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A thought

September 29, 2019 Leave a comment
It is wonderful to be raised in a Christian home. But if the parents are not teaching their children the Word at home, but leaving it for the church, they are setting their children up for failure. They are only teaching their children that church attendance is enough to get to Heaven. These children believe they are saved based on their parents’ faith. This may be one reason why they depart from the faith and leave church when they leave home.
This may have happened to me. I was raised in a “Christian” by godly grandparents but I don’t remember them explaining to me the Gospel. It’s not that they didn’t believe it but they didn’t know how to tell it. Maybe they thought we’d learn in the church. However, when I was baptized, I don’t know if it was because I really trusted in Christ or gave mental assent to His existence.
When I was in college, a student minister came to my dorm room and helped me to understand the Gospel. To this day, I don’t know when my salvation happened. I can only testify that it has.  Currently, I call my dorm room experience my Apollos moment (Acts 18:24-26). Like Apollos, I had all the pieces but I don’t think I put them all together. God is great in His mercy.
So, parents, teach your children the Word and live the Word. It has been my experience that many parents teach the world more than the Word, then the wonder why their child has turned away from God.
It is not too late to change. And no, teaching them is no guarantee of the acceptance of Christ, but at least you are pointing them in the right direction and acting in obedience to God. If you don’t teach them God’s Way, the world will teach them its way.
Categories: Discipleship

Eternal Life (Part II)

September 7, 2019 Leave a comment

God is interested in having a relationship with us not in rituals and works. Most religions are concerned with working your way to Heaven. But it is the internal heart change God is interested in not outward pretending.

Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3 that one must be born again or they cannot see or enter the Kingdom. Being born again means having spiritual heart surgery. Jesus also told The Samaritan woman in John 4 that the Father is looking for people who will worship Him in spirit and truth. In spirit means relationally, spirit to Spirit. Truth means sincerely, not just outwardly.

Read Genesis 4. Compare the lives of Cain and Abel. Read 1 and 2 Samuel and compare the lives of King Saul and King David. In each group, one person was more concerned with works than with relationship. What was their fate?

As the Bible says, “Let us reason together.” If I were to do something to seriously offend you to the point that it destroyed our relationship, what good works could I do to restore it? How much of a donation to your favorite charity would it take?

What does God want? He wants a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51). He wants someone who is repentant over their sin. Repentant means hating the sinful lifestyle to the point you want to stop. You then want to submit to God and His rule over your life because you see the futility of sin.

Has God been just God to you or your Father? Will you work on your relationship with Him today?

Categories: Discipleship

Eternal Life (Part 1)

September 5, 2019 Leave a comment

I believe most people want to go to Heaven simply because they don’t want to go to Hell. Heaven is being in God’s presence and having a relationship with Him. Therefore, it is not about works. There is nothing we can do to make ourselves worthy of Heaven. If you do not want a relationship with God now, why would you want to spend eternity with Him?

Most of us are familiar with John 3:16. It reads, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son and that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” What is everlasting (or eternal) life? Is it just living forever?

I don’t think so since we are ALL going to live forever somewhere—either in God’s presence or apart from Him.

Jesus defined eternal life as “knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom He had sent” (John 17:3). So, eternal life is knowing God, not just knowing about Him. It is experiencing Him in a relationship.

This is why Jesus emphasized the concept of God as Father. The Jews saw God as God but Jesus wanted them (and us) to know Him as a Father who wants a personal relationship with His children.

Categories: Discipleship