Jesus saith unto him,        I am the way, the truth, and the life:              no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.          John 14:6

 There is only one way to salvation and that is accepting the blood of JESUS CHRIST that was shed at Calvary for the atonement of our sins.  By God's standard, every sin that you and I commit requires blood to be shed.  In other words His required punishment for every sin is death and forever being separated from Him in the lake of fire.  The good news is that Jesus paid that penalty of death for us so we don't have to, but it is up to us to accept that free gift.

  God gave us the 10 commandments to show us how far we plummet from His standard of righteousness.  Not one of us can keep all of the commandments, therefore we all fall short of God's measure of holiness required to qualify ourselves for heaven -- I don't care how "good" of a person we think we are.  It says in James 2:10, "for whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one [point], he is guilty of all."  By this standard we are all guilty of breaking every commandment, which means we will go to hell because of the wretched sinful person we are.

This leaves all of us only one option to escape our sentence of death in the lake of fire, and that is to accept Jesus death in place of ours.  Jesus simply asks that we repent of our unrighteousness, confess Him as Lord and let Him take control.  We must deny ourselves (flesh), take up our cross and follow Him.  There are no magic words to say and no special "sinners prayer" that a pastor tells you to repeat.  Jesus said to repent and be baptized.  I remember I was alone in my bedroom and told Him I had made a mess of my life and had blown it, I repented of my multitude of sins, and told Him He was now Lord of my life, and I will do whatever He wants the rest of my life, and I meant every word of it.  There were no lightning flashes, loud thunder or warm fuzzy feelings just a peace about what I said.  Our prayer at  Emerald Ministries is that you will consider totally surrendering to Him right now if you have not sincerely done this yet.  

Once we completely release control to Jesus, He will begin the process of changing us.  Jesus accepts us just like we are, but He also loves us enough not to let us stay that way.  As He promised in His Word, there will be trials and temptations and persecution.  God sends these hard times to perfect and mature us into the fullness of Christ, so our flesh will die and Jesus will emanate through us.  Old friends may not be our friends any more.  Our own blood family may even turn on us.  Jesus never promised it would be easy, but he did promise He would be right there to help us endure.  Our part is just to believe Him and trust his promises, one of which is He will give us a peace in the midst of the storm.

Are you sincerely converted, or are you a stony  ground hearer?

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.  Matthew 7:21

Our churches today are filled with people referring to themselves as "Christians," that have not truly surrendered their life to Jesus.  Matthew 13 talks about these and Jesus refers to them as stony ground hearers.  These are people that receive the word with joy and spring up rapidly for a season.  For a while they believe (Luke 8,) but when tribulation and trials come up they fall away because they have no root in them and lack moisture (the Holy Spirit.) 

These false converts are hard to distinguish at first because they look, act, talk, and sound like a believer.  Most of them do a good job of acting the part because they themselves truly believe they are saved.  They even went down front in the church and cried while saying the sinners prayer.  Some of these are so convincing they are placed in ministry positions and some are placed in charge of ministries and become part of the staff at the church. 

Most true Christians have a difficult time discerning these unsaved people in their midst.  This is because they are listening to the talk and not watching for their fruit.  Matthew 7 says we are to judge a Christian by their fruit.  They should be exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit such as love, joy, peace, longsuffering, self control, gentleness, goodness, etc.  It will be hard to find most of the fruits of the Spirit operating in these false converts.  You will also usually find they are continuing to operate in sin on a regular basis and not coming under true conviction.  1 John 2:4 says "He that says, I know Him, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him."  These stony ground hearers will also be wearing the Jesus pins, they have crosses hanging everywhere, bumper stickers and fish symbols on their cars.  They make a great effort to show on the outside what they are lacking on the inside.

Where the false conversion really shows up is when they are exposed to the sun, Mark 4:5-6 (persecutions, trials, tribulations, and temptation.)  When the hard times come they will wither up and fall away.  A true Christian will not fall away, even at the threat of death.  The biggest reason for their inability to endure is they accepted Jesus for the wrong reason.  They wanted to use Jesus to help them have a "better life" rather than giving up their life to serve Him. 

Most of these stony ground false conversions are a direct result of the false "good news" of the gospel that is being preached all over churches these days.  They are told "Jesus loves you and wants the best for you, God will solve all your problems and provide for all your needs. God wants you happy, well and wealthy."  So people come running to Jesus so they can get all these goodies.

The only reason we should surrender to Jesus is because we realize we are such a sinner that we deserve hell and He is the only one who can redeem our lives from this destruction.  We should want to serve Him the rest of our lives simply because He is worthy of His suffering.  Jesus saved us from eternal punishment, so anything we may endure in this life is no big deal compared to what we truly deserve. 

Those of us that are truly Christians desperately need to reach out to these lost people within our own congregations because the evil one has them deceived and they are going to hell.  It will most likely require us to walk in tough love and present the truth.  Don't be deluded by the false teachings that say we need to walk in love and are not supposed to offend anyone or judge someone else's fruit.  First, pray that your pastor will begin teaching the ten commandments again so the law will begin convicting these unsaved people among us.  Then, pray that God will prepare their hearts to receive and give you a window of opportunity to share the true good news -- that Jesus accepted the punishment for our sins so we don't have to pay the price of eternal damnation. 

One of the best questions to ask is why they decided to accept Jesus as their savior.  If their answer goes something like "for a better life," ask them to define their perception of a better life.  Most of the time they will say for a better job, house, car, marriage or just so God will make them happy.  This is called humanism, not salvation and they need to be informed of the probability that their very salvation may be at stake.  This takes great discernment on our part and we should be well grounded in the Word concerning salvation before attempting to help someone in this area.

There are two great video teachings from the Way of the Master Ministries on this subject: Hell's Best Kept Secret and True and False Conversions (links on the pictures to the right above.)  Please take time to watch these.  They will help you if you are a true Christian trying to minister or a false Christian and need to know the truth.

I Pray we will see you all in Heaven.

Doug Cook

Blessed [are] they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.  Revelation 22:14