As I have listened to many people from many different Christian denominations, I have become very concerned, because of what all these people believe when it comes to inheriting eternal life. So I thought we should go back to the basics and see what the Holy Word has to say on this issue. Let us first see what Jesus Christ says about it.
Luke 10:25-28 - On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"
He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."
This is the only requirement to have eternal life with God – that we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second commandment “Love your neighbor as yourself” you will do automatically when you do the first commandment. This first commandment is not a condition we can obtain just by saying the words with our mouth. It is shown by our actions that come directly from our heart’s deepest desires. Let us take another look when Jesus tests the heart condition of a certain rich man.
Matt 19:16-23 - Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"
"Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."
"Which ones?" the man inquired.
Jesus replied, "'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'"
"All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"
Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
In the above verses, Jesus was testing where this man’s heart really was, and the rich man failed the test. The rich man would not let everything go and love Jesus with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength and then follow Him. If this rich man would have been obedient and done the things Jesus said, then this rich man would have been perfect and rich in the Spirit.
Now someone might say that: “But I was told that I had eternal life because I was saved at the altar years ago”. The final result of salvation does result in eternal life – if a person is willing to let God’s Spirit make them into a perfect son/daughter of God. Coming to Christ for the forgiveness of our sins does put us into a saving relationship with Christ – where we no longer have to sin, but it is still our choice to continue on sinning or not. It is only through this saving relationship that we can choose to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The bottom line on this issue is: the more we grow in love with God, the more we repent of our sin and do His will instead of our own. Every action that we do in word or in deed will represent who we really love.
I think we need to clarify the term “saved” a little more. Being in a “saved” state with God means we have entered into a relationship with God in order that we might become a son of God. It does not necessarily mean we are a son of God yet.
Gal 4:4-5 - But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
Titus 3:5-7 - He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
The word “might” in the above verses has to be emphasized because when put in context with the rest of the Bible, we understand that out of all the people saved and justified by His grace – it is only the ones that commit all their love to God that will inherit eternal life.
Again, being in a “saved state” means we are in a relationship with God and have the power to overcome any and all sin by the power of His Grace. Within this salvation walk with Him is where the spiritual war happens for our souls. We still have our selfish nature fighting with God’s nature. What nature wins the war depends on which nature we feed. If we constantly feed God’s nature by growing in love with Him and repenting from our sins, than God’s Spirit and Grace will eventually win the war by starving out our selfish nature. But if we feed our selfish nature, then we starve out God’s nature in us and keep our dead spirit we were born with.
As long as we are still sinning – which means we know God’s will and we willfully go against it by going through with the selfish thought or deed – we are still considered by God to be owned by the devil.
1 John 3:7-8 - Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
Although it is true that we do not inherit eternal life depending on our works (good or bad), our heart is judged by God by our works. Works are a gauge of where our heart is. So God judges us by our heart which is gauged by our works. Works (good or bad) show God and others the desires of our heart and in turn shows God who we really love. If we are living righteously in every area of our life, then it shows God and others who we really love and who owns us. If we are still sinning in any area of our life, then it shows God and others that the devil still owns our soul even if we have already entered into the “saved” state with God.
This spiritual war for your soul continues on within this “saved” state until you have come into a total loving condition of loving only God with all you heart, soul, mind, and strength. When you have totally killed the selfishness in you by the power of God’s Grace by only loving God and His righteousness – then He will call you His son and because you are now considered His son, you will inherit His eternal life because you are His son.
Anyone that truly believes in Jesus Christ will also totally love Him. To believe in God you must know Him and to know Him you must love Him.
God’s and your servant,
Michael Reid
Showing posts with label repentive heart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label repentive heart. Show all posts
Friday, May 1, 2009
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The Church Must Repent
What has happened to God’s church? Jesus warned us about His future church and how it will stray away from Him and His truth.
2 Tim 4:3-5 - For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Well, that time is here. The so called church will no longer listen to or adhere to sound biblical doctrine. The church has turned into a worldly religious club where people come to have there own desires met instead of being obedient to God’s desires and commandments. Everyone has found the church that will preach what they want to hear with no regard to whether it is the biblical truth or not. Most are requiring to hear that they are saved regardless of whether they are obedient to God or not – or regardless of whether they really love God or not. To accommodate these fake salvation beliefs that enable all to believe they are saved, many lies and myths have been introduced and believed as truth and has replaced God’s truth.
When God’s light is shown – it easily displays what has been hidden in the dark. I am not the light, but I have the light of God living inside me. God’s light has been turned on in my life and has shown that what we call the church today is very much lacking. It is lacking in God’s truth, lacking in God’s love, lacking in obedience to God, and lacking in reverent fear of the all mighty God. But the church does have a lot of worldly deceptions, selfishness, pride, and a teaching that there are little or no consequences to our sin.
The current church of our day has turned the Gospel of Jesus Christ into a lie by changing word definitions and by adding or subtracting words from the scriptures as they see fit. These false teachers will be punished by God’s wrath, but what about the people they are misleading. This is where God has called me and others like me to proclaim the real Gospel. If anyone repents and turns and believes the real truth of God, they will be saved.
I have tried to work with many pastors and leaders of the church, but most have been so entrenched into believing the lies of the devil, that I have determined there is little hope in working with the current leadership of the churches. I am still open to working with any church leaders that become open to the true Word of God. But for now, I must try to reach as many people as are willing to believe the truth, so that they will believe and experience the true salvation of our Lord and Savior.
Below are some of the main deceptions plaguing the church:
The first and greatest deception in the church is that a person is born again and saved onto eternal life from the beginning of their relationship with God. Being born again by the filling of the Holy Spirit is a decision that God makes when a person displays to God that he/she is worthy to receive His Holy Spirit. God will not fill you with His Holy Spirit until you have been cleansed of all your selfishness and pride. A mark of a person that has been born again of God is that they no longer willfully sin against God. So if you are still willfully sinning against God – you are not born again.
The next greatest deception is that a person can enter a pure sinless heaven when they die even though they still have sin in their heart and soul. If you have not been born again by the time you die, because you have not totally died to your sinful nature – you will not be allowed to enter heaven because of the sin still left in your soul. No unclean or sinful thing will enter God’s eternal heaven.
Another deception is that a person doesn’t have to be totally obedient to God’s commandments to be eternally saved. The deception comes out of people thinking that obedience to God is a works and then they quote the scriptures that say we are not saved by our works. Obedience IS NOT A WORK of ours. It is a direct indication of how much we love God. Obedience is a byproduct of our love for God. When we truly love God, we will die to all of our own sinful selfish desires and only try to please God. If we love God, we will be obedient to His commandments. When God sees that we are trying to be only obedient to Him – out of us loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength – then He will send His Holy Spirit into us to mark us as His for eternity. It is only after we show our love for God through our obedience that God will claim us as His sons/daughters in Christ.
This next deception is the result of the previous three deceptions. Since the current church teaches lies that a person is born again from the beginning of their sanctification process, and that a person that still has the sinful nature can enter heaven, and that a person does not have to be obedient to God’s commands to enter heaven – then people believe the lie that there are no eternal consequences for their sin. This makes people feel a fake security in their eternity and that all fear of hell and God’s wrath is eliminated. They are only believing lies and fooling themselves. This lie of the devil has been believed and has worked greatly in the devil’s favor. We have to fear God to bring us to a true full salvation. You see the devil knows if he can get people to believe that they are born again from the start without being obedient to God – then all that believe this lie will stop searching for God and in turn will not find Him. People end up not searching for that full relationship with God because they have been convinced they don’t need to search any further – because they believe they are saved already. This is why most of the people in our churches today are not born again and not saved. They have short circuited their salvation by believing a lie and have never really been converted into a true disciple and a true child of God.
Your servant in Christ,
Michael Reid
2 Tim 4:3-5 - For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Well, that time is here. The so called church will no longer listen to or adhere to sound biblical doctrine. The church has turned into a worldly religious club where people come to have there own desires met instead of being obedient to God’s desires and commandments. Everyone has found the church that will preach what they want to hear with no regard to whether it is the biblical truth or not. Most are requiring to hear that they are saved regardless of whether they are obedient to God or not – or regardless of whether they really love God or not. To accommodate these fake salvation beliefs that enable all to believe they are saved, many lies and myths have been introduced and believed as truth and has replaced God’s truth.
When God’s light is shown – it easily displays what has been hidden in the dark. I am not the light, but I have the light of God living inside me. God’s light has been turned on in my life and has shown that what we call the church today is very much lacking. It is lacking in God’s truth, lacking in God’s love, lacking in obedience to God, and lacking in reverent fear of the all mighty God. But the church does have a lot of worldly deceptions, selfishness, pride, and a teaching that there are little or no consequences to our sin.
The current church of our day has turned the Gospel of Jesus Christ into a lie by changing word definitions and by adding or subtracting words from the scriptures as they see fit. These false teachers will be punished by God’s wrath, but what about the people they are misleading. This is where God has called me and others like me to proclaim the real Gospel. If anyone repents and turns and believes the real truth of God, they will be saved.
I have tried to work with many pastors and leaders of the church, but most have been so entrenched into believing the lies of the devil, that I have determined there is little hope in working with the current leadership of the churches. I am still open to working with any church leaders that become open to the true Word of God. But for now, I must try to reach as many people as are willing to believe the truth, so that they will believe and experience the true salvation of our Lord and Savior.
Below are some of the main deceptions plaguing the church:
The first and greatest deception in the church is that a person is born again and saved onto eternal life from the beginning of their relationship with God. Being born again by the filling of the Holy Spirit is a decision that God makes when a person displays to God that he/she is worthy to receive His Holy Spirit. God will not fill you with His Holy Spirit until you have been cleansed of all your selfishness and pride. A mark of a person that has been born again of God is that they no longer willfully sin against God. So if you are still willfully sinning against God – you are not born again.
The next greatest deception is that a person can enter a pure sinless heaven when they die even though they still have sin in their heart and soul. If you have not been born again by the time you die, because you have not totally died to your sinful nature – you will not be allowed to enter heaven because of the sin still left in your soul. No unclean or sinful thing will enter God’s eternal heaven.
Another deception is that a person doesn’t have to be totally obedient to God’s commandments to be eternally saved. The deception comes out of people thinking that obedience to God is a works and then they quote the scriptures that say we are not saved by our works. Obedience IS NOT A WORK of ours. It is a direct indication of how much we love God. Obedience is a byproduct of our love for God. When we truly love God, we will die to all of our own sinful selfish desires and only try to please God. If we love God, we will be obedient to His commandments. When God sees that we are trying to be only obedient to Him – out of us loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength – then He will send His Holy Spirit into us to mark us as His for eternity. It is only after we show our love for God through our obedience that God will claim us as His sons/daughters in Christ.
This next deception is the result of the previous three deceptions. Since the current church teaches lies that a person is born again from the beginning of their sanctification process, and that a person that still has the sinful nature can enter heaven, and that a person does not have to be obedient to God’s commands to enter heaven – then people believe the lie that there are no eternal consequences for their sin. This makes people feel a fake security in their eternity and that all fear of hell and God’s wrath is eliminated. They are only believing lies and fooling themselves. This lie of the devil has been believed and has worked greatly in the devil’s favor. We have to fear God to bring us to a true full salvation. You see the devil knows if he can get people to believe that they are born again from the start without being obedient to God – then all that believe this lie will stop searching for God and in turn will not find Him. People end up not searching for that full relationship with God because they have been convinced they don’t need to search any further – because they believe they are saved already. This is why most of the people in our churches today are not born again and not saved. They have short circuited their salvation by believing a lie and have never really been converted into a true disciple and a true child of God.
Your servant in Christ,
Michael Reid
Friday, July 25, 2008
Repent And God Will Heal Our Land – Otherwise ???
With all that is and has been happening – I hope and pray that the ones that call themselves Christians wake up and see what is happening. We are in the time that 2 Chron 7:13-14 is talking about. Even though this is an Old Testament Scripture - it is very instructive for our day also, since God never changes and the affects of sin hasn't changed.
2 Chron 7:13-14 - When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
God Himself has shut off the rain of blessings from heaven because of our country’s sins and our churches are a big part of our country and share in these sins. God has given us over to our devilish sinful ways to devour our land. God has cut off His blessings because He cannot and will not bless disobedience and selfishness.
God has also sent onto us the plagues – the consequences of our sinful ways. God is saying to us - His patience has run its course with us. No longer will He keep blessing our land, because we have taken His blessings and used them for evil. He will no longer protect us from our sins. We are starting to feel these consequences (plagues) upon us now, but are going to get a lot worse in the next coming years, unless!
Unless what – unless we turn from our selfish sinful ways and repent, and turn from our wicked ways. If we repent and turn back to God – the one and true God – then and only then will God heal our land. So if your eyes have been opened to this truth as mine has been, then go and wake up your neighbors to the devastation we are about to have come upon us in the hope that God will see us coming back to Him with fear and reverence so that He holds back His wrath that is going to come upon us.
I want to encourage everyone as an individual to live a holy and righteous life before God through the power of His Holy Spirit so that you might inherit eternal life even if our nation doesn’t repent on a whole as a unified body for God. If our nation does not come back to fearing God and reverence Him with obedience to His Word, then our nation will be lost, but you will be saved if you stand in obedience to His Word out of love for Him.
As a nation we are a people that have deeply offended God with our countless sins that we have done against Him and His creation. Don’t think just because it seemed like God was just letting these sins go unpunished, that God was not aware of all our selfish and prideful ways. He was having patience with us, but that patience has run out. It is time for God’s wrath and it is the consequences of our sins that will provide that wrath.
We have earned the wrath that we are about to receive. That is why the Bible says “The wages of sin is death”. Wages is something we earn and we have earned the wrath that is coming in the next years to come. The Bible also says “What we sow we shall also reap”. Well we have sowed selfish sin for many years and now that sin has multiplied and is being harvested along with the consequences of that sinful harvest.
Our nation is made up of individual people. As each person comes back to repentance through a reverent fear of the Lord – then our nation comes back to God by one person at a time. Even if our nation is not saved – it is your choice to make sure you are saved.
God’s servant and yours,
Mike Reid
2 Chron 7:13-14 - When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
God Himself has shut off the rain of blessings from heaven because of our country’s sins and our churches are a big part of our country and share in these sins. God has given us over to our devilish sinful ways to devour our land. God has cut off His blessings because He cannot and will not bless disobedience and selfishness.
God has also sent onto us the plagues – the consequences of our sinful ways. God is saying to us - His patience has run its course with us. No longer will He keep blessing our land, because we have taken His blessings and used them for evil. He will no longer protect us from our sins. We are starting to feel these consequences (plagues) upon us now, but are going to get a lot worse in the next coming years, unless!
Unless what – unless we turn from our selfish sinful ways and repent, and turn from our wicked ways. If we repent and turn back to God – the one and true God – then and only then will God heal our land. So if your eyes have been opened to this truth as mine has been, then go and wake up your neighbors to the devastation we are about to have come upon us in the hope that God will see us coming back to Him with fear and reverence so that He holds back His wrath that is going to come upon us.
I want to encourage everyone as an individual to live a holy and righteous life before God through the power of His Holy Spirit so that you might inherit eternal life even if our nation doesn’t repent on a whole as a unified body for God. If our nation does not come back to fearing God and reverence Him with obedience to His Word, then our nation will be lost, but you will be saved if you stand in obedience to His Word out of love for Him.
As a nation we are a people that have deeply offended God with our countless sins that we have done against Him and His creation. Don’t think just because it seemed like God was just letting these sins go unpunished, that God was not aware of all our selfish and prideful ways. He was having patience with us, but that patience has run out. It is time for God’s wrath and it is the consequences of our sins that will provide that wrath.
We have earned the wrath that we are about to receive. That is why the Bible says “The wages of sin is death”. Wages is something we earn and we have earned the wrath that is coming in the next years to come. The Bible also says “What we sow we shall also reap”. Well we have sowed selfish sin for many years and now that sin has multiplied and is being harvested along with the consequences of that sinful harvest.
Our nation is made up of individual people. As each person comes back to repentance through a reverent fear of the Lord – then our nation comes back to God by one person at a time. Even if our nation is not saved – it is your choice to make sure you are saved.
God’s servant and yours,
Mike Reid
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Who Are We Repenting For
Are we repenting for us or are we repenting for God? Are we repenting out of love for ourselves or out of love for God?
What does repenting mean? When we repent, we are sorrowful of our sin(s) and turn from our acts of sin that come from our selfish nature and at the same time turn to God in total obedience to eradicate those sins by the power of His Spirit.
There is mainly two ways in which we repent. One is out of a selfish fear and the other is out of the love we have for our Father in heaven. Almost all people come to God initially out of frustration and fear for themselves. They come to a breaking point where they realize their sins and have no way of healing themselves. They also come to believe that if they continue in these sins, they will go to hell instead of heaven. When God calls these people, most people come to God out of desperation. This desperation is motivated out of a fear of God and a fear for themselves. Fear is a big motivator and even though fear is not from the Lord, but from our own selfishness, God will use it to fulfill His purposes.
Proverbs 1:7 - The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge
So how do we repent in a way most pleasing to God? This is where most people run into trouble. Most of this message will concentrate on repenting in a way that is most pleasing to God. We must remember when it comes to righteousness, there is only one way to do things, and that is God’s way.
What is the right way to repent after our initial coming to the Lord? To find out let’s dig a little deeper. Sin can only come from selfishness and pride and cannot come out of love. Every time we sin, we are acting out of our own selfishness or pride and we cannot be loving God or others. Jesus came to conquer all sin in believers. What was the main weapon He sent through the Holy Spirit to do this? Love - pure love. When we are born again, God gives us a new heart. God does this by removing the sinful selfish nature and replacing it with His love. Since sin cannot come out of a heart filled with love, the sinful nature is eradicated with the over powering love of God.
So, should we repent because we want to be saved or continue in our salvation state, or do we repent because we love God? There is a big difference and what way is acceptable to God after our justification experience. To help us understand, I want to look at the parable of the prodigal son in the Bible.
When the prodigal son came to himself and started the journey back to his fathers land, this represented the initial turning back to his father out of fear for himself. He had run out of his inheritance money and was hungry. He knew there was plenty of food back at his father’s home. (This was the motivating fear for self preservation). But he also wanted to return to be under his fathers love and protection again. (This was the wanting to be saved from his worldly life). This fear of self preservation and wanting to be saved from himself drove him to be humbled and willing to be one of his father’s servants. This initial repentance was all about the prodigal son benefit and not about the father. This repentance was still all generated out of love and fear for himself.
After the son returned to his father and the father loved him and accepted him fully back into the family. Do you think that son continued repenting out of fear for himself, or out of love for his father? After we come to our Father through Jesus Christ and realize the love He showed and shows us, do we continue in our repenting and try to be obedient to God commandments so He won’t throw us back from where we came, or do we repent and be obedient to His will because we want to please Him alone in everything we do. We might initially repent from fear, but our repenting should not continue out of fear, it should continue out of love for our Father.
When our reason for repenting is to hopefully be good enough to stay saved, we are trying to turn from our sin out of our own selfishness. When we repent in this way, we are still trying to save ourselves.
Mark 8:35 - For whoever wants to save his life will lose it
When we repent because we think we might not have eternal life if we don’t, we are still only repenting out of our own selfishness and fear. Since this kind of repenting is self centered, you are actually sinning while you are trying to repent. Also, unless you repent in a way pleasing to God, which is out of love for the Father, the turning from the sin will not usually take hold and you will find yourself repenting over and over for the same sins.
So what does repenting out of love look like? Remember repenting is turning away from the sin and turning to God. When we repent out of selfishness in order to try to save ourselves, we are trying to abstain from sin, but not turning to God. We must turn to God at the same time or else it won’t work.
What does turning to God mean? It is all about growing in love with God.
James 4:8 - Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
When we are self centered we only love ourselves. You know, just like the devil loved only himself. This is maybe how we start out with God, but it can’t be how we stay in relationship with God. After justification we start being sanctified if we let God’s Spirit work in our lives. Sanctification is a process of becoming holy as God is holy. Almost all of us have to go through this process. The key to understanding sanctification is that it is not really a process of getting rid of our sins; it is a process in which we are transferring our love from ourselves to loving God only. In doing this we end up giving our whole life over to him.
Mark 8:35 - For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.
John 14:24 - He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
The key to repenting is repenting out of love for God and His glory; it has nothing to do with us. It is all about Him. When we repent out of love for our Father in Heaven, we want to repent of all our sins because we want to truly please Him, not us. This is totally opposite to repenting for us. When we repent for us, we don’t want to repent, but we do it because we think we need to. When we repent out of love, it is like my son being obedient to me because he loves me, not because he fears me. When my son is obedient out of love, he is obedient because he wants to be obedient. If my son is being obedient out of fear, he is not being obedient because he wants to; he is being obedient because of the consequences he might receive if he isn’t obedient. If the obedience is out of fear, he will quit being obedient as soon as he is away from me.
John 14:15 - If you love Me, keep My commandments.
So start loving God by getting to know Him through His word and Spirit. If you are trying to save yourself, STOP IT. Repent out of love for our Father in heaven and for His Glory.
God Bless,
Mike Reid
What does repenting mean? When we repent, we are sorrowful of our sin(s) and turn from our acts of sin that come from our selfish nature and at the same time turn to God in total obedience to eradicate those sins by the power of His Spirit.
There is mainly two ways in which we repent. One is out of a selfish fear and the other is out of the love we have for our Father in heaven. Almost all people come to God initially out of frustration and fear for themselves. They come to a breaking point where they realize their sins and have no way of healing themselves. They also come to believe that if they continue in these sins, they will go to hell instead of heaven. When God calls these people, most people come to God out of desperation. This desperation is motivated out of a fear of God and a fear for themselves. Fear is a big motivator and even though fear is not from the Lord, but from our own selfishness, God will use it to fulfill His purposes.
Proverbs 1:7 - The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge
So how do we repent in a way most pleasing to God? This is where most people run into trouble. Most of this message will concentrate on repenting in a way that is most pleasing to God. We must remember when it comes to righteousness, there is only one way to do things, and that is God’s way.
What is the right way to repent after our initial coming to the Lord? To find out let’s dig a little deeper. Sin can only come from selfishness and pride and cannot come out of love. Every time we sin, we are acting out of our own selfishness or pride and we cannot be loving God or others. Jesus came to conquer all sin in believers. What was the main weapon He sent through the Holy Spirit to do this? Love - pure love. When we are born again, God gives us a new heart. God does this by removing the sinful selfish nature and replacing it with His love. Since sin cannot come out of a heart filled with love, the sinful nature is eradicated with the over powering love of God.
So, should we repent because we want to be saved or continue in our salvation state, or do we repent because we love God? There is a big difference and what way is acceptable to God after our justification experience. To help us understand, I want to look at the parable of the prodigal son in the Bible.
When the prodigal son came to himself and started the journey back to his fathers land, this represented the initial turning back to his father out of fear for himself. He had run out of his inheritance money and was hungry. He knew there was plenty of food back at his father’s home. (This was the motivating fear for self preservation). But he also wanted to return to be under his fathers love and protection again. (This was the wanting to be saved from his worldly life). This fear of self preservation and wanting to be saved from himself drove him to be humbled and willing to be one of his father’s servants. This initial repentance was all about the prodigal son benefit and not about the father. This repentance was still all generated out of love and fear for himself.
After the son returned to his father and the father loved him and accepted him fully back into the family. Do you think that son continued repenting out of fear for himself, or out of love for his father? After we come to our Father through Jesus Christ and realize the love He showed and shows us, do we continue in our repenting and try to be obedient to God commandments so He won’t throw us back from where we came, or do we repent and be obedient to His will because we want to please Him alone in everything we do. We might initially repent from fear, but our repenting should not continue out of fear, it should continue out of love for our Father.
When our reason for repenting is to hopefully be good enough to stay saved, we are trying to turn from our sin out of our own selfishness. When we repent in this way, we are still trying to save ourselves.
Mark 8:35 - For whoever wants to save his life will lose it
When we repent because we think we might not have eternal life if we don’t, we are still only repenting out of our own selfishness and fear. Since this kind of repenting is self centered, you are actually sinning while you are trying to repent. Also, unless you repent in a way pleasing to God, which is out of love for the Father, the turning from the sin will not usually take hold and you will find yourself repenting over and over for the same sins.
So what does repenting out of love look like? Remember repenting is turning away from the sin and turning to God. When we repent out of selfishness in order to try to save ourselves, we are trying to abstain from sin, but not turning to God. We must turn to God at the same time or else it won’t work.
What does turning to God mean? It is all about growing in love with God.
James 4:8 - Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
When we are self centered we only love ourselves. You know, just like the devil loved only himself. This is maybe how we start out with God, but it can’t be how we stay in relationship with God. After justification we start being sanctified if we let God’s Spirit work in our lives. Sanctification is a process of becoming holy as God is holy. Almost all of us have to go through this process. The key to understanding sanctification is that it is not really a process of getting rid of our sins; it is a process in which we are transferring our love from ourselves to loving God only. In doing this we end up giving our whole life over to him.
Mark 8:35 - For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.
John 14:24 - He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
The key to repenting is repenting out of love for God and His glory; it has nothing to do with us. It is all about Him. When we repent out of love for our Father in Heaven, we want to repent of all our sins because we want to truly please Him, not us. This is totally opposite to repenting for us. When we repent for us, we don’t want to repent, but we do it because we think we need to. When we repent out of love, it is like my son being obedient to me because he loves me, not because he fears me. When my son is obedient out of love, he is obedient because he wants to be obedient. If my son is being obedient out of fear, he is not being obedient because he wants to; he is being obedient because of the consequences he might receive if he isn’t obedient. If the obedience is out of fear, he will quit being obedient as soon as he is away from me.
John 14:15 - If you love Me, keep My commandments.
So start loving God by getting to know Him through His word and Spirit. If you are trying to save yourself, STOP IT. Repent out of love for our Father in heaven and for His Glory.
God Bless,
Mike Reid
Some of the areas where the US churches are failing
We have lightened up, or sugar coated the gospel to say, all you need to have eternal life is to accept Jesus as your personal savior. We need to emphasize that we need to make Him our Lord and Savior. The Lord part comes before and is more important then the savior part. We can’t have the salvation part without making Him our Lord first. When we make Jesus our Lord, we have to live a life of a humble servant, ready to do what ever glorifies our master. This includes dying to all our selfish desires and living only to please our God. Now I understand that we will fail at this, but this is a heart issue. Our heart must be totally submissive to His Spirit. God’s Holy Spirit will enable us to be submissive with increasing measure as long as we have a repenting heart. It is really God glorifying Himself through us.
We have to emphasize more on the Holy Spirits power. We are powerless to do any good without relying on the Spirit to do all of the good works through us. Many people’s spiritual walk gets stuck in a quagmire because they haven’t been taught about the awesome power within every born again believer – the Holy Spirit. There are also a lot of people restricting or rejecting the Spirit, because they really don’t want to give up certain parts of their life. These people need help from the Word, the Spirit, and church leaders to help bring this unwillingness to die to the flesh out in the open. The Bible commands that we must live by the Spirit - God’s Spirit within us. If we rely on ourselves we will fail, if we rely on His Spirit we will triumph over all.
The church needs to help point out all the devils deceptions that are working to keep us away from God. One of these big deceptions is money; the Word says “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”. Many people in most churches are caught up in this trap. The fact is that many churches are teaching their flock that this is one of the major ways God blesses you. Having enough money to sustain you and your family is a blessing, having more than enough money can easily turn into a trap of the devil, where we rely on ourselves and our money instead of God.
There is another deception working behind the scenes. It is that we have to wait for Christ’s kingdom to come before we can obtain the perfection of the heart that God is looking for each believer to have. We have to fight off this belief. Jesus’ kingdom is here now and has been ever since Christ returned to His apostles after His resurrection. We have the full cleansing and sanctifying power of God’s Spirit now. We do not have to wait!
Another lie some churches are teaching is – Jesus did it all at the cross. Jesus only did what God had to and only God could do. He would not do what we had to do. What we have to do is, make a choice to love Him voluntarily and accept Jesus whole heartedly as Lord. To accept Jesus as Lord might sound easy, but for humanity it is the hardest thing to do, because of our pride. We want to stay lord of our own life.A deception of what it takes to be a true believer ( Christian ) has been watered down also, As I mentioned above, we must accept Jesus as our Lord. When we sincerely accept Jesus as Lord, we whole heartedly have to give ourselves as a living sacrifice. God demands this to be a whole heart decision, not a partial heart decision. If we are truly trusting in Jesus completely, then in time the Spirit will bring to realization through sanctification what has all ready happened within our heart. But if we keep on restricting the Spirit to the point of rejecting His Spirit’s leading in any aspects of our life, that previous decision was not whole hearted. If this falling away of the faith happens, they were never a true believer or Christian, so they never had the promise of eternal salvation. A person never can lose eternal salvation if the person never had it in the first place.
Even though righteousness from works is not taught from the pulpit, many people try to act like Christians instead of actually being Christians or relying on the Spirit in them. They hear from the pulpit and teachers that if we are Christians we should have certain qualities of love and act a certain way, which is correct, but then they try to do these works on their own. We have to help people understand good works is just a byproduct of God’s Spirit being inside a person and working through a person. Many churched people are trying to do on their own what the Spirit should be doing. I can tell you from experience, if a person has the Spirit in them and they are letting God’s Spirit work in them, they will automatically be doing works by loving people through the gifts given to them. If the Spirit is the one doing the work, that work being done will be a joy to do, it will not be any hardship to the person. When the Spirit has taken over a person’s heart, that person’s desires are all about what is best for the other person. We no longer are interested on what we can get out of a situation or person; we have all we need in the Spirit. In fact we end up having so much love from the Spirit; it wells up in us and overflows to others. If a person is doing good works, but is not enjoying doing it, it is important for that person to go to God and look at why they don’t feel like doing that good work. It might not be the Spirit doing it. They might need more of a renewing heart instead of trying to keep doing the work.
Hell must be emphasized more than it is. Hell cannot be just explained as being separated from God. As good as Heaven is, the opposite is true for hell. Hell is so bad our human minds cannot fathom it. There needs to be a healthy fear of what awaits us if we don’t have Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We also must keep explaining how bad hell is to motivate Christians to go out and witness to unbelievers. If we have the heart of God and truly understand hell and that all unbelievers are going there, we will be motivated to bring people to Christ out of love for them. This is the same love Christ showed and we are called to show.
The Bible indicates very strongly that if we have a repentive heart for our sin(s) we are forgiven for our personal sins. But if we don’t have a repentive heart of our sin(s), we are not forgiven for our personal sins. Forgiveness of personal sins is not just for the asking, there must be a repenting heart to go along with the asking.
Praying for our churches,
Michael Reid
We have to emphasize more on the Holy Spirits power. We are powerless to do any good without relying on the Spirit to do all of the good works through us. Many people’s spiritual walk gets stuck in a quagmire because they haven’t been taught about the awesome power within every born again believer – the Holy Spirit. There are also a lot of people restricting or rejecting the Spirit, because they really don’t want to give up certain parts of their life. These people need help from the Word, the Spirit, and church leaders to help bring this unwillingness to die to the flesh out in the open. The Bible commands that we must live by the Spirit - God’s Spirit within us. If we rely on ourselves we will fail, if we rely on His Spirit we will triumph over all.
The church needs to help point out all the devils deceptions that are working to keep us away from God. One of these big deceptions is money; the Word says “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”. Many people in most churches are caught up in this trap. The fact is that many churches are teaching their flock that this is one of the major ways God blesses you. Having enough money to sustain you and your family is a blessing, having more than enough money can easily turn into a trap of the devil, where we rely on ourselves and our money instead of God.
There is another deception working behind the scenes. It is that we have to wait for Christ’s kingdom to come before we can obtain the perfection of the heart that God is looking for each believer to have. We have to fight off this belief. Jesus’ kingdom is here now and has been ever since Christ returned to His apostles after His resurrection. We have the full cleansing and sanctifying power of God’s Spirit now. We do not have to wait!
Another lie some churches are teaching is – Jesus did it all at the cross. Jesus only did what God had to and only God could do. He would not do what we had to do. What we have to do is, make a choice to love Him voluntarily and accept Jesus whole heartedly as Lord. To accept Jesus as Lord might sound easy, but for humanity it is the hardest thing to do, because of our pride. We want to stay lord of our own life.A deception of what it takes to be a true believer ( Christian ) has been watered down also, As I mentioned above, we must accept Jesus as our Lord. When we sincerely accept Jesus as Lord, we whole heartedly have to give ourselves as a living sacrifice. God demands this to be a whole heart decision, not a partial heart decision. If we are truly trusting in Jesus completely, then in time the Spirit will bring to realization through sanctification what has all ready happened within our heart. But if we keep on restricting the Spirit to the point of rejecting His Spirit’s leading in any aspects of our life, that previous decision was not whole hearted. If this falling away of the faith happens, they were never a true believer or Christian, so they never had the promise of eternal salvation. A person never can lose eternal salvation if the person never had it in the first place.
Even though righteousness from works is not taught from the pulpit, many people try to act like Christians instead of actually being Christians or relying on the Spirit in them. They hear from the pulpit and teachers that if we are Christians we should have certain qualities of love and act a certain way, which is correct, but then they try to do these works on their own. We have to help people understand good works is just a byproduct of God’s Spirit being inside a person and working through a person. Many churched people are trying to do on their own what the Spirit should be doing. I can tell you from experience, if a person has the Spirit in them and they are letting God’s Spirit work in them, they will automatically be doing works by loving people through the gifts given to them. If the Spirit is the one doing the work, that work being done will be a joy to do, it will not be any hardship to the person. When the Spirit has taken over a person’s heart, that person’s desires are all about what is best for the other person. We no longer are interested on what we can get out of a situation or person; we have all we need in the Spirit. In fact we end up having so much love from the Spirit; it wells up in us and overflows to others. If a person is doing good works, but is not enjoying doing it, it is important for that person to go to God and look at why they don’t feel like doing that good work. It might not be the Spirit doing it. They might need more of a renewing heart instead of trying to keep doing the work.
Hell must be emphasized more than it is. Hell cannot be just explained as being separated from God. As good as Heaven is, the opposite is true for hell. Hell is so bad our human minds cannot fathom it. There needs to be a healthy fear of what awaits us if we don’t have Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We also must keep explaining how bad hell is to motivate Christians to go out and witness to unbelievers. If we have the heart of God and truly understand hell and that all unbelievers are going there, we will be motivated to bring people to Christ out of love for them. This is the same love Christ showed and we are called to show.
The Bible indicates very strongly that if we have a repentive heart for our sin(s) we are forgiven for our personal sins. But if we don’t have a repentive heart of our sin(s), we are not forgiven for our personal sins. Forgiveness of personal sins is not just for the asking, there must be a repenting heart to go along with the asking.
Praying for our churches,
Michael Reid
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