What the Bible Says About A True Christian
God is completely holy and pure, without even the slightest shade of wrong/evil/sin in Himself.
God is the Originator of purity, love, patience, honesty, etc...
It is not something that God just decided to do, to make things hard for us, it is who He is. He can never be or do anything else. All His laws are there to protect us.
These things were built into the whole universe, including man when He created them.
He cannot do anything that contradicts Himself. You could call it the ‘Unchangeable Laws of the Universe.’
The God of the Bible is the Great Creator God of the whole universe as well as the creator of the smallest part of an atom, that is invisible to us.
Who Is God? What does His Word say?
“The LORD is high above all nations; His glory is above the heavens. Isaiah 42:8
My name is the LORD! I won't let idols or humans share my glory and praise. Psalm 113:4
"Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. 1 Chronicles 29:11 And all the angels were standing around the throne ... And they fell before the throne with their faces to the ground and worshiped God. Revelation 7:11
The Lord said to Job "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much...But of course, you know all this! For you were born before it was all created, and you are so very experienced!... “Can you direct the movement of the stars— binding the cluster of the Pleiades or loosening the cords of Orion?... Then the LORD said to Job, “Do you still want to argue with the Almighty? You are God’s critic, but do you have the answers?” Then Job replied to the LORD, “I am nothing—how could I ever find the answers? I will cover my mouth with my hand. I have said too much already. I have nothing more to say.”...the Lord said “Will you discredit my justice and condemn me just to prove you are right? Are you as strong as God?... Then Job replied to the LORD: “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you. You asked, ‘Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’ It is I—and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me... I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” Job 38:4,21,31, 40:1-5,8,9, 42:1-6 God blesses those people who depend only on him. They belong to the kingdom of heaven! Matthew 5:3
Just like Job, most people today, have only heard about God, they have never truly met Him.
Why do we arrogantly demand answers from the Great God, to our feeble questions? Of course, the big questions we have of universal justice are valid, but not to the point where we can demand that the Almighty Creator God give us an account of His seemingly unjust handling of life.
God not only owns the universe, but He also owns us too, and all He wants is what belongs to Him. His command is to love and serve Him in return. It can be hard to swallow, but this world is His toy, and He can make it however He likes. If you or I made it, we could set the rules. God says:
Deut. 6:5 And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. NLT
God could have taken all the danger out of this life, by making us all obedient robots. But He wanted beings that had ‘choice’ and would choose to love Him.
The things we do wrong/evil/sin, they utterly violate God’s nature and holiness, and again, you could say a violation of the ‘Unchangeable Laws of the Universe’ - the ordered universe He created. These things have separated us from God.
Even the things we consider ‘little’, like: thinking hateful things about someone; not forgiving someone that hurt us; pride; resentment; white lies; being ungrateful to God, not serving God, etc...
All these things are a violation of the perfect purity, holiness, ownership, and leadership of God.
Hence, ALL wrong/evil/sin MUST be put right – a time will come when ALL evil MUST be judged or you could say, reconciled to be in harmony with the ‘Unchangeable Laws of the Universe’. This is also when followers of Jesus Christ are rewarded with heaven.
People wrongly blame God for the things that go wrong, but it is not God’s fault. He made everything perfect, Adam screwed up and we continue to screw up. God CANNOT just come in and make everything nice for us. The order or process of things of things that He set in motion, must be completed.
However, God provided a way for all our wrong/sin/evil to be paid for, before the audience of all creation/the universe – God, mankind, angels, Satan & the demons.
Of course, that was the crucifixion, death, burial and the resurrection of His Son, Jesus.
Jesus was the Pure Sacrifice for all evil. No other method could paid for our evil. The Bible says:
Romans 3:23 Everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence.
So, ‘being a good person’ and doing good things cannot save us from the penalty of our own wrong behaviour and thoughts, only Jesus can. If all we do in life is be a ‘good’ person and go to church, we are not saved and will not get into to heaven. Which means, we will go to hell.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death (hell)...
This is why funerals of unsaved people trouble me deeply. This is also why my main priority in life is telling people about who God really is. Those who never go to church, and those who do but never really understood what it was about.
The ONLY way to ‘get a ticket to heaven’ is to realise how bad/sinful we really are before a Holy God, and to tell God that we are so sorry for all our wrong/sin/evil, and then to give up our own life and follow Him for the rest of our lives.
Luke 9:23 Then Jesus said to all the people: If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross every day and follow me. CEV
Jesus never said ‘Be a good person, do good works, and you will be with me in heaven.’
No, this is what Jesus said about being forgiven:
Luke 18:9 Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: 10 “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don’t cheat, I don’t sin, and I don’t commit adultery. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! 12 I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ 14 I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” NLB
The Pharisee in this story does not do the so-called ‘bad sins’ yet he was not forgiven by God.
The tax collector did do ‘bad sins’ but was forgiven by God, because he truly apologised.
It is a humbling thing to admit we have been wrong/sinful/evil and to surrender our lives totally to God. But we must if we want God to forgive us of that wrong and save us from hell – the consequences of our wrong living. We must come to God humble and helpless. Jesus said:
Matthew 18:2 Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. 3 Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. NLB
Just doing good things for God will not save us:
Ephesians 2:8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
So, we are forgiven when we confess our sins, repent and believe. Not by the ‘good works’ we do for others. We cannot be saved by doing ‘good works’ for God either. We must confess (admit our own personal evil), repent (change our ways) and believe (in the Bible, this word means ‘to believe who God is and to live for God’. It means doing what you believed) in God.
1Peter 3:15 Honour Christ and let him be the Lord of your life.
In other words; Jesus Christ becomes the boss of your life. We are then to live the way the Bible instructs.