They were even more astonished and said to Him, “Then who can be saved?” Looking at them, Jesus said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.” Mark 10:26-27.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
A lie of the devil that again sounds plausible but is deception stems from the way he deceived Eve, and it is this: “As long as you are a good person you will go to Heaven no matter what you believe.” This is inclusive of anyone from an atheist to an agnostic to a person living a perverted lifestyle to a saved believer. But it is insidious because it is basing your salvation merely on YOUR actions and your definition of “good.” So you are deciding what is good or evil and whether you are good or evil.
There is only one way to define “good.” Look at Me and imitate Me as My dear children.
And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.” Mark 10:18.
But how do you look at Me when I am spirit and your eyes cannot behold Me until the veil of the flesh is removed?
Whenever a person turns to Jesus, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:14-18.
You see Me in My Word, I reveal Myself to you in My Word, and you will know Me by My Word.
And the LORD appeared again at Shiloh, because the LORD revealed Himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the Word of the LORD. 1 Samuel 3:21.
And My Word became flesh and dwelt among you, and in seeing Jesus you see Me in action in the flesh. Jesus is the radiance of My glory and the exact representation of My nature, and upholds all things by the Word of His power. Hebrews 1:3.
You can see Me in My Word and you see My Word living and working in the flesh as one like you in Jesus. And He went about doing GOOD and healing all those oppressed by the devil.
And He told you that unless you believed in Him you would die in your own sins, for I so loved the world I gave you My only begotten Son so that ALL who believe in Him will never perish but will have Eternal Life.
And I told Joseph and Mary to name Him, Jesus, because He would save His people from their sins. In Hebrew, the language which Joseph and Mary understood, the name you call “Jesus” is “Yeshuah,” which literally translated is the word “Salvation.”
And there is no other name given to men by which you MUST be saved. Acts 4:12.
To be saved by your own deeds is impossible because you had to be redeemed and born again of incorruptible seed, the seed of My Word, rather than the corruptible seed of the devil’s lies. And when Adam submitted to sin, that is, lawlessness, he murdered the eternal life within him. And for the eternal life you lost, an eternal life had to be given to redeem you from your sentence of eternal death. And the life is in the blood.
But none of you have eternal blood from your natural birth for you are all born from the perishable, corrupted seed of Adam. From Adam death passed to all his descendants, which is every person on earth.
I looked around but there was no man who could redeem you, so I reached down with My own arm in Jesus and saved you. Not because of any good deeds you had done, but because of My great love for you.
You are My family and I created you in My image and according to My likeness to be in fellowship with Me forever. I will go to any lengths to save you, as you see in Jesus.
I was in Christ, reconciling the world to Myself, not counting your trespasses and sins against you but accounting them all to My Son. They were your fault, but I transferred them to Him to make them His fault and then He had to die in punishment for your sins that were on Him, for the wages of sin is death. In that night in the Garden of Gethsemane, which he asked Peter, James and John to watch one hour with Him, He obediently accepted the cup of My wrath for your sins, even though He prayed if possible to let the cup pass Him by without drinking it, at that midnight hour of darkness accepted every sin ever committed from the beginning to the end of time into his sinless flesh, making himself subject to death on the cross. He had emptied His riches and taken on your poverty to make you rich with His own riches. And no one could even watch with Him for that hour of agony. For sin was hideous to Him and Me. We cannot look upon it. It is totally outside Love and is foreign to perfect pure Love. It had no place in Him but it went on Him so I could condemn sin in the flesh so now there is no condemnation for you who are in Him.
Jesus is and was the only person born from His mother’s womb of imperishable seed and eternal blood who was immortal again in the flesh for there was no sin in Him at His birth as one like you. Jesus is the savior of all mankind from Adam to the last person born on earth. He died ONCE for ALL. He paid the ransom for all. Whether you receive so great a salvation is up to you, but the gift of eternal life is there for you all. Just open your heart and take it by faith.
Thus salvation does not depend on whether you are “good” or “bad,” it depends on whether you receive Jesus as your Lord and believe in your heart that I raised Him from the dead with your sins paid for in full, your robes washed clean in His blood, and your sins gone and you are saved forever.
And Jesus told the crowd this who followed Him to the other side of the lake after He had multiplied the loaves and the fish to feed them all. They asked Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” Works to justify themselves. And Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” John 6:28-29.
This is the work it takes to be saved and enter the Kingdom, believe in the One whom I sent. And no other work will save you.
This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. John 17:3.
Do you recall that night when after being unjustly beaten and thrown in jail in Philippi, Paul and Silas, chained to the floor in the innermost prison, were singing praise songs to Me at midnight? Suddenly there was an earthquake that did no damage but made everyone’s chains fall off and the prison gates swing open. However, none of the prisoners left the jail but stayed in the atmosphere of glory.
But the jailer did not know they were all still there and started to commit suicide when he saw the gates open, thinking the prisoners had all escaped. But Paul cried out to him not to take his life because everyone was still there. So the jailer rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, asking, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And did they question whether he had done sufficient good deeds? No, they told him about the requirement for salvation, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And Paul and Silas spoke the My Word to him together with all who were in his house. And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household. And he brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in Me and the One I sent, Jesus, with his whole household. Acts 16:25-34.
One requirement, believe on the Lord Jesus by hearing the good news of salvation, not by your good deeds, but the sacrifice of His eternal life in the flesh in your place. Wondrous divine exchange, wondrous love.
For I have opened a new and living way to Me that is based on not what you have done in your own works of righteousness but on the blood of Jesus that redeemed you from your sins and gave you My righteousness. And it is all about the testimony of the Spirit, the water and the blood. Jesus came with the water (My Word) and the blood of redemption. He preached the Word and then gave His blood. And now are redeemed by the Blood and born again and washed by the water of My Word. And then you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
And in this again you see the plan of the Tabernacle I gave to Moses as types and shadows of the good things to come, but the substance is Christ, and the design of the Tabernacle was revealing on earth the heavenly realities.
You entered the Tabernacle by its one entrance gate that faced the east where the sun rose as the beginning of your salvation story. And you did not come in empty handed, you brought your sacrificial offering of the unblemished lamb or other designated clean animal without blemish. You then entered to face the bronze altar. Bronze is the metal of judgment. And you laid your hand on the head of the unblemished lamb and your sins transferred to the lamb and the lamb’s purity transferred to you. You then slit the throat of the lamb and if it was the burnt offering the lamb’s body was consumed in the fire on the altar until it was ashes and the blood was poured out to make atonement on the altar. I gave you beauty for your ashes.
And after they sacrificed the lamb and poured the blood, the priests than washed at the laver (signifying the washing of the water of the Word and your baptism) and then they could enter the inner court where there was the bread of My presence on the north side (representing the true Bread from Heaven that is the body of My Son present with you) and the golden lampstand on the south side, representing the Light of the world. And here is the place where My Holy Spirit comes upon you. And then is the veil that you enter the Holy of holies by lighting a cloud of incense on the golden altar of incense, which is your prayers in the Spirit before Me as you enter behind the veil by the new and living way opened up for you by your great High Priest Jesus for He can bring you in so that where He is you will also be. And it is there you receive mercy and find grace for help in time of need.
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:19-22.
Here you see your heart sprinkled clean by the blood from an evil conscience (the old man with a spirit dead to Me and alive to sin) and the washing of your body from its old deeds and lusts of the flesh with the water of the Word.
And the same was true when Peter preached the good news to the Roman centurion, Cornelius. Cornelius was doing good deeds of charity and prayers, and I appreciated that and gave it careful attention, but that did not earn him salvation. I did not want a heart seeking Me so earnestly to be left without salvation. So My angel went to him and told him to call Peter to come to his home. And he did.
When the men he sent found Peter right where I told Cornelius they would, they told Peter, “Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man well-spoken of by the entire nation of the Jews, was divinely directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and hear Words from you.” Acts 10:22.
If good works were enough no matter what you believe to enter Heaven it would seem Cornelius would qualify. But he did not, I told him there was something more he had to receive that this man Peter would give him.
And Peter went at My direction to him and his household, and preached the gospel of salvation to them. And as he told the good news about Jesus that “of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His Name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” Acts 10:43. They all believed so that while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message and they began praising My wondrous deeds in tongues. Acts 10:44. So he and his household were all baptized and saved that day by hearing the message of Jesus and believing in Him all their sins were gone.
And they became righteous before Me. And Jesus poured out My Spirit on them just as He had the 120 disciples on Pentecost.
It is then, washed clean in the blood of Jesus and born again by the Word by the regeneration of the Spirit, that you start at the finish line of the Law as righteous with My own righteousness and then your deeds mean everything as to the responsibilities and rewards you receive in this life and eternally.
You do not stop at salvation, there you are translated out of darkness into My marvelous light and you can go forward released from your sins by the blood of Jesus and made to be a kingdom and priests unto Me to live the life of the good and beautiful deeds of your precious assignments that I prepared for you IN CHRIST in advance that you might walk in them. Ephesians 2:10.
“Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Blessed are those who wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city. Revelation 22:12-14.
The blood qualifies you to enter Heaven, but how you lived your life in accordance with My Word determines your rewards, your crowns, not in the great white throne judgment, for you are in the Lamb’s book of life, but at the judgment seat of Christ.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be repaid according to what he has done while in the body, whether good or bad. 2 Corinthians 5:10.
Works and deeds show whether you have been saved and born again, for you should be living in the world now just as Jesus did and doing the works He did in His Name and by My Spirit, unless you have failed the test by not renewing your mind and you instead are continuing to walk in the flesh and not in the Spirit. And this just has to do with what you have set your mind on—the flesh which is a mind set on death or the spirit which is a mind set on life and peace. And this is determined by what you are feeding your mind, whether it is My Word or the words of the world, the flesh and the devil and that is where your efforts come into play with the help of My grace and in fellowship with Me and the guidance, training, and leading of My Holy Spirit. My Spirit testifies to and witnesses with your spirit that you are My children and that I remember your sins and offenses no more. Romans 10:15-17.
I love you. Do not get taken in by any lie of the devil, but this one can take you into a ditch on either side. Either, even as a born again believer, you will think your salvation is not secure in Christ but that every time you fall into the slightest sin you are barred out of Heaven until you do enough penance and enough good to get back on My good side, which makes your relationship with Me and your salvation very unstable, focusing only on your performance. And this is a terrible lie because it hinders your fruitfulness, our fellowship, and your peace of mind. Or on the other side, you can decide that all “good people” go to Heaven no matter what they believe and join yourself up with these good people who will then draw you away from Me, the One true God and the One I have sent, Jesus Christ. He alone is your Salvation. Isn’t it wonderful that I took that load off your shoulders and put it on His? And there we are back to the Tabernacle again, do you recall that the High Priest had the names of the twelve tribes of Israel engraved on two precious stones, six names on each, that were held by gold chains one on each of his shoulders?