"Do you want to go to Heaven?" was asked of Jesus to a penitent thief on Calvary's Mountain from a cross. My Grandfather was asked that too when He was an unbeliever or until when what one might be called, that a person is, saved. The question was asked by a neighbor friend in the 1930's who is born again Christian of my Granddad. Today his (this neighbor friend's) son and I worship together in Church. My dad's dad thought, "can one in my religion enter or be sure of Heaven?" He went to a Bible church and heard about getting saved. He found Christ and the Holy Spirit proclaimed and was radically changed transformed. The Church is the Bride of Christ, male and female and God wants you to be a member of His world-wide Family Romans 7:1-4; Eph. 5:23,32; Rev. 19:7-9;22:1ff.
Are you saved? But how could God be Holy and Love at the same time you may ask? God will love them (anyone without Christ at the end) but because of their rejection of His plan (ergo His Son,) He can't be with them (in a Source of sustaining order.) Consider The Apostle John's words inspired along from the Holy Spirit and from Jesus Himself by John to the Church at Laodicea, "I counsel you to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, and white raiment, that thy nakedness do not appear..," and,"eyesalve for thy eye," in the third chapter of Revelation. The gold and white raiment speaks of the robe of righteousness Christ gives every believer and the eyesalve the moment of salvation.
You're saved by the Living God in repentance from you from your old way of life and saved to a newness of life in Christ: from sin to your newness of Eternal Life made practical at anytime for you indeed prepared by God that you should lay down your rights in this earthly life of yours for that Spiritual Life He offers. Living the Christian life isn't in self-righteousness but in a Risen life crucified from His Life. You're exchanging your life for His Death in over-abundance of help in mercy and grace on Him to help in time of need. Living as a Christian is superb but isn't silver or gold existence in having but in not neglecting thanksgiving and other such things as are what Christ wants, contentment and a committment to live a holy changed life He continues with you through faith by grace. It's not about accumulating stuff. He will fill your needs like a filling station because He's a good (Source) and don't presume upon that but you must rely on Him really reliance that is trust not like you feel you need them but as He sees you need them for Psalm 23 says, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." God disciplines His children like a good Father. God is the only good Being absolutely. He meets needs like a good Father. He must go from Creator to good Father in thoughts. This is opportunity and to know Him as Savior and Lord.
A FAMOUS T-SHIRT READS: "HIS PAIN, YOUR GAIN." AMEN.
Don't think I'm religious, more righteous or even self-righteous for any religion's purpose or plans thinking this way or for using the word Heaven to separate two groups or kinds of people even haphazardly; for God can translate you to His Kingdom instantaneously and instantly for in fact He does. You can find being saved in your local Bible-believing Church being taught, where the Holy Spirit is found incidentally. 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. Who is he that condemns? Yes it is Christ that Died yes that is Risen! Who shall lay any charge to God's elect? It is God Who justifies through Christ! God's way and life is sure filled with natural goodness and supernatural love in abundance of human love, kindness, and gentleness to give to you in Christ to give to others and one's family. God transcends creation and exists outside His creation and apart from it. He is Holy above all things. Yet He intervenes. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? No one and no thing. But you can walk away. But even then He will continue to love to try to get you to change to want His will, His ways.
Have you if you're an agnostic or unbeliever, asked yourself, why don't I seek Him whole-heartedly and be Born again as Jesus said to Nicodemas, a son of Pharisee who came to see Jesus at night? If the Bible IS the Word of God, and it is, as it states that it is clearly and plainly right and saying so in its contents, & backs it up in fulfilled lifestyle or archeology. Then in God's terms why not belong to Him by second birth or born twice, as the Bible says to do? For if it's by the integrity of Christ's words and of the Bible being inerrant, infallible, and by verbal plenary inspired being meaning every word of every thought in every thoughtful thought-filled line in the Bible is Divinely (Appointed) Anointed thoughts & words from God Eternally Given but in time sprung from His mind and heart that He wants communicated to His people and by His Spirit He bore along the Biblical writers, then why don't I do (live) my life His way? In these last days God has chosen to speak to us through His Son. This is in Hebrews 1:1,2. Christ is the Word made flesh and final authority on all matters of life.
And, "if my life doesn't line way up with Him now why is my lifestyle not doing a one eighty degree turn yet that it might be so? (And so change it if it be possible) and then can it can be a righteous stand lining up with scripture? God can keep you from stumbling and is able to make you stand blameless before Him inside in your walk with Him inasmuch as Christ is wanting control of your heart as Resurrected influence by the Holy Spirit and gentle wind. Yes He cares about that. And as we keep ourselves in the love of God is His imperative we have 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 or a blocking out of Satan, the adversary alone, but a life of potential, in patient expecting mercy unto a life in the Spirit of life spark in Christ Jesus and peace from God expecting fellowship/koinonia that goes on to succeed in igniting a fire to others (like Moses at the burning bush, a fire that wouldn't go out,) and getting to Heaven someday overcoming obstacles in life with spunk and style from the Holy Ghost Romans 8:1-3!!
You can have the assurance of going to Heaven! It's not about education but obedience. You can be an educated sinner but like a tea bag immersed your nature and the tea bag leaves change! This is in salvation not without it. Better to be God's obedient bondslave reader. Real love surrenders and surrenders to God. Call upon the Name of the Lord to be saved. John the Baptist didn't have many miracles in his ministry yet of him it was said, "none is greater" in the Old Testament than he as Jesus said. And anyone else in the New Covenant is being first greater than John Baptist. And of not many more in the New Covenant was it said that they were, "full" of faith and the Spirit than Stephen, the seven deacons (Acts 6,) and Barnabas. Jesus came to lead us to a spirit of fullness we being born again and He being the Fountain of Living Water in John 4, 5, 6, & 7 and by Baptizing us with fire and the Holy Spirit: A perpetual fire that grows.
If someone comes between you and God who's closer? The point is will we get close to God? The devil is a created thing. Don't let anything created steal from that which is perfect. Let no man/woman come between you and God or let that situation stay that way. Forgive. Do it for yourself and God in His way and Timing which is for restoration of relationships and reconciliation within with yourself and others or unilaterally if need be and draw near to God first. Grace from God is needed for this most times. A great question is, Will God stop loving people in hell? How could He stop? Love has no barrier, wall, nor limit to it. God will love them but because of their rejection of His plan (continually (Hebrews),) He can't be with them. He is Holy. The lake of fire is real. It will never go out. But as people without the Lord have lived apart from His Presence & rebellious and have stubbornly gone their own way when Jesus is right there to be known intimately by the Holy Spirit convicting they will be punished because God's mercy will have run its course in the life that now in them is. The Great Divorce by CS Lewis shows what hell might be like. People will burn with wants that greed and lust purport and hate as well without anyone being the object of their malice BUT themselves. They have not rightly related to God's love by repentance and changing so God will just leave absent His blessing and little do they realize that will mean everything but wills.
Do you desire or want a relationship and fellowship with your Heavenly Father God of peace? Justification (Romans 5)? 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 very loved! Here's a hug: He is a personal God! He loves you more than any personal human being or angel will or could! 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 3rd Heaven for you and God's Family by grace but it has a two-edged sword which is the 'Word of God's' sword? God's love for you is no less stupendous and fabulous, now! That makes Jesus your Savior if you heard right 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: Who is Jesus. Jesus is Lord!
Did you know that Christianity is a better life and is more about repentance and confessing you're a sinner (in nakedness of bluntness before God) than externals alone but broken down to it's relationship it's in fact living from the inside? The Bible tells plainly of our Living God and Savior, Jesus Christ Risen and as our only Exalted Head, and Lord in evident victory and His plan for each individual intact. He as the Bible says, causes God to hear us from Heaven above from in front of the Throne and seated, the Lamb sits (Jesus stands on Mt. Zion in Rev 14:2 though) from between the mercyseat of the two facing Cherebim of the Ark in Heaven, and talks to us. We can't get chummy. Everytime you familiarly call Him Lord you're telling Him you're a bondslave! And that's a good thing for our service to God (in military of reception and action) will not go unrewarded nor unrequited but has to be in Christ abiding. And relationships can't be legislated or legalized or reduced to Pharisaism if they're real. It's the freedom to do as you should instead in the New Covenant. Augustine said, "No man has the right to do as he pleases until he pleases to do what is right!" It's only IN Christ.
Jesus (the Bible affirms) is the only Prophet, Priest, and King necessary for men to get to God: (and we're raised with Christ) (in submission) to newness of life in His Access to the Heavenlies by His Finished Work and Perfect Death and Resurrection for us. His Love for us in propitiation is meant FOR US on mercy's sake, & brings a great great good right standing with God through Jesus Christ. God is able to make him stand.
Jesus's Life showed us and shows us how to overcome. He, filled with the Holy Spirit having freshly come from His Baptism and hunting of the devil down for 40 days and nights 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 & He demolishes strongholds. He overcame in nikao (greek, triumph.) He puts on our weakness and remains sinless in ways we know nothing about. Jesus takes the test you failed and gets an A. Who can explain the Trinity? If it gives you a headache its supposed to. God doesn't want a law to legislate holy lifestyle; He wants a relationship leading to a holy lifestyle II Chron. 7:14.
Jesus was more than an example, He was the Carpenter of Galilee. He became sin literally so we could be free and go free! Atonement full and free. God's LOVE so rich 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 in your relationship stance is a lifetime journey with God and starts in the now and is forgiveness of sin and sins and the experience of knowing God aright throughout your lifetime and more and more (in Him?) God loves you and is love! He didn't spare His own Son! Scripture reads, who is he who condemns? No one. 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 for salvation? You can know fullness of truth and fullness of the Spirit in relationship with God through Christ (but you have to come by faith you have.) But by grace, unmerited favor, you are saved, not of yourselves, not of works lest you or anyone boast. "We are," scripture says, "more than conquorers through Him who loved us so!"
God 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 then believing Jesus, the Person. Ever hear, "curiosity killed the cat?" Not in this case. In essence you throw yourself on the mercy of the court and you were declared innocent by virtue of what Jesus Died for. That's not head knowledge but heart knowledge if you can get it inside you. God is after the heart. It's not where you've been but where are you now in God's Timetable. The Spirit and the Bride are calling. Could you have the guts to follow Jesus Christ, God's Only Son even in the hard places (which can mean, not for stuff?) Feeling Adventurous? Not for the bored for sure.
It's about what's coming and what God's going to do with you today! And the adventure tomorrow. What do you want from Him as you pursue Him? Tell Him. Ask, seek, knock. He wants your attention to get saved, a mental assent, committment to/follow-through that starts inside, and is seed on good ground, and becomes Holy living as Gift: a law of the Spirit if you will, until we come to see Him as He is. Someday in confirmed righteousness where every thought will be a righteous thought in Heaven we'll see Jesus. He has a job for you to do (until then.) He has by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus broken down to eye level the veil of the law of sin and death. It's written in the spiritual heart or the part of you, you surrender to God. What's won for Christ is forever. Only what's done for Christ will last. Listen and obey the claims of Christ as you desire to be a disciple, a followerer of His.
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 love for believing on Him, supping fellowshipping with Him. This is all a defining part of the life Our Lord Jesus Christ calls our life to live in I Corinthians 13. It's an excellant exciting prospect to know God experientially, a Bill & Ted adventure only holy through the covering of the Blood of the Lamb. It's: "If in this life only we are the only ones to hope in Christ of all men we're 'most miserable,'" but with enhancement from God the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "I am come that you may have life, and life more abundantly," in John 10:10. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned the Bible says I Corinthians.
A hidden mystery exposed by God and revealed means in Essence an Abundant Life In Christ John 10:10! Jesus being the way, the truth, and life in adventure full and free believing in faith and having experience: the Word of God, the Bible: I or we exist for God's purpose to be in right relationships with people and in a right relationship especially with the one and only true and Living God Who gives us richly everything to enjoy. Evangelical faith (which is a Gift I believe/receive from Him Who is in Heaven above) is exousia and dunamas (greek, authority and power) to believe in Christ and in Christ for salvation and become His children John 1:12.
We in an obedient walk in God, 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 in Christ 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 and even hilarity? His hand is mighty. He is a mighty warrior in our midst singing over us rejoicing over us with tenderness Zephaniah 3:17. For its not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. We glory in tribulation and even first glory in the 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. His chesed, Hebrew word is hard to pin down as it's superb 'lovingkindness' in mercy!
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 Who He is (this Jesus) is the Incarnate God become man. He's that Object of faith. God revealed Himself in a tabernacle or tent of human kindness (we can relate to) 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. Literally Jesus is God by way of the cross. For there's no formula nor method to Holiness or to God this way but Christ He is the way! Are you walking in His Footsteps? At Calvary? Are you ministering to Him trusting His Grace this very hour? All Christ said and did we're growing up into and even, "all that's said about Me," Jesus said, "in the Law, prophets, and the writings." There's nothing to attain or realize apart from Christ.
We're sinners and you can fathom that if you realize you're not perfect & because your lower nature sins, you're a sinner before God, & therefore we need help from the broken way we live as humans from the Holy Spirit. Even you're dead if you don't know God, the Bible says in Ephesians 2:1-4. Spiritually you can't do a thing without salvation John 15. You may hari krishna or yoga but its all in vain if Heaven is your goal if you need to meet God on His terms. God would search you inside thoroughly if you invited Him to, and love on you & say that you need Him, and you can find a new life in Him, (the way is God & in a peace in a Covenant agreement between Himself and you: A New Covenant Union through Jesus.) Has your life been hell so far? Some people gravitate only to God when they go through deep despair or tragedy. This life will be the worst you will have of hellish actions or feelings unless and only if you obtain Jesus inside for salvation and commit. Yes follow Him.
God loves you and wants you to soar and fly in living (Greek: in nikao, victory from Easter Resurrection conquoring through Jesus, overcoming with Christ) to work out mightily between Him & you what is a good warfare of the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus within fighting in a scheme of good o'er evil, running into the battle with love for God and others like He does love us unconditionally. We, overcoming evil with good, knowing His Will, doing His Will, & in a personal spiritual adventure and experience of Him follow Him to be known by Him in fellowship moment by moment for you two interacting. For in God's Only Son Jesus, in His Fullness of Resurrected Shekinah Presence there is love, joy, peace and pleasures at His right hand forevermore and this is all in knowing Him personally and then corporately in the Body of Christ more and more through Jesus Christ once and for all on His terms, as saved by the God-man Jesus, the mediator between God and man. We need to renew our minds.
He Who was Resurrected as God's Representative of Love Sent from God for a lifetime journey of joy (of our own) brings through Him He working through you and on you so you can change (Metanoia metamorphoo, greek repentance and transformation) a new life, and we must have Him inside and this starts with forgiveness of your sins. The Holy Spirit welcomes you to become transformed, called, Chosen to be in 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 transformed in the renewing of your mind. It's a life of significance because your life influences then on what happens for all eternity in a positive fashion for those you lead and influence. Jesus rules your life as Lord in salvation by the Spirit. It's still in a relationship of walk of faith, faith being a verb as believing is our stance. As ruler and King HE has the last word on all topics.
God is Holy is the primary characteristic of God. And He's buying you a Ransom He paid yes He's even started before you were born into this world by a relationship He's paying in justice satisfied by the penal substitution at the Cross! This is a Gift to know the incomprehensible God. God cares for you! Indeed He does. He knows every sparrow that falls, and He watches you.
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 within if you will a sinful nature that loves to lie, cheat, or steal, and unbelief in your being a sinner as a result of the sinful nature re: a wretched, poor, blind, and naked self before God. Unbelief leads to worse: unbelief. Like the law of entropy or disorder it (law of sin and death) takes over and you conceive sin. Inasmuch as one doesn't love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and their neighbor as oneself, there's sin in it. The pride of life, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes are all of the worldly sins as well. God wants to deliver you from yourself. Jesus must take the controls and overtake you by His Spirit.
(Obedience within God's Salvation) to God through Christ on the other hand begins (God knows when) outside you, you hearing the Voice of God and the words of scripture particularly reading/dedicating your body to the Plan of Redemption from the Bible or believing it and committing to it, discipled, walk a separated life. God draws you near. You hear the still small voice of God to repent and get separated unto God and seek Christ and His righteousness is how it starts; God responding too in the Living Gospel, to you, He gives you a gift to stir up. You witness it outside yourself sealed by the Holy Spirit. You're supplied with a Gift, the Holy Spirit, to be Baptized into by Christ, as a Second Work of Grace as you ask for it. What you do with it makes all the difference in your life and your Eternal Life in the world but not of the world or as we believe: the life to come. God is Holy in character and nature and separate from a sinner. Christ's Blood is the bridge to span the distance between a Holy God and yourself.
link to a great church
again,
Bethelagny.com Bethel Assembly Of God Church
Surrounded by Your glory What will my heart feel Will I dance for You Jesus Or in awe of You be still Will I stand in Your Presence Or to my knees will I fall Will I sing hallelujah Will I be able to speak at all I can only imagine I can only imagine So TRUE BLESSING BE MULTIPLIED TO YOU THROUGH THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD And through the SON, JESUS. He's the Christ. The Yeshua Homeshiak!.
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