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QUESTIONS FROM THE
MAILBAG |
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How Do I Get My Name in the Lamb's
Book of Life?
By
ATRI Staff
Correspondent |
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Think of the
Lamb’s Book of Life (Philippians 4:3) as Heaven’s "birth
register." The only way to get your name registered
there is to be born into God’s family.
Another
birth?
The gospel of
John, chapter 3, records the reaction of a man who
couldn’t get his mind around this concept. Back in about
30 AD in Jerusalem, a man named Nicodemus realized
something was missing in his life. So he snuck out one
night to talk to Jesus. When Jesus told him he’d have to
be born again to get into God’s kingdom, he got
confused. Here’s how The Message puts it:
Jesus said,
"You’re absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a
person is born from above, it’s not possible to see
what I’m pointing to – to God’s kingdom."
"How can
anyone," said Nicodemus, "be born who has already been
born and grown up? You can’t re-enter your mother’s
womb and be born again. What are you saying with this
‘born-from-above’ talk?"
Jesus said,
"You’re not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a
person submits to this original creation – the ‘wind
hovering over the water’ creation, the invisible
moving the visible, a baptism into a new life – it’s
not possible to enter God’s kingdom. When you look at
a baby, it’s just that: a body you can look at and
touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed
by something you can’t see and touch – the Spirit –
and becomes a living spirit. So don’t be so surprised
when I tell you that you have to be ‘born from above’
– out of this world, so to speak." (John 3:3-7)
You may have
also heard people call this "being (or getting) saved".
In this article we want to very briefly look at three
characteristics of "saved" or "born again" people.
Born again
people have acknowledged they are sinners who cannot
save themselves.
The Bible
says that we have ALL committed sins – that is, we have
failed to live up to the standards that God set for us
in the Bible: "we’ve compiled this long and sorry record
as sinners… and proved that we are utterly incapable of
living the glorious lives God wills for us" (Romans
3:23).
Because of
our sinfulness, we are completely incapable of living
the way God wants us to live. In a sense you could say
we are "stillborn". As sinners, we are condemned to
death – spiritual death – for all eternity ("Work hard
for sin your whole life and your pension is death" –
Romans 6:23). That’s why we need the new life (inside
life) we get when we’re born again.
Born again
people have embraced the fact that Jesus took that death
penalty for them.
Romans 6:23
continues, "But God’s gift is real life, eternal life,
delivered by Jesus, our Master." Since God’s law demands
that the penalty for sin be paid, someone’s got to clear
that debt. You owe it, you are responsible for it.
But something
amazing happened. John 3:16-18 tells us what that was:
This is how
much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and
only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be
destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a
whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the
trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing
finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to
help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts
in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him
has long since been under the death sentence without
knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure
to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when
introduced to him.
Born again
people have rejected all other proposals for how to
achieve this whole and lasting life.
It doesn’t
matter how good you think you are. It doesn’t matter how
much better you are than somebody else. It doesn’t
matter how many good deeds you do, or how much you give
to charity. It doesn’t matter how many people look up to
– or down to – you. God tells us that "Salvation [this
new birth] comes no other way; no other name has been or
will be given to us by which we can be saved, only this
one" – Jesus (Acts 4:12).
If you’d like
to learn more about how to receive this gift of new
life, and get your name in the Book of Life, click here
to read "How Do I Become a Christian?
http://www.ankerberg.org/ankerberg-articles/christian.html
Or click here to read "God’s
Simple Plan of Salvation"
http://www.godssimpleplan.org/gsps-english.html. |
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THE JOHN
ANKERBERG SHOW |
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DR. JOHN ANKERBERG'S RESPONSE TO CREATION QUESTIONS
Dr. John Ankerberg answers your
questions on creation in the following article available both as
a downloadable PDF and broken down into individual questions for
online reading. Click the link below to read:
Does Scientific Evidence Today Show
that God Created the Heavens and the Earth? And What Does the Bible Say
About When He Created?
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Copyright 2006, Ankerberg Theological Research Institute |
