"Bad Lands"

"They that hate me without cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away." (Psalms 69:4) It might not be politically correct, but it is the truth, unrighteousness rules the earth! No matter how you slice it, this place is full of death and sin rules the day; and the more we cry out against it, the more we will be persecuted for nothing more than making people aware of the truth. No one really wants to know the truth of where they stand with God, not even those that might think they are on God's side; sometimes those that are religious are the ones that get upset the most when told they are not right. It was the religious ones of the day that put Jesus on trial; it was the religious ones that mocked Him as He hung on the cross, making jokes about how God should save Him, or how He should save Himself. But the joke was on them, because it was them who He was saving! The first religious action in the Bible was when Adam and Eve covered their naked bodies with fig leaves; that was man's first attempt of trying to cover their own sins. Any time we try to remove our sins, we just make things worse, primarily because we think we have done something good, or that we have accomplished something, anything; as long as we do something, we think that we are doing something. There is only one way that sin is dealt with, and that is by the covering of the blood of Jesus Christ; yet countless attempts are made by those who are religious to cover sin another way, just as long as it involves man's efforts, they feel justified and righteous in doing something. Those 'five foolish virgins' were not worthy, not because they were not washed, but because they did not feel they required a continual washing; in other words, they were good enough in their own eyes; they had become religious! It is not about being religious, it is about having and keeping a personal relationship with Jesus Christ! Man's relationship with God was broken in the garden when Adam sinned; man's relationship with God was restored when Jesus died on the cross for the sins of man. We were cleansed by the blood of Christ, and we will remain clean by the blood of Christ; and only the blood of Christ gives us a right relationship with God...
 "And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to Himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to Him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!" For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ." (2 Corinthians 5:18-21)NLT