Casting Pearls - Religion or Relationship?

                          Today the people overwhelmingly claim to be Christian. Approximately 87% of Americans claim to be Christian, yet how many claim a religion and not a relationship with Christ? Most of these people are claiming they are part of the Christian religion, not that they have a personal relationship with Jesus. They believe in the lie the world tells that they only have to believe Jesus was the messiah and they will be saved. To be Saved is much more complicated than that. 

                          Satan believes that Jesus was the Messiah and is more than willing to say so, we are called to go further than that. Jesus wants us to have a relationship with Him. If you know a boy or girl that you are interested in you will strive to spend as much time with them as possible. Even missing out on things you would normally do so you can spend time with them. Well, to spend time with Jesus all you have to do is read His Word. The Bible says in John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word(Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". So from this verse alone we know that Jesus is thew Word of the Bible and to spend time with Jesus and hear what He has to say to you, all you need do is read His Words in the Bible.

                          Most people today don't want to give up their supposedly valuable time to spend a few minutes with Jesus each day. If these people want the blessings that God promises in His Word, They will want to have s personal relationship with Jesus. Many people say, "Not yet" or "I'll get around to it, we have a lot of time" . These people are fooling themselves, there is not much time to get right with the Lord, the signs we were told by Jesus, Matthew, Mark, John, Paul, Peter, James, and all the New Testament writers, given the words to write by God Himself, are all coming true around us and the time of Jesus' return is near. With all the hints we have that Jesus is coming back soon, there is nothing that tells us the exact date of His return. 

                          God does not tell us the exact date, because if we were to know, we would just wait until the day of His return to straighten up our lives. To have a relationship with Jesus, we are commanded by God to clean up and straighten up our lives now so we will be ready at His return. We should desire to tell more people about Jesus, and convince them to be saved, so even more will make it to Heaven at Jesus' return. 

                         We are given a choice, Love this world, our life here, the things we have, and people we have relationships with, or, Love Jesus, and receive the things of this world, the People we have relationships with, and all the good things of this life. You see, you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain by giving your life and your heart to Jesus, and everything to gain.

Casting Pearls - Repent or repented?

                    As Christians we are called to repent and turn away from sin. The problem comes when we repent after the sin and not before it. The original greek that the Bible was written in uses two words that can be translated as repent, but have a vastly different meaning. First we have the verse; Acts 17:30 where the Bible says for all men to repent, (Metnoeo) in the original Greek, which is a verb, meaning to turn away and keep from continuing in the sins you had previously been engaged. God was understanding that we had trouble turning away from the evil and "winked" at our sin. We are called to repent and change our direction, away from the evil, in the opposite direction. The day is coming, very soon, that the Lord will return to judge the world in righteousness by the one and only Jesus Christ who God has made our attorney (representative) and judge over us in spirit.
                    We have God's assurance, that Jesus will have the right to represent us and judge us as Jesus had conquered death and the grave to be our sacrifice and our Savior from the evil all around us.(verse 31) Though some may mock, and call us foolish for believing that Jesus was raised from the dead for our sakes, we will be victorious over the evil that surrounds us if we hold on to Jesus. The problem comes when we repent because of the sin, and not from the sin. In Corinthians 7:10 the Bible tells us that we must fully repent and not just have "Godly sorrow' which is the other meaning of repent, to mentally feel sorrow because "we were caught in our sin" by God and mentally feel sorrow and repentance.
                    The World wants us to feel sorry if we have done anything wrong, and try not to do it again. (verse 11) Attempting to be a Godly sort and not truly repenting and turning away from our sins to become a "new creature in Christ". the word for repent in verse 10 is, (Metemelome) which is a noun meaning to be "be sorry we got caught", what we need is TRUE repentance. the first repent implies that we have a different view of the evil now that we have arrived at the evil that the sin brought us too. the second repentance, which is what we are called to have, is the implication that we would have a different view of the evil if we were turned away from it.
                   Are we to stand and wallow in the sin, or move steadily away from it ? The choice is really our to make, it is a mental choice we must make. It is truly the difference between eternal death and salvation to eternal life. we must mentally make the choice to turn away and not just feel sorry for our sin. Change your ways, and change your life, by changing your heading.