Enabled by God

It may be the greatest love story in the Old Testament. It is certainly the most scandalous one. The implications this short book brings to us are intensely personal.

The book of the prophet Hosea has intrigued me for years.

Hosea has some of the most provocative language of any book of the Bible. It begins with God telling Hosea to do the very last thing any respectable prophet would be expected to do. It begins with God’s command for Hosea to go and marry a prostitute (Hosea 1:2). This prostitute, Gomer, bore Hosea a son which God told him to name “Jezreel.” The prophetic name of “Jezreel” means “scattered”, “judgment”, or “exile.” This son was a sign God would soon punish Israel and scatter the prosperous proud nation in judgment.

After that, Gomer had two more children who were apparently not even Hosea’s. God commanded these two illegitimate children to be named “Not Loved” and “Not My People.” These names signify the way Israel would be treated by God for a time because of its covenant unfaithfulness.

Then the prostitute leaves the prophet. Not just to marry another man. But to be a slave to another man.

Let’s be honest. If Hosea were our brother we would try to slap him back to his senses. “Dump this slut!” would be our biblical plea. “Divorce her, you could do so much better!”

This love story is so ridiculous and far-fetched it is too good to not be true. No man in his right mind would subject himself to such treatment. We feel outrage rising within us over Gomer’s sinful disregard for Hosea. It is supremely unjust for a wife to treat her good and faithful husband in such a disgraceful way.

But our outrage is misplaced. Hosea is just a man.

The real plot line is this:

God is the scorned lover here. He is a good and faithful husband to His people. He has provided all His bride needs. He has done nothing but lavish grace and mercy on her. Yet His love has gone unrequited. How incredibly humiliating for the King of the Universe. His bride has played the whore to lesser lovers and despised the romantic overtures of divine royalty where eternal pleasures are found (Psalms 16:11).

I hope God would not follow my own advice. For I am Gomer. I’ve played the harlot. My wandering heart has led me to bondage time and time again. Gomer is guilty of forsaking a man. I am guilty of forsaking the eternal God. Gomer’s not the outrage, I’m the outrage.

But thankfully, God is not done with Gomer and I. As if Hosea’s heart is not rent open enough already, God says go to your wife again. Buy her back from her slavery and willful rebellion (Hosea 3:1).

Go again and love a woman deserving no love.

So Hosea scraps together all of his resources and pays with cash and cattle to get back his wife.
Hosea was a living concrete illustration of our own relationship with God. What a perfect picture of His love that God draws for us in the book of Hosea. In fact, there is hardly a more graphic portrayal of God’s love in Scripture other than the bloody forsaken spectacle who hung before the world in the New Testament.

I’ve wandered away from Him so many times, without a second glance over my shoulder. I’ve chosen what is cheap and false over an eternally faithful Husband. My hasty indictment against Gomer is an indictment against myself.

Yet His love will not let me go. He buys me back. Not with shekels. With the precious blood of His dear Son. He washes me with the crimson overflow, and woos me with tenderness I don’t deserve (Hosea 2:14). He brings me to the foot of the cross again and again where He made His proposal with His own blood. Where He offered not a ring, but His life.

Even the thorn bushes I get myself tangled in testify to His love for me (Hosea 2:6-7). Even the pain. Whether it is physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. I may turn to the right or to the left from His path, but He refuses to let me stray long. He’s relentless. His relentless pursuit of me will overcome my rebellious propensities.

We can take heart, for wandering worthless people are set free in Christ. Not just for a day, but for eternity. He will betroth us to Him forever (Hosea 2:19).

A glorious wedding banquet awaits us (Revelation 19:9).

There He will present us as a spotless bride (Ephesians 5:25-27).

No more sin.
No more shame.
No more doubt.
No more distraction.
No more sorrow.
No more straying.

For that, we wait in hope. For even a Gomer, in the midst of self induced captivity, can utter with assurance from a dungeon floor: “Come, Lord Jesus, Come!” (Revelation 22:17).

Bryan

We rarely experience the presence of God. I don’t mean the chills that run down our spine when the worship music reaches a crescendo and the choir hits the right high notes. Or the tear that wells up in our eye when a Hallmark commercial hits our sweet spot.

Neither do I mean that doctrine of the general, invisible “omnipresence” God. You know that theoretical doctrine on paper that rarely gets off the paper and into our hearts. “Omnipresence.” It’s means something like He is all present everywhere, whether we acknowledge Him or not.

No, I am speaking of a much more intimate and apparent presence. More specifically, I am speaking of when we get stricken with a revelation of the One who is THE holy, glorious, almighty God king.

The best name for it is the manifest presence of God. This is when God makes His presence so clearly known it absolutely has to be acknowledged by us, because it literally drives us to the ground in a melting heap of tears and shock. The saints of old experienced His presence in this way. And it ruined them.

Abraham fell on his face before God (Genesis 17:3).

A faithful old man named John fell as dead in His manifest presence (Revelation 1:17).

They didn’t fall down on the ground and laugh hysterically while rolling on their backs. They didn’t flop on the ground like an epileptic fish. In fact, the biblical text reveals that falling down and laughing in the presence of God could be a sign of unbelief and blatant disrespect (Genesis 17:17). Not worship. In contrast, all who truly experienced God’s projected holiness fell face down. As if they were dead. That was the only appropriate response to God’s holiness when it crashed up against their sinful state.

The biblical text reveals that men who experienced the manifest presence of God didn’t know whether He was coming to bless them or kill them. As overwhelming waves of His glory stunned them all they could do was hit the floor in a fearful awe-inspiring daze.

We’re studying cosmology in our college Sunday school class on apologetics. One stunning fact we’ve learned is not just that the universe is immense in its expanse, but that it is ever expanding in its expanse as time moves forward. And it is not just ever expanding; its expansion is ever accelerating at an increasing rate as time goes on. Now I don’t completely understand or comprehend the last two sentences I just shared with you, but I am sure of one thing: If the universe is that awe-inspiring, then I cannot begin to imagine the awe-inspiring Creator of it. My words describing Him are such a paltry portrayal, and seem nothing more than a fool’s errand. There are no categories in human experience for a God with such manifold excellencies.

So what are we to do before a God who is as morally excellent as He is powerful? Who is as blazingly Holy as He is loving? We can do only one thing before this Otherness: Fall down like dead.

Right now, a few hearty reformed “Amens” may be reverberating off of computer screens everywhere. But as my buddy Lee Corso says, “Not so fast my friend!” To my Puritan pundits and Spurgeonist scholars, when is the last time we have fell on our face before the burning presence of a white hot holy God? Do we even believe there is such an experience for us that may not exactly fit into our theological presuppositions? We may not be under any emotional persuasion to stop, drop, and roll during a Sunday morning service. But are we under any biblical persuasion to fall like dead, even in the presence of God and congregation? This is a gospel that should fill our heads with the knowledge of God and set out our hearts ablaze with a passion for God. Being reserved doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being reverent. Because those who were truly reverent unreservedly and unashamedly fell like they were dead before God.

This will be our posture for eternity. This will be the whole world’s posture at some decisive breaking point in the approaching future, willingly or unwillingly (Philippians 2:10-11).

Let’s ask God to ruin us now. Let’s ask Him to bless us even if it feels like He’s killing us. And let’s be men and women who have truly experienced the presence of God.

And there is only one place where that presence is made tolerable and accessible to us. The foot of the cross: “And when he had taken it (the scroll), the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints…. In a loud voice they sang: ‘Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!’” (Revelation 5:8,12)

“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:24-25)

There is not too much that needs to be said today. The passage and picture above speak volumes for themselves. They both vividly display why the prosperity gospel, self-esteem gospel, positive confession (name it and claim it and blab it and grab it) gospel, and all other man centered therapeutic gospels are a demonic perversion of the biblical truth. They say you need to learn to love your life; Jesus said you need to learn to hate your life. They say you need to find a self fulfilling life. Jesus says you must lose your life by a dying to and emptying of self.

But still, the seeds of those false gospels have been so ingrained in our hearts that we believe every pay cut, breakup, and hiccup in our life is an all out assault on our world as we know it. Even if we theologically and theoretically reject such gospels, we still practically affirm them by our narcissistic claims to comfort, pleasure, status, money, and plenty of attention from the right people. We need to ask ourselves an honest question:

For the past two thousand years, what has made men and women endure such mindless, horrific violence and degradation for their Christian witness?

I personally believe it is because they have apprehended a gospel that reveals this: the wrath of a Father flowing down from heaven (Isaiah 53:10), a perfect bloody Son sacrificing all for their sin (John 1:29), and a resurrection that affirms eternal life is an all consuming reality in the coming kingdom (Romans 6:5). The persecuted church has found coats and boats are worthless in the life to come, but Christ is our priceless Treasure for now and forevermore. Radical self sacrifice flows (super)naturally out of the true gospel, because the true gospel was founded on the radical self sacrifice of God’s own Son on the cross.

The saints of the persecuted church are living out what I as an armchair theologian have failed to truly grasp as the all governing reality of my life. It’s the most obvious and chilling truth in this passage: A fruitful life here and eternal life hereafter, is inextricably connected with dying (John 12:24), and hating our life in this world (John 12:25). Jesus guaranteed this to us who grasp it: A revival and harvest of souls would come as a result of a life extravagantly laid down for the glory of God and His kingdom.

Intercede for the persecuted church around the world. The grains of wheat that are falling and dying there will surely produce a harvest of souls for eternity. It happened in the Roman Empire where early church leaders were thrown to the Coliseum lions for their simple profession of Jesus. It’s happening right now in Orissa, India, where saints are being bludgeoned to death by angry mobs for their simple profession of Jesus. Christ’s death was not in vain and so neither is theirs.

As the early church father and apologist, Tertullian, said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

Intercede for the materialistic church of America. The grains of wheat that are failing to fall and die here will surely produce a coming judgment that will blow the worthless chaff away for eternity.

If God doesn’t move on our hearts, the “many seeds” of revival will never come to pass in America. Pray that He moves.

Bryan

Love God, Love People

Many shirts have been sold in this country with “Love God, Love People” inked across the front. I must admit that there is one hanging in my closet as I type this post. Some years back while reading Matt 22:35-40 God opened my eyes as to how destitute I really was. I quickly came to understand just how effective God’s law is on the unconverted soul (Psalm 19:7). I read Matthew 22 plenty of times while growing up in church. However, this time my utter disobedience was brought to light. For the first time I stopped to take in what Christ meant with those repetitive “with all your…” statements.

Seldom when reading scripture do we get everything we were intended to get. Case in point, the Greek word kardia, this word means so much more than the English word “Heart.” When Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart”, he was in effect commanding us to love God with all of our thoughts, all of our passions and all of our desires. In addition, we are to have an insatiable appetite for God, make him the center of all our affections and our sole purpose in every endeavor should be to give God all the glory and honor. Wow, I thought I loved my wife with all my heart.

Christ went on to say that we are to love God with all or our soul, that is our psyche. This means that with all of our life-sustaining, internal driving force, we are to love him. Finally, with all of our mind or dianoia. This means, with all of our understanding and thoughts. In Matthew 5:17 Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Either Jesus was the craziest man who ever lived or was God incarnate as he claimed to be (John 10:30). I will forever be perplexed as to how a person could believe that our Savior was something less than God Almighty after his claim to have fulfilled the law summarized in (Matt 22:37-39).

Pastor D. James Kennedy once said, “You cannot say, ‘No, Lord,’ and mean both words; one annuls the other. If you say no to him, then He is not your Lord.” Pastor Kennedy’s words ring true in light of 1 John 3:24 where John writes, “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.” When Jesus quoted the Shema as his answer to the lawyers question in Matthew 22:35-40 Jesus was trying to show them that salvation takes more than any of them could offer. Christ told them that the whole law was important and in effect did not give them any type of “scape goat” for justifying themselves.

When we read God’s law, we should be stripped of our self-pride and filled with disgust at how often and in how many ways we disobey him. As a child of God, this realization can not bring us down; no, it can only make us cling harder to Christ and appreciate him all the more. Christian–God commands that we forsake it all for him. He commands that in all of our thoughts and actions, that we only have obedience to him in mind. Examine yourself in light of this supreme command and I hope that you find a new found appreciation for Christ. Lost sinners–I pray that God’s law will reveal your disobedience to a holy and just God and that you will be stripped of your self-worth and left begging for the mercy of God through his only begotten son Jesus Christ. If not for the blood of Christ, there is no hope!

God Bless!

Kyle.

In no way do I intend for this to be an in depth study on the book of Philemon, but rather a launching pad for you to peak your interest in the book that I for so long overlooked.

The Epistle to Philemon was written by Paul in Rome at the same time as the epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians. It was addressed to Philemon and the members of his family. It was written for the purpose of interceding for Onesimus, who had deserted his master Philemon and been “unprofitable” to him. Paul had found Onesimus at Rome, and had there been instrumental in his conversion, and now he sends him back to his master with this letter.

Throughout the epistle I find Paul’s compassion and love for Onesimus astounding. It goes against everything that we as humans innately know. John Calvin wrote of Paul’s compassion by saying “It is of importance to consider how deep is his condescension, when he gives the name of “son” to a slave, and a runaway, and a thief.” I find it very humbling to examine the compassion of my own life in comparison to Paul’s.

Another area that Philemon addresses is unity in the church. It is a great account of the power of Christ and Christian fellowship. In the church we let things such as pride, wealth, personality, and race come between us and hinder our fellowship. Just as was the case with Philemon, God calls us to a higher level. We are to humble ourselves and embrace each other as brothers and sisters in Christ despite our differences.

Even more so than a story of compassion and forgiveness, the Epistle to Philemon also represents salvation in four different ways.
1. Paul interceded for Onesimus just as Christ interceded for us sinners. Jesus stepped down out of eternity and took on the form of a human so that he could intercede for us by living a perfect life in accordance to all the laws.
2. Onesimus was reconciled to Philemon. We were also reconciled, though not to a mortal man but to the infinite God. Christ’s blood has reconciled us to God. His sacrifice has made us perfect in the sight of God (Hebrews 10:10 and 10:14)
3. As Paul offered to pay the debts of Onesimus in Philemon 18, Christ paid our debts. Christ died because of our sins. He was our “ransom” (1 Tim 2:5-6)
4. As Onesimus returned to his master, we must return to God and obey our true Master.

I hope that this has maybe inspired you to read Philemon and learn how to apply it’s truths to your life. I pray that we are able to show people a fraction of the love and compassion God has showed and continues to show us daily.

Anthony

Eternal life is scary. At least it was to me as a child. Every time I pondered for any amount of time about being somewhere forever, an incredible aching formed in the pit of my stomach. An aching that would persist to the point of either nausea or panic attack, until I drove all thoughts of immortality out of my mind for the moment. I understood heaven was preferable to hell as far as eternity went, but I couldn’t fathom being anywhere for forever, no matter how celestially blissful it may be. Even Earthworm Jim gets old after you’ve beaten it for the seventeenth time, right? According to my concept of heaven, after a couple of years the monotony would be mind boggling. We get to run on streets of gold. But then what? We get to swing on gates of pearl. But then what? We get to hang out with our deceased grandparents, Moses, and maybe one of the band members from Creed. But then what? It all seemed a bit…..boring after awhile. As an atheist coworker told me recently, “I don’t want to imagine being anywhere forever. I’d die of boredom being in one place forever. Especially if there are no dogs there.” Nine year old Bryan would have wholeheartedly concurred with that statement (the man who made the statement  is  nearly fifty years old!).

The most awesome Sega Genesis game ever known to mankind

This sentiment of fear was held way before I came to the realization that eternal life and the book of Revelation was Christological and God centered; and nothing like anything I knew on earth (Revelation 1:1). In a word, the prospect of eternal life was frightfully boring to me before I came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. After that happened, I learned eternal life did not primarily consist of an infinite quantity of time, but an intimate quality of relationship.

It was Jesus Christ Himself who graciously gave me a wholly adequate solution to my childhood dilemma in John 17:3:

“This is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God and the Son whom you have sent”

Here I found Christ never meant for us to be enamored with streets of gold, seas of crystal or gates of pearl; He wanted us to be enamored with Him.  A heaven of harps and cloud loitering satisfies not, but one vision of His grandeur and glories will enrapture us for an eternity.

What Christ says about eternal life in his High Priestly Prayer would be altogether shocking and ludicrous to the passive by stander. This is an average Jewish carpenter with no political clout, no royal entourage, and no where to even lay his head. And to his concerned disciples he gives this sure promise hours before He goes to the cross, “You will get to know my Father and me forever.” The Islamic Extremist gets 72 virgins. The Hindu gets a better cultural status next time around. The cultist gets his own world and god-like state. The prosperity propagator gets his best life now and maybe a private jet. But Christ makes all of those false promises burn in the light of this one profoundly simple assurance: “You get Me.”

Or rather, “You get to know Me.” Clearly, this is a ridiculously audacious promise if we are talking about a mere Jewish man.

The greek word for “know” here is ginōskō, which is translated in three primary tenses:

1) to learn to know, come to know, get a knowledge of perceive, feel

2) to know, understand, perceive, have knowledge of

3) Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse between a man and a woman

To “know” God, in it’s fullest biblical sense holds much more weight than an introductory understanding of bible stories or an intellectual assent to a few orthodox doctrines.

We are called to an intimate knowledge of God, so much so the word is used interchangeably in Scripture with the way only a husband could physically “know” his wife.  You know, the way Joseph didn’t know Mary before Jesus was born? Mat 1:25  We are given the same type of relational status only it is eternally deeper than that of human marriage. This is a spiritual relational intimacy a holy God has granted us through Christ from the foundation of the world. This union is not only for monks and ministers, it’s for any who belong to the bride of Christ. And it belongs to all who are being washed in the water of God’s word. Eph 5:25-28

Paul called the heart of the gospel the “light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2Cor 4:4-6 You can find the glory of God in many places: Lightning storms, mountaintops and holding your first born for the first time. But Paul says the highest point of the glory of God rests in knowing and beholding Christ Himself, His face, His person, and His work at the cross and resurrection.

Paul also called everything else a four letter word(in the Greek) compared to the surpassing worth of the knowledge of Christ. (Philippians 3:8) That’s because Christ is the Alpha and Omega (Rev 1:17), who upholds all things by the word of His power (Heb 1:3), who sits on an unrivaled  throne as King of the universe (Isaiah 6:1), in charge of angel armies (Heb 1:7), with eyes blazing with fiery holiness (Rev 1:14), a voice that thunders like crashing waterfalls (Rev 1:15), who made all things as all things were made for Him (Col 1:16), and will righteously judge the living and the dead at the end of time (Revelation 19:11). And this all culminates at the cross, where He is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world for our sins (Rev 13:8).

Indeed, this is no mere Jewish carpenter. Through Him we are called children and heirs of God (Rom 8:16-17). That means we get God; we are afforded the incomprehensible privilege of knowing this God through Christ. This is what we received when we received the gospel, and it all happened at the point of our conversion. Which means eternal life doesn’t begin when we die, eternal life begins when we come to know Christ. Eternal life isn’t just then and there, but it is a here and now reality for those who are in Christ.

In Christ alone, the glory of God is made manifest to us. In Christ alone, the blazing holiness of God is made tolerable and accessible to us. In Christ alone, the righteous Judge has become a righteous Father. In Christ alone, we can know God and not just know things about Him.

In the life to come, we will be eagerly chasing down the unsearchable riches of His excellencies; and after an eternity we will not have even reached the foothills of the majesty of King Jesus and His kingdom.

Better than wealth, health, fame, sex, food, relationships, toys, self esteem and all the glory of the world combined.

You get Christ. What more do you want?

Bryan

“Strive to enter in at the narrow gate” (Luke 13:24)

Jesus would not be a minister of evangelism/missions at your church. It’s likely he would have never gotten past your search committee. You may not even want him on a visitation team. Not if you attend a church like most in modern American “churchianity”.

A cursory reading of Scripture shows that many times instead of making it easy for people to come to him, Christ put up formidable barriers to their coming. The harshness of tone and content in his invitation was usually in direct correlation to the hidden pride of his hearers. Amazingly, Christ didn’t always hit an inquiring person with a Jhn 3:16 or a Mat 11:28 like we do. The Rich Young Ruler got smacked with the Ten Commandments when he came in Mark 10. The Pharisees were told their mom shagged the devil in John 8. Christ referred to a needy Samaritan woman as a dog when she asked for help in Mark 7:28. In general, his call in the Gospels consisted of “Turn your back on everything you know, and come die with me.” To which the response was either instant obedience to the command or “This dude’s crazy!” and “He just has a demon.”

So it shouldn’t surprise us that when Christ was met with a seemingly simple question, he handled it in an utterly unique and refreshingly blunt way. In Luke 13:23, as Jesus is teaching and journeying towards Jerusalem, an inquirer asks, “Lord, are there few who are saved?” Far from a simple “Yes” or “No” answer Jesus gives this response: “Strive to enter in at the narrow gate” (Luke 13:24).

He doesn’t just say “whosoever believes in me” will have eternal life. He doesn’t just say, “All who come unto me will be saved.” He says in effect, “Those who are saved are those who strive.” In the Greek he seems to be saying even more than that. The Greek word here used for ”strive” (agonizomai) is a very expressive and emphatic one. It literally means to “agonize.” The questioner lobs an underhanded softball to Jesus, and according to our modern standards of evangelism, Christ Himself whiffs and pulls a hamstring in the process. He doesn’t tell him to just believe, he tells him to agonize. This is not friendship evangelism, the Roman Road, or even the F.A.I.T.H. outline. I have yet to see a gospel tract with the call for the unbeliever to agonize and anguish their way into eternal life.

Grace is clearly free and sovereign in Scripture. Eph 2:8, Rom 9:16 So why strive to enter into eternal life, why must we agonize for something free? It probably has to do with one of the most important words in Scripture: repentance.  Repentance is a heart-rending world-view shattering change that happens within a person. It’s a gift of God’s grace, and it is a gift that is indeed agonizing for those who experience it. When a revelation of our iniquity crashes against a revelation of God’s holiness, repentance is birthed in us and we are broken. Agonizingly and beautifully broken.

And it doesn’t stop with a one time act of repentance, but a continual repenting, a putting to death the deeds of the body for the rest of our God-given lives. Rom 8:13 As the chief of Puritans, John Owen, said, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.” The word (agonizomai) used in Luke 13:24 is the same word used in 1Cor 9:25 of an athlete battling to win a victory. It is also used in 1Tim 6:12, of the Christian who “fights the good fight of faith.” The life of Christ is a severe struggle, a battle, and even a life of shocking violence. This is in no way a violence to others, but a violence to self- our own flesh, desires and dreams, and everything remaining of the old nature. It’s better to gouge out your sinning eye and amputate your transgressing arm now so that you may gain King Jesus and entry into his kingdom for eternity. We see why the gate of salvation is “narrow” now. As Christ said in a tandem passage, there are “very few” who find it. Mat 7:13-14

This is not to deny the true abiding joy a Christian experiences. But even our joy in Christ is an agonizing joy. Our persevering on the narrow road with Christ is an agonizing persevering. I am not a woman, and thus have not experienced firsthand the sacred rite of childbirth. But after witnessing the birth of my son and hearing the testimony of many women, I venture to guess it is not just a beautiful process for the mother, but an agonizingly beautiful process. Everything worth anything is. This is especially true for the only thing worth everything-Christ Himself and gaining an eternal knowledge of him. John 17:3

This verse is a warning to me, and all who may be casual confessors of Christ. The kingdom of heaven does not consist of decision cards and  church attendance, the kingdom of heaven is much like a war within you. When we came to Christ we were automatically enlisted into a battle for the ages; we were set on the beautiful and agonizing path of life with Christ. Nominal striving is no striving at all. Do we agonize over our sin, the very sin that put our precious Savior on the cross? Do we agonize over our lack of fervor and obedience to our perfect Lord and Master? If we do, we may take heart that God’s grace has taken effect in us.

If not, the solution Christ offers is beautifully, agonizingly simple: “Repent and believe the gospel.” Mark 1:15

Bryan