Faith In Christ Puts One In Christ and Salvation

by Dave Candel
Do you want to go to Heaven? My Grandfather was asked that when He was an unbeliever or what one might be called until mercy comes calling, doubting. The question was asked by a neighbor friend who is born again Christian. He thought, "can one in my religion be sure of Heaven?" He went to a Bible church and heard about getting saved. He found Christ and was radically changed.
Don't think I'm more righteous or even self-righteous for any religion's purpose for thinking this way or using the word Heaven to separate two groups or kinds of people, for God can translate you to His Kingdom instantaneously. Jesus is the way. Have you ever thought of why don't I make sure I have it right with God? I'm not talking down on anyone in a condemning or condescending way. God's life is sure filled with natural good abundance of love, kindness, and gentleness in family.
Have you ever asked yourself, why don't I seek Him whole-heartedly and be Born again? If the Bible IS the Word of God, and it states that it is clearly and plainly right in its contents, then, by God's terms why not belong to Him by second birth as the Bible says to do? For it's by verbal plenary inspiration meaning every word of every thought in every thoughtful line is Divinely Anointed thoughts from God Eternally given but in time sprung from His mind He wants communicated and by His Spirit He bore along the Biblical writers, then why don't I do my life His way?
And, "if my life doesn't line up with Him now why is my life that way and can it then line with scripture somehow and even can it line up with the potential for no stumbling inside my walk with God inasmuch as Christ is in control of our heart and keep ourselves in the love of God is His imperative with this promise, (see Jude 22,23 a New Testament book of the Bible?") Jesus said, "You must be born again," in John 3:3. I'm not talking about a sinless life but a life of patiently expecting mercy unto fellowship/koinonia that goes on to succeed in getting to Heaven. You can have the assurance of going re: Heaven!

If someone comes between you and God who's closer? Let no man/woman come between you and God or let that situation stay that way. Forgive. Do it for yourself and God and His way which is restorative of relationships and reconciliation or unilaterally if need be.
Do you desire or want a relationship and fellowship with your Heavenly Father God? Do you know God loves you more than you could love yourself? God will always love you more than you could love yourself so be glad you're loved! He is a personal God! He loves you more than any personal human being! God IS love and did you know that God requests the honor of your presence at a Marriage Supper/Positive Uplift Judgment to be given someday in Heaven for you and God's Family? God's love for you is no less stupendous and fabulous now! Then make Jesus your Savior and in celebration of Jesus, make Him your Master and Lord. THIS LIFE ABUNDANT IN Jesus then IS IN POVERTY OF SPIRIT IN HUMILITY of PERSONALITY without a lot of 'stuff' in God's Son, Jesus under God's hand.
Did you know that Christianity is more about repentance and confessing you're a sinner (in nakedness before God) than externals alone but it's in fact living from the inside? The Bible tells plainly of our Living God and Savior, Jesus Christ Risen as our only Exalted Head, and Lord in victory? He as the Bible says, causes God to hear us from above from between the mercyseat of the two facing Cherebim of the Ark in Heaven, and talk to us. We can't get chummy. Everytime you call Him Lord you're telling Him you're slave! And that's a good thing.
Jesus then is the only Prophet, Priest, and King necessary for men to get to God: (and we're raised with Christ) to newness of life in His Access in the Heavenlies by His Finished Work and Perfect Death for us. His Love for us in propitiation is meant FOR US on mercy's side, & brings a great great good right standing with God through Jesus Christ. Propitiation just means His Atonement satisfied the Requirement. Jesus's Life showed us and shows us how to overcome. He, filled with the Spirit having freshly come from His Baptism and hunting of the devil down for 40 days for which He had come into the wilderness like a Rambo and left like a Patton full of the Spirit confidently in control with the Father in Him demolishing re: strongholds. Who can explain the Trinity then? If it gives you a headache its supposed to.
Jesus was more than an example, He "became sin" so we could be free and go free! Atonement full and free. God's LOVE so rich and wide its amazing!!! The Gospel is Good News. It's great good good news! Do you think of salvation as a getting right with God aright? Do you know having it right is a lifetime journey with God and is forgiveness of sins and the experience of knowing God aright throughout your lifetime and more and more? God loves you and is love! Do you know God promises to all a newness of life, with renewed faith to you through the Gift of His Son by coming in faith through grace to Him alone Who is Faithful and True?
He promises to reveal Who He is to those that seek Him (with the whole heart.) This happens through the Holy Spirit's attracting and our participating and interest finding. In essence you throw yourself on the mercy of the court and you were declared innocent by virtue of what Jesus Died for. It's not where you've been but where are you now in God's Eternal Now. The Spirit and the Bride are calling. Would you have the guts to follow Jesus Christ, God's Only Son even in the hard places? Feeling Adventurous? Not boring for sure.
It's about what God's going to do with you today! And the adventure tomorrow. What do you want from Him? Tell Him. He wants your attention to get saved, a committment/follow-through that starts, and is seed on good ground, and becomes Holy living as Gift until we come to see Him as He is someday in confirmed righteousness in Heaven. He has a job for you to do (until then.) He has blessed the little children and He is Sovereign and He builds His Church.
He wants to be in an intimate personal relationship with us through His Son, attending Church, (Bible literal taking one,) have fellowship with others, & live life as a slave to His Master in fullness, faithfulness, and loving for believing on Him, supping fellowshipping with Him. This is all a part of the characteristics of the life Our Lord Jesus Christ calls our life to live in I Corinthians 13. It's an excellant exciting prospect, a Bill & Ted adventure only holy through the covering of the Blood of the Lamb. It's: "If in this life only we are to hope in Christ we're of all men most miserable," but with enhancement. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned the Bible says.
A hidden mystery exposed and revealed which means made manifest and is in Essense an Abundant Life In Christ. Jesus being the way, in adventurously believing in faith and by experience: the Word of God, the Bible: I exist for God's purpose to be in right relationships with people and a relationship especially with the one and only true Living God Who gives us richly everything to enjoy. Evangelical faith (which is a Gift to believe from Him above) is to believe in Christ and in Christ for salvation.
We, all the time can learn: what He's done, what He's doing, and what He's going to do in the future in you and me and what can I do in His Word BY FAITH! With men these things are impossible, but with God all things are possible. Do you recognize His love over you? Joyously? hilariously? With tenderness and joyfulness even hilarity? His hand is mighty. He is a mighty warrior in our midst. We glory in tribulation and even first glory in glory of God. That love is spelt l-o-v-e with much tough and tenderness, blessing under His hand, & lovingkindness from God. Lovingkindness is sandwiched between God's love and mercy. He has given you prevenient common grace for your many needs and wants: food, clothing, and shelter under His hand.
When you think of faith do you have a certain object of your faith? Is it holding you to something or SomeOne? It matters this object of faith because this Jesus is the Incarnation of God become man. He's that Object of faith. God revealed Himself in a tabernacle or tent of human kindness called Christ Jesus the Only Begotten Son of God born in a manger 2000 years ago. That makes Him worthy of our commitment to be worth our worship. For there's no formula nor method to Holiness but Christ He is the way! Are you walking in His Footsteps? At Calvary? Are you trusting His Grace this very hour?
We're sinners and you can fathom that, if you realize you're not perfect & that from your lower nature that sins, you're a sinner before God, therefore we need help from the broken way we live as humans from the Holy Spirit. You are dead if you don't know God, the Bible says Ephesians 2:1-4. Spiritually you can't do a thing without salvation. You may hara krishna or yogi but its all in vain if Heaven is your goal for you need God on His terms. God would search you inside thoroughly if you invited Him to, and love on you & say that you need, and you can find a new life in Him, (the way is God & in peace in an agreement between Himself and you: A Covenant Union through Jesus.)
God loves you and wants you in living to work out mightily between Him & you what is a good warfare of good o'er evil, overcoming evil with good, knowing His Will, doing His Will, & in a personally adventurous experiencial way to follow Him and be known by Him in fellowship moment by moment you two interacting. For in God's Only Son Jesus, in His Fullness of Resurrected Shekinah Presence there is love, joy and peace and pleasures at His right hand forevermore and this is all in knowing Him personally more and more through Jesus Christ once and for all on His terms, the God-man Jesus Who was Resurrected as God's Representative of Love in a lifetime joy journey of our own through Him for we must have Him inside and this starts with forgiveness of your sins. The Holy Spirit welcomes you to God's Family with enthusiasm, en Theos, in God (in greek: to be excited to be in God.) You get a new heart and a new mind, and a new spirit from Him. You are renewed in the spirit of your mind.
God is Holy and buying you a Ransom He paid yes He's even paying in eternal now time for you this present minute by minute if you're accepting Christ as Savior one moment by moment at a time (& on that basis.) And in the next moment of Eternal Now if you continue belief and automatically obtain therefore a forever inheritance knowing this all starts at the Cross!? God cares for you! Indeed He does.
Salvation by faith is a word expression that is an offense to the world being that they can't understand it. Scripture says, "if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him." What is the sin of the world? Unbelief. Unbelief particularly in Jesus as the Son of God the Only Begotten Son Sent by God. Unbelief in the corruption of nature in the world and unbelief in your being a sinner re: wretched, poor and blind. Unbelief leads to worse unbelief. Like the law of entropy or disorder it takes over. Inasmuch as one doesn't love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and their neighbor as oneself, there's sin involved.
Obedience within God's Salvation on the other hand begins (God knows when) outside you, you hearing the Voice of God and the words of scripture particularly the Plan of Redemption from someone saved & believing it committing to it, discipled. Hearing it read (the Word) for yourself when you begin belief in God totally in His Finished Work (of Christ's) Himself you become born again baptized into it. God draws you near, you hearing the still small voice of God to repent and get saved is how it starts; then responding to the Living Gospel you witness it outside sealed by the Holy Spirit. Your supplied with a Gift, the Holy Spirit. What you do with it makes all the difference in your life and Eternal Life.
You are saved by the Living God in repentance from your old way of life and saved unto a newness of life: to your new Eternal Life made practical in time. Living the Christian life isn't in self-righteousness but in a Risen life over-abundant in mercy and grace in Him depending on Him. Living as a Christian isn't silver or gold in having but not neglecting thanksgiving and other such things as are what God wants, contentment in committment. It's not about accumulating stuff.
Christ is our foundation bedrock of righteousness and the Source of all and every blessing to which we boast 'in Him' alone. We're in His Presence in a special way when saved and known by Him rooted and grounded by love and built up in Him for then we're inbreathed by God (greek: theoneustos,) translated into His Kingdom. For supernaturally in Him we live and move and have our being. You have to get saved for this to happen.
Gal. 5:16 says, "If we walk by the Spirit we will not fulfill the desires of the flesh." Jesus left earth when He ascended and sent the Spirit in His stead. Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega, & the same yesterday today and forever for our faith it says in scripture, "As Commander In Chief of the Lord's Armies, Yeshua Hommiashiach" (Joshua 5.)
For those who believe then receive His grace for their salvation and don't do their works of righteousness on their part for 'brownie points' before God, they would be acceptable as a hypothetical. But as you have received grace for grace, receiving imperative from Jesus as your own koinonia responsibility: gold, silver, and precious stones to lay at (Jesus's) feet in quality of things you do in God cooperating and you will do in quantity also: you will continue in being gratefully saved.
Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord and will be when his enemies become His footstool and Jesus returns. If you've come to Him, ie. as a childlike disciple 'born of God' person *you will please Him having been sent the Spirit. This is by faith with the help by grace infused from God and kindled from the Holy Spirit & its possible first becoming born again a Gift of salvation from God on His terms. The seed of God becomes imparted to or implanted in you. All things are possible in God to a next level by walking in Jesus abiding and in dependence on Him. Receive Him moment by moment like you would a familiar trusted friend or in a childlike trust by the way you live from then on. He is able to help you do this, to save you from sin and keep you personally fully and really found out like its written in our Lord's parable in Luke 15 says: 'saved,' a sinner coming home. There God writes, "He rejoices and invites others to rejoice even over one sinner who repents." You start to experience His love practically! and then just by hearing it from the Spirit proclaimed through a person and you taking it in and responding with 'a word (meaning yes, to Him) of perseverance.'
And if saved, living by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and the Rapture occurs while you're living in Christ and honoring a disciple's relationship to God through grace in God and in fellowship (let me emphasize it's by faith and grace or faith working by love,) you can be caught up in ("rapizo" in the orig. Bible languages, 'caught away') in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall you ever be with the Lord Jesus and that special Marriage Supper! Even so come Lord Jesus! Maranatha!Doesn't this sound like something you'd like? or learn to like? Read I Thessalonians 4:13-17 and I Corinthians 15:1-7ff for instance, and maybe St. John's Gospel chapter three verse three.
In context, "God be merciful to me a sinner," was said in an open appeal brokenhearted and statement made faithfully by a Tax-gatherer of whom it was said in a parable told by Jesus as one who humbles himself before God this man having beaten upon his breast saying those words. Jesus told this parable about people who think themselves righteous and show contempt for others. The other man in the parable, the Pharisee said, "I thank Thee God I'm not like other men, I fast twice in the week, etc. and I'm not like this publican." Certainly this man has no clue for his saying this. This parable shows a humility before God by the publican instead who came home exalted and justified having humbled himself in a simple single but great way before God. You can be like this person.
If Jesus is your Lord and you are His child, remember mercy triumphs when humbling yourself before God under His Mighty Hand and God will love you to hell and back. I'm proposing God is love and Jesus shows it all along our way Jesus having died in our place. There is a testifying in every believer a witness unto Jesus that Jesus Paid It All all in a regard to our sin debt. It's all too clear that the deliverance over sin Christ won to gain our salvation for us was complete and full over sin, death, and hell; His Death did this.
Christ became our sin on the Cross and it's punishment II Cor. 5:21. After being buried (we were too,) that's when He rose from the dead; He made us alive whole, complete, & individually directed in His path in salvation in new wine. He satisfied the Living Requirement The Old Testament Law demanded. That's why it's said by us to by purposeful determination, glorify Him, with admonishment all our lives as (ecclesia, Greek for Church,) the called out ones, as witnesses (maryturos in Grk.,) and as testifying 'believers' individually of an undivided Faithful God and His Word, to proclaim Him.
And we shine for God and are martyrs also in part because our Ransom paid for us was costly and we treat it costly, and all who desire to live godly (subject and suboordinate to God) in Christ Jesus trying to communicate the Gospel in a hostile world will suffer persecution, some to torture and punishment, and some to death and eventual Everlasting life. If we suffer and endure with Him He will confess us and let us reign with Him in Eternal Life.
The Word of God states "IN BEGINNING" (No article "the" inbetween those two words in the Genesis 1:1 account in Hebrew,) given as plain fact that by His speaking into existence God creating the cosmos is on the sixth day creating by His hands, and then every man was created by Him in the image of God.
God created him or her in the Garden of Eden and He rested on the seventh day. That's right the work is over. It's time to be on His side in a fallen world. It's in the image of God Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, were created from the dust of the ground by His hand or fingers which shows God's intricate care for man and love. Because of the Fall of man in the eyes of the Lord, Failing Him God's Spirit died in man & man's spirit died in God's Presence.
God would walk with man's in the sunset portion or cool of the day as He did to fellowship/walk with man intimately as He did before this. Adam and Eve succombed to the serpent Satan's schemes & misleads and this caused a substantial crises to His man. God had made the command to not eat the fruit in the center of the Garden of one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Every other tree was good to go. God said not to eat of it, for you will die, in the day you eat of it. It was bad fruit. From it all who were born from Adam die. But they ate, and though man was still made in God's image and had free will moral agency, and loved to fellowship in the Garden and walk with God they failed God's moral test.
And man made fig leaves to cover his/her nakedness at an attempt to reconcile their naked disobedience before God but that was a flop and so God made provision of a clothing covering from a sacrificed animal without help from man. That Miracle God did, to produce *Redemption of the likeness and image of God returned happened though God was blameless and Holy. That was mercy, not getting what we should. Redemption is for a worthless slave to buy (who long had law and grace defied.). Even today in a higher spiritual way, getting saved as the Word says to, you can be free more and more to live in Him with this covering coverage from God 'in the Eternal now' (PR) in the down payment of Jesus's sacrifice for us now to obtain a sinless body someday in Heaven but first a saved life now in various aspects.
With obedience and perseverance on your part in life in Him and His Timing and His Faithfulness truly is to expect God to move in us and for us in our behalf & inherit the promises of God. God is indeed a Rewarder of them that dilligently seek Him. Hebrews eleven goes on to say, "Some died (believing) not having obtained the promise." It goes on to say, "Of whom the world was not worthy (Hebrews 11.") The problem with America is they have digressed to exaggerate the Gospel to include money and health in claiming the promises of God at a cost to the core imperitives of Jesus Christ and this has made us lukewarm and non-compliant too in obeying Him. Personal Revival and True Discipleship is at a premium that is strictly for those who have Jesus and no other motivation internally or externally! This is not religion. Religion kills. Jesus makes alive!
Surely and for certain that likeness of God/image of God in salvation is returned in godly hope inclined in high belief anticipation that doesn't make us ashamed at ALL because the love of GOD HAS BEEN shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Romans 5:3-5. God lives in an Eternal Now but He has in time intervened in human affairs like the universe is in the span of His hand and continues for in Him all things consist Colossians 1:16. This makes us glad through confidence that He is Sovereignly in control and we are not. We will reign with Him if we endure with Him suffering wrongfully.
So in salvation through the conduit of God's love for you and your love for Him in steadfast hope that is of Another Kind in the Holy Spirit: faith in Jesus Christ for salvation: come to believe it unto Eternal Life and a Life In The Spirit. We're just aliens and passing thru in this life. Remember Pilgrim's Progress? JRR Tolkien & CS Lewis as Authors and Characters in God? Their stories and other Biblical fantasy novels and their non-fiction writings are faithful. On the other scanty side of life, wrong desires war against the soul vexing us. Sin is crouching at your door but you must master it. If you do well won't your face take that on and be revealed by it?
Eternity is a long time and our lives are but a vapor. It's on my theological plate to believe that the desire for God and the likeness of God Himself, the aspects of the image of God in man in a body with a created soul and clothed in a spirit that is unique in this existence on earth *that it was no accident. If God said, "abstain from pre-marital sex," I believe Him. We can clothe ourselves with Christ to a life in the Spirit to where God clothes Himself with us. This is from Samuel Chadwick. This is truly God's empowerment to live a holy life.
Father God returned at Calvary, all we lost by the progenitor Adam and we gained it back BECAUSE His love restores us reconciles us future tense if we go on forward with Him. He IS SHOWING US LOVE, revealed in the Son of God Jesus.. in His Incarnation.. in His Sacrificial Love.. in His Birth/Nativity, Life, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, Exaltation and Glorification and Seating.. for our Redemption of the purchased possession.. we who are, "privileged in benefit.." to choose to be His bondslaves and chosen!
In His LONG-HEARTED EXCITEMENT TYPIFIED AT THE LAST SUPPER HIS PASSION shown Sovereignly appointed time at the Cross God proved the plan He put in force will work for you by its longevity in history re: hospitals, universities, and orphanages built, even every changed life coming through Christ by the worship we lift up holy hands to God by in the Gospel.
If we enter at some point and believe with a persevering belief in Jesus that acts on grace alone to become saved we wont want to build our kingdom but His, to build on that foundation gold, silver, and precious stones, and will hear a voice behind us saying when we turn to the right, or to the left, "This Is The Way, Walk You, In It." We take one step sometimes at a time in His Footsteps. Then a stride until it's a marathon.
God's attitude toward us is one of Favor that is for us for a God-sized timing particular that is of punctilinear (point in time, greek tense: aorist active indicative) saving faith belief starting at a point in time (continuing) established and based on the merciful observation that God was in Christ at the Cross reconciling man to Himself! He has comitted to us a word, even of reconciliation! I pray you in Christ's Stead, Be ye reconciled to God!
A Wise man will hear and increase learning! Grace Grace Grace To It!
For Him who has ears to hear
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