" Believe It or NOT? "

John 3:17–18       ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

          You can sit down and relax now, Jesus did not come to condemn anyone.  Whether you believe in Christ or you do not believe in Christ, Jesus did not come to condemn you.  Rather Jesus came to help you to believe and save you.  Christianity is not a cruel religion that has the excuse to go accuse and condemn anyone to death.  Christianity is a belief of forgiveness and a means of salvation for all.  However, there are those who live condemned at least until they come to believe in the name of the only Son of God. Believing in the "name" is to believe in everything that Christ is actually and scripturally about.  Certainly non-Christians don't understand this, but sadly there are even Christians who don't understand this as they try to recreate Jesus.

          That we were all condemned once, this is the law that we were born into, it is the law of a sinful nature.  We were cursed when Adam allowed Eve to take a bite of the forbidden fruit and therefore disobeying God.  It was not the fruits fault, and it was not God's fault, it really was not even the serpent’s fault that both Adam and Eve disobeyed God.  Adam and Eve had real free will and they misused it and therefore, disobeyed the one and only law they had been given.  Pretty simple, one law, don't eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  After that Adam and Eve gave up their free will, and not only imprisoned themselves in the prison of sin, but imprisoned all of their offspring and all generations thereafter.

          "Whoever does not believe is condemned already."  It's not because God made this choice or that God chose to block anyone from believing. The condemnation comes from our imprisonment to our sinful nature of which all have, whether we are believers or not.  And if you think you have free will then I challenge you to never sin again for the rest of your life.  You can't!  What are you going to do then? 

Ephesians 2:1–10 ¹And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ²in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

          We are all like the one who drowned in the pool you were told not to enter and someone pulled you out.  We are in the state of helplessness, and I don't mean Michigan!  We cannot do anything to resuscitate ourselves, if someone else does not intervene WE WILL DIE!  Folks, this is not free will. We have a problem Bunkie that we have no power to overcome.  Talk about being a worthless nut!  We can't even yell out save me Jesus.  Right now the choice is not ours to make!

          Maybe on the faith we had before we drowned in the forbidden waters of this world that someone might be graceful enough to revive us, someone might resuscitate us.  If your faith is in the world, well hope they are not mad at you that day you drowned, or they did not notice your sin you drowned in.  Our world does not preach forgiveness, it preaches revenge.  The prince of this world came to condemn and it did not come to save.

Thanks be to God, He is who He says He is, and not who mankind tries to say He is. God listened to that faith we had even when we forgot it and drowned in our sinful nature, and what is awesome is He wrote Himself upon our hearts so that every person will have that possibility and probability to be brought into believing. 

Ephesians 2:4–5 ⁴But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

          We lay here drowned in our sinful nature without the free will to save ourselves, and who should come along to revive us and bring us into life?  It is the one who has given His life to be rich in mercy, who loves us even though we are like Adam and Eve who failed to obey Him and who paid the penalty for our sin.  Jesus Christ comes to our aid and resuscitates us, giving us back the breath of the Spirit, and taking care to help us see we are His.  We belong to Christ because Christ chose us and Christ chose us because He loves us despite our sinful nature.

Ephesians 2:4–10 ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

          If we drown and have been revived we cannot boast that we saved ourselves, but we can boast in the one who revived us.  It is our savior Jesus Christ who revived us and it is He who we can boast about.  For He did not come to condemn us to death because we are sinners, but Jesus Christ came to save us from being drowned in our sinful nature.  Notice that John 3:18 talks about not believing and does not talk about not sinning.  Here we have what is true, we all sin, believers and non- believers alike.  But, Christ brings us to faith, by His grace to save us. Now read this last verse.

John 3:21   ²¹But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God.”

          Jesus Christ is the one who does what is true, because He has no sin or sinful nature.  Christ is the light and comes to the light of God the Father, and the deeds that He has carried out He has carried out in God?  Jesus Christ the true and only Son of God's deeds which should now be clearly seen is that He daily brings us and more to believe, saves us through His grace and mercy, because He actually loves us all.

          John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  Believe it or NOT?  Amen to that.