The Quest For Truth

There was a time in my life when I believed that good people go to heaven. Not any more! You may be good but that does not qualify you for heaven. You may be shocked but that is the truth according to the Bible. In fact ‘being good’ is the cause of the greatest deception even among the so called Christians. Jesus had to tell the righteous Nicodemus, “You must be born again” Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.” What does this mean? It means that if you don’t believe in Him you are not on the Way and you do not have the Truth and the Life. Simple as that. There is no such thing as a good human being without Christ  entering heaven. You may not like it but that is your problem. I may sound narrow but I walk on the narrow path. Broad is the path that leads to destruction and many find it. That is what the Bible says. If you are a Christian, you have to be narrow. There is no such thing like I am right and you are also right. If you are not born again then you are walking in darkness and the light is not in you. You may be a good human being but you are still in darkness. You are not living according to the will of God for your life. You may think you are a Christian and you may even go to church but without a living relationship with Christ, you are just as lost as the others. There is no such thing as a good Muslim or a good Hindu or a good Buddhist. Without Christ you are lost and you don’t even know about it. The good news is that there is room in the kingdom of God for you and the way to enter is by believing in Christ.

What is the one commandment that fulfills all other commandments? It is love. When we love God and people we are fulfilling the greatest law in the universe. We begin to live in harmony with ourselves, with others and most importantly with God. It is not difficult if you know that it is not you but God who will fulfill this truth in your life. Dear friend, I testify from my own life that when you love God with all your heart, He takes care of everything in your life – from the smallest detail to the greatest. Yes, God is concerned about us. He remembers you every day. You are always before Him. He knows what you are going through and how you feel. The Bible says that we have a High Priest, Jesus, who is able to sympathize with all our weaknesses. He will turn your failures into your victories and your weaknesses into your strengths. You will find that He cares for you so much and that is why He let His Son die for you on the cross. It was a cruel death. It was bitter for the Son of God to taste death for you. He did not want to but He did it for you. His love is great and even a heavenly language will not be able to describe it. We did nothing good to deserve it. He did it because He created us and though we strayed away from Him, He was always waiting for us to come back. The Bible says taste and see. Yes we have to taste and see that the Lord is good. All His plans for us are good. He loves us with all His heart. He had only one Son who was His beloved and He let Him die a cruel death on the cross for us. How can we not love Him back with all our hearts?

The fear of man brings a snare. We have to resist the fear that men may try to bring upon us. Not a sparrow falls to the earth without His knowledge. The very hairs of your head are numbered. Nothing can touch you or harm you unless it is His will. So, take courage and be bold. The righteous are bold as a lion. The sacrifice of Christ has cleansed you and made you righteous. You can avail of God’s full security. The mighty angels are there to fight for you and to protect you. So, do not fear. The plans of the wicked will fall upon themselves. They may rage against you but the Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and earth is for you. He is there to plead your case. You need not worry about what you should say. The words will come from His Spirit and the wisdom of it no man shall be able to stand against. For your God is a Man of war. He wars with mighty power. The mountains tremble before Him. The earth shakes at His feet. So, take courage. God is with you and He will not fail you or forsake you. Fear God, Not Man.

Many of us think of salvation only as a one time experience that we enter in when we receive Christ as Lord of our lives. Salvation is a one time experience but it is also a process we go throughout our lives here on earth. We are saved and we are being saved. By grace you are saved through faith and it is not of yourselves, says the Bible. That is the gate we enter in. But then the process comes, for the Bible also says, Work out your own salvation. To enter into the gate of salvation is a blessed experience but we should not stop there. We have to experience salvation everyday of our lives. Being changed day by day into His likeness. Yes, that is full salvation.

These days we hear so much talk on our identification with the resurrection of Christ. We say, Lets move ahead. The cross is not the place to stay. We are now identified with His resurrection. We have to stay at the Throne and not at the grave. It is all true. But how have we forgotten that we have to always bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. Without a dying there is no resurrection. Without surrender there can be no faith. It is only when we let go that we let God. Dying we live and losing we gain. If we are so full of ourselves, how can we allow God to fill us with His life? Yes, it still hold true – you have to carry your cross and bear the sufferings of Christ for His life to radiate through you. Let us never remove the cross from our Christianity for that is where all that is ugly about us is taken away so that in the resurrection all that is beautiful in Christ may be ours.

We may believe and we may agree and we may even confess all night and day but until we act, faith will not work. Faith is belief plus action. You have the assurance and then you show that you really have the assurance by acting on the word of God. Faith says, If you believe, you will act. You have to act to make your faith real. What is it that is hindering you? What is it that you fear? You have to act on your faith. Faith sees the invisible and makes it visible. It just does not happen all in the mind. You have to act on your faith. You have to do what you normally would not do. You have to act. You are not becoming an actor but you act on what you believe is true as shown to you in the word of God. If God’s word says that you are a child of the light, it is time to act as one. We have to keep our eyes focussed on the truth and have an attitude of contempt for our circumstances. Our circumstances will change as our faith increases with each step and finally becomes perfect. Faith is based on the facts of the word of God but it is expressed by our actions. We have to step on the water before we can walk on it. Put your full weight over the troubled waters and you will see your faith in action. It is like the Apostle James said, Faith without works is dead. Faith is an act.

It is beyond any doubt that we are in the last days. The Bible says that Christ will come for a bride without any blemish and spot. But we see so much dirt and filth in the church. The time is coming for judgment to begin in the house of God. We have preached about love and the kindness and compassion of God. But the Apostle Paul says, Behold the kindness and severity of God. Kindness comes first and then severity. We have seen the kindness and goodness of God. It is time to see His severity. Judgment will begin in the house of God and there shall be no mercy. Ananias and Sapphira received no mercy when the church was born. Deceitful and lukewarm believers will receive no mercy before the church is taken away. But those who submit to the discipline of God will receive a character refined by the power of God. For the church will be refined and it will be with fire. Such testings of faith as has never been witnessed in church history. But so will the grace and power of God be with us who believe. But for those who play with church, it will be a time for destruction for no foe or enemy will be able to withstand this move of God. God is not interested in half hearted believers. Jesus categorically mentioned that he who takes the plough and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God. We have to fight for our King who died for us and there is no looking back.

There are many definitions of faith. And one definition is “Faith is acting as if it were true.” If we really have faith then our attitude and outlook towards our problems would change. We would start looking at them in a different light now since we have faith. If you had faith you would consider it done. The problem is solved. So you would act different now. It is not about the evidences presented before you but the Word of God that counts. So you now act as if it were true and it becomes true because it was already true. Once you know the will of God, you have to believe it and act as though it were true because it is true. Your acting does not make it real but you act because it is already real. More than two thousand years ago, Christ purchased your salvation and you have to appropriate everything that Christ won for you. You have freedom, peace, joy, health, success and life. Your needs are met and you are abundantly blessed. Do not look at your circumstances. By faith you have to thank God because He has promised to supply all your needs. Giving thanks is one way we can act as if it were already true. If you don’t have peace, thank God that He has given it to you in Christ. Do the same for everything else that you need because God cares for you and He wants to give every good thing to you. But you have to have faith because without faith no one can please God. And everything that is not of faith is sin. Faith does not look at the circumstances but at the Saviour who has changed the circumstances in the invisible world. Your faith will make it real in this world. Faith is not expectancy but assurance that the thing promised has come to be true so you act as if it were already true. You are not expecting it to happen in the near future. It has already happened, so when it really happens, you are not surprised but it is all very natural. The blessings of God come very naturally to you because you already believed them to be true before they were really true in the natural realm. If the bank gave you a check for a thousand dollars, you would consider yourself to be a thousand dollars rich, even though you do not have the money with you. It can be considered as if you already had the green notes because you can encash the check from the bank. It the same with God’s facts. They are what Christ has already won for you. You only need to encash them with your faith. So, once you know what is yours, you act as if it were already yours even though it may take some time to be really yours. This is acting as if it were true.

It was for the salvation of men from sin that Christ came. When He was to be born, the angel of the Lord declared that the child would save His people from their sins. From time immemorial men had struggled with sin. Laws and edicts were passed but they could not change the heart of man. The Apostle Paul later declared, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” There was no man who could claim that he was free from sin. Sin had entrapped everybody and we all needed a Savior. The Bible declares that at the fullness of time the Son of God appeared to save humanity from its sins. But why is it that after we do everything that we know that we still fall short of victory. The sins which beset us are many and salvation becomes a word without much meaning except as applied for the time when we will be in heaven. We become hypocrites in this world for we see that we profess something but practice another. We become whitewashed tombs like the Pharisees of old whom Jesus vehemently condemned. We are like the fig tree that Jesus cursed which appeared to have fruit from afar but when He got near it was a dry tree. People like us when they first get to know us but when they draw near they see the dirt and filth in us. We forget that God is not looking at how many souls have been saved by your life but whether the life that He has given you is being lived as He desires and wants. It is not your works that He desires but your heart. He wants to know whether your heart is right before Him or not. You cannot cover the dirt in your heart by the various missions you run or the charities you do. He came to set us free from sin and give us salvation and it was not just so that you and I could have fun in church. We have to take it seriously. There is too much sin in the church and we cannot just say that we are all imperfect. Of course we are imperfect but the imperfections should disappear as we progress in our Christian walk. Being imperfect is no excuse for sin in your life. You cannot resign yourself to it. On the other hand there are genuine people longing for deliverance from the things that as the Apostle Paul said ‘trip us and slow us down’. To these people would the key to victory be like a life saver.

The Bible says “By grace are you saved and not of works.” Deliverance from sin is by grace. It means that it is not from you. You are not saved from your sins by what you do but by what God does. So what is the first thing that you need to realize? You need to realize that you should stop trying to help God save you from your sins. Our pride makes us think that we need to exert some effort in the matter of our deliverance. But God wants no help from you. That requires faith. So two things arise in the matter of deliverance – surrender and faith. The one cannot go without the other. Surrender without faith is not surrender and faith without surrender is not faith. Jesus surrendered His life to death because He believed that God was able to raise Him up. So, he laid in the grave for three days until He rose up victorious. It takes faith to surrender. We are so used to doing things ourselves that we cannot resign ourselves for God to do everything. You have to give up trying and start trusting. But then again we tend to make trust or faith a matter of works. One thing you have to realize is that salvation is not a struggle. Anything that comes with self effort is not of God. Surrender is saying, “I am not able. I cannot do it. I give up.” And faith is saying, ” God, you can do it and you have done it in Christ 2000 years ago when Christ died on the cross for me. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” Believe that when you give up God will take over from you and He will do a much better job than what you have been doing. Faith sees the victory that has been achieved by Christ and ignores the facts that are presented before you. But it does not struggle in the course of doing so. If you cannot surrender, take the matter to God. If you cannot have faith, then take that matter too to Him. It is a relationship we are in and He will give you the strength to surrender and to believe. Trust me, He will do it.

If anyone thinks that the Christian life is a life free from pain they are terribly mistaken. It is a life with as much, if not more, pain as any other normal life without Christ. What marks the contrast is the way we handle pain as Christians. When Christ is with us, pain takes on another meaning. For now we overcome through pain. We return good for evil and love for hate in and through the pain. We learn not to retaliate and we  endure pain as a good soldier of Christ. So, we never give in to despair. Our situation never becomes hopeless even though the pain may be great. In all things we overcome because we have learned to handle pain.