Psalm 24:3-6 ESV
“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully.
He will receive blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah”
His Holy Place
The hill of the Lord is the place of worship of God, the
altar of God, where we give (surrender) our lives to him as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to him, which is our reasonable and acceptable worship of
him. It is not a physical place, but a spiritual place (Rom 12:1-2).
There we commit our lives to Jesus Christ to follow him
wherever he leads us to go. There we deny self and daily we die to sin and to
the flesh. And there we walk in obedience to our Lord according to and empowered
by the Spirit of God.
There we are conformed to the life of Christ and no longer to
the ways of this sinful world. We forsake our former lives of living to the
flesh, and living according to the world, and now we are becoming like Jesus in
how we think, speak, and behave.
Now we stand on the Word of God as our only source for hearing
the voice of God to show us the way in which we are now to walk. We stand on
the truth of his word, and we now reject the lies which are opposed to his
word, his truth, which must be taken in the context of where it is written.
A Pure Heart
When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we don’t come to a fast-food
restaurant – easy in, easy out. Jesus is not a quick fix to get us out of
trouble. He didn’t die on that cross just to forgive us our sins so we can go
to heaven one day while we refuse to honor him on this earth.
Coming to faith in Jesus Christ requires that we submit to
him as Lord, that we surrender our lives to the will of God, and that we leave
our lives of sin behind us to follow our Lord Jesus in obedience to his
commands for us, his church (Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; 1 Jn 2:3-6).
When we surrender our lives to Jesus, by faith in him, he
changes our hearts and minds to be in conformity with the mind of Christ, and
he fills us with his Holy Spirit who then serves to encourage, counsel, teach, empower,
and to lead and to guide us in the way of righteousness.
Through our surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives,
he makes us holy (set apart for God and separate from the world), and he gives
us pure hearts hungry for him to walk in obedience to him. All praise and glory
to God.
A Blessing from God
The blessing we then receive from the Lord is our salvation
from sin and the promise of eternal life with God. But we must walk according
to the Spirit and not according to the flesh if we want to have that eternal
life with God. For, again, this is not a quick fix.
Our salvation is ongoing. We are saved (past), we are being
saved (present) and we will be saved (future) when Jesus returns, and our
salvation is complete. But we must continue in that faith to the very end. We
must remain in Christ and his word must remain in us.
We must not walk according to the flesh or walk in obedience
to sin or we will not have eternal life with God but a fearful expectation of judgment
and hell, no matter what sinner’s prayer we prayed, and no matter what baptism
we had, and no matter what public confession we made of Christ.
We can’t just pray a prayer, get our salvation “fix,” and
then go on with our lives as business as usual. Jesus is either Lord of our
lives or the flesh is still on the throne. If we don’t die with Christ to sin,
we are not in Christ, and we are still in slavery to sin.
Come
and See
An
Original Work / May 20, 2013
Based
off John 1:35-51
John, the Baptist, called of God to
Make straight the way for the Lord,
Told his disciples about Jesus,
So two of them followed Him.
One of them who followed Jesus
Told his brother, Simon Peter,
Who then he brought to the Savior,
Who had told them, “Come and see.”
Jesus Christ, our Lord, Messiah,
On his way to Galilee found a man, Philip,
So he told him, “I want you to follow Me.”
Philip then found his friend,
And he told him, “We have found the one
The prophets spoke of – He is Jesus!”
Philip then said, “Come and see.”
Jesus saw the man, Nathanael,
While he sat beneath a fig tree,
Even before Philip called him,
So Nathanael did believe.
Nonetheless the Lord said,
“You believe because of what I told you.
You will see much greater things than these
If you will Come and see.”
Jesus’ calling to each one of us.
He tells us to believe in Him
As our Lord and Messiah,
And to follow where He leads.
He says we must turn from our sins,
Die to sin and self each day,
And put on our new lives in Jesus;
Bow before Him; humbly pray.
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