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NASB | Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Romans 10:9 because if you acknowledge and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord [recognizing His power, authority, and majesty as God], and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. |
Subject: Can someone help me get to God? |
Bible Note: EdB, What you said is unfortunately true, and it is very shameful... I believe this behavior of people orginates from plain pride: this is the tragedy of humanity, wanting to know, and thinking we know, but not realizing that we are limited in our knowledge and therefore do err. We ate from the tree of knowledge, and see where we are heading. We acknowledge, with words, that only God knows everything; but somehow it seems to be beneath our dignity to accept that we ourselves might sometimes be wrong. Bigotry is one of our weakest points; we all are tempted and we do fall. To make it worse, we even draw on the 'Holy Spirit' as an excuse. :-( As for the denominations, you are so right... Jesus made one Church, and I believe He never intended it to end up in different groups getting into bitter debates with one another. (John 13:34: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.") He especially did not intend it to become any financial institution or political organization (Mark 12:17: "Then Jesus said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." And they were amazed at him."). It was meant to keep His sheep in unity and bound to Him - so they would stand on the Rock and not be shaken when the storm comes. I am convinced that the painful divisions within His Body hurt Him the most. I actually think we should thank Him, daily, on our knees, that He is patient enough to hold us together even this much, when we have constantly tried to scatter throughout the centuries. Sadly the problem is rooted too deeply in us... I mean, just look around: we, being 'good Christians', even start selling sightseeing books and postcards in cathedrals and churches - I am sure Jesus would whip all that out just as He did in Jerusalem. And after all that, WE want to work miracles, speak in tongues and heal the sick?!? We'd be better off begging for a miracle of Grace that this greed would disappear from our hearts... The true Church of Christ is fortunately not going to be destroyed by any powers of hell, for it was His will that it should stand (Mt 16:18); but it certainly does not consist of the people who bigotedly hold on to 'MY faith is right', but rather of those, of whatever denomination, who are in but not of the world - the reborn 'little flock', who are able to place love before pride on their priority-list. Maybe I am too naive. I probably am. But that is what the Scriptures seem to tell me anyway. 1 Corinthians 1:10: "I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought." Zsuzsi |