The Necessity and Urgency of The Gospel (2)

"Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures," (I Corinthians 15:1-4 NKJV)

Under God, a man cannot be genuinely saved, until he has heard 'the gospel'. 

Beloved preachers! I challenge you to cross-examine your message once again, are you sure you have been preaching 'the gospel' or 'another gospel' (Gal.1:6)

It is not all good messages you can call the gospel; it cannot be the gospel just because the preacher has credibility among men. It must be what the Bible calls 'the gospel' before it can save people (Rom.1:16)

The Bible is definite about what the gospel is - it is "the message of Christ's death, resurrection and ascension and its concomitant benefit to human race" - This is what Paul the Apostle presents as THE GOSPEL and anything other than this is 'another gospel' (Gal. 1:6-11).

The prime concern of the gospel is about man's eternity. The gospel has a lot to do with man's existence on earth, for instance, healing and health, godly living, prosperity etc. yet, any message whose primary emphasis is on the benefit for this present world, cannot be the gospel. 

The gospel is not just a 'tool' to make people rich or to a live good life in this world, otherwise it wont be different from the common motivational messages. The gospel addresses the core/vital need of man. Man's 'vital'  need is not such things as money and physical possession. The 'vital' need of man is fellowship with His God - he must be brought to God in righteousness and true holiness, his sinful nature must thus be replaced with the nature of God, he must by it become a citizen of heaven otherwise he will end-up in eternal damnation.  This is is what Paul preached, this what they received (believed) and this is what saved them "...I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved..." (I Corinthians 15:1, 2 NKJV)

He put it thus in 1Cor.2:2   "For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." (I Corinthians 2:2 NKJV)

If this is not what you believed, you need to accept the gospel and be saved so as to avoid eternal shock of discovering when it would be too late that you were never saved.

Dear preacher, If this is not what you ve been preaching, you need to to change your message and start preaching the gospel otherwise you might end up facing the eternal reality that your listeners were never saved.   seen this? 

The Necessity and Urgency of The Gospel (1)

"How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? "(Romans 10:14 NKJV)

The gospel of Jesus is the  message sinners must believe before they can be saved. They must hear it before they can believe it. They must come in contact with it whether by face to face preaching, prints or electronic media.

Jesus is the only way to God (John 14:6) and for anyone to be saved, he must believe in Jesus. The gospel presents Jesus, thats the reason the Apostles claimed to be preaching Christ when they were preaching the gospel (Acts 5:42, 17:3, 2Cor.4:5). To believe the gospel is to believe in Christ the saviour.

Salvation cannot be earned, not even by good works. Salvation can only be received through faith in the gospel of Jesus.

Fellow saints and soldiers of the cross, think not nor assume in thine heart that a nice man would be saved by his manners, nor an easy-going and seemingly innocent man by his simplicity. All must believe the gospel - the cruel and the harmless, the good, the bad and the murderer, the humble and the proud alike.

Don't assume your uncle is saved because he is kind-hearted,  preach to him the gospel. Don't feel too comfortable among your unsaved friends, let them hear the gospel. The standard of God is the gospel of Christ and God will never bend his standard. The gospel is a necessity and the only one there is for salvation of souls ...until they hear it and believe it they wont be saved. 

Go therefore, go where the sinners are, go and tell them about Jesus.

THE FORCE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS (3)

Having established in the previous post that the born again man has the nature of Righteousness, the cream of this thought is the fact that the righteous nature prompts and inclines towards righteous living.

The righteous nature operates in the believer as an inward force and compulsion that propels him to live right.

It is bizarre to threaten a believer with hell or evil because you want him to live a godly life. 

The will of God is not burdensome for the believer; it is his home, he is a product of God's will. "Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome." (1 John 5:3 NLT)

The unbeliever is helplessly sold-out to sin; he lives in sin, he could wish otherwise, but he cannot but walk in sin because 'sin' lives in him as a nature "So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it."(Romans 7:17  NLT). It is not so for the believer, by divine nature he is empowered  to live right.

When a believer commits sin, we don't say he has a sinful nature; just like a small boy who is mimicking a puppy is not called a dog for barking. Paul gives us the right perspective to it : in spite of the various wrong doings in the Corinthian Church, The Apostle did not at any time called them sinners, rather, he reminded them of who they are: 

 "Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself," (1 Corinthians 6:19 NLT)

"Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NLT)

Are you a believer struggling with sin? All you need to do is to yield to the seed of God on your inside, by taking heed to what the Bible says about the new man in Christ and you will be able to live holy life effortlessly.  blessed?

The Force of Righteousness (2)

"Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living." (Romans 6:18 NLT)

The man born again does not have dual nature, he has only one nature - the nature of God (2 Pet. 1:3); every living being produces after his /its kind, and everyone born of God is in the 'class of God'. 

We make mistakes when we put the Bible aside, and form beliefs and opinions based on human experiences. Example of such mistakes is to PRESUME that believers have sinful nature because you have seen a number of believers fall into sin over again. 

For the man born again, the sinful nature has been annihilated - the born again man does not have sinful nature, its has been irreversibly removed from him. The following scriptures proves that:

"In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, but in a [spiritual] circumcision [performed by] Christ by stripping off the body of the flesh (the whole corrupt, carnal nature with its passions and lusts)." (Colossians 2:11 AMP)

"knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin."(Romans 6:6 NKJV)

"And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." (Galatians 5:24 NKJV)

What then should a sinning believer do? He should take heed to Rom.12:1-2 and Phil.4:8; he should renew his mind.

By the new birth, the man born again became a 'part-taker' of the divine nature which is the nature of righteousness: having become a partaker, he has become a 'participant' in the activities of the divine life. The only nature he has now, is the nature of righteousness, he is an active participant in the activities of the righteous life because of the nature which he has received.  As sin abides in the unbeliever as a nature, so does the nature of righteous lives in the believer. A goat can not combine the animalistic and human nature, and an unbeliever could not have both the sinful nature and the nature of God at same time, the believer could neither have the two at same time. "...since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. (Romans 6:2-4 NLT).    got it?

The Force of Righteousness (1)

Righteousness is the ability to stand before the awesome God without cringing fear or shamefacedness.

If a natural man (unbeliever) gets the opportunity to be aware of the presence of the Most holy God, he can't but be conscious of his sinfulness and his unworthiness (Isaiah 6:1-5). The person of God, just like His word,  is like a revealing light that exposes the true nature of man such that he himself sees his most immaculate righteousness as a filthy rag when brought under the spot light of the holy God.

Hence, right standing before God is not only a strange phenomenon to man but its an absolute impossibility. If man must stand before God unashamed, then it must be a gift. That's why righteousness came through the redemption of our Lord Jesus a GIFT (Rom. 5:17; 1Cor.1:30)

We have received the righteousness of Jesus; we are clothed with His righteousness, and because of that, I can stand before God in full confidence and boldness: because i am "...found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; (Philippians 3:9 NKJV) 

Therefore, when a believer says he is righteous, he is not proud or pompous, he is only saying who he really is in Christ. It is thus out of place to refer to believers' righteousness as filthy rag, that will amount to pouring contempt on the blood of the everlasting covenant shed by our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

The Bible says "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so..." (Psalms 107:2 NKJV) In the same light, let him who has been made righteousness by God say so!  blessed?

REJOICE!

"Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4 NKJV)

The kingdom of God operates by law: the law of faith! 

The benefits of the kingdom, its rights and privileges as well as its sway can only be appropriated by faith.

The believer is commanded to 'rejoice always' - yet as long as he is in the world, various circumstances and experiences would present 'themselves' as excuses for sadness. 

So what should he do when he has every reason to be sad and grumble?  The Bible yet says, he should rejoice, it implies that if the believer would heed the command to rejoice always, he must do it in FAITH in spite of feelings. 

Have you lately had reason(s) to grumble or gripe; due to failure, disappointments, embarrassment, rejection, betrayal or you even feel God was not there for you when you needed Him; whatever your condition is, Bible says you should rejoice by faith.

Rejoice because he loved you so much to have died for you (John 3:16);

rejoice because God is your father (1John3:1);

rejoice because you are blessed, sanctified, justified,  delivered, empowered (Eph. 1:3, Heb. 10:10, Rom. 5:1, Col. 1:13, Acts 1:8);

rejoice because God is faithful to His word and His word remains ever true (Jer. 1:12, 

rejoice because because He will never leave you nor forsake you (Heb. 13:5-6)

rejoice because He is coming back for you (1Thes. 4:13-18)

The consciousness of such realities as these naturally inspire joy; if you would live full of joy in spite of circumstances you must of necessity shift  your attention from your issues and fix your heart on the realities of the word.

Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice!

Beware of Pride!

Pride is sublte, it doesnt come with ugly voice or tone; it only makes its bearer more and more self-conscious. It doesn't appear dangerous and it comes unassuming, clothing itself with such apparel as "it doesn't matter"; yet, many glorious destinies have been ruined, because the carriers shifted their attention From God and put it on 'self'

Beware!

"Then Uzziah prepared for them, for the entire army, shields, spears, helmets, body armor, bows, and slings to cast stones. And he made devices in Jerusalem, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and large stones. So his fame spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped till he became strong. But when he was strong his heart was lifted up, to his destruction, for he transgressed against the Lord his God by entering the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. So Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him were eighty priests of the Lord —valiant men. And they withstood King Uzziah, and said to him, “ It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed! You shall have no honor from the Lord God.” Then Uzziah became furious; and he had a censer in his hand to burn incense. And while he was angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead, before the priests in the house of the Lord, beside the incense altar. And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and there, on his forehead, he was leprous; so they thrust him out of that place. Indeed he also hurried to get out, because the Lord had struck him." (II Chronicles 26:14-20 NKJV)

Beware, Again I say, beware!