Daniel Pasaribu
Monday Sermon for LJUSC, as of October 22, 2012
“
FIVE KEYS TO THE CHRISTIAN LIFE’S MATURITY TO BECOME LIKE JESUS
CHRIST”: FEAR OF GOD, OBEDIENCE, HOLINESS, REPENTANCE AND SURRENDER
(ROMANS 8 :29-30)
Dear Precious Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
God had absolutely a purpose for creating you. He designed you for a
particular place in the Body of Christ. He designed you to become like
Jesus Christ totally fulfilled in that place. This is your destiny.
This is not to imply that you can in any way reach your destiny by your
own way. Only one way is possible. God's way. You must be born again by
believing in Jesus and you must commit to grow to fullness by God's
process and pattern. God's process is for us to be led by Him and
cooperate with the Holy Spirit to bring us in to righteousness,
holiness, and redemption (freedom from sin). God's pattern is Christ,
the Body. No one has any meaning outside of Christ the Body. Many are
never even born into this Body. Many who are born in never discern the
Body of Christ.
God's good purpose for us is to conform us, by
His Spirit, into the image of Jesus Christ in Romans 8:29-30. He wants
us to be transfigured--a metamorphosis in 2 Corinthians 3:18
No
amount of human effort could make that happen, but God has a plan. God
has a method. God has a way. God has a pattern for everything and To
become like Jesus Christ is His pattern as the only way.
Today I
want to talk to you about five of the most important questions any
Christian could ask. First: How we fear God while we should also love
Him .Second: Why obedience should be part of our faithfulness unto God?
Third: “How does God lovingly motivate every Christian to progress in
holiness?” Fourth: “Why is daily repentance so important for all of us
in living the Christian life?” And fifth: “Why is totally surrendering
our lives to God the only way to really experience life?”
Now, you
don’t hear a lot from preachers today concerning the fear of God,
obedience, holiness, repentance and total surrender to God. It’s not
because you don’t find a lot of information about these in Scripture.
The Bible is loaded with information about these topics.
Most
likely, the reason you don’t hear anything about these topics is that
it’s not very popular to speak on fear of God, obedience, holiness,
repentance and surrendering to God. Sadly, the Christian church today
seems to prefer hearing about success and positive feelings, getting
health, wealth, freedom from care, good sex and happy families.
In
fact, let’s take a test right now. How long has it been since you heard a
sermon on fear God, obedience, holi¬ness, repentance or total surrender
to God? Shall I guess? Well, stick with me and listen. Take heart that
if the God of the Bible calls us to fear the God, obedience, holiness,
true repentance and totally surrendering ourselves to Him, it must be
for our good. If you belong to Him, then out of love and respect to God
at least listen to what He has to say. It may change your life.
1.THE FEAR OF GOD
The fear of God is a theme that is mentioned throughout the Bible. But
it is a subject that has been neglected by many pastors and teachers of
God’s word today. The fear of God is a very important aspect in a
Christian’s life because it is a characteristic of the Holy Spirit. A
lack of the fear of God in a person’s life means they have a lack of
sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Without the fear of God a person becomes
unbalanced in their understanding of God, and in their relationship
with the Lord. The fear of God causes His children to run to Him, and
His enemies to flee from Him.
The fear of God is a gift from God,
given through the Holy Spirit, which He puts in our heart to keep us
close to Him. “They shall be My people, and I will be their God; then I
will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for
the good of them and their children after them. And I will make an
everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing
them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not
depart from Me.” (Jeremiah 32:38-40)
The Bible tells us that through
the anointing of the Holy Spirit Jesus delighted in the fear of the
Lord. There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch
shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and
might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD. His delight
is in the fear of the LORD, And He shall not judge by the sight of His
eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears; But with righteousness He
shall judge the poor, And decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath
of His lips He shall slay the wicked. (Isaiah 11:1-4 NKJV)
Jesus
the Christ delighted in the fear of the LORD, And He shall not judge by
the sight of His eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears. Jesus told
us that He only said what He heard the Father say, and He only did what
He saw the Father do, He only did those things that pleased the Father.
We also delight in the fear of the Lord because it causes us to walk in
obedience to the Father so that we have the joy of a clean heart.
True love, and true fear of God, are revealed and experienced through
the Holy Spirit. God’s love is the power and motivation to do His
commandments, and God’s fear is the ability to understand and walk in
His righteous judgments, His commandments, and not our own decisions.
Like a protective wall the fear of God keeps us walking on the right
path. The joy of a clean heart does not come from our own self it comes
from experiencing God’s joy when we walk in His love doing His
commandments. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love,
just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.
These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and
that your joy may be full.” (John 15:10-13)
The fear of God leads to
obedience of God, which gives us confidence in our heart before God.
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward
God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His
commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
(1stJohn 3:21-22) Walking in the fear of the Lord causes us to walk in
righteousness, experiencing the joy of a right relationship with our
God. Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous; And shout for joy,
all you upright in heart! (Psalms 32:11)
The Bible tells us that we
perfect holiness in the fear of God. Therefore, having these promises,
beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2 Corinthians 7:1). It
is by God’s grace and mercy that He adopts us to be His Children, and we
accept Him as our Father in humble honesty of our need for His mercy.
Just as with a good human father, his children both love and fear him,
the combination of this love and fear causes the children to walk in
obedience. The love and fear of the Lord is also needed in our lives to
bring about spiritual maturity, that we may fully depart from evil and
cling to the One we love. In mercy and truth Atonement is provided for
iniquity; And by the fear of the LORD one departs from evil. (Proverbs
16:6)
2. OBEDIENCE
Obedience to God is simple. DO AS YOU ARE TOLD! It's that simple.
Now your flesh will tell you that it cannot be done. Do not listen to
it. Matthew 19:26 tells us that with God ALL things are possible - ALL
not some. Now God cannot lie and He is no respecter of persons, so what
He does for one He will do for you. So when Jesus tell His disciples
that all things are possible through God then He is telling that to you
also. The sinful nature of man is such that we hate correction, but
Proverbs 15:10 tells us that he who hates correction will die. So we had
better learn to like it. Just keep in mind that God only corrects those
that He loves.
Hebrews 12:5-11 says, My son, do not make light of
the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes everyone he
accepts as a son. Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as
sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not
disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are
illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover we have all had human
fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more
should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers
disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God
disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No
discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however,
it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been
trained by it. So rejoice in Gods discipline because it means that He
loves you. If He does not discipline you then it means you are
illegitimate. We are corrected so that we can share in God's holiness
and that we might know the righteousness and peace of God.
But the
most important thing is to learn from your discipline and to not repeat
your mistakes. Genesis 6:3 says that God will not strive with man
forever. Everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God but if
you continue to deliberately sin then God will turn away from you and
leave you to your sin. If God corrects you it is for a reason. The Lord
does nothing without a reason. In Romans 8:28 it says, And we know that
in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have
been called according to his purpose. God works ALL things for good,
even correction.
So, if you are convicted it is because God loves
you (Hebrews 12:6) and you are not yet beyond hope. Correction is a
blessing (Job 5:17) and will be for your good to produce righteousness
and peace. In your obedience you will be blessed, but as with all of
God's promises there is a prerequisite. YOU MUST OBEY!! It is not as
hard as you think. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am
gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For
my yoke is easy my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).
I have
been examining in the last few months God’s solutions to the battles
that Christians fight within, that is, their own sinful desires and
habits, and the fight without—circumstances, other people, the world,
and temptations.
3. TOTAL HOLINESS
This is what the word holy
means. It means to separate something or someone from sin unto God.
You’re actually set aside for God’s use.
If God requires total holiness, how can a Christian live total holiness? Is it even possible?
Yes, It is possible to live in total holiness, but watch out for this.
Do not modify holiness to be something that you can do. Do not think
that holiness is something that you can do. Holiness is something that
God causes you to become. You just receive it or reject it. There is a
process. It is probable that no one, other than Jesus Himself, has ever
walked in total holiness. During the process of walking into holiness,
you will slip; you will fall; you will confess your sins; God will
forgive your sins.
I asked my brother, "Isn't it true that the
Bible, taken as it is written, has the promise that we who walk in the
Spirit could walk right into total holiness?" My brother was silent for a
moment, then thoughtfully said, "Yes; but don't we walk one step at a
time?"
To understand this concept, read "Wisdom as a Process" below.
Many have lost the hope of total holiness. Some have, as a result,
re-defined holiness. The Bible is very bold in stating that holiness is
the kind of holiness that the Father has and that it is available to us
only through Christ. When God says that whatever is not of faith is sin,
He is saying that sin is anything that we think, say, or do that He has
not led us to do and that He has not done through us. We miss most of
His leading at this point, and also insert our fleshly selves into the
process most of the time. There is only one way for you to do
righteousness. That is to allow Jesus to do righteousness within you.
That is what grace does. Paul said that it was not him who did the work
but grace in him did the work.
Some have said that the Holy Spirit
is given to help us to walk in holiness. This is only partly correct,
and it misses the most important things. Actually, the first thing that
the Holy Spirit does is to give you the ability to walk in
righteousness. He does that by becoming our righteousness within us. He
does that by doing the works of God through us. As Jesus only said the
words of the Father, so the Holy Spirit only says the words of the
Father through us. As Jesus only did the acts of the Father, so the Holy
Spirit does only the works of the Father through us. Righteousness is
what you do. Holiness is what you are becoming as you have a new mind
(repent). Romans 12:1-2 states that renewing your mind is what causes
you to be transformed, literally, transfigured. Transfiguration is
actual redemption. All of these, righteousness, holiness, and redemption
are processes that go from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord (2
Corinthians 3:18)
• We, in our nature, have no ability to walk in
total holiness. The Holy Spirit not only helps us to walk in total
holiness, but Christ in us is our total holiness.
• We can emulate holiness in order to impress ourselves or others that we are totally holy.
o in order to impress ourselves or others that we are holy.
o by trying to obey a set of rules or laws or principles
lines drawn in the sand.
these cannot bring true holiness.
these can lead to false hope, hypocrisy, and spiritual deadness (read
the book of Galatians, which was a letter to believers, not
unbelievers).
• We cannot deny the reality that
o there are thoughts that enter our minds that are not pure,
o we get angry,
o we become discouraged,
o there are times when we are not flowing in the ultimate anointing of God,
o there are times when God is not the most prominent focus of our minds,
o we have not come the manifestation of Jesus Christ in our lives,
o our bodies have not been redeemed fully.
How? What is the process to bring us to the point where we walk in total holiness?
God’s process that will bring us to the point where we walk in total holiness is walking in the Spirit.
• God's Spirit is given so that we can learn to yield our minds to Him.
o As we yield, our minds are renewed by the Spirit. (He does the work.)
o As we yield, He thinks His thoughts through us. (He is the source of all wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.)
o As we yield, He says His words through us. (We begin to speak as the oracles of God.)
o As we yield, He does His works through us. (We never do our own will, but only the will of our Father.)
• The Scriptural pattern for the church is an integral part of this
transformation, which is why God is in process of restoring it.
o Spiritual Church government must be functioning.
o Spiritual Gifts must be functioning.
o Every member must be functioning as a ministry.
o Worship must follow the patterns of Scripture.
• From time to time, we see a flash of His glory in our lives.
o It is not continuous or complete.
o Mostly, we are in process of coming into His glory.
o His forgiveness is continual and perpetual, covering our missteps.
o God's desire is to continue to flow through us until we are conformed
into His very image in every facet of our being. When that happens, we
will be transfigured by the renewing of our minds.
Wisdom as a Process:
Remember that God does all the work. We rest from our own work and
submit to Him. Righteousness and Holiness are both Free Gifts (Grace)
from God. Righteousness and Love are synonyms. Love is the fulfillment
of God's Law. Righteousness is what you do. Holiness is what you are
becoming by submitting to God's righteousness. Holiness is stability in
Love. The faith that gives access to Grace is a Free Gift from God--it
is God's faith, not our own.
Now, the doctrine of holiness is made
up of three specific truths; first, our positional holiness; second, our
experiential holiness, and third, our ultimate holiness.
Positional holiness
What does Scripture teach about our positional holiness? The moment we
put our faith in Jesus Christ and ask Him to forgive our sins, according
to Romans 4, God makes a wonderful legal declaration about us,
declaring that we are justified, that is, free from the penalty of all
of our sins for all eternity. He will never hold those sins against us
and punish us in hell because of what we have done. He gives us total
forgiveness as a gift. God can give us this gift because Jesus paid for
it when He died on the cross. At that time He took our sins upon Himself
and paid the penalty that we deserved.
The Bible says in 2
Corinthians 5:21, “Christ became sin for us, who knew no sin; that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” So, God forgave us our
sins and declared us justified.
But at the same time God justified
us, He also gave us a new identity, a new status—a new standing before
Him in holiness and righteousness. This holy standing before Him was
also a gift. It means we don’t have to perform good deeds to gain God’s
love and acceptance. But here is a question for you. How righteous are
we in God’s sight as we stand before Him? Well, we all know that while
Jesus lived here on earth, He lived a perfect life. He never sinned
once. Accord¬ing to the Bible, the track record of Jesus Christ, His
perfect life, was imputed or credited from Jesus’ account to ours when
we put our faith in Christ. God gave us this position, this standing,
before Him as a gift. So we stand before Him each day as absolutely holy
and righteous in our new position. How do I know this?
Hebrews
10:10 tells us that all who have put their faith in Jesus “have been
made holy...once for all.” Here is our position before God. The Bible
says we have already been made completely holy by God once for all. He
has separated us unto Himself. We are His. We belong to Him. He has made
it an unchanging fact that we will forever stand before Him as perfect,
holy, and righteous. But then in the very same chapter we see the
second part of holiness, our experien¬tial holiness.
Experiential holiness
Hebrews 10:14 says, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those [that’s us] who are being made holy.”
So in the same Bible verse we who are already holy are also in the
process of being made holy. In brief, because God has graciously given
us our new identity and status as a gift, He then asks us to start
living out and enjoying our new identity and status that He has given to
us.
1 Peter 1:15 tells us, “But just as God who called you is holy,
so be holy in all you do; for it is written, ‘Be holy because I am
holy.’”
Paul says something similar in 2 Timothy 1:9. Paul writes
that God has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of
anything we have done, but because of His own purpose and grace.
Now, always remember this: Holiness starts with God’s calling us to
Himself and saving us. Before you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you
were convicted of your sins. That was God lov¬ingly drawing you to
Himself. As a result, you decided to put your faith in Christ, and
entered into a relationship with God in which He immediately forgave you
of all your sins forever, and also gave you your new status of perfect
holiness.
But then, because He has done all of this for us and
because we belong to Him and are fellowshipping with Him, He asks us to
live like Him in every part of our life. So God first makes us holy and
then He says, “Separate yourself unto me.” Just like this glass of
water, you are to purify yourselves, set yourselves apart for God’s use.
As you do, you will come to know God in an even more intimate way, and
you will be a Christian God will use to represent Him to the world.
By the way, has anyone ever called you a saint? Well, according to
Scripture, if you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you are a saint
positionally. God made you one. The word saint means, “a holy one, a
person who is set apart for God’s use.” Now, sainthood is not attained
by you or me doing great works. That’s the world’s definition.
Biblically, sainthood is a state into which God in grace places every
believer. Then God asks His saints to cooperate with Him, to sanctify or
separate themselves, to make themselves pure for His use, and live up
to the status He has given them. Now, before you get off the track
telling me how hard it is for you to live holy, let me tell you a
secret. When you placed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God did
something won¬derful to you.
In Ezekiel 36:26 [[God]] said, “I will
give you a new spirit and [in addition] I will put my Spirit in you and
move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
According to this verse, when we believed on Christ, God gave us a new
spirit, that is, a new spiritual nature. In addition, He gave us the
Holy Spirit who took up residence in our life.
Further, God says in Jeremiah 31:33, “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.”
Now, here’s the secret. When you placed your faith in Christ, God gave
you a new spiritual nature, which inherently desires to love and obey
God. As the Bible says, your new heart “is careful to keep God’s laws.”
The Holy Spirit who takes up residence in your life also moves you to
live purely, righteously, and to love God. You’ll never be the same
again because you have been given a new nature that loves God and wants
to obey Him. Now, that doesn’t mean you’ll never sin again. No.
According to Romans 6 and 7, because of your old nature still being
present, even though it has lost its legal position of mastery over you
when you became a Christian, you will still be tempted to sin. But if
you sin now, your new nature and the Holy Spirit will bother you, will
con¬vict you, and will make you feel miserable. This struggle is
described by the Apostle Paul in Romans 7 and Galatians 5.
But 2
Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if any man be in Christ he is a new
creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become
new.” That is, your true self, your new spiritual nature will always
want to obey God—when all is said and done. That doesn’t mean you will,
but you will be drawn that way by your new heart that God has given you.
Romans 7 and 8 show that even Christians who have a new heart, a new
spiritual nature, will be defeated if they try to live the Christian
life in their own strength—their own self-effort. Victory comes when we
turn to and depend on the Holy Spirit to live the way we should.
Ultimate holiness
Then the third biblical truth concerning holiness is our ultimate
holiness. While living on this earth, none of us will experience total
experiential holiness. The Apostle Paul, at the end of his life, denied
that he had “arrived” or was totally holy or perfect in his walk with
the Lord.
In Philippians 3:12,13 he said, “Not that I have already
obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to
take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Broth¬ers, I
do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.”
Only when we
die and go into Christ’s presence will we experience total, complete
holiness in our existence. But today, God asks us to live as holy as we
can so that we can draw closer to Him, to know Him better, to be more
like Him, to walk with Him in everyday life.
Isn’t it exciting that
God wants us to have a deep relationship with Him? But remember, we
cannot walk with God in our own self-effort. God makes even our walk
with Him possible by giving us the Holy Spirit to help us conquer the
sinful desires in our life, to meet temptations, and to face the tough
situations.
4. TOTAL REPENTANCE
This brings us to the next
question: “What is true repentance, and why is repentance so important
for us in living the Christian life?”
The word repent comes from the
Greek word metanoia. It emphasizes a change of mind and attitude. To
repent is to make a decision that changes the total direction of one’s
life. When Jesus preached, He issued a call to repentance which was a
call to people to change their mind about Him and to make a personal
commitment to Him. Repentance is an abandonment of those courses of
action in which we once defied God and embraced those things which God
dislikes and forbids. The Hebrew word for repent signifies a turning
away from sin to God, or a returning to God. The New Testament Greek
word carries the sense of changing one’s mind so that one changes one’s
ways. Full repentance means altering one’s habits of thought, one’s
attitudes, outlook, policy, direction and behavior just as fully as is
needed go get one’s life out of the wrong shape and into the right one.
But changing in this way is only possible for Christians, believers who
have been set free from sin’s dominion and made alive to God.
Repentance comes as a result of putting one’s faith in Jesus Christ.
Repentance flows out of true faith. It is the fruit of faith and as
such, is a gift of God, according to Acts 11:18. Repentance is not that
which saves, but it is the opposite side of the same coin as faith. One
cannot have true faith unless one turns away from believing in himself
and turns to believe in Christ alone to save, forgive and empower him to
change.
Once again, true repentance is only possible for Christians
because it’s only the Christian who in relationship with God starts to
have God pull off the blinders of his life. The Bible tells us we do not
even know how self-deceived we are about our sins, according to James
1:22 and 1 John 1:8. So once we place our faith in Christ, bit by bit
God shows us that our deeds, our lifestyle, our thinking, our acts have
offended Him. This awareness that we have offended a holy God is the
basis or the seed bed from which repentance grows all during our life.
True repen¬tance includes a contrite heart, sorrow and remorse in having
dishonored God’s goodness and love to us. The kind of repentance that
is a false repentance is that which shows only regret for sin prompted
by fear for oneself, not love for God. Repentance brings on our reverent
request of God’s pardon, cleansing of conscience and help not to lapse
into the same sin again.
In his book, Rediscovering Holiness, J. I.
Packer says repentance is 1) a person discerning the perversity, folly
and guilt of the sin he or she has done; 2) the desire to find
forgiveness, and the willingness to abandon the sin and live a
God-pleasing life from now on; 3) deciding to ask God for forgiveness
and power to change, and then actually talking to God; 4) demonstrating,
whether by testimony, confession, or by changed behavior that one has
left one’s sins behind.
Martin Luther taught that all of life was to
be repentance toward God. That is, as we walk with God, He will reveal
to us things about ourselves that we didn’t know—sins and habits which
need to be abandoned.
Such recurring repentance is the life of the
adult disciple. Keep in mind that when you put your faith in Jesus
Christ, He gave you a new heart that desires to obey God. You will only
be happy and joyful when those things that offend God are turned away
from and you’ve asked God to forgive you and to cleanse you.
Paradoxically, such action brings more joy because God draws closer to
you and you experi¬ence more of Him. You can refuse to repent. But you
should know that you will run the risk of being disciplined by God. Read
Hebrews 11 and 12. God disciplines His children because He loves us and
He won’t stand by and allow us to ruin our lives.
5. TOTAL SURRENDER
This leads, then, to our third important question: “Why is totally
surrendering our lives to God the only way to really live and experience
life to the fullest?”
Proverbs 3:5,6 says, “Trust in the Lord with
all thine heart and lean not unto thine own under¬standing. In all thy
ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”
Well, you and I
both know we have a lot of decisions to make about our future. We have a
lot of decisions that we must make today to get through this day. God
says He wants to lead and direct you moment by moment. Of course, you
can always depend just on your own intellect and experience.
But if I were to ask you this question, “Who is smarter, you or God? Who knows more about the future, you or God?”
When put that way, we would all say, “Of course, God is smarter than I am. He knows every¬thing—even the future. He’s God.”
Well then, why don’t you allow Him to lead you in the decisions that
you need to make con¬cerning the future, concerning the decisions you
need to make today? Can you trust Him? That question is almost
blasphemous to ask.
If you need proof that you can trust God and
that He loves you dearly, just draw a picture in your mind of Jesus
dying on the cross, shedding His blood, and ask yourself, “Why was He
there?”
The answer will come back, “God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son....” God loved you and made your salvation
possible before you ever knew Him. He didn’t have to do it. He gave it
to you as a gift. If He went that far to show you that He loved you,
don’t you think you can trust Him and surrender your life to Him so that
He can love you even more by guiding you with His great wisdom and
care?
Dear Precious Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
So
let’s summarize the conclusion of the message : The five keys of
spiritual things we need to have as a matured Christian to become like
Jesus Christ in these Last Days to enable us to reach our divine
destiny.
The fear of God is a very important aspect in a Christian’s
life because it is a characteristic of the Holy Spirit. A lack of the
fear of God in a person’s life means they have a lack of sensitivity to
the Holy Spirit. Without the fear of God a person becomes unbalanced in
their understanding of God, and in their relationship with the Lord. The
fear of God causes His children to run to Him, and His enemies to flee
from Him.
But the most important thing is to learn from your
discipline and to not repeat your mistakes. Genesis 6:3 says that God
will not strive with man forever. Everyone has sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God but if you continue to deliberately sin then God
will turn away from you and leave you to your sin. If God corrects you
it is for a reason. The Lord does nothing without a reason. In Romans
8:28 it says, And we know that in all things God works for the good of
those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. God
works ALL things for good, even correction.
God has called us to
Himself by convicting us of sin. One day we re¬sponded and placed our
faith in Jesus Christ and God gave us His gift of salvation. God’s gift
included complete forgiveness of our sin and the status of being
righteous and holy before Him. From the moment we believed, we
positionally stand before God just like this pure glass of water. We
have no sin and are clothed in Christ’s righteousness.
But we’ve
also seen that experientially, God calls us to live holy, to purify
ourselves. In brief, we are asked by God to separate ourselves unto His
personal use. Ultimate experiential holi¬ness will not be achieved until
we go to glory.
Then we saw that true repentance is daily for the
Christian. It includes being open to God, allowing His Spirit to show us
anything that might displease Him. We are to bring that to Him, confess
it as sin, and to leave it, abandon it. As we do so, God will draw
closer to us and bring us great joy and contentment. We will experience
God’s dynamic, living presence all day long.
And finally, why should
we totally surrender our lives to God? It’s because He is the One who
knows what’s best for us. He loves us more than anyone else. All the
real blessings of life are in His hand. He gave us our bodies and our
talents and abilities and knows just how to use them if we will
surrender them to Him. To the extent that we are lazy and undisciplined
and keep God from certain parts of our life, we will do this to our own
detriment. But God gives us that choice. It’s part of the learning
process as Christians. Remember, He gave us a spirit, a heart that loves
to obey Him, wants to be with Him, and so when we sin, we are really
going against our true nature, what our heart really desires.
Right
now, in light of all of these things God has done for you, would you
say, “Lord, help me to live a holy life. Lord, the sins of my life that I
know about that you’ve shown me, I have of¬fended you, please forgive
me and cleanse me. And Lord, I totally surrender my life to you. I love
you. Use me as you see fit. Let me not miss out on any part of the
adventure that you have for me. Please help me to have the five keys to
live in the Fear of the Lord, Obedience unto the Lord, Holiness,
Repentance and Total Surrender unto the Lord to make me like You Lord
Jesus according to Your Holy Word in Romans 8: 29-30.
To God Be All The Glory And Honor, A m e n .
Daniel Pasaribu
