Josh1Eight

(Disclaimer: This post is in no way intended to be sacrilegious or offensive, only biblical.) So a few moments ago this little booklet appears on my front door, full of Bible verses about God promises of salvation through Jesus. Now on one hand, I gotta give some level of respect to the guy who took the time out of his day to distribute religious literature written in 400-year-old English to a complete stranger, in the summer, in Texas. On the other hand, one particular page in the booklet has a brief "sinner's prayer" (I think Paul or Peter coined the term) that got under my skin. In the prayer a seemingly magical formula includes the phrase "I now receive Jesus into my heart" assuring the prayee eternal salvation. Now first off the above phrase "receive Jesus into your heart" (an excerpt from one of Jesus' famous sermons I think), although a very popular theory, is a misguided theological error. When I think of asking Jesus into my heart I ...

"And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ died once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:27, 28 NLT). Throughout this letter the author of Hebrews repeatedly makes the case that Jesus is the supreme fulfillment of all that the Old Testament spoke of and the sole provider of eternal salvation. First of all that's not surprising given that it is the Bible and all. But here in verse 27 he highlights a very simple truth about life that we can't afford to miss: You Only Live Once. Of course, lots of people love nothing more than to use this overly done phrase as an excuse to do whatever the heck they want in the face of all logic and common sense without so much as a second thought about the eternal consequences of their choices. However, in light of the fact that we are o...