When I was in high school I had one major nemesis: MATH! It didn’t help that my mother was an accountant and I inherited my “inability to understand math genes” from my father. He couldn’t help me and when my mother tried, she attempted to teach me HER way. Unfortunately what she said and what I heard were two entirely different things:
My mother would attempt to teach in this “math speak” language that just confounded me more and pretty soon she was yelling at me for not understanding and I was crying because I just couldn’t understand! “I don’t get it!” I’d cry and she would huff at me, “What don’t you get? It’s simple!” and then she would launch into her math gibberish again and I’d zone out.
It was just as difficult for my math teachers. Mr. Ruxton pulled out what little hair he had on his head trying to teach me basic algebraic concepts and finally out of frustration I suppose, he just let me spiral into the abyss of math ineptitude. He finally took pity on me by granting me a bare pass mark. Not because I earned it, but so he wouldn’t lose any more hair having me repeat the class.
Amazingly in university, a small math light bulb came on over my head, and some basic concepts suddenly made sense to me. I could balance my cheque book, I figured out percentages, I could solve some basic math problems. Algebra and trigonometry were still foreign concepts but I discovered I didn’t really need to understand them to be able to live my life. As I got older, I found myself more interested in learning about geometry and my math knowledge grew. I may never have the math understanding my mother had but I’m okay with that. I’ve got what I need and that’s fine.
When I became a Christian I had a similar experience. Initially I just didn’t “get it”. Well-meaning people who wanted to evangelize me were talking just as foreign a language to me as “math speak”. This Christianese was a language I didn’t know and certainly did not understand. Just like math, I just wanted the basics, I zoned out at the rest. When I finally became a Christ-follower, I certainly did not know everything about Christianity, the Bible or church, and if I’m totally honest I STILL don’t, but I know enough to live my life and faith let’s me accept the things I still don’t fully understand.
Faith is defined as:
1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
2. strong belief in God or in the doctrines of religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
The Bible defines faith as: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
There are so many, many things I do not totally understand about Christianity. There are stories in the Bible that for all intents and purposes are so outlandish that they seem to border on the unbelievable, BUT if I have faith, and the confidence to know that MY God can do anything, I don’t need to explain HOW He did it, I just need to know that HE DID!
If you are a person who is struggling with understanding everything there is to know about God and Christianity, welcome to the Club. You are not alone. Discovering where you fit into God’s plan is a lifelong journey and there is no mathematical algorithm that will help you analyze your way to total understanding. Accept the fact you don’t need to know everything, but make every effort to grow your faith, and accept the Gospel and you’ll be okay.
“What is the Gospel?”
I was given permission to use the Gospel Acrostic from Dare2Share in the fourteenth chapter of my book: Love the Wounded.
God created us to be with Him. (Genesis 1-2)
Our sins separate us from God. (Genesis 3)
Sins cannot be removed by good deeds. (Genesis 4 – Malachi 4)
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)
Everyone who trusts in Him alone has eternal life. (John)
Life with Jesus starts now and lasts forever. (Acts – Revelation)
GET IT?
Here then is the A, B, C’s to Salvation:
“A” stands for Admit. A person must admit to God that she is a sinner. She must be sorry for her sin and turn away from sinning. Verses that support this step are Romans 3:23; Romans 6:23; Acts 3:19; and 1 John 1:9.
“B” stands for Believe. A person must believe that Jesus is God’s Son and that God sent Jesus to pay the penalty for sin. Verses about believing include John 3:16; John 14:6; and Romans 5:8.
“C” stands for Confess. A person must confess her faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Read Romans 10:9-10, 13.
Pray this prayer for your Journey with God to start today!
Dear God in heaven, I come to you in the name of Jesus. I acknowledge to You that I am a sinner, and I am sorry for my sins and the life that I have lived; I need your forgiveness.
I believe that your only begotten Son Jesus Christ shed His precious blood on the cross at Calvary and died for my sins, and I am now willing to turn from my sin.
You said in Your Holy Word, Romans 10:9 that if we confess the Lord our God and believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, we shall be saved.
Right now I confess Jesus as the Lord of my soul. With my heart, I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. This very moment I accept Jesus Christ as my own personal Savior and according to His Word, right now I am saved.
Thank you Jesus for your unlimited grace which has saved me from my sins. I thank you Jesus that your grace never leads to license, but rather it always leads to repentance. Therefore Lord Jesus transform my life so that I may bring glory and honor to you alone and not to myself.
Thank you Jesus for dying for me and giving me eternal life. Amen.
If you just said this prayer and you meant it with all your heart and you have repented (turned away) from your sins, I believe that you are saved and are born again. (John 3:6-7) You may ask, “Now that I am saved, what is next?” First, tell someone! Leave a comment, let me rejoice with you! My Pastor says when someone becomes a Christian it’s like Christmas! We need to celebrate! Then you need to get into a Bible-based church, and study God’s Word. Once you have found a church home, you will want to become baptized. By accepting Christ first, you are baptized in the Spirit, but it is through water-baptism (immersion) that you show your obedience to the Lord. (Matthew 3: 13-17)
The baptismal waters represent a burial ground. When you’re buried with Christ in baptism, you are proclaiming to heaven, earth and hell that the old you no longer exists. To be buried with Jesus means that your old self died to sin just as Jesus did when He was made sin for us (Romans 6:3, 10-12). That’s why we are immersed. It’s a picture of burial.
Coming up out of the water signifies our being raised to new life in Christ. To be raised with Jesus means making Him Lord of every area of your life—spirit, soul and body. You’ve been bought with the blood of Jesus and you belong to Him. Every day you now ask, “Lord, where do You want me to go? What do You want me to say? What do You want me to be? Not my will, but Your will be done.”
Lynn Dove's Journey Thoughts 
@Gladys : Salvation is by faith , not of works , lest any man should boast , it is a GIFT of God. (Eph 2:8-9 ) because God so loved the work that he sent His son as a GIFT ( John 3:16) ..You don’t pay for gifts so our salvation is not of works because you can’t pay for it since it’s a gift. Have you paid for your gifts when people give them to you? Living for Christ is a result of our salvation and our love in return for the GIFT HE gave us ( Christ)
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Actually, salvation AND faith are both a gift of God, in the Greek the phrase ‘and that’ from Eph. 2:8-9 is a neuter demonstrative pronoun.
Let’s not forget John 3:3, unless you are born again, you will not enter the kingdom of God’.
Getting people to repeat prayers will not save, God must draw them {John 6:44}, He must rebirth them {John 3:3}, He must give them faith to believe {Eph. 2:8-9}.
If you tell someone to repeat a prayer, you are telling them they can perform a ‘work’ and bet saved as a result. Salvation is by God’s grace, from start to finish.
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John 1:12,13 says ” 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God” The person is believing in their heart and declaring it with their mouth. Romans 10:9, 10 says ” 9 If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. ” These verses I gave seem to give great support for a person needing to declare with their mouth that they believe. That is what the prayer is for. Oh… I’m sure there is something we must do to be saved. Christianity has told the lie that there is nothing we can do to get to heaven. We have got to repent. Again, Christianity has become a lying religion.
Christianity today (myself for sure and you as well)… When Jesus looks at us, we make Him want to vomit. Isn’t that what Jesus said in Revelation 3:16? On biblehub.com there are 11 different Bible translations that use the word vomit in that verse.
Uunworthy1, your dedication and devotion to Christ makes Him want to vomit. Mine does too. And if you trust that you will be raptured before we all suffer through Satan’s one world rule, you may be opening the door to denying Christ, and that will send you to hell. Get ready. For 2000 years Christians have been killed for being Christian. Now, we have people actually believing that “God loves His children too much to allow them to suffer.” That is actually a lie given to the church by Satan. Was Jesus a child of God? Yes, He was the Son of God. Were the disciples all children of God? Yes, and 10 of the 12 were killed for saying Jesus rose from the dead to save us from our sins (Judas killed himself, and I am not sure how John died. He did write Revelation when he was exiled to Patmos, but I heard he ended his years in Ephesus.) Are Christians being killed all around the world because they are Christian today? Yes. The only ones not being killed YET are the spoiled lukewarm Christians in America, Europe and Australia.
Please get ready to suffer and be killed for claiming Christ is alive so that we don’t have to suffer in hell. It is coming, and it will be the suffering of fire that we as lukewarm Christians need.
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you need to listen to the sermon ‘666’ by Stephen Holland. BTW, I am not a ‘pre-tribber’.
Now, how can you repent? Do you have that ability? What does the word of God say? In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth 2 Tim. 2:25. God is the one who grants repentance. The bible commands it, just as the bible commands sinners to believe, but no one believes or repents without God granting it. John 6:44 states no one comes to Christ unless they have first been drawn by the Father.
As for John 1:12, 13 – as many ‘receive’ – to take hold of. Now, in the interlinear, verse 13 reads ‘who not of blood nor of will of flesh nor of will of man but of God were born’ – this is why they ‘received’, because they were first born again by God.The natural man cannot accept spiritual truths- 1 Corinthians 2:14. The understanding must be opened by God, this is what Christ said as well in John 3:3, ‘except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’. The word ‘see’ means perceive, discern’. Without the new birth by God the Spirit, no one will understand anything pertaining to God.
Your reference to Revelation and Christ vomiting has not one thing to do with the true elect of God. Christ never looks at those for whom He died and wants to vomit. That verse is a reference to the phony Christian, which is no Christian at all. Those who play the religion card but were never born again by God, so they are ignorant of biblical truth and still dead in trespasses and sin.
Salvation is of the Lord, you cannot do one thing to save yourself. How does God save? “For by GRACE are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man boast”. So, when foolish Christians tell sinners to repeat silly prayers or do the ‘abc’s to ‘get saved’, they are encouraging a dead in trespasses and sins sinner to perform a work in an attempt to get themselves saved, which is a huge contradiction to what the bible actually teaches. There is only one ‘sinners prayer’ in all of the bible- And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. Luke 18:13 Take note of his demeanor, ‘standing afar off’, not making a spectacle of himself. Notice his eyes – not lifted up, beating his chest in agony over his vile, sinful self, then pleading with God for mercy. No flippant prayer, no easy method to follow for ‘instant salvation’. God worked in that publican’s heart, breaking him over his sins, and causing him to cry out in utter despair and agony for the only remedy —- mercy.
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would like words of wisdom for my son-in-law who is about to have his first Son
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This is just what I needed today. This is my reaffirmation of my faith in God and my love of my Lord. Thank you.
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its a big help for me thank you
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it is not enough to do the
A B C’s one has to want to live a Christ like live every day it is not enough to admit believe and confess one must give of their lives to Christ to give of our all
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Thank you so much. I have committed to God and I am giving myself to the Lord. Thank you again so much!
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Thank you. I needed this so badly.
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