christian Christians are unfortunately owned by satan; thus they are blind to reason and they believe and say what satan directs them to believe and say.
If you are not a Christian, and you are not sure what to do, ask yourself, “What is worst that could happen by believing the Bible is the literal Word of God?”. Math & science verify it, and the testing of its Truth confirms it, the evidence in the world endlessly supports it. There is nothing to lose by choosing to believe it (other than satan’s life-destroying shackles); and everything to gain (a day-by-day relationship with the God who made you and loves you regardless of your sins, and most importantly provides salvation from your death-penalty).
As discussed at the beginning of this letter, the truth-system you decide to believe and employ in your life solely determines your destiny. And as we know, everyone has a truth-system because everyone chooses to believe something. The question is whether it is actually true. Making a mistake on this one has eternal irreversible consequences.
If you’ve never said the Sinner’s Prayer to God then you NEED to start with this. You may be just learning about all that God has done, and how it all works. As such, this letter may be acting as the driver for a scheduled divine interaction between you and God for the first time (my heart jumps for joy just thinking about it). God wants everyone to be saved; I’m sure you have been in His cross-hairs for a while, and I believe now is the time for you.
- “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1Ti 2:3-4)
If you’ve never said the Sinner’s Prayer because you’ve always attended a Christian church and/or you were raised in a Christian family for much of your life, and have assumed that that must make you a Christian and saved you from your death-penalty, IT DOES NOT. There are plenty of people in Church that are not Christians. As we discussed at the beginning of this letter, just because I stand in a garage, it does not make me a car. Just because a person stands in church, it does not make them a Christian. These non-Christian Christians think they are doing their “good deeds” by going to church, and giving money to the church, so they can gain entrance into heaven. The Bible tells us that this self-righteous pride will get them nothing. Contrary to the doctrine taught in the assorted religions satan created, we can’t work our way into Heaven, it is NOT “good-works” based. If the debt that is owed by a person is the death-sentence, it can’t be paid by mowing the lawn. It must be paid with a death.
- “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Mat 7:22 – Mat 7:23)
If you haven’t said the Sinner’s Prayer, then you need to say it.
What is the Sinners prayer? The Sinner’s Prayer is a formal LEGAL ORAL CONTRACT between YOU and GOD. Since God doesn’t lie, cheat, or steal, it is a contract that He will never break; meaning you are assured of salvation – permanently. This contract is not limited to only your past sins; it covers all of your past, present, and future sins. When it is instituted, it is a done-deal, complete, finished, fully executed unchangeable contract. There is no “working” to attain salvation. In fact you couldn’t. Hell is the legal sentence for evil done in a person’s life. The opposite is NOT true. Heaven is NOT attained by good things we do.
- “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph 2:8-9)
We all owe one “death” and it must be paid. The Sinner’s Prayer is also a contract that God deeply desires His children to enter into. He cares so deeply that He wrote it with His blood.
- “…He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.” (Col 2:13-14)
- “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Col 2:15)
- “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.” (Jhn 3:16)
- “that 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.” (Rom 10:9)
In a personal 1-to-1 dialogue with the God of the Bible you can (must):
- Confess that you believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead;
- Acknowledge that you are a sinner and need a savior; and then
- Ask for Him to pay the death-penalty that you owe using Jesus’ death as payment on your behalf.
Say the Sinner’s Prayer out loud (don’t be ashamed), and talk to God the same way you’d talk to people. He is not looking for you to speak in old-english with “thees” and “thous” and “hithers”. He wants to hear from YOU! He already knows you inside and out…every hair on your head and every thought in your mind. He loves you more than you will ever be able to understand.
- “…neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:38-39)
If you haven’t said this prayer, it is eternally consequential and the most important contract you will ever enter into. After this, ask Him to fill you with the Holy Spirit, fill you with wisdom (Jas 1:5), then dig-in to His word, and start praying and talking with Him all the time about everything. Yes everything! He wants to hear from YOU, He loves to hear your voice!
- “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1Th 5:17-19)
- “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Phl 4:6-7)
I only ask this – Each night, pray to Jesus Christ and ask Him to be with you and guide you by the Holy Spirit, and tell Him that you will apply what you read. And then start reading the New Testament (i.e., it starts with Matthew…then Mark, Luke, John, etc). The New Testament starts about 3/4ths of the way through the Bible. The Old Testament is before the New Testament and it covers the history and prophecies leading up to the fulfillment of God’s promised salvation that is recorded in the New Testament (i.e., the life and death of Jesus). We need the Word of God to spiritually grow in much the same way that we need physical food (bread) to keep our bodies running.
- “But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.‘ ” (Mat 4:4)
The Bible is the Word of God. As such, we need a daily consumption of the Word to keep us spiritually healthy and to protect us from lies. You’ll see that the depth of knowledge that the Holy Spirit reveals is endless. People spend their whole lives reading the Bible, and the longer they spend with it, the more they learn. The same Scripture they read 5 years previously reveals a new learning when they read it again in their new life circumstances. God created a miraculous communication to us to save us, guide us, bless us, and protect us. If we neglect it, it is to our own peril.
Satan continuously tries to lie to Christians to make them stumble and/or dissuade others. The Word of God and the Holy Spirit’s whispering in our ears gives us what we need to identify his lies and crush them with the Truth. I regularly ask God to reveal the lies I have believed that are hurting me.
For example, in the past I had believed one of satan’s lies. He convinced me that God’s favor and love for me was dependent on my performance. In essence, I erroneously thought that when I sinned, God was mad at me and God was going to have bad things happen to me to teach me a lesson. Then the Holy Spirit brought me to the truth in the Bible to crush this lie that was stealing my joy and giving me the wrong understanding God’s nature. In essence, that lie re-cast the nature of God in my mind to a cold judge looking for an opportunity to punish me; instead of the truth which is that He is a loving father who is my advocate, my protector, and doing everything good for me (blessing me, growing my faith through life circumstances, etc.).
- “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1)
- “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” (Heb 8:12)
- “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jer 29:11)
Satan hates Christians. He is always trying to make us sin and trying to introduce lies into our lives to harm us (as well as using his minions to attack us). He can’t do anything to steal our salvation because that is a sealed contract – we are going to Heaven – period! However he does try to make us believe that we’ve somehow lost our salvation, or make us believe that God is mad at us, by trying to sell us performance-based lies similar to what he did to me.
His goal is to steal the joy and peace that God gives us by trying make us “self-condemn” though his accusations. It should be understood that God may convict us if we’ve done something wrong so that He can keep us from hurting ourselves or others, but he doesn’t condemn us. God wants us free from sin and guilt. Satan wants us to be over-run with guilt. Satan leverages the guilt he instills to crush us into useless self-focused, self-pitying, defeated pathetic amorphous blobs of whiny flesh that pose no threat to him, his army, or his agenda.
What satan doesn’t want us to know is that: he has no power over us (ZERO); God resides in us; we are free in Jesus; we are completely and irrevocably saved from our sin and going to heaven; we are fully protected by God; we are fully empowered by God; and we are positioned to bring about massive damage to his empire in his war against God and mankind, while we walk in full confidence with our all-powerful God that loves us far more than we can ever imagine.
God is endlessly on our side. As I mentioned, the Bible tells us that God is in us when we become Christians:
- “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1Co 3:16)
- “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” (Eph 4:6)
- “At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” (Jhn 14:20)
There are some religions that say that access to God comes through some intermediary. For example: the “church”, a priest, a pope, praying to dead apostles, praying to Mary, a spiritual leader that has gained unique access to God because of their holiness. This concept is an anti-Biblical heretical lie crafted by satan to keep people from having a close relationship directly with God as He designed it to be, and as He desires it to be. In fact, the Bible tells us that when we pray we should refer to God as “Abba Father”. Abba is a very affectionate term, it is similar to a child calling his father “daddy” (Gal 4:6). We are protected because He loves us. He has all power and He is looking-out for us and He is in us. This was very comforting when I became a Christian and realized I was on satan’s hit-list.
The Bible tells us that the Word (the Bible) is the sword of the Spirit. It is used to crush the lies of the enemy. If you are a new Christian, today perhaps, DO NOT neglect the Word (i.e., commit to yourself to read the Bible daily). It is your compass to daily navigate the world you can’t see so that you can have a safe, productive, and joy filled life-path to your final destination (Heaven). It steers you away from damaging your ship on a shallow reef you can’t see, and keeps you away from hidden pirate vessels bent on hurting you.
When you read the Bible, don’t speed-read. Read it slowly, deliberately, and thoughtfully and let Him put thoughts and understanding in your mind. Remember, He created the mind and He created thought. Pause after reading a paragraph or so, think about it, and let Him reveal insights and understanding to you. As you ponder, ask yourself these three questions, “1) what does this say about God, 2) what does this say about mankind, 3) what does this say about me and my life”, and let the Holy Spirit teach you. He will speak to you through the Word, change you from the inside out, breathe new life into you, free you from the lies that you have believed, saturate you with the Truth, imbed discernment in you, fill you with wisdom, and give you a direction and purpose for your life that will bring joy and peace.
Through this, you’ll also find that the state of the world makes total sense when viewed through the lens of the Bible. This remarkable lens was crafted by the master and maker of the all that is seen and unseen. It is analogous to reading a book from cover-to-cover, and then watching the associated movie…you know exactly what is going-on, why, and what is to come. Instead of watching a physical movie screen, the world around us is the movie screen.
The Bible tells us that the gate to destruction is wide and many choose to travel it; while the gate to life is narrow and few choose to travel it (Mat 7:13-14). Despite God’s beckoning and calling for His children to use their free-will to choose Him, the inherent proud and rebellious nature of mankind seeks to establish themselves as the god of their life and they willfully travel the path that leaves them helpless when they ultimately face the law of sin and death. As you can see at this point in our discussion, the chaotic world we see every day is a direct product of evil running rampant through the hands of those that are storming along the wide path of destruction. They storm forward under the direct or indirect unction of satan and his lie paradigms that each person seeks to embrace as their truth-system; and this ultimately anchors and directs their every action, word, and thought.
Although it may seem like God is losing the battle, this is definitely NOT the case (in fact satan and his demons flee at the mention of Jesus’ name). Everyone that will choose Him will be saved. God is far too powerful to let anyone slip between His finger-tips. We will not hear God say in Heaven, “Oh crap, if I’d have only engaged Bob in this way then he would have been with Me now…nuts…I’m all-knowing, but I obviously messed-up that one”.
How God engages His children and how He works to draw them to Himself is something we don’t know; it is between God and each person. In places where Christianity is illegal it is pretty amazing to see how God works (Iran). As in the case of Kamal Saleem God engaged him via a theophany (i.e., direct appearance). For other Muslim clerics/leaders that reside inside seemingly impervious walls of lies, it has been through dreams that He has spoken to them and prompted their miraculous conversions. In China, the Holy Spirit came upon the children in an orphanage (Visions Beyond the Veil) or a young boy in rural China (The Heavenly Man). In places where the Bible is legal, He may engage someone through something as simple as a letter with the Holy Spirit beckoning them in their heart to come to their loving Creator. God will do what He knows is best to engage each person according to what He knows about their thoughts, beliefs, history, and innermost being. They are His children that He loves beyond words; and as we mentioned earlier, He says that He desires that all should be saved:
- “who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1Ti 2:4)
The only thing He has asks you and me to do is to respond to His call and walk with Him; the rest is His business. I haven’t mentioned it so far, but His plan to save His beloved children from their actions also includes the folks that lived before Jesus, see Rom 3:25. If you have been given this letter, or inadvertently come across it, then I believe that God is reaching-out to you (or reaching-out to someone you know).
I’m genuinely hoping that the work writing this letter has not been only for me, and that it will help pave the way for you (or someone you know) to connect with Jesus. There is no “walking on the line” with Jesus, we have to deliberately pick His side (the Truth) and reject the other. This is a black or white topic, there is no gray. “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.” (Mat 12:30). We know a tree by its fruits (Luk 6:44). We all need to ask ourselves, are my fruits (beliefs, actions, and lifestyle) from a tree that is rooted-in Jesus? Is my truth-system true?
Only you and Jesus can answer these questions.
God did not make robots when He made us. He made us in His image. As such He has given us “free will” to choose. Choose well…more than you can ever understand depends on it!!!
Sincerely, Your brother in Christ
The existence of God is an Axiom (a self-evident truth). If I point to a large office building and ask somebody on the street how it got there, they would likely say people working for a construction firm built it. We can only see the office building now, but its visible presence is the evidence the builder’s existence. If I then point to a car and ask the same question, I would get a similar answer. The highly complex design work, machining, electrical system, computer algorithms, systems integration, component fabrication, assembly, etc. highlights the existence of the builders as well as their great competence and understanding. If I said to them that I think the office building and the car simply appeared from nothing, they would say, “I must be some sort or quack, only an idiot would deny the obvious existence of the builders.” They’d say, “Matter doesn’t appear from nothing and then self-design and then self-manufacture and then self-assemble into a large highly complex integrated functional object!”
If I then direct their attention to the earth and all that is in it, and above it, and highlight that its complexity is so unfathomably great that millennia of focused study by mankind has only scratched the surface of understanding, and then ask them where it came from, many will say, “I don’t know.” Yes, the same folks that said I was an idiot for not acknowledging the “builders” of the office building and car will say in the same breath that other visible physical objects far more complex than our minds can comprehend suddenly appeared with no builder. The existence of God is an axiom, i.e., a self-evident truth. Looking in the mirror, or out the window, is all the evidence needed to comprehend the truth.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Rom 1:20)
In life we have grown comfortable living in a world where the “unseen” governs the “seen”. Our physics laws (truths) are not visible, yet they govern every aspect of our lives. Once we discovered these truths humanity has become enlightened and empowered with great understanding and clarity.
As we observe and experience our human reality, it is clearly evident that more than the “unseen” physics truths govern our world. There is awe-inspiring good and gut-wrenching evil, there are insidious lies and refreshing truths, there are innocent victims of great pain and there are perpetrators of great pain, there are oppressors and those oppressed, etc. The Bible says that there is an “unseen” spiritual world interacting with humanity. This is a spiritual battle in which humanity is both an unwitting soldier and the military target.
In the same way that viewing the physical world through the “lens” of our physics truths has resulted in great clarity and understanding; likewise, viewing our human reality through the “lens” of the truths in the Bible also results in great clarity and understanding. The Bible’s perfect record of fulfilling 1800+ prophecies visibly announces to all mankind, throughout the ages, that the Bible is a source of truth that demands attention. In our discussion on the Home page we learned that the Bible’s truths have not only stood unwavering under the tests of evidence, it has also demonstrated that it was impossible for the Bible to be written by man (as shown in the section “THE AUTHOR”). The evidence includes physics, archeology, geology, statistics, etc.
Anyone that takes the time to look at the Bible and the associated voluminous evidence of it’s divine authorship resigns themselves to one of two realms: 1) a believer in its truths; or 2) an intellectually conflicted soul subject to the endless anxiety of cognitive dissonance. Most folks avoid taking an honest deep-dive into the Bible’s evidence and avoid the topic by adopting a belief of their preference. No other belief-system can stand in comparison to the Bible because the Bible is true, and all history is overflowing with voluminous tangible irrefutable evidence. Beliefs such as Evolution would fall in that category. In the section “NOTHING BUT MEAT“, it was proven beyond a shadow of doubt that Evolution is impossible; the massive volume of physical evidence, combined with analysis across scientific disciplines, combined with the requirements of our physics laws, firmly establishes that Evolution is impossible (physics, statistics, geology, etc). A person would need to agree to break the physical laws that we’ve build our industrialized world upon to believe Evolution.
Our chaotic world makes sense to true Christians since the lens of the Bible allows them to see the world through paradigm defining truths. The Bible also prophecies what will happen next, e.g., a one world government will be established, the world leader will come to power through peace, a mark on a person’s hand or head will be needed in order to buy or sell, a one-world religion will arise, Israel will be attacked from the north by Russia + Iran + Turkey + several other nations while Saudi Arabia and the US watch from the sideline (God will miraculously fight the battle for Israel resulting in great devastation to the invading army), a peace agreement will be signed with Israel and the surrounding Muslim nations which will start a 7 year tribulation period, 3.5 years into the 7 year tribulation the world leader will break the agreement, during the tribulation period 2 Christian witnesses will be killed and it will be broadcast globally for everyone to see real-time, people around the world will exchange gifts in celebration of the death of the Witnesses, the witnesses will rise 3 days later to the awe of the global citizenship, there will be a meteoric event that causes massive global chaos and death, etc. There are many more prophesies. Unfortunately we are entering a terrible time in the prophetic timeline.
This series of these prophetic events was initiated when a landmark Biblical prophecy was fulfilled. This milestone prophecy was that Israel would become a nation again in a day, after being gone for almost 2000 years. This happened in 1948. Can you image the Incas in South America becoming a nation again, with their land, cities, language, government, culture, etc.? The Bible says the generation that sees Israel become a nation again will not pass away before the end comes – in 2018 they were 70 years old. All that is described above, plus much more, will happen before this generation passes away. Although it seems unbelievable, so did all the other prophesies before they happened, the fall of Babylon, the fall of Israel, the assignation of kings, the destruction of the temple, etc. The Bible’s prophetic track record is perfect; all that the Bible says will happen, will happen. A key prophecy relevant to true Christians is their Rapture (removal) to Heaven before the 7 year tribulation starts.
The world has changed dramatically in the last 5-10 years; many of the prophesies above are relatively easy to see on their way…one world government, buying and selling contingent mark, real-time global viewing of 2 men dying, attack of Israel from the North by the listed nations, etc.
To be honest, now is not the time to sit on the fence. Use your free-will to seek the truth with an honest heart and mind and you will soon be sitting in the arms of your Maker and Savior.