Do You Accept Free Gifts?

 

This is one of seven I’ve received just this morning. I’ve won so many over the past years – yet I do not have any new cookware, or any of the other remarkable items that would be free if only I would … That changes with the whim of the scammer/advertisers.

Yet we Christians keep telling unbelievers that believing will not cost them a thing – while at the same time it will change your life forever. We often forget to explain just how that happens.

Let’s start with someone who knows about religion. Not only do they know Jesus by name, they might combine it now and again with a socially unacceptable companion word. The fact that it is not socially accepted depends on who they are with, and where they are. Believing might cost you those friends:

For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: (1 Peter 4:3-4 KJV)

That has happened to a number of people who have come to believe the most simple verses in Christian beliefs:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1 KJV)

That is one major hurdle right there. God, a singularity, only one deity, who is presented to mankind in another verse as a trinity:

Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased. (Luke 3:21-22 KJV)

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in one incident, proclaiming their togetherness, recognizably separate. That one has been difficult for a couple of people I love, but they come to understand, party because of:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (John 1:1-5 KJV)

Finally, the simplest of verses:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 KJV)

Believing really is that simple. Paul repeats in action to a jailer:

And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:30-31 KJV)

Remember, his house wasn’t saved because the jailer believed, but because he brought Paul and Silas to his home:

And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. (Acts 16:32 KJV)

The Bereans didn’t find it that easy – they heard Paul’s preaching and had to do some studying:

And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few. (Acts 17:10-12 KJV)

Remember, it wasn’t the Bible as we know it today, it was what we call the Old Testament, prophecies from hundreds of years before, along with notes from men who studied them. Bible study is one of the things mentoring Christians should encourage for those asking why, how, or who to believe.

Now that’s a daunting thought, isn’t it. How can you be sure that’s how it works today? You would have to study tons of material, right? Shouldn’t we memorize and follow the Ten Commandments? Jesus told us how to get started with that long before we understand all the laws, with one simple paragraph:

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40 KJV)

Yes, even the “neighbor” you hate for what you know is good reason. You will come to love those you know have done you harm, for they need Jesus, too, just as much as you and I do.

The New Testament is full of what we do get when we believe Jesus is the Christ, but God simplified what happens when we do – and when we don’t:

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:18 KJV)

Take a bit more of you time and check out the verses I use to confirm their context and read as much as you can to see who is talking to whom, and how it is applicable today. Please – let me know if you have questions, or have a reason to disagree with my writings. I promise to answer biblically.