[FONT="]Religion and Religions works[/FONT][FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]There are thousands of religion in the world today; but none of them can cause a man to be born again and saved, for the simple reason that religion has no power to impart eternal life. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Even the Christian religion cannot save. To those who are genuinely saved, Christianity is not a mere religion. It is life from Jesus Christ. Those to whom Christianity is not more than religion are in for a big surprise at the end of their life because it is ‘not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost’ Titus 3:5. Religion is made of laws to be performed.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]The second Birth is not centered upon a religion but upon a Person – Jesus Christ. Each religion is just as useless and powerless to save as the other. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Priests and Ministers [/FONT]
[FONT="]Acts 4:12 [/FONT]
[FONT="]Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.[/FONT][FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]A preacher may be good at preaching the word of God. A Minister may be wonderful at ministering. A priest may be great at conducting church services. But they cannot save. No priest has the power to pray the soul of a dead person out of hell.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Though a preacher may show one how to be born again, but he cannot take one to heaven. To go to heaven a man just has to be born again. And a man can only be born again through Jesus Christ. In Jesus’ Name only is soul-saving power. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Church[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]As Christians we should go to church to hear God’s words and to fellowship with other children of God. But the fact that you are registered as a member of a church and that you attend Church services regularly does not guarantee that you will go to heaven. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]John Wesley, the Methodist Reformer, had a dream. In the dream he found himself at the gate of heaven. He enquired of the angelic being at the gate if there was any Wesleyan there in heaven.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]“No,” came the answer.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]“What!” John Wesley exclaimed incredulously. He obviously expected to hear the angel say the heaven was filled with the members of the church of this great revivalist and holiness preacher. “What about the members of so and so Church?”[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]“Not here,” replied the being.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]“But why? Certainly there must be members of my Church and the other Churches here”.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]The angel explained that the only people in heaven were those who were washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, who had been born of God the Holy Spirit.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]What Wesley was being made to understand was that admission to heaven did not depend on the type of the church a man attended in the world.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]It is possible for one to have one’s name in a church register and never in Christ’s Book of Life of heaven. One may be a pillar in a local church or denomination but never be counted worthy of God’s heaven. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]The devil will not worry about a man going to Church as long he is not born again, knowing well that he will surely come to hell to spend eternity as if he has spent his life bowing down only to idols. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Good and Moral Works[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Although enjoined upon the born-again Christians, good and moral works cannot save. They are not means of experiencing the second birth.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]If good works alone could save there wouldn’t be need any need for Cornelius to invite Peter to his home to hear what he should do to be saved (Acts 10). [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Yes, God loves to see us doing good and moral works. And He is going to reward genuine children of God for all the good and moral works they do on earth. ‘The LORD render to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness…’ 1 Sam. 26:23. ‘And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.’ Rev. 22:12[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]But we cannot take the way of good and moral works to heaven. We can experience the second birth only through the Lord Jesus Christ. And without the second birth there is no salvation - no heaven, no divine peace, no eternal joy. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Self torture[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]There was an article in the Grand Rapids Press about a West German businessman’s conversion to the Hindu faith. It was reported in the paper that the businessman had just completed his conversion to the Hindu faith by piercing himself through the cheeks with a quarter-inch thick, four-feet-long steel rod and pulling a chariot for two miles by ropes attached to his back and chest by steel hooks. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]His fellow candidates had to walk through twenty-foot long pits of fire, wear shoes with soles made of nails, or hang in the air spread-eagle from hooks embedded in their backs.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The second Birth is not achieved by human endeavors. The conversion experience of a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is not ‘completed’ through acts of self-torture.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Jesus had paid the price for our salvation. He had paid the debt of our sins and had finished the work on the Calvary. His suffering, death and precious blood is enough for the salvation of human beings. The Christian way is not conversion by torture - it is salvation by grace.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]- Raphael Oye. Taiwo[/FONT]
http://www.uceminternational.com
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]There are thousands of religion in the world today; but none of them can cause a man to be born again and saved, for the simple reason that religion has no power to impart eternal life. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Even the Christian religion cannot save. To those who are genuinely saved, Christianity is not a mere religion. It is life from Jesus Christ. Those to whom Christianity is not more than religion are in for a big surprise at the end of their life because it is ‘not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost’ Titus 3:5. Religion is made of laws to be performed.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]The second Birth is not centered upon a religion but upon a Person – Jesus Christ. Each religion is just as useless and powerless to save as the other. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Priests and Ministers [/FONT]
[FONT="]Acts 4:12 [/FONT]
[FONT="]Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.[/FONT][FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]A preacher may be good at preaching the word of God. A Minister may be wonderful at ministering. A priest may be great at conducting church services. But they cannot save. No priest has the power to pray the soul of a dead person out of hell.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Though a preacher may show one how to be born again, but he cannot take one to heaven. To go to heaven a man just has to be born again. And a man can only be born again through Jesus Christ. In Jesus’ Name only is soul-saving power. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Church[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]As Christians we should go to church to hear God’s words and to fellowship with other children of God. But the fact that you are registered as a member of a church and that you attend Church services regularly does not guarantee that you will go to heaven. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]John Wesley, the Methodist Reformer, had a dream. In the dream he found himself at the gate of heaven. He enquired of the angelic being at the gate if there was any Wesleyan there in heaven.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]“No,” came the answer.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]“What!” John Wesley exclaimed incredulously. He obviously expected to hear the angel say the heaven was filled with the members of the church of this great revivalist and holiness preacher. “What about the members of so and so Church?”[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]“Not here,” replied the being.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]“But why? Certainly there must be members of my Church and the other Churches here”.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]The angel explained that the only people in heaven were those who were washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, who had been born of God the Holy Spirit.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]What Wesley was being made to understand was that admission to heaven did not depend on the type of the church a man attended in the world.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]It is possible for one to have one’s name in a church register and never in Christ’s Book of Life of heaven. One may be a pillar in a local church or denomination but never be counted worthy of God’s heaven. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]The devil will not worry about a man going to Church as long he is not born again, knowing well that he will surely come to hell to spend eternity as if he has spent his life bowing down only to idols. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Good and Moral Works[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Although enjoined upon the born-again Christians, good and moral works cannot save. They are not means of experiencing the second birth.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]If good works alone could save there wouldn’t be need any need for Cornelius to invite Peter to his home to hear what he should do to be saved (Acts 10). [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Yes, God loves to see us doing good and moral works. And He is going to reward genuine children of God for all the good and moral works they do on earth. ‘The LORD render to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness…’ 1 Sam. 26:23. ‘And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.’ Rev. 22:12[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]But we cannot take the way of good and moral works to heaven. We can experience the second birth only through the Lord Jesus Christ. And without the second birth there is no salvation - no heaven, no divine peace, no eternal joy. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Self torture[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]There was an article in the Grand Rapids Press about a West German businessman’s conversion to the Hindu faith. It was reported in the paper that the businessman had just completed his conversion to the Hindu faith by piercing himself through the cheeks with a quarter-inch thick, four-feet-long steel rod and pulling a chariot for two miles by ropes attached to his back and chest by steel hooks. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]His fellow candidates had to walk through twenty-foot long pits of fire, wear shoes with soles made of nails, or hang in the air spread-eagle from hooks embedded in their backs.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The second Birth is not achieved by human endeavors. The conversion experience of a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is not ‘completed’ through acts of self-torture.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Jesus had paid the price for our salvation. He had paid the debt of our sins and had finished the work on the Calvary. His suffering, death and precious blood is enough for the salvation of human beings. The Christian way is not conversion by torture - it is salvation by grace.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]- Raphael Oye. Taiwo[/FONT]
http://www.uceminternational.com
[FONT="] [/FONT]