There is one Savior, One Gospel, One Way to come to the Father. That Way is through Jesus Christ. We must Believe that He is the Son of God, come to earth in the flesh. That He dwelt among men, yet remained without sin. That He freely gave Himself... submitting to death on the cross. That He paid the price for our sins, that we might have access to God the Father through His shed blood. That He arose from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of God in the heavenlies, having put all things under His feet. That He is coming again, to judge the world, and establish His Kindgom on the earth.
This is a wake-up call to the Church in America. Time as we have known it is coming to an end. There is no more time to waster playing games. The lines are being drawn... Choose whom you will serve. Jesus said, "Either make the tree good, or make the tree evil," "you shall be known by your fruit." We are that tree.
God is not interested in what denomination you belong to. God did not establish denominations, men did. God sees all our thoughts. He knows the very intents of our hearts. Nothing is hidden from his all seeing eyes. He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to come to earth as a man and pay the ultimate price that we might be reconciled back to God. The day of reckoning is fast approaching. Lip service isn't going to cut it. Good intentions aren't going to cut it. Each one of us are going to be called to give an account for our own life. What have we done with God's gift to us? Have we accepted Christ with an open heart, or have we cast Him aside and rejected Him? Have we hungered and thirsted to know God with all our heart, mind and soul, or have we turned our back and gone our own way? These are the questions we shall have to answer. Are we ready to do that?
Jesus quoted Isaiah in Matthew 15:7-9 Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. We have not been called to follow men, and to learn their doctrinal creeds.
Matthew 17:5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
Jesus said in John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. We have never needed anything... like we need to know Jesus. Where we will spend all eternity hinges on our relationship with Christ. We cannot know God the Father... any way but through Christ the Son. We can go to great lengths to learn all about God, without ever coming to know God. There is a vast difference between knowing about someone... and having an intimate, personal relationship with that person. Perhaps it would be more to the point to ask, does God know me? Am I clothed in His righteousness? Is my name written down in the Lamb's Book of Life?
The demons know who are of God and who are not. The seven sons of Sceva tried to use the name of Jesus that Paul preached. When they tried to cast the devils out of the possessed man, the devils said, "Jesus we know, and Paul we know, but who are you?" And the possessed man fell upon them and they ran away bruised and bleeding. Though their intentions were probably good, they did not have the authority obtained through a right relationship with God to cast out those demons. And the demons knew it.
We are not going to gain entrance into the Kingdom of God because of some shirt-tail relationship. Just because your cousin's brother-in-law's mother's father was a Christian is not going to help you on the Judgment Day. We must each one of us... take up our own cross... lay down our own life... and follow Jesus in absolute faith and obedience. Whatever may come, never being detoured from the course that He has set before us. We need to search the scriptures for ourselves. We need to ask the Lord to open our eyes that we might see. Not just our physical eyes, but our inner vision, the eyes of our spiritual understanding. We must seek after God that we might Know Him that first loved us, better than we know our own, natural family.
We all need to prayerfully study all that Jesus said. He purposely spoke in parables which are hard for the natural mind to comprehend. We see through the Gospels that when the disciples had the Lord to themselves, they would ask Him what the parables meant. We need to do the same thing. We need to get in our own quiet place, where we won't be distracted by the cares of this world. We need to seek God's face and ask Him to reveal to us all of His words. For His words are life. How are we to live if we don't understand?
Jesus told us in Luke 11:9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. He goes on in this passage to expound... If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
We must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. We have a duty, if you will, to sit at Jesus feet and learn from Him. Not to listen to other voices. It is our responsibility to know what we believe and why we believe it. Many will try to turn us aside from following after our Lord. What we believe, how we live, how we grow, are all things that we will be held accountable for.
1 Timothy 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. It is up to us to fight the good fight of faith, to lay hold on eternal life. Jesus said, "I AM THE WAY, I AM THE TRUTH, I AM THE LIFE." As believers, we have a definite choice to make. Either we choose to believe, without reservation, all that Jesus said, or we reject Jesus' words. This may all be alarming and radical sounding to you if you are in a Church that has told you all God requires is that you say a sinner prayer; that Jesus paid the price and your place in heaven is a done deal. I can understand your confusion. That's why I said this is a wake-up call. Now, as never before in the history of mankind, we need to be on the alert.
If you think what I've said is wrong, then by all means go to your Bible and find out for yourself. Don't take anyone else's word for it, go straight to the source. Ask the LORD. He will show ou, for He has promised He would. As He said to the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:15-20
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
