What do I mean by complicated simplicity? The Gospel is fairly simple and straightforward; leave it to mankind to NOT accecpt it for the gift that it is and add a bunch of rules and conditions to it. That's where religion comes in; Jesus was agianst the scribes and pharises that eventually conspired to murder him; ain't religion great? Religion is leading more people to hell than even our own wicked hearts.
The truth is there is nothing that you (nor any of us) can do to assure our salvation; Jesus did it all for us on the cross when he said "it is finished." (John 19:30). He died for all our sins; all we have to do is believe that, love him with all our heart, mind and strength and trust in him totally. Simply believing in him don't cut it, the demons and Satan believes in Jesus; he tempted him in the desert for 40 days; see Matt 4, Mark 1:12, Luke 4. There are also many instances when Jesus cast demons out of people.
There are MANY out there who are decieving MANY and there are many warnings about it in the Bible; check out the short epsitles in the New Testament such as Titus, Peter, John and Jude. Please be very cautious about believing those who distort the Gospel, especially those who preach the "health and wealth" or, "prosperity Gospel." Jesus was poor and homeless most of his life; he did not come to this earth and suffer the passion so you can drive a fancy car and have all the money you want. He says in Matthew 15:6 "So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hyprocrites! Well did Isiaiah prophesy of you when he said: This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." Also in Matthew 7:13 Jesus advises: "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are MANY. 7:14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those that find it are FEW. What does he mean by "Few"? When Sodom and Gomorah were destroyed, only Lot and his 2 daughters were spared, his wife was turned into a pilar of salt. How many survived the great flood? Not counting the animals, just Noah and his family, EIGHT in all. That's it; only 11 humans that were spared from two wrath of God events; I'm not sure what the population of the world was back then but it's safe to say the per capita ratio is pretty small. That clearly states what he means by "FEW"!
The warnings are all right there in the Bible just as clear as can be, but man tends to twist God's word to suit his own agenda and in the process of that distortion, creates a "more suitable" God out of his own imangination, violating the 1st commandment in the process. MANY think that God is too good and merciful to send people to hell but, Jesus mentions hell many times in the Gospel; he came here to save us from it after all. Don't believe me, read about it for yourself in Luke 16:22 and enter "hell" into any of the free online Bible resources on my home page.
