Moffett Road Baptist Church, Mobile
What about hypocrites in the church?”
“Church is way too much about money.”
“On Sundays, we have family time. It is the only chance we have.”
“You don’t have to go to church to be saved.”
“God and me have an understanding.”
“I see God every time I am outside.”
These are just a few of the excuses given over the years by people when confronted with the gospel. Actually the way to salvation and a relationship with the heavenly Father is simple. The Lord made it that way so anybody can come to Him and be saved, as well as transformed. In fact, the Bible says God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).
God’s reason for sending Jesus to the earth to die on a cross is that He did the work for our salvation. In fact, the Bible says salvation is a “gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). How easy is it to understand a gift? One person works for it and another freely receives it. Jesus did the work for your salvation and mine. Yet, because it is a gift, there is one very important action I must take. I must receive it. Even though a gift is already “paid for,” it does not become someone’s until he or she receives it. That is the principle we find in John 1:12.
How do we receive Him? Many times in the Bible, we find the word “repent.” This means it is necessary to give the Lord a very hard thing — our sin. There is something inside of all of us that resists this. Yet we must repent, then we believe or trust Jesus to actually forgive us. This is done by praying and asking Jesus to come into our very soul to “cleanse us of all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Over the years, it has become apparent the biggest obstacle to receiving Jesus, however, is not a lack of understanding but a fear of accountability. Remember all those excuses at the beginning? They are just different ways of saying, “There’s something in my life I’m not sure I can live without.”
What you truly cannot live without is Jesus. Open yourself to Him today. Believe it or not, the God of the universe is ready to know and to redeem you.
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