SALVATION

“Are you sure of your Salvation?” – R Nelson

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So, they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Acts 16:30-31

ENCOURAGING WORD:

So often throughout my walk with Jesus Christ, I encounter those that would say, “How can I be so bold as to say that you are going to heaven?” The answer is really quite simple, the Bible tells me that I can know that I am saved. The Bible verse above makes it crystal clear that you can know that you are saved, and it tells you why you can know that you are saved. If I had to rely on my own good works for my salvation, then there would be no way that I could say that I was saved nor could I say that I might be saved. We read in Luke 7:50; “And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction.” Jesus told this woman that her faith has made her well, He did not say anything about her good works. The Jesus that I believe in took my sins upon Himself about two thousand years ago and nailed then to a cross therefore paying for all my sins. We read the following verses in 1 Corinthians 15:2-4; “by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,”This is the gospel in nut shell. If you truly believe that which is written above, you can be sure of your salvation. If you do not know the Jesus that saves, then it is obvious that your pastor or priest has not introduced you to Him. The Jesus that I know is big enough to take all my sins and wash them away by His precious blood that He shed on the cross on my behalf. If you feel that Jesus Chris cannot remove your sins, and you need to add good works for the remission of your sins, then you have the wrong Jesus. Here is what Jesus said in Ephesians 2:8; “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Jesus tells us that it is not by good works, otherwise we would boast. When it says, “Lest anyone should boast” it is saying that God will not let anybody earn their way into heaven because then they would have the right to boast about it. If you know how much God hates pride, then you would know that there is nothing that you can do to inherit salvation. We, as a human race have the tendency to boast about everything that we can do and what we have. Grace is a free gift that cannot be earned, it can only be accepted by the one to whom it is offered too.

We read in Titus 3:4-5; “But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,” The Bible tells us over and over and over again that salvation is by grace, not by works, but yet the main denominations of Christianity teach salvation by works. I can tell you by the written authority of the Bible, that if you think you can be saved by good works, you will hear these awful words at the White Throne Judgement; Matthew 7:21-23; “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” The next question you may ask is this, what is the will of the Father, I am glad that you asked. John 6:29 answers that question, “Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” Let me ask you another question, does it say anything about good works? Works does not play a role in being saved, but it plays a huge role once you are saved.

The next question that may be asked is this, “you mean if I believe on Jesus Christ, then I can still sin? Let me show you what the Apostle Paul has to say about that, Romans 6:1-2; “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbids. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” Once you have truly accepted Jesus Chris as your personal Lord and Savior, then you will begin to see a change within your soul and the way that you live your life. You will resist any willful act of sin. But with that being said, we will all still sin because we are still under the curse of sin, but we will not continue living a sinful lifestyle if we truly believe. If we continue to live a life style that is an abomination to God, then it is obvious that our conversion to Christianity is in vain like it says in the Bible verse above, “Unless you believed in vain!” James says it like this, James 2:14-17; “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus, also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” This verse gets all fumbled up because people do not read the rest of James. If you read this verse and take it at face value, then you might get the impression that good works will help get you to heaven. Very dangerous theology, and this is where we get the saying, “how can you be so bold as to think you are going to heaven? “If you are truly saved then good works with be evident in your walk with Jesus Christ! Stop putting the carriage before the horse as they say. You are saved by grace and grace alone, then good works will naturally follow if it is a true conversion. If good works do not follow, then your statement of faith is in vain.

Another extremely dangerous doctrine that is circulating around the world today is that all roads lead to the heaven. This is another lie of Satan from the pit of hell. We read in Acts 4:12; “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” You may say, that is fine for you, but I am not a Christian and I have my own beliefs. You may belong to another religion such as Islam or Hinduism or some other religion of the world. The God of the universe which is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the only true God. Jesus Christ is the only Savior of the world. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. We read this absolute truth back in Isaiah 9:6 where tells us, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.” Every religion of the world fails to acknowledge Jesus Christ as God almighty and the everlasting Father. Every prophet of all the religions of the world have died and still remain in their graves, only Jesus Christ died and then rose from the dead. His tomb is empty because He is at the right hand of the Father making intersession for us, His true born-again believers.

There is a sad reality within the circles of Christianity that fail to tell you that God cannot accept sinful man into His kingdom, therefore sin has to be dealt with or you will spend eternity separated from God which leaves only one more option. No other person that walked this earth lived a perfect sinless life and then took your sins and mine and nailed them to a cross, therefore paying for our sins and giving us complete access into Gods kingdom. We read in Colossians 1:13-14; “For He (Jesus) rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” There are so many verses in the scriptures that make it very clear that salvation is by faith through grace. Here is another verse that makes it very clear, Titus 3:4-7; “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, (not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness,) but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.” Paul also tells us this in Galatians 5: 4-5; “You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.”

ACTION POINT:

Back to the ordinal reason for this post. We read this verse in 1 John 5:13; “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” Please read this again and again until you hear the words, “you may know.” It doesn’t, so you may hope, or you may think, it says “YOU MAY KNOW!!! If you do not believe what the Bible teaches, then you will never know if you are saved or not. The chances are that you do not know Jesus Christ on a personal level and remember, Christianity is not a religion, Christianity is a relationship with Jesus Christ. Do you have religion, or do you have Jesus Christ, they are exclusively separate in so many ways. Until you read the Bible and let the Holy Spirit take you through the scriptures, you will never understand the differences. We are living in a world of uncertainty and that includes the watering down of the Bible and the teaching of false doctrine. The problem is this, you are most likely trusting in your religion for salvation and that is very dangerous. Know this, a lot of false doctrine is coming straight from the pulpits of America. God gave us the following verse so we would be aware of what to watch for before the return of Jesus Christ. 1 Timothy 4:1; “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons,” How do you know for sure that you are not falling into these doctrines if you do not read the Bible yourself? You need to know the truth before it is too late. But as I always say, it is your choice. I made that choice twenty-five years ago to search the scriptures for myself and I praise God every day for revealing to me the truth of His Word. I just wish I would have done this fifty years ago. I wasted forty years of my life serving the flesh when I could have been serving Jesus Christ, but thank God, He loves me so much that he took care of me even through some pretty immoral years of living because He knew that one day I would chose to serve Him. I hope one day soon you can say the same and when someone asks you if you are going to heaven, you can say, absolutely, yes” “Written To the glory of God, Inspired by the Holy Spirit!”

From our Chaplin-R. Fritz

Are you sure of your Salvation

We want everybody to be saved, but it is clear that is not going to happen. Yes, we are saved by “grace.” We choose to be saved. We can choose to obey him. We can also make that choice and go back to our sinful nature. We will choose our fate by our actions. God gave us unconditional Love, but did he give us unconditional salvation is the question to all. We should have changed from the sinful nature after we are saved. People will see if your words and actions match. Hebrews 6:4-6,8,11-12 says “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall “fall away,” to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned. And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end: That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” This is talking about if you fall away or walk away after you have known and felt the heavenly gift and have experienced the Holy Ghost and God’s word, you must repent and die to yourself. This also goes back to the parable of the sower that Jesus talked about where the seed was on stony ground or received seed among the thorns, stony ground refers to the word will not root in yourself and grow because of tribulation or persecution and thorny ground is where you hear the word and the cares of this world choke out the word. This is where the thorns and briars are removed and burned. This it is talking about the evil ones who are removed and burned. (not God’s people). It also talks about showing diligence and the assurance of hope unto the “end.” We can lose our salvation by walking away from him and going back to our old self or worse and staying where you are, till you die, but to gain it back requires repentance again (meaning to turn from sin). We have to follow Jesus and obey him to the end, and not when “we” have time on our schedule. If the Holy Ghost is indwelled in you and, you would think it being very hard for you to give up on yourself and Jesus Christ. It is a choice to live a righteous life or a sinful life and after choosing Jesus at some point down the road if you receive the Holy Ghost, you can overcome that sinful nature. I am not saying we have to be sinless, there was only one Jesus Christ. Hebrews 10:38-39 says “Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draws back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition (destruction); but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” This is where people that move away from God are moving closer to destruction. Faith is what is keeping people away from sin and God giving “grace” when he chooses to add to your faith till death. The Lord will judge the heart and will say to some in Matthew 7:22-23 and this is Jesus speaking “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in my name? and in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Why would Jesus say this to these people who believed they had done well? The answer is they had no relationship with Jesus and did what they thought Jesus wanted. No faith and without that relationship spiritually he did not know them. The spiritual relationship is what saves people and obedience to God and his word.

 The problem is Satin, and his demons are very vigilant also. You have to study the bible and have the Holy Ghost indwell in you for that wisdom to see what Satin is really doing. 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” Let me tell you Satin is not playing games and with his time running out is doing his best to try to get you back to the old you and follow him to Hell. We have to remember that following with the crowd is probably the wide road to destruction. We have to know our enemy and study our enemy. Our God still has him on a leash, only certain things are allowed for Satin to do. Read about Job, God knew Job was a righteous man and proved it to Satin with Satin trying Job, but He could not kill him. Look around the world and see what is going on with the pandemic and what we see people doing that are divided on everything. They cannot agree on nothing. Some of God’s people doing the worldly things and not focusing on Jesus are not praying and getting their marching orders, they are doing the things they think God wants them to do. These are the spiritual battles going on. You need the Holy Ghost indwelled in you to see the spirits in people stirred up by Satin that are actually conducting his plan, not knowing really what they are doing. It is time for me to lay this out, so people are praying for the people being used unknowingly. Some of the things I know are spiritually deep for a lot of people. It is now all hands-on deck, meaning I am putting my spiritual knowledge out and them that understand what I am saying need to act and pray for what the Lord wants you to do. Philippians 2:12 says “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. This is an ongoing process that we need to work on up till our death which we can choose to lose or with the “Grace” of God choose to be with him eternally. The Holy Spirit is constantly trying to make us a better person plus get rid of the things that are not Godly or help us deal with issues he wants to deal with. The other question is are you “Born Again” which is a requirement to enter the kingdom of God. See John 3:3-8. I will talk about that at a different time. If we truly “LOVE” JESUS, we will obey him. There is no unconditional salvation just unconditional “LOVE.” I pray each and every person that reads this, studies out what I’m saying and studies about the Holy Ghost so that you can be indwelled with it.