Justified by Faith Alone

We are justified by faith alone, and not in works. Faith is defined as believing and trusting in Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross for us. By putting our faith in Him and His death on the cross, our sins are forgiven. There is nothing we can do to gain forgiveness of sins except to believe and trust in Jesus Christ. It is not by following the works and deeds as commanded in Shariah Law that we attain forgiveness of sins and the gift of paradise. Instead it is by putting our trust in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross that we attain forgiveness of sins and the gift of paradise.

So where do works come in? Well, works come as a result of our faith. A faith without works is no faith at all. Just as children should obey their parents out of love, and not to earn rewards, so too should we as children of God obey Him because we love Him, and not to earn forgiveness and acceptance. If we trust in Jesus Christ for our salvation, then we already have forgiveness. Jesus Christ accepts us for who we are. We are His creation, and thus He loves us, just as a mother who gives birth to a child loves her child. Even if that child does things that the mother does not approve of, she still loves her child. To believe that Allah does not love those who do wrong as the Qur'an teaches, makes a mother look better than God, and we both know how blasphemous it would be to say we are better than God in any way. If we love our children even when they do wrong, then why doesn’t God love those who do wrong? Is it a sin to love our children when they do wrong? Of course not.

It is not by fasting during Ramadan that you attain forgiveness and paradise. It is not by praying five times a day that you attain forgiveness and paradise. It is not through good manners and hospitality that you attain forgiveness and paradise. It is not performing the Hajj to Mecca at the proper time that you attain forgiveness and paradise. It is not through dying as a martyr for the sake of Allah that you attain forgiveness and paradise. It is only through trusting in Jesus Christ and His death on the cross as the perfect sacrifice to pay the ultimate price for your sins that you attain forgiveness and paradise.

After establishing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, making Him your Lord and Savior, and choosing to die to self and live for Him, only then do your works become of value and those works are the result of your faith and your love for Allah.

The Meaning of Being "Born Again"

Stop for a minute and think about what being 'born again' means to you. How would you describe to a friend what that means?

Let us begin with the words of Jesus Christ: "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3, NKJV). "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again' (John 3:5-7).

Jesus is saying that not only must we be born physically, but we must also be born spiritually. We are born of the flesh through our mother and father. We must also be born spiritually through the Holy Spirit. Now what does that mean?

All humans are made of body, soul, and spirit. When we were created, God placed in us a spirit. What then does Jesus mean when He says that our spirit must be born? That must mean the spirit that God gave us is dead and was dead from the beginning of our life. Why would God give us a dead spirit?

To answer that, we must first define a few concepts. Our spirit is our non-material self. A dead spirit can be defined as when our spirit is in a broken relationship with God. A living spirit can be defined as when our spirit is in fellowship with God. Non-Christians are spiritually dead, while Christians are spiritually alive.

Therefore, in order to enter the kingdom of God, all of us must have our spirit restored to fellowship and communion with God. Our spirit must be alive in order to experience the fullness of God.

A good analogy can help make this more clear and easier to understand. Think of your conscious. If you are conscious, then your mental faculties are fully active. You are aware of sensations, thoughts, your surroundings, your own existence, and you can respond to external and internal stimuli. If you are unconscious, then you are not aware of such things and your mental faculties are not fully active.

Our body and our spirit can both be under the state of consciousness and the state of unconsciousness. When we are spiritually dead, our spirit is in the state of unconsciousness, and our spiritual faculties are not fully active. When our body is created in our mother's womb, God puts a spirit in our body, but that spirit is in the state of unconsciousness. When Jesus says that we must be born again, He is telling us that our spirit needs to gain consciousness. That is the work of the Holy Spirit.

God does not force us into a relationship with Him, so we must give God permission to give our spirit consciousness. It must be done on His terms however. You have to believe that Jesus Christ came to earth in the form of a man, died on the cross for your sins, and was resurrected. You must ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins and to come into your life. God will respond and the Holy Spirit will give birth to your spirit, restoring you to a unbroken relationship with God. With your spirit conscious, you can begin to mature in your faith in God, and you can begin to use your spiritual faculties in discerning God's presence and His will for you.

When we are born again, our spiritual conscious is a new thing to us. It takes time to learn how to use those faculties in hearing God and discerning His will. After I was born again, it wasn't easy for me to discern the will of God. As time went by and I gained experience, I have learned how to hear God and to discern His voice much easier now. As I continue to mature, it will only get easier. Praise be to God!

Are you ready for your spirit to experience life? Ask God to awaken your deadened spirit and He will give your spirt life in order that you may experience the fullness of God. You don't have to earn it, just repent of your sins and surrender your entire life to the hands of God

Building Our Character Through Prayer

God created us in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). That means we are to live a life which reflects His character. Such character traits are humility, peace, love, joy, patience, kindness, gentleness, mercy, grace, slow to anger, quick to forgive, etc. We see our best example in the life of Jesus Christ as recorded in the four accounts of the Gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).

Prayer is one of the most important things in life. Without prayer, you can't live out God's entire plan for your life. Jesus teaches about asking the Father for anything. "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him" (Matthew 7:7-11, NKJV). Of course God will only give us what is according to His will.

Since God created us to be like Him, and the Holy Spirit has made our spirit alive within us, let us pray for the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts and build up our character so that we can reflect the glory of our Lord and Savior to the world around us. God does not do everything on His own, but He wants us to ask Him. If we don't ask, we may not receive.

Below is a list of the type of things all Christians should pray for throughout their life. We should not pray for it just once, but many times. Change takes time and transformation is a life-long process. When God gives us peace, we can ask for more peace. When God gives us joy, we can ask for more joy. When God gives us love, we can ask for more love. Until the Day of Resurrection, we will never reach perfection, and therefore our prayers for such traits should never cease. Often times we change from one day to the next. One day we are filled with joy, and the next day we are lacking the joy we had the day before. Based on experience, when I am lacking joy, I ask God for it and shortly later I have my joy back. Now for the list:

- Humility - Ask God to make you humble.

- Peace - Ask God to fill your heart with peace, no matter what the circumstances in life are.

- Love - Ask God to fill your heart with unconditional love for all people, including your enemies and those who hurt you.

- Joy - Ask God to fill your heart with joy no matter what the circumstances in life are.

- Patience - Ask God to help you become more patient.

- Kindness - Ask God to fill you with kindness towards others.

- Gentleness - Ask God to fill you with gentleness towards others.

- Mercy - Ask God to give you a merciful heart towards others.

- Grace - Ask God to give you a gracious heart towards others.

- Slow to anger - Ask God to help you become slow to anger.

- Quick to Forgive - Ask God to help you become quick to forgive others, no matter what they have done.

- Servitude - Ask God to give you the desire to serve others and put there needs above your own.

God will answer your prayers and open doors for you to put these character traits into practice. God will put people into your life or bring you through circumstances in life that will give you the opportunity to practice these traits. Does that mean that if you don't ask God to build your character, you will avoid such people and circumstances? By no means. When you ask God to build your character, the Holy Spirit will be with you to strengthen you and help you. Otherwise you may have to deal with such people and circumstances without the help of the Holy Spirit. God doesn't force us to change. Let us give Him permission through our prayers.

What happens if you know what is right, but you don't feel like going through the struggle of trying to change, so you just continue to remain the same? What if you just don't have the desire to change? Well, nothing is impossible with God, so you can ask God to give you the desire to change. If we lack the desire, the interest, and the will to do something that we know is right or that we know God wants us to do, then we can ask Him to give us those desires, interests, and wills. In my experience, I loved secular rap music. I told God that I loved the music, that it makes me feel good, and that I want to listen to it. I also told God that I knew He didn't want me listening to that music, and therefore unless He causes me to lose interest in the music, I'm going to continue listening to it. I was addicted to it. God heard my prayer, because over the next several weeks, I began to lose interest in the music. Today I listen to gospel rap. If there is no desire, there is hope in the God who creates desires in our hearts. All we have to do is ask Him and trust Him to do according to His will.

I hope and pray that Christians throughout the world will build their character through prayer and practice. Many come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior not by word-of-mouth, but by living example. By how you live your life, the Holy Spirit will draw many to the Gospel. These people may even come to you with questions. "Do as I say, not as I do" will not save souls. "Do as I say, and follow my example" will save souls. Building up character builds up credibility.

Peace and grace be with you all. You may go pray.

Do Jews, Muslims, and Christians Worship the Same God?

1) Athiesm (i.e. humanism). Rejects the existence of any divine being(s).

2) Polytheism (i.e. Hinduism, perhaps Mormonism). Belief in many gods. Often times these gods are at war with each other. They can lie and deceive other gods. They can get with godesses and give birth to other gods. They can even destroy other gods. They are very much like humans.

3) Monotheism
a) Unitarian Monotheism (i.e. Islam, modern day Judaism, Oneness Pentecostals, Unitarians). Belief in only one god, but that he is unitarian, or only one person.

b) Triune Monotheism (i.e. Christianity). Belief in only one God, but God is trinitarian, meaning God is three persons. Unlike polytheism, these three persons are in perfect harmony, fellowship, and relationship with each other. They don't fight against each other or anything like that. Missing any of those three persons would make God non-existent. All three persons must be present, otherwise there would be no god.

Modern day Israel does not worship the true God, but they worship a false god. Without Jesus and the Holy Spirit, there god is an idol. A popular question is: Do Muslims, Christians, and Jews worship the same God? The answer is no. We all aim towards the same God, but the Muslims and Jews have a corrupted version of God, and thus their god is no god at all.

This principle only applies to essential doctrines. In other words, if two Christians dispute over whether God approves of tattoos or not, is the one who is wrong worshipping a false god? By no means. Both Christians worship the same God, they just have a different interpretations based on scripture on whether God approves of tattoos or not.

First John 2:22-23 says, "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also" (NKJV). The Apostle John was saying that he who denies the Father and the Son is antichrist. He then goes on to clarify that to deny the Son is to not have the Father either. Therefore, you either have both the Father and the Son, or you have neither of Them. You can't have just the Father or just the Son. Therefore the Jews and Muslims do not have the Father nor the Son and are thus antichrist and are idolaters; worshippers of a false god.

Here is another good point: if Christians worship three gods, then that scripture above wouldn't make as much sense. If you reject one of the gods, you could still accept the other two gods. If you reject the son god, you could still accept the father god. However, because the one true God consists of three persons, all three persons must be accepted in order to have a right relationship with the one true God. It is only in the understanding that God is trinitarian in nature that the scripture above can make sense.

What did God do before creation?

Followers of Judaism and followers of Islam believe God is unitarian, while genuine Christians know God is trinitarian.

If God was unitarian, just one person, then what did He do during the eternity before He created anything? He must have been very lonely. He would be like a human on solitary confinement? He would be a loner. He would have nobody to talk to and nobody to love but Himself. Doesn't that sound kind of strange? Maybe not to everyone, but it sure does to me.
The Bible teaches that God is trinitarian, that God is three persons -- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is more logical. What did God do during the eternity before creating angels and humans? Now that question is very simple to answer and fits the character of God as taught in the Bible. The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit talked to each other, loved each other, and enjoyed each other, way before the moment They decided to create angels, and later humans. God as revealed in the Bible was never a loner, with nobody to talk to and nobody to love.

God is social and is all about relationships. The divine being of modern day Judaism and the divine being of Islam didn't have any relationships until the creation of angels and humans.

We as humans were made for the purpose of having relationships with both God and other humans. That is a vertical relationship as well as horizontal relationships. The God who creates us all is not a unitarian being, but a trinitarian being. God is three persons, not one person. God was all about relationships from the beginning, unlike the God of modern day Jews and of Muslims who had no relationships until the creation of angels and humans.

Which God do you serve? The god who was a loner in the beginning, or the God who has never been alone?