Merciful Savior Online

Today, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of the Lenten season for Christians around the world, especially for those who hold to more traditional and liturgical forms of worship.

If Jesus had not died for our sins and risen again, you and I could not be saved. It is as the Apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth (1 Cor. 15:17-19): “And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.”

Why do people not come to Jesus? No one likes to have his deeds exposed as evil and wrong. Rather, we would prefer to justify our actions and keep our sins and shortcomings hidden and out of sight. But that leads to eternal death and damnation.

The parable of the sower warns against being like one of the three poor kinds of soil. We may think of ourselves as the good soil, but how often do we not also fit the descriptions of the poor ground! Which kind of soil are you?

Before finishing His sermon on the mount, Jesus adds this admonition to his disciples: "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat ..."

Not all who are outwardly affiliated with a church — even with a faithful church — not all who have been baptized or who have partaken of the Lord’s Supper will be saved.

It is God’s perfect will that children obey their parents in all things – the only exception being when obedience to parents would cause disobedience to God (cf. Acts 5:29). Obedience to parents, God says, is “well pleasing unto the Lord.”

Are you ready to die and stand before God, your Maker? Are you at peace with God, knowing that your sins are paid for and forgiven for Christ’s sake?

In so many ways, Christ’s Church in this world — His little band of true believers — is like that boat being swamped by the waves in the windstorm on the Sea of Galilee. Will it perish?

The Scriptures tell us that, when God created man, He formed man's body of the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.