What do these Words mean?

What do these words mean?

Our churches are full of people

who do not fully understand Bible words and phrases

such as

Repentance

and

Believing in Jesus

-

Many preachers

are not teaching clear and complete

definitions of

Grace and Sin and Following Jesus.

Many people think they are going to heaven - and they are not.

See Matthew 7

Incorrect definitions 

lead people astray and can result in a

disastrous eternal destination.

For Example ...

MOST PEOPLE

would give the wrong answer -  if they were asked,

"What does it mean to believe IN Jesus?"

Do you have a good Bible definition of

"believe in Jesus"

ready to share with others?

Let's walk through this topic together.

A Key Salvation Verse

is

John 3:16

" For God so loved

the world

that He gave His only begotten Son,

that whoever BELIEVES in Him

should not perish but have everlasting life. "

Lots of people think it means -

" Believe Jesus actually lived on earth. "

Some people think it means -

"Believe that Jesus came to earth to teach us how to love others."

Some even think it means to believe that 

" Jesus came from Father God and lived on earth and

died for the sins of all people."

All those answers are - - Wrong!

Those answers are incomplete!

The devil and all his evil demonic cohorts believe those things about Jesus - and they believe many more facts about Jesus. We cannot get to heaven believing what demons believe. See James 2:19

SO

What does "believe" mean in John 3:16?

?

If we truly believe IN Jesus,

we believe Jesus when he said that we need to repent of our sins.

Our belief has led us to the action of repenting.

If we truly believe IN Jesus,

we believe the Bible - which says

that Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

And our belief has led us to a feeling of thankfulness

for his incredible sacrifice on the cross for us.

Our belief has led us to actions of praise and thanksgiving to God.

If we truly believe IN Jesus,

we take note of

how wonderful he is and how worth following he is -

and therefore

Our belief leads us to love him and obey him as best we can.

If we truly believe IN Jesus...

we believe His Word is true.

ALL of it - Old Testament and New Testament!

( Jesus believed the Old Testament was fully true and said so. )

That doesn't mean we understand every single thing in it.

Mature Christians -

Believe the Bible is a reliable, historical document from God.

We believe that the Bible's Words are...

God's loving instructions to us

to give us the path to the best life - a God-honoring life.

And we realize that the Bible

has the miraculous power to transform us.

Therefore -

Our belief leads us to regularly read the Bible with a teachable heart.

* * *

*

If we truly "believe IN Jesus,"

our beliefs will lead to ACTION.

And our beliefs and actions will lead to us becoming

more and more like Jesus

over time.

You cannot

FOLLOW Jesus and never change.

If you FOLLOW Jesus, you will change to look more like him.

Jesus

explained

which of us actually love him

in

John 14:21 NKJV

" He who has my commandments and keeps them,

it is he who loves me.

And

he who loves me

will be loved by my Father, and I will love him

and manifest myself to him. "

Note: no one is perfect -

Yet those who LOVE Jesus - try to keep his commandments.

I'll explain more fully further down.

Let's look at

Hebrews 3:12 - 13 NKJV.

* * *

*

"Beware, brethren,

lest there be in any of you

an evil heart of unbelief

in departing from the living God.

but exhort one another daily,

while it is called

"Today"

lest any of you be hardened

through the deceitfulness of sin."

SIN

He calls them "Brethren" meaning -

 those who claim to follow Jesus.

As we see,

these Hebrew verses are not talking about

a person who stopped believing that

Jesus existed and walked on the earth.

And these verses are not talking about

people who stopped believing that Jesus died for our sins.

*

So let's quickly examine the phrase

"an evil heart of unbelief in DEPARTING from the living God."

I submit to you that...

the person spoken about in Hebrews - 

believes sinning

is

more desirable and beneficial

than following God.

And that belief > >  has led to a

lifestyle that  departs  from God's path.

So...

one of the root issues of a person with

a heart of unbelief

is that

the person does NOT believe that ....

following God

is beneficial enough to me

that I will

choose to be obedient to God.

*

A Key Question

The key question

of

"Is God worth following?"

is often answered by unbelieving people

as

"No."

Satan works to steal a belief that

God is worth obeying.

*

And Satan steals the belief that

being in God's kingdom is worth

giving our life to Jesus.

Satan works to steal a belief that

the Bible is true and worthwhile to follow.

*

Satan works to steal a belief that

God calls us to "Obey" his commandments.

*

Satan wants us to believe that

"obedience"

was for those who lived

BEFORE the death of Jesus -

and now everything is about grace  - - so obedience is not necessary.

BUT

The opposite of obedience is

REBELLION

Satan

has worked for decades

to make the words

"holiness" and "righteousness"

words

to avoid -

not only for those in the world but those in the CHURCH!

But

Jesus said,

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,'

will enter the kingdom of heaven,

but the one who DOES the will of My Father

who is in heaven will enter."

Matthew 7:21 NASB

Yet

the devil has

- in a sneaky way -

programmed many people in the church

so that

they will often cry "Legalism" if you try to talk about

obedience to God.

* * *

*

Statements like the one I just wrote, can be hard to read.

Hearing that the devil works inside churches to deceive people - including
spiritual leaders
that they thought were biblically correct -
can be really hard to hear.

I remind myself that in Matthew 16:23 - even Peter listened to the devil - while he was trying to closely follow Jesus.

We need to try to be gentle - as we share truth with people.

When it comes to our pastors -
we need to respectfully talk to them
about
these important issues and the ones I'll present next.

If they do not - then - agree with the Bible,
sadly,
we must leave that church.

I'll continue...

Satan works to get churches to preach

that:

"repentance after sinning" is not necessary anymore.

-

Satan has worked to get churches to essentially preach

that

"believe" God just means -

believe that Father God exists and Jesus exists and about 2,000 years ago, Jesus walked on the earth to teach us to love each other.

And

Satan works to get churches to preach

that

the  Old Testament  is not important anymore.

Satan works to get churches to preach

that

the  Ten Commandments  are not important anymore.

Next, let's look at the word

" Repentance. "

Satan has worked to

confuse people about WHAT the word

"repentance"

means and HOW it should be practiced.

Many popular preachers are either falsely saying -

1. You only repent once when you first "get saved."

OR

2. You never have to repent at all to be right with God.

And Note:

Some preachers are preaching universalism - which means that everyone goes to heaven so sinning doesn't actually matter at all.

Their sermons are focused on teaching people to continually ponder how much God loves them and wants to bless them.

Some pulpits are telling the big lie that -

It is a sin to repent to God AFTER your initial repenting.

So their advice is - if you sin, don't repent - just realize that Jesus already paid for it and move on with your life.

*

Repentance

is being downplayed, rarely used, and essentially eliminated

in a large number of churches today.

I've noticed that many churches have removed the words "repent" and "repentance" from their Statement of Faith on their website.

*

And

Some preachers say -

God doesn't focus on sinning anymore. That was Old Testament.

Some preachers say -

Just worship God and love people and then God will take your desire to sin away.

Some preachers say -

We are given the righteousness of Jesus so we don't have to worry about trying
to
obey God and pursue righteousness in our life.

Etc.

I hope you see my point that

Preachers are giving false definitions of

"repentance"

IN THE PULPIT.

I urge you to make sure you are in a church where Bible definitions

are accurately given and

applied

to

teaching and preaching.

To make this perfectly clear -

Even after

we give our life to Jesus....

when we sin - 

we come to God ( 1 John 1:9 ) and repent of that sin

and try to avoid that sin in the future.

* * *

*

It is NOT true that a Christian will go to hell

if he or she neglects to repent of every sin that he or she commits 

but it is true that

if

we neglect to come to God in repentance

when the Holy Spirit convicts us of some sin we do,

we are allowing our heart

to become harder 

toward God.

This attitude can lead us away from

a close relationship with God and draw us toward

lukewarmness.

* * *

*

A Healthy Christian

responds with repentance

when the Holy Spirit brings conviction.

*

And if the Holy Spirit never convicts you of sin,

then

there is something wrong in your relationship with the Lord.

It may indicate that you are not saved.

It might also mean that you are in the wrong church.

* * *

*

The Lord's Prayer reminds us to

regularly ask for forgiveness of our sins.

Another vital point

* * *

*

What does it mean

when

"God does NOT know you?"

Most people have the wrong answer to that question.

Please open your Bible and read Matthew 7:21-23.

Notice in verse 23, Jesus said,

"I never knew you - depart from me."

Most people (even those in the church) do not understand

this verse.

How are we KNOWN by God?

?

I remind you that

"God"
is a
Trinity of
Father God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

See
our Trinity page.

Let's look at

1 Corinthians 8:3 NKJV.

It says...

"But if anyone loves God, this one is KNOWN by Him."

* * *

*

The AMPC version puts it this way...

" But if one loves God truly

[with affectionate reverence, prompt obedience, and grateful 

recognition of His blessing],

he is known by God

[recognized as

worthy of His intimacy and love, and he is owned by Him]. "

1 Corinthians 8:3

tells us we must LOVE God

to be known by God.

Next,

I will explain what it means to LOVE God.

It is helpful at this point -

to recognize that God KNOWS everything -

so we realize that here in Matthew 7:23,

Jesus is saying

he never knew them as a true disciple.

He had no intimate relationship with them.

HOW

do we know

if we love God?

John 14:23 NKJV

" Jesus answered and said to him,

“If anyone loves me,

he will keep my word;

and my Father will love him,

and

we will come to him and make our home with him.""

John 14:15 NKJV

Jesus says,

“If you love me, keep my commandments."

I'll Define

KNOWING

God.

* * *

*

1 John 2:3-6

says,

" Now by this we know that we KNOW Him,

if

we keep His commandments.

He who says, “I know Him,”

and does not keep His commandments,

is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

But

whoever keeps His word,

truly the love of God is perfected in him.

By this

we know that we are in Him.

He who says he abides in Him

ought himself also to walk just as He walked. "

Satan works to steal our belief that -

the Bible truthfully says

that most people

go to hell.

See Matthew 7:13-14 - the narrow gate and the wide gate."

Hell to this side.                                                                              Heaven to this side.

Let's look at

* * *

*

The Word

" Practice "

1 John talks about

the importance of....

"practicing righteousness."

We either

"practice righteousness"  or   we "practice sinning."

And just like practicing a musical instrument -

we get better and better at what we practice.

* * *

*

With sinning - our heart gets harder and harder.

*

With righteousness - our heart gets softer and softer.

1 John 2:29 NKJV

If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who

practices righteousness is born of Him.

1 John 3:7 NKJV

Little children, let no one deceive you.

He who practices righteousness is righteous,

just as He is righteous.

1 John 3:10 NKJV

In this

the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest:

Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God,

nor is he who does not love his brother.

Churches today are falling away

from

teaching important Bible truths.

And

even

more

shocking -

Churches are falling away from believing the Bible is true.

~

Let's remind ourselves and others that -

The devil works

to make people DOUBT the Bible.

Satan leads people ASTRAY.

Many churches today are teaching that

obedience

is not necessary to following Jesus.

Many churches don't realize that they are in a crisis situation.

Many

churches are watering down the Gospel and

helping people

- who are headed to hell -

think

they are headed to heaven.

In Matthew 7:21-23 -

The people Jesus is talking about -

thought they were right with God.

They thought they were headed to heaven.

But they weren't.

I encourage you to visit my 3 pages on

Matthew 7:21-23  and  Matthew 7:13-14  and   Matthew 5:6.

I urge you to

Make sure

that you have thought through the concepts I am highlighting -

and that

you are ready to give an answer

to those who need to understand these Bible truths.

I urge you to take note at how the " church people" you know -

react to words like

holiness, righteousness, repentance,

and

phrases like

obedience to God.

Check your own family members

to make sure that they are BELIEVING God and his Word,

and not just following a false view of the Gospel.

I have been working on

clarifying these topics for a long time.

Last week - when I went to my dentist -

he all of a sudden began to talk on these topics -

without me saying a word!

God moved on him to tell me his testimony of -

thinking

he was saved and finding out years later that he was not!

My dentist exclaimed at how

he would have gone to hell

if he had died back then -

and how grateful he is

that

he now knows the truth

because he picked up a Bible and began to read verses like

Matthew 7:13-14.

He actually spoke of Matthew 7:13-14.)

People are going to hell because of lack of knowledge.

There is nothing more important than

getting right with God.

There is nothing more important than praying for those you love

who are not right with God.

Jesus said,

If you love me, feed my sheep.

John 21:16

I encourage all of you to pray for your loved ones in this area

and speak to them about these things as God leads you.

Prayers for Loved Ones who are not right with God.

I pray that you are able to organize your thoughts

on these matters

even better than I have done.

I pray that God will continue to help me

hone my skills at presenting these vital topics.

Heavenly Father,

We pray that

our light will shine brighter and brighter.

We pray that

you would guide us so that we are prepared

to help those who are headed in the wrong direction.

May we be ready

to share Jesus wherever we go.

We pray in love and devotion and in Jesus' name,

Amen

Consider our page - Strategies the devil uses on us

This page was posted in September 2025.

Also see - https://www.fivedoves.com/letters/aug2025/pnf831.htm