Walk to Please God
1 Thessalonians 4:1-2 ESV
“Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.”
We, as followers of Jesus, are instructed in the Scriptures
that we are to live our lives to please God, in holiness and righteousness. We
are to walk (in conduct) according to the Spirit and no longer according to the
flesh, and we are not to make sin our practice, or we will not inherit eternal
life with God.
[Lu 9:23-26; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; Gal 5:16-21;
Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; 1 Co 6:9-10; 2 Co 5:10; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn
2:3-6]
The Will of God
1 Thessalonians 4:3-6 ESV
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.”
In today’s modern church in America, this would not be
taught. For, people in high up positions within the government and within the
church joined forces some years ago and they turned the church into a
marketplace to be marketed to the world just like any other product.
Since the world was now their target audience who they
wanted to attract to these “churches,” which were now businesses of men, they
began to alter how the church gatherings were conducted, and they began to
dilute the gospel message in order to make it appealing to the flesh of humans.
For, their goal was to corrupt the gospel and then to
replace the true gospel of grace with another gospel, which they have
successfully accomplished, for the most part. Their goal was also to unite the
government with the church so that they would be one force together (a state
church).
And it was to unite the lies of Satan with the truth so that
this false gospel has the appearance of truth. But since it is half a lie, it
is a lie, not the truth. And it was to unite good and evil, and actually to
twist it so that good appears as evil and evil appears as good.
So, a large majority of the church, the body of Christ, has
united herself with the government in an unholy union, has turned God’s house
into a marketplace, has altered the gospel and turned it into a lie, and is
following after the gods of men instead of Jesus being her only Lord and
Master.
The result is that a large number of people calling
themselves Christians, or who say they believe in Jesus Christ, have not been
crucified with Christ to sin, they have not, thus, been born again of the
Spirit of God, and they are not indwelt with God’s Holy Spirit.
The authority over their heads is still Satan and the flesh
of man, they are still in bondage to sin, still headed to hell, only now on the
promise that heaven is their destiny when they die. And since they are
following the cheap grace gospel, many are living in sexual immorality.
They are indulging in the sinful cravings of their flesh,
for now they have been given a free pass to continue living in sin without
guilt and with the promise that their sins are forgiven, and that heaven awaits
them when they die regardless of how they live while they are on the earth.
But God has Not Called us for Impurity
1 Thessalonians 4:7-8 ESV
“For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.”
What these liars are teaching about God’s grace is that a
person can “believe” in Jesus Christ, have his sins forgiven, be bound for
heaven, but his lifestyle doesn’t have to change. He does not have to repent or
obey the Lord or submit to the Lordship of Christ.
For, they call this “Lordship” salvation, or “works-based
salvation,” or legalism. Or they accuse those of us who teach that we must
change, and that we must obey the Lord, of being legalists, or of teaching works-based
salvation, or of being hyper-religious or self-righteous or Pharisees.
And people are following these charlatans by the droves
because they are telling the people what their itching ears want to hear. They
are telling them “Sweet nothings” to make them feel good about themselves, and
they are vilifying the true gospel of salvation, calling it a lie.
But if we read the Scriptures, book by book, and verse by
verse, in context, we can’t miss what they are saying. We are to walk to please
God. We are not to walk (conduct our lives in practice) in sin. It is God’s
will that we die with Christ to sin and live to Christ and to his
righteousness.
It is not God’s will that we engage ourselves in sexual
immorality, or that we live like the ungodly in the passion of lust. We are not
to do wrong to others, i.e., we are not to deliberately, and habitually, and
premeditatedly do to others what we know is wrong, and what we know will injure
them.
So, if you have become convinced that God’s grace to you is
carte blanche to continue living in sin without guilt, or that you don’t have
to repent or obey or submit to the Lord, please go back and read the Scriptures
one verse at a time in their context.
For, if you continue in sin, making it your practice, and
righteousness is not what you are practicing, if you do not repent, this will
end in death not in life everlasting. You will not inherit eternal life with
God, heaven is not your eternal home, and you don’t know God and he doesn’t
know you.
Come, Ye Disconsolate
Lyrics by Thomas Moore, 1816
Arr. by Thomas Hastings, 1831
Music by Samuel Webbe, Sr, 1792
Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish,
Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that heav’n cannot heal.
Joy of the desolate, light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure!
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,
“Earth has no sorrow that heav’n cannot cure.”
Here see the bread of life, see waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God, pure from above.
Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing
Earth has no sorrow but heav’n can remove.
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