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 Bible truth & instruction |
Welcome
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What do you think, “Are you good?”You may think that your life is pretty good in general. You may think that you understand many things about life, work, politics, people or possessions. You might concede there are some areas of your life that are not right and need improvement. You may even admit that there is at least one known area of sin or continued wrongdoing in your life that you have not given up. You may think this sin is not good, but you don’t think it affects the other areas of your life or will ultimately destroy you. Since others don’t perceive your sin, you figure it won’t affect other people around you either. You think that if no one else knows, then, perhaps, God will not hold you accountable for your sin. Have you asked yourself the questions, “How can I be clean and free from sin?” or “What must I do to be saved from this sin?” You may understand the wrath of God toward sin and how He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for their violence and perversion. But you may be deadened to the gravity of your own sin and the urgent importance of making right the wrongs you have done. Since you have continued so long in your present course of conduct, the calling of Christ to your conscience may be much quieter that when you first began to sin. You may have been or may be seeking God to show you the way of righteousness. You may have heard the gospel of good news. Consider this, “God sent Jesus to you to bless you by turning you from your wicked ways.” (Acts 3:26) Consider that your sin (however small it may seem to you or others), has carried you away from God; just like the wind carries a dead fall leaf far from the tree who gave it life and separates it from it’s source of strength and nourishment. The leaf has no life in it while it is detached from the branch of the tree. You have NO LIFE IN YOU if you are in sin, disconnected from the life-giving power of God in Christ. All it takes is one sin to kill the life that God has planned for you. God is holy, righteous and good. But God cannot have fellowship with darkness. “The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished.” (Nahum 1:3a) So can God have fellowship with you if you are in sin? You may think that the blood of Jesus makes your sin acceptable to God, perhaps even invisible to Him. Do not deceive yourself with deceptive doctrines of men that are not based on Christ. (Col 2:8) For you should know that no immoral, impure, or greedy person (such a man is an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words and stories they have made up about human failures and achievements because the wrath of God will come upon all such people because of these sins. (Eph 5:5-6) You see, Isaiah cried out and said, “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord that he might find mercy.” (Isa 55:6-7) For God sent Jesus Christ to suffer and bleed and die a horrible death so that we might be free from sin (Rom 6:1-14) and in him is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps sinning. No one who sins knows who He really is…for God is holy and righteous. (1 John 3:5-9) Job, who was a righteous man who feared God and shunned evil. (Job 1:8) He lived a perfect life and he made a covenant with his eyes before God that he would not look lustfully on a woman. (Job 31:1) But Job had an accusatory friend who thought that no one born of mortal could be pure and that the suffering that Job experienced was because of sin. His friend questioned, “How can one born of woman be pure?” (Job 15:14) He questioned and doubted the integrity of Job, who lived a holy life through the fear of God. There is a way that seems right to mortal men, but the end of that way is death. (Prov. 16:25) You (along with every other human) must come to the place in your mind that you no longer trust and have confidence in your own strength. You must repent--have a complete change of mind, which leads to a change in direction. You must trust in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ shed on the cross for you in order to cleanse and wash away all of your sins. Then by the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit of God, you can be made new in your mind and deeds. For it is written “I will write my laws on their hearts and on their minds. And I will be their God and they will be my people. Their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more.” (Jer 31:33-34) You see God no longer needs priests and ministers to offer animal sacrifices for the penalty and atoning for sin because God did it once for all by sending his own Son. (Heb 10:1-18) God said of Jesus who lived a perfect and sinless life on earth, “Behold, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” (Matt 3:17) If we had parents that gave us advice, and we listened to them, how much more should we listen to God who created us? He is the One true God and eternal life and He sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Jesus proceeded forth from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1) He is God’s truth to you today. The truth is that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. There is no other name given among men by which we must be saved, except the name of Jesus Christ. (Acts 4:12) You must come to him broken over your current estate. You must cast yourself down upon His mercy that your sins may be made whiter that snow. You must realize the pain and suffering He experienced to provide you and me a way to be reconciled to a blameless and holy God. You must confess your sins to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you who sin, and purify your hearts, you who are double-minded. Be miserable weep and mourn. Turn your laughter to sorrow and your joy to gloom. Humble yourself before the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you when He sees fit. (James 4:7-10) |
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Grace to all of you who love our
Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth--Ephesians
6:24 |
