“Come, let us worship and bow down,
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you would hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
When your fathers tested Me,
They tried Me, though they had seen My work.
For forty years I loathed that generation,
And said they are a people who err in their heart,
And they do not know My ways.
Therefore I swore in My anger,
Truly they shall not enter into My rest.” (Psalm 95:6-11 NASB1995)
True worship of God is not just in the singing of “worship”
songs, many of which today are so diluted and do not express what true worship
of God is all about. True biblical worship of God is not just in the waving of
our arms and hands and in the swaying of our bodies to the music in large
gatherings which are publicly described as “worship” of God. Just because a
crowd of people gather together and sing “worship” songs, it does not mean at
all that what they are doing is true worship of God, in spirit and in truth.
True worship of God is in the surrendering of our lives to
the Lord to do his will. It is in the forsaking of our sins and a lifelong
commitment to obey our Lord and his New Covenant commandments, to walk in his
ways and in his truth and righteousness, and to be his servants and witnesses
in getting the truth of the gospel out to the people of the world. True worship
of our Lord requires that we die with Christ to sin and that we now obey our
Lord in doing what he has called all of his followers to do, in service to him.
And if we are truly the sheep of his pasture, we are listening
for his voice speaking truth to our hearts, we are heeding his words, and we
are following him in obedience to his commands, and we are not living our lives
for the pleasures of this sinful world. And he gives us salvation (deliverance)
from our addictions to sin, and he promises eternal life to us who are
following him in obedience, and for whom sin is no longer what we practice
(John 10:27-30). But we must continue in him until the very end (Matthew 24:13).
For, faith in Jesus Christ, which comes from God, and which
is persuaded of God as to his righteousness and holiness, and of our
sinfulness, and of our need to die with him to sin and to now walk with him in
obedience to his commands, is not of our own doing. We don’t get to choose what
that faith looks like. God does. And his word teaches us that faith in Jesus,
which is of God, will result in us denying self, dying daily to sin, by the
Spirit, and us walking (in conduct, in practice) in obedience to our Lord’s
commands.
But many people today are not being taught that as the faith
which saves. Many are teaching that lip service only to God grants them
forgiveness of all sins and heaven guaranteed them when they die, but
regardless of how they live. And even if some are still teaching death to sin
and walks of obedience to our Lord’s commands, many of them are teaching that
as optional, and not as required by God for us to have salvation from sin and
eternal life with God. But the Scriptures contradict such a belief as that.
The Scriptures make it clear that faith, which saves, which
is of God, and which is not of our own doing, will result in us giving our
lives to the Lord in death to sin and in walks of obedience to his commands. We
now belong to him and we no longer are the boss of our own lives. For if we
continue living in sin, and not in walks of surrender to God in obedience to
our Lord and his commands, we are not in relationship with God, we are not
saved from our sins, and we do not have eternal life with God guaranteed us
when we die.
[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John
6:44; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1
Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32;
Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 12:1-2;
1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10]
My Sheep
Based off John 10:1-30 NIV
An Original Work / June 24, 2012
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love
My sheep hear me.
They know me.
They listen to my
voice and obey.
I call them and lead
them.
They know my voice,
so they follow me.
They will never
follow strangers.
They will run away
from them.
The voice of a
stranger they know not;
They do not follow
him.
So, I tell you the
truth that
I am the gate, so
you enter in.
Whoever does enter
Will find
forgiveness and will be saved.
Nonetheless whoever
enters
Not by the gate;
other way,
He is the thief and
a robber.
Listen not, the
sheep to him.
Oh, I am the Good
Shepherd,
Who laid his own
life down for the sheep.
I know them. They
know me.
They will live with
me eternally.
The thief only comes
to steal and
Kill and to destroy
the church.
I have come to give
you life that
You may have it to
the full…
They know my voice,
so they follow me.
Kneel Before the Lord our Maker
No comments:
Post a Comment