Jesus is the story.
Seeking Jesus and living a holy life is not religious legalism.
Refusing to watch a programme, or walking out of a film that utters blasphemy against Jesus Name is not religious legalism.
Rising early and spending time in the Word and prayer, to the extent of never missing that time come what may, is not religious legalism.
Its Christian.
Remember that Jesus still has holes in His body from the death He suffered.
If we say the Lord is near but are not living lives marked by sanctification, then we need to take a very serious introspective look and ask ourselves whether the scripture is a platitude or a guiding reality in our lives.
When we come humbly before the Lord in reverence and repentance, do we ever truly examine the great price Jesus so freely paid in order that we might be forgiven? Do we even take the time to appraise the act, or have we become so callused by repetition without revelation that we don’t even for a moment stop to consider that the entire timeline of human history converges on the three days that began in the garden of Gethsemane?
We speak “love, love, love…” yet rarely attempting to sink in to the unfathomable oceanic depths of a love so deep that it demands of us no less than total, utter, complete, entire and absolute surrender in obedience.
My mind is incapable. Words are inadequate.
What great a privilege, this repentance that cost our Saviour everything.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
John 3:16 – 21
I wonder if, while hanging on the cross, our beloved Jesus raised His beaten, bloody & broken head and fixed His gaze on the generations to come, surveying time & space, knowing that with every ragged beat of His failing heart He paid in full for one more soul, one more life yet to be.
Did He feel, with every pulse of His lifeblood, as it ran through the stained timber grains, filling the bloody puddle at his feet, more searing injections of white hot physical pain and emotional torment; only to say, “This is for that instant of iniquity. This is for one moment. This is for one sin. This is the price. This is what I am willing to pay. This is the depth of My love.”
Our value is the price the Father was willing to pay to redeem us.
Take to the Word daily, take to your knees daily, plead of the Lord daily for the grace and mercy to grasp even the tiniest glimpse of the truth of this.
Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. How we throw this and scripture like it around, without ever alighting on its import and the explicit instruction contained therein: “…Be holy, for I am holy.”
Repentance is not saying sorry for your mistakes. It is one of the defining characteristics of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the life of the church.
Jesus Christ did not pay everything He had, pouring out every drop of His most precious blood in the most brutal and excruciating exchange imaginable so that we, sitting on our sofas, can say sorry for our mistakes.
What an irreverent misadventure that is.
The bar that is the penalty for sin is set far higher than we could possibly hope to imagine, and yet we have the gall to offer up a quick prayer here and there and the temerity to think that it will suffice for forgiveness while we continue living as we will, thinking that we are men and women of the kingdom, that we are on solid ground by virtue of how much money we give, how we serve in the church, how we open up our home, how generous we are with our time; never seeing the need for change, ignorant of the reverence of fear, oh-so-pleased with our own progress and yet never coming to the point of realisation that every single item is a noise that distracts from the simple truth that the whole endeavour is pointless without an entire submission to Jesus, who paid in blood and demands no less than your life. The price is set.
The problem is that to a large extent we have become sermonised. We listen to this preach or that, this message or that, we take some notes and smile as if the scriptures are given for our enjoyment, without ever trembling at His Word or even realising that it and they were given to demand from us that which Jesus demanded of the rich young ruler when He said: ”This one thing you lack…”
If you can go to church and hide your sins, if you can walk out and go to your idols without feeling uncomfortable or convicted, repent.
Whatever possesses you and keeps you from a totality in God needs to be sold. Is there something that is a reserve in your life, a holding back, something of which you are conscious? We talk about having laid our lives down, laid them on the altar, crucified the flesh. But in reality we are kidding ourselves.
Art Katz
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body[a] and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
2 Corinthians 6:14 – 18, 7:1
Cancel the socials. Stop scrolling aimlessly. Turn off the television, there is only evil there. Shake off the dust and take a stand. There is not one single minute spent with Jesus that is not of infinitely more worth than a lifetime of reels. If you think you can spend hours a day in front of a television, soaking in the filth, and your spirit remain unaffected, you are deceived.
Is this you? Do you stand in church on a Sunday, praise Jesus’ Name, raise your hands in worship and go home only to allow the evil one to disciple your home through what you permit yourself and your children to watch? STOP!
Seek the Lord daily. Repent daily. Read the Word daily. Give the Lord your first, foremost and utmost. Make Him your addiction. Cultivate a holy dissatisfaction for where you are in your walk and pursue the Father relentlessly, remembering that we make time for the things that are most important to us. If you can say you don’t time to read the Word, pray or worship, then my dear brother and sister, repent because you are on unstable ground.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
John 8:31-34
You may ask, why does the bother some of us? Why is it an irritation to our soul and why are we angered by it?
It is because it shames us in our present Christianity. Because it reveals to us what true commitment to Jesus looks like.
By virtue of the simple fact that we are without persecution in this time, irrespective of how much we dress up and adorn it, can we determine that our Christianity is below the kingdom level.
The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.
Brennan Manning
Further Supporting Scripture
Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
John 8:43
All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.
Isaiah 66:2
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Mathew 22:37
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
John 5:24-25
And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Mark 10:17-22
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
2 Corinthians7:1
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.
Titus2:11–15
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 12:1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews12:1–2
His watchmen are blind; they are all without knowledge; they are all silent dogs; they cannot bark, dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. The dogs have a mighty appetite; they never have enough. But they are shepherds who have no understanding; they have all turned to their own way, each to his own gain, one and all. “Come,” they say, “let me get wine; let us fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow will be like this day, great beyond measure.”
Isaiah 56:10-12
You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!
James 2:19
And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Mark 10:17-22