the call to faith

The call to faith is not to reinterpret God's truth (bible) to fit our lifestyle on earth like the Jews had done. God, our Creator, sent his beloved Son to show us there was much more to faith and knowing him. Throughout the four gospel accounts, we see Jesus using question and answer to introduce himself, his heavenly Father, and the Holy Spirit; One God, who has revealed himself to us as three Persons.

Connection with God in Jesus day was through Jewish temples or synagogues. The Jews considered themselves holy by their strict adherence to the law. Gentiles were excluded and thought of as pagans. The Jews thought of their understanding and religious practices, based on the Torah or the writings of Moses, the first five books of the bible, as their possession and achievement, yet they made exceptions to the commandments and did not live according to God's holy standards.

So Jesus often told self righteous Jews, "I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." Sadly, most people see themselves as good, and not needing or wanting to know or follow Jesus in their lives. Our post modern culture trusts in a a variety of pluralistic religions and philosophies, rather than a divinely inspired faith that prepares one for life beyond death, and a belief that speaks of a love and knowledge of God in the here and now.

The humbling truth of the gospel is that we all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. Jesus came to pay our sin debt so we wouldn't have to pretend to be righteous, but as our substitute, we could find life in his righteousness. Jesus calls us to walk by faith with God the Father, to follow Christ into his righteousness and into life in him, to achieve this by the power of the Holy Spirit, and to be adopted members of his family, his bride, and his body, the Church.

followjesusnewengland.com/god.html

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reach up

Pray,  "I believe...Help my unbelief."

Let Jesus live in me, and let me live
"​in Christ".

​"If I am restless and longing for a place I've never seen, then perhaps I was made of this other place." C.S. Lewis

"Look for Christ and you will find him. And with him, everything else." C.S. Lewis

​"Man, a little piece of your creation, desires to praise you, a human being 'bearing his mortality with him', carrying with him the witness of his sin and the witness that you 'resist the proud'. Nevertheless, to praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."  Augustine.

Faith comes by Hearing,

Tasting & Feeding

on Christ

&

Seeing that GOD is Good.

"I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will                       "Taste and see that the LORD is good, blessed in 
never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will                        the one who takes refuge in Him."  Psalm 34:8
never be thirsty."    John 6:35                                                                                                           

Hope takes root
as you receive Christ

God's love enters,
as you believe that word,
and turn from your sin (repentance)

repentance

Repentance is the profound act of recognizing one's missteps through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, resulting in genuine sorrow for them, and finding strength to come out of darkness and into the light spiritually. This repentance happens throughout a Christian's life, and is part of the sanctifying work of the
Holy Spirit.  

 
​Biblical salvation refers to the deliverance from sin and its consequences, granted by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It encompasses the idea of being redeemed, restored, and reconciled to God, assuring believers of eternal life and a relationship with Him.

You receive Salvation
as a free gift
by grace through believing (faith)

​our debt,  his payment

According to Arminianism, a free will theology with Wesleyan roots, Jesus’s atonement procured prevenient grace that universally regenerates the free will of the entire human race. Those who favor this view see it implicitly implied from verses in John's gospel. Prevenient grace then, is the grace of God given to individuals that releases them from their depravity and bondage of their will and enables them to use their human reasoning to enter into faith but it does not guarantee that the sinner will actually do so. Thus, the efficacy of the enabling grace of God is determined not by God but by man. The danger of this view is that  it relies on one's own merit not only to receive it but to maintain it. Calvinism, often seen as the opposing view,  favors salvation from God and his quickening in regeneration. This view  emphasizes the natural man’s deadness in sin (Ephesians 2:1; Colossians 2:13), his need of a new heart (Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26), and concludes that man does not need to be made “better” or “partially alive”; rather, he needs to be resurrected!

A metaphor commonly used to explain Arminianism is that God gives everyone a gift. The gift is inside the box, it’s not the pretty box. To get the gift, you have to choose to open the box. 
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God graciously will draw us to himself and it happens as we ask him to open our minds and do his work within our hearts. Jesus described this birth through the Spirit as being like the wind which blows wherever it wishes; you hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is not through human agency but a heavenly work from above. This is stated in John 3, the same chapter as people claim prevenient grace, which is intended to work with man's reason to make salvation more accessible, but like the wind, being born again defies our human understanding. It is a work of faith, from above.

"For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God's gift, so that no one can boast about it. God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus he has created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to do."
Ephesians 2:8-10 GNT
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walk in peace

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If that choice was up to us, it would be like something that depended on us, and that would disqualify it from being a gift. The verse above says salvation is by grace through faith and that it is not the result of our own efforts. We can't birth ourselves spiritually, and what we receive (his righteousness) is defined by Christ alone. Salvation comes to us as the Holy Spirit makes us willing (regeneration, not prevenient grace) and the  peace we receive comes from God alone "in Christ" and is applied to renewing our minds and changing our hearts. The ability to walk in peace belongs for the most part to mature Christians. "Resting in peace" eludes us when our cares, our worries, and our fears overwhelm us or interfere with our sleep or choices we make. Claiming Christ's promise "to guard our hearts and minds" means  surrendering them and our unbelief to him. We are not promised peace in this world, but we can have peace "in Christ" as our hearts rest in him.

As 
the Holy Spirit
Regenerates your mind and heart,
  (the new birth),
you step into a new world order,
where "in Christ" everything is different,
absolutely everything is transformed.
Jesus takes you into himself, forgives your sins,
and gives you His righteousness, that he might
dwell with you and you in him. That is union
​with Christ. 

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​"Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being;
the old is gone, the new has come."
2 Corinthians 5:17 GNT

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DEATH & LIFE

"See to it, then, that no one enslaves you by means of the worthless deceit of human wisdom, which comes from the teachings handed down by human beings and from the ruling spirits of the universe, and not from Christ. For the full content of the divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity, and you have been given full life in union with him. He is supreme over every spiritual ruler and authority (Colossians 2:8-10)."  

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