Do You Have a Hope of Salvation...

I have a friend who has investigated the authenticity of the scriptures to the best of his ability and he has come to the conclusion that King David, King Solomon and Jesus Christ are works of fiction loosely based on several characters who lived at the same times as these central religious figures. This has laid waste to his faith and he no longer truly believes in truth as it is outlined in the Bible.

To me I look at this situation from a certain perspective. I have faith that there is God and that he so loved us that he gave his only son, Jesus Christ, that who ever believes on him will receive eternal life. It makes no difference what anyone says to me I will always believe this to be true. I believe in the trinity: The father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I believe in God and I dare to say that I have a hope of Salvation.

The devil is the prince of this world and he will attack everything that God says or does in an effort to cast doubt upon it and to discredit it. He is very thorough and will leave nothing undone in his effort to prevent the majority of humanity from finding the truth about God and finding salvation.

If you would search history to find proof of the truth of the holy scriptures and the promises of God you will most likely find much to cause you concern and doubt. There are myriads of similar but substantially different texts that will cause you to be uncertain about the truth of God's word. But these are as ancient as the Torah and the writings of the New Testament and impossible to verify other than the fact that they exist.

The bottom line is that you have to have faith if you are to believe in God. Whatever you think about the voracity of the scriptures there basic tenants that will always hold true.

1. Man is separated from God by sin. 
2. To be spared from the judgement of the law (ten commandments), for that sin. You must meet the conditions of the law.
3. Man in the flesh cannot set himself free from sin.
4. God addressed man's sin debt by sending his own son to live a life of sinless perfection and as a sacrifice to pay that sin debt.
5. To believe God in this matter is to have faith in God and his promises.
6. To have entered into an agreement with God and asked his forgiveness for your sins by believing on his only Son, Jesus Christ, This is to have gained a hope of Salvation.

Regardless of what you know about the scriptures if you believe God and that he will pay your sin debt through the shed blood of Jesus Christ his only Son. Then this is reckoned to you as Faith. To have a hope of Salvation you need only have Faith that God will honor his promises. 

Awareness...

There are some experiences in life that make you more aware of the battle between the devil, his principalities and the Christian. I have noticed that when an event of spiritual significance takes place and the enemy are attacking that I have trouble thinking clearly. It seems as though time slows down,  moments seem to take minutes and things that are really out of place seem normal. It feels like my mind is being pulled in a direction I don't want to go and I'm not in control of my faculties.

However, something that I have become aware of more recently is that everyday life is much like those significant spiritual attacks. Items that God warns us about in the scriptures and which can become idols. TV shows, the Internet, Sport, anything that distracts us from the path that God intends us to follow maybe an event where the enemy is actively leading us from the way. It only takes a minute and we are off the true path and on our way up a side road. The enemy is attempting to neutralise us as Christians and Believers. All day, every day and in every way that he can so as to minimise the the impact we have on the world and maximise the impact the world has on us.

We need to seek God to cover us, our families and other believers to:

Make Straight the Way;
Make Clear the Path;
Make Plain the Instructions.

So that we are in no doubt as to what His will is for us each day and we know exactly what we are doing as Christians. Aware of our place in God's great work which is the battle against the Satan. 

Let our Body;
Our Soul;
Our Spirit.

Be continually and forever at the disposal of the our Lord the Almighty and His only Son Jesus Christ. Let the Holy Spirit indwell each of us revealing Christ in us and empowering each of us to take up the full armor of God to defeat the enemy. 

Perceptions

I use Facebook as an outreach quite often by posting a verse of scripture or creating a link to a relevant Christian website. For the most part, people in my sphere of influence don't react to my small but highly visible attempts at open evangelism. This causes me to consider how they perceive me as a Christian or for that matter how they perceive Christianity in general.

I remember while teaching Bible 'n Schools some years ago that I recounted the tale of the great English woman missionary to India, Amy Carmichael. One of the stories of her life was of a dream she had where she saw her self walking amongst a river of people. Those around her seemed to be walking in their sleep toward a cliff and certain doom. She tried to wake them and turn them away from their dire fate but only a very few woke up and heeded her warnings.

I don't dare compare my trifling attempts at sharing the truths of the gospel to the works of a truly devout saint like Amy Carmichael but I do relate to the feelings of inadequacy she described from her dream. People happily respond to mere worldly banter and discourse of sweet nothings that dominate most of the interaction on the social websites, but mention anything of a spiritual nature and suggest real consequences of inaction, then the silence becomes deafening.

I guess that what I'm trying to say is that I would love to tell my friends and the community on Facebook that it's going to be fine so don't worry. I'd love to be able to make them feel secure and happy that they're moving on the right course but the fact is that this is not the case. Mankind is separated from God by our sins and God has made a covenant with man through Jesus Christ who bore our sins upon the cross, that if we believe on him we shall not die but inherit eternal life - John 3:16.

This is not a popular message and Christians may seem a little out of step with a world that accepts only that which can be measured and defined by rational science rather than faith. However, even those who promote evolution have to make some allowances for inconvenient anomalies within that theory which amounts to showing a certain degree of faith and shows that it is really just as much a religion as any other.  

So what is a Christian to do then? Do we just walk away and leave the lost to their fate, since it seems that they don't want to be warned about it. Or, do we just keep on going and present them with the same old message that they don't want to hear. I guess we can be popular in this life or we can listen to the scripture which tells us we will be persecuted for the gospels sake and suffer as Christ suffered. Not a popular message at the end of the day but I suppose it comes down to seventy years in this life versus eternity in Paradise.