The Road of Life: The Road to Salvation

The

Road

of

Life:

THE ROAD TO

SALVATION

Michael K. Lilley

Preface

God gave us the road map (the Bible). It's up to you to read it and follow it! The rules and directions are all there. Even if you've never believed in putting your faith into the Bible, and what it proclaims, it doesn't hurt to try. You will never know unless you try!

Antidote

You know how a mother tries to warn her child not to cross the road without looking both ways but the child neglects their mother's warning and runs across, nearly getting struck by a car? Well, God warns us in the Bible about our judgment. He also safeguards us with the promise of our salvation through Jesus and how we can be safe before crossing the road of life.

Our Navigator

Make sure you're driving on the right path. There are a lot of distractions on the road. Big flashy signs and alluring entertainment. We may choose to go left or right and detour our path towards God. Take the righteous path and drive straight to God. Put on Christ as you would trust seat belt and let him navigate you onto the Holy path. He gives us grace to stand against evil desires. As the Scriptures say,

Proverbs 3:34

“God opposes the proud

but favours the humble.”

Road Map

How do we know if we are on the right path in our Christian walk with the Lord? Everyone we meet is a part of our journey. The people we meet should not be in our way but on our way to growing with the Lord. Neglecting who may detour us on our path will not help us grow in our faith. Be diligent to help the lost along our road to salvation. We should maintain perseverance in spite of difficulty, obstacles, or discouragement; continue steadfastly along our path and an unflagging faith that had persevered Jesus to proclaim the Word to the world. As Christians we should uphold what we have been instructed. Your loyalty will be divided between God and the world (James 4:8).

Division by Proclamation

Share the gospel with everyone on your path. Your faith is inexplicable to an non-believer. So use the Gospel to help them understand. They will see how different you are, but remind them you used to be just like them, following the world, and share how God changed your life (Titus 3:3-5). The divergence in opinion will distinguish the Holy from the Unholy (Luke 12:51). Because you who have God's approval will be recognized! (1 Cor 11:19). Mockers will ridicule you and impostors will quarrel with you (Proverbs 14:9). There is a 50/50 chance of losing friends. It's unfortunate but you will find out who your real friends are. It's a win/lose situation we all don't want to be in: to find ourselves in a sorry plight over our differences.

However, it's better to find out sooner than have the burden of resentment to build up on your shoulders for years and fading into a nought relationship bound by distrust.

Avoid Quarrels

Remember, do not get involved in foolish discussions about spiritual genealogies or in quarrels and fights about obedience to Jewish laws. These things are useless and a waste of time. If people are causing divisions among you, give a first a second warning. After that, have nothing more to do with them. For people like that have turned away form the truth, and their own sins condemn them. (Titus 3:9-11)

Humble Servant

So humble yourselves before God.... Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:7,9,10)

Self-Examination

We are so busy trying to save and encourage others but sometimes forget to look at ourselves and ask God to show us who we are and who we should be for Him. It's time to park the car for a moment and ask God to show us what we look like through His eyes and ask Him to show us how to live more for Him and only Him. Don't forget to pray for yourself sometimes and ask God to show you the person He wants you to be and to give you the strength, courage, and knowledge to show you the person He sees in you.

Let the Lord show you what you are missing before you're ready to cruise down the road. Sometimes we check the rear view mirrors too concerned about other drivers and miss what God has to help us on our path. He may be trying to flash His headlights at you but you fail to realize you're driving in the dark right into a road barrier. Take yourself out of the dark and ask God to help you flick on the headlights.

Effective Prayer

When speaking to the Lord acknowledge His authority, wisdom, goodness, and righteousness by being humble. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. Respond with deep, inner worship of Him asking for His wisdom, guidance, strength, and provision.

Ask and it will be given to you. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matt 7:7,8)

Simple Logic of True or False – Believe or Beleive Not

It's a fifty/fifty chance. In the Christian faith if I didn't believe in God I'd go to Hell. If the proclamation of the Gospel was true and I believed in it faithfully I'd be safe.

So, if being a devout Christian and put my faith in Jesus, and it's true then I go to heaven. If it's not true and I still get to go to heaven then I lived a good life and I'm still safe. If the Bible was true and I didn't believe it then I go straight to Hell.

Entering The Narrow Gates

Satan hinders us from our path towards God. He despises holiness and tries to 'woo' us away from God so that we are separated by His Holiness. With these theological ideas Satan tries to fill us with the idea of spiritual independence from God.

Romans 12:2

And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

If I believe in the proclamation of the Bible then I'm impervious to what happens to me after I leave this world. It's better to safeguard your salvation in Jesus Christ than missing an opportunity of eternal life and leaving it all up to chance! God left us with the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Read it and obey it!

Epilogue

To be concluded......

Appendix

The Living Translation Bible: Second Edition

Is God First In Your Life?

God will not punish the lost because they do not know the truth (Psalm 107:17). But for the believers and fellow Christians He will make fools of it they proclaim the truth but give false witness (Romans 1:22).
The true believers know the truth. They will look like fools to the people they witness to if they don't practice what they preach (Proverbs 13:20).
Fools will never understand (Proverbs 14:33). But try to put up with them. You will be proven wise! (2 Corinthians 11:19). The ones who seek knowledge will find understanding (Proverbs 15:14).
I used to live doing things careless (Ecclesiastes 2:13). Partying without thinking their were any consequences. It wasn't until that night in the hospital when I was 19 that God grabbed my attention and showed me that everything I do an everything I say has consequences (Proverbs 18:1-24).
Was I willing to risk relying on my own righteousness to save me? (Job 33:26). I was putting God under my foot.

Genesis 15:6 (KJV)
And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.

Unshaken

Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to
this world,
but be transformed by
the renewal of your mind.

...in our knowledge of Him but not sensual.

The Bible was written for the believers
and to help the lost seek the Lord.

6 Tips To Handing Down Your Faith (The 6 P's)

By: Dr. Charles F. Stanley

Principle:
Teachings
Interest
Instruction

Pattern:
Character
Actions
Failures
Mistakes
Examples

Persistent:
Consistency

Participation:
Involved
Interest
Openness

Praise:
Admiration
Grace
Homage
Encouragement

Prayer:
Worship
Devotion
Hope

**Dr. Charles F. Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta and founder of In Touch Ministries.

A Word To The Backslider

Your are a Coward and Selfish!
You have given up on the Word of God. You are wearing a parachute full of holes because you put on the trust of your own words to righteously save you. You cannot rely on your own righteousness to save you. If you know the Ten Commandments and say that you abide in them (Gal. 5:18), then you are a liar! You broke the first and second Law. You made God in your own image, making yourself happy in a God you choose. You believe in a God that is all good and will never make you sad or angry. You made a God you could never hate. That is a false God. One that does not exist! You are weak in faith and that is why you have fallen. You believed in what the world tells you and you defaced Jehovah from your life. God has given you Jesus of Nazareth, God in the flesh. You can believe him, or you can trust him. You never trusted him! And still you don't trust God, only to the way you want Him to be. You only believe there is a God, and THAT will not save you. That is why you fail to believe (to accept the scripture to be true, and to have confidence and faith in it). Only if one believes in something can one act purposefully. You fail to look into yourself. Look into the mirror! Everyone who is proud of themselves will not look at themselves in the mirror because they are afraid of what they will see in themselves, who they really are, and the condemnation of God they don't want to face; the truth of themselves.

I say to you, don't look back to your faults and transgressions in case you become with your sin. Look forward to what you can be with God. Look at what you will become if you allow Him to burn within you. Some people are baptized with the Holy Spirit but fail to let God baptize them with the flame. Burn in His fire and become the person He wants you to be. Then, others will praise you for your strength in Him, and you will not fear any man. You will be a bearer of good fruit!

If you call yourself a Christian, first look a the 9 fruits of the Spirit a Christian should bear. If not, you are not a Christian! (Galations 5:16-26)

Galations 5:22

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

Living By Faith: Trusting God

I had nothing when God came to me. It wasn't fear of death that turned me towards Him. It was the fear of my life of disobedience to Him.
Deal with your guilt! God can and will set you free!

Failure to Feed New Converts & Results

1 Cor 10:12, Gal 5:22–23, Eph 2:8–9, 2 Tim 2:1–4, 2 Pet 1:12, 2, 18, 19, 3:10–11, 17–18

Be Diligent to Grow Spiritually (2 Peter 3:17-18)

There are four “beloved” statements in 2 Peter 3 which summarize what Peter wanted to get across as he brought his second letter to a close.

“Beloved... be mindful” (c).

“Beloved, be not ignorant” (3:8).

“Beloved... be diligent” (3:14).

“Beloved... beware” (3:17).

The word translated “beware” means “be constantly guarding yourself.”

Peter’s readers knew the truth, but he warned them that knowledge not sufficient protection.

They had to be on their guard; they had to be alert. It is easy for people who have a knowledge of the Bible to grow overconfident and to forget the warning, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).

What special danger did Peter see? That the true believers would be “led away together with the error of the wicked” (literal translation). He is warning us against breaking down the walls of separation that must stand between the true believers and the false teachers. There can be no communion between truth and error. The apostates “live in error” (2 Peter 2:18), while true believers live in the sphere of the truth (2 John 1-2).

The word wicked (2 Peter 3:17) means “the lawless.” Peter’s description of the apostates in 2 Peter 2 reveals how lawless they are. They even speak evil of the authorities that seek to enforce God’s Law in this world! (2 Peter 2:10-11) They promise their converts freedom (2 Peter 2:19), but that freedom turns out to be lawlessness.

True Christians cannot fall from salvation and be lost, but they can fall from their own “steadfastness.” What was this steadfastness? Being “established in the present truth” (2 Peter 1:12). The stability of the Christian comes from his faith in the Word of God, his knowledge of that Word, and his ability to use that Word in the practical decisions of life.

One of the great tragedies of evangelism is bringing “spiritual babies” into the world and then failing to feed them, nurture them, and help them develop. The apostates prey on young believers who have “very recently escaped” from the ways of error (2 Peter 2:18). New believers need to be taught the basic doctrines of the Word of God; otherwise, they will be in danger of being “led away with the error of the lawless.”

How can we as believers maintain our steadfastness and avoid being among the “unstable souls” who are easily beguiled and led astray? By growing spiritually. “But be constantly growing” is the literal translation. We should not grow “in spurts,” but in a constant experience of development.

We must grow “in grace.” This has to do with Christian character traits, the very things Peter wrote about in 2 Peter 1:5-7, and that Paul wrote about in Galatians 5:22-23. We were saved by grace (Eph. 2:8-9), but grace does not end there! We must also be strengthened by grace (2 Tim. 2:1-4). God’s grace can enable us to endure suffering (2 Cor. 12:7-10). His grace also helps us to give when giving is difficult (2 Cor. 8:1ff) and to sing when singing is difficult (Col. 3:16).

Our God is “the God of all grace” (1 Peter 5:10), who “giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6). As we study His Word, we learn about the various aspects of grace that are available to us as children of God. We are stewards of “the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10). There is grace for every situation and every challenge of life. “But by the grace of God I am what I am” wrote Paul (1 Cor. 15:10), and that should be our testimony as well.

Growing in grace often means experiencing trials and even suffering. We never really experience the grace of God until we are at the end of our own resources. The lessons learned in the “school of grace” are always costly lessons, but they are worth it. To grow in grace means to become more like the Lord Jesus Christ, from whom we receive all the grace that we need (John 1:16).

We must also grow in knowledge. How easy it is to grow in knowledge but not in grace! All of us know far more of the Bible than we really live. Knowledge without grace is a terrible weapon, and grace without knowledge can be very shallow. But when we combine grace and knowledge, we have a marvelous tool for building our lives and for building the church.

But note that we are challenged to grow, not just in knowledge of the Bible, as good as that is, but “in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” It is one thing to “know the Bible,” and quite another thing to know the Son of God, the central theme of the Bible. The better we know Christ through the Word, the more we grow in grace; the more we grow in grace, the better we understand the Word of God.

So, the separated Christian must constantly be guarding himself, lest he be led away into error; he also must be constantly growing in grace and knowledge. This requires diligence! It demands discipline and priorities. Nobody automatically drifts into spiritual growth and stability, but anybody can drift out of dedication and growth. “For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (Heb. 2:1, nasb). Just as the boat needs the anchor, so the Christian needs the Word of God.

Physical growth and spiritual growth follow pretty much the same pattern. To begin with, we grow from the inside out. “As newborn babes” is the way Peter illustrated it (1 Peter 2:2). The child of God is born with everything he needs for growth and service (2 Peter 1:3). All he needs is the spiritual food and exercise that will enable him to develop. He needs to keep clean. We grow by nutrition, not by addition!

We grow best in a loving family, and this is where the local church comes in. A baby needs a family for protection, provision, and affection. Tests prove that babies who are raised alone, without special love, tend to develop physical and emotional problems very early. The church is God’s “nursery” for the care and feeding of Christians, the God-ordained environment that encourages them to grow.

It is important that we grow in a balanced way. The human body grows in a balanced way with the various limbs working together; likewise the “spiritual man” must grow in a balanced way. We must grow in grace and knowledge (2 Peter 3:18), for example. We must keep a balance between worship and service, between faith and works. A balanced diet of the whole Word of God helps us to maintain a balanced life.

It is the Holy Spirit of God who empowers and enables us to keep things in balance. Before Peter was filled with the Spirit, he was repeatedly going to extremes. He would bear witness to Christ one minute and then try to argue with the Lord the next! (Matt. 16:13-23) He refused to allow Jesus to wash his feet, and then he wanted to be washed all over! (John 13:6-10) He promised to defend the Lord and even die with Him, yet he did not have the courage to own the Lord before a little servant girl! But when he was filled with the Spirit, Peter began to live a balanced life that avoided impulsive extremes.

What is the result of spiritual growth? Glory to God! “To Him be glory both now and forever.” It glorifies Jesus Christ when we keep ourselves separated from sin and error. It glorifies Him when we grow in grace and knowledge, for then we become more like Him (Rom. 8:29). In his life and even in his death, Peter glorified God (John 21:18-19).

As you review this important epistle, you cannot help but be struck by the urgency of the message. The apostates are here! They are busy! They are seducing immature Christians! We must be guarding, growing, and glorifying the Lord, making the most of every opportunity to win the lost and strengthen the saved.

Be diligent! The ministry you save may be your own.

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