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"I am telling you, if there is a God, when I get to heaven I'm not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in; I have earned my place in heaven. It's not even close."
-Former New York City Mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
When I was a child I thought to myself something very similar. I remember being about 8 or 9 years old and thinking "Well, if God does exist then all I gotta do is be a good person; so there's no point in spending my life devoted to Him anyways." One of my friends agreed with me.
In fact, most religious people will agree: good people go to Heaven. It seems logical at least, that those who do good should be rewarded with eternal life.
The problem is that, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), and there isn't a thing that any of us can do to our criminal, sinful record.
No matter how many good things one does, no matter how much they pray and love, no matter how much they give to charity and live selflessly; "God will not justify any human being by means of the actions prescribed by the Law" (Romans 3:20)
Imagine going into a human court of law and telling the judge that, even though you have committed murder, you also did community service. You tell him, 'Look, judge, please be merciful. I am sorry for committing murder, and I have done good things to make for the bad i have done. Can you please let me off the hook?" You know as well as I do that there is no way that judge is going to let you off - unless he is crooked!
It is even more so the same way with God. He is Holy, and being Holy means being righteous. God's Holiness and God's Righteousness demands perfect justice: that all the guilty reap what they sow... and "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).
So God, by His very nature, is compelled to destroy us due to our sins against Him. We are dead in our trespasses, and we cannot pay our debt, we are completely unable to please God, we have nothing to offer to Him that he hasn't already given us. The only was we can go free is for someone to pay off our debt for us.
In order for someone to pay off our sin debt, they would not only need to have something to offer God, but they would also need to be debt-free ourselves. That means they would need to be sinless and perfect; and be willing to sacrifice themselves on our behalf.
Only God can live a sinlessly and perfect; and because He loves us, that's just what he did: He came down from Heaven, was incarnate of the virgin Mary, and after 33 years of living sinless and perfect, He gave up His own life as a sacrifice offering to pay off the sin debt for all who believe in Him.
Praise God!
And that's why Jesus says, about Himself::
"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life" (John 3:16)
So we are saved by faith in the crucified and resurrected Lamb of God, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Saved by faith, Right?
Wrong. "..by grace you have been saved through faith."
We are not saved by faith, but by grace through faith. "and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2:8)
Many think that we are saved by faith, and 'by faith alone'. This, however, is not the case. It was God Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said:
"Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter." (Matthew 7:21)
Even the very original Gospel call sounded like this: "Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is near!" (Matthew 3:2)
We must believe that Jesus Christ is our God and Savior, but we must also repent of our sins in an act of obedience to Him.
The Word of God, the Holy Bible is clear: It is not by faith alone.
"..we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth." (1 John 2:3-4)
Faith alone does not save us.... We know Him only if we obey Him. Even the demons believe (and they tremble at God's mighty power). Still, some verses in the Scripture seems to say that faith is enough.
"Whosever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Romans 10:13) and also that "if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).
To understand these verses what we need to understand that the biblical concept of "belief" is not just merely an intellectual assent to the truth. Jesus is God, He was crucified and He is resurrected. Simply agreeing with the fact of the matter does not justify you in God's sight, it is living out the fact: if you believe that Jesus is God then act like it. Obey Him, love Him, worship Him, glorify Him.
Faith, in biblical terms, is an action word. It means that you love God, that you strive to obey Him, that you repent of all your sins and that you hate everything else in this world, even your closest friends and family, in comparison to how you feel about Him.
We as sinful humans are completely unable to engage in this form sincere worship of God. Our sins have separated us from God, and our inner-man despises the Holy things of Heaven.
Our hearts are "deceitful above all else, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9) and our flesh 'wages war against the Spirit'. Being incapable to respond to God in am appropriate manner, it is necessary that the work of salvation in a human life be performed, start to finish, entirely by God.
It is the unmerited favor, the blessed grace of God that overlooks our trespasses and initiates sincere faith in our lives, and turns sincere faith into real repentance. God calls, and God saves, not by faith or by works, but by His amazing grace.
-Former New York City Mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
When I was a child I thought to myself something very similar. I remember being about 8 or 9 years old and thinking "Well, if God does exist then all I gotta do is be a good person; so there's no point in spending my life devoted to Him anyways." One of my friends agreed with me.
In fact, most religious people will agree: good people go to Heaven. It seems logical at least, that those who do good should be rewarded with eternal life.
The problem is that, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), and there isn't a thing that any of us can do to our criminal, sinful record.
No matter how many good things one does, no matter how much they pray and love, no matter how much they give to charity and live selflessly; "God will not justify any human being by means of the actions prescribed by the Law" (Romans 3:20)
Imagine going into a human court of law and telling the judge that, even though you have committed murder, you also did community service. You tell him, 'Look, judge, please be merciful. I am sorry for committing murder, and I have done good things to make for the bad i have done. Can you please let me off the hook?" You know as well as I do that there is no way that judge is going to let you off - unless he is crooked!
It is even more so the same way with God. He is Holy, and being Holy means being righteous. God's Holiness and God's Righteousness demands perfect justice: that all the guilty reap what they sow... and "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).
So God, by His very nature, is compelled to destroy us due to our sins against Him. We are dead in our trespasses, and we cannot pay our debt, we are completely unable to please God, we have nothing to offer to Him that he hasn't already given us. The only was we can go free is for someone to pay off our debt for us.
In order for someone to pay off our sin debt, they would not only need to have something to offer God, but they would also need to be debt-free ourselves. That means they would need to be sinless and perfect; and be willing to sacrifice themselves on our behalf.
Only God can live a sinlessly and perfect; and because He loves us, that's just what he did: He came down from Heaven, was incarnate of the virgin Mary, and after 33 years of living sinless and perfect, He gave up His own life as a sacrifice offering to pay off the sin debt for all who believe in Him.
Praise God!
And that's why Jesus says, about Himself::
"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life" (John 3:16)
So we are saved by faith in the crucified and resurrected Lamb of God, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Saved by faith, Right?
Wrong. "..by grace you have been saved through faith."
We are not saved by faith, but by grace through faith. "and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2:8)
Many think that we are saved by faith, and 'by faith alone'. This, however, is not the case. It was God Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said:
"Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter." (Matthew 7:21)
Even the very original Gospel call sounded like this: "Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is near!" (Matthew 3:2)
We must believe that Jesus Christ is our God and Savior, but we must also repent of our sins in an act of obedience to Him.
The Word of God, the Holy Bible is clear: It is not by faith alone.
"..we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth." (1 John 2:3-4)
Faith alone does not save us.... We know Him only if we obey Him. Even the demons believe (and they tremble at God's mighty power). Still, some verses in the Scripture seems to say that faith is enough.
"Whosever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Romans 10:13) and also that "if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).
To understand these verses what we need to understand that the biblical concept of "belief" is not just merely an intellectual assent to the truth. Jesus is God, He was crucified and He is resurrected. Simply agreeing with the fact of the matter does not justify you in God's sight, it is living out the fact: if you believe that Jesus is God then act like it. Obey Him, love Him, worship Him, glorify Him.
Faith, in biblical terms, is an action word. It means that you love God, that you strive to obey Him, that you repent of all your sins and that you hate everything else in this world, even your closest friends and family, in comparison to how you feel about Him.
We as sinful humans are completely unable to engage in this form sincere worship of God. Our sins have separated us from God, and our inner-man despises the Holy things of Heaven.
Our hearts are "deceitful above all else, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9) and our flesh 'wages war against the Spirit'. Being incapable to respond to God in am appropriate manner, it is necessary that the work of salvation in a human life be performed, start to finish, entirely by God.
It is the unmerited favor, the blessed grace of God that overlooks our trespasses and initiates sincere faith in our lives, and turns sincere faith into real repentance. God calls, and God saves, not by faith or by works, but by His amazing grace.
, You didn't exactly quote the scripture right!
