It's About Jesus Christ's Faith - not yours

"…a righteousness of God through Jesus Christ's faith, FOR all, and ON all who are believing, for there is no distinction...
” (Romans 3:21-22, CLNT)

Some versions change "Jesus Christ's faith" to read “through faith in Christ Jesus” thus robbing us of the truth that righteousness, just like eternal life, is freely given sinners by the "GRACE" of God as the result of "JESUS CHRIST'S FAITH". All will acknowledge Jesus at some point in time, and confess that he is Lord.

"Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:9-11)

For most this comes after they have been resurrected.  Many say it is too late for justification at that time, but there is no Scripture to back that up, only the false opinion of religious men. The Scripture says all "sinned" and the same all will be "justified gratuitously in His grace"...as a "gracious gift".

“…for all sinned and are wanting of the glory of God.
 Being justified gratuitously in His GRACE, through the deliverance which is in Christ Jesus…For the ration of Sin is death, yet the gracious gift of God is life eonian, in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” (Romans 3:23-24; 6:23 CLNT)

You Only Live Twice

“What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (James 4:14)

One of the most successful TV commercials of all time says ''You only go around once in life, so you have to grab for all the gusto you can get!”

That is a suitable moto for both the believer and unbeliever. God has given that life, so you might as well live it to its fullest potential. Nevertheless the truth of the Scripture is more in line with the title of the 1967 James Bond movie “You Only Live Twice”.

All people will live twice. Once as a mortal where we experience the difference between good and evil and then die and give God an accounting as to how we lived it. I am convinced that perfect attendance in Church won’t count for much. I think that what will matter to God  is whether you left this “present evil age” (Galatians 1:4) a little better just because you lived in it.

“So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God…For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.” (Romans 14:12; Matthew 16:27)

The Second life is a gift from God just as the first, however, it is a “new creation” and never ending in a sinless, immortal body composed of 100% Spirit. As an immortal, we will be blessed beyond measure by boundless "riches of Christ"….and we all will then be "in Christ" and like him!

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life…if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here…this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ… Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” (Romans 6:23; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 3:8; 1 John 3:2-3)

So why do people live like the devil…well  in my opinion it is because they have not been told the truth so they have no hope.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed” (Titus 2:11-12)

“The LORD God commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it YOU WILL SURELY DIE…” (Genesis 2:16-17)

I am told that the Hebrew word translated “die” is more accurately rendered “to die shall you be dying”...in other words the dying process began and all of us inherit the dying process as a result of the original sin of Adam. 

“…as through one man (Adam) the sin did enter into the world, and through the sin the death; and thus to all men the death did pass through, for that all did sin…” (Romans 5:120

I was asked by a Christian friend if I thought his Daddy had lied to him when he told him that the penalty for unconfessed sin is everlasting punishment in hell? 

It was a loaded question and I was not about to call his Daddy a liar… so I said no he did not lie to you, he sincerely told you what he believed. He was concerned as any parent believing in hell would be….he was just MYTHTAKEN.

And this attitude I find to be the strongest hindrance to people repudiating the false teaching of eternal conscious torment in hell. They trust their spiritual leaders and I learned early that you cannot argue with that “logic”. So all I can do is post my different opinion, citing the Scripture upon which I base my view, hoping some people will pick up the bible and check it out….if so, I am confident they will find as I do that the wages of sin is DEATH, just as "the free gift of God is eternal LIFE". Our existence began with God creating us in our mother’s womb….and the new creation will start at our resurrection when God creates us brand new as a free gift into the immortal, sinless image of God, of which Christ Jesus is the firstfruit.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord….as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord… Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly…this mortal must put on immortality…then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.” (Romans 6:23; Romans 5:21; 1 Corinthians 15:49-54)

God wins…and so do we!