WHAT IS THE SUBSTANCE OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD PT 1

Acts 4:5-12, Sunday, Acts 4:5-12; Matthew 7:24-27; Ephesians 2:8-9, April 25, 2021 What is the nature of your relationship with GOD? Is it real? It may be weak and feeble and mixed with many challenges. That is not the point before us. The question for you and me is: Is our current relationship with GOD REAL? Is it AUTHENTIC? The times in which we live demand our urgent attention to this subject because it has eternal consequences. A vast number of Christians in our present world lack a true stamp of reality. Some historians have told us that the world has passed through four different stages: we have had a golden age, a silver age, a brazen age, and an iron age. I have little doubt about the character of the age in which we live. It is universally an age of base metal and mixture. If we measure the religion of the age by its apparent quantity, there is much of it. But if we measure true relationship with GOD today by its QUALITY, there is very little around. On every side, we want more reality. “Do you have the highest desire to go to Heaven when you die?” “Do you wish to have a relationship which will comfort you in life, give you good hope in death, and abide the judgment and consuming fire of GOD at the Last Day? If you desire all of these, then do consider calmly whether your relationship with GOD is real and true, or it is base and hollow. Everyone agrees with the importance of reality. But is reality rightly esteemed among Christians? I completely disagree. The greater parts of people who claim to admire reality seem to think that everyone has it: they tell us that “everyone has a good heart,” that all are sincere and true in the main, though they may make mistakes. Good Heart and Morally Decent? Many people believe that if you are just morally good and do the best you can, that is all that is needed to get you to Heaven. This is evident at the funeral services of some people where the minister’s eulogy includes praising the dead person for acts of generosity to their church or community. They claim that for a good moral heart and the love extended to others, the dead should be memorialized irrespective of whether or not he led a sinful life and was not born again. The Holy Scriptures make it clear to Christians that because of GOD’s Justification by Faith we are saved through the Grace of our LORD Jesus Christ. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of GOD--not by works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8,9) People call you uncharitable; they say you are harsh and judgmental if you censor or doubt other people’s goodness of heart. The fact is most religious people believe that almost everyone has a good clean heart. They claim that the morally good people are trying to do the best they can, and that is good enough! But the truth of the matter is that this is the most widespread delusion. No one examines the dead person’s Christianity--whether or not he/she faithfully served GOD--and to enable the officiating minister warn the living to repent of their ways before the sudden clarion call for their souls by the Almighty GOD. Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men; and the living will take it to heart. (Ecclesiastes 7:2) The truth of the matter is that reality is a rare and uncommon principle than is commonly thought about. I want you to understand that unreality or false profession of Christianity is one of the great dangers of which Christians ought to be concerned. Many religions claim that their churches are the true ones, and in the process, hundreds of thousands of organizations have sprung out in many shades and beliefs. One thing the Holy Scriptures is clear about is that nowhere is it recorded that the Almighty Father and GOD used to be man or that our blessed LORD Jesus and Satan were spirit brothers. I repeat the Apostles uncompromising statements on the supremacy of GOD’s SON, our blessed LORD Jesus Christ, as a warning to all religions: Nor is there Salvation in any other, for there is no other Name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:5-12) Worship the LORD Jesus Christ with First Century Gospel Church on Sunday Service @ 10:30 AM EST. Contact us: [email protected]. GOD's spiritual and physical blessings to you IN Christ Jesus! Amen!