What I Long For

Holiness is what I long for

Righteousness, to walk God’s ways

Faithfulness in every footstep

Walking with Him day by day

Listening to the words He teaches

Making them my faithful friend

Doing all that His word shows me

Faithful to Christ to the end

Loving Jesus, Lord, my Master

Sitting daily at His feet

Loving all the times together

When my Lord and I do meet

Worship Him in truth forever

Sing His praises, bless His Name

Changing in the ways He leads me

Not remaining just the same

An Original Work / December 8, 2022

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Behold What Manner of Love

1 John 3:1-3 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

 

“Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. 2Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. 3And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.”

 

The Love of God

 

Yes! We are not the children of God of our own merit, of our own design and purpose, by works done in the flesh. Not one of us can come to faith in Jesus Christ unless God the Father draws us to Christ, according to His will and purpose. Only by the grace of God, in the power of God, by the will of God, can any of us be saved from our sins and be on our way to heaven. We can do nothing in our flesh to earn or to deserve our own salvation which comes from God, is authored and perfected by Jesus Christ, which is gifted to us by God, and which is persuaded of God to die with Him to sin and to obey Him.

 

[Matthew 7:21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; Acts 26:18; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Hebrews 12:1-2; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Peter 2:24]

 

They Don’t Know Us

 

The world being referred to here are all who are not of genuine biblical faith in Jesus Christ which, sadly, includes many who profess faith in Jesus Christ with their lips but who are still living to please the flesh in deliberate and habitual sin against God and/or in selfish desire to do only what pleases themselves. And some of them may be living moral lives but they are more like the church in Laodicea who are neither on fire for God nor are they completely opposed to God, but they are lukewarm. So they live to please the flesh and not God in life practice. So they don’t know us, in truth.

 

So, why don’t they know us? It isn’t that they are not acquainted with us, or that they don’t know our names, or that we have never met before, but it is that they don’t “get us,” i.e. they don’t understand us and what “makes us tick,” i.e. they don’t understand our motivations for why we do what we do, if truly we are serving the Lord with our lives. They don’t understand our values, our callings of God, and the purpose He has for our lives and how He is using us to reach the people of the world (and the worldly church) with the truth of the gospel of Christ. To them we may appear a bit weird.

 

What We Will Be

 

If we read all the New Testament Scriptures in their biblical context, verse by verse, we should soon realize that our salvation from sin and the hope of eternal life with God are not guaranteed us for eternity based on lip service only, or based on a one time acknowledgment of Christ as our Savior after which we then just do whatever we want to do without regard for God and for what He has planned and purposed for our lives. Biblical salvation has a beginning, but there are requirements of God we must meet if we are to continue in our walks of faith and to have the hope of eternal life with God.

 

[Matthew 7:21-23; Matthew 24:9-14; Luke 9:23-26; John 8:31-32; John 15:1-12; Romans 6:16; Romans 8:24; Romans 11:17-24; Romans 13:11; 1 Corinthians 1:18; 1 Corinthians 15:1-2; Colossians 1:21-23; 2 Timothy 1:8-9; 2 Timothy 2:10-13; Hebrews 3:6,14-15; Hebrews 9:28; 1 Peter 1:5,9; 2 Peter 1:5-11; 2 Peter 2:20-22; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6,24-25]

 

In other words, our salvation from sin is an ongoing process throughout our lives which will not be complete until Jesus returns and He takes His faithful bride to be with Him for eternity. And this is why we have instructions for us to follow all throughout the New Testament writings in what we are not to do (what we’re to put off) and with regard to what we are to be doing (putting on) in daily practice. And so we need to read those instructions, and by the grace of God and in the power of God at work within us we must be walking in obedience to our Lord living holy lives, pleasing to God, in moral purity.

 

Behold What Manner of Love

An Original Work / October 7, 2026

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

 

The Great Redeemer

 

Lyrics by Francis Foster, 1915

Music by Samuel W. Beazley, 1915

 

How I love the great Redeemer

Who is doing so much for me;

With what joy I tell the story

Of the love that makes men free.

Till my earthly life is ended,

I will send songs above,

Then beside the crystal sea

More and more my soul shall be

Praising Jesus and His love.

 

He has purchased my redemption,

Rolled my burden of sin away,

And is walking on beside me,

Growing dearer day by day.

That is why I sing His praises,

That is why joy is mine,

That is why forevermore

On the everlasting shore

I shall sing of love divine.

 

Glory be to Him forever!

Endless praises to Christ the Lamb!

He has filled my life with sunshine,

He has made me what I am.

Oh, that everyone would know Him,

Oh, that all would adore!

Oh, that all would trust the love

Of the mighty Friend above

And be His forevermore.

 

He is everything to me, to me,

He is everything to me,

And everything shall always be;

I will never cease to raise

A song of gladness in His praise;

Here, and in the world above,

My soul shall sing of saving love;

Life and light and joy is He,

The precious Friend who died for me.

 

https://youtu.be/i6xzBPjROnY?si=JPBik1F0AF1SovRC

 

Caution: This link may contain ads

Are You Antichrist?

They Went Out From Us

 

1 John 2:18-19 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

 

“18Children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But their departure made it clear that none of them belonged to us.”

 

We need to see what this says here from a spiritual and not a physical perspective. For this is not about a Christian (or a professing Christian) deciding to leave an institutional and/or denominational “church” gathering. For actually God requires that we leave any gatherings of this sort which have been turned into businesses, which are being marketed to the world, and which are partnered with the world, the ungodly, and with the state in unholy unions which are forbidden by God. And we are to follow Christ in His ways in conducting the gatherings of His church according to the Scriptures.

 

In their case this may have been a physical departure, so I am not ruling that out. But a physical departure from man-created “church” gatherings is not necessarily a sign that the ones departing are antichrist. They could be departing because the gatherings themselves are antichrist in how they are operating, and so they, in departing, are obeying God. So we must think of this mainly in terms of a spiritual departure from the faith as taught by Jesus and by His New Testament apostles, taught in the correct biblical context. If we depart from the faith, and if we refuse Christ, we are thus antichrist.

 

[Matthew 21:12-13; John 2:13-17; Acts 5:27-32; 1 Corinthians 1:10-13; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18; Philippians 3:18-19; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22; Revelation 13:5-8; Revelation 18:1-5]

 

This is the Antichrist

 

1 John 2:22-23 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

 

“22Who is the liar, if it is not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son. 23Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.”

 

So what does it look like if we deny that Jesus is the Christ and if we deny both God the Father and God the Son (Jesus Christ). To deny them is to refute, to reject, to refuse, to disown, to disallow, to disavow, and to renounce them for who they are and for what they stand for and what they require of us in thought, word, and deed. And who is The Christ? He is the Messiah, the Anointed One, our Redeemer, our Savior, our Lord. And He is God, the second person of our triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

Therefore all Jews who claimed the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as their Father, but who refused Jesus Christ as their Messiah, they are antichrist. So the political and physical nation called “Israel,” which, as a nation, denies Jesus Christ as their Messiah, they are antichrist. They are not God’s chosen people. God’s chosen people under the New Covenant are all who are of genuine biblical faith in Jesus Christ which requires that we deny self, put sin to death (repent), and we obey God and His commands.

 

Therefore, anyone, Jew or Gentile, who denies Jesus as the Messiah with their lips, and/or who denies the Lordship of Christ over their lives via holding on to their sin, refusing to let it go, and continuing in deliberate and habitual sin and in disobedience to God, they are antichrist. For they are against Jesus and who He claims to be, and they are against what He requires of us in thought, word, and deed, that we must now die with Him to sin so we will now walk in obedience to His commands, in His power.

 

Remaining in Christ

 

1 John 2:24,28-29 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

 

“24As for you, let what you have heard from the beginning remain in you. If it does, you will also remain in the Son and in the Father… 28And now, little children, remain in Christ, so that when He appears, we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming. 29If you know that He is righteous, you also know that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him.”

 

Remaining in Christ is not with lip service only. We can profess with our lips that we are “In Christ,” but not be in Christ at all. We can claim that we are in fellowship with God, that we know God, and that we love God/Christ, but if sin is still what we practice, deliberately and habitually, and if obedience to God and to His New Covenant commands is not our practice, we do not know God, we are not in fellowship with Him, and we do not love Him (see 1 John 1,2&3). Therefore we are not saved from our sins and we do not have eternal life with God. For lip service only does not = genuine faith.

 

And we have many people in our world today who have “prayed the prayer to receive Christ” or who have verbally confessed Him as Lord, and who have claimed to believe in His death and in His resurrection, but their hearts did not change. They did not deny self, die to sin, and obey God and His commands, but they chose to continue on a path of sin, instead. Outwardly they may give the appearance of being married to Christ, by faith in Him, but it is a lie, for they are still married to their sin, to idolatry, to adultery, and to the lusts of their flesh. So, in practice, they are antichrist.

 

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; 2 Corinthians 5:10,15,21; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

 

Are You Antichrist?

An Original Work / October 6, 2026

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

 

The Great Redeemer

 

Lyrics by Francis Foster, 1915

Music by Samuel W. Beazley, 1915

 

How I love the great Redeemer

Who is doing so much for me;

With what joy I tell the story

Of the love that makes men free.

Till my earthly life is ended,

I will send songs above,

Then beside the crystal sea

More and more my soul shall be

Praising Jesus and His love.

 

He has purchased my redemption,

Rolled my burden of sin away,

And is walking on beside me,

Growing dearer day by day.

That is why I sing His praises,

That is why joy is mine,

That is why forevermore

On the everlasting shore

I shall sing of love divine.

 

Glory be to Him forever!

Endless praises to Christ the Lamb!

He has filled my life with sunshine,

He has made me what I am.

Oh, that everyone would know Him,

Oh, that all would adore!

Oh, that all would trust the love

Of the mighty Friend above

And be His forevermore.

 

He is everything to me, to me,

He is everything to me,

And everything shall always be;

I will never cease to raise

A song of gladness in His praise;

Here, and in the world above,

My soul shall sing of saving love;

Life and light and joy is He,

The precious Friend who died for me.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD-LJGRnUZY

 

Caution: This link may contain ads

Preferring the World

1 John 2:15-17 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

 

“15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world. 17The world is passing away, along with its desires; but whoever does the will of God remains forever.”

 

To Prefer

 

This word “love” is “agape,” and it means “to prefer.” Primarily it is used in the Scriptures in the context of a love which comes from God which prefers what God prefers which is all that is holy, godly, righteous, morally pure, upright, honest, faithful and obedient to our Lord and to His commands. But in this instance it is being used in the context of preferring the world and all that the world has to offer us in the way of sinful pleasures via the lustful desires of the flesh, the sinful lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life.

 

A Diluted Gospel

 

Sadly it appears that the majority of those professing faith in Jesus Christ here in my nation, the USA, are accepting a diluted and altered gospel message which does not insist on repentance (death to sin) and obedience to God’s commands in order to have salvation from sin and eternal life with God. Many are teaching that all God requires is a verbal profession of faith in Jesus Christ and then they are promised that all their sins are forgiven and that eternity with God in heaven is what awaits them when they die.

 

Even if some (or many) preachers who insist on the importance of repentance (leaving your lives of sin behind you) and following the Lord in obedience to His commands do not teach them as required by God for us to have salvation from sin and eternal life with God. They teach them as something we should do, but if we don’t do, we still have salvation from sin and eternal life with God guaranteed. Therefore, many professing Christians continue to live in deliberate and habitual sin and not in obedience to God.

 

Not of The World

 

So, this is a reminder to us that we are not, as followers of Christ, to prefer the sinful trappings that the world has to offer us. We are not to take pleasure in what is immoral, wicked, hateful, prideful, self-centered, lustful, utterly selfish, sexually immoral, adulterous, idolatrous, dishonest, and all that might consume our minds and our hearts and our time, which would then keep us from loving and obeying and serving our Lord with our lives. Our lives are to be given over to God to serve and obey Him, not the world.

 

We are to live in the world, but we are not to be of the world. We are to associate with the people of the world, but we are not join in with them in their sinful pleasures. God has sent us out into the world, to love the people, to do good to them, and to share the gospel with them. But we are not to blend in with them so they will like us, so they will want to be a part of our “church gatherings,” as many are teaching today. We don’t compromise with the world to “win the world.” We stand on the truth of the Scriptures and we live holy lives pleasing to God to set godly examples of the life of a Christian.

 

The Gospel Message

 

And the gospel message which we are to share with the people of the world is not this watered-down version intended to tickle itching ears and to not offend the ungodly. We are to speak the truth that Jesus and His New Testament apostles taught, but in the correct biblical context. For many people are teaching a false gospel message based off Scriptures taken out of context and made to say what they do not say if taught in the correct biblical context. We must teach that God requires death to sin (repentance) and obedience to His commands in life practice for us to have salvation from sin.

 

For so many people are being taught lies and are being given false promises of salvation and forgiveness of all sins and of eternal life with God based on a verbal profession of faith in Jesus Christ only. And so they are holding on to a false hope while they still love (prefer) the world and the lusts of the flesh and of the eyes and the pride of life, and while they still live for the pleasures of the flesh and not for God. Sadly, they will not have salvation from sin and eternal life with God unless they surrender their lives to God, leave their lives of sin, and follow our Lord in obedience to His commands.

 

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; 2 Corinthians 5:10,15,21; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

 

Preferring the World

An Original Work / October 6, 2026

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

 

As the Deer

 

By Martin J. Nystrom

Based off Psalm 42:1

 

As the deer panteth for the water

So my soul longeth after You

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship You

 

You alone are my strength, my shield

To You alone may my spirit yield

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship You

 

[A Prayer of Devotion to God Alone]

Time Will Tell

Time will tell if you be true,

If words you speak are genuine.

Time will tell if thoughts you think

Are pure in heart and disciplined.

Time will tell if you profess

What is the truth, and sins confess,

Or if you lie and cover up

The lusts of flesh o’er you obsess.

Time will tell if plans you make

Are of the flesh or they of God.

Time will tell if you’re sincere

Or if indeed you are a fraud. 

Time will tell if you perform

So others think that you are good,

Or if you truly worship God

And on the truth you really stood.

Time will tell what is the truth,

If you be true or so uncouth.

Time will tell so many things

If you be real or be a sleuth.

So all in time things be revealed,

Things that are hidden and concealed.

They will be known, they will be shown

For what they are, no longer sealed.

An Original Work / November 27, 2022

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

If We Say But We Don't

1 John 1:5-10 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

 

“5And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 6If we say we have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

 

“8If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and His word is not in us.”

 

If We Say

 

Actions speak louder than words. Who we are and what we do and what we are made out of is not just in the words that we speak, but it is in the things that we do and in who we are in character and attitude and behaviors. So we can say, “I am a Christian,” and not be a Christian at all. We can say we love God, that we believe in Jesus Christ, that we are in fellowship with Christ and with His Body, His Church, i.e. the faithful in Christ Jesus, and be none of those. For if sin is still our practice, deliberately and habitually, and not obedience to our Lord’s commands, we lie if we say we are “In Christ.”

 

Light and Darkness

 

If truly we are in fellowship with Christ, and we know God intimately via biblical faith in Him, it should be evident by how we live, by what we practice with regard to our behaviors. And this is not to say that we will never sin again (see 1 John 2:1-2), or that we might not ever fall back into sin and be in need of restoration. It is also not saying that we will be absolutely perfect in everything that we do. But the Scriptures make it clear that those who make sin their habit (practice), and not obedience to God’s commands, they are not in Christ, even if they profess with their lips that they are.

 

In The Light

 

God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. Jesus Christ is The Light. And light is the opposite of darkness. Light represents God, the gospel, truth, righteousness, holiness, honesty, faithfulness, moral purity, and obedience to God. Darkness represents sin, evil, and wickedness. And our walk has to do with how we live, our practices, our behaviors. If what we do and how we live in practice is sinful and disobedient to our Lord, we are still in the darkness. But if how we live in practice is honest, faithful, obedient to God, and morally pure, we are In Christ, and our sins are forgiven us.

 

If We Confess

 

If we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But confession is not in lip service only. For to confess our sins is to speak to the same conclusion as God about our sins. It is to agree with God, not just that we sinned, but that if sin is our practice, and not obedience to God, that we will not have salvation from sin and eternal life with God. It is to agree with God that we must repent of our sins, turn away from them, and now walk in obedience to our Lord in holy living in moral purity, honesty, and faithfulness, no longer as slaves to sin.

 

If We Claim No Sin

 

All of us who were born into this world were born with sin natures in the image of Adam, the first man to sin against God. And we are not acceptable to God and approved by God in our sinful state. So God sent His Son Jesus Christ to the earth to be born as a baby to a virgin woman, but conceived of the Holy Spirit, and not of man, so He was not born with a sin nature as we are, and He never sinned. And He came to die on a cross to put our sins to death with Him so that, by faith in Him, we will deny self, die to sin, and obey God in life practice in the power of God. He died to deliver us from sin.

 

But if we claim that we have never sinned, that is a lie. And if someone is currently sinning actively and habitually while hiding or denying the sin and acting as though they are righteous, that is a lie. All of us have sinned and have come up short of the glory of God, and all of us are in need to submit to Christ as Lord, to die with Him to sin, and to now obey Him in life practice. Not all of us are actively sinning against God, but we still have the propensity to sin (1 John 2:1-2). But by faith in Jesus we were delivered out of slavery to sin so we will now serve God with our lives from now forward.

 

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; 2 Corinthians 5:10,15,21; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

 

If We Say But We Don’t

An Original Work / October 6, 2026

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

 

Talk Video on Same Subject

 

https://youtu.be/VGWVt39kznU

 

The Great Redeemer

 

Lyrics by Francis Foster, 1915

Music by Samuel W. Beazley, 1915

 

How I love the great Redeemer

Who is doing so much for me;

With what joy I tell the story

Of the love that makes men free.

Till my earthly life is ended,

I will send songs above,

Then beside the crystal sea

More and more my soul shall be

Praising Jesus and His love.

 

He has purchased my redemption,

Rolled my burden of sin away,

And is walking on beside me,

Growing dearer day by day.

That is why I sing His praises,

That is why joy is mine,

That is why forevermore

On the everlasting shore

I shall sing of love divine.

 

Glory be to Him forever!

Endless praises to Christ the Lamb!

He has filled my life with sunshine,

He has made me what I am.

Oh, that everyone would know Him,

Oh, that all would adore!

Oh, that all would trust the love

Of the mighty Friend above

And be His forevermore.

 

He is everything to me, to me,

He is everything to me,

And everything shall always be;

I will never cease to raise

A song of gladness in His praise;

Here, and in the world above,

My soul shall sing of saving love;

Life and light and joy is He,

The precious Friend who died for me.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD-LJGRnUZY

 

Caution: This link may contain ads

Empty Voices Singing Empty Praise

“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

    Serve the Lord with gladness!

    Come into his presence with singing!

Know that the Lord, he is God!

    It is he who made us, and we are his;

    we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

    and his courts with praise!

    Give thanks to him; bless his name!

For the Lord is good;

    his steadfast love endures forever,

    and his faithfulness to all generations.” (Psalms 100:1-5 ESV)

 

This psalm is an appeal to the people of all the earth to come to genuine God-gifted and God-persuaded faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (God the Son). For He is God, our creator God who made us. And God the Father sent Him to the earth to die for us on a cross so that we might die with Him to sin and live to Him and to His righteousness. By faith in Jesus Christ we therefore are crucified with Christ in death to sin, and we are raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in Him, not as slaves to sin but as slaves to righteousness.

 

But this is not just about singing and making a joyful noise, for we are to serve the Lord with gladness. And in order to serve the Lord we must first of all believe in Jesus Christ in truth and in righteousness. We must die with Him to sin so that we can be raised with Him to walk in newness of life in Him. We must deny self, die daily to sin, and walk in obedience to His commands if we are to be of the faith which saves us from our bondage to sin and which empowers us to live godly and holy lives pleasing to God.

 

Now God – Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit – is our creator God. So in that sense He owns us and He can do with us as He chooses. But only those who listen to (heed, regard, follow) our Lord Jesus, and who walk with Him in obedience to His commands, are His true sheep (followers). And they only are the ones who are promised eternal life with God, that they will never perish, and that no one can snatch them out of the hands of God. For if we do not obey God, but we continue in sin, we will not have life in Him.

 

Now if we are to enter the gates of the Lord, we can only do that via dying with Christ to sin and by His grace now walk in fellowship with Him in walks of obedience to His commands in holy living. Verbal professions of faith in Jesus Christ alone do not bring us into genuine relationship with our Lord. And they do not assure us of forgiveness of all sins and the hope of heaven when we die. For we can’t really know God if we do not obey Him, and we can’t be in fellowship with Him if we are still deliberately walking in sin.

 

So, if we truly want to enter into the gates of our Lord, it is not just with singing and verbally praising the Lord and verbally speaking or singing words of praise, adoration, and thanksgiving. For there are many who give lip service to the Lord whose hearts are far from Him. Their worship of God is in formality only, as taught by other humans, but there is no substance behind what is verbally coming from their lips. And so they will die in their sins. They will not enter into God’s heavenly gates at the end of it all.

 

For the Lord is good, and He is completely faithful to all that He said that He would do. And so we cannot just verbalize worship and praise of God with our lips only and think that assures us forgiveness of all sins and heaven as our eternal destiny. Many who profess the name of Jesus are still walking in sin, still doing what their evil hearts desire, hiding what they do in secret, thinking that no one knows. But God knows. And He said if we walk in sin and do not obey Him that we will not inherit eternal life with God.

 

And that is a very sad reality, and one that grieves me regularly. So many people giving lip service to the Lord, singing their praise and worship songs, convinced that all their sins are forgiven, and that heaven is their eternal destiny, but who are dying and going to hell because they would not surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. They would not deny self, die daily to sin, and walk in obedience to God’s commands. But they continued in their deliberate and habitual sin and would not submit to Christ as Lord.

 

So, don’t take God’s grace for granted. Don’t assume that just because you made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and/or that you got baptized, and/or that you attend weekly “church” gatherings where you lift your hands and verbally sing songs of worship and praise of God, that God is now pleased with you and that heaven is guaranteed you. For Jesus said that not everyone who says to Him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING the will of God the Father who is in heaven.

 

[Is 29:13-16; Is 53:1-12; Matt 7:21-23; Matt 26:26-29; Lu 9:23-26; Lu 17:25; Jn 1:1-36; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 8:24,58; Jn 10:27-33; Jn 20:28-29; Rom 5:8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 9:5; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 11:23-32; 1 Co 15:1-8; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Eph 4:17-24; Php 2:5-11; Col 2:9; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 1:8-9; Heb 2:14-15; Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 2:24; 2 Pet 1:1; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10] 

 

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

 

Songwriters: L. David Lewis / Kim Williams / Edward Monroe Hill

 

There's a grief that can't be spoken

There's a pain goes on and on

Empty chairs at empty tables

Now my friends are dead and gone

 

Here they talked of revolution

Here it was they lit the flame

Here they sang about tomorrow

And tomorrow never came

 

From the table in the corner

They could see a world reborn

And they rose with voices ringing

And I can hear them now!

 

The very words that they had sung

Became their last communion

On this lonely barricade

At dawn

 

Phantom faces at the window

Phantom shadows on the floor

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will meet no more

 

Oh my friends, my friends

Don't ask me what your sacrifice was for

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will sing no more

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uethb1O3a0E

 

Caution: This link may contain ads

 

Empty Voices Singing Empty Praise

An Original Work / November 24, 2024

Reposted October 5, 2026

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love