Tag Archives: keep His commands

THE MEASURE OF TRUTH

Bible Study, ,

THE MEASURE OF TRUTH

We know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commands. Whoever says, ‘I know Him,’ but does not keep His commands is a liar and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys His word, love for God is truly made complete in him. This is how we know that we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did. (1 John 2: 3-6)

What a difference between the standards of God’s Word and the standards that are applied in many parts of the church today! In some denominations, doctrine has become the standard of acceptance. If its members adhere to the right doctrines – or at least to the doctrines they believe in – everything else is acceptable.

One denomination I know of makes infant baptism the test. If any of its members dares to be baptised by immersion as a believer in obedience to Jesus’ command, he or she is immediately excommunicated because he has “undone his salvation”. Others make premillennialism the criterion. Its members must believe in a secret rapture, an evil antichrist political world ruler and seven years of tribulation before Jesus returns.

Sometimes the standards of the church are whittled down to what is socially or politically acceptable, regardless of what the Word of God says about it. The gay agenda is a case in point. God’s clear condemnation of homosexuality is smoothed over by fine-sounding arguments and rationalisation until it sounds as though we know the truth and God is at fault.

Now I ask, “Where did they find those requirements among the commands of Jesus?”

Peter had blown it badly. He was in the depths of despair because his beloved Master, whom he professed to love, was dead, and he had no opportunity to seek His forgiveness for his terrible words on the eve of His death. Jesus had warned him about a coming test, but Peter had brushed it aside with a cock-sure denial of his weakness. “Even though everyone else forsakes you, I will never do it!”

Then it happened. Peter was caught off guard by a servant girl in the courtyard of the high priest’s house. He lied, and he could not take it back. Instead of owning up, he lied again, twice more and then the cock crowed. It was Jesus’ look that undid him. He remembered Jesus’ warning – too late, and that look of compassion cracked him up. He wept as he had never wept before – big, tough, blustering, motor-mouth Peter!

No, it was not that he did not believe in the right doctrines, or that he failed to carry out the right rituals. He lied about his association with Jesus.

However, there was a sequel to Peter’s failure. Jesus was back among them, alive, as He said He would do. He found His disciples in Galilee, back fishing. He prepared a delicious fish barbeque for them and invited them to join Him. After breakfast, when their hunger was satisfied, He turned to Peter with an unexpected question. “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

Not, “Why did you do it?” or “Do you promise never to do that again?” but a simple, “Do you love me?” Jesus said nothing about Peter’s failure. Not a word of accusation. Not a whisper of reproach. Just “Do you love me?” Three times, “Do you love me?” Peter must have had to think very deeply about his response. Did he really love Jesus? Why did He ask him that question? Any other question would have been easier to answer.

But, you see, that’s the difference between belonging to a club or organization and belonging to Jesus. We don’t keep the rules because we love the club. We keep the rules so that we are not thrown out, but belonging to Jesus is based on a different criterion.

If you love me, show it by doing what I have told you. (John 14:15 – The Message)

We have already talked about the essence of God’s nature. God is love. Love is the energy that drives Him. Everything about Him is motivated by love. It stands to reason, then, that love is the glue that binds Him to us and, therefore, should bind us to Him.

Our love for Jesus is the power behind everything we do or should be. If we find it difficult to obey Him, we need to ask the question of ourselves that Jesus asked Peter: “Do I really love Him?” Love is the only force that will keep us in union with Him. When we are driven to obey by the fear of punishment, we are still slaves at heart. When we are motivated by love for Jesus, we are the true children of God. 

Not our belief systems or adherence to our church’s requirements, but our love for Jesus, demonstrated by our obedience to what He told us in His word, is the acid test. Our love for Him is expressed by the way we hate what He hates and care about what He cares about. It’s not about keeping rules or else . . . It’s about loving Jesus enough to uphold everything that is important to Him.

Do you really love Him?

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

No Condemnation

Bible Study, , ,

NO CONDEMNATION

This is how we know we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence. If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us we have confidence before God and receive from Him anything we ask because we keep His commands and do what pleases Him. And this is His command: to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ and to love one another as He commanded us (1 John 3: 19-23).

Can you hear Jesus speaking again? Almost in the words of Jesus, John sweeps aside all our man-made prerequisites for confidence in God and gets to the heart of it just as Jesus testified about Himself. This time, he joined the root and the fruit in one sentence. There is no conflict between believing in Jesus and loving our brothers. The first is the root, the second the fruit of our faith in Him.

John knew about the conflict that goes on in our hearts at times. We have an enemy who delights to accuse. His name, Satan, means “accuser”. His purpose is to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of God. If he can cause us to mistrust the Father’s promises, he can inject any substitute for the truth and, in our confusion we will take his lies for the conviction of sin which we think comes from the Holy Spirit.

Feeling “bad” over something we have said or done is not an indication that the Holy Spirit is speaking to our spirits. On the contrary, it is never the Holy Spirit’s role to condemn. Paul stated categorically that:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).

Why? On what grounds can we be sure that we are no longer condemned?

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us (Rom. 8: 33-34).

We have a solid reason for believing that we have been fully accepted by the Father. Even if we have inadvertently sinned again, we have a permanent representative before God, our advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous. His blood guarantees our forgiveness and God’s favour towards us.

Why do we feel bad when we have sinned? We not only have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father, we also have an adversary, the accuser who accuses us night and day before the Father.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down (Rev. 12: 10).

Accusation is never the role of the Holy Spirit. His role is not to convince us of sin but to convince the unbelieving world of sin, not to condemn, but to point them to the Saviour. He convinces the believer of righteousness – pointing us to the finished work of Jesus. What must we do with the voice of accusation and condemnation that plagues us, even when we have not sinned? It is the devil who drags up our past and parades it before our conscience in the hopes that we will have constant doubts about the truthfulness of God.

John assures us that, when our hearts condemn us, that nagging voice of guilt and shame that refuses to be silenced, it is not the voice of God. God is greater than our hearts. It is not a voice to be believed. How do we silence it? Expose the identity of the speaker and the lies he is speaking. In this war against the evil one, we were not told to fight but to stand. Stand on the truth of God’s infallible word. What has He said? Is His word true? When we expose the devil’s lies, we have robbed him of his weapon and disempowered him to unsettle us.

Fear comes from believing his lies. But our confidence is in the truth of what God has promised. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. God’s word is greater than our hearts. When we choose to believe Him rather than the lies we are hearing, we have confidence that we are His children and we can trust Him to answer our prayers because our lives are based on what He wants of us, not on what the devil wants us to believe.

His word, not our feelings based on Satan’s lies, is to be the guiding light of our lives. Then we can have complete confidence in what He has said.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

 

 

 

 

The Measure Of Truth

Bible Study, , ,

THE MEASURE OF TRUTH

We know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commands. Whoever says, ‘I know Him,’ but does not keep His commands is a liar and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys His word, love for God is truly made complete in him. This is how we know that we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did. (1 John 2: 3-6)

What a difference between the standards of God’s Word and the standards that are applied in many parts of the church today! In some denominations, doctrine has become the standard of acceptance. As long as its members adhere to the right doctrines – or at least to the doctrines they believe in – everything else is acceptable.

One denomination I know of makes infant baptism the test. If any of its members dares to be baptised by immersion as a believer in obedience to Jesus’ command, he or she is immediately excommunicated because he has “undone his salvation”. Others make premillennialism the criterion. Its members must believe in a secret rapture, an evil antichrist political world ruler and seven years of tribulation before Jesus returns.

Sometimes the standards of the church are whittled down to what is socially or politically acceptable, regardless of what the Word of God says about it. The gay agenda is a case in point. God’s clear condemnation of homosexuality is smoothed over by fine-sounding arguments and rationalisation until it sounds as though we know the truth and God is at fault.

Now I ask, “Where did they find those requirements among the commands of Jesus?”

Peter had blown it badly. He was in the depths of despair because his beloved Master, whom he professed to love, was dead, and he had no opportunity to seek His forgiveness for his terrible words on the eve of His death. Jesus had warned him about a coming test but Peter had brushed it aside with a cock-sure denial of his weakness. “Even though everyone else forsakes you, I will never do it!”

Then it happened. Peter was caught off guard by a servant girl in the courtyard of the high priest’s house. He lied, and he could not take it back. Instead of owning up, he lied again, twice more and then the cock crowed. It was Jesus’ look that undid him. He remembered Jesus’ warning – too late, and that look of compassion cracked him up. He wept as he had never wept before – big, tough, blustering, motor-mouth Peter!

No, it was not that he did not believe in the right doctrines, or that he failed to carry out the right rituals. He lied about his association with Jesus.

But there was a sequel to Peter’s failure. Jesus was back among them, alive, as He said He would do. He found His disciples in Galilee, back fishing. He prepared a delicious fish barbeque for them and invited them to join Him. After breakfast, when their hunger was satisfied, He turned to Peter with an unexpected question. “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

Not, “Why did you do it?” or “Do you promise never to do that again?” but a simple, “Do you me?” Jesus said nothing about Peter’s failure. Not a word of accusation. Not a whisper of reproach. Just “Do you love me?” Three times, “Do you love me?” Peter must have had to think very deeply about his response. Did he really love Jesus? Why did He ask him that question? Any other question would have been easier to answer.

But, you see, that’s the difference between belonging to a club or organization and belonging to Jesus. We don’t keep the rules because we love the club. We keep the rules so that we are not thrown out. But belonging to Jesus is based on a different criterion.

If you love me, show it by doing what I have told you. (John 14:15 – The Message)

We have already talked about the essence of God’s nature. God is love. Love is the energy that drives Him. Everything about Him is motivated by love. It stands to reason, then, that love is the glue that binds Him to us and, therefore, should bind us to Him.

Our love for Jesus is the power behind everything we do, or should be. If we find it difficult to obey Him, we need to ask the question of ourselves that Jesus asked Peter: “Do I really love Him?” Love is the only force that will keep us in union with Him. When we are driven to obey by the fear of punishment, we are still slaves at heart. When we are motivated by love for Jesus, we are the true children of God.

Not our belief systems or adherence to our church’s requirements, but our love for Jesus, demonstrated by our obedience to what He told us in His word, is the acid test. Our love for Him is expressed by the way we hate what He hates and care about what He cares about. It’s not about keeping rules or else . . . It’s about loving Jesus enough to uphold everything that is important to Him.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?