Before deciding to obey God’s command to work out one’s own salvation one needs to examine the lives of people before and after they came in contact with Jesus of Nazareth.  Before being called to serve their God, the Old Testament prophets were herdsmen, fruit pickers, farmers, etc. living conventional lives at peace with their fellow man.  Before His call their lives had mirrored the lives of those among whom they lived.  They were loved, embraced and accepted by everyone they knew.  Then the God of the Old Testament, Who would later come to earth as a lowly carpenter (see Jesus of Nazareth: God, Man or God-man?) called them to serve Him by living holy lives and instructing others to follow their example.  After answering His call these “people next door” became hated, rejected and persecuted, some unto death.

Later came John the Baptist on the scene.  This young man had no unusual problems before acknowledging that his cousin was the Son of God.  He lived a life of peace with his neighbors before telling them that they had to confess their sins, repent of them, undergo water baptism, embrace the One Who would follow him and be baptized with fire for doing so.  John was beheaded for obeying His God.

Jesus Himself lived an obscure, uneventful life until the day He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and began to openly fulfill His calling.  After three and one-half years of obeying His heavenly Father, doing all manner of good works and telling people how to live holy lives He was beaten almost to death then nailed to a stake where He was left to die an agonizing death.

The 12 apostles lived normal, uneventful, socially-accepted lives.  Then they met Jesus of Nazareth.  After joining Him eleven of them were brutally murdered because they did what He told them to do and preached what He told them to preach.  The only apostle to die a natural death was John.  He wrote the following: “I John, who am also your brother and COMPANION IN TRIBULATION and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the (prison) isle that is called Patmos FOR THE WORD OF GOD AND FOR THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST” (Rev. 1:9).

We must understand that what Jesus commanded of people of old He commands of people today.  Jesus, His way and will are the same yesterday, today and forever.  They do not change.  When one truly surrenders one’s life to Christ, rejects the Institutional Church and begins to obey God’s Word persecution begins as those in one’s world immediately turn against that obedient soul.  Count the number of people do you know who fit that description.  That is how many true Christians you know.  All others are CINOS–Christians in name only.  Jesus called them false brethren, false prophets, false witnesses and false teachers.  Saints and CINOS are easily identified.  This series explains how one can identify them.  One group is accepted by both the churched and the unchurched.  The other group is rejected by both.

Jesus warned those who would follow Him that their lives must mirror His life.  To make sure that this Truth was understood, He told God-seekers to “count the cost” of following Him.  The “cost” He and His apostles continually warned us about was manifested through their much suffering.  Their warnings consisted of such proclamations as:  “We must, through MUCH TRIBULATION, enter the Kingdom of God.”  “In this life YOU WILL HAVE TRIBULATION.”  “MANY ARE THE TRIALS OF THE RIGHTEOUS (HIS TRUE SAINTS), but God delivers them out of them all.”  “The world will HATE YOU and SAY ALL MANNER OF EVIL AGAINST YOU FOR MY NAME’S SAKE (FOR OBEYING HIM).”  “I did not come to bring peace to the earth, but (rather) a SWORD (His Word).  I came to set a man AGAINST his father, and a daughter AGAINST her mother, and a daughter-in-law AGAINST her mother-in-law, and a man’s FOES will be they of his OWN HOUSEHOLD.  He that loves father or mother more than Me is NOT WORTHY OF ME.  He who loves son or daughter more than Me is NOT WORTHY OF ME.  He that TAKES NOT HIS CROSS (persecution, hatred, etc. of others) and FOLLOWS ME (endures the rejection of others while remaining holy) is NOT WORTHY OF ME.  He who finds his life (cares about the opinions of others) WILL LOSE IT (eternally).  He who loses his life (endures persecution for obeying Him) WILL FIND IT (in paradise).”  “You cannot SERVE (obey) both God and man,” for you will hate one and love the other.  As Jesus said, only those who endure being HATED AND REJECTED for obedience to God until the end will be saved upon the return of Jesus Christ to earth (Mat. 10:22).  These are those who will have WORKED OUT THEIR OWN SALVATION WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING.

Jesus said that those who continue in sin while claiming to be God’s children are fake Christians.  He compared them to seeds planted in stony soil who, upon hearing the Word, receive it with joy.  Satan immediately lures them onto his Catholic/Protestant track and convinces them that his way, though different from Christ’s way, is in fact the Christian way.  These deceived souls then  join with others who have the same beliefs, form religious organizations, formalize their doctrines and practices, call themselves a church and declare that they are God’s true representatives.  The end result is Catholicism and Protestantism–“the church.”  The world is dotted with these self-professed “churches” because religious man refuses to believe and obey God’s Truth, which Jesus called His Word (Jn. 17:17).  Instead he works out his salvation according to his own truth.

After many years of speaking and writing God’s Truth I have concluded that there are two basic reasons why Catholics and Protestants reject God’s Truth: pride and fear.  Even after admitting that the Bible is God’s true Word, pride prevents them from obeying it.  To do so would be to admit that they are not merely wrong, but that they have been wrong all along. Religious man simply cannot bring himself to make such an admission.  “Pride comes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall.”

Interwoven with pride is fear.  The proud have an deadly fear of being rejected.  After I showed an ex-missionary the Lord’s Truth concerning true Christian living, she told me that, quote: “Obeying God is too much trouble,” unquote.  The “trouble” she referred to was her pride that would be crushed if her uber-religious family and friends knew she believed God’s Word and would henceforth be obeying it.  A local preacher admitted that I was right about God and His Word.  However, he and his congregation were going in another direction.   These Satan-led, lie-embracing souls know that disobeying God is sin.  But for them, the fix is in.  As one bastion of “the church” said, quote: “God doesn’t like sin, but He won’t do anything about it,” unquote.  Adam and Eve come to mind.  I coined a ditty that aptly characterizes such liberal progressivism: “Sin and grin my friend, for in the end you still win.  Pie in the sky, sin ’till you die, for in the sweet by and by, you’ll still get to fly.”  This is the mantra of  the Counterfeit Church whose wages of sin is not death, but rather eternal life.  God declares this Truth time and again in His Word.  Church people hate God’s Word because, being “sharper than any two-edged sword,” its light opens up one’s heart and reveals the darkness therein.  We must always remember that His Word was written for, to and about those who call themselves His people.

A sure test to determine if we are in fact true Christians is to bear witness of our belief in and obedience to God’s Word by proclaiming  that henceforth we will have nothing to do with church doctrine because it is heathen in both origin and practice.  See the Introduction to this website for a list of some of the church’s pagan beliefs and practices.  In this website I have proven Scripturally that each of those beliefs and customs came straight from the God-hating mind of Satan.  Only those who care more about God’s attitude than the attitude of others will stand up for Him, knowing that doing so for means that one will spend the rest of his/her spiritual life in solitude.  Of the many people who have heard and read my messages, I personally know of only six who have had the spiritual spine to believe and obey God.   Knowing that only a minutely few people would embrace Him, Jesus promised that where two or three are gathered in His name, He would be there.  He knew that only a tiny remnant of those who professed Him would actually embrace Him and His Truth (Mat. 7:13,14).  The “fire” that inevitably comes is invariably generated by members of “the church,” including one’s family members.

God warns us that in order to be His child one must “Come out from among them (false saints).”  He goes on to say that only then will He be one’s God and one will be His son or daughter (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1).  There is only one Standard by which we can measure ourselves spiritually–God’s Holy Bible.  One must continually compare his/her life to that Word.  In order to join Jesus in the Kingdom of God one’s “walk” must match God’s Word.  An honest comparison of one’s personal “walk” to the “walk” God commands (1 Jn. 2:6) enables one to “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”  Only those whose lives are a reflection of His Word are His true saints.

God commands that we obey His Word and thereby become like Him (1 Jn. 2:6; 3:3/ Rev. 3:21), Jesus of Nazareth being the prime example.  Note that even his mother and siblings rejected Him (Mat. 12:46-50) during His earthly ministry. THIS IS HIS “BAPTISM OF FIRE” HE HAD TO ENDURE UNTIL THE END OF HIS LIFE.  ONLY THOSE WHO, LIKE JESUS, STAND FOR GOD WHILE IN THE FIRE WILL BE SAVED (MAT. 10:22).  THIS IS THE METHOD BY WHICH WE WORK OUT OUR OWN SALVATION.  Of the church people you know personally, how many are loathed, rejected and dismissed as heretics because of their belief in and obedience to God’s Word?  I’m guessing none.  If there know or know of one such person, make a friend of him/her, study his/her walk and duplicate it.  L.J.