Hello Bing77

The thief on the cross who got saved by JESUS CHRIST was not baptized and never even had an opportunity to get baptized. But we do know that he got to be with the LORD.

So, baptism does not save in itself. It is supposed to symbolize what must have already taken place in the Christian's life - dying with Christ and rising with HIM through HIS salvation.

However, the Bible says to get baptized after we get saved. Every born again Christian should obey the Bible injunction to get baptized...but if of course a person does not get the opportunity after repentance, it does not stop the person's soul from making heaven.

Hello, Dodo_David,

The Bible is COMPLETE!

Hhhmmm...I have also discovered that whatever is more important than God in my life is also an idol.

A friend once tried desperately to convince me to take just a little bottle of beer...I had trained at a workshop the whole day with her in attendance and after it was all over, she was certain that I needed a bottle of beer to cool off for the rest of the night and be ready for the next day's sessions.

On the other hand, I tried very hard also to discourage her from going ahead with her bottle of beer that she had already ordered from the hotel. I tried to also convince her that as a Christian, she did not need to be dependent on alcohol to be able to cope with stress.

She got so angry (visibly) about the prospect of giving up alcohol.
I never till date understood the anger about prospects of giving up alcohol.

But then it made me think deeply too and made me search deeply to find out those things in my own life that I too could easily get angry about, when thinking about the prospects of giving them up.

Now, I keep seeing things I must give up, in order to live in total submission to God: not always a very pleasant process, I must admit.

Marc...ask God to help you find her. HE knows her.

But I hope you are preparing to be that man that would love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave HIS life for the Church!

Many men are looking for wives without preparing themselves spiritually...and vice versa.

I wish you God's favor and support to find that ONE person that HE has for you...as HE had Eve for Adam.

Warm greetings,Leo0077.

I am just wondering...which Bible do you read?

You may not see the word, "rapture" just as you may not exactly see the word "Trinity".

But certainly, if you are reading the Bible, you will see where God's word explains that both the dead in Christ and those alive in Christ will be caught up in the air with JESUS CHRIST, our blessed Savior. Others have already shared relevant scripture verses...so I won't repeat them.

There is going to be a time of terrible anguish after Jesus has taken his Church from the earth...the anti Christ will rule in that time and grace will be taken away from the earth and those who refuse to worship the anti Christ will be killed and greatly persecuted.

Best to live in daily obedience to God through JESUS CHRIST and to be among those that will get caught in the air with the LORD.

And even though, you may not see "trinity", certainly the Bible does talk about God the Father (Jesus constantly referred to HIM as His Father), God the Son (JESUS CHRIST) and God the Holy Spirit.

Lamentations Chapter 3:

25The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.


Also Galatians Chapter 5:
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

The best way to obey is to accept instructions without adding or removing from it. If we understand that God is as much a God of love as HE is a God of Judgment, we would exercise more care in following HIM.

The end-time is right here and if we are not careful, we get caught up in very fantastic, logical, humanly sensible arguments and perceptions that take us off the lane of TOTAL obedience and submission to God.

Hi. Just adding my voice to the several.

Water baptism does not save. It is a step you take after being born again in affirmation of what has taken place in your life. Salvation takes place because of the penalty Jesus has paid. When we are immersed in water, we symbolize that we have died with Christ and in being raised from the same water, we symbolize that we are also risen with HIM.

And to be more direct, I went to a church (as a child) where the determinant factor for who was a real member of the church or true Christian was baptism by immersion. But this is not the Biblical position - as others have explained. The bible teaches salvation first and then baptism.

The Bible instructs all Christians to be baptized after they are saved. Therefore, if you are already born again, seek the opportunity to get baptized - in obedience to God's word.

God bless you.

Hi, bibarnes,

If there is a difference between non-alcoholic wine and alcoholic wine, please kindly tell where it is specifically written in the Bible that the miracle wine (water turned to wine by Jesus as first miracle) is the alcoholic wine.

Also, I am wondering...does everyone have the same stomach condition that Timothy had?

I just want to know.

I am not too certain that "feeling" is the determinant here.

I think it is just fine if you stick to what you believe in and I stick to what I believe in. At the end of the road, you will account for you and I will account for me.

All the best.

At the end of the road, the ultimate MOST IMPORTANT thing is making heaven.

If we understand that making heaven is more important than ANYTHING ELSE - including marriage, sex, power, etc, we would not take many things the way we take them.

Making heaven is so important that Jesus said it is better to enter heaven with one eye or one hand than to enter hell with both eyes or both hands.

It is also so important that HE compared it to a situation in which a man, after finding out that a field had precious items hidden in it, went and sold everything he had and bought the field.

God bless us all and may HE give us the deepest understanding about how important our souls are.

I know I got e personal email on this site criticizing my profile for including in it that I do not want to get involved with a married, separated or divorced man.

But this about me and my faith in JESUS CHRIST. Nobody else is going to account for me when I have to face God in judgment. So, I must take decisions for which I am certain there can be no possibilities of disobedience to God's word.

And by the way, this is not just about marriage and divorce - it is also about not having to face God with lies or pride or self-centeredness or theft or arrogance or hard heartedness.....!

So, when I set my heart to avoid any possibilities of offending God or going against His word, it is about my soul. It is not about discriminating against anyone!

Not getting involved does not mean I can't be friends (pure friendship)or something.

If you read the scriptures that people have cited here, you will understand that it is about what God has to say - NOT what people have to say.

God bless you.

Hi. I think you have misunderstood the entire discourse that people have participated in here about marriage and divorce.

I do not think anybody wrote with an intention to 'label' or 'condemn' or 'discriminate' or whatever.

People have simply made reference to what the Bible says about the subject in scripture (the Bible).

The duty here is not to write to please anyone in particular or to say only what a particular person wants to read. Ultimately, as the Bible says, each one of us will give account of himself to God. Individual choices and decisions are things that God will never take away from us as human beings - because HE did not make us to be robots. But at the end of everything, we must account back to him for every decision ...fro every action...and even for ..every non-action; vis aviz our acceptance of JESUS CHRIST as LORD and Savior and also vis aviz our having abided in His word or not.

God bless you.

You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, author of 'Purpose Driven Life ' and pastor of Saddleback Church in California. In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:-

“People ask me,What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not
made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on
earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.

I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't
believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:
If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy
for her- It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony,drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.
Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance,this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.

It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases.

Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.

Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for
the sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for
possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You
more and love You better.

God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.

That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.. “

God always provides .... He is Jehovah the provider!

God can answer in one of 3 ways:
1. Yes
2. No
OR
3. Wait.

Occasionally, HE may choose to be silent (refuse to provide guidance); like HE refused to respond to Saul - for reasons clearly outlined in the Bible. Usually, when He is silent, it is indicative that we are already off HIs Track!

Unfortunately, we hardly relate to God in such a way as to know what exactly HE may be saying at each point in time. And usually, we think HE has provided, only when we get the "yes".

When he says, no, we need to seek HIM more to know what's best for us in the circumstances and fit in with what's best for us. But we hardly do that! Usually, we just get pissed off with HIS answer of "no" and conclude that HE 'cannot' or 'does not' or 'will not' answer or provide.

And when HE says wait, we need to ask for patience until the time is ripe.

God bless.

I think it is good that (from your writing) you understand the implications of everything.

The bible says that with God, all things are possible and also that nothing is too hard for HIM.

God bless you. Amen.

Loneliness is a very difficult thing to handle. And if not handled well, could become a terrible opportunity for the devil to fight a person's faith and Christian walk..

I want to share some of the things I do to overcome loneliness:
1. I try to keep very busy so that I do not leave an idle mind that keeps thinking about the difficulties of being alone or keeps searching for a way to fill the gap.

So I get involved in Christian service.

2. When I have nothing to do, I dwell on the word - Do Bible reading and if Bible reading gets difficult, I do audio Bible hearing! I have a full audio Bible downloaded into my mobile handset.

3. I engage in prayer- personal prayer and also corporate prayer meetings. I attend prayer night vigils with other Christians. My experience is that the more Bible reading I do, the more I am stimulated to pray. I have found the weapon of prayer very useful for tackling life's battles.

4. I engage in fellowship with other Christians, including online fellowship like the one I have now started doinng at the Mingle2 Christian Singles community.

5. I help out when possible and when I have the time. I reach out to others as much as lies within my power.

With all these, I have found out that I have very little or no time left to moan over being single or alone.

Above all, I tell my thoughts to JESUS. HE likes a conversation with you and me.

God bless you.

Matthew 5:17:
"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill".

But true also, that we are Christ's ambassadors but never HIS equal in anything; for HE is God. We are disciples - HIS followers.

God's glory, HE will share with no man!

Mathew 5:17
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them".


Romans 3:31
"Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law"