Leadership
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE As A Member OR Visitor
Message Writer
Hire Writer
Report Article
CHARACTERISTICS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF SALVATION
Many professed Christians in the world today misunderstand the meaning of the “New Birth” and some consider Christianity as one of the world religions. Christianity is a life-giving relationship with the only true and living God who has made Eternal life possible as a gift through the death of His son Jesus Christ. It is because of God’s great love for us that He provided this gift of mercy, made possible through the inward working of the Holy Spirit. Again, we must emphasize that this new Birth cannot be earned by doing the best that we can. Romans 3:23 clearly states the fact that “all have sinned and come short of the glory, God”.
Receiving this gift of eternal life is more than believing facts about Christ. The fact of inward sin and corruption is one that we must face and recognize as true and this sin is a violation of God’s absolute Holiness. Our sin is against God. God uses guilt to cause us to face our sin. When we have the presence of guilt that is God’s way to bring us back and find forgiveness. It is the Holy Spirit who causes us to have guilt. Only God can forgive our sin and remove our guilt. If we try to cover our guilt by making excuses, trying to forget them, or by blaming others, that will not do. Only if we turn to God is forgiveness possible. When we turn to God and call to Him in sincerity He will forgive and remove our sin and remember them no more. When we receive God’s forgiveness, all our past sin is removed and we are clean. It is somewhat like the clean feeling you get after you take a shower. That is how being “Born Again” happens. Once we are cleansed, the Holy Spirit now living in us creates a hunger for reading and understanding God’s word and helps us to say “No” to sin, creating in us a desire to not return to that former way of living.
God is loving, and forgiving, merciful, long-suffering, and looks compassionately upon all men whether they return His love or reject it. God loves all men but because He is holy, He cannot tolerate sin. Sin is like a bad infection in the presence of God. If sin were allowed in Heaven, all of Heaven would be corrupted. Sin must be punished. But God forgives men when they forsake their evil practices. To sum this up, GOD HATES SIN but GOD LOVES MAN.
As the year's pass and men continue to resist the grace of God, their hearts become hardened toward God and the more difficult it becomes to turn from their sin. But God is not hindered by man’s stubbornness. Sometimes the greatness of their sin makes it easier for guilt to do its work. The hardness of man’s heart is no match for the great love of God. The book of Isaiah is a good example of the Prophet preaching to a people whose ears are blocked and whose heart is hardened. Yet as the book goes on, we see these gracious words from God that say “and His hand is still outstretched”. (Isaiah 9: 17, 21, 10:4, 14:27) This same prophet declares that man is sick from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.” (Isaiah 1:6) This describes the total corruption of man without Christ. On his own, he is unable to please God or do anything to earn salvation. It is my prayer for you, that God through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, will open your eyes to understand His word and find salvation and deliverance from your sin.
Before one can receive and understand the good news of salvation, he must first understand the bad news. The bad news is that without the inward presence of the Holy Spirit, the best that man can do in understanding is to reason it out logically. What I mean by that is, the presence of the Holy Spirit helps us to see and understand the things of God. In John chapter 3 when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, He said to him first, “except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God”. The word “see”, describes his understanding. Paul the apostle also said in first Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14 “but the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can they know them for they are spiritually discerned”. What that means is the Holy Spirit gives proper understanding to the un-intended meaning of God’s word. Jesus, in instructing his disciples concerning the Holy Spirit said that He will guide you into truth and teach you all things. Without the presence of the Holy, Spirit man is on his own to understand the things of God. On his own, he is in darkness and does not have the capacity to understand spiritual truth. The presence of the Holy Spirit is like turning on a light and helping us to see things that we could never understand on our own. So, the first stage in understanding the things of God is to be “Born Again.” I am now cleansed from my sin and enabled by the Holy Spirit to not only understand but also to do those things which are required. Simply put, The Holy Spirit turns the light on.
The Holy Spirit always keeps God’s word in its context. Sometimes men try to figure out what the Bible says by using verses in a scattered way, but the only way you can understand the Scriptures properly is in their setting or context. Most misunderstanding of what the Bible teaches comes from removing verses out of their intended setting and then we are left to try to interpret what the verses mean. In their setting, Scripture always makes the best sense and we get to find out not only what God says but also what God means by what He says. Amen.
PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE AS A MEMBER OR VISITOR
This article has been read 483 times < Previous | Next >
Free Reprints
Main Site Articles
Most Read Articles
Highly Acclaimed Challenge Articles.
New Release Christian Books for Free for a Simple Review.
NEW - Surprise Me With an Article - Click here for a random URL
God is Not Against You - He Came on an All Out Rescue Mission to Save You
...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them... 2 Cor 5:19
Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Acts 13:38
LEARN & TRUST JESUS HERE
FaithWriters offers Christian reading material for Christian readers. We offer Christian articles, Christian fiction, Christian non-fiction, Christian Bible studies, Christian poems, Christian articles for sale, free use Christian articles, Christian living articles, New Covenant Christian Bible Studies, Christian magazine articles and new Christian articles. We write for Jesus about God, the Bible, salvation, prayer and the word of God.