[music] Welcome to "Relevance for Today," a show where you will be encouraged, inspired, and fed through the Word of God. You will find relevant teachings, tips, discussions, interviews, and more for both believers and even non-believers who are considering salvation through Jesus Christ. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. [music] Hey folks, Steve Lewis here, welcome to "Relevance for Today." Thanks for tuning in as we continue talking about that free gift. So, so important. Stay tuned, folks, going to be addressing something very important today. It's going to change your life forever. [music] Okay, folks, thanks again for tuning in as we continue talking about the free gift. Of course, the free gift of salvation. If you know someone who has not asked Jesus Christ into their life, remember episodes 136, 137, and of course this one, 138, all discussing important things, especially 136, asking Jesus Christ into your life. And tomorrow is not promised to any of us, it's time, folks, it is time. I care about you, and that's why I am talking to you. Okay, so I'd love to hear from you. If you already have Jesus Christ into your life, I'd love to hear from you anyway. So write any time, comment, you want to talk about something? As long as we're not having arguments, let's talk about something good. You know what I mean? The world's got enough stress and chaos going on. Okay, with that being said, I'm going to jump right in. So the title of this is "Who's Qualified to Receive the Free Gospel?" You ready for this one? Drum roll. Everyone, let me repeat that again. Everyone, no matter what you've done in your life, it is never too late to receive the gift of salvation through Christ, through Jesus Christ. Does that make you want to get a breath fresh air? Did you just let out a... Oh, that's good news. It is good news. That's why they call it the good news, right? The message of the gospel. Turning away from all sin and chasing after God is the key. Very important. It's never too late to receive the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. But more importantly, when you do ask Jesus Christ into your life, you turn away from all sin and you focus on Him. And you live each day to the fullest according to how He would want you to live. And you surrender all to Him and live a life pleasing to the Lord daily. And like the Apostle Paul said, he had to crucify himself daily because every day there's a challenge. You know, if you're dealing with people or you're dealing with yourself, there's going to be a challenge. Something's going to come up. You know, and you have to sit back and go pleasing to the Lord, pleasing to the Lord. How would I act if the Lord was with me right now? That's one of the little things I like to say. So one of the important things I want to mention is some people have been lied to and told you have to jump through hoops and obey at least a thousand rules to ask Jesus Christ into your life, to be accepted into the Christian bubble. And that is alive from hell. Literally. Here's what the word of God says. Acts 16, 29 through 31. And the jailer called for the lights and rushed in because all the doors were open. He woke up in the middle of the night and everybody's cells were open and he honestly thought the prisoners had escaped so he pulled out his sword and he was ready to kill himself. And Paul said, stop. And the jailer called for the lights and rushed in and trembling with fear. He fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, here it is. You ready? Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Drum roll. That's the question. And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. You and your household. He didn't give them 50,000 other things to do. That was it. He said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. You and your household. And then the Old Testament. And so when we're talking about this, I wanted to bring this up because when I mentioned about some people will sit back and say, okay, well, you have to ask Jesus Christ to your life. Then you have to do this, this, this, this, this. And oh, by the way, you have to do this also. You have to look like this. You have to do this. You have to do this. Well, let me tell you something. That's a bunch of man made laws and rules. Okay. Jesus never put those rules and demands on people. He came to save. He went to be with the father. He told the disciples, the apostles, how to go around and share the good news about him. But in the Old Testament days, there were a total of 613 commandments. Now everybody's heard of the 10 commandments, but did you know there was 613 laws, commandments. And if you're interested in finding that, here's the link. You can look up CHABAD.org. And so these commandments covered both negative things as well as good things. The bottom line was no one could keep them all. So that's why they had the need for animal sacrifices and other rituals to do. Because they could not obey all 613 laws. There'd be a day. They'd make a mistake. There's something would happen. They'd do something wrong way. They'd do this on the wrong day. They'd be in trouble. They'd have to go repent and they would bring a sacrifice and burn offering. The priests would burn it up and so forth and they had different rituals. And you can also read about the commandments of the law as well as the rituals and sacrifices in the books of Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers in the beginning of the Bible. And that's also known as the books of Moses. But you've also got Genesis in there. So you've got Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And Exodus has some in there as well. Very important. And so basically that's the first 5 books of the Bible. Just in case you didn't know, turn to the first 5 books of the Bible. You have all that information in there. It's broken down. What they're supposed to do if this happens. What happens if that happens and so forth. And those books are also known as, and those books are also known as the books of Moses or by the Greek and Hebrew names. The Pentateuch or the Torah. So that's a neat little nugget. So as you can see, there were many rules back in the days of Moses. And here is a scripture that backs up why we do not have to live our lives as Christians by those same laws and rules. The Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the churches in Galatia about the law, the commandments, and faith in Christ. And this was important how he addressed this. And this is in Galatians 3, 10 to 14. But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under his curse. For the scriptures say, "Curse is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God's book of the law." So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the scriptures say it is through faith that a righteous person has life. This way of faith is very different from the way of the law. Which says it is through obeying the law that a person has life. But, and here is the key part, but Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for a wrong doing. For it is written in the scriptures, "Curse is everyone who is hung on a tree." Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing that he promised to Abraham so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith. Amen. So that is powerful. So I just wanted to share that portion of scripture to make sure you are aware that we do not have to jump through a bunch of obstacles to be saved. Very important. If someone is telling you to do a bunch of things to ask Jesus Christ into your life, you might want to go somewhere else. Or tell them, "Show me in the Bible where it says I have to do this, this, this, and I have to look like that and I have to do all these different things." And just ask out of curiosity. Don't ask the challenge. But just ask. I need to know these things. I'm curious to ask Jesus Christ into my life. Where does it say I have to do all these things? And of course, when in doubt, search the Bible. And there are many programs and apps out there you can look up Bible verses that pertain to certain subjects. Which is really nice. The Bible has a wealth. And we need to remember that. The Bible has a wealth of knowledge in it. And as I've shared before in other episodes, a cool acronym for the Bible, the B-I-B-L-E is Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth. Isn't that good? It's good. So back to the title of this episode, "Who's Qualified to Receive the Gift?" It's so important. Who's qualified to receive salvation? You know, I want to prove to you why. And everyone else you know and don't know are qualified to receive the gift of salvation. The simple answer is because God said, God said so. Literally. Once again, John 3 16 reads, "For this is how God loved the world. He gave his one and only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life." It's written right here. Right there. You see it on the screen. It's written right there. That's who's eligible. Everyone who believes in him, plain and simple, no matter what you've done in your life, there is hope. An everlasting hope. An olive branch that reaches across the entire world. You know what I'm saying? It reaches across the entire world. Man. To anyone who will turn from their sin and turn to God. The lifeline of hope. The lifeline of hope. Jesus Christ. The way, the truth and the life. Man. You know, and I want to make sure I share this amazing list for those of you who are beating yourselves up over the past. Okay. This is really important. If you're beating yourself up over your past and everything you've done and how terrible you think you are, keep in mind, it doesn't matter to God. When you repent of your sins and you ask for forgiveness, your slate gets wiped clean and you stay away from it, whatever it is, and you stay focused and walk a godly life. But first remember, this is very important. God can use your past to reach others who may have been through the same thing. So it all depends on what you've been through or what you've done. But I've seen people who've been in jail before now giving back and helping people in the community and talking to them about the Lord and telling them not to do what I did and so forth. And people are being helped through other people's experiences. You know, Satan's goal is to destroy you mentally and make you believe that you're not worthy of God's love. Remember that. Satan also, the enemy also likes to make sure you think that God will never use you because of your past. Well, I want you to check out this awesome reminder of some of the individuals that God used to do amazing things. And this is really cool. I'm not sure who wrote this, but you can find it online anywhere. These are people throughout the Bible that God chose to do his will on earth. Okay. So it's a list of the people and a little bit about them. Okay. But it goes to show, hey, just when you think I'm a terrible person because I do this or I do that, you need to learn about some characters in the Bible that God used. Okay. But he still used them to get the job done. And everything turned out fine. But Noah got drunk. Abraham was too old. Isaac was a daydreamer. Jacob lied. Leah was ugly. Poor Leah. Joseph was abused. Moses was a murderer and couldn't talk. He had a stutter, of course. Gideon was afraid. Samson had long hair and was afraid. And he also loved Philistine women. Rahab was a prostitute. Jeremiah and Timothy were too young. David was a murderer and an adulterer. Elijah was suicidal. Isaiah preached naked. Jonah ran from God. Naomi was a widow. Job went bankrupt. John the Baptist ate bugs. Peter denied Christ three times. The disciples fell asleep while praying. Martha worried about everything. Mary Magdalene was demon possessed. The Samaritan woman was divorced more than once. Zacchaeus was too small. Paul was a murderer. Timothy had an ulcer and Lazarus was dead. Exclamation, right? Jesus raised him from the dead. But you look at these people and you think, you know what? Man. Okay, maybe I'm beating myself up. Maybe I need to listen to the word of God. Maybe I need to read the word of God and understand it better. Maybe I need to listen to this person sharing this message right now. I'm beating myself up. I'm the one doing the most damage on my worst enemy. Because I'm beating myself up all the time. I'm doing the work for the enemy. You know, so as you can see, that's quite a list. But thank God for using the people he did because it shows us that we too are worthy of his love and forgiveness. And once again, for those of you who are already saved, let this be a reminder that even when you slip up from time to time, if you come before the Father and admit your wrongdoings, he will forgive you and use you in mighty ways to impact the lives of others. You know, I want to make sure this episode reaches the hearts of those battling addiction. Really important. If you're battling addiction right now, I want you to listen to me. I'm telling you this from the heart. You know, no matter what the addiction is, whether it's alcohol, drugs, pornography, food. Food always gets left out of the picture, doesn't it? When people talk about addiction, they always hit alcohol, drugs. They may slip in pornography, but they never talk about food addiction. It's that hidden, you know, it's that hidden sin where nobody wants to talk about it, they just want to point out certain sins. But when it comes to addiction, I'm bringing these up. And or anything else that you might be addicted to. You need to know that there is hope and salvation through Jesus Christ. God will help you and even send the right individuals who will come into your life and work alongside you to help you in these areas. You just have to surrender. You have to be willing to say, "Lord, I don't know where to begin. I'm ready to let go. Come into my life. I'm a sinner. Please help me." If I don't change my life, which I can't do it on my own, I need you to help change my life. I'm going to be dead. I'm going to ruin my marriage. I'm going to ruin my relationships with my family. I'm going to ruin my entire world. And if something happens to me, it's going to ruin everybody else's life because they love me and care about me. I mean, there's so many things involved in all of that. And so you lay all that at the Lord's feet. You know, is it going to be easy? This is very important. Is it going to be easy? Of course not. I am not one of these people that's going to say, "Oh, you're going to ask Jesus Christ to your life and the angel's going to fly down and pick you up. You're going to be wearing a beautiful white robe for the rest of your life and they'll be singing and cheering." No, life still goes on on this earth. We live in a broken world, broken society. People are still going to be the same people they were. Now I'm talking about people who are of this world. I'm not talking about once you're saved, you're going to be the same people of this world. I'm talking about people of this world are going to still act the same way. In fact, you may find out there's more hard struggles with certain individuals, but that's when you need to rely on the Lord even more and rely on Him. Very important. But He will meet you, and this is very important. This is another very important part. I'm probably saying very important, like too many times. But when you take the first step towards the Lord, He will meet you in the middle and sometimes even further. You do your part, He'll do His. You just have to surrender to Him and admit you have a problem and ask Jesus Christ into your life. I hope I'm getting my point across in a loving way. I really do. If I didn't think it was doing some good, I'm doing it for the Lord, I'm doing it for you. I know I'm not wasting my time because I know someone needs to hear this message. And if it's you and you're up for commenting, please comment. I'd love to hear from you folks. You know, I just don't like hearing about people who are on the fence about asking Jesus into their lives because of their past or because of how people are treating them or what their addiction is or whatever's going on in their life. Stop doing Satan's work for him by beating yourself up and let go of your past and open your heart to Jesus. Once you ask Him into your life and you truly repent and chase after Him, all the addictive things, the hurts, the frustrations will drift away as long as you stay planted in the Word. Stay connected with other Christians who are after God's heart and also connect with a Bible-based church that doesn't give you a list of laws that have nothing to do with salvation through Jesus Christ. Okay? Get to a place where you're around caring, loving individuals who care about you and they want to walk with you and strengthen you and come alongside you and build you up and lift you up. Sometimes with addiction it's because people are missing things in their lives. Well, sometimes what they're missing is Jesus and hope for their future. So, I hope I share that in the right way. I just want to love on you guys and remember you don't want to be that person standing on the fence because at the end of the day, guess who owns the fence, Satan. He doesn't want you to step on that side with Jesus. He doesn't want you to ask Jesus Christ into your life. He wants you to live a life of rebellion. He wants you to live a life of sin and to be lost for eternity. And we don't want to see that happen. So, if you would like to ask Jesus Christ into your life, then today is the day. I've been doing this after my last previous three podcasts. It's so important, folks. Do not wait another day, my friends. Believe, repent and receive and start the new journey that gets your foot in the door right now. If that's you, then I want you to start by praying the following. You can even put it into your own words, but here's a basic outline to go by. You ready? Are you ready for this? I'm talking to you. Whether you're watching me or you're listening to my voice, I'm talking to you. Okay, here we go. This is a serious matter. It's a serious matter. It's about your life and your life after you die. Because one day we all will die. One day we all will face judgment. So, let's pray. Dear Lord Jesus, I truly don't know where to begin, but I know I need you in my life. I know I need your help in my life, and I'm ready to start the journey of salvation with you. I know that I'm a sinner, and I ask for your forgiveness. I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite you to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow you as my Lord and Savior. Amen. I really hope that somebody asked Jesus Christ into their life today. Whatever day it may be, wherever this is being played in the world, that you really took the time to ask Jesus Christ into your life. Today is the day. It's the time, folks. It really is the time. And if you ask Jesus Christ into your life today, please comment and let me know, so we can guide you to the next steps to help you. Salvation is never meant to be something that you experience for a few minutes and then go about your life the way it used to be. Jesus commanded the disciples and apostles to make disciples of all the nations. So you're not going to be alone on this journey, okay? There are many people around the world who love to teach and train God's people, so you too can walk in whatever plan God has for your life. Very, very important. Remember that. You hear me? If you ask Jesus Christ into your life, or even if you're rededicated, you can rededicate your life. If you step the way and you ask Jesus Christ into your life, but you just haven't been faithful. You haven't been staying focused on the Lord. You haven't been in the Word. You haven't been talking to the Lord praying and so forth for years. You can pray that prayer as well. Rededicate your life to the Lord. He knows where you are. He knows your heart, okay? Let's go ahead and pray. So Heavenly Father, once again, I thank you for being able to accomplish another episode for your kingdom, for the loss, the hurting, the suffering out there, for those who need a Savior. Heavenly Father, I just thank you for sending Jesus down, dying on the cross, being raised from the dead, seated by you at the right seat. Seated by the right hand of you. We thank you for everything you did for us so that our lives could be changed forever, especially after eternity, after we leave this earth. Thank you so much for all the sacrifices. Thank you so much for each and individuals that's listening to the sound of my voice for watching this video. Heavenly Father, I pray a blessing on each and every individual that asks you into their lives that they'll be strengthened, that they'll come to know you in a greater way as their Savior and Lord, that their life will be touched, that men and women will gather around them, that they'll comment so we'll know who they are and we can get in touch with them. And I just thank you so much for all these things. Thank you for the blessings. Bless each and every individual that's listening to the sound of my voice for watching this video and I thank you, thank you, thank you for all these things in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen. There you have it folks. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for staying in there and hanging in with me for these messages about salvation. It truly is an important message. I'm going to be doing messages on different topics about salvation for the entire month of April 2021 and I plan on putting it together as a series so they can be shared all around the world, which they are now. Shout out to all you folks. Let us know where you're from in the comments section. But I want you to know I love you. I appreciate you all. Get connected. Share this with someone who needs to know about salvation. God bless you all. Take care of yourselves. Love you. Peace. peace.
