Category: Bible

Salvation Reality

Don’t believe every cute cartoon you see on the Internet.

It’s not “what you do and how you treat people. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” – Corinthians 2:8-9

There is no such thing as salvation by works — by what you do, much less how you treat others.

Now, for the next verse: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” – Corinthians 2:10

What we do, how we treat people is the end result, is the outpouring of God’s sanctification in our lives. Even the kindest, most compassionate and helpful do-gooder in the world has zero access to the Father (and his realm of heaven) if he rejects the Son. There’s absolutely NOTHING we can do to earn our way into heaven: “What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” – Romans 3:9-12

It’s ALL God’s grace in the face of our undeservedness.

“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” – John 5:24

True Peace from God

There’s a tremendous difference between peace and quiet.
 
Peace comes from God. It’s a condition much like joy, in that it’s more of a spiritual condition than an emotion, and can manifest itself even in the most turbulent times.
 
Quiet, on the other hand, is what happens when you escape the turbulence. You may find a dim reflection of peace, and wrongly believe it to be peace, but it’s not peace. It’s merely quiet. Meanwhile, those you left behind remain in the turbulence. Because you pulled away, neither you nor they will share in life’s journey.
 
“I want to talk with you today about a subject that touches every one of us. Loss. Sometimes we’re faced with things we think we just can’t handle. The death of a loved one. A father. A child. And we strive to find a reason behind it. When those reasons don’t make sense, we question God. We look up and we say, “God! How could you do this to us? How can you put so much on our plate?”
 
“But we’re not operating on God’s timetable, are we? We don’t understand God’s plan. How can we? Let me tell you: This is where faith comes in. Faith can help us see his message in our own lives. Perhaps this loss is there to teach us not to take the ones we love for granted, to cherish simple, mundane moments, to love others as fiercely, and as bravely, and as compassionately as we can. And in that love, human love, forgiving, relentless, unconditional love, you’ll find peace.”
 
Source: Chicago Fire, Season 3, Episode 18: “Forgiving, Relentless, Unconditional.” Chaplain’s speech at the end of the episode.
 
The kind of “peace” some religious factions are selling these days isn’t peace at all. It’s a lie. True, Godly peace transcends turmoil, trials, and tribulations. It’s right there with you in the thick of it. If you’ve found what you think as “peace” only after you’ve removed yourself from these normal attributes of life, you’re either fooling yourself or allowing yourself to be fooled, as that’s not peace. That’s merely quiet, and it’s a lonely one at that.
 
False peace is the easy way out. It’s the low road. There’s often an immediate release of tension, often accompanied by the false prophets peddling it saying, “There! You see?” as they lead you into blindness.
 
Doing right often requires us to take the hard road, or the “high road” as mentioned in English lore. It’s called the high road because it’s a lot harder to walk than the low road. Not only does it take more effort to reach — quite a climb, in fact — but the air is thinner once you get there, it’s usually more rocky and uneven, and you may not have as much company along the way. But it’s the right road, God’s “narrow path,” indeed the only path for those of us who call ourselves Christians.
 
True peace is from God. It empowers you to stay in the fight, “loving others as fiercely, and as bravely, and as compassionately as we can.” It builds. It restores. It never gives up hope, for true peace comes from God, and God is love. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” – 1 Cor 13:4-8
 
Take the high road. Restore a relationship. No matter what’s behind, remember Paul: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” – 1 Cor 13:13-14

Yes, the Bible most certainly DOES condemn homosexuality

How is it that people like Adam Phillips can sit there and claim, “The Bible does not condemn homosexuality”?

Adam Phillips, Desmond Tutu, the LGBTQ community, and the politically correct zealots who are more concerned about homosexualityappearing right than being right are WRONG.

I couldn’t care less what “the church” says about homosexuality.  All I care about is what God says about it, and he’s already spoken, through his holy, sacred Word, the Bible.

The Bible most certainly DOES condemn homosexuality, and in at least 47 locations the last time I reviewed it.  In fact, it’s absolutely unmistakable, unless you’re so hell-bent on cherry-picking while ignoring blatant evidence to the contrary in order to justify the sin Rhetological Fallaciesof homosexuality.  When you’re at that point, as is Adam Phillips and uber-politically correct Tutu, you’ve sunk to the rock bottom point of chucking the Bible completely out the window while ranting like a spoiled child.  Neither Phillips nor Tutu speaks for the Bible, much less God himself.

Seriously, people, get real!  Stop allowing others (and Satan, the father of all lies) to pull the wool over your eyes.  Here are the four homosexualityclearest verses wherein God’s word calls homosexuality:

1.  “an abomination”

2.  a sin worthy of “death” due to its “bloodguilt”

3.  grounds for denial of entry into the kingdom of God

4.  “degrading,” “unnatural,” “indecent,” “depraved,” and “improper”

Leviticus 18:22, “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.”

Leviticus 20:13, “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither homosexualityfornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”

Romans 1:26-28, “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.  And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.”

It doesn’t GET any more clear than this, people.  The evidence is inescapable:  Homosexuality is clearly condemned in the Bible.

homosexualityHomosexuality undermines God’s created order when He made Adam and Eve, a man and a woman, to carry out His command to fill and subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28). Homosexuality cannot carry out that mandate. In addition, homosexuality undermines the basic family unit of husband and wife which is the God-ordained means of procreation.

For more (WAY more) on this topic, I encourage you to read CARM’s excellent article entitled, “What does the Bible say about homosexuality.”

While you’re at it, please do yourself and all honest, intelligent, and God-fearing people on the planet a favor and stop falsely claiming “The Bible does not condemn homosexuality.”  The Bible itself All you do is make yourselves look like blitheringly idiotic fools.

Thanks.

We can’t fight this through legislation.  You can’t legislate morality.  Sinful human beings will always find ways to engage in sin.

What we can do is continue to fight back by directly addressing the lies people spread to justify their sin.