Being Catholic does not guarantee your entrance into heaven—In fact, being Baptist, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Amish, Pentecostal, the list could go on & on –no religion, in truth, guarantees entrance into the Kingdom of God, with heaven as your eternal home.

Remember in John 3 when the Jewish religious leader, a Pharisee, met with Jesus?! Jesus didn’t tell him that his religious ritualisms would get him to heaven. What did He tell him?

“I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

John 3:3, NLT

“For God Himself is judge.”

Psalm 50:6b, NASB

(16) But to the wicked God says, Why bother reciting my decrees and pretending to obey my covenant? (17) For you refuse my discipline and treat my words like trash. (18) When you see thieves, you approve of them, and you spend your time with adulterers. (19) Your mouth is filled with wickedness, and your tongue is full of lies. (20) You sit around and slander your brother—your mother’s son. (21) While you did all this, I remained silent, and you thought I didn’t care. But now I will rebuke you, listing all my charges against you. (22) Repent all of you who forget me, or I will tear you apart, and no one will help you. (23) But giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me. If you keep to my path, I will reveal to you the salvation of God.

Psalm 50, NLT

“And call upon Me in the day of trouble, I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me.”

verse 15, NASB

Cry Out! Challenge: Psalm 50 [zealously explains] that Elohim Yahweh, the “God of gods,” will judge His people and those who are not. The word “judgment” makes our hearts tremble. The Psalmist announces that the Lord will give His verdict against the false sacrifices that His people offer, for He desires sacrificed hearts not rote rituals. These verses help us ask: What does God want from us? He wants sacrifices of praise that honor Him and for His children to cry out to Him at all times, especially in the day of distress or tribulation. These things bring us closer to Him and sanctify us by uprooting our religious self-sufficiency. [Essential then, is the truth that belief precedes behavior (Jesus’ point to the Pharisee in John 3).  Behavior is in response to belief but must be continued in dependence on the Lord void of hypocrisy.]

Let us cry out insistently for our lost world who will experience God’s judgment unless they turn from their sin. Let us pray that He will free His Church from mere religious ritualism. Let us believe that His deliverance is on its way (Cry Out! Challenge, Day 10, Revive Our Hearts).