Hi there. My name is Karen *waves hi*. The Lord just blessed me with 28
years on the earth this past December. Born and raised on the south side of
Chicago. I attended Illinois State University in Normal, IL for some time, lol.
That lol is for those that know I never graduated. Eh….let’s just say I left
for college with no clue on what I wanted to do and changed my major A LOT!
Anyways, I lived down there almost 10 years and moved back a little over a year
ago with the strongest desire to pursue my love of food. I love to cook and bake.
Anything that has to do with being in a kitchen, I’m down. Don’t worry, you’ll
soon hear of me in that areaJ.
Along with that, the Lord had placed on my heart a stronger desire of Him.
That’s where this blog comes into play. You know how you get the best
news you’ve ever heard and want to scream from a rooftop, partly from
excitement but mostly to share with any and every one? Exactly how I feel. I
can say I’ve known Jesus all my life, but I’d rather not claim that, now I have
a better understanding of what it means to be a born again Christian. I’ll give
you more details and my testimony later. Let’s cut to the chase; the first
thing I’d like to share with you is best news you can ever hear. Your
reaction and the decision you make upon
reading this message will determine your
future. Not like in the next month, or a few years from now. I mean the
most important future, something we’re all guaranteed, and that’s the future of
your soul in eternity.
All I’d like to say is this: Jesus is Lord. Did you get that? Let me
just reiterate: JESUS IS LORD! There’re quite a few responses to that
statement. For now, let’s put them into two categories; wise and unwise. The
wise responses would agree that Jesus is, in fact, Lord of all. On the other
hand, those who either don’t believe that statement and/or those that don’t
care would fall into the unwise category.
I will start with the wise category first. For as long as I remember
being able to think for myself, I’ve always believed in God. Again I believed
in God, not so much Jesus. I believed in heaven, but not hell. As a kid I’d sit
on the porch and just stare at the sky for hours looking at the stars. I just
knew there had to be something more to this life, something bigger and better
than earth, and that death isn’t an eternal sleep.
I’d say the person I used to be is the general way people think. As
long as you’re a ‘good person’, pray sometimes, and even attend church when you
feel like it, heaven is pretty much a guarantee. That’s where WE ALL are wrong.
We, the human race, have one thing in common; we’re just that, HUMAN. A mass
murderer and single mother both are born of man and woman’s conception, blood
running through their veins, heart rate 60-80 beats per minute, eat, sleep, and
both breathe that good ol’ God given oxygen.
Let’s take that mass murderer and single mother into consideration for
a moment. The mass murderer kills countless people, arrested and convicted to a
lifetime in prison. While in prison, he happens to come upon a bible, starts
reading it, and eventually accepts Jesus as his personal Savior. The single
mother is now divorced from a man that used to abuse her. Overprotective with
love for her children she is now celibate and helps women who suffer in the
same circumstances she once did. She watches her children grow up, eventually
is blessed with grandchildren and dies an old woman. She, however, never
accepts Jesus into her heart. Of these two individuals, we would conclude the
single mother would go to heaven and the murderer to hell, based on their
lives.
As I stated earlier, we are all wrong. The murderer would indeed be welcomed
into heaven. The mother unfortunately would spend eternity apart from God.
Romans 3:10-12, “There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have
turned away; they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Of course in our
eyes, we see good people, bad people. We’ve categorized everyone according to
how they treat us and what they portray themselves as. But God’s eyes are not
as our eyes (Praise God!). What you must understand is that God is HOLY,
perfection at its purest, knows all, sees all, and has all power within heaven,
earth and everything in between. It was Him that gathered dust in His hand,
breathed into the dust to form man, a living soul (Genesis 2:7). God is so holy
in fact, He CANNOT be in the presence of anything unholy, “….Holy, holy, holy,
is the name of the Lord of hosts…” (Isaiah 6:3). It’s IMPOSSIBLE for Him to be.
So, the single mother, in God’s eyes is not holy, and would not be welcomed into
His heavenly kingdom. Everything we do, whether good or bad, are tainted in a
sense, because we all are sinners, “…all our righteous acts are like filthy rags…” (Isaiah 64:6). It’s in our nature to sin, to want to be apart from God. We’re so
sinful in fact; you can sin and not even know it! That’s how natural it is.
Things you do, say, and even think are unholy.
It all starts with Jesus. Jesus is God; the second of the Holy Trinity
after God the Father. He’s the glue that binds us back to God our Father, the
middle man, the mediator, the messenger. And without Him, there’d be no way for
anyone to have access to God the Father - John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the
life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ “. And Romans 3:22-25 “This righteousness is
given through faith in Jesus Christ to
all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile (male or
female, black or white, young or old, etc.,), for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely
by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding
of his blood—to be received by faith.”
Now the reason why Mr. Murder would be welcomed into
heaven is simply because he was made whole, or made holy, by God. 2 Corinthians
5:17 says “This
means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life
is gone; a new life has begun”. In that one moment, everything changes. God
grants us the choice to live for Him
and accept Him into our lives. The ex-killer’s sin and all unrighteousness in
that moment was nailed to the cross, as was Jesus. Through His resurrection is
a new life given, by faith alone. Only Jesus, in all
His perfection can make the unrighteous righteous. Does that make any sense?
Wait. Let me try again. We’re born in sin. God sent Himself as Jesus, 100% God
and 100% human; He became flesh like us, while still remaining to be God. When He
gave His life on the cross, the sin and unrighteousness of ALL mankind, (that
means from Adam and Eve until Christ’s return, the sins you did yesterday and
will do 10 years from now) was put onto Him. The wrath of God that we so
rightfully deserve was placed on God Himself through Jesus. It was in His
resurrection that death was defeated so any man that just believes in Jesus and
confesses that to Him will live forever with Him in all His Glory and Majesty.
Yeah, it’s really that simple. Is it sinking in yet?
There is no one righteous, NO ONE; not you, me, a nun, the pope, the president, richest man in the world, the
sweetest person in the world, your son or daughter, not your parents or
grandparents, or your best friend. The only thing that can make you
righteous to spend eternity with the Creator is your own personal faith through
Jesus Christ.
My prayer is
that upon reading this message the Holy Spirit will touch your heart, and from
there your curiosity will grow so that you eventually will come to know the one
and only true God like I know Him today.
With Love,
Karen
