sin

Why Should We Follow Jesus?

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

The question has been asked, What is the point in being a follower of Jesus?

It is a valid question and deserves a good answer. 

After all, who is this Jesus who came along 2000 years ago? Recorded history tells us that He showed up thousands of years after people had already been worshipping God.

This is a hard question, to be sure. For the answer, we must turn to the Bible, which is the inspired word of God. 

The Bible is not a single book, but actually 66 books written over a period of approximately 1500 years by around 40 different authors.

Let’s take a look at John 14:6-7 for the answer to our question. 

As it happens, Jesus was answering a question from one of His disciples about following Him.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

These are bold words, but if we’re serious about seeking God and serving him, we must take them to heart. 

If there truly is just one way to God—and Jesus is it— then we must become one of His followers.

To do otherwise is to risk our eternal destiny. If we’re wrong, then we’ve lost nothing. But if we’re right, then we stand to gain much. I’ve written about this before in another post.

Just a few verses before the ones above, Jesus says,

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

John 14:3

Jesus wants us with Him. He already has a place picked out in Heaven for every one of His believers.

And just so he’s clear and there’s no confusion—with some 4300 different religions in the world by one estimate—He tells us exactly how to get to God, and it’s through Him.

So, what do we need to do to become a follower of Jesus?

First of all, we must understand our need for Him. 

Romans 3:23 tells us,

For all [emphasis mine] have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 6:23 explains the penalty for our sins as well as our reward for following Jesus: 

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 10:9 tells us how to accept Jesus into our lives and be forgiven of our sins:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

The final step is crucial. Find a good, Bible-believing church and tell the pastor that you have accepted Jesus into your life. Ask to be baptized and begin attending the church.

In Acts 2:38, Peter the apostle says,

Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

While baptism itself does not save you, it does represent our death and rebirth in Jesus. Likewise, church attendance is not mandatory for salvation, but Christians go to church to worship God and associate with other believers.

So, to answer our original question about following Jesus…

Jesus is our pathway to God. He is the only way to be forgiven of our sins, become reconciled with the Father, and experience eternal life with Him.

For me, that’s reason enough. What about you?

Is Sin Holding You Back?

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

Some of us (myself included) really need to sit down and take a hard look at our lives. 

The reason? Sin that we’ve been holding on to. For many of us, we choose to keep committing the same sin or sins over and over, even though we know they’re wrong.

It could be something as seemingly innocent as passing along gossip, or it could be something worse. Even though in God’s eyes, sin is sin.

The problem is, God can’t bless us fully whenever we’re knowingly and willfully sinning against Him. He would love to unlock his full blessings on our lives, but our stubborn hearts are too rebellious to handle what He would give to us.

Instead, we have to settle for a second-best kind of existence, where we’re only receiving part of what God would have for us.

What’s more, we often blame God when we’re in this situation. I know, because I’ve done it far too often myself.

We wonder why we don’t feel God moving in our lives and wonder why things aren’t going better for us in one or more areas of our lives.

The reason is that we are hurting ourselves by holding onto sin.

That’s why we must look deeply into our lives—our habits, our interactions with others, our attitude toward God, and just our daily lives in general. If we do, we may find the source of many of our problems.

Is there a sin that you struggle with over and over?

Maybe you’re cold-hearted toward your spouse when you should instead be a helpmate to them.

Are you being dishonest at work and not putting in a full effort for your employer?

Are you being wasteful with your money and not tithing and giving offerings?

It could be anything. The thing is to be aware of this besetting sin and wipe it out of your life so that you can grow closer to God.

The closer we are to Him, the more He can bless our lives to do His work here on earth.

When we are doing the work He has planned in advance for us to do (Eph. 2:10), we’ll be happier, our lives will be fuller and richer, and we’ll be less tempted to sin.

Choose the One True Pathway to God

/ Clay D. / 1 Comment

You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

Gal. 5:4

Many of us who call ourselves Christians are simply not living like it. That’s the only way to put it. We’re doing our best to live a so-called Christian life by saying the right things, doing the right things, going to church, and even serving others. 

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with any of these things. We’re called to live a life as holy as possible once we have invited Christ into our lives.

However, these things don’t make us Christians. We are completely unable to save ourselves through our actions. 

It is only through the blood of Jesus that we can claim salvation and freedom. When He died on the cross and then rose from the dead three days later, he laid the groundwork for our salvation. 

We must remember this when we’re going about our daily activities. We’re going to sin—that much is for sure. 

But we must also be certain that no amount of good deeds can ever help us get to Heaven. We’re not going to be closer to God the better we behave. 

In fact, if we’ve accepted Christ as our Savior, we’re as close to the Father as we can get. We’re brothers and sisters of Jesus and children of God.

Just because I donate money to a Christian organization or volunteer my time at a non-profit doesn’t mean that I’m earning brownie points with God.

Everything was already settled when I asked Jesus into my life. I can live confidently in that fact for the rest of my life. 

So, the next time I’m feeling good about something I’ve done—and maybe a little prideful about it—I need to stop and thank God for my salvation in Christ. 

I know it is only through His grace that I am saved and it isn’t as a result of any actions I’ve taken.

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.

Gal. 6:15

All the glory goes to Him and I am thankful that He loves me enough that He sent His son to die for my salvation.

This salvation is for you as well. If you have not accepted Christ as your Savior and received forgiveness for your sins, there’s no better time to do it than now.

Invite Him into your heart and become justified in the Father’s eyes through Christ. It will be the best decision you’ve ever made.

Now Is the Time For Eternity

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There’s really nothing more important than salvation and our eternal destiny. If we really stop and think about it, it’s horrifying to picture someone cut off from God forever, lost and suffering in hell. It’s almost too awful even to imagine it—the thought of eternal suffering with no end in sight.

As humans, we cannot fathom eternity. Even if we live a long life by human standards, most of us would be fortunate to see a century of life on this earth. This length of time in no way compares to eternity. We have no experience that can give us an inkling of what that is like.

But when I begin to think about eternity, I don’t want anyone to suffer for that duration. And I don’t believe God wants that either.

That’s why He sent Jesus, his Son, to be our Savior. He made a way for us, His creation, so that we might live with Him forever. He did that because He loves us, even though we are imperfect sinners.

We don’t really deserve God’s mercy and love, because of all the wrong things we do each day. Yet, he loves us anyway, despite our flaws. 

Because of Jesus’ human birth, death, and resurrection, we have access to God’s saving grace. Jesus paid the penalty for all our sins once and for all when he was crucified mercilessly on the cross 2000 years ago. 

If you’ve never accepted this grace, then now is the perfect time to do so. All you have to do is believe that Jesus is Lord over all and came in the flesh, invite Him into your heart as your Savior, repent of your sins, and ask Him to help you live a sin-free life.

Then, find a Bible-believing church to become a part of and get baptized as a sign of your renewed life. It will be the best decision of your life. You’ll then be a believer in Christ and can rest easy at night knowing that your eternal destiny is sealed.

Becoming a Christian won’t make all your trials and challenges magically disappear, as many times in the Bible we’re told that we’re likely to suffer for the sake of Jesus if we’re his disciples. 

But you’ll have the reassurance that God is with you every step of the way, through the good times and the bad.

I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Heb.13:5b

What could be better than that?

With God on our side, life can be a wonderful adventure each day, no matter what we’re faced with.

So, go ahead, make the decision to let Jesus be Lord of your life. There’s no better time to do it than now.

Can You Lose Your Salvation?

/ Clay D. / 1 Comment

Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels

Do you believe in “Once saved, always saved?”

Most people probably come down firmly on one side or the other of this age-old debate.

Either you believe that once you’ve accepted Christ and His salvation, you can never be lost again—and consequently never end up in Hell after you die; or you believe that it’s possible for a Christian to lose their salvation if they fall away from God.

I’ll say up front that this is a complex issue and not one that I’m going to resolve in just a few words here.

Many books have been written on this subject, and yet the issue is still debated fiercely. Nothing I write is going to resolve that.

However, I do believe that there’s a workaround to the question.

The issue in the debate is whether it’s possible for a person who has genuinely accepted Christ to fall away from God.

Since I don’t have an answer to that question, the smart thing seems to be to never fall away.

Accept Christ and His grace every day. Acknowledge you’re a sinner, but do all you can to stay away from sin. Ask God for help overcoming besetting sins, or sins that you continually struggle with.

Renew your commitment to Jesus every day. Walk in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. After all, He is the one who convicts us of our need for Christ. Never give God a reason that He might be inclined to cut you off.

I’m not saying He would or He wouldn’t rescind your salvation if you are a professing Christian, but since the question has been so hotly debated for so long, why take any chances?

Stay far away from anything that might put your eternal security in jeopardy.

Photo by Malcolm Lightbody on Unsplash

This argument is no different than the one evangelists have used with non-believers for over 2000 years. 

It’s like a believer saying, “If I’m right and you’re wrong, you’re in big trouble when you die. However, if you’re right and I’m wrong, then you’ve lost nothing. Therefore, it makes sense to believe in Christ’s saving power while you still can.”

So, following this logic, the best thing would be to assume that there’s a chance you could lose your salvation.

Therefore, keep your hands out of the tiger cage as it were by staying far away from sin.

You’ll be just fine if you do and you’ll have nothing to worry about. While the rest of Christendom argues over this question, you can rest easy, knowing your salvation is intact.

What could be better than that?

You Can’t Out-Sin God’s Forgiveness

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If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9

As believers in Christ, we’ll never be outside of God’s forgiveness. 

Think about that for a minute…

There’s nothing we can do that God will not forgive us for—so long as we’ve trusted Jesus for our salvation.

That’s the key. Without Jesus, there is no forgiveness. 

Instead, there’s a great gulf between God and us because no one is able to completely keep all tenets of the law that God gave to His people. 

That’s the reason for Jesus. God the Father knew that man doesn’t have the ability to follow the law completely, keeping even the smallest detail without sinning. As we’re told in James 2:10:

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

It doesn’t matter if we tell a so-called “white lie,” or if we’ve killed someone, guilty is guilty. 

However, the good news is that Jesus’ death and resurrection puts us right with God. God, being eternally just and good, couldn’t go back on the law He created, so He sent Jesus to fulfill the law. 

Through His crucifixion and subsequent rise from the grave, Jesus became the first fruits of all of us who believe in Him. All we have to do is believe in the lordship of Jesus and that He died and rose from the grave to pay for our sins. 

It’s that simple. Our works won’t get us into Heaven. Instead, our faith does. 

So, going back to forgiveness…once we become followers of Jesus, we have God’s complete forgiveness no matter how badly we mess up. All we have to do is repent and confess our sins and we can be confident that we have God’s forgiveness.

How great is that!

So, if you haven’t trusted your eternal destiny to Jesus yet, that’s the first thing you need to do. Your life will never be the same afterward. Take a moment now to invite Jesus into your heart.

Then you can rest easy, knowing that there’s nothing standing between you and fellowship with God.

Of course, as followers of Christ, we should want to avoid sin. However, being human, we will invariably fall short. When we do, thanks to Jesus we can know with confidence that we have God’s forgiveness. 

That should give each of us peace of mind!

Why Is It So Hard to Cast Our Anxieties on God?

/ Clay D. / 1 Comment

“…casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

1 Pet. 5:7

Take a moment to really think about what this verse is telling us to do. It is literally commanding us to give our anxieties and cares to God our Father because He loves us deeply and doesn’t want us weighed down with the burdens of life. 

You might wonder exactly how we’re supposed to do that, given that every person reading this is bombarded with anxiety after anxiety daily. There’s no escape from it in our hurried, frantic way of life. 

Even in slower, more laid-back cultures, there are still ample opportunities for anxiety to creep in. Anxiety and stress are a fact of life on this fallen planet we call home.

I’ll admit that I don’t fully understand how we’re supposed to give God our anxieties. I believe that you have to take this verse (plus the ones immediately before and after it) and read it along with other similar passages such as Philippians 4:4-9, Matthew 6:25-34, and Luke 12:22-31 before you can really start to get a good feel for what God is telling us. 

I’ve been reading and rereading all these verses for years, but I have yet to reach the point where I don’t struggle with anxiety and depression. All too often, I find myself worrying about finances, health, relationships, my career, or any number of other things. 

I have head knowledge about what these verses are saying—that God loves us and doesn’t want us fretting about our basic needs because He’s got it all covered. But somehow that doesn’t always translate into belief in my heart. Yes, I know that’s pathetic. I feel like I should be able to just take God at His word and not let anxiety gain a foothold in my life. 

Maybe it’s just guilt on my part. You know, I feel guilty about being such a lousy example of a Christian that I don’t feel like God’s grace could possibly work for me. 

But feeling this way is actually an insult to God. I’m essentially saying that His grace and forgiveness are not strong enough or good enough to penetrate my sin and make me clean in His eyes. 

However, I know that’s not the case—He sees me as redeemed, thanks to Christ’s death and resurrection and my belief in these two events. 

Maybe it’s hard for me to give my anxiety to God because of lingering questions. I mean, why do we have to cast our anxiety on Him? Why can’t He just swoop down with His big hand and snatch them all away from us once and for all?

That is a question for which I definitely do not have an answer. I can only guess. Perhaps it’s once again because we live in a fallen world and He chooses to abide by the effects of sin upon us humans. 

There are many evils and ills that He could rescue us from on a daily basis, but he doesn’t because our sentence is to live in a world full of sin and decay. Anxiety and depression are just two of those results of our fallen nature. 

He does, however, give us the means to lift ourselves out of the pit of despair by telling us over and over in the Bible not to be anxious, worried, and fearful. 

Perhaps the more sinful we are as individuals, the harder it is for us to remain anxiety-free. The more we lean on God and strive to obey Him, the easier it becomes to live a life brimming over with joy and happiness.

These are all just guesses—I’m no theologian; this is just me putting my thoughts into coherent words. 

Does anybody else have any thoughts on these issues?

Time to Cross Over

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Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

John 5:24

Many of you reading this may have seen this passage as the verse of the day in the YouVersion bible app recently. 

I’ll admit that even though I usually read the verse of the day every day, I often skim over it without giving it much thought.

However, there was something about this verse that caught my eye and caused me to reread it several times, even comparing it in different translations. 

It was the phrase “passed from death to life.”

It made me stop and think about its real meaning. If we take the bible literally, this passage tells us that we have actually transformed from dead creatures to live creatures. 

We’ve “passed” as several translations word it. The NIV uses the phrase “crossed over.” Either term implies that there’s no going back. 

We’ve either passed from one phase of existence to another, or we’ve crossed over (as in crossing a river or ravine) and the past is forever behind us. 

The words create a picture of a definite action, or a movement, from one place to another place—like walking through a doorway to which there’s no turning back.

It implies security, like once we believe in Jesus, we have this new life and can never ever lose it. It’s final and permanent. 

And yes, I’m aware there is a great debate over “once saved always saved,” but I’m avoiding that whole discussion for now.

As significant and powerful as the words “passed” or “crossed over” are in this verse, there was something more that struck me.

It’s the phrase “eternal life.”

As Christians, we no longer must face the end of life when our bodies cease to function.

We are fully alive now—and will be forever.

All we have to do is hear God’s word and believe Him, the One who sent Jesus, and we’ll have this eternal life. Again…that’s forever and ever. 

Have you ever really stopped to think about what forever means? And it’s not just “a mighty long time” as Prince sings. 

Forever means there’s no end to our lives.

We can spend 10 years or even 1,000,000 years in God’s presence and that doesn’t even begin to approach what eternity encompasses (although I don’t believe that we’ll have the same concept of time there as we do in our earthly bodies).

I personally cannot truly comprehend all that eternity represents. As humans, I’m not sure any of us can. We’ve never experienced anything that was eternal. 

No matter how long we’ve been alive, we can only measure our existence in terms of decades—and that comes nowhere close to eternity.

And to gain this eternal life, all we have to do is accept God at His word, that He sent His son Jesus (who is fully God) to earth in human form so He could die to pay the price for our sins. 

That’s it. There are no works involved, as some people who call themselves Christians would have you believe. It’s all through faith in God’s saving grace.

What’s more is that God wants each and every one of us to have this life. “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

How could anyone turn down this offer? 

If you haven’t made the decision to believe God on His word, do it today…and make today the first day of your new eternal life.

God Understands

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I was lying in bed last night preparing to fall asleep and praying, like I often do. I was trying to figure out my actions of the day. I’d gotten angry about circumstances and lashed out at my wife and daughter – twice each. I’d felt bad after the first time for each, of course, but that didn’t seem to stop me from doing it again later.
As I prayed, I was trying to explain it all to God. My actions, my thoughts on my actions and what motivated them.
Then I realized I didn’t have to “explain” anything to God. He understands me much better than I ever could myself. He made me. Nothing I could ever say to Him would help Him understand my situation any better. My explanation to Him is really only for my benefit, kind of like talk therapy.
Anything I can think about anything is far below His infinite knowledge. He is, was, and will be – forever. As a mere human—a creation—we will by definition always be less than the creator. We can never see, know, or experience more than the One who created us.
That is very freeing to think about. When I turn to God after sinning (like last night), I don’t have to have all the answers. I just have to go to Him and seek His forgiveness. He understands what the human experience is like, so I don’t have to fill Him in on the details.
Plus, as one of the billions of people who have walked this earth, I’m sure I’m not the first to struggle with these exact feelings. The confusion. The turmoil. The frustration of failing over and over to live the life that I should. Countless others have been through it before.
And God understands.
I will fail again. I can count on that. I’ll let God down and let myself down. But it’s nice knowing that He’s always there to pick me up afterward.

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God’s Judgment, God’s Love

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Symbol of scales is made of stones on the cliff

To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you…And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” (Gen. 3:16-17).

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love (1 John 4: 7-8).

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I recently listened to a podcast in which pastor Greg Laurie commented that God is a happy God. His statement caught me a little off guard — I’ve never thought of God as happy.

My earliest childhood conception of God was of a man clothed in white, with long white hair and white beard, sitting in a control booth of sorts in the sky, watching carefully over His creation. In front of him was a panel with hundreds of small buttons that he was furiously but thoughtfully pushing one after another, so that just the right thing at the right time in the right place would happen to the right people in just the right way. After all, that was His job — running the universe and calling the shots.

I never thought of Him as loving or intimately involved with the humans He had created. The God in the control booth actually seemed rather aloof to me now that I think back on it (of course, I didn’t know what aloof meant when I was five years old).

As I got a little older and began reading the bible on my own, God began to seem like more of a judge to me — a big, huge Judge-in-the-Sky ready to pronounce sentence on anyone he saw misbehaving (see the verse from Genesis above).

Love? That didn’t seem to be what God was all about. He was surely too busy telling all the birds which way direction to fly and managing thunder and lightning to be concerned with much else. How could He find time to love and nurture us?

Why have I always struggled with this particular image of God while others see Him only as loving and kind, like a good earthly father?

I’ve actually been pondering this question for some time now. Of course, in reading the New Testament we find numerous verses describing God’s love for us. In particular, we read that He loves us so much that he allowed his only son to die for for our salvation.

Even so, it just never really clicked into place that God loves me personally, that He cares for me, or that He gazes down from Heaven at me with a gleam of love and compassion in His big eye — like my father might have.

Then one day my mind drifted back to my early bible reading days. When I was in elementary school I had a Living Bible my older sister had given me for Christmas. As I pictured that big old bible with its soft, green cover I had a revelation. If I were to go find that bible right now and look at the edges of the pages, I would notice a clear demarcation between the more worn, dirty pages and the cleaner, white pages. That division would be close to the beginning of the bible, somewhere near the latter part of Genesis.

It would be clear from even a quick glance that most of my reading from that bible had been from the very beginning of the scriptures. Over the years each time that I had decided I needed to start reading the bible I started at the beginning, Genesis, just as I would read any other book.

In the beginning is where we find a representation of God not only as Creator, but also “Judge of all the earth” (18:25). Besides the story in the Garden of Eden referenced above, we find the account of the tower of Babel where God disperses the prideful people and confuses their language. We also read how God sends fire to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sin, and He turns Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt because she looks back at the destruction of the two cities.

dinosaurs However, in Genesis perhaps the most powerful image of God as a Judge is found in the account of the great flood. God sees that man has a penchant for wickedness, so He says, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them” (6:7). After reading the story of the flood I vaguely remember wondering how God could kill all of the living creatures on the earth. That seemed so mean and cruel to my young mind.

Furthermore, God’s love is not very well-represented in Genesis. The word “love” is found several times in the book, but only once is the word used of God: “But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love…” (Gen. 29:31a).

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I recently attended a discipleship class led by a very godly man. He exuded peace, and I could tell by talking to him, even briefly, that his walk with God was of utmost importance to him.

During one of the sessions I happened to glance down at his bible. Even sitting several fee away, I couldn’t help but notice that its pages were worn and dirty beginning about 3/4 of the way through, roughly near the beginning of the New Testament. I certainly have no idea of the entire history of his bible reading, but one thing was certain — most of his reading in that bible had been from the New Testament.

I suspect that this man’s underlying image of God is quite different from mine.

I’ve heard new Christians (or those investigating Christianity) told to start reading the bible at John, not Genesis. As a small child, what if I had done the same? As an adult would I now have a significantly different image of God?

I’m betting I would see God as a happy God, just as my discipleship class leader sees Him, and just as Greg Laurie describes Him.