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how it works

TITLE: Ouch! | Previous Challenge Entry
By Doug Laird
06/10/25
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Little can be as comforting and reassuring, or as painfully piercing, as the truth.

The truth is the truth if everyone or if no one chooses to believe it.

Facing the negative truth about ourselves and or our circumstances is the beginning of all positive change, but facing the truth can be a painfully humbling, and upsetting experience.

The “You are HERE…” maps along the trails and posted throughout amusement parks point out the visitors’ present location, and the route they must take to reach their next destination.

In the same way, the unadulterated Gospel Message, encapsulated in John 3: 16, 18, informs us as to where we are at the moment in our relationship with God, and what is required of us if Heaven is going to be our eternal home.

Scripture (1) assures the born-again believer of the eternal security of his or her salvation. Satan, and those who do his bidding, raise doubts in the minds of weak believers.

The unadulterated truth brings comfort, peace, and reassurance about where he or she is going when life here on Earth comes to an end.

At the same time, the unadulterated Gospel Message can be disturbing, piercing through to the very core of the soul of an unsaved soul, forcing him or her into having to make a decision that will determine where he or she will be spending all of eternity.

Disturbing, because up to that point in time, the concept of eternity, that God places in every soul that He creates (3), had either been rejected or thought to have been addressed through the means of his or her chosen religion.

In the natural realm, while a patient is under general anesthesia, surgeons can cut deep into body without the patient feeling what would otherwise be excruciating pain.

In the spiritual realm, a person under the influence of the arrogant, ignorant, hostile sin nature, cannot feel the piercing impact of the unadulterated Gospel Message, unless he or she has been prepared to do so by the pre-salvation ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

We can choose to be more or less moral, immoral, religious, irreligious, at any time we want. But we can only be born-again and saved in response to the calling of God when the unadulterated Gospel Message is presented to us.

It is He who makes it understandable (4), but the choice to believe (or not) is on us.

God desires that every soul be saved, but no unsaved soul knows when he or she has had his or last opportunity to respond.
. . .
As a result of the Fall of Man, we ALL come into this world with a physically alive body that has an expiration date (5); a soul that has everlasting life, having been created in God’s never-ending likeness (6), that is destined to spend ALL of eternity in ONE of two diametrically opposed locations and environments (7); and with a spirit that is dead, in need of regeneration (8).

Once born-again, we are forever saved, sealed, and regenerated. The issue of or salvation is a done deal, but our post (salvation) spiritual life of Biblical discipleship has only just begun.

Here in the devil’s world (9) things are not what they appear to be. The man-made institutions and facilities of religion are no exception.

They ALL offer their followers what THEY consider to be the means to make themselves right with the one THEY identify as God/god (10), and the means to qualify to receive earthly and eternal blessings.

But Jesus declared, “… I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14: 6 NASB2020).”

This absolute truth eliminates all other “gods” and all other means of salvation.

Even WITHIN the Christian Community, the different denominations and non-denominational groups have different ideas about how one makes and keeps oneself right with God

However, Biblical Christianity is not about what WE do (or have done) through human/religious activity.
It is about trusting in what God has done, is doing, and will do in, and through, those who believe.

Just as it took the piercing truth of the unadulterated Gospel Message to make the path of salvation clear, it will be the piercing truth of Church Age Bible Doctrine that will clear the path along the road to spiritual maturity, and will produce a successful post salvation spiritual life.

(1) Rom. 8: 1 (2) John 8: 32 (3) Eccl. 3: 11 (4) 1Cor. 2: 14 (5) Gen. 3: 19 (6) Gen. 1: 27 (7) 2Cor. 5: 8/Rev. 15 (8) Titus 3: 5 (9) Luke 4: 6 (10) Psalms 96: 5

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