Heavenly Father
I know that I have sinned against you
my sins have separated me from you
I am truly sorry
I now want to turn away from my past sinful life and turn to you for forgiveness
Please forgive me, and help me avoid sinning again
I believe that your son, Jesus Christ, died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead and is alive
He hears my prayer
I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward
Please send your Holy Spirit to help me obey You
and to do Your will for the rest of my life,
In Jesus' name I pray, Amen
Saturday, October 25, 2008
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Sin (Part 1)
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Hey Everyone!! Today, we're gonna talk about a simple subject.. Sin...
You must be wondering... Hmmm... What can i talk about Sin that can take an entire post?? I mean If you sin, just confess and repent, right?? Well, to summarize things... Yes...
But now, we're going to examine the nature of Sin... And why it is so destructive to a christian in this time if God has already died to cleanse us.... Let's start with its origin...
The Origin is, of course, Lucifer... One of the best angels in his time... Until Sin got to him... Apparently he had too much air in his head and decided he could be better than God(Ezekiel 28:13-19). Yup... Though the first Human that sinned was Eve(Not Adam.. If Genesis was in chronological order), Lucifer was the first "creature" that sinned... And from then on... God put a curse on the Earth... Everyone sins... bla bla bla... You know the drill... But before that... God had a plan... A plan to bring man and God back together... Genesis 3:15..And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.. And who is the woman? Mary!! Her offspring is Jesus! And Jesus will crush Satan.... God planned it in the beginning....
The there was the passover during Moses time and the sacrificing of a lamb for the covering of Sins... All these acts was significant of the coming events... That the Lamb of God was to die for us and to cleanse us from Sin...
Alrighty... Now let's fast-forward to Jesus crucifiction.. That saddest story(yet happiest) story in the whole wide world... When Jesus died for our sins... You know the Easter story... Then God torn the veil between the Holy Place and Holy of Holies(In the tabernacle). This signified that we could come to God anytime we wanted and God had made us clean! Also explained in John 3:16...For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Ok.. That was the introduction.. Get ready for the real thing...
When God died for our sins.. He died for all our Sins, including future ones...When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins (Col 2:13). Some people say that God only cleansed us of our sins we've done so far.. And not our future ones... But think about it... Let's say you were being rude to your parents in the morning.. You were angry of them and you havent asked for forgiveness from God. But then, in ur anger, you forgot to look at the traffic light and got banged down by a car(touchwood). You went to heaven and you still have the sin of disobeying your parents. You love God very much though.. Would you still enter heaven? My answer is yes.. Do you think Papa God will be that unreasonable? I don't think so....
So does that mean we can abuse God's grace and keep sinning when we have become a christian? Well now, let's explicitly look at the term Christian....
Being a christian means being a follower of Christ (to try to be like Him everyday) and accepting God's forgiveness. Both of these come hand in hand. If you are a follower of Christ, you have to accept God's forgiveness, If you have accepted God's forgiveness... You must be a follower of Christ.. If you have accepted God's forgiveness and do not try to be like Jesus(by always sinning), you are not a Christian... And you will NOT receive salvation... Get the idea??
From here on, im going to get a little bit harsh... But i don't want to distort the truth and the realness of the situation.
Whoever came up with the "Once saved, Always saved" theory was crap... Those are lies of the devil which you should reject.. Its completely not found in the Bible! So this is a grave warning for those of you who are Sunday christians. You don't try to imitate Christ! All you do is come to church on Sunday, act like you're all Holy Woly, go back into the world, doing your worldly things! You smoke, you gossip, you have Ungodly sex, you envy, you deny Christ, you tease, you use the most "flowery language" possible. You have no intention of changing and say this is your way of living...You go to church again and say a quick "God, forgive me of everything I've done". Then in all seriousness, im going to tell you this. You are not going to Heaven. God doesn't act like a person who give free tickets into Heaven. It's not like he says "Offer me your Sundays and you will be saved". God says "Follow me in my ways, imitate me, then you will be saved". Basically that sentence is what summarizes "Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me Luke 9:23."
While searching for this verse i've come across so many lies on the internet... "Believe in Christ, Confess your sins and you will be saved!". Everyone is soooo bought into John 3:16 that that seems to be the only verse thay know! Can you see what the devil is doing here?? He's abusing Bible verses! Just like what he did to Jesus while he was in the desert, fasting for 40 days! The only thing that is different is... God knows how to rebuke those verses but man does not! As long as man sees something that he is happy with.. He hugs onto in and that seemed to be the only doctrine they know! We don't see people harping on Matthew 7:21...Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. It is no wonder God says "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!" In verse 22 and 23. The 'many' people that God is referring to here might not be only the well-known false prophets, but also the 'regular' christians who had been deceived into thinking 'just believing is enough to get me into heaven ". Sad thing is, they do not know they are false prophets. They just follow everyone else blindly! And when these christians perform miracles in God's name, Satan was actually performing the miracle. The worser part is they still think they are doing it in the Jesus name and continue to be deceived. The worst part is, its gonna drag more people into their lies after the people watch these miracles! The devil has the most ingeniously evil mind and i bet few people saw this coming.
I hope you see what being a true christian... And being truly forgiven means... Heaven doesn't come cheap...
Next Up: Sin (Part II).
So you really love God but you keep getting tangled in your sins. You want to change. But you just can't seem to do it. Does that mean that God has still forgiven you, since he sees the heart, and there will be no negative effects? Wrong!
Find out why on my next post...
Disclaimer: In my interpretation of Matthew 5:21-23, the interpretation is actually not found in the Bible. But I had a feeling God revealed this to me so I decided to just write it down.
Firestorm thanked jesus at10:03 PM