Your soul is precious      Your soul lives forever. Contrary to what many people think, the bible says that the soul of man has been made to live forever. It does not cease or vanish at death. What happens at death is only the death of the physical body, but the soul continues to live and one day will be judged by an Almighty God for the life lived here on this earth. You, yes YOU my friend will be judged one day. You might say that you don't believe in God. But, know for certain that there IS a God, an Almighty and Everlasting God, one true God, Maker of heaven and earth and we will all one day stand before him in judgement. The bible says that "God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden or secret thing, whether it is good or evil". Also, that "God commands all people everywhere to repent (turn away from your sins). For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man (Jesus Christ) he has appointed". God is infinitely holy, so he cannot tolerate sin. He is also infinitely just, which means he cannot overlook sin, but has to punish all sin. Here again many people commit a blunder that costs them their very souls. They think God is too nice, like a grandpa, lovable and playable. No, he is not. He's not a playable grandpa and neither is he the man upstairs or the big guy in the sky. All those are false gods, a figment of deceived thinking and imagination. He is not someone you play with. If you do, you do at your own eternal peril. Don't play russian roulette with your souls. I warn you and I earnestly plead with you. Don't gamble with your soul. Infact, it is precisely because God is good that he has to judge sin and cannot overlook it. What would you call a judge who says to a psychopathic killer "I will let you go this time because I am a nice person and I don't want you to suffer punishment"? The human heart cries out for justice no matter what religious background or instruction it may have had. Yet, when it comes to God, we strangely think that he has to let us go because we have judged ourselves to be good, not realizing for a moment that I can't be my own judge. Even in a court of law, the most I am allowed to do when I stand accused in the stands is to argue for myself, be my own defense attorney, but not be my own judge. That would be absurd. That right rests only with the judge and not with the accused. But, say you, I am not such a wicked person. Again, does it even matter what you or I think about ourselves? What matters is how we measure up in God's eyes who alone is the righteous judge and the bible says "ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory (absolutely perfect and righteous standard) of God" and "the wages of sin is death". How many links in a chain need to be broken before a person hanging on to it for dear life over the edge of a cliff goes down into the abyss? Even so, one sin is enough to earn for us eternal wrath and condemnation of God because the punishment is always in proportion to the one against whom the crime has been committed, which is against an infinitely holy God. So, God commands repentance which means to totally turn away from our sins and then and only then does he offer the gift of forgiveness of sins and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. Listen my friend. God is a loving God for the bible says "God is love", that "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son (Jesus Christ) that whosoever believes in Him should NOT perish, but have eternal life". Again, in another place, the bible says "the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ". So, repent and put your faith in Jesus Christ for he and he alone has taken your and my punishment for our sins on the cross so that we may be forgiven and given eternal life and a changed and tranformed heart, a heart that doesn't want to live in sin, guilt and fear, but a heart that delights to live righteously and please Him as our Father in heaven. This is where God's goodness and love can be talked about. Only at the foot of the cross. For the bible very clearly says "there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved, but the name of Jesus.". Infact what many people don't know is that Jesus himself laid exclusive claims to himself. Read what C.S.Lewis, a famous atheist turned christian and Oxford scholar said: "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." It's not about religion I thought it necessary to address those of you who think you are doing actually pretty good. I am talking especially to those of you who've come from christian families and were raised in the church, that is to say you've gone to church all your life, attended kids Sunday school in your childhood and all. You go to church regularly even now, pray regularly, read your bible regularly, you even volunteer at church and take part in church activities. To top it all, you also enjoy doing all this. But let me say something to you. All that you are doing is nothing but enjoy the activities of an exclusive religious club, just like any other secular club. Yes, my friend. If you do not have an ongoing relationship with Jesus, if there hasn't ever been a time in your life when you have been convicted of sin, if you haven't felt the need to confess your sins to God and ask for forgiveness, if you haven't placed your complete faith and trust in Jesus alone and in his shed blood on the cross, that is to say in his atoning death and sacrifice on the cross for your sins, and if there's no constant desire in you to live a life pleasing to God and no actual change in your life before and after that confession of faith, then, you are as dead in your sins as a person from any other religious system on this earth who doesn't know Christ. You are only a cultural christian, which is no christian at all. For, a christian is someone who follows Christ. Infact, that's how the word christian first came to be. It was coined as a derisive term in the church at Antioch in the first century to describe those people who followed Christ. Do you know something? Hell is filled with religious people and yes, even many who've come from good christian families. Sounds surprising? Don't be, because it's not something I am saying. It's something Jesus himself said. In the gospel of Mathews, in the seventh chapter, Jesus says that on the day of judgement there will be many who will say that they know him and have done all these religious activities for him, but He will say to them "I never knew you, depart from me, you who do iniquity". Have you noticed that? He doesn't for a moment deny what they say to Him and neither does He accuse them of lying, but He immediately turns the whole conversation to an observation He makes about the kind of lives they lived. He says, you who do iniquity. It means, you who've lived a sinful life. Jesus also said in the gospel of Luke, "except you repent, you will all likewise perish". Jesus' ministry was preceded by the ministry of John the baptist, and the message of John was one of repentance and the bible says that John came to prepare the way for the messiah, which means the one anointed (divinely appointed) by God. Infact, Jesus himself preached a message of repentance and faith (in Him). Repenting of your sins, that is turning away totally from your sins and putting your faith in Jesus. For, one cannot and will not be able to properly believe (savingly believe) in Jesus unless one repents. Picture it this way. Jesus and sin are walking on a road. They cannot meet each other. That would be blasphemy. So, they are walking away from each other and you are in the middle. Now you have a choice. Either follow Jesus or follow sin. To meet Jesus, you have to walk away from sin. Get it? On this road or path, you can either follow Jesus and walk away from sin or follow sin and walk away from Jesus. The choice is yours. Because Jesus will never ever accept you while you are still in love with your sin and are unwilling to let it go. You might say you even believe in Him, but your faith is not genuine saving faith. It is only a sham, a dead faith which will ultimately deceive you and kill you and you will find yourself in that group of people that will be disowned by Jesus on the day of judgement. Your faith in Him is genuine only to the extent that your life reflects it. A genuine faith is a daily denying of yourself and taking up your cross (dying to self) and following Him. Ofcourse, there are baby christians who haven't come to that maturity of faith yet, but a genuine christian WILL be walking towards that maturity. He will not be perfectly sinless, but he will sin less and less. So, those of you who have trusted in religion, even your christian religion and activities, know that religion can't save you. Religious activities can't save you. Only Jesus can. Repent of your sins and put your faith in Him for He and He alone is well able and more than willing to save you if you will with a pure and a sincere heart humble yourself before Him and seek Him and ask Him. Now that, is a true religion.