Run With It: Keep Your Lamps Burning

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Keep Your Lamps Burning

“Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Luke 12:35-40 ESV)

Jesus Christ is the one speaking here. Early on in this chapter he warned us against false teachers who are hypocritical liars. And he warned us against fearing people in positions of power and authority, fearing their opinions of us or what they might do to us or say about us or to us. For “killing the body” includes slaying (destroying, defeating, shooting down) what is in our minds and hearts and words and beliefs. It isn’t all about physical death.

And he warned us that we must fear him who has the authority and power to cast people into hell. For to fear the Lord is to take him and his word seriously, to believe what he says, and then to act upon that belief with our actions and thinking and attitudes and behaviors. For if we truly believe God will cast us into hell if we walk in sin and not in righteousness and holiness, then it should keep us from following after sin, and we should obey the Lord.

And now we are being strongly encouraged to remain faithful in our walks with the Lord in holiness and in righteousness and not in deliberate and habitual sin against the Lord Jesus. We are to keep following the Lord in obedience to his ways, and we are to keep sharing with others the truth of the gospel which can save their souls from hell. We are to remain sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit and to keep following his daily leading.

We need to be those who are spiritually ready all the time for our Lord, our spiritual husband, to return for us, his bride, if indeed we are his faithful bride who is not living in adultery against her husband. For, despite what many are teaching today, we are not saved from our sins and on our way to heaven based on a confession in Christ as Savior and Lord but if we continue living for self and in deliberate and habitual sin against our Lord Christ.

For if we get cocky and think that God now owes us his heaven based on our confession of him as Lord and Savior, and so we get lazy and careless and so we keep on living in sin and for self, or we return to walking in sin and no longer in holiness and righteousness, then we must know what the Scriptures teach on that subject. For they teach that if sin is our practice and not obedience to Christ, we will not inherit eternal life with God.

So don’t get this idea that if you make a confession of Christ as your Lord and Savior that all your sins are forgiven (past, present, and future), that now heaven is guaranteed you when you die, and that it can’t be taken away from you, regardless of how you live. For the Scriptures teach that we must deny self, die daily to sin, and follow our Lord in obedience to his commands, in practice, if we want salvation from sin and eternal life with God.

So don’t think that all these biblical warnings are not for you. Most of these warnings in the Scriptures against living in sin and against disobedience to the Lord and the end results are given to those who profess the name of Jesus. They are given to the church so that they should not be prideful and cocky and think that God will not judge them. For Jesus said that not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING the will of God the Father in heaven (Matthew 7:21-23).

“Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.” (Luke 12:48 ESV)

Just please know what the Scriptures teach (in context), for they teach that if we walk in sin and not in righteousness and not in obedience to our Lord that it will mean death for us, not life eternal. We can profess faith in Jesus Christ all we want and yet he will say to us, “I never knew you. Depart from me you workers of lawlessness,” if we do not obey him but we continue to live in deliberate and habitual sin against our Lord and against other people.

[Matthew 7:21-23; Luke 9:23-26; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Corinthians 5:15; Galatians 5:16-21; Galatians 6:7-8; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Hebrews 10:23-31; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10]

My Lord, What a Morning

Spiritual, United States, 18th or 19th Century

My Lord, what a morning!
My Lord, what a morning!
Oh, my Lord, what a morning
when the stars begin to fall.

Oh, you will hear the trumpet sound
to wake the nations underground,
Looking to my Lord's right hand
when the stars begin to fall.

Oh, you will see my Jesus come,
His glory shining like the sun,
Looking to my Lord's right hand
When the stars begin to fall.

Oh, you will hear all Christians shout,
'Cause there's a new day come about,
Looking to my Lord's right hand
When the stars begin to fall

My Lord, what a morning!
My Lord, what a morning!
Oh, my Lord, what a morning
when the stars begin to fall.