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If you asked any Christian this
question you would probably get the answer ~ so you
can go to heaven and miss hell after you die.
But they think God wants us to be miserable
here in this life to learn some lessons.
That is the way I was raised.
But since I have studied the Bible for myself,
I have found this to be a big lie that Satan has
perpetuated! God wants us to be healthy, wealthy, and
so fulfilled and happy that the rest of the world will
want to know our secret.
That’s the truth, and why I’ve written most
of these brochures to help other people find the truth
too.
Misconceptions
Probably most outsiders to the church world
believe several things about church people that are
just not true. One
popular one is that church is a sort of club where you
have to follow a bunch of rules to make it to heaven.
Another is that Christians are all hypocrites,
pretending to be good guys, and really, they are no
better than the average non-church person. And there
are probably many variations to those two trains of
thought. Would
you please allow me to explain to you the truth?
The Club with Rules
The club with a bunch of rules is a fact in
many churches, but it is not what God meant church to
be according to the Bible, His Word. True Christianity
is a relationship with God. But the eternal
spirit inside your body is unresponsive to God.
Spiritual things don’t make sense. By
receiving Jesus, you are born of God (or born
again) and made alive to God.
I Jn. 5:1-4, I Pet. 1:23, Eph. 2:1 and Jn.
5:24.
From
the Inside Out
As you grow in this relationship with your new
heavenly Father (by spending time with Him in daily
prayer and reading some in the Bible) you will
gradually become what God planned for you to be even
before you were born! Most people think that to be a better person you have to work
real hard to change yourself.
Your own rules or church rules will not change
anyone. The
way God’s way works is our being changed inside
first, then the outside changes begin to show.
It’s being changed by God from the inside
out. Rule-following
is trying to change from the outside in, and that
doesn‘t work.
Most will never get it!
God has a wonderful and exciting and fulfilling
plan just for you, but most Christians never will
experience it because they aren’t doing what they
are learning from the Bible. It’s the doers
of the Word that will experience God’s best.
Church teachers and leaders are meant to
help us know what the Bible says, and encourage our
growth, but it is not our own power that will
accomplish that. We hear or read from the Bible what
we are supposed to do, and then we ask the Holy Spirit
(our Divine Helper) to help us to do it. And then we
have to choose to obey Him when He directs.
For example, if someone is yelling at you, you
may feel a check or a restraint inside you. God wants
you to be quiet.
Now you have to choose to obey, or do what your
mind and emotions want to do. Choose to obey
the Holy Spirit and you will have His power to help
you.
They’re
all hypocrites!
The second misconception is that Christians are
all hypocrites. Sadly,
that is true about a great many of them. A hypocrite
pretends to be something he is not. But actually, that is just human nature.
Even people who don’t go to church or claim
to be Christian do that. Nearly everyone puts on an
act to impress people, or tells lies to make himself
look good.
But that is not what the Bible says church
should be! Church is where we should be real. Like a
hospital helps sick people, a church is meant to help
sinners. How
can a person be helped if he hides who he really is?
The purpose of church, according to the Bible
(Eph. 4:11-16) is to help people grow and mature in
their relationships with God and each other. This is
the only way you will enter the great life that God
has planned especially for you!
Jer. 29:11 “I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord, They
are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a
future and a hope.” NLT
Matt. 7:11, “If you then,
being evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will your Father who is in
heaven give good things to those who ask Him.”
Psa. 34:8-10, “Oh taste and
see that the Lord is good.
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him.
Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints, for there is
no lack to those who fear Him. The young lions lack
and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord shall
not lack any good thing.” (To fear God is to respect
and obey Him.)
If you have wrong ideas about God and believe
that He is sitting up there with a baseball bat ready
to hit you if you mess up, then you would be doing
yourself an immense favor by reading the above verses
twice a day until your mind is renewed to the fact of
God’s goodness and love.
God is a good God, and He wants to do you good.
He has a wonderful life planned out for you, but you
need to find out how to qualify. Just because God promised things doesn’t mean they will
automatically happen for you. (See my brochure called,
If it’s God’s will, why doesn’t it always
happen?)
To become a Christian:
God
loves you!
John 10:10, “I have come that they might have
life and that more abundantly.”
III
John 2, “Beloved, I wish above all things
that you would prosper and be in health even as your
soul prospers.”
Sin
separates us from God.
Rom.
3:23, “All have sinned and come short of the glory
of God.”
Rom.6:23,
“The wages of sin is (spiritual) death (separation
from God).”
Jesus
solved the problem!
John
3:16, “God loved the world so much that He gave His
only Son, that who ever believes in Him should not
perish but have eternal life.”
John
14:6, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way and the
truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father but by me.’”
We
accept or receive by faith (believing).
John
1:12, “As
many as received Him, to them He gave the right to
become children of God, even to those who believe in
His name.”
Pray
this: “Jesus, I believe you died for me and rose
again. Forgive my sins, and come into my life and be
my Lord and Savior.
I turn my life over to you.
I thank You that I am saved!”
(Now you need, God wants to make your life
beautiful!) |
