You need to realize, if you don’t know this already, one very fundamental basic thing about what Christianity is. Register this, grab a hold of this thought and hold onto it forever: ‘Those that call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, shall be delivered.’ That basic thought runs all the way through the New Testament, that those who will actually talk to Jesus will find deliverance and healing and the power of life. Turn your heart not to thoughts about Him, not the right way to live, the right way to do things, that is somehow in cooperation with basic Christian thought; not that, but actually turn your heart towards Him and call out to Him. Romans 6 talks about baptism and putting on Christ. But even baptism itself, done in a horizontal way, just because it is the right Christian thing to do and Jesus commanded that we be immersed (and Peter commanded that we be immersed) just to do that really is of little significance. Peter said that true baptism is the crying out of a good conscience towards God. It is calling on the name of the Lord. It’s to look towards Jesus and say, “Save my soul. Wash away my sins with Your Blood, I beg You.” There is no such thing as baptism apart from that. It’s just taking a bath.
Talk To Him, He’s Alive!
Basically in all of life you’ve looked at Christianity through so many different angles, so many different lenses, you keep coming back to this one point: That if you won’t discipline your heart and mind to turn towards the living Jesus, you have lost everything. All you have is a superficial form. There is no power in it. If you read the book of Acts, you will see that Paul keeps making a statement that almost seems sort of odd, like you wonder, “Why does he keep saying that?”. He said, “I stand on trial today for the sake of the resurrection.” What?! He keeps saying stuff like that. What is he saying? He’s saying that Jesus isn’t dead. He’s alive. That’s the thing that kept driving Paul is “He is alive.” He is a Real Person and He’s alive, and He is the Messiah. He is the only one that can save your soul, that can heal your inner man, that can make you wise, that can make you full, that can free you from bondage, that can make the poor rich and make the slave a free man. He’s the only one that can do that. And you need to talk to Him, because by the way, He rose from the dead. The Father demonstrated that He was the Chosen One by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand, the place of authority now and forevermore.
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Read through this tonight and was very blessed wanted to share a small portion with some few here who might be led to read. For me personally I am learning that knowing JESUS and knowing "about" JESUS are two very different things. Knowing the person, knowing JESUS HIMSELF... that is where I find life!
God Bless
mj