“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
“Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Romans 13:8-14 ESV)
Lately I have been very aware of the reality that so many people who profess faith in Jesus Christ only want to hear what makes them feel good. They only or primarily only want to hear about the good that God wants to do for them, to bless them, but not about the good that they are to do for God, to bless him. They want to hear about how Jesus gave his life up for them on a cross to forgive them their sins and to promise them eternal life, but they don’t want to hear about how they need to give up their lives to serve the Lord and to die with him to sin and to obey his commands.
I hear so many different gospel presentations, many of which totally leave out the believers’ requirement of God to die with him to sin and to walk with him in obedience to his commands if they want salvation from sin and eternal life with God. But Jesus said it when he said that if anyone would come after him he must deny self and take up his cross daily (die daily to sin and to self) and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to living in sin, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we die to sin and walk in obedience to our Lord, then we have the hope of eternal life with God (Luke 9:23-26).
Now some people take it to the extreme one direction and they only say that we need to make a profession of faith in Jesus and now all our sins are forgiven and we are on our way to heaven, but regardless of how we live. Well, some take it even further than that by denying that we must repent of our sins and that we must obey our Lord’s commands. And others will teach that we are to forsake our sins and to follow Jesus in obedience, but they leave it more like a recommendation rather than as a command of the Lord, and they do not warn of the consequences should we continue living in sin.
Now, what does this have to do with loving other humans? Everything!! For if we feed them lies or deliberate half-truths (lies) and we tell them that all they have to do is to “receive Jesus into their hearts,” but without telling them that faith in Jesus Christ means death to sin and walks of obedience to our Lord in holy living, and without warning them that if they continue living in sin and not in walks of obedience to the Lord, that they will not have eternal life with God, then that is not love. If we knowingly do this, it is selfishness, probably because we want to be liked by them, instead.
For there are so many professing Christians, at least here in America, who are still walking in sin, living for the flesh, doing whatever it is they want to do with their lives, without regard for God and for what he wants for their lives, and without regard for his commands that we no longer walk in sin – lying, cheating, stealing, committing adultery, hating, murdering, and the like. They feel they have their “ticket into heaven,” which they believe can’t be taken away from them, and that all their sins are forgiven, so they have little conscience about how they live and whether or not God is pleased.
And then we have so many people pronouncing the blessings of God over some people who are not even living for the Lord. And they could be moral people, but their lives are still not surrendered to do the will of God with their lives. But with all of God’s promises to his people come stipulations, i.e. requirements. For example I hear so many people quoting the second half of Romans 8, and they are giving out these promises to everyone who professes the name of Jesus, but if you read the first half of Romans 8 you will realize that those promises are for those who are obeying the Lord.
For the love that we are to have for other humans is agape love, which prefers what God prefers, which is all that is holy, righteous, godly, morally pure, upright, honest, faithful, and obedient to the Lord. And when we love God with this love we will prefer to live through Christ and to walk in obedience to his commands in holy living, as empowered by God. And we will not deliberately and habitually sin against the Lord nor against other human beings, especially not against those closest to us. For that is not love. But we will want to serve and honor the Lord and do what is right to others.
But to love others as God loves us is to show concern for their spiritual conditions, as well as to be concerned when they are hurting emotionally and/or physically. And so this love will speak the truth of the gospel of our salvation to other humans, and we will not cut the gospel message short to make it less offensive or more appealing to human flesh. For lies, although they may feel good, are never kind. If all we do is just tell people the feel good stuff, even if it does not apply to them, then we are not loving them. But they will like us, and they will approve of us, because it felt good.
So, why am I saying all of this? Because it needs to be said, and because it relates to the second half of this passage of Scripture, as well as to the first half. For our salvation from sin is not a one-time experience that we go through and now heaven is guaranteed us when we die and now Jesus is going to bless us and be there for us regardless if we are there for him or not. Our salvation is something that is progressive, if we are truly saved, and it will not be complete until Jesus returns for his FAITHFUL ones and he takes us to be with him for eternity, and only if we continue in that faith.
For Jesus also said that not everyone who says to him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING the will of God the Father. And many professing Christians will stand before the Lord on the day of judgment, and they will proclaim him as “Lord,” and they will claim all that 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 did not walk in obedience to the Lord, but they still lived to please the flesh. But few are preparing them for that eventuality (see Matthew 7:21-23).
For look at what this last section of the Scripture passage is saying to us. Those who are still spiritually asleep, even if they profess Jesus as Lord, need to wake up from their slumber and realize the times that we live in and the nearness of our Lord’s return, which is when our salvation will be complete. And they need to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, God’s spiritual armor of his salvation, the Scriptures, our faith, etc. (Ephesians 6:10-20). And all of us need to walk in moral purity and not in sensuality, and we are to make no provision for the flesh.
Why? Because if we don’t, and if we go on living in sin and not in walks of obedience to the Lord Jesus, it won’t matter what our lips professed. We will die in our sins, we will not have eternal life with God, and heaven will not be our eternal destiny, but hell will be. So, please take what I have just shared with you to heart, and please read the following Scriptures and let the Lord speak truth to your hearts. For if we walk in sin, and not in obedience to our Lord, and if we are not following God’s will for our lives, but we are living life as we want it, we will not have life eternal with God.
[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Acts 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; 1 Pet 2:24; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]
No Less
An Original Work / March 19, 2012
I can do no less than praise You,
Lord, for all You’ve done for me.
You died for my sins to save me,
So I would be set free.
I adore You! Lord, I praise You!
Jesus, Savior, King of kings!
You provided my redemption.
Your grace has pardoned me.
I can do no less than serve You.
Lord, Your witness I would be,
Telling others of Your love,
And why You died on that tree.
Tell of how You gave of Your life,
So from sin we’d be set free,
So we could worship You forever,
And live eternally.
I can do no less than love You,
Lord, for You have first loved me.
You gave of Your life so willing,
Because You cared for me.
Turn from my sin! Obey freely!
Live for You each passing day.
Read Your word, and follow Your lead,
Lord, as I humbly pray.
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