Isaiah 55:6-7 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.”
Seek the Lord while he may be found, because he is not going
to extend his mercy to us forever. He is not always going to be there. One day
God is going to judge the earth and the people on the earth and we will all
have to stand before God and be judged by our deeds (Romans 2:6-8). And not
everyone is going to heaven. Most people are not, because most people are traveling
the broad road which leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14).
So, don’t take God and his mercy for granted. Don’t think
that one day you will finally surrender your life to Christ but for now you are
going to continue in deliberate and habitual sin, making sin your practice. And
don’t think that God’s grace is merely forgiveness of sins so you can go to
heaven when you die, either, or that because of his grace that you can keep on
sinning deliberately and habitually and that God will not judge you for those
sins.
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:1-4 ESV).
Now, not everyone who has gone through water baptism was
baptized into Christ’s death. Water baptism does not equal dying with Christ to
sin. This is speaking of a spiritual baptism of the heart whereby we do die
with Christ to sin and we are raised with him to walk in newness of life in
him, and it is what our water baptism should represent, this dying to sin and
walking in newness of life in Christ, created to be like God in true
righteousness and holiness. So we are not to continue living in sin. This makes
that clear!
So, if you are still living in deliberate and habitual sin,
then you must forsake your wicked ways and your unrighteous thoughts, and you
must turn to the Lord in humility and repentance and in obedience and now walk
in his ways and in his truth, for this is the essence of the gospel message.
For Jesus died on that cross that we might die with him to
sin and live to him and to his righteousness, and that we might now live for
him and no longer for ourselves. And he shed his blood for us to buy us back
for God (to redeem us) so we would now be God’s possession, and so we would now
honor him with our lives (1 Pet 2:24; 2 Co 5:15,21; 1 Co 6:19-20).
And 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. For if we hold on to our old lives of living in sin and for self,
we will lose them for eternity. But if for the sake of the name of Jesus we are
crucified with him in death to sin and raised with him to walk in newness of
life in him, and so we are now walking in righteousness and in obedience to
him, then we have the hope of eternal life with God (Luke 9:23-26).
Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV
“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.”
Now our Lord’s thoughts can become our thoughts when we surrender
our lives to him and we adopt his way of thinking into our own way of thinking,
making his thoughts now our thoughts. And those of us who love the Lord and who
are following him with our lives do have the mind of Christ within us (1 Co
2:16). So the longer we know the Lord, the more that his thoughts should become
our thoughts, too. But in our human flesh, we do not have the mind of God.
And this really is speaking of human reason and thinking
versus God’s reasoning and thinking. And this can be true of us who are
following Jesus with our lives, too, that sometimes we may revert to human
logic and reasoning when that is not the plan of God for our lives. We may have
in our minds that things should look or go a certain way when that is not God’s
intentions for us at all. So we should seek the mind of God in all things.
And this may apply, as well, to those who are making up
their own Jesus and their own gospel in their own minds. And so they think that
they don’t have to forsake their sins, and that they don’t have to turn to the
Lord in surrender of their lives to his will for their lives. They think that
Jesus should just forgive them of their sins and promise them heaven when they
die because they gave lip service to him. But God doesn’t work that way.
But if we do repent of our sins, and we do forsake them, and
now we are following Jesus Christ with our lives, and we are walking in
righteousness and in obedience to his commands (New Covenant), and not in sin, then
according to the New Testament Scriptures we do have forgiveness of sins and we
do have the hope of eternal life with God. But not so for those who refuse to
repent and to obey the Lord. Those who continue in deliberate and habitual sin
will not inherit eternal life with God.
Bring Him Home
By Alain Boublil / Claude Michel Schonberg / Herbert
Kretzmer
God on high
Hear my prayer
In my need
You have always been there
He is young
He's afraid
Let him rest
Heaven blessed.
Bring him home
He's like the son I might have known
If God had granted me a son.
The summers die
One by one
How soon they fly
On and on
And I am old
And will be gone.
Bring him peace
Bring him joy
He is young
He is only a boy
You can take
You can give
Let him be
Let him live
If I die, let me die
Let him live
Bring him home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXnRf3TQcpk
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