ACCEPTING CHRIST

We have now seen that we can receive the gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  So the next step is for us to actually receive the gift of eternal life..... Let me clarify what this involves.  

First, we must transfer our trust from ourselves(ex. going to church, being a good neighbor, living by the Golden Rule etc.) to what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross.  He takes our sin and we receive His righteousness.

 The next thing is to receive Christ as our Savior. This means that we are trusting in Jesus alone for salvation(getting to heaven)

The next thing is that we receive Christ as Lord of our life. This means to yield our lives to His control(very important, we will start to go into this next post)

And the last thing is to repent of our sins and follow Him. This means that we are willing to turn (U-TURN, not simply veer off) from the things that we have been doing that is not pleasing to God. We need to follow Him as He reveals His will to you in His Word(Bible)

I hope that the above explains what is involved when receiving the gift of salvation. Once we have sincerely decided to accept Christ into our lives we are to communicate it to God through prayer.

Simply tell God that you are willing to commit your life to Him and accept Him into your heart.

I pray that each and every one of you will make this commitment and that it is genuine and from the heart.

If you have made this commitment, be assured because Jesus says in John 6:47 .... Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes HAS eternal life.        Key word there is HAS, not might have, not could have, Jesus said HAS.  What a great feeling knowing that heaven is your destination.  Until next time. 

To get into heaven, we must transfer our trust from ourselves onto Jesus and what He has done for us. I hope this video helps illustrate that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2Vl9zaH8eQ

FAITH

As mentioned in the youtube video, we receive the gift of God by faith. The Bible says that faith is the key that opens the door to heaven. You could have a key ring with several keys on it, they all may look similar, but if you go to the front door of your home, you could try all the keys on the key ring except the right one and they will not open the door....The right key to heaven is called faith, saving faith. That will open the door to heaven. Nothing else in the world will open that door.

So we now know that faith is the key to heaven, but what IS faith. First we will look at what it is NOT. It is not just knowledge about historical facts of Jesus. Some people believe in Jesus like George Washington. They believe He actually lived. He was a real person in history, but they are not trusting in Him to do anything for them now. Most people say that they believe in God, but that belief/faith is not what the Bible means by saving faith......In James 2:19 You believe in One God, good! Even the demons believe that and shudder. And in the first part of Matthew 8:29 the demons said, What do you want with us Son of God. So we see even the demons believe in God and  we know they don't go to heaven. So believing in God is not what the Bible means by saving faith.

Another area that many people mistake for saving faith is like temporary faith in emergencies.  Like praying to God that their children will get better when they are sick. Or when people travel the pray to God for safe travel. Or say you had a big decision you prayed to God for wisdom in making that decision.....All these things are good to do, but they are only temporary situations that has to do with OUR lives. Many people trust in the Lord for all these temporary matters. But saving faith is trusting Christ to save you....save you eternally.

  I know before I accepted Christ into my life,  I was trusting MYSELF for getting into heaven. I tried to live a good life, I tried to go to church, I tried to live by the Golden Rule. etc. but the problem with those things is that it was all about "I".

Saving faith is trusting in Jesus Christ ALONE for our salvation. It is relying on Christ alone and what "HE" has done rather on what I have done to get me into heaven.   In Acts 16:31 it says Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.    

The Great Transaction

I had trouble uploading this video, so I went through Youtube. Click the link to view it. I hope this works, let me know if it does.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bThGzyqd1ZE

Problem solved

I tried to post a video for this but, I could not get it to upload. So I will have to write it.......So God solved this problem in the person of Jesus Christ......Who is Jesus? The Bible says that Jesus is God. In John 1:1, it says that In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. it continues in v 14 And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, we have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father full of grace and truth.

Now what did Jesus do? Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead to pay the penalty for our sins and purchase a place in heaven which He offers as as a free gift.

Jesus is God. He lived a perfect and spotless life, and when He came to the end of His life, we see the reason that he came into the world, the great transaction.

Last post mentions God's standard to get into heaven is to be perfect. Matthew 5:48 says Therefore, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect......We know that we cannot earn our way into heaven because Ephesians 2:8-9 says For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is gift from God, NOT BY WORKS, so that no one can boast. ....... Now on to this posts subject..............God is merciful; therefore, he does not want to punish us. 1 John 4:8 says that God is love. Often we here all about God's love for us and yes this is true. The first part of Jeremiah 31:3 says that God has an everlasting love for us.... We should be truly grateful. But, many people have a false concept of God by only focusing on his love for us. We have heard many times God wouldn't send good people to hell or God wouldn't do that, "MY" God wouldn't punish, etc........the last one where the person says "MY God" would probably be right.... "HER OR HIS" god wouldn't do that, but the problem with that is, their god doesn't exist except in their own mind. That person has CREATED a god with their own imagination, according to their own liking. This is considered idolatry(worshiping a false god). 2nd of the 10 Commandments........So when people say God would never do that!!! We should say what god would not do that? The God of the Bible?

Yes the Bible says that God is merciful and loving, but the same Bible also says that God is just, therefore he MUST punish sin. In Exodus 34:7b it states that the guilty will not go unpunished. Ezekiel 18:4b the soul who sins will die. In Habakkuk 1:13 it says of God....your eyes are too pure to approve evil. Now, there appears to be a problem here. God is merciful and loving, etc. however, God is just and MUST punish sin. God solved this problem in the person of JESUS CHRIST.......until next time

So in the comments sections of the February 20th post, I was saying that the bible teaches that heaven is a free gift and that it is not earned or deserved. (Ephesians 2:8-9) Often we all have a hard time grasping the we don't deserve to go to heaven concept; usually it is due to the fact that we compare ourselves with other people we either know or hear about in the news like murderers, child molesters, rapists, etc. On the surface, it would seem that when we compare ourselves with other people we "should" go to heaven. However, that is exactly where we start to get into trouble, when we rely on our own thinking, our own standard as opposed to what the bible teaches.......God's standard.

The bible teaches that man is a sinner. In Romans 3:23 it states...... for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. I know that this may sound simple, but what exactly is sin? Often we only think of the big ones like murder, adultery, stealing, but the bible teaches that sin is anything that doesn't please God such as things that we say or think. Things that we say like lying, cussing, etc. or things we think such as lust, pride, and hate.

Many times we think that sin is something that everybody is doing so it must not be so bad. Some of you may have heard this example before about how we often think we are not so bad...............Say one was a REALLY!!!! good person and only sinned 3 times a day. That is over 1000 sins a year and say the average lifetime is 70 years, that is over 70,000 sins in our lifetime. So our standard of a REALLY!!! good person who "should" get into heaven has 70,000 sins...............God's standard to get into heaven is..........PERFECTION. Something to think about until next time.

Bibliology-002 from Cornerstone Church on Vimeo.