Satan's Big Lie

Jesus tells us in John 8:44 that Satan is a liar, the father of lies, and that the truth is not in him. There are so many things that Satan lies to us about. There are a couple of huge lies that Satan tells unbelievers about salvation. One lie is that they have plenty of time to give their lives to Christ. He tells them to just put it off a little longer, have fun, tomorrow will come. The other lie is that someone is already saved when they're really not. Oh he is the master of deception on this one. There are millions of people believing this lie. I know; I believed it for 29 years. I grew up in the Methodist church. I attended a Baptist junior high and a Catholic high school. Talk about confused!! I grew up in a good "Christian" home with great parents. The Methodist and Catholic churches didn't really talk about salvation but the Baptist church talked about it all the time. In chapel we would have the opportunity to come down the isle and give our lives to Christ. When I was 13 I attended a crusade. It wasn't Billy Graham but someone like him. I talked and giggled the entire time with the cute boy sitting next to me. At the end of the sermon they started playing "Just as I am" and I decided I wanted to go down and join in. I was pretty calculating even at that young age. This really sounded like the thing to do...head on down the aisle. I signed my name on a pledge card and prayed a prayer. That was it!!! That was my ticket to heaven! Now I could check that off my list and worry about other things because I had accomplished the "God" thing. When I got home I came to the den and told my parents that I got saved. They smiled and acknowledged me so I went into the kitchen to get something to eat. When my dad came into the kitchen, I think he hugged me. I thought I was "in" and that was the end of the story for the next 29 years. We did the church thing on Sundays. When we were little, dad would read us kids bible stories. Friday night was gripe night where we could complain about anything we wanted to. I would always use that time to tell on my brothers for something or another. Anyway, I've already spoken in previous blogs about some of the horrible sins of my childhood. Not one single time, in any area of our lives, were we ever directed to take anything to the Lord. Life went on. God was never a part of our everyday lives. Life was something you did and it really didn't have anything to do with God. He was never really invited to be an everyday part of what life had in store, whether good or bad. It was just kinda understood that we were good people, kind, with a house open to all of our friends....the place where everyone wanted to be.....just good people. But God was not in the equation. If you are a true child of God then you know how it is in your walk with Christ. Although you may fall away for a short time, Jesus is the most important Person in the whole world to you. A child of God can't even imagine going a day without their Shepherd, Savior and King. Every single thing that happens in day to day life makes His children want to go to Him, whether it be in praise, confession, intercession, supplication, fellowship, ect. The thought of Jesus just being something you do on Sunday is unthinkable! Every problem drives a child of His to their knees. Every blessing makes a child sing the praises of Jehovah God. If we're walking in right relationship to our Savior, then even the hard things causes us to praise the One who is worthy. Being away from your heavenly Husband is the most miserable feeling in the entire world! It's unthinkable. There's hardly going to be, if ever, a day without mentioning the name of God Almighty! But God just wasn't a part of our lives. God has to be living on the inside of you before He can truly be manifested on the outside.

Here I was claiming salvation since the age of 13 and living like the devil. I never once, in Joshua's entire life until I got saved when he was 22, prayed for him. Not once! And I called myself a Christian. It wasn't until I got truly saved that I realized I wasn't saved before. Now it's my heart's desire, given to me by God, to proclaim this lie of Satan to everyone who will listen to me. My mother got cancer when I was 38. She lived for 13 months after she found out. Not one time during those months did I utter a single prayer for her. It never even crossed my mind. Not one single person in my entire family ever suggested us praying for her, separately or together. We never, as a family, prayed together for my mother. We never gathered around her and prayed for her!! NOT ONCE!! Prayer was never even mentioned when she was enduring chemo and radiation. Her life was slowly being drained out of her and her family never came together to lift her up to Jehovah God!! It's unimaginable to me now. It makes me so very sad. It actually breaks my heart. Anyway, she and I only had one conversation about God. It was a couple of months before her death. I said to her, "When you see God, you just tell Him that I said He can kiss my ......"!! She said, "Oh I can't say that". And that beloved, was the extent of our one and only conversation about God in my entire life. I never saw my mother pray, not one single time in my life. I never saw my dad pray with my mom, never once. My precious mother whom I loved so very much was, in her own words according to my dad, "spiritual, not religious". Beloved, it's not about religion, it about relationship! And it's a relationship with the King of kings and Lord of lords. It's about submitting your life entirely to the One who purchased you with His blood. It's about being broken bread and poured out wine to every single person He puts in your path. It's about being the salt, light, love and truth of Jesus Christ no matter what that might entail, because you love Him so very much. It doesn't matter how many years you've been fooling yourself that when you die you will go to heaven just because you have some religious beliefs. It doesn't matter how nice you are or how good you treat other people. It doesn't make a difference what good things other people say about you. It doesn't matter if you walked an isle and signed a card if you didn't repent of your sins and acknowledge your desperate need of a Savior and then turn from your wicked ways. And once the Holy Spirit comes to live inside you, there will be fruit of the Spirit in your life. Jesus said in Matthew 7:16 that you will know a genuine Christian by their fruit. If you are truly saved then the bible tells you that there will be changes in your life, and these changes are drastic. You will look like, walk like, talk like, and live like your Savior. It will no longer matter to you how other people mistreat you. You will only think about how your precious Savior was so severely mistreated without ever opening His mouth. And you will remember that no matter how bad another person treats you, or what horrible lies they say about you, that Jesus, if they come to the cross, has already paid for their sins against a holy God and against you. Jesus knows everything, and nothing will escape His perfect justice for the wicked, and perfect forgiveness for the forgiven!! Amen!! Listen to what 2 Corinthians 5:17 says; "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. (NASB) You can't have the Holy Spirit of God living on the inside of you and not be changed. But please don't be fooled by what may be temporary feelings attached to a false salvation. Satan loves to fool people into thinking that what they experienced was a true conversion because sometimes our feelings can take us very far. You may experience a high for quite a while and think that what you have is salvation when it is really nothing more than a feeling. You may even act on your feeling and get involved in some good Christian activities. Satan loves this. You can fool yourselves, like I did, and my mother did, for years and years. Please read 2 Corinthians 13:5 to see what Paul pleaded about examining yourself to see whether you are in the faith, and testing yourself. In Philippians 2:12 Paul tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling! Wow, it's a very serious matter. It's a matter of spiritual life or death. So many people are deceived into thinking that their salvation is just fine. A good test is this: if you have to look back to some point long ago in your life to where you think you came to Christ, and not have everyday examples of the ways that God is changing and growing you more and more into the image of His Son, then ask God to show you if your salvation is real. He is faithful and He will show you. If you are reading this right now and you are not saved, then Satan is hard at work trying to convince you that this message is not for you. The cool thing is that you don't have to take my word for it and you don't have to listen to Satan. Take it to God, right now. Ask the Omniscient Jehovah to reveal the truth to you. The gates of hell cannot prevail against a holy God. Please, please seek God and ask Him to reveal the truth about your salvation. Your eternity in heaven depends on it. Do it before it's too late. In Luke 12:20 God told a greedy, wicked man who had a lot of possessions and was going to build bigger barns to hold it all: "You fool, this very night your soul will be required of you". Satan may lie to you and tell you that you are already saved. Or he may lie and tell you that you have plenty of time. You might not. Read 2 Corinthians 6:2 that says "Today is the day of salvation". You may not have anymore tomorrows. You never know if today will be your last chance. Repent and be saved! Run to the foot of the cross. Jesus is waiting for you there.