I hope to address some of the most commonly asked questions that both Christians and people who are interested in Christianity have asked me in the past. If you have any specific questions for me, feel free to e-mail me. I may add your question and the answer to this page.
How dose baptism fit into the plan of salvation?
How does God want us to dress?
Why is the tree called good and evil? How can good and evil come from the same tree?
What is clean and unclean and where do I find it in the Bible?
Is it right to listen to rap music when you are a Christian?
Question about your Rapture page
Can you explain to me what a Fundamentalist is? I have heard many bad things about them.
What does the Bible mean when it says to believe?
I want to be more active in my church, but how do I know where God wants me to serve in the church?
Would you please explain what the word repent means?
Once you're saved, can you ever lose your salvation, and how?
I appreciate your question about churches and Pastors that lie to the people and steal from them. They steal money, hope, and rob many of them of their faith in God. This is not a new trend but it seems to be a growing problem. There are many causes for this problem. Many people are becoming Pastors of churches that have not been called of God to be Pastors. I have seen many churches that have looked for a Pastor for a long time that will finally just call a man so they will have a Pastor. This usally doesn't end up well for the church. In many of these cases that I have seen, the Pastor will start out with many people in the church but by the time he moves on to another church there are barely enough people to keep the doors of the church open anymore. The church members need to take their time when finding a new Pastor. Even if it takes years to do so. Of course, if it is taking too long, the church needs to examine it'sself to see why they can not find the man that God has for them. The church needs to make sure that they are right with God and never settle for someone so that they can have a man they can call their Pastor.
You specifically mentioned spirit filled churches in your question. Many people think that if the people in a church service jump up and down, shout, raise their hands, speak in tongues, lay their hands on people in the service, and/or run around the sanctuary that it is a spirit filled church. These things have nothing to do with a church being Spirit filled. Never let the outward appearence of a church hide what it really is on the inside. There are many churches out there that look good but they are worthless in God's eyes.
A true Spirit filled church is one that teaches the Word of God. It is one where the gospel they give is clear and easy to understand. A gospel that tells us that we are saved by God's grace through faith without works (Ehpesians 2:8-10, John 3:16-18, Titus 3:5&6, 1 John 5:10-13). The members of a true Spirit filled church have all accepted Christ as their Saviour without relying on works to help save them from their sins. They read the Bible and are interested in doing God's will for their lives. They want to go to church. Some people just go to church because they feel obligated to do so, not because they want to. They have a good prayer life. You don't just pray to God when you want something. You pray several times a day or more just to talk to God.
If you go to a church, listen to the words that the Pastor is saying in his sermon. Some Pastors sound great until you actually listen to what they are saying. They do a lot of shouting and get a lot of amens from the crowd, but they are not actually saying anything that will help people grow spiritually. I have been in church services where the Pastor doesn't even raise his voice when he preaches and have seen souls saved and people redicate their lives to God.
It comes down to this. Before a person joins a church or gives money to a church they need to do some homework to make sure the church is right with God. Don't just accept the word of a friend or family member about the church. You need to check it out for yourself. That takes some work and time on your part but it will be worth it in the long run. I have a page on my website called "What makes a good church?" which you may want to check out.
Most of all, pray that you will be right with God. Pray that God will use you in the way that He wants to. You may not like the things that God wants for you to do but you need to do them. You will never be happier than when you are doing God's will for your life and you will never be truely happy if you wont to God's will for your life.
I have recieved quite a few questions about baptism lately so I have devoted an entire page to answer the question. Baptism is something that we do after we are saved from our sins. It can not help to save you or wash away your sins. Click here for my page. baptism
Thank you for your interest in Make it Clear Ministries and God's will for your life. God doesn't really tell us specifically how to dress. He does tell us a few things such as dress modestly. This would be telling us things like a woman shouldn't wear clothes that would cause a man to look at her and lust because she isn't wearing enough to cover her body. He also says that men and women shouldn't wear each others clothes. Some people will tell you that this means that a woman can not wear pants. I even have known some husbands that won't let their wife wear pants. There is no scriptural basis for that. Clothing manufacturers make pants for a woman so if a woman wears pants made for a woman there is nothing that anyone can tell her about that. Womans pants are womens clothes. The durags are something that I am not sure of since many gangs and rough characters wear them and many older people get scared when they are around people that may wear them. I try not to wear things that will worry others even though it may be perfectly fine for me to wear it. That will be between you and God. Pray about it and see what you think God is telling you. I also believe that when you go to church, you should wear your best clothes. Try not to just throw on some old clothes on Sunday morning. You are going to worship God and God deserves your best. Personally, I like to see women wear a dress occationally. I know some women that haven't worn a dress in many years. Some of them don't even own a single dress. They say they don't look good in a dress. I think they would be suprised to know that they look just fine in a dress. Church is a good place for a woman to wear a dress. If she is uncomfortable wearing a dress, this may be the place to start. The Bible tells us not to do certain things to our body that will mar it. This would be things such as body peircings and tatoos. Body peircings also give people the idea that a person may be a gang member or a rough character and scares some people. Tatoos are pretty permanent and I have known many people that have gotten them when they were young and now regret it. You can have a tatoo removed by laser but I understand it is expensive. It sounds like it would hurt also. Most of all, remember that we are under Grace now and much of this topic will be deceided by the individual after consulting God, reading the Bible and praying about it. I hope that this has helped you out or at least given you something to think about. Please let me know if you have any other questions or if this didn't answer your question.
Your pictures of a superman marrage cermony is about the most stupited thing I have seen. dont you think that the christians today see enought of the world with out church people doing stuff like super heros junk. people like you doing stupited things like this give us real church people a bad rap. we must teach and preach the cross of christ not super hero stuff. Get to preaching or go sale used cars.
Here was my reply.
Dear Bryan, I am pleased to see that you have a concern for lost souls. The Superman marriage at Metropolis was a great witnessing opportunity for us. The gospel was given out to many people from around the world that showed up for the wedding. Many comic book personalities such as artists and writers were there. We were interviewed by many newspapers, magazines, and TV programs that gave out our web site address so that others could check it out and hear or see the gospel. Plus the bride and groom told the people interviewing them about Make it Clear Ministries so they could put information about us in their articles. We look for ways to give the gospel to others that may never step in a church. If we can get the gospel to them and they can get saved, they will start going to a church such as you attend. Once they are going to a good church and get on fire for the Lord, they will start inviting their friends and reletives to come to church with them. I hope this helps to explain why doing things like this is so important to help build God's Kingdom. Use any opportunity that you can to spread the gospel to others. I hope to hear from you again. Until then, take care and God Bless you. In Christ, Brother Hugh
ANSWER - That part of the page is for people that go to the web site after the rapture occurs. The page reads "If this has already happened, you (not we) will have to go through this judgment." I believe that the antichrist will sooner or later take all Christian web sites off the net, but I figure that some people will be able to check out the page before the people in power have it shut down. Hopefully these people who check out the page will accept Christ as their Savior. I hope that this clears up any confusion that you may have about the page.
Brother Hugh
Very often, before a person becomes a Christian, they will think "I am not such a bad person", or "It's only a little sin." But, when a person hears the gospel, he realizes that God hates ALL sin no matter how big or small it may be. It only takes one small sin (such as a little white lie) to keep a person out of Heaven and send them to an eternity in Hell (Revelation 21:27).
You will also realize that all of your good works can't cancel out your bad works that you have done. When a person understands this, he repents (changes his mind about sin). Now, the next step is to accept God's way to Heaven.
The Bible tells us that we must accept the payment that Jesus Christ made on the cross for our sins. When we accept Christ's payment, we then come to depend upon Jesus to take us to Heaven. We cannot get ourselves to Heaven on our own good works. God will give us eternal life only through our accepting Jesus and depending upon him. At this point, you are Born into God's family or "Born Again."
In Ephesians 2:8-9, the Bible tells us "For by grace are ye saved through faith that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God: Not of works lest any man should boast."
God will not have our good works enter into our salvation so that we cannot boast about it in Heaven. God offers us eternal life as a free gift, but we must all decide whether we will accept His GIFT to us or reject it. In Isaiah 64:6, God tells us that our righteousness (the very best we have to offer God) are as filthy rags in God's sight. So, we must get to Heaven God's way or we CAN'T GO TO HEAVEN AT ALL. Jesus said in John 3:7, "Ye must be born again."
The Bible tells us that when we accept Christ as our Savior, we become the children of God (John 1:12). After you become His child, He deals with us as we would with our own children. When we disobey Him, He will punish us as we do our children (Hebrews 12:5-11). God knows what it will take to punish us to get our attention and just how much punishment that we need.
The difference between Christianity and any other religions of the world is that religions teach us that we must work our way to Heaven (I don't really even like to call Christianity a religion). A work is anything that we must do or give up in order to win favor with God so that He will let us into Heaven. The Bible teaches us that God did it all by sending His Son, Jesus Christ come to this earth and live among us as one of us. He lived a perfect sinless life while on this earth. That is the reason that He could take the sins of the whole world and make a payment for them all on the cross.
Works have no part in it (Ephesians 2:8,9 & Titus 3:5,6). Christianity is the only religion in the world that tells us that we can KNOW that we have everlasting life (I John 5:13). If it were possible to lose your salvation, you could never know that you have everlasting life because you would always be in danger of losing it. In fact, in Hebrews 6:4-6 the Bible tells us that if it even were possible for a Christian to lose their salvation, they could never get it back again because Christ would have to die on the cross a second time which of course will never happen.
When God does something, He does it right the first time. Jesus paid for all of your sins. This means that your past, present, and future sins have already been paid for by His death on the cross. Remember that when Christ died on the cross, you had not committed a single sin yet, but your sins were paid for at that time. In John 6:47 we read He that believeth on me hath (This means right now) everlasting life. Everlasting life is not something to look forward to, it is something that we as Christians have right now according to this verse. If we could loose it, it wouldn't be everlasting life. It would only be life until we displeased God.
Many people try to keep Gods law to get or keep themselves saved. Galatians 5:4 tells us that if we try to keep the law to either get or stay saved, we are fallen from grace. Galatians is a good book to read. It was written because there were some people that thought after you got saved, you must keep the law to stay saved. Paul tells us that you can not do anything to keep your self saved. I hope that this has helped to answer your question. If you still have any questions, please let me know
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