Everyone Believing in Him
John 3:16 BLB (Berean Literal Bible)
“For God so loved the world that He gave the only begotten Son, so that everyone believing in Him should not perish, but should have eternal life.”
It was God’s choice to send Jesus Christ to the earth to
save sinners. For, he is not willing that any should perish but that all should
come to repentance. It was his will that sent Jesus to the cross to die for us.
For it is God’s will that we should not live in sin but that we should live for
him and for his righteousness, for the praise and glory of God.
Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, became sin for us on that
cross so that when he died our sins died with him, and when he was resurrected
from the dead, he rose victorious over sin, hell, death, and Satan, on our
behalf. For, he died that we might die with him to sin and live to him and to
his righteousness. He died that we might no longer live for ourselves but for
him who gave his life up for us.
This belief in Jesus Christ derives from Christ. He is the
author and the perfecter of our faith. We can’t even come to faith in Jesus
Christ unless God the father draws us to Christ, so this can’t be done in our
own human effort. And our faith can’t be according to the will of man, but it
must be according to the will of God, for he is the one gifting us with the
faith to believe.
Also, this belief in Jesus is present tense. It isn’t that
we believed in him (past tense) and that was that. We must be believing in him
(present tense) to have eternal life with God. And this belief, again, must be
according to the will of God, and his will is for us to be free from our
slavery to sin so that we can now walk with him in purity of devotion to him in
his righteousness.
So, making a declaration of faith in Jesus Christ is not
enough to save you from your sins. And making a one-time decision to receive
Christ also does not guarantee you salvation from sin and eternal life with
God. We must be actively believing in Jesus, which has to do with our walks of
faith, which has to do with what we do in love response to our Lord in obeying
him.
For, Jesus said that if anyone would come after him, he must
deny self and take up his cross daily (daily die to sin and to self) and follow
(obey) him. He said if we hold on to our old lives (of living in sin and for
self) that we will lose them for eternity. But if we lose our lives for his
sake (if we are dying with him to sin daily) then we have the hope of eternal
life with God.
So, if we claim faith in Jesus Christ and heaven as our
eternal destiny, but we continue to live in deliberate and premeditated and
habitual sin against our Lord, we will not inherit eternal life with God. We
will die in our sins because we refused to die with Christ to our sins. But if
we walk according to the Spirit and no longer according to the flesh, then we
have eternal life.
[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17;
Eph 4:17-24; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10, 19-20; 2 Co 5:10,
15; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Rom
12:1-8; 1 Co 12:1-31; Eph 4:1-16; Jn 6:44; Eph 2:8-10;
Heb 12:1-2]
Whoever Does not Believe
John 3:17-18 ESV
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
When Jesus Christ came the first time he came to save, not
to condemn, not in the sense of eternal judgment. That will happen when he
returns, and he judges the people of the earth, and he takes his bride to be
with him for eternity. But this is not to say that he didn’t make judgments on
people’s lives. He did! Read what he said to the Pharisees!
But it wasn’t just to the Pharisees that he made these
judgments. He said we have to deny self, die with him daily to sin, and that we
have to follow him in obedience, or we will lose our lives for eternity. He
made it quite clear that to follow him means to leave our past lives behind us
and to go wherever he commands us to go and to do whatever he says to do.
For, you see, our salvation is not just forgiveness of sins
so that one day we can go to heaven when we die. Our salvation is dying with
Christ to sin daily and living to Christ and to his righteousness. It is being
delivered from our slavery to sin so that we can now be slaves of God and of
his righteousness, with him as our only Lord (owner-master).
So, believing in Jesus means we are dying with him to sin
and living to him and to his righteousness. And not believing in him means we
are going the way of the flesh, doing whatever our flesh dictates that we
should do, continuing to live in deliberate and habitual sin without regard for
God or for what he requires of us in the way of holy living.
So, if we choose to turn our back on the Lord and to go our
own way and to live for the pleasures of the flesh and not for our Lord, then
we are self-condemned, for we refused the ways of righteousness and holiness
that God had planned for us and we chose the ways of wickedness, instead.
This is the Judgment
John 3:19-21 ESV
“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
Jesus is the light that has come into the world. His truth,
his gospel is the light. Also righteousness is the light. It is the opposite of
darkness, which is wickedness, Satan, and lies. But many people, including many
people who profess faith in Jesus Christ, love the darkness rather than the
light because their deeds are evil, and they don’t want to give up their evil
deeds.
So, they create their own gospel message in the image of
man, instead of in the likeness of Jesus Christ, and they convince themselves
that they can believe in Jesus and have heaven secured them but that they can
continue living in their sinful ways. For they see God’s grace and their
salvation as merely forgiveness of sins and the promise of heaven for eternity.
But the Scriptures are clear on this subject. If you choose
to not come into the light of truth which requires dying with Christ to sin and
living to Christ and to his righteousness, but you choose to continue living in
sin, in willful defiance against the Lord, you will NOT inherit eternal life
with God. It doesn’t matter what you profess with your lips. What matters is
what you do in heart response to the Lord Jesus in following him where he leads
you.
Jesus,
Lead Me
An
Original Work / July 22, 2011
Jesus, lead me all the way.
Be my hope and be my stay.
Gently lead me where I should go,
So Your Spirit, I want to know.
Open up my heart to You.
Fill me with Your love and truth.
Make my heart want to obey.
Be my Lord today. Gently lead always.
Jesus, lover of my soul,
Cleanse my heart, and make me whole;
Be transformed in my heart today,
As I turn from my sin and pray.
Make Your will known to my heart.
May I not from You depart.
How I long to hear You now,
As I humbly bow. Jesus, hear me now.
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