People Turn Simple to Hard

It amazes me how complicated it has turned out to become a Christian. And complicated to be one. Let's start with the become part.

John 3:16-17
For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. (NLT)

To be born again or saved and have eternal life in heaven we have to believe in Jesus. We ask Him into our life and to forgive us of our sin. We ask Him to be Lord of our life. He sends the Holy Spirit to live in us and the past is history. We are a new person born of the spirit and led by the spirit as we give Him permission to do so each day.

And yet, that has turned into a period of convincing one that they would rather be going to heaven than the alternative, hell. Then the saying of a well crafted "sinners prayer" right then and there or, more often, the dragging them to a church service days later so a trained team can lead them through the prayer and line them up with the hours of training necessary to become a Christian, as they understand it.

When we ask Jesus into our heart and begin that relationship with Him each day with the guideline of the Holy Spirit we are convicted of those things we are doing wrong, the sin in our life. And yet many "programs" hand out lists of do and don'ts for "new" Christians to follow. Lists of what is acceptable behavior. This is all wrong. It is not us who judge the world, but God. It is not even Jesus!

Jesus died on that cross for all our sins-past, present, and future. They are all erased. This means that there is nothing we can do that will not be erased. All but one thing; we cannot grieve the Holy Spirit. Father God never sees our sin after we have given our life over to His son, Jesus. This means that when we die in this mortal body and ascend to heaven He judges us on all the good we have done. He has never seen anything else in our life because Jesus took all sin away shielding us from Father God.

Jesus commissioned us to go into the world and tell. We are to speak the truth to people all around us. If they do not believe, we are to walk away and not waste any more time. We are not to argue the Bible or try to manipulate people into saying empty words so we think "we got another one!"

He did not commission us to lead the troops to cancel out sin in the world. No. That is His job, not ours. These we lead to salvation will change if they truly have believed. They will not have to be told of their sin. The Holy Spirit will do that and in the proper order in their lives. he does not use a list from 1-100 of sins to convict them. He does it one at a time as they grow in Jesus. Sure that does mean that some believers will still smoke. Some will continue to live out of wedlock. They may lie, cheat, and use vulger language from time to time. But over time in their relationship with Jesus they will change. And that change will be some of the fruit of their salvation.

There are many things all around us in this world that go against the grain of a committed Christian. But we are not to go about trying to change the world. With God nothing is impossible. It really is pretty simple. We are to reach the lost one person at a time. He will change them.