Seeing Yet Not Believing

Seeing Yet Not Believing 

Not long ago, a man in Louisville, Kentucky, stole a credit card from a woman at church who, noticing her purse open, called the police. Authorities soon caught the man. He was using the card at a Christian bookstore to buy ten copies of a Bible study called Moving Beyond Your Past. We don’t know the thief’s spiritual condition, but we do know that many Christians never move far beyond their past. They come to Christ, but the evidence of maturity and spiritual growth is sparse. Paul called such people “carnal.” The carnal man is saved and Spirit indwelled, but he is controlled and dominated by his own life. The Holy Spirit is a resident, but He is not president. Lot is a good biblical example. He was enamored with the world, pitching his tent toward Sodom. Soon he was in Sodom, sitting at the gate, all wrapped up in materialism and with the world. You have to read all the way through the Bible until you come to 2 Peter 2:7 before you find out that Lot was a believer. There are lots of Lots today. If you had to indict them for Christianity, you couldn’t get enough evidence for a conviction. Are you a “carnal” Christian? Renew your wholehearted commitment to Christ, and let Him be President, Lord, Boss, and King of your life. - Dr. David Jeremiah Morning and Evening 

Was reading in my Bible this morning and read of a moment that the Jewish leaders were questioning Jesus concerning by what authority He was teaching and doing what He was doing. 

Matthew 21:28-46 NASB "“But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ But he replied, ‘I do not want to.’ Yet afterward he regretted it and went. And the man came to his second son and said the same thing; and he replied, ‘I will, sir’; and yet he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They *said, “The first.” Jesus *said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even have second thoughts afterward so as to believe him. 

“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and he leased it to vine-growers and went on a journey. And when the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his fruit. And the vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they did the same things to them. But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let’s kill him and take possession of his inheritance!’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?” They *said to Him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end and lease the vineyard to other vine-growers, who will pay him the fruit in the proper seasons.”

Jesus *said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures,

‘A stone which the builders rejected,
This has become the chief cornerstone;
This came about from the Lord,
And it is marvelous in our eyes’?

Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and on whomever it falls, it will crush him.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. And although they sought to arrest Him, they feared the crowds, since they considered Him to be a prophet."

God granted these leaders the ability to understand that what was just taught was indeed about them and their unbelief. They understood it and rejected it.

Many millions over the centuries have been in that place of understanding. 

My Dear Reader, please think again about your relationship with Christ. Have you listened to the point that you gave your life to Jesus to be saved or have you done the same as these leaders and rejected what He's allowed your heart to understand?

All who have ever lived or will live will be without excuse before Jesus Christ in the day of Judgment.  Everyone will have had an opportunity to believe what the Spirit of God has revealed to them or to reject it.  Literally, as in the case of what you just read in Matthew, it's a Heaven or Hell difference in what you choose. 

To go to Heaven or not to is based entirely upon you believing what the Bible says about salvation in Christ Jesus.  It's about you believing and trusting in Jesus Christ alone to be saved.  God didn't make it a complicated thing on purpose. In other passages we read that this plan is simple enough for a child to understand it. Adults look for unnecessary conditions and exclusions that children rightfully never consider nor look for. 

Salvation in Christ Jesus is free to all who believe. 

It's not about rules and regulations to receive it. It's not about getting lives fixed before receiving it. It's not about works to be done to be worthy to get it. It's not about anything we physically can do to get it.  It's a choice. It's a choice of the heart, mind and soul.  

As the Bible has said, if it were possible for mankind to do anything to be saved on his or her own, then Christ died needlessly.  He suffered for all the sins of mankind needlessly. He took the place of everyone who ever will live needlessly. 

Consider that He even died for everyone who is in Hell is also mind blowing. Their rejection of salvation did not minimize all that Jesus went through.  Jesus died and arose again for all mankind. 

But the right to be adopted by God is in a choice WE must make. 

It's wrapped up in what we decide to do with believing it.

My Dear Reader salvation in Christ Jesus is free.

There's no conditions other than living for the one who saved you.  If someone in your world right now gave their life so that you could live, you would want to honor them by truly living a life worthy of their sacrifice wouldn't you?  That's what Christians are to do. 

Living a life that says "Jesus is here. Come and See!"

It's God's job to work on fixing our lives.  We just don't have what it takes to do it. 

You have indeed been given enough information to make an informed decision about believing.  A day is quickly approaching when Jesus will return and all who have believed without seeing will be taken from this world. Will you be among them or will you still be here when the judgments of the book of Revelation rain down upon mankind and this Earth?

You are the only one between you and being saved. 

You are the one who needs to decide if you want to really live or not.

1 Corinthians 2:9 NASB "but just as it is written: “THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND WHICH HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HUMAN HEART, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”