salvation

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

       John 3:3 says, “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

I am currently living in a dementia wing of an assisted living facility.  As some of my previous devotions have perhaps indicated my concern over the staff of the facility.  I am not referring to their abilities to perform their job, but what will happen to them when the end comes in their lives.  Again, not so much concerned about their latter days in such a facility, but their eternal destiny.  This is a place of nicotine and caffeine.  My life is getting shorter each day.  I don’t know the day of my departure so I keep asking each one of the staff about their eternal destiny.  It isn’t hard to know when you are being patronized with kind words and the real truth, even when they come up with their canned replies to such questions.

Jesus told NIcodemus that he must be born again if he was ever going to have eternal life.  Nicodemus was a Bible scholar.  He was “the” teacher in Israel.  Jesus did not tell him to be baptized, he told him to be born again.   A lot of people need to read this message over and over again to see what Jesus said and what He did not say.  Nicodemus needed to be born of God from above.  Now what on earth does that mean?

First Thessalonians 1:9-10 says, “ For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.”  There was a change of direction for the Thessalonians. They turned from their idols and turned to God.  It was a complete change of direction for them.  Their idols were the same difficulties, to say it mildly, as our today.  The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.  Satan has been using it ever since the Garden of Eden, the temptation of Chris and we are even warned about it in First John.    You can’t add Jesus to your lust of the flesh and think you are saved.  It doesn’t work that way.  The Thessalonians had a change of direction.  The Apostle Paul spend some time in blindness while he contemplated what had happened to him while on the road to Damascus to eventually kill more Christians.  Have you had a change of direction in your life?  If not, you certainly need one.  Read the whole Gospel of John and discover the Son of God and what He has for you.  Praise God today for the gift of salvation.