To sin or not to sin, to follow and obey Jesus or to do as you please are your own decisions. Nobody can force you or do it for you.
If you wish to follow Jesus and have the hope of eternal life, you have to do what Jesus requires.
Jesus requires that those who wish to follow Him repent(turn away) form all sin, stop sinning, be baptized in water and live in obedience to His commands(His teachings). You have to obey what Jesus commanded, as it is also recorded in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.Those are the conditions for the hope of salvation.
If you disobey, or only partly obey Jesus Christ, you cannot follow Him and you will not have eternal life, you will not enter His kingdom. Believing in Jesus and confessing that you believe in Him, will not save you, if you do not obey Him.
Infant baptism is invalid. You have to be baptized by your own decision and your own confession of faith in Jesus, or else it is meaningless. Baptism itself does not save you, but disobeying Jesus disqualifies you for entry into heaven.
Baptism is not about the person doing the baptizing but about the person being baptized. Any fellow follower of Jesus can baptize you. It need not be a member of a church or a person ordained by a church organization.
If you want to have salvation you have to follow and obey Jesus all the way, until the end. Have you been baptized after believing in Jesus and repenting of sin?
Many people call themselves Christians but they do not associate with Jesus Christ. They associate with their church. The first thing other believers ask you, is which church you belong to. If you say that you do not belong to a church, you belong to Jesus, then they think there is something wrong with you. Then they do not associate with you. They only associate with their church and members of their church.
When you ask people about their faith in Jesus, they tell you about their church. They are Calvinist, catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Evangelicals but rarely do you meet someone who is a disciple of Jesus. Others have left the church but they are Bible believers. They believe in KJV, NAS, NIV, NLT and other English translations of the Bible. Their confession of faith is a Bible Version, not Jesus Christ. If you tell a Bible believer that you follow Jesus under guidance of the Holy Spirit, they do not associate with you.
Jesus said that if we deny Him before men, He will also deny us before His Father and the holy angels. If our association and confession of faith is a church denomination or a Bible version, then we are certainly not confessing Jesus Christ. Your church denomination or Bible version of choice does not mean anything in the kingdom of God. If we do not follow, obey and confess Jesus Christ, we are certainly not His disciples and He will also deny us entry into heaven.
Do you belong to Jesus? Do you associate with Jesus? Or do you associate with a church denomination or a Bible version?
Repentance means to change your ways, not just your mind. To repent means to turn from your wicked ways and to follow Jesus' Way.
There is only one way to have eternal life and that is to follow and obey Jesus Christ, to follow His example and to obey His commands, His words as also recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
If you accept Jesus and are born again, you will be changed, your life will immediately change. Your desires and your ways will immediately change. You will immediately stop sinning. You will immediately want to be pure and holy, pleasing to Jesus. You will immediately seek to be baptized in water, in obedience to Jesus. You will immediately earnestly desire to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and be led by the Holy Spirit. You will immediately desire to hear His voice and follow Him. You will immediately get rid of your vices, your tobacco, your alcohol, the things that you were addicted to. You will find the movies and most of the things on TV repulsive. You will immediately stop watching pornography. You will stop playing violent video games and stop watching movies, because you will seek truth, not fabels and lies.
You will not be interested in the sports games any more. You will immediately cut off adulterous relationships. You will stop fornicating. If you are born again you will be new inside, clean, pure. You will hate the sins of your past, be ashamed of them. You will change so much that your old friends and unbelieving family will reject you. They will immediately see that you have changed, you are different, you are on a different path, your ways have changed. You will not fit in with your worldly friends any more. You will not run after celebrities any more, you will go after Jesus. You will not fit into your church any more, because you will not be seeking the acceptance and recognition of people any more. You will be seeking the approval of Jesus. You will not seek the guidance and wisdom of men any more. You will seek your guidance and wisdom from Jesus alone.
Have your changed and have your ways changed, since you met Jesus? Or have you not been born again? Have you just become religious? Are you just a sinning believer that is on the same broad road to hell?
You need to change your ways and live in obedience to Jesus until the end, dear friend. If you follow the world you will end up in hell with the world.
Most Christian believers do not understand that salvation is about knowing obeying and following Jesus Christ. It is not religion, it is a relationship with the Living God.
God revealed Himself in and through Jesus Christ who took on the form of a man, to take away the sins of the world and save many from eternal damnation. Jesus saves those who believe in Him and obey His teachings as they were also recorded in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Jesus saves those who accept Him as their Lord and Master, repent, turn from their evil ways, are baptized in water and live in obedience to His teachings. He forgives their past sin, reveals Himself to them, they are born again, made new inside, and He gives His Holy Spirit in them, to teach and guide them and to be with them for ever. If they stay with Him, follow and obey Him until the end, He gives them eternal life. Those who disbelieve, reject and disobey Jesus, will perish in eternal damnation.
Most Christian believers practice religion. They do not obey and follow Him. They do not know Him. They do not have a real relationship with Him. Salvation is not about complying with a set of rules, and performing religious rituals. It is about our relationship with Jesus, obeying and following Him, staying with Him.
Our relationship with Jesus depends on our obedience to Him. If we love Him, we will obey Him and do what He commands. If we sin and disobey Him we destroy our relationship with Jesus.
If we care about our relationship with Jesus, we will be very careful not to disobey Him and not to sin. If we do sin, the only way to restore our relationship with Jesus is to repent of that sin, with remorse and contriteness, to plead His forgiveness, and to make every effort not to do the same sin again.
We have to constantly work on our relationship with Jesus and make sure that we do what is pleasing to Him in everything. The only way that we can grow our relationship with Jesus is through constantly keeping Jesus on our mind, praying, being totally dependent on Him.
In all things we must ask His guidance and obey Him. He will guide and teach us, through His Holy Spirit that He gives in those who love and obey Him.
We have to guard our relationship with Jesus above all things, because without Jesus we have no hope, no expectation. Jesus warned that He will say to many Christian believers, when they die:"Go away I never knew you, you workers of wickedness." They will be cast into damnation because they never obeyed and followed Jesus. They never had any relationship with Him. They were just religious.
How is our relationship with Jesus? Do we know obey and follow Jesus? Do we truly know Him and does He know us? Are we guarding our relationship with Jesus?
Believers foolishly like to compare themselves to the people that were written about in the Bible. They point out the mistakes and failures of historic figures and thereby attempt to justify their own sins and shortcomings. That is foolish, because we will not be judge by the lives and examples of others. We will be judged by the words and example of Jesus Christ.
We must live up to and attain to the standard of Jesus Christ to be suitable to enter heaven.
The words and commandments of Jesus are the standard, as He also said: "48There is a judge for the one who rejects Me and does not receive My words: The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. 49I have not spoken on My own, but the Father who sent Me has commanded Me what to say and how to say it."John 12:48,49.
Many believers disregard the words of Jesus and they disobey Him. They like to quote the words fo Paul and the words of other followers of Jesus. Adhering to the words of men will not save us. We have to obey the words of Jesus to have salvation.
Go and read the words of Jesus, (the red letter words in some Bibles), in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Obey those words and live according to the standard and example of Jesus Christ. how He lived. That is what is required of a born again child of God, not what Paul or anybody else said..
The words of Jesus are the words of eternal life, for those who obey Him. Those who disregard and disobey Him will perish. Jesus Christ is the only way. Follow and obey Him only, to have eternal life.
Many believers have been sold on the false rapture gospel. They believe that before the great tribulation comes on the earth, Jesus will take them to heaven so that they can escape tribulation and have a good time in heaven. Further these people believe that they only need to believe in Jesus for salvation and for this privilege of the rapture.
They are deceived.
Jesus never promised to snatch us away before trouble comes. He said He will be with us in trouble. He said that those who endure and stay with Him until the end, through tribulation, they will be saved.
These believers are cowards. They are losers. Most of them can not stop sinning. They don't want to. They want to live their lives for their own pleasure, escape tribulation and enter heaven because they believe in Jesus. That is a false belief, a false gospel.
Jesus does not call us to defeat and escapism. He calls us to action and to victory. He sets us free from the bondage of sin and He calls us to follow Him, to conquer our own flesh, to conquer sin, to conquer satan. He calls us to stand for righteousness and be His witnesses, to work for His kingdom and bring many souls to repentance and obedience to Him, so that they can overcome and be saved from hell.
Heaven is a place for overcomers, not for losers. We read repeatedly in Revelation about the rewards of those who overcove: "To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’Rev. 2:7
"He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death."Rev.2:11
" To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it."Rev.2:17
"He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, TO HIM I WILL GIVE AUTHORITY OVER THE NATIONS; 27AND HE SHALL RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON, AS THE VESSELS OF THE POTTER ARE BROKEN TO PIECES, as I also have received authority from My Father; 28and I will give him the morning star."Rev2:26-28.
‘He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels."Rev.3:5
"He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name." Rev.3:12.
21‘He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. 22‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”Reve.3:21.
Those who do not follow and endure with Jesus until the end, will not enter His kingdom. Cowards, losers, sinners and escapists will not enter heaven.
The only way to overcome is to follow Jesus closely and stay with Him until the end. Are we following Jesus, conquering and overcoming? Will we endure with Him until the end?
No sinners will enter into heaven. Jesus Christ said you must be born again to enter heaven. You must be born again of water and the Spirit of God to be a child of God.
If you are born again, you will be like Jesus. You will not sin, you will obey His teachings and do the will of God. You will be a new person in your old body.
Just the same as Jesus died for sin to save those who believe in Him and obey Him, you will also have to die to sin and live for righteousness and holiness.
In order to be born again you have to give up your right to do you own will, you have to die to self and submit to Jesus, to follow and obey Him so that you can live for Jesus, for the rest of your life. As a token of your commitment to die to self, you need to be baptized in water, to bury the old man of sin, under the water, so that a new man is born out of the water. You have to be born of water.
If you obey Jesus, submit to Him, repent and be baptized in water He promised to baptize you in the Holy Spirit, so that you will be filled with the Spirit, born of the Spirit of God to become a child of God
You need to be born of water and of the Spirit to be born again. The water baptism is done by men, the Holy Spirit baptism is done by God so that you will be a new creation in your old physical body.
It is our obligation to live in obedience to the Holy Spirit that Jesus gives in us, to obey and follow Him, as obedient children of God that are suitable for the kingdom of heaven.
Disobedient, sinning believers will NOT enter the kingdom of heaven. They will go into hell together with all other sinners, the children of disobedience.
Have you died to sin, buried the old man, the person you used to be, in water through baptism? Have you come out of the water a new man, received the Holy Spirit? Are you a born again child of God who follows the guidance of the Holy Spirit, doing the will of God?
In times of trouble, where do we go to? Who or what do we trust in? Many Christians trust in their church, or the Bible. I have seen a Catholic lady frantically holding onto her rosary.
Holding onto and trusting in people and objects is futile. The only one who can really help us is Jesus.
Many times in my life I was desperate and called on Jesus. He heard my prayer and answered. Jesus never fails. He delivers, helps and saves those who trust in Him and call on Him.
There is a separation taking place between those who are evil at heart and those who seek the truth.
The apostle John foretold this in Revelation 22: 11“Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy.”
12“Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. 13“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
14Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city. 15Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying."
The Christian churches have been infiltrated by satan. Most churches have become worldly institutions that preach fables. We read about them in Jude 1:4 "For certain men have crept in among you unnoticed — ungodly ones who were designated long ago for condemnation. They turn the grace of our God into a license for immorality, and they deny our only Master
and Lord, Jesus Christ."
If we want to enter the kingdom of heaven we have to separate ourselves from false Christians, purify ourselves of all evil and follow Jesus in holiness.
Those who follow Jesus are a small flock. They hear His voice and they do what is pleasing to Him. They do not fit in with main stream Christianity.
The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. We read in 2 Corinthians 6:14"Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?
16Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said,
“I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM;
AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.
17“Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE,” says the Lord.
“AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN;
And I will welcome you.
18“And I will be a father to you,
And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,”
Says the Lord Almighty."
Sadly many of those who call themselves believers are not followers of Jesus. They call themselves Christians but they are false. They are not children of God.
Separate yourself from them and follow Jesus. Come out from among them and Jesus will accept you. Purify yourself, stop sinning, obey Jesus, be baptized in water, be filled with the Holy Spirit, follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit and you will be pleasing to Jesus.
Many people claim to be Born Again but obviously they are not Children of God because they are SINNERS.
We read in 1 John 3:9 "No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."
If you are a Born Again Child of God you do not sin, you are like your Father, you do as Jesus did. He did not sin while walking on this earth. He showed us the way, He gave us the example of how to live and He told us what do do.
Jesus did not leave us to our own devices, He did not write a manual. He instructed His disciples, who recorded many of His words in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. He also gives His Holy Spirit to be in and with those who accept and obey Him, those who wish to follow Him, who repent and are baptized in water, as He commanded. The Holy Spirit will remind them of the words that Jesus taught, will teach and guide them in all truth and will reveal to them things to come.
A Born Again Child of God lives like Jesus. He follows the guidance of the Holy Spirit and DOES NOT practice sin.
If a believer is still a sinner, he is not born again, he is not a child of God, as we read in 1 John 3:4-10 "4Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. 5You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. 6No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. 7Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. 9No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother."
Have you been Born Again? Have you repented and been baptized in water? Have you received the baptism in the Holy Spirit and are you following His guidance? Have you stopped practicing sin and are you bearing fruit for the kingdom of God?. Is it obvious from your fruit, whether you are a child of God or not.
