Then You Will be Approved by God

1 John 3:11-16 ESV

“For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”

So, who was Cain? He was the firstborn son of Adam and Eve who were the first humans God created. Their second born son was Abel. Abel was a keeper of the sheep and Cain was a worker of the ground. In the course of time they each brought an offering to the Lord. The Lord accepted Abel’s offering, but he rejected Cain’s, so Cain was very angry with God.

“The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.’ Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him” (Genesis 4:6-8 ESV).

So, what is this saying to us, as followers of Jesus Christ? Well, first of all the message is that we are to love one another as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. And this word “love” means to prefer what God prefers, and to prefer to live through Christ and to do his will in obedience to his commands in his power and strength and wisdom. And what does God prefer? Holiness, righteousness, godliness, faithfulness, moral purity, honesty, uprightness, obedience to him, and us not walking in sin.

When we love one another with this kind of love, we are preferring what God prefers, and so we will not deliberately and habitually sin against others, and we will not treat them with hate and rejection and do evil to them. And we will not make false judgments against them based on our own selves and on our own traditions and culture and religious practices or other practices. And if we must judge, we will judge uprightly and fairly and according to the teachings of Christ and the apostles, in full context of what they taught.

And I stress context because we can get many false ideas of what our Lord taught and of what the apostles taught when we pull some Scriptures out of their context and we try to interpret them separate from the rest of the teachings of Christ and of his New Testament apostles. For honestly, there are some passages of Scripture, which in our English translations, anyway, are difficult to understand. And there we must read them in context, and then compare them with other Scriptures teaching on the same subject.

Now God is not pleased with every offering we think we are giving to him. All throughout the Scriptures we read of times when God’s people offered to him what appeared to be the right kinds of offerings, such as animal sacrifices and tithing and fasting, etc., and yet God was not pleased with them. Why? Because they were just going through the motions of religious practice but their hearts were far from God, and they honored him with lip service only, but their lives were not surrendered to the Lord to do his will.

And sometimes we will be hated or rejected or disapproved by others who also claim faith in Jesus Christ, and perhaps because our sacrifice to God is not like what they give to God, even though ours is biblical (under the New Covenant) and it is what God requires of us now in thought and word and deed. And they may try to persuade us that we must be like them, in practice, perhaps a lot like the Judaizers did with the NT Christians, in trying to convince them that they had to be circumcised, and that they had to follow certain Old Covenant liturgical and ceremonial laws and restrictions.

But we are not to be like that. Yes, we must hold fast to the truths of what Jesus and the NT apostles taught under the New Covenant, in context, in the whole of that truth. But we must not judge others on the basis of human tradition or what is of the Old Covenant or on the basis of cultural religious practices, etc., especially not hypocritically. But many people are offering to God religious rituals, and they will think that we should join them, and if we do not, they may turn against us, and they may reject and even hate us, and they may disown or even kill us, if not literally, then with words.

And sometimes people, even professing Christians, will hate and resent us because they know that what they are doing is evil and against God, and they know that what we are doing is righteous and in obedience to the Lord. And so we will be an offense to them because of our walks of faith. And our walks of faith, even without a word to them, will be a continual reminder that how they are living is against God and not for God and that they need to have a change of heart and mind, resulting in change of behavior, if they want to be in right standing with God and to be approved by God.

For such was the case with Cain who hated his brother and thus murdered him because his own deeds were evil but his brother’s deeds were righteous.

So, don’t be like Cain. Don’t walk in sin, for one. Don’t make evil deeds your practice. But be one who walks in obedience to the Lord and who walks in holiness and righteousness, and not in sin, and then you will be approved by God. And not like Cain, perhaps, but don’t just follow a set of religious rituals and then expect others to follow the same rituals and traditions you follow. Read the New Testament, Matthew thru Revelation, word for word, and then do it again and again until you get the context of the whole of the message.

For there are many people in Christian circles who are judging other Christians based on faulty understandings of what the Scriptures teach, as a whole, on particular subjects, and they are listening to other humans who have passed down to them religious rules, or the absence of all rules, and so they do not approve of others’ offerings to God, based on their own religious experiences, and not based off the teachings of the NT, as a whole. And some of this judging does turn to hate and to the mistreatment of others who are truly serving the Lord Jesus with their lives.

[Matt 5:10-12; Matt 10:16-25; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 6:22-23; Lu 21:12-19; Jn 15:1-21; Jn 16:33; Jn 17:14; Ac 14:22; Rom 5:3-5; Phil 3:7-11; 1 Pet 1:6-7; 1 Pet 4:12-17; 2 Tim 3:12; 1 Thess 3:1-5; Jas 1:2-4; 2 Co 1:3-11; Heb 12:3-12; 1 Jn 3:13; Rev 6:9-11; Rev 7:9-17; Rev 11:1-3; Rev 12:17; Rev 13:1-18; Rev 14:1-13]

Songs in the Night  

An Original Work / December 18, 2013

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.” Acts 16:25 NIV ‘84

Lord, I praise You forevermore.

You, my Savior, I now adore.

Hope in heaven awaiting me,

Because You died at Calvary.

I have been forgiven,

And I’m bound for heaven.

Jesus set me free from

All my sin, I say.

I will praise Him always!

Lord, I love You for all You’ve done:

Overcame death, my vict’ry won!

Jesus saved me, and now I’m free!

I rejoice in His love for me.

I will walk in vict’ry!

My sin is but hist’ry!

I am free to please Him

With my life today.

I will love Him always!

Lord, I thank You for giving me

A new life bought at Calvary.

Loving Jesus, I meet with Him.

Tender mercies now flow within.

Lord, I am so thankful;

Through my Lord, I’m able

To sit at His table;

Fellowship with Him.

I will thank Him always!

https://vimeo.com/379484387