Did you know a very tidy rational and accomplished person can go to hell?
We love it when people are diligent and organized in their thinking, at least I appreciate it. However, these wonderful qualities will not get anyone to heaven.
We want to be diligent in all that we do but far more important than this quality is our spiritual well-being.
Since we cannot live good enough to gain heaven we will trust in Christ and merely believe Him for our salvation and then He does all the rest of the work in us.
Ephesians 2:10
"10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
Acts 16:29-32 "And the jailer asked for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas; 30 and after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
The Jailer Converted
31 They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of God to him together with all who were in his house."
The passage in Acts is not a promise to every household in which someone in the household believes in Christ, it was given to this one family because Christ knew the family would trust in Him because of the influence of those who believed and the gospel was preached to the entire household.
Let's be careful not to say what the scriptures are not saying, there is no guarantee that if we believe our entire household will believe. It happened in this case but you will not find scripture that makes a promise that if we believe everyone our households will be saved.
We know this by other scriptures that say the following:
Matthew 10:35-37 "…35 For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ 37 Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me;…"
When we keep passages in the context of the entire Bible we will not come to erroneous ideas that are contrary to the Word of God.
Many "Christians" today often take words our of context to make them say what they want them to say, even defending the wrong ideas as though they were Scriptural.
People tell us not to judge others when God clearly commanded us to judge.
People will tell us it's alright to remarry when Christ clearly said remarriage after divorce is adultery.
People tell us to forgive unrepentant people when God clearly says we are to forgive those who have repented and confessed their sin.
People tell us we should worship on the Sabboth as the Jews did when Christ clearly said "some worship on one day and others on another day", as well as "we are to worship in Spirit and in Truth.
People say we should attend a building designated for worship because of the traditions of men, when Christ never commanded special buildings or where we were to worship.
People will say we should not eat certain foods when Christ told us all things are fit to eat as long as we eat with thankfulness.
There are many more examples of the traditions of men that have crept into the church gathering that detract from worship, detract from the truth of the Bible, and detract from healthy spiritual growth in relationships and toward God.
When we seek Christ through His Holy Spirit our eyes become open to all the traditions of the modern church that hinder the believer's walk, diminish their witness, and even cause unbelievers to believe what we have is no better than what they have without Christ.
Romans 6:4
"We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."
2 Corinthians 5:17
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
Galatians 2:20
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
The freest day of my life was when God answered my prayer that I would see all the wrong things I was taught in the church and replace them with His truth. The floodgates of understanding flowed like rivers of living water. I was no longer in bondage to the traditions of men. The things I used to enjoy that were human traditions were completely removed from my heart, I didn't even want them anymore. It was unthinkable that I would ever return to those traditions.
I don't tell people to give up their traditions, I tell them to ask God to show them the truth about those traditions. If they want to know they will be convinced by the eye-opening wisdom of the Holy Spirit. If they were to give them up because someone else told them to, they would return to them because it would not be a deep conviction of the Holy Spirit. Many people do things to please other people, this is not how God wants us to come to Him.
The reason we see so many people "backsliding", burning hot in the beginning for all things of the Lord while holding onto their traditions only to return to their previous lack of faith, is because they were never born-again by faith in Christ. These people had an emotional response to the gospel while desiring to be involved in a safe and happy group of people. It was not about Christ but about their own personal desires based on feelings and emotions.
Mark 4:13-120 "13 And He *said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables?
14 The sower sows the word.
15 These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them.
16 And in a similar way these are the ones sown with seed on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy;
17 and yet they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution occurs because of the word, immediately they fall away.
18 And others are the ones sown with seed among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word,
19 but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
20 And those are the ones sown with seed on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundred times as much.”"
We are meeting many people in our day of apostasy who have heard the word, and pretended to be interested and involved in a gathering but have never been born again. These are the ones who need the gospel one more time. They do not understand the gospel and the commitment to Christ that must be there, even being rejected by family and friends for their faith.
Let's not assume that just because someone attends a church that they understand the gospel or that they have been born-again. Let's also remember many unbelievers have been invited into the worship gatherings of believers, learning the verbiage of the Christian but never trusting in Christ.
John 3:17-19 "…17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. 18 Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil.…"
Anyone who walks into a gathering of born-again believers ought to be asked how they became saved. If they do not know how to answer then they need to be told the way of salvation. If this offends them then they are not born again. Anyone who loves the Lord will want to talk about their salvation experience to anyone who wants to know.
2 Timothy 3 tells us the last days mentality within the church gatherings, it is devilishly ugly and a warning to us not to assume someone is saved merely because they attend a church gathering. In fact many pastors who preach from the pulpit have not been born-again.
Pray for discernment, pray for boldness and pray for the love of Christ to show through you as the Holy Spirit guides and directs.
Hallelujah!
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