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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Christianity
At A Crossroads President
Obama’s first nominee for the seventh appellate court is David
Hamilton. Congressional
representative Michele Bachmann (R. MN) appeared on “Understanding The
Times” (Jan Markell - http://www.olivetreeviews.org/radio/mp3/
- May 2, 2009, hour 2) spoke of a similar issue has arisen in the U. S.
While House. Any prayer that
is to be prayed in the White House is to be pre-approved in advance so
that the name of Jesus will not be spoken in the prayer. I’ve
said this before, but it’s clear to me that Christianity is at a
crossroads throughout the world, but especially so in the west.
Pressure is coming on us from all directions.
This is just one of many examples how Christianity is being
undermined by a dictatorial world view disguised as peace and harmony
through the agent of tolerance. Pressure
is not only coming from without, but it’s also coming from within.
As is often the case, the decline of anything often comes from
within. What once was viewed
as important gets neglected, and once neglected and forgotten about, is
lost. This is one major
issue that faces Christians today. With
pressure coming at us from without and within, the important issue for
Christians is how we respond to the undermining of Christianity.
Will we cave into the pressure?
Will our laziness towards Biblical truth slide us into obscurity,
or will we stand for what we believe to be truth?
This is the crossroads at which we stand.
Will we look to the left, or look to the right?
I strongly suggest we look straight ahead into the face of Jesus
and confidently stand with Him. Before
we can make a stand there are a few important prerequisites that need to
be firmly established in our lives, both collectively and individually.
The first prerequisite should be obvious.
You may call yourself a Christian, but are you?
A Christian as defined in what I call Biblical terms is one who
has given his life to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He’s not one who simply believes in the existence of a
historical Jesus. Jesus’
title “Lord” means that
He presently exists as the final authority over all things, and you
submit to His authority. His
title “Christ” means the “anointed one”,
who has provided the way for us to be united with God and escape
the penalty for our sin. We receive His provision as
the only means to salvation. You
can’t really give your life to Jesus unless you repent.
This means that no matter how good a person you think you are,
you acknowledge that the way you live is in opposition to how Jesus
wants you to live. Once you
understand this, you choose not to live for yourself any longer.
You live for Jesus instead. Repentance
and faith should be obvious to all Christians, but the longer I live,
the more I see this isn’t always the case.
When
one repents and trusts Jesus with his life, he receives the Holy Spirit
into his life. It is the
Holy Spirit who enables you to follow through on the commitment you made
to Jesus in the first place. This
is what I call “initial salvation”.
I call it initial salvation because salvation is an ongoing
process that begins when we first meet Jesus and ends at His return to
earth. So initially you
repent, you believe, and you receive.
That is to say, you acknowledge that your way of living is out of
step with the way Jesus thinks. You
then give your life to Jesus. That
is what faith is. It’s not
just mentally assenting to His existence.
Then you receive the Spirit of God into your life because only He
can transform you into the person Jesus wants you to be. Beyond
these three obvious prerequisites, you need to understand the Biblical
truths that we are supposed to uphold and stand for.
Without this understanding, there is no way you can stand for
anything as a Christian. In
many respects Christians are falling short on this point.
We’re beginning to replace heart-felt Biblical conviction for a
wishy washy post-modernism that doesn’t feel the need to have such
convictions. The
time is here for all Christians everywhere to re-examine our
relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and our understanding of
Biblical truth. The pressure
is on us all to let these things slide.
We need to be a people of strong conviction, ready to stand up to
the world, ready to face the devil, no matter the consequences. And
there will be consequences if we make such a stand.
This is the life that Jesus has called us to, and this is the
crossroads we now stand at. So
no matter what our legal courts rule on, we’ll follow in the steps of
the apostles Peter and John when they said, “judge for yourselves
whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God.
For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.
(Acts 4:19-20)”
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