Why & How people deny Jesus.

           Please listen to this carefully and if you don't agree, it is 

okay. But please just read it carefully and think about it. The 

main reason why people(christians and non christians) refuse 

to submit their hearts to Jesus(be born again) is because they 

are not ready to follow christian laws. They are not ready to 

do those things that most people think would make us holy. 

But the truth is that they don't have to try to do good. That is 

not what God is concerned about. We keep scaring people 

away with too many laws. When you tell people to surrender 

their hearts to Jesus, this is what they have in mind "Man, I 

need to stop cheating, I need to stop lying, I need to start 

fasting, I need to attend church service regularly(no time for 

that), I need to get baptized, I need to go for repentance, I 

need to give 10% of my salary to God(no way), I need to stop 

eating pork(can't miss barbecue), I need to stop cursing, I 

need to stop partying, I need to start attending prayer 

meetings, I need to reach out to the poor and needy, I need 

to struggle to do all these good things and even more. This is 

to much, I can't do this. No way." My dear friends, submitting 

your heart to Jesus is not about doing good or trying to do 

good(self effort). Submitting your life or heart to Jesus is 

sincerely telling Jesus to take over your heart. When He takes 

over, certain changes would occur naturally and gradually in 

due time without you making any efforts. We no longer need 

laws to tell us what is bad or good. We don't need the law to 

define our salvation. As a child of Grace(saved christian), the 

Holy Spirit tells you what is good or bad through God given 

instincts. Grace(Jesus) empowers you naturally to do good 

but in case you do bad(usually by accident), Jesus has 

already forgiven you. Jesus(Grace) doesn't condemn you or 

make you feel bad. However, I am not encouraging anyone to 

sin. The point I am making is that we don't need to try to do 

good because trying to do good leads to more condemnation 

and guilt. The bible clearly says that the strength of sin is the 

law(1Cor 15:56). So the more we try to follow the law in order 

to do good, the more we get reminded(conscious) of sin.     

        If you haven't surrendered your heart to Jesus, I would 

not impose on you.  I would simply suggest that you submit 

your heart to Jesus and say these words: "Lord Jesus, from 

this day onward, I sincerely submit my life to you. Now I 

believe that you are truly my savior. Please take control of my 

body and spirit in your Holy name I pray, Amen". Rom 10:9 

says "if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and 

believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you 

will be saved"(NIV bible). In other words, you will now be born 

again after doing this from the bottom of your heart. The 

moment you declare this wholeheartedly and believe, the Holy 

Spirit comes and dwells inside of you without you noticing. 

And from that moment onward, you will feel God's love in you. 

As simple as that. Don't tell God you promise to do this or 

that. That is self-effort and that will never work; trust me I 

tried that. Simply let the power of Grace(Holy Spirit) to be 

manifested in you. When you do good, it is because God's 

Grace(love and mercy) is working in you and through you; it 

is not because of your self effort or your struggle to please 

God. As a saved christian(one who has given his heart to 

Christ), God is always please with you irrespective of what 

you do. If you want to please God with your good behavior, 

then you must be as perfect as Jesus. In other words, in 

order to please God with your behavior, you must do all 613 

do's and don'ts found in the law. You know why? Because the 

bible says "whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at 

just one point is guilty of breaking all of it"(James 2:10). So, 

you can't follow just 612 of them and tell God that you have 

tried. No! It is either you follow all 613 or you don't follow any 

of them at all.  Following 612 itself is even impossible, yet, not 

sufficient for God(when under the law). So tell me, why not 

just accept the Grace of God and live freely under the power 

of the Holy Spirit? 

       We are very familiar with the story about Jesus' 

encounter with the two thieves on the cross, right? In Lk 

23:39-43, we learn that while on the cross, one of the two 

thieves got emotional and had compassion for Jesus. The 

thieve said "Lord, remember me when you get into your 

kingdom". Did Jesus say "I'm sorry, you have been a thieve 

your entire life"? Did Jesus say "Sorry, you can't come to 

heaven because you haven't confessed your sins"? Did Jesus 

say "Sorry, you haven't been a christian"?No! What did Jesus 

say? Jesus immediately responded "today, you will be with 

me in paradise". In other words, Jesus told this man that he 

will make it to heaven. So you see, all we need to do to enter 

heaven is to accept Jesus wholeheartedly(surrender our 

hearts to Christ). In other words, all we need to do is to be 

born again(see Jn 3:3). This thieve surrendered his heart to 

Jesus in just one statement and knowing that his heart was 

sincere, Jesus accepted him into heaven. And we are certain 

that this thieve made it to heaven because Jesus can not tell 

a lie. My dear friends, once again, there is no amount of good 

we must do or laws we must follow that will qualify us to enter 

heaven. We are qualified to enter heaven only by sincerely 

accepting the Grace of God(Jesus Christ).     

      People often react differently the day they become born 

again. Some people basically cry, some people merely shed 

tears, some people fall, some people feel slight body 

movements on the inside, etc. These are effects of a change 

of heart. I am not saying that if you don't feel any of these, it 

means you are not born again. No! Some people feel nothing 

immediately but experience some life changes as time goes 

on. Some of us deny Jesus because we don't understand 

how someone has supernatural powers; we think it is fairy 

tale. Some of us don't understand why we need to believe in 

the God that we do not see. Now, permit to make certain 

things crystal clear:

        First, the human brain is too little to understand God's 

supernatural powers. His powers are called supernatural for a 

reason. That means that only a supernatural brain would 

understand supernatural powers; and that would be His brain. 

We operate in the natural but God operates in the 

supernatural.  

        Secondly, faith in someone you do not see is real 

faith(Thomas Aquinas). If you have faith in someone you see, 

it is faith quite alright but that faith is not real enough because 

you are able to see the person. But when you are having 

hope in someone you are not able to see or hope in 

something you can't really explain, then that is real. The bible 

says "...hope that is seen is not hope..."(Rom 8:24). 

Therefore, the hope(Jesus) we do not see is our real 

hope.    

         There is something quite interesting I discovered one 

day. I found out that more than 75% of us christians still think 

we have accepted Jesus because we call His name in our 

prayers all the time. Remember, Jesus said "not everyone 

who calls me 'Lord Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven…"

(Matt 7:21). What does this mean? It means there are some 

folks who go to church every sunday, serve in church, belong 

to a choir, give so much tithes and offering, very involved in 

church activities, pray and fast frequently, and yet still don't 

have a personal relationship with Jesus. Ladies and 

gentlemen, doing good doesn't make you holy in Christ; doing 

good is a natural result of already being holy in Christ. 

Remember, God is not interested in your behavior 

modification; instead, God is interested in your heart 

transformation(Joseph Prince). Therefore, if we have not 

sincerely accepted Christ in our hearts, we are deceiving 

ourselves. Remember, everyone who is born in to this world 

is by nature a sinner(because of the Adam & Eve sin) but the 

day you accept Jesus sincerely in your life and believe 

wholeheartedly that he washed away the sins of the 

world(past, present, future), that would be the day that you 

would no more be a sinner; you would now be holy in 

Christ(holy not by the law or your deeds but by Grace). 

           Please listen to this carefully as I say this with peace 

and love: a christian who is not born again is not different 

from a pagan or non-christian. Like I said before, I am saying 

this with love and a good intention. I am not trying to 

condemn anyone(God forbid); I am simply telling you the 

truth. A christian who is not born again is the same as a non 

christian in the sense that they are both not saved(not born 

again). Jesus said "...no one can see the kingdom of God 

unless they are born again"(Jn 3:3). This is a verse coming 

directly from the New international version bible; I am not 

making this up. This verse implies that a non-christian(who is 

obviously not born again) and a christian who choses not to 

be born again, would both not see the kingdom of God unless 

they decide to be born again. These two are still under the 

category of denying Jesus. To be born again means that you 

have sincerely accepted Jesus and believe in your heart that 

He is your savior. Recall that Jesus is Grace; so when you 

sincerely accept Jesus, you have embraced God's sincere 

love and mercy in your life for ever. As I said earlier, Rom 

10:9 explains to us how to be born again(saved).  

     

           In my own humble opinion, there is absolutely no 

reason why anyone would want to deny Jesus. This is a King 

who had the power to save Himself from serious torture and 

suffering but chose not to because of His supernatural love 

for us. King Jesus chose to go through pain in order to fulfill 

prophecy - to give the world a chance to easily come to His 

father's marvelous kingdom(heaven). Jesus is so full of love 

and mercy that when He was on the cross, He even prayed 

for those who were torturing Him. On the cross, Jesus said 

"father, forgive them for they do not know what they are 

doing..."(Lk 23:34). Can you imagine such love? People are 

beating up a king to death and instead of getting really furious 

at them, this humble king is instead praying for them. O sweet 

Jesus! 

   

       My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, Grace(Jesus) 

is full of love and mercy and if we deny this free gift, then I 

really don't know what else to say.      

    

Backsliders:

    There are three important questions we should ask 

ourselves here:

1. Who are backsliders?

2. Do backsliders deny Jesus?

3. Are backsliders still saved by Grace(Jesus)? 

     Religion keeps making us think that in order for us to go 

to heaven, we must do good things. But the question is "how 

much good is good for God"? If you want to please God 

based on good behavior, you need to follow all 613 laws in the 

old testament. So, because this is impossible, we need to rely 

on God's grace(Jesus).  When you get saved, you are born 

again in the spirit and you will definitely go to heaven. 

Because the flesh is corrupt, the flesh would make some 

mistakes along the way but the soul remains pure and holy. 

Yes, doing bad would have certain spiritual and physical 

consequences(you kind of feel guilty). As a born again 

christian, doing bad however does not change God's 

opinion of you; instead, it changes your opinion of 

God(Darlingston Johnson). This means that, as a saved(born 

again) christian, when you do something bad, God still loves 

you anyways and is still pleased with you but you wouldn't 

feel pleased in God's eyes because the Holy Spirit would alert 

you that you just did something bad. Have I said born again 

christians are free to do bad things? Nope! Grace(Jesus) 

empowers you not to do bad things but in case you do 

something bad, all you need to say is "Jesus, I'm sorry about 

that and I thank you for already forgiving me because of 

your blood sacrifice. So, you declare that Jesus' blood has 

already cleansed you and then you move on with your life. 

Don't feel bad or guilty and spend days and weeks 

confessing sins that Jesus already took care of more than 

2000 years ago. If you spend time confessing for 

sins, what you are saying is that Jesus' blood is not enough. 

In other words, you are saying that Jesus failed in His 

mission(i.e to take away the sins of the world) and because of 

that, you are trying to put in your own self efforts to get Him 

to forgive you. That is instead more painful(condemning) and 

that is wrong doctrine.

       Now, have I said you shouldn't go for confession? No! 

What I am saying is that confession is not necessary. Asking 

God to forgive your sins is not necessary because his blood 

already washed away our past, present and future sins. 

Let me prove it to you. The bible says "the lamb of God that 

taketh away the sins of the world"(Jn 1:29). Now, it does not 

say "the lamb of God that took"; it clearly uses the word 

'taketh'. The word 'taketh' is a continuos tense which implies 

that the sins of the world are naturally already being forgiven 

on a daily basis even before we ask for forgiveness. That is 

how powerful Jesus' blood is.  So, all we need to do is 

to declare it with our mouth and thank Him for already-given 

forgiveness. 

        Think of it this way. If a little child poops in his pants, will 

his loving father push him away and says his stinks? 

Definitely not! The obvious thing he would do is to clean up 

the mess and love his son regardless right? In the same way, 

as born again(saved) christians, when we do something bad, 

our heavenly father does not run way from us. Instead, he will 

clean up our mess and love us regardless. Therefore, when 

we do something bad, we should not run away from God; 

instead we should run to God because he would clean our 

mess and love us. That is the God we serve; a loving father, 

not a condemning father(as most people think). 

       

        Let me make something crystal clear. The moment you 

become born again(saved), your spirit becomes heaven-

ready. So, regardless of what you do(good or bad), you will 

go to heaven. Even if you are not having time for God as you 

had before, you will still go to heaven. Have I said we 

shouldn't have time for God because we would go to heaven 

regardless? No! It is advisable to always stay connected with 

God because the Holy Spirit would lead us in our day-to-day 

decisions and would work through us to save other. The only 

thing that would stop a saved christian from entering heaven 

is if he sincerely decides that he is no longer saved or born 

again. In other words, if he decides to completely deny 

Jesus and is completely convinced that God doesn't 

exist(atheism), in this case, he is no longer saved(born 

again). When I say 'deny' here, I'm not talking about the kind 

of 'deny' where Simon Peter denied Jesus three times(Mk 

14:66-72). That was different because Peter just denied 

Jesus for fear of physical torture. He didn't do it from the 

bottom of his heart. 

          So, a saved person who has not been keeping in touch 

with Jesus is not a backslider. A backslider is someone who 

was born again(saved) but has now decided not to be born 

again(saved) anymore; one who is no longer guided by the 

Grace of God. In other words, he has fallen for the tricks of 

the enemy(satan) and has been deceived into believing that 

God is not real. This is very dangerous and this explains why 

we need to keep praying for our fellow christians and pastors. 

         

         I once heard someone asking this question "if Jesus 

washed away the sins of the world(Jn 1:29), why are we still 

sinning. Why are we still having sin in the world"? Permit me 

to answer this question by using the following biblical 

scripture: 1Jn 1:7. It says "but if we walk in the light, as He is 

in the light,...the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanses us 

from all sin". This verse means that the only way we would no 

longer be in sin is if we walk in the light(the presence of God). 

The thing is, before Jesus came, everybody on earth was a 

sinner(no one was holy). But after Jesus came and died on 

the cross, He made it possible for everyone to now be holy in 

Him by simply accepting Him sincerely(i.e to be born again). 

Therefore, the sins of the world(started by Adam) have been 

completely wiped off and we all have the huge opportunity of 

being holy in Christ by simply being born again. Unfortunately, 

only very few are born again today; which implies that only a 

few are no longer in sin(i.e are holy in Christ).   

                       

     

    *More references:  Rom 10:4, Rom 6:14, Rom 11:6, Heb 10:1, 1Tim 1:8-9, Rom 5:20 *