Excerpt from Religions Can’t Save you

Love of Country Blog Stands for our Constitution We Christians as individuals must accept Christ as our personal savior. This generally happens through a friend, a minister or direct influence from God who is the author of Salvation through Jesus for all the living. (Please note that none of us are alive before we come to Christ; therefore, we are  dead, utterly destroyed by our sin before we come to our salvation)
 
Salvation is an offer to the Jew first and then to the Gentile. It is a free gift we must accept in order to enter the kingdom ofHeaven and the kingdom of God.

What’s the difference?  The kingdom of Heaven was established here on earth by Jesus, while the kingdom of God is in Heaven and has been established from one eternity to another.
 
Once we discover Christ and accept Him as our savior, we must repent of our old self. Repentance is necessary because we must turn our lives around.  Our God is Holy; therefore, we too must be Holy. Christians cannot walk by way of the world or its fleshy lusts.  We must walk in the Spirit of God.  Many people calling themselves Christian have never turned their lives over to Christ and they have never repented.  When I was a Roman Catholic, I was never taught to turn my life over to Christ and repent; I was taught that I should follow the law and go to confession.  That is not the road to salvation.
 
In a simple act, we turn our lives over to His authority.  It is necessary to give Jesus complete and total control of our lives giving up our worldly desires, our silly soap opera emotions and trust in Him for all our wants and needs.  Jesus does not give us the world of flesh; He gives us peace, love, kindness, patience, forbearance, faith, tolerance, hope and charity; most of all, He gives us forgiveness, which without, we could not enter His kingdom.
 
Once we give Jesus authority over our lives, we offer ourselves to be baptized by submersion showing symbolically that all sin is washed away from our being.
 
We receive the Holy Spirit by other brothers and sisters laying hands on us and begin a new way of life in Christ.
 
The most difficult part of Christianity is giving up our old self to Christ trusting in Him for all our needs both spiritual and physical.  However, while it sounds impossible, it is actually quite simple.  It is easy believing God provides for all His people raining on both the good and the bad at the same time.  What gifts He provides for the ungodly, is their reward; they have no desire to come to Him and they will not.  Their reward is the world with all its glamor and glorious prizes.  What He provides for His people is a future in His kingdom.  He provides all we need for sustenance and He gives us the desires of our hearts.  He lavishes us with Spiritual gifts and He does not withhold His Spirit of love, blessing us every moment of our day.  He takes our infirmities upon Himself and comforts us before our enemies.  When we accept Him into our lives, His Peace abounds in us and we cannot stop praising Him; we praise Him so much that those who belong to the world begin to shun us because they cannot stand listening to our constant preaching.  There is no end to the blessings God gives His people. 
 
The greatest disparity I see in most of those who call themselves Christian, are those who believe they are saved but have not given up the world.  If you are saved, you are not of the world.  You are in it but not of it.  If you find the will of the flesh stronger than you then you are not alone.  Giving yourself over to Christ is not easy when you have lived a life of lust and greed.  However, one must give up the world in order to be with Christ.  There is no middle ground.  The world tastes good and it is difficult to give it up.

Dr. Ron

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