God sure makes it all sound so easy.  All you have to do is believe that you need saving, and accept the sacrifice Jesus made by dying on that cross for us.  If you accept the gift, then you are saved.  Pretty simple right? 

Think of it like a court of law and you are in front of the judge.  You are up on trial for not paying your speeding tickets, and they want to throw you in jail.  Before the judge can pass sentence on you, a rich uncle comes in and pays the fines and interest in full. If you accept his payment on your behalf, the judge is justified in letting you go because your fines were paid in full.  Same sort of thing with Jesus and His death.  We are already guilty, we will have to stand in front of the judge, and we are due the sentence of death.  Fortunately for us, Jesus came and died on the cross.  His blood was an acceptable payment for our debt of sin.  The only thing we have to do is believe that Jesus did that for us.  We have to accept that offer to pay our penalty. 

Belief/faith is all it takes to be saved.  Nothing more, and nothing less is required to spend eternity in the good place.  But even a simple message like the gospel can get counterfeited by the world.  Humans don’t like the fact it’s so simple, so they add rules and rituals.  Man wants to work for things so they can keep a checklist and mark off stuff as they earn their way to heaven.  They want to feel good about themselves and in charge of their own future.  God doesn’t work that way.  God says you can’t climb up to heaven on your own.  You need Him to reach down from heaven and bring you up there.  God says all that stuff you are doing to try and earn your way to heaven is a waste.  That type of man based, work your way to heaven philosophy is what the Bible calls “religion”.   

Religion is man trying to work his own way to heaven.  God’s way is called grace.  Grace is a gift.  We don’t deserve God’s grace, but we have it anyway.  There is a big difference between earning something and being given something.  If man earns something, he feels good about himself and all the credit goes to him.  If man is given something, the One giving the gift gets all the thanks and praise.  See the difference?    

Do you know how they train bank tellers and cashiers to spot a counterfeit bill?  Do they bring in every possible fake 100-dollar bill out there and make sure the tellers know all the phonies?  Nope, there are new versions of fake bills made every day, so they study the real bill.  They get to know it like the back of their hand.  The feel of it, the weight of it, the coloring, the texture, everything about that real 100-dollar bill they know.  Since they were trained on the real thing, they can spot even the subtlest of differences when a fake bill comes across their path.   This is how you spot false teachers and false religions too.  You don’t study all the religions of the world; you just study the Bible.  Once you know the Bible like the back of your hand, you can spot a counterfeit a mile away.  Although I did spend a little time on some of the world’s largest religions over the past 10 years, it was very minor compared to the time I spent in the real deal Bible. 

Let’s just use a little logic, shall we?  There are lots of religions with lots of different rules.  Only one religion (Judaism) has the right rules, but Jesus was the only one who could ever meet them all.  So what does man do?  Man creates rules that man “can” obey.  The craziest thing to me, is that all religions build in an “exception” because they know you will break the rules.  They tell you that you “have to” follow the rules to get to heaven, but when you break them, you can just say a certain prayer 10 times and you will be ok.  If you forget to say the prayer to make up for breaking the rules, then you have to bathe 10 times in holy water.  The rules say you have to go to church every week, unless you don’t, then you can just send us a big donation and you will be back on track to heaven.  Huh?  No, that kind of logic doesn’t work.  God sets the standard to get into heaven, and it is perfection.  You must be as good as God, 100% of the time, forever and ever, with no exceptions.   This is an IMPOSSIBLE task for anyone but Jesus.  This is why religions go away from teaching the Bible.  Their pride wants to elevate man, while the Bible says God has to humble us before He saves us.  You become humbled when you realize everything that Jesus did to save us, especially knowing we couldn’t do it on our own.  

There is a common saying that most people think comes from the Bible.  It is: “God helps those who help themselves”.  Ha!  That saying is nowhere in the Bible.  In fact, it goes against the whole theme of the Bible.  God says we can’t help ourselves, and that is why we need Him.  Do you see what I was talking about?  Look at what man does to try and get some credit.  It’s like God won’t help us until we do our part first.  Again, it puts the emphasis on “our part”.  God says there is no “your part” it is all “His part” to get you to heaven.  If there is anything man can boast about, the Bible says it won’t count. 

In fact, just about everything the world thinks is true, is actually the total opposite of how God thinks.  I call it opposite world.  Here are just a few:

The universe in permanent, and we are temporary:  I covered this a little before, but the Bible tells us this universe is temporary and will be replaced.  The only thing temporary about us right now is our physical body.  Our spirit, which is the real you, lives forever.  (we also get that brand new body at the resurrection that will live forever)  Fear of the world ending is very high on most people’s fear list right now.  This is a fear Christians should not have since we know what God’s plan is for this place. 

There are many roads/ways to heaven:  There is only one (1) way to heaven and that is through faith in Jesus Christ.  Why would God send His Son to die, yet still allow other ways to get in?  Why would Jesus have to die in the first place if there are a lot of other options available?  No, there is only one way, and those looking for a different way will fall short.  Humans like multiple choice, but this a true/false question.  Jesus died for you, and your faith in Him is the only ticket to heaven.  True or false? 

All but the worst of humanity get in to heaven:  It will actually be quite the opposite, as most of humanity will not get into heaven.  The road to heaven is narrow, and most will follow the wide road that leads to hell.  This is just Biblical truth; God doesn’t save everyone.  He wants us to be extremely grateful that we were chosen before we even existed, and to not take it for granted that He didn’t choose everyone.  God wants us to see what we have been saved from.    

We are nothing, and just another part of the evolution process of chance.  I covered the creation account already, but don’t ever forget that you were created and that you have purpose.  Remember why they want you to believe in evolution.  If there was no Creator, there is no one we are accountable to.  If we aren’t accountable to anyone, then we can live our life anyway that we want to without consequence.  Sounds really good until the day you stand in front of the creator on judgement day and realize it was all bull.      

God doesn’t get involved with this place; He just sits up in heaven watching.  This makes no sense, as the Bible is full of God being active in His creation.  So much so that He sent His only Son into it to save it.  People say God just watches, because they can’t understand why God lets bad things happen.  It’s hard for a lot of Christians to explain why God does some of the things He does, and why He lets some of the things happen that He does.  I will point to just 2 things.  1.  Adam’s sin cursed this place, and sin spread causing evil and bad things to happen.  2.  Yes, God knows everything that is coming, and He could stop disasters if He wanted to.  Do you know how many He has stopped bad stuff from happening?  Me either, but I bet it is a lot, maybe 100 x what He let run its course. God knows all of history and all of the future, and we can’t even begin to understand why He does everything He does.  One storm today that kills 40 people may end up being the disaster that brings many new believers to God who wouldn’t have otherwise.  The Christians killed in the storm are much happier in heaven then they were here.  Maybe there was a guy who drowned who was going to be a serial killer but God ended that with a storm.   Someday when we get to heaven, God says we will know the whys.  I can’t wait for that day.   

God will be waiting at the pearly gates with a checklist to see if we deserve to get in.  This is part of that greeting card knowledge I was telling you about earlier.  Most expect God will ask us “why should I let you in?”, so people spend their life doing stuff they think will help convince God.  There is no checklist for believers.  Once you believe, you are in, and you go right to Jesus when your physical body dies.  There are no pearly gates; that doesn’t come until the new heavens and new earth.  We will have been in heaven for at least 1,000 years before the pearly gates come into the picture.   If God asks you: “what have you done to earn entrance?”,  just say “nothing, Jesus hooked me up with a VIP pass”. Lol  The only thing resembling a sort of checklist is when all the unbelievers are judged after the 1,000-year reign of Christ as King.  The Bible says the books will be opened and the unbelievers will be judged by them.  It has no bearing on getting into heaven, it is just telling them why they are going to hell. More to come on all that.

If my life is going well, then I must be doing something right; if bad is happening, it’s payback for something stupid I did.  This is that karma thing that people bring up all the time.  We learn from the Bible that your situation in life has little connection to how God feels about you and your behavior at that moment.  Many unbelievers live a very happy long life, while many believers live a life full of challenges and pain.  Sin has consequences.  When we are experiencing what some call karma, that is really us dealing with the ramifications of sin.  Sin has bad effects, although God can help us avoid some of those effects if we go to Him with a sincere heart and ask for forgiveness.  By faith in Jesus, all of our past, current, and future sin is forgiven; but the earthly consequences of sin are always in play.  When things are going well, who gets the credit?  If you say karma, that means you give yourself the credit, because you are so good, that good things happen to you.  What we should really be saying is thank you Lord for this blessing of a life!      

You can’t read the Bible yourself, because you need it interpreted by a holier person than you.  Just think about why they would say that.  Is it because if you read it yourself you may find out that they are hypocrites, and not following the Bible?  Is it because they are making stuff up?  God didn’t leave His Word for a few so-called holy people; He left it for all of us.  We are the priests now.  Don’t trust anyone who says you shouldn’t read the Bible or ask questions about what you are reading.  Just look at your Uncle Bill…  If this moron can read it and learn, then anyone can.   

Jesus wasn’t perfect, He sinned like us.  More people believe this than I would have ever imagined.  Even a cousin of mine sent me a video of some preacher guy he listens to, and the guy thinks Jesus sinned.  I couldn’t watch it past the 11-minute mark when he said it.  I thought this cousin knew more about the Bible than I did, because he has religiously been going to church his whole adult life.  If Jesus sinned, then He was really just like us and not God.  If Jesus sinned, then His blood only paid for His own sin and not ours.  If Jesus sinned, then we are calling the whole plan of God a lie.  God tells us He would only accept a perfect sacrifice; if Jesus sinned, we have no cure for our own sin.  If we think Jesus sinned, then we don’t know the real Jesus and that spells doom.   There are probably dozens of reasons why people want to say Jesus sinned, and all of them were created to support a false agenda.  I don’t know if my cousin believes what that preacher said, or if he didn’t catch it when he watched it.  He sent it 3 years ago and I haven’t responded yet.  Maybe there was a reason why?  Either way, it goes to show you that studying the Bible is crucial to avoid false teachers. 

God has secrets in the Bible only certain people can find.  This is true, except the “certain people” is everyone who reads and studies it.  There are lots of secrets because no one takes the time to read and study the Bible.  Heck, I have probably revealed quite a few of these so-called secrets in my book so far.  There are no secret codes, however God does use some numbers to symbolize certain things.  For example:  the number 7 is used consistently to mean 100% or complete, full.  It is not guessing, it’s pretty obvious when you study the Bible.  The number 6 = sinful man, 5 = grace, etc. 

God wants His children to be wealthy, healthy, and happy.  Why?  What benefit is it to God?  Will we be more apt to thank and worship God when all is so good that we don’t think we need Him?  One of the worst positions to be in is a rich unbeliever who never has an occasion to need help.  Sometimes it takes bringing people down real low before they reach out to God in desperation.  Some Christians will be wealthy, healthy and happy, but that is the exception.  Look how Jesus was treated when He was here.  Do we expect better for us?

You too can have wealth and health if you just believe enough.  They call this the prosperity gospel.  If you name it, you can claim it.  They say God wants us to be rich, you just need to ask for it and have enough faith that it will happen.  Look at them, they have 2 mansions and a jet, because they have HUGE faith and asked God.  All you have to do is test this theory out.  Go ask God to give your uncle Bill a brand-new corvette.  Keep trying.  If it doesn’t happen, then you aren’t trusting God enough. Lol   It’s all BS!  The only ones getting rich are the false teachers.  Think about what this does to someone in their congregation when they ask for something and don’t get it.  They think Christianity is a scam because of preachers who lie and profit off their sheep.

We are all children of God:  Not true.  Only believers in the real Jesus are children of God.  In fact, unbelievers have to go through a believer for their prayers to be heard.  God doesn’t hear the prayers of unbelievers, because they are not praying to Him, but some other man-made version of God.  This is why Christians are called priests.  We are the go-between for the unbelieving world and the One True God. The Bible tells us to look at God like the best Father in the world.  He only wants what is best for us, He won’t give us everything we ask for, and sometimes there are lessons that have to be learned the hard way. He does all of this because He loves His children, and because He is a good Father.  

Jesus isn’t coming back.  Why would they want you to think that?  Is it so you lose hope?  Of course, if you believe Jesus is coming back, then you believe the rest of the story.  That story does not end well for the unbelieving world, so they will always deny His 2^nd coming.  If you have hope, then their scare tactics won’t work on you.  Jesus has to come back.  God promised the Savior would rule as king for 1,000 years from Jerusalem.  God always keeps His promises.  

The earth has been around for billions of years.  We talked about this early in in my book, and according to the Bible, the earth is around  6,000 years old.  There is a theory out there that I could see being a possibility.  They say since God created the earth in 6 days, and on the 7^th day He rested, we could equate that to the age of the earth when the Kingdom starts.  Since the earth has had to work under the curse for (6),000 years, they think the next (1),000 years will be rest. (as in the 1,000-year Kingdom)  (6)+(1)=7.  Remember, 7 is the number for completion or 100% or fully fulfilled.  That would be just like God to make it all come together like that to mirror creation week.  The earth would be around for 6,000 years experiencing sin, evil rulers, wars, and death, then the last 1,000 years would be rest, because the world is at peace with Jesus as King.  Interesting theory, I guess we will see sometime soon if it’s true. 

Jesus was man who became God because He died on the cross.  The Bible says Jesus was always God, then became man like us for a time.  Some religions say the opposite; that Jesus was just a man, and what He did to save the world made him a god. When they say this, they have to ignore the Bible, because it says that Jesus is the One who created the whole universe.  See, you always have to take away parts of the Bible to try and prove lies.   The Bible is infallible, except in the hands of those who don’t read it or try to purposely distort it.  

Pride is a good thing, and we need more of it.   If there is one thing God hates and mentions everywhere in the Bible, it is pride.  If pride was a 4-letter word, it would be the 4-letter word of the Bible. Lol  Pride led to Satan’s downfall, and pride keeps many away from humbling themselves before God.  Isn’t it interesting that in today’s world the word pride is celebrated like never before.  There are new meanings to the word now, and a whole month out of the year is set aside to celebrate it.  Boy, if that doesn’t hit home, I don’t know what will.  Pride destroys everything. Read your Bible to see for yourselves.   

If you don’t do (fill in the blank)  you can lose your salvation.  If you do (fill in the blank), you can lose your salvation.  This passage below from the book of Romans tells us all we need to know about what, if anything, can take us away from God once we are saved.  Nothing can, and the list includes everything you could think of including if someone pointed a gun at your head and made you denounce Jesus. Nothing can separate us from Jesus, because His spirit (the Holy Spirit) lives inside of us.  The Holy Spirit is our down-payment or collateral, ensuring that we are God’s children.  He wouldn’t put His spirit in us if we weren’t forever His.  He wouldn’t write our names down in the book of life before He created the world, if He had an intention of erasing it later.

Romans 8:35,38-39:  ‘Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

Your best life is now.  Tell that to Jesus, the apostles, and the prophets.  Tell that to countless Christians in heaven right now.  I’m definitely not living my best life now.  The truth is that your worst life is now,  no matter how great it is.  This life will pale in comparison to eternity in heaven.  Remember, no stress, no hate, no fear, no pain, no work, and no death.  I’ll take that over my best life here. 

There are thousands of religions and false teachers out there, but they are all just pawns for their father Satan.  You can always tell religion by the way they give man much more credit than we deserve.  If you are looking for praise from the world, you need tell people what they “want” to hear.  If you are looking for praise from God, you tell people what they “need” to hear.  I find it very interesting that there are so many people who believe there is a creator God, but they just don’t know Him.  Why do unbelievers even go to church?  Why do the religions seem to prosper?  Because the Bible tells us that everyone born has a conscience that can look around at this world and the beauty and know deep down there was a god who created it all.  The don’t know who God is, but they instinctively feel there is someone.   But, since they don’t have a relationship with the One True God, they search to fill that void through religion. This means that all of you, even if you don’t believe right now, know deep down there is a creator.  You can keep pushing that knowledge down even further until you harden your conscience, but God will always be able to say you knew and did nothing to find out the truth. 

Because you guys have asked for it, here are some truths about the spiritual world.    

Angels are real.  They are spiritual beings created by God for a purpose.  Angels are sent out to earth to help God’s children.  They are called ministering spirits because they take care of us.  I can think of a few times that I am sure an angel helped me.  One was a pretty bad car accident, and the other was when an old friend of mine tried to fight me.  Both times, everything felt in slow motion, I was calmer than I should have been, and nothing in the moment seemed real.  It’s hard to explain until it happens to you.  There are remarkable stories of humans doing extraordinary things in times of crises or emergency, and I would bet angels are behind a lot of them. 

There are different levels of angels, a sort of hierarchy.  Satan was the highest, most powerful angel ever created.  He was also the most beautiful and most cunning.  When you see Hollywood portray Satan as some ugly beast or dragon, that isn’t anything close to correct.  He doesn’t look like Sparky and carry a pitchfork like my favorite team’s mascot.  He isn’t red, or black, or any color because He is a spirit being.  Satan is the most beautiful angel God ever created.  He gets way more done being an angel of light, then the prince of darkness.  I can name at least a couple religions who say they saw a beautiful angel who gave them new words from God.  If they saw anything, it was probably Satan. 

Satan used to have the highest and most honored position in heaven guarding the glory of God.  He got jealous of God, and wanted all the praise and adoration for himself.   He wanted to be God.  Satan recruited 1/3 of the angels and they rebelled against God.   They were thrown down to earth sometime before the garden of Eden on earth, because Satan was here for that.  We call these angels who fell from grace fallen angels or demons.  1/3 of the angels in heaven is a very large number.  They are here, taking advantage of the fact their boss is ruler of this place for now.  They seek to do nothing but destroy.  Satan thought he had the upper hand when He indwelled Judas, one of the 12 inner-circle disciples, and betrayed Jesus.  He soon found out that Jesus dying was part of the plan, and that Jesus is coming back again.  In the meantime, Satan is busy creating all kinds of unbelief and doubt through false religions and false teachers.  A little hint about the end:  Right before Jesus comes back to rule as King, Satan gets rid of every false religion in the world except one.  

Although there are some people who can communicate with the evil spirits out there, you should avoid trying to at all costs.  Think of it like a drug, sometimes all it takes is trying it once and you are dead.  It’s the same sort of thing with demons, because that is who these mediums speak to.  If an evil spirit can find an opening, they will take it.  Most people become possessed only after trying to barge into the spiritual world.  Although the majority are probably fake, don’t mess around with fortune tellers, spiritualists, mediums, palm readers, or anyone who says they can contact the dead.  The real ones, have real power behind them…Satanic power.  I had a relative reach out to me because he felt like demons were tormenting him when he was trying to sleep.   I told him to download the Bible app and turn it on so it reads it to him.  I didn’t know what else to say, it was what I did every night to go to sleep.  He tried it, along with praying, and it worked.  I don’t know exactly what happened with him that night he called, but he is a changed man now.  I can see the fire for God in his eyes that I never saw before. 

Yes, demons can indwell humans.  They don’t have as much incentive as you would think, because the Bible tells us once they possess someone, they can’t leave until the host dies.  Does that sound familiar?  It should, because when our physical body (host for our spirit) dies, our spirit is released and escorted to Jesus or to hell.  Same sort of concept with demons.  I’ll ask you  this, is it just coincidence that most school shooters and mass murders kill themselves?  If the demon inside them doesn’t torment them enough to kill themselves, they will be trapped inside that body for years.  If that body is locked up in prison, what good would that do for the demon? This is why the evil humans involved in these atrocious acts almost always commit suicide.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same demon or two who are behind most of what we have seen in the US in your lifetime.  It takes real evil to kill children, and that kind of evil is not a mental disorder.  You can’t cure possession with Zoloft or psychotherapy.  The good news is that if you are a Christian, you cannot get possessed.  God tells us the light of Holy Spirit lives in us, and there is no room for the dark to enter us.  Jesus cast out hundreds of demons when He walked the earth, and they are still here.  Jesus also told us that towards the end, demonic activity will drastically increase.  I’ll tell you more about that in a few. 

Behind all of the different religions and false teaching out there is Satan.   He is still causing chaos, because that is what he does.  Satan tries to confuse who Jesus is and what He did for us.  He wants us to think Jesus is not coming back, or that He already came back and we missed Him.  Satan did the same sort of thing to Eve in the garden.  He believes the more religions the better, because they detract people from the truth of the Bible.  If Satan can prevent any new believers, or make it so Christians are ineffective, he thinks he is winning.  Religions are one of the many tools Satan uses to try and stop God’s plans. 

So what else does Satan do?  He gets people to believe Jesus wasn’t really God, or that He sinned, or that you can be just like Jesus, or that Jesus was just a prophet or a wise man.  There are many more I’m sure, but the only one you need to know is that Jesus was, is, and will always be God.  Anything short of this belief would make you an unbeliever.  Satan has millions of people thinking they worship the same Jesus that’s in the Bible, when sadly they don’t.  See how that works?  Satan is the father of lies, and the most cunning created being ever. 

Millions of people think that Jesus going through all the pain, suffering, ridicule, and being nailed to a cross for us wasn’t good enough.  What does that tell you about how highly they think of God?  They must think He is a liar, because it is as clear as day in the Bible that the cross was enough.  Second, they must not have a relationship with God, or they would have asked Him themselves.  If you were God, and you sent your Son to die on the cross, wouldn’t you be pissed if the people your Son died for don’t believe you and want to add more requirements to weigh people down?  God planned this all from before creation, and we humans are going to tell Him His plan wasn’t good enough?  WTH?  Talk about disrespect. 

I touched on this in the chapter on the fall, and that is the truth that Satan is a created being.  He is not, was not, nor will he ever be, equal to God who created him.  Here is a simple example.  Jack likes to build massive complex Lego sets.  Jack decides to build this huge Darth Vader statue to go with all the others masterpieces he has created.  Jack loves that Darth Vader, he dusts it off every week, and talks to him like a friend.  Jack even put Darth in charge of all the other Legos to watch and make sure no one destroys anything.   One day, Darth Vader decides he doesn’t want to be the one of the shelves anymore, and he wants to be in Jack’s position.  (who wouldn’t, that kid is spoiled. lol)  Darth decides to try and take over Jack’s room and gets 1/3 of the other Legos to start a revolt.  Jack walks in and crushes them all within 10 seconds.  There was no battle, there was no rebellion, there was no chance for the Legos.  They were just created things, how could they be a match for their creator Jack?  Get it? 

Satan only goes as far as God lets him.  Satan cannot go anywhere God doesn’t want him to go, and he can’t do anything God doesn’t allow him to do.  God can destroy Satan in an instant, but He hasn’t, because God will use him and his fallen angels for His end of the age plan.  Like Darth Vader in my example, Satan also recruits other created beings (unbelievers) to rebel against their Creator.  I tell you all of this so that you don’t think there is actually some war between evil and good.  There are some battles that God allows Satan to win, but the war was already over before it even began.  But you should also respect those dark spiritual beings like Satan and the demonic fallen angels.  They have a lot of power; much more than we do.   Fortunately for us, they don’t hold any real power compared to the One who lives inside of us.