Hebrew 9:27 says "And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and B)'>after that comes judgment," as I look at this verse, I cant help but think of the thousands of people who die everyday apart from Jesus Christ. Many who flat out deny him and those who profess him with their lips but who have never truly repented and placed their faith in him.
As a Christian I understand the importance of having true saving faith, because I grew up in Church and associated my Christianity with the fact that at one point in my life, I said a prayer and was baptized assuming that I was saved and never had to worry about hell. And I lived my life in the same manner. It wasn't until Christ brought me to my knees broken over my sins at age 32 before I understood that saying I was a Christian and actually understanding what it meant to be a Christian was two different things. What worries me is that so often over the last five years of true repentance and faith in Jesus Christ I have seen so many people who are like I once was. Believing myself to be saved and on my way to heaven on a broad road, based on my saying a pray, baptism, or belonging to a Church. But in reality I was still separated from God dead in my sins. It breaks my heart but I understand how we can become so easily able to think ourselves right. In Luke 16:15 Jesus says to the Pharisees, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God." Are you guilty as I was of trying to justify myself, how I was living and at the same time calling myself a Christian. Sometimes even basing it on my comparison of others who call themselves Christians and seeing my life did not look much different then theirs. It says in Matthew 15:8-9 "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." I professed belief in Jesus, yet just as this verse says my heart was far from him. And so many my family members and friends no very little about what it means to truly follow Jesus Christ, but will not talk about it because they believe themselves right in their own eyes. And this brings us back to Hebrew 9:27 "And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment," We will all die one die that's guaranteed, we don't know when but we know when we do after that comes the Judgment. Take time today examine yourself to see if you are truly in the faith as the apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 13:5 "Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!" Don't assume yourself right with God based on what you have done in your life, because if you are basing it on yourself, then you can have no assurance of salvation. Salvation is a gift from God by his Grace through Faith, not by our works but by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. by Ricky Gantz
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Over the last five years of being a Christian, my desire and passion to reach the lost for Christ has grown. When I first became a Christian, I would share my faith and talk to family members about Jesus practically all the time I would share whatever new things I learned from the Word of God. After facing a lot of opposition from family members that said I should not talk about God all the time, one of the things I heard most from my family members was, I never see your Pastor or other Church members talk about the Bible or about Jesus as much as you do, why cant you be like them.
That made me want to seek out more teaching and preaching from good solid Bible teachers (such as John MacArthur, Chip Ingram, and others) and being a mail carrier I would listen to sermons and the audio Bible all day, just continuing to learn more from God's Word. This also brought me into contact with more who were passionate about sharing the Gospel and being radical for Christ, like preaching by David Platt, Francis Chan, Way of the Master with Ray Comfort & team, Paul Washer, Not a fan by Kyle Idleman and recently Voddie Baucham, and not to mention becoming familiar with many great street preachers and outreach ministries through Facebook, such as Tony Miano, Jeremiah Cry Ministries, and many others who have encouraged me through their ministries or just from their stories of witnessing to others. This only increased my passion and desire to reach the lost. I was told once that a family member of mine said to another member, "Ricky is to radical, he goes out and talks to people about Jesus and hands out those gospel tracts, its crazy I mean who does that?" Now this coming from a family member by no means bothered me that he thought I was radical or crazy for sharing the Gospel, but what really did bother me was the fact that I don't believe he is alone in his thinking, I mean truly who does do that? When I think about it the reason it is strange to many who don't know Jesus Christ is because they don't see the Church out there doing it. If Christians truly believed what they say they believe, Why wouldn't they share it? That's what brings me to this passage of scripture because these verses really speak to me about the importance of sharing the Gospel, not to mention it is a command to preach the Gospel to all people, but these verses really speak to the matter of not warning others. Ezekiel 33 7-9 So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. God says if you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his ways and they die in their sins, their blood is on your hands. If that doesn't wake you up to the importance of sharing the Gospel with others in hopes of turning them from the wicked ways and to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ then there may be some other issues that need to be dealt with. Now I know that we are not able to reach every single person in the world, but God has you right where you are to reach those and warn them of the Wrath to come. Will their blood be on your hands? So in closing my friends I urge you, not everyone is a street preacher, but anyone can hand out a Gospel tract anyone can take the time to share the Gospel with another. We all have family, friends, or even complete strangers who need the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So be encouraged and step out in faith and share the Gospel with someone today. by Ricky Gantz How often do you hear these words? It seems like just about every time a Christian has a disagreement with someone the first words that come out always seem to be: who are you to judge me only God can judge me?
Other than John 3:16 I would have to say Matthew 7:1 is the most quoted verse. Everyone from Christian to non-Christians seems to know this verse. However it is so often misquoted, Jesus is talking about making hypocritical, self-righteous judgments. God tells us of the judgment that will come and tells us if we live in sin we will face that judgment and also gives us the penalty for sin, which is death (eternity in hell). So when a Christian talks about sin and says that the Word of God calls lying, stealing, homosexuality, abortion, adultery, idolatry, fornication, and disobedient to parents sin, it’s not because they decided these things were sin, GOD tells us they are in the BIBLE. And when a Christian says the punishment for these and other sins is death it is not because we decided that punishment, GOD did! It’s like if the superintendent of the schools says anyone caught with drugs will be expelled from school, no exceptions and then a student is caught with drugs and the principal expels the student. The principal was only following through with the instructions given by the superintendent. Maybe this is not the best analogy to illustrate the point but I want to help you understand. As Christians we are only sharing what the Word of God says, we didn’t make up the sins, and we didn’t create the punishment for the sins. But rather we are only warning others of the judgment that is going to come. We as Christians were at one time also dead in our sins, on our way to face the judgment of God. But God made a way for us to be reconciled to Him, through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And if you Believe in Jesus, repent of your sins (turn from them), and follow Him. You too can be forgiven and set free from the consequences of sin. By Ricky Gantz Matthew 10:34-39
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. These are such powerful words from Jesus.....what do they mean? Does this mean we need to hate our family members or we are not worthy of Christ? Well, as I live my life as a Christian, I can tell you first hand how these words have affected me. When I became a follower of Jesus Christ, my eyes were opened to God's Word and I understood more clearly. I had and still have such a desire and passion to learn, study and become more and more like Christ, although I often fail. I would spend hours listening to sermon after sermon, reading through the scriptures, as well as listening to them on an audio version of the Bible. The more I would learn, the more excited I was to share the Gospel with others, especially family members, but it didn't seem like others, even those who claimed to be Christians themselves were as enthusiastic. Some even told me I should tone it down and not talk about Jesus and the scriptures so much. How could I not talk about Jesus? He consumes my thoughts and my desire to know him more, I can't help but talk about Christ and what I learn in the Word of God. Out of love for family and friends, I would attempt to share the Gospel with them but it seemed to actually turn them against me, I noticed family members and friends would avoid me. And to be fair to some of my family and friends, as a new believer in Christ, I had zeal, boy did I! I can't honestly say it was a zeal without knowledge because I was learning a great deal from the Word of God and growing, but I did not always have the greatest approach in engaging with family, not that I shy away from the truth in conversations with them today, but over the years I have grown in maturity in how I go about engaging in those conversations with family members and friends who I know will not be willing to, or even desire to hear the truth. Now while I do want to caution those new believers who have zeal in their conversations with loved ones to not be overbearing to the degree that you bring offense to the gospel, I also don't want to discourage you, but rather encourage you to continue to speak the truth from God's Word into the life of your family and friends. If you get anything out of this article, learn from my mistakes. The reality is that when speaking the truth, people will get offended. Just call out someone's favorite television preachers who twist scripture, such as, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, and T.D. Jakes. These false teachers become idols to their followers, so any critique of their teaching and you will be hated. Call out false religions, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Islam, New Apostolic Reformation, and Roman Catholicism. And you will be labeled as intolerant and unloving because all religions are equally the same, or so they would want you to believe when the truth is they can't all be the same when they contradict one another, most importantly the teachings of these false religions go against the Word of God, secondly, they violate the law of non-contradiction. Christianity is exclusive! Jesus said He is the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him. (John 14:6) The Word of God is Truth and Truth Hurts!!!!! And when you confront someone with the Gospel, the Word of God will divide. It's like shining a light in the darkness and people don't want the light. Light exposes the darkness! You see Jesus is saying here, when you speak the truth, when you follow Jesus, you die to self. Pick up your cross and follow Him, people will think your crazy, they will think you are too radical, and it will divide. Jesus says, whoever loves father, mother, daughter or son more than him is not worthy to be his disciple. Pretty strong words from Jesus and that is a hard saying for some people to handle. He is not saying, do not love your family, Christ is saying that the gospel will divide and families will divide because of Christ. This is indeed what happened in the first-century church. When Jews came to Christ families turned against them. Our love for Christ is to be so much greater then the bonds we have with family and friends, that we would be willing to lose it all for Christ. That is why Jesus tells us before we decide to follow him to count the cost. (Luke 14:27-33) For some they might just lose everything as a follower of Christ, only by His grace may we be willing and able to heed the call! The most loving thing someone can do is tell you the truth even when it might offend. When it comes to a person's soul and where they will spend eternity, nothing is more important, even if it means you may lose a friend or loved one by telling them the truth. I will leave you with a quote from Antisthenes "There are only two people who can tell you the truth about yourself - an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly." by Ricky Gantz |
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