Signing the most important contract

My friends, have you ever signed a contract or made a deal? What did you do then? Will you not read all the terms and conditions first before you put your signature there? Will you not sit down first and read it carefully? Will you not make a planning and think whether you can keep it or not? Then after you analyzed all those things, you are now able to make a conclusion whether to agree with those terms or not. Am I right?

Let me share my own experience. Before I applied for my master thesis, there are some terms and conditions that I need to fulfill, for example I need not only to have passed 90 credits, but also to have finished my laboratory work, group project, seminar, etc. After that, I need to sit down and think about the topic whether I like it or not, whether I could finish it within 6 months or not, etc. Finally, I went to the supervisor and put my signature on the contract where it stated that I must finish the work within some period of time and I should show my progress and give account to what I have done.

Once I have put my signature on it, I am bound to the rules and I must do and follow them without excuse, otherwise I would have failed my project and pay the penalty. I have only 2 options left, either to follow and obey it or to break and leave it. And the benefit of signing a contract is this: I am now having all the rights about my topic, as long as I am obeying all the rules and terms, nobody can't break it. And no matter how my other collegues want to have that same topic, it is fixed that it belongs to me.

Now I want to ask you one thing, "Have you put your signature on the most important contract in your life, long-term contract which will bind you till the end of your life, it will bring you blessing a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields - and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life (Mark 10:29-30)? Have you signed a contract with God about your eternal life?

He offers you eternal life for free, it is His gift for you. You actually do not deserve it, but still He gives it to you because He loves you with all His heart, He wants you to be saved, not perish. He offers you a lifetime contract, He will bless you for your whole lifetime, He will give you joy, peace, happiness and all the good things that the world can't offer, but from God alone. But on the other hand, it will also bring you persecutions for your whole lifetime. And if you endure till the end you will be saved and receive eternal life. No pain no gain, is it not? Do you want to take this offer? Think about this first, my friends.

Everybody wants to be saved, everybody wants to go to heaven, everybody wants to get eternal life and escape condemnation in hell for eternity. I suppose to think that people are not stupid enough to neglect and abandon this opportunity, especially if it is free and gift of God. But in fact, many people are stupid enough to abandon it. For the Bible said, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it (Matthew 7:13-14).

My friends, let's examine why the Bible said so, why many people choose to be stupid enough and reject to get eternal life. What are the terms and conditions you need to fulfill to get eternal life? It is very simple, believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

John 3:36

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.

What rules you need to follow after you sign the contract? It is very simple too, but difficult to do. Give your life to Jesus fully and follow Him, be His disciples, walk in His path, carry your own cross, totally submitted to Him. Because of this, many people choose to neglect this offer.

1 John 2:6

Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

Luke 14:27

And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

I tell you the truth, it is difficult to be Jesus' disciples, but with God, all things are possible. Was Jesus lying when He said "Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say to you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able (Luke 13:24)? Many people have failed the test, they are not qualified for it. Why?

My friends, once you fully and totally surrender unto Him, in that moment something will start to happen, the scale in your eyes will be broken, you will now be able to see how dirty you are and how wicked the world is. You will become God's children, you will be a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).

God puts His Spirit inside you, God changes your stone heart with fleshy heart, God puts His Law and Commandments inside your heart, you can't sin anymore for once you start sinning again, your heart will condemn you and that feeling is unbearable. Each day you will just want to walk toward perfection, toward holiness. You will have renewal of your mind, your pleasures have now changed, once you like to dwell in your sinful nature, commit immorality, cheat, steal, tell lies, etc now you like to listen God's word, talk to Him in prayers, join with other believers in fellowship. It is your nature, you didn't work for it. It is gift of God. God changes your nature, from physical man to spiritual man, from sinful nature, to godly nature.

You will start to walk in Jesus' path, through sanctification process by the Holy Spirit. It hurts, my friends. You need to die to yourself, you need to start to be selfless, no more selfish. Jesus must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30). You need to bite your tongue when somebody offend you, you need to forgive everytime people hurt you, you need to bless those who persecuted you, love your enemies, become slave to righteousness. You have to deal with your ownself that in time of your ignorance you satisfied them a lot. They were your master before, but now you have to strive to be the master of them. And not only that, people around you will start to humiliate, mock, speak falsely about you. The more you like Jesus, the more the world hates you.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God (John 3:19-21). If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you (John 15:19).

You have the light and the world is in darkness. Everytime you come closer to them, their shameful behaviour will be exposed by your light, some of them will come to you and ask for help, some of them will try to shut your light and make you become one of them again, they will even kill you. You will start bringing spiritual sword to the society you live, to separate between children of light and children of darkness. Children of light will like you but children of darkness will hate you. You can't be in the middle anymore.

God will start doing separation in your life, your bad companies, bad friends will start leaving you, because Bible said "bad company corrupts good characters (1 Corinthians 15:33)" "Do not yoke with unbelievers". And once you conform to the world, you start losing your stand, you start becoming faithless, you start to disown God and for that He will also disown you. You must stand till the end to be saved, my friends. It is very difficult. You need to really count the cost before signing the contract with God.

1 Peter 4:18

And, If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?"

Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself (2 Timothy 2:11-13).

This is where the persecution started. The world is wicked and evil, they cheat each others, they kill each others, they are selfish, they are cold, they don't have love at all, they are corrupt, they are liars, etc. It would be very difficult for the righteous to live in this planet. Imagine you work in the circumstance that force you to cheat people, to tell lies, to commit immorality before you make a deal, etc; you are now forced to quit your jobs because your heart can't tolerate it anymore. Is it not difficult? Daniel chose not to conform to the world and because of that he was put into den of lions, his three friends refused to bow down before the idols, they were put into fiery furnace, Christians refuse(d) to betray their faith, some face jeers and flogging, others were chained and put in prison, they were stoned, they were sawed into two, they were put to death by the sword, they went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated --- the world was not worthy of them (Hebrews 11:36-38)

John 12:25

The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Or in the past, maybe you had a lot of good friends, you told dirty jokes with them, you committed sins with them, you went to parties, had one night stand, smoked cigarettes, used drugs, stole people's properties, etc, but now, you can't do it anymore, instead you tell them to repent and give their life to Christ, some of them will start mocking you and leave you alone, some of them will repent. Or your family, your parents, your children can't accept your new life, new behaviour, etc, they will start beating you, disown you or even threatening your life. Your parents will betray you, your children will betray you, they will hand you to be persecuted.

It is very difficult to follow Christ, my friends. It is only by His grace we are still able to live in this corrupt world, nothing else. Without strength and encouragement from God, we would fail and conform to the world. His grace is sufficient

You will become a stranger and alien in this world. This world is not our home, we are looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Hebrews 11:10). To live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21). When we died, we will see our Saviour welcome us. Leaving this miserable and fallen world and unite together with our Saviour is the most beautiful moment we can get. What a wonderful hope, blessed assurance we have in Jesus. Some of you will never understand about this for this is practical, many Christians also don't have deep conviction about this for they have faith but do not put it into practice. They are like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like (James 1:23-24). Once you experienced being in God's Presence, you will not be the same person again.

The world will not understand you. For them, you are a fool. How can you believe in a man who lived 2000 years ago as your personal Saviour. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18). They will mock you because they wonder how can you life in righteousness, how you are able to live in holiness, for they have tried but failed and they are jealous when they see your life. "Jesus fanatic" "holy man" They can't stand your heat, either they will mock you or they will avoid you. Count your costs, my friends before you sign the contract of eternal life.

Jesus said "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'

"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:28-33).

My friends, the gospel is the good news. "Jesus comes to save you" is the good news. Everybody likes it and everybody is happy about it, especially when the preachers add it with blessing and prosperity, deliverance, healing, miracles, gift of anointing, etc. Making a convert is easy, but making a disciple is difficult. The criteria to be disciple is this: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:31-32)." Jesus taught us to make disciples, not converts, but many churches already forget what it takes to be a disciple. They travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, they make him twice as much a son of hell as they are (Matthew 23:15).

Many of us just like to sign a contract but forget the rules, terms and conditions, but the worst part is that they keep thinking that they are still be part of the games, that they will inherit kingdom of God and eternal life. They become so short-sighted. My question is "Do you still hold to Jesus' teaching?" "Do you love your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength?" "Do you love your neighbours" "Do you forgive those who offend you?" "Do you walk in Jesus' path?" "Do you carry your own cross?" "Do people can see the different in your life?"

Jesus gave us an interesting story. There is a farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

• Some of us are ignorant, we don't want to understand, to be wise. We just want to be deceived and deceiving others, the evil one has taken captive upon our soul. Devil is our father, whenever the Word sown to us, we would always resist it, we love our sinful life more than eternal life. The outcome is deserved, eternal death. This is the seed sown along the path.
• Some of us behaving like a rocky place. We hear and receive the word about the kingdom of God with joy, but it lasts only a short time, because it has no root, when trouble and persecution comes because of the word, we quickly fall away, we died spiritually.
• Some of us are behaving like the thorny place, our worries of life and deceitfulness of wealth choke us, make us unfruitful and in the end, God the Father will cut and throw us into the fire.
• Some of us choose to receive the Word with meekness and thanksgiving and the Word dwells in us and produce a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

My friends, if you have signed the contract, which one is your heart? Rocky or thorny place? If you have not signed the contract, don't you want to have eternal life? But please count your costs first. It is not a joke, it is not a simple decision, it will bind you for your whole life. And once you are agree to sign it, you are bought with precious price, you are bought with the blood of Jesus Christ, you are no more of yourself, you must submit to your Lord of lords, King of kings. Almighty God will become your Father, He will give you right to call Him "Abba, Father". You will be so precious to Him, He loves you will all His heart. He died for you and He resurrected on the third day and because He lives, you can face tomorrow, because He lives, you will also live with Him. Devil can not snatch you out of His hand. Nobody and nothing can snatch you out. You are God's possesion.

But on the same time, you have no arguments to whatever He will do to your life, you just need to believe and have faith like a little children that He is your Father who knows what is best for you, who loves you with all His heart, whose never lies when He said, "for I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). You have been crucified with Him and no longer live, but Christ lives in you (Galatians 2:20).

Even when your hands are handcuffed, your properties are taken away, your friends hate and left you, or you died martyr because of Jesus' name, you have no arguments. You are dead to yourself, you are not your own. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul (Mark 8:36)? God knows how to rescue godly men from trials (2 Peter 2:19). His timing is perfect, He is never late. He will choose the time when His name will be glorified most. In many times we can't understand His ways and His ways didn't work as we expected, but in the end you will just stand in awe of Him and say "God is great. Great is your faithfulness".

My friends, as we all have human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:9-11).

This is the deal, my friends. You will get blessing from God, but you will also get persecutions, even died because of your faith, but in the end, you will get eternal life. You will be bought by the precious price, blood of God, for that, you will be so precious for God but also you have no more right upon yourself, you are now slave of God, slave of righteousness. You should have faith like a little children that believe the Father knows the best and want to be disciplined by Him even though it hurts for awhile. Then, all the blessing, joy, happiness, desire of your heart will be added, if you seek first His kingdom and all the righteousness. Will you sign the deal?

Once you signed the contract, you need to show your progress to God. "Daddy, look! Now I can walk closer to You, I can see more clearly about You, I can understand You more". And in the end, whether you agree to sign the contract or not, you will have to give an account to Him who offer the Gift of salvation to you. You will be judged according to what you have done, if you walk in righteousness, you will reap eternal life, if you walk in iniquities and wickedness, you will reap eternal destruction.

The questions are: Do you want to be child of God? Have you counted the cost? Will you not be turn back? Will you not be a rocky or thorny place? This decision must be made in your lifetime, not afterlife, for it is too late. You can be end up in putting yourself as enemies of God if you choose to neglect His grace and for that you deserve eternal condemnation or to be His children and enjoy all the benefits of it and reap eternal life.

Please, my friends don't think that you will do it at your old ages. Why don't you go to cemetery and see the ages of people there? Do you know that death doesn't care about the age, can you not find babies', boys', girls', men's, women's, grandpas', grandmas' tomb there? Bible said, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion (Hebrews 3:15)." Have you counted the cost? Would you sign a contract now? God bless you