The Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of love with all who love Him and obey His commands, chose us to be born of water and the Spirit, and thus, enter His Kingdom. We had to be born again. (Dan.9:4, Jn.3:5,7)
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with all of us who have been born of the Spirit. (Jn.3:8) The Headship of Jesus Christ over us today is made effective through the Holy Spirit. We diligently hearken unto His voice to observe and do all that He commands us this day all these blessings come upon us and overtake us (Dt.28). Yes, today we choose Him. We choose life, not death. Blessing, not cursing.
We choose life, so that we and our children may live and that we may love the Lord our God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him, Dt.30:19,20. That's what the life of faith is. For the Lord is our life! Amen, He certainly is. We address as the Father the one who impartiallly judges according to each one's work, so we conduct ourselves in fear today due to the extremely high price paid for us: the blood of the only begotten of the Father, 1 Peter1:17-19.
Another of the myriad ways that the Lord God has of putting it is this, as recorded in Jn10:27-29: v.27 My sheep hear My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. v.28 I give then eternal life; and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of My hand. v. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; no one can snatch then out of My Father's hand.
Here is a stronghold that needs demolishing in the hearts and minds of millions of religious people: We cannot have John 10:28 & 29 without John 10:27. It's an illegal claim. If we want Him as Savior we have to have Him as Lord. I bypassed verse 27 all my life in reality. As a respectable Christian I would have told you I did it but I really didn't know what it meant. I had NOT, in reality, returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of my soul. I held on to it. My life was my own. I was not yet, in reality, crucified with Christ. I did MY will. I wasn't in the Kingdom of God. I was in religion. As for sin? I liked it. The other god I had before Him, was me, just like everyone else in the pew. Our tongues laid hold of heaven, though, like our father the devil.
Jesus is spoken of as "Savior" 24 or 28 times in the New Testament, depending on translation. He is spoken of as "Lord" 300 times. There's a pretty good read on the Divine perspective of the matter. By my math, for every time Jesus is spoken of as "Savior" He is spoken of as "Lord" about 12 times. Contrast that with fallen, religious minds. Growing up in church, I would have taken Him as Savior a thousand times, and Lord, maybe twice? And I was a "good", young man. I mean, really good by the standards of my Christian brothers and sisters.
Jesus Christ is King today for His Kingdom citizens. We worship Him in spirit and in Truth today. We hear His voice and we cannot afford to harden our hearts as Israel did and their bodies were laid waste in the wilderness. All that happened to them is a VERY real warning to us, 1 Cor.10. That's why the 2nd (of 5) parenthetical warning from Hebrews, warnings to Spirit baptized believers, is so important to us all. Hebrews 3:7-4:13.
4:11 "Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience." That had no bearing on my Christianity growing up, just as it has no bearing for many of you. I was still in darkness, though I had "accepted Jesus in my heart." (Where is that in the Bible again?)
He who has ears to hear, let him hear today. Glory to God. Learn to live this way: Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. We're all born fallen and having fallen short of His glory. Jesus came to turn all that around so that all things no longer had to be "vanity of vanities" for us. So that we could live from above the sun and mount up with wings as eagles! O, how the world needs to see this! The manifestation of the sons of God. The distinction between the righteous and the wicked; between those who serve God and those who don't, Malachi 3:18.
Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy. Rev.22:11
Read the last 2 chapters of the Bible. It's all about conduct. Jesus came to reform our conduct, to purify our hearts, baptize us with His Spirit so that we could do the will of God today, instead of the will of Satan that we were all born doing. If we've been made righteous, we do what is right. We obey Scripture. We live in the Holy Spirit. Read the whole Bible, it's all about conduct. True salvation is so radical. The ax gets laid to the root of the tree.
Most Christians don't want to hear the Good News of the Kingdom of God. But they say they believe the Gospel. I will not sit in the seat of mockers.
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