Just Thoughts

This is a letter I received months ago regarding a conversation I had with my mother. She wrote partly to unbelievers as an exhortation, partly to believers as an admonition, and entirely to the glory of God, for His exaltation. I love listening to her talk; would that you could hear it in person; she is animated and alive with the Spirit of God. The rest of the Post is entirely her. God’s blessings!

Satan has a clear agenda to deceive mankind and sabotage the plan of God. Preventing us from knowing, sharing God’s plan of salvation is one of Satan’s greatest objectives.

It’s important to know what you believe and why you believe. Most everyone who attempts to witness for Jesus Christ meets with opposition of one kind or another (doubt, excuses, rejection, hostility). But that is the nature of the battle. We can’t make people believe –but we can/should sow seeds of truth. The rest is God’s responsibility. One factor [is] evangelism’s human effort –other one depends totally on the sovereignty of God. “No one can come to me, unless the Father which hath sent me draws him,” John 6:44.

The Bible teaches:
There are two categories of people –those who are perishing –and those who are not (1 Corinthians 1:18). The decision you make about the cross will determine where you spend eternity. 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 gives a vivid description of what will happen to those who willingly reject God’s plan of salvation for man. The way of salvation is the most loving gift anyone can offer you.

Just a tiny glimpse of the sovereignty of God makes it clear that no individual crosses our path by pure chance. Our experiences have been set before us –this is another way for me to demonstrate my belief in the gospel –so I thank Him, and you for this opportunity.

The rules in the game of life are quite simple. Whoever dies without accepting God’s offer of salvation spends a lost eternity separated from God. Whoever believes in Jesus will not perish, but will live with Him forever. There are no exceptions, alternatives, or second chances. Every moment that goes by brings each person one minutes closer to his ultimate encounter with death. Time is running out for all of us. Jesus Christ will either be to us our Savior, or our Judge.

When we are in rebellion, people always try to reason the God of the Bible out of existence. By their own foolishness they’ll reject God’s wisdom and replace it with their own. The position of a person who does not have the Spirit of God dwelling within them is a major blind spot to the unredeemed. Paul explained this to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 2:12-14). I cannot leave a non-Christian’s rejection of Christ unchallenged. That is not what our Lord would do –and He is the way –that I desire/believe in with every breath I draw on this earth. Sometimes it needs to be confrontational –loud and clear. That’s a more personal form of witnessing. Truth can be exposed to people in many forms –though different circumstances. Sometimes it can even seem extreme –but the approach is to be by God’s leading and prompting by the Holy Spirit.

“One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance.” The one thing Christianity can not be is moderately important. The decision each of us makes during our lifetime about who Jesus Christ is and what He has done will determine whether we go to heaven or hell.

Every human being is born with a God-given consciousness. Even if people deny they believe in God, deep down they know their rebellious state of mind is wrong. No one who has chosen to deny God is at peace. It is our responsibility to remind unbelievers of their need for God. May I remind you, that one day you will have to stand before God –and at that time all excuses in the world won’t be sufficient.

The idea that there is only one way to God and that Jesus Christ is that only way is unacceptable to many. I can have respect for other’s point of view, but I cannot share in or agree to the idea that other religions have valid methods of pleasing God. Christianity is unique in that Christians are saved by accepting what God did; people of other religions have to work to save themselves. Satan has convinced masses that there’s something we must do to earn salvation. There are many ways to God in the eyes of an unbeliever. As these last days continue to unfold, the numbers of people being deceived will multiply.

The God of the Bible (and the Bible itself) has always had many willing detractors. Desperately wanting to refute the simple God-inspired truth. How then has it managed to withstand such attacks? Truth can’t be judged by us –truth judges us.

We were all created to know God –not know about Him –that’s our purpose on this earth. If we fail here –what could possibly matter after we chose to not adhere/believe what He has commanded of us? “To believe on His Son whom He has sent.” That’s our work –and we can’t seem to bow our stiff necks in subjection to Him, or to raise our heads to look on Him in worship. What shall we do if we neglect so great a duty? What will He be pleased to accept instead? Nothing! Like it or not, we have to come to Him His way. If we did come any other way, heaven would be fouled. It’s not ours to decide –it’s His heaven, His hell, His devil, His earth, His world, His universe –and we are His created beings, purchased with His blood –bought for a purpose –His. We owe all to Him, and yet He has done all for us. He is rightly owed our all; He is our King, and He alone is worthy.

We’ve all been sold on having a multitude of choices in virtually every avenue. But no choice has the power to sentence you to hell for except the “choice” to deny God’s Son, and at the same time make God’s holy word a target of our open ridicule and shame. No one should believe that God would or can overlook any of His creatures’ light treatment of His word/His Son, our Lord.

Examples:
There is proof that Jesus is God, by His own statement –“I and My Father are One.” There is historic proof to validate most of the names and places spoken of as witness to His knowing or being spoken of there. There are hundreds of prophecies fulfilled by only One –which is almost mathematically impossible to predict, much less fulfill accurately; which to one honestly seeking proof of Jesus’/God’s deity would certainly tip the scales in favor of being true. Of course, to anyone not wanting to believe His truth there will never be enough proof for them. If it wasn’t possible for us to do what He has commanded us to do (believe on His Son) why would He tell us we have to do so? He created us to believe Him; it’s we who have fallen short and missed the mark. We have to let Him save us from the sin of offending a Holy God and trust in nothing added to His salvation –or no one but Him who sacrificed all to bring it.

This becomes an unbearable burden if not spoken. It’s a pressure hard to resist when we who know God attempt to make Him known to others. But it is from love that we endeavor. Love for Him, and love also for His creatures who try to live without Him. We must honor God in this world, where even Christians seem all too accepting of giving that glory to everyone else but Him.

This truth is so necessary to right thoughts about God and ourselves it can hardly be too strongly stated. Because He is, we are and all things are. We can’t think rightly of God until we begin to think of Him as always being there –and there, first. “As I was…so I will be with you” (Joshua 1:5; 3:7). Only the eternal One could speak of the timeless I AM –and also say “I was” and “I will be.” Begin where we will, God is the first. He is the beginning and the ending, which was, which is, and which is to come.

This experience (knowing) is self-verifying and needs neither defense nor proof. It is assurance beyond the power of argument to destiny. There is a touch of God in the soul and the sense of Someone there. Our great weakness is to settle for theological ideas, for personal (genuine) encounters with the living God. For our hearts there is no one there, while our heads are full of notions about Him.

All the saints and prophets had actual encounters/experienced God. How else do we explain the amazing power for good they exercised in their generation, and later too? No light could ever have come to us without God saying “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3).

Religion without power makes no fundamental difference in a person’s life. It can make surface changes, but doesn’t make one any different from before. Same rules govern –Adamic rules. This truth demands a radical shift –the creature has to be “new,” “new birth,” new level of being, and if not –then there is not a saving work in the soul.