Isaiah 55:6-9 ESV
“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
While He May Be Found
The Lord and his salvation are not going to be available
forever. One day he is going to return to judge the people of the earth and to
take his bride to be with him for eternity. And to be his bride we must deny
self, take up our cross daily (daily die with him to sin and to self) and
follow him in obedience to his ways and to his commands (Lu 9:23-26; Rom
6:1-23; Eph 4:17-24).
Many people today are professing faith in Jesus Christ who
are not living for the Lord but they are still living for their flesh, for
self-pleasure, in deliberate and habitual sin against God and against their fellow
human beings. And according to the Scriptures, they are not in fellowship with
God, they don’t know God, they don’t love him, and they don’t have eternal life
with him.
[Rom 2:6-8; Gal 6:7-8; 2 Co 5:10; 1 Co 6:9-10; 1 Pet
1:17-21; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Rom 6:16; Rom 8:1-17; Jn 15:1-11; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1
Jn 3:4-10; Rev. 2-3; Rev 21:8, 27; Rev 22:14-15; Matt 7:21-23; Heb 10:26-27]
Some of them faked or are faking their Christianity, putting
on a show of righteousness while they continue to live in sexual immorality,
and in pride, and in idolatry. And some of them are now backing away from their
facades and they are not making a show of righteousness but they are now just
living however they want, but still hiding their sins in secret.
Instead of making a pretense of living righteously they are
just wasting time, watching movies and videos and playing on Facebook, etc.
seemingly living aimlessly, just living for the day doing whatever pleases them
at that moment, and engaging in sexual immorality and in all kinds of immoral
behaviors. They are just messing around, not taking God and his word and his
judgements seriously. So, they are basically testing fate.
And a big reason that people are doing this, professing to
be Christians while living in sin and in gross immorality is because they
believe that God’s grace gives them that freedom to keep on living in sin only
now without guilt and without the fear of punishment and with a guarantee that
heaven will be their eternal destiny no matter how they live their lives on
this earth.
Let the Wicked Forsake his Way
But God’s grace does not grant us permission to keep on in
our sins in sinful rebellion against our Lord and in deliberate and habitual
sin. His grace, which brings us salvation, instructs us to say “No!” to
ungodliness and fleshly lusts and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly
lives while we wait for our Lord’s return. For his grace delivered us from our
slavery to sin so we would now be slaves of God and of his righteousness.
So, if we continue in deliberate and habitual sin, thinking
it doesn’t matter to God, and that we can just sin as much as we want while we
claim Jesus as our Savior and heaven as our eternal destiny, then we need to
think that over again, only this time by reading what the Scriptures teach us
(in context) and not by cherry picking the Scriptures we like while we discard
all the ones we don’t like because they don’t fit with our lifestyles.
Again, salvation from sin is not going to be offered
indefinitely, so please don’t play around with sin and take lightly the
judgments of God. For we will all reap what we sow on this earth. If we sow to
please the flesh, from the flesh we will reap destruction, but if we sow to
please the Spirit, from the Spirit we will reap eternal life. So, obedience and
repentance and submission to Christ as Lord are critical to our salvation and to
eternal life with God.
So, if this is where you are, living in sin and for self
while testing fate and not taking God’s judgments seriously, then I pray you
will repent of your sinful practices, and that you will change, in truth, by
the power of God, away from living in sin and for self to now walking in
obedience to our Lord in surrender to his will for our lives.
For, if we do not forsake our wicked ways, heaven is not our
eternal destiny, but hell is. It doesn’t matter what you profess with your lips
or think you believe in your heart. We must die with Christ to sin daily and
follow him in obedience to his commands. It doesn’t mean we will live perfect
lives, but it means that sin no longer has dominion over our lives but Jesus is
truly Lord (owner-master) of our lives. And we live to serve him.
His Thoughts and our Thoughts
We can’t go by our own thinking and reasoning. We can’t go
by our own opinions, for if they are our opinions and not of the Spirit of God,
because they do not agree with God and with his word, then they are lies, and
they will lead us astray if we give in to them. For we can’t go by our feelings
and our emotions, either, but we must set God’s word as our standard.
When our thoughts conform to his thoughts then we are on the
right path. So, we can’t just make it up as we go along and expect God to go
along with us. He doesn’t work that way. The New Testament is loaded with instructions
and warnings to the church letting us know God’s standards which we are to
follow and letting us know the things we are to discard from our lives. And we need
to do what the Lord says if we want eternal life with him.
The Lord does long to be gracious to us and to show us
compassion and mercy. He wants to pardon our sins and to give us new lives in
him free from the control of sin and of Satan and free now to walk in holiness and
righteousness in the power of God. For he is not willing that any should perish
but that all should come to repentance. But we have to do things his way, not go
with our way of thinking that God should align with us.
So, again, if this describes you, just living for self and
for self-pleasure, doing what you want with the time you have been given, just
wasting away your days on things which are meaningless and which have no
eternal value, and on things which are evil and which are against God and our
fellow humans, then I pray you would forsake your sins and follow Jesus in
obedience while there is still time and while he is still near.
[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 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:19-20; 2 Co 5:15; Tit 2:11-14; Jas 1:22-25; 1
Jn 1:5-9; Rom 12:1-2; Eph 2:8-10; 1 Co 15:58; Php 2:12-13; Col 1:21-23]
Pie Jesu
Songwriter: Andrew Lloyd-Webber
Merciful Jesus,
Pie Jesu,
Who takes away the sins of the world
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Give them rest, grant them rest
Dona eis requiem, dona eis requiem
Lamb of God
Agnus Dei,
Who takes away the sins of the world
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Grant them eternal rest
Dona eis requiem
Forever
Sempiternam
Requiem
Requiem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46wueF4OKck
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