1 Corinthians 2:1-5 ESV
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
When we trust in Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of our
lives our lives, we now belong to him to serve him the rest of our days. We are
now his possession, his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works
which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them. So now we are to walk
(in conduct, in practice) according to the Spirit and no longer according to
the flesh. Now we are to walk in obedience to our Lord in holiness and in
righteousness and no longer as slaves to sin, but as servants of the Lord.
[Ephesians 2:8-10; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Titus
2:11-14]
So, all of us who profess faith in Jesus Christ should be
servants of the Lord. And we should see our lives as no longer our own but as
belonging to the Lord to do his will. We who have been crucified with Christ in
death to sin, and who have been raised with Christ to walk in newness of life
in him, should no longer view our lives as our own to do with whatever we want.
But now we should have the mind of Christ that we are here to do God’s will.
For we are his temple and he now dwells within us.
[Ac 2:42-47; Ac 7:48-50; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Rom 12:1-8;
1 Co 3:9,16-17; 1 Co 6:19-20; 1 Co. 12:1-31; 2
Co 5:1; 2 Co 6:14-16; Eph 1:4,22; Eph 2:19-22; Eph
4:1-32; Eph 5:17-30; Col 1:18-24; Col 2:19; Col 3:12-16; 2 Tim 1:9; 2 Tim
2:21; 1 Pet 1:13-16; 1 Pet 2:4-9; Titus 2:11-14; Heb
3:13; Lu 9:23-26; Jude 1:20-21; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10]
So, when we are serving the Lord, we do not do this in our
own flesh of our own accord. For we may be doing “good deeds,” but they may not
be the good deeds which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them.
For there are a lot of “good deed doers” in this world who are not in
relationship with Jesus Christ at all. So, our lives must be surrendered to
Jesus Christ to do his will, for this is the reason he created us and that he
called us to his service (see Hebrews 10:5-9; Romans 8:28; Titus 2:11-14; 2
Peter 1:3).
So, when we share the gospel of our salvation with other
people, and we proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness
into his wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9), we do this in the power and strength of
our Lord and under the direction of the Holy Spirit. And so our flesh should
not be a part of this. We shouldn’t be saying to people what we think they want
to hear or what will get us liked by other people so that we have thousands of
followers, but we share the truth that Jesus and his NT apostles taught.
And Jesus said that if anyone would come after him that 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 we lose our lives, i.e. if we are
crucified with Christ in death to sin so that we can now live to him and to his
righteousness, then we have the hope of eternal life. For Jesus said that if
anyone is ashamed of him and of his words, he will be ashamed of him when he
returns (see Luke 9:23-26).
Jesus also said that not everyone who says to him, “Lord,
Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven but only the one DOING the will of God
the Father who is in heaven. For many are going to stand before him on that Day
and they are going to call him, “Lord,” and they are going to claim many things
they believed they did in his name, and he is going to say to them, “I never
knew you. Depart from me you workers of lawlessness,” because they refused to
obey the Lord but they did things their way (Matthew 7:21-23).
So, if we want to be true followers of Jesus Christ who are
committed to doing his will and to serving him with our lives, which is what we
all must do if we are his true followers, then we must surrender our lives to Christ
to do his will like Jesus submitted to the Father to do his will. And we must
speak the words of the truth of the gospel and not the lies which tickle
itching ears and which people like to hear. For we want people to be of true
faith in Jesus Christ so that they will enter the kingdom of heaven and so that
Jesus will not be ashamed of them when he returns.
The Longer I Serve Him
William J. Gaither
Since I started for
the Kingdom,
Since my life He
controls,
Since I gave my
heart to Jesus,
The longer I serve
Him,
The sweeter He
grows.
The longer I serve
Him, the sweeter He grows,
The more that I love
Him, more love He bestows;
Each day is like
heaven, my heart overflows,
The longer I serve
Him, the sweeter He grows.
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