Blessed Assurance
Posted on November 19, 2014 3 Comments
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Does this sound like a warning to you? Does it cause you to question your relationship with God and how He feels about you? Does it feel like you are still under the Law? I used to feel this way, but I don’t any longer. Why?
Read the entire chapter of John 14, and you will see that it is all about comfort and assurance. Jesus is getting His disciples ready for His departure and He is assuring them that all will be well. He is not going to let them live like orphans. He assures them that they will never be alone and He will supply all of their needs. His intent is to comfort them, not scare them!
This is the context in which He is speaking when He brings up the subject of obedience. He does not want them to be worried about keeping His commandments either. He wants to encourage them, not frighten them.
So He assures them if they love Him, they will obey Him. If love is the root, obedience will be the inevitable fruit. And, here is the good news, He had a plan for rooting them in His love!
He promised to send them a personal Helper, the Holy Spirit, who would live inside of them continually. His job would be to guide them into all truth and show them what Jesus wants them to do in every situation. And through His ministry of revelation, the Holy Spirit will fill their hearts with love for Him. And since obedience flows out from love, this divinely produced love will cause them to keep His word, effortlessly.
“And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”(Romans 5:5 NASB)
Here is the bottom line. Instead of being frightened that you will not be able to keep the commandments, be assured that the love of God has been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit. And that the love He wants from you is the love He supplies to you. And the love He supplies to you will cause you to produce the fruit of obedience that He wants from you.
“If ye love me, you will keep my commandments.” Not a warning; a promise!
Why It’s Okay to Ask God to Forgive Your Sins
Posted on November 12, 2014 12 Comments
I confess to you, it’s been a long time since I asked God to forgive me of my sins. Why? Because I believe He has already forgiven me of all of them. And when did that happen? Two thousand years ago on the cross! That’s when Jesus died for all our sins and prayed on our behalf, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” The day I believed on Jesus and received Him as my Savior and Lord, I Read More
When Will We Learn?
Posted on November 5, 2014 4 Comments
Are you still struggling to be righteous and still doing your best to sanctify yourself because you desire to please God? How many more times do you have to fail before you come to your senses and believe the Bible that “by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified?” Will you continue being a victim of zeal without knowledge? Read More
Do You Know This Love?
Posted on October 29, 2014 3 Comments
The greatest commandment is that you should love the Lord with all your heart. It is clear that God wants our hearts. That He wants our relationship with Him and our service to Him to be from the heart and motivated by love. One of God’s major complaints against Israel was that they served him with their mouths, but their hearts were far from him. God wanted their hearts. And this is one of the problems with the law—it can produce fear of God, but it can not produce love for God.
Now there are those who feel that Read More
Only Believe
Posted on October 22, 2014 8 Comments
Have you read 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 recently? You should–it’s an amazing scriptural passage that really will liberate you, if you embrace its awesome promise.
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it. (I Thessalonians 5:23-24 NKJV)
Notice three things: Read More
The Sanitizer
Posted on October 15, 2014 3 Comments
Is it possible for the Holy Spirit to live in a sinful, unholy vessel? It is not. God cannot under any circumstance dwell in an unclean vessel. That’s why when Adam committed just one sin, he forfeited the Spirit and died spiritually. Yet, we know God lives in us who have placed our trust in Jesus for our salvation. How can this be?
That’s because contrary to what most Christians believe, we are Read More
Are You Laboring in Vain?
Posted on September 24, 2014 2 Comments
They call it your “cutting edge.” It’s what puts you ahead of the competition. It gives you the advantage you need to succeed. It’s the key to your long term progress. If you have it, you need to retain it. If you lose it, you should take steps to recover it immediately. That’s true in business. That’s true spiritually! Read More
The Sin Solution
Posted on September 17, 2014 3 Comments
Want to know the solution to sin–to the penalty, power, and presence of sin? It’s not The Ten Commandments. It is not the fear of judgment. It is the revelation of Christ. It is GRACE!
And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:16-17 NKJV)
Moses brought the Law and with it the threat of curses for breaking it. But sin continued to reign. The fear of judgment did not stop sin.
Then Jesus came bringing grace and truth–that is, Read More
An Unholy Mixture
Posted on September 10, 2014 4 Comments
Some things do not mix. Oil and water. War and peace. Grace and law.
Listen to Paul on the relationship between grace and law.
Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. (Romans 11:5-6 NKJV)
Grace and law do not mix. It is either one, or the other, but never both.
Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. (Romans 7:4 NKJV)
Trying to have a relationship with Christ and the law at the same time is like a married man having an affair. It is spiritual adultery. That’s why we had to first die to the law in order to be married to Christ.
Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free. (Galatians 4:30-31 NKJV)
A born-again child of God, the son of the freewoman (grace) should have no fellowship with the bondwoman (law). Law and grace should not live in the same house.
We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. (Galatians 2:15-16 NKJV)
The law cannot justify us. Salvation is wholly the work of God. It is by grace alone.
This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? (Galatians 3:2-3 NKJV)
Neither can the law sanctify us. We are not “perfected” by self-effort and law-keeping, which is what God refers to here as “the flesh.” We grow up into mature sons and daughters in the same way we are justified–by relying completely on grace through faith!
Child of God, avoid the unholy mixture of law and grace. You are no longer under the law of commandments–not for justification and not for sanctification. You do not need the law any longer. You are now “in Christ.” He is your life, your sufficiency, your all in all. Your spiritual growth will happen as you take your eyes off yourself and off the law, and fasten them on Jesus continually. You are married to Christ. Keep your eyes only on Him. Draw nigh to Him. Fellowship with Him exclusively. And He will impart life to you and you will bear His fruit in abundance.
Yes, indeed, as you draw nigh to Him, by grace through faith, without regard to the law, you will bear His fruit, in abundance.
Going from Glory to Glory
Posted on September 3, 2014 6 Comments
Are you concerned about the changes taking place around you? Are you afraid of where your life is headed? Well, if you belong to Christ, don’t be. His Word assures us that God changes us “from glory to glory.”
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Cor. 3:18)
We see here that the Holy Spirit is in charge of effecting changes in the lives of the children of God, and we are told, He Read More
A Moment of Grace 