Luke 12:51 KJV “Suppose ye that I am come to bring peace on earth? Nay, but rather division.”
I used to think that Christianity just meant walking around, saying ‘peace’ to everyone, avoiding arguments, and giving ‘butterfly kisses’. I thought that tolerance was actually a Christian virtue. I even voted democrat! (A long time ago, before they really started pushing for everything that God hates). I truly believed that you won souls by being nice to everyone and being everyone’s friend. CS Lewis believed that niceness ruined the soul and he wrote in ‘Mere Christianity’ that in a society where everyone was solely nice, they would be in desperate need of salvation.
Many decades later, I have found that being nice and everyone’s friend doesn’t help much get people saved. Sure, you have to be nice, joyful and kind to people. That’s your character when you get saved. But that’s not the Gospel! That’s just your newborn character. You don’t win souls, however, just by being someone’s nice buddy. It helps, but sometimes you have to cause a stir. Sometimes the Truth can be brutal, but necessary. The Holy Spirit wins souls, we don’t. We are called just to ‘deliver the mail’ in truth, righteousness and love. To be a good, kind person as a testimony. The Holy Spirit does the rest.
1 Corinthians 9:16 “Woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel!”
Preaching, sharing, evangelizing, inviting to church etc. IF we’re saved, we’re called to share Jesus with a lost and dying world. Here in Nicaragua, on the mission field of at-risk children in the garbage dumps. In Ohio, in a factory with your co-workers. It doesn’t matter. If we are saved, we have to do it. Not as a rule, but because of ‘Who’ rules our heart.
2 Corinthians 5:14 “The love of Christ constrains us”
There are 2 types of people in this world. Saved and the unsaved. You are a true believer if you are saved. You either have a personal relationship with Jesus or you don’t. If you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus you are not saved, no matter how much you volunteer at a church.
Matthew 7:23 “Depart from me ye that work iniquity”
Jesus isn’t calling someone out for sinning. In this case, Jesus is talking to a guy that thinks his own works will save him. Works such as going to church, volunteering, taking mass, praying with beads and statues to dead people. Stuff that doesn’t save your soul. It’s just works.
We are saved only through counting on what Jesus did for us on the Cross of Calvary 2000 years ago. Going to a church just isn’t something to go to once a week to check off the box. It’s being the church, every day, 24/7. Most American church goers I don’t believe are really saved. They don’t really count only on what Jesus did for them on the cross. It’s all just a ritual to them. They don’t really count only on Jesus to be saved. They’re basically just hedging their bets. Denominations, doctrine, theology, religion and such, have absolutely nothing at all to do with whether you’re a true believer or not. Whether or not you’re saved. Only the saved believer in Jesus Christ will go to heaven. I may sound narrow minded. I am. Narrow minded and saved. If you believe only on Christ’s finished work on the Cross, and His resurrection, you are heaven bound. You are born again, as John 3:3 says.
I don’t care if you’re catholic, orthodox, pentecostal, baptist, calvary chapel, a benny hinn or kenneth copeland listener, you’re either saved or you aren’t. If you believe (count only) on Jesus you’re saved by Christ’s finished work on the cross alone. Not by works, lest any man should boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is a gift from God, not by works, so that no one can boast”
If you are saved, the works follow, because you are constrained (forced) by the Holy Spirit living within you. You have (forced) to share the Gospel. You have (forced) to be concerned about the souls around you. If you’re not feeling forced by the Holy Spirit to share Jesus (not just your particular denomination), are you really saved? Do you really believe?
Winnie and I have to be in Nicaragua, sharing the Gospel with the impoverished in a communist country. You might have to be in Florida selling life insurance. Wherever we are, we have to be light in the darkness and that, my friend, will always cause division. Always. But God wants us where we are standing.
Joshua 1:3 Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, I have given to you
I believe that the day is coming in our lifetimes, that we will be called criminals for being Christians. Christianity will not be allowed, because it conflicts with Islam. Revelation says that Christians will be decapitated. (Islamists execute in that fashion by the way).
Revelation 20:4 “And I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the Word of God”
Ask yourself this. If you were to get put on trial tomorrow for being a Christian, will they have enough evidence to convict and execute you? I hope so! Will there be accusers, people that you offended with the Truth? Will all the offended eyewitnesses come forward to help with your demise? Or is everyone your buddy that you party with and that had no idea you were even Christian? If you are a born again believer, a lot of people won’t like you.
We, as true Christians, will be causing division. We don’t want to. We want to live in peace with others as much as possible. Jesus said we are to be peace makers. But especially now, it’s getting harder and harder. How can you stand by and watch babies being murdered, people pressured into taking things that are evil, false religions and communism forced on them. It is the last days I believe. Good against evil. Can’t sit on the fence any longer. The following is Jesus’ words. A long way from the fat little baby in the manger. Jesus said:
Matthew 10:34 “I come not to bring peace, but a sword”