Allow me to address the second question first.
John writes in his first letter that ‘the world is passing away and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. (2:17)
Jesus Himself offered up this very sobering warning that probably does not get addressed enough: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” (Matt 7:21)
Can we pause here for a moment and let those words just sink in…
And dare we read the next two lines…
“Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you ; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”
So now that the answer to the second question is clear, I would think, maybe we should be more concerned to know just what is the ‘will of God’?
Certainly there has to be more to all this ‘faith’ than just giving lip service and acknowledging Him, then maybe joining a church and driving a ministry bus and reading your bible more often, yes?
[if you hear a little voice telling you: ‘oh, now he is teaching we are saved by works’, don’t buy it. It’s another head fake by the enemy to get you away from the Word]
There is that quaint passage in 1 Cor 13 that we like to read at weddings that describes ‘love’.
I only say ‘quaint’ because we are all so familiar with it, but I fear it’s one of those many passages that we just ‘glaze’ over reading and singing about but fall short of implementing. And we know what James says happens if we are just ‘hearers of the word and not doer (we deceive ourselves)
But it’s the first three verses that really hit me this weekend. Paul begins to list various things that Christians can often find themselves involved with as part of their ‘religious activities’ depending on the circles they travel in.
He said that you can speak with or in tongues of men and of angels ( a legitimate spiritual gift) but if you ‘have not love’ you are about as effective as banging some noisy metal cymbals.
It is possible to ‘prophesy’ or speak the oracles of God (remember our guy in Matt 7:22?) and understand all mysteries and have great faith that moves mountains, but if you don’t have love, you are Nothing. (read that last word again)
And get this next line…you can give away all your earthly good to feed the poor. Why you might even ‘give up your body to be burned’ (not entirely sure the extent of this last one but it sounds serious) but if you are lacking love, these seemingly devoted acts of service have ‘profited you nothing’.
He then of course goes on to describe in detail those familiar passages as to what the true, genuine ‘God-kind-of-love’ looks like.
Allow me to cut to the chase this morning and offer up this morsel of thought as to what the ‘will of God’ might be for you, and me, and everyone else.
God sent His Son Jesus into this world to lead us out of darkness and to transform us.
He came to conform us in to His image and character. (God is Love, yes?). Romans 8:28-29 talks about how ‘all things work together for good for them who love God…and are being conformed to His image that He (Jesus) was to be the firstborn of many brethren.
He came to perfect us in Love. His kind of Love. Love from a pure heart. That is what ‘holiness’ is. Being perfected in the God kind of love. And the biggest obstacle that stands in the way is this old selfish, sinful, prideful heart of flesh nature. (1 John 4:12, 17; 1 Tim 1:5; John 13:35; 1 Peter 1:15-16)
It is why He begins to leads us to put it to death so we can be perfected in love. And by this, will all men know we are His disciples, but the love we have one for another.
You don’t ‘make it happen’. We cannot produce that kind of love. It’s impossible. We can have pleasant personalities, and act nice and kind at times. We can say we ‘love’ people and God, for that matter. But the ‘God kind of agape love’ only comes about if/when we die.
This is what the Gospel is all about. There is no new life until the old life dies. We cannot become a ‘new creation’ until the old creation is dealt with.
And our flesh resists it at every turn. It is an ‘enemy of the cross’. As are anyone who preach you can be saved and still keep this old nature.
Why do you think Peter writes ‘Do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you.’ (1 Pet 4:12). James chimes in telling us to ‘count it all joy’ when we face these trials or tests because it is the refining process of God’s sanctifying spirit who is cleaning us up, purifying our hearts, making us holy and blameless, without stain, spot, or wrinkle.
In case you have not heard, there is a wedding approaching and He’s coming back for a pure and holy bride. (Eph 5:25-26)
The last chapter in Daniel gives insight to the ‘latter times’ in verse 10 writing that ‘many shall be purified, made white, and refined but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand but the wise shall understand.’ (12:10)
When you encounter these ‘trials and test’, God is bringing you through the fire to show you what is in your heart that needs to be repented of, removed, cleansed and thrown out. It’s all those sinful deeds of the flesh nature. You can’t ‘get on the boat’ with all that junk.
When we read about those ‘getting saved through the fire’…what do you think it refers to? There is a purifying work that is going on and for many of us, God had to put us on the ‘fast track’. Time is getting short. Quit trying to save and hold on to stuff that is worthless and going to be burned up in the fire.
Oh, you are wondering about the photo I used for this today?
My dad was a dentist. He use to bring home these red tablets for us to show us where we missed spots after brushing our teeth. That red coloring would adhere to areas of that sticky plaque and stand out. The idea was for us to go back in and re-brush to get those areas cleaned.
We should know, that when we fail to clean up that plaque, more bacteria is attracted to it and it begins to eat away at the enamel and bore into the tooth root which causes decay and pain and stench.
Sin does that too. But it's not 'bacteria' that is attracted. It is unclean spirits that come to steal, kill, and destroy.
What is God’s will? To be Holy as He is Holy. And we don’t make ourselves that way. He does. It’s All Him. Stop resisting and submit to His Lordship so he can complete the work He began in you.
Don’t be like those guys I ended yesterday’s post with…who no longer followed Jesus any more. (John 6:66)
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