2010-02-19
Good Morning God’s Treasures,
We, who are true believers, are God’s treasures, because we’ve committed ourselves to putting Him and His teaching at the center of our lives. That doesn’t always mean we do this perfectly, but it means that we are making our best effort. One thing that distinguishes a true believer is discernment. We continue our examination of discernment of false teaching. MT 7: 21-23 is a passage that is hard to hear, but necessary for Christ to say in His Sermon on the Mount. “Not everyone who calls Me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only those who do what My Father in heaven wants them to do. When the Judgment Day comes, many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord! In your name we spoke God’s message by Your name we drove out many demons and performed many miracles!’ Then I will say to them, ‘I never knew you. Get away from Me, you wicked people!’”
The people Christ refers to in (21) are those who profess to be believers when they are not. The notion that they can be the leaders of their own lives and say whatever they think sounds acceptable to the Lord is suggested by such an approach. Of course, they are being hypocrites, liars, and deceivers. Only those who are faithfully obedient to Christ’s leadership in their lives are acceptable as far as inheriting the Kingdom is concerned. JN 6: 27-29 makes it very clear as to what profile of spiritual life is acceptable. Jesus had been speaking to the people about being the “Bread of life.” Then, they asked Him, “What can we do in order to do what God wants us to do?” Jesus answered, ‘What God wants you to do is to believe in the One He sent.” This last sentence is the core of the issue. One must believe in the Lord Jesus with all his heart, genuinely and truly. There can’t be equivocation about that. There are many things upon which believers can debate, but FAITH + NOTHING = SALVATION, isn’t one of them. Of course, genuine repenting of one’s sins is an integral part of this true faith.
Now comes the reality of the situation for those who profess faith in the Lord, but don’t really have it. There is nothing that is hidden from Christ. He knows the content of our hearts [HE 4: 13]. Never will that be more obvious than on Judgment Day. I refer to the great white throne judgment discussed in REV 20: 11-15. This is when all of humanity stands before the throne of God with books opened. “All were judged according to what they had done. Then death and the world of the dead were thrown into the lake of fire. [This was second death]. Whoever didn’t have his name inscribed in the book of the living was thrown into the lake of fire.”
The claim made by these hypocrites that they performed miracles or had any kind of supernatural power is a ludicrous lie, and the Lord knows this. Miracles and the supernatural power that they claim to have is only held in divine hands. Satan may empower his workers to cast out demons temporarily, in order to create the illusion that the miracle is divine. But that doesn’t make it so. One example that comes to mind is the ability that Pharaoh’s conjurers had to make Aaron’s walking stick appear to be a snake before Moses. But that was only allowed to further God’s greater eventual goal of Pharaoh’s willingness to let the Jews go from Egyptian slavery [EX 7: 8-13]. No evil deed or foul motive can be successfully hidden from God’s wise eyes. 1 COR 4: 5, “So you should not pass judgment on anyone before the right time comes. Final judgment must wait until the Lord comes; He will bring to light the dark secrets and expose the hidden purposes of people’s minds. And then everyone will receive from God the praise He deserves.” If no praise is deserved, then God will see to it that the deceiver, liar, and hypocrite will receive second death-conscious torment for eternity in the lake of fire from which there is no escape. When one considers that-the unthinkable-it should be considerable motivation to be truthful, faithfully obedient, and devoted to the Lord Jesus and the Father at all times. Than none of us will ever have to actually hear the words from Christ, “I never knew you.”
PRAYER: O Lord, as devoted to You as we are, there are times when the temptation to deceive arises in our lives. We must do whatever we can to reject this temptation, giving Satan no opportunity to use that one time as a foothold to establish his stronghold in our lives. There are people who have wronged us, abased us, and tried to shame us. We must never allow them to pull us into such a web of evildoing. Instead, our Lord Jesus instructed us, in MT 5: 44-45a, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” This is not easy to do, but the easy way isn’t always the right way. None of us ever want to hear the words, “I never knew you; get away from Me, you wicked people,” from our Lord Jesus. Instead, we want to feel the warmth of His loving arms around us and know with confidence that we can always rely on His leadership in our lives. When the Day of Judgment actually comes, we want to gather around Your throne and hear our names read from the book of life. Those of us who know that we have been obediently faithful to You and Your teaching can find comfort in that and don’t have to fear that final moment. There are times, Dearest Abba, when we must make a physical move away from the source of temptation to avoid it. We ask that You give us the courage and the means to do this, if necessary. Otherwise, we ask You to give us the strength of our convictions, our faith in Your teaching, and equipment in spiritual warfare for victory in the name of Jesus Christ [EPH 1: 18-20]. Never before has there been such a loving Lord as You. You chose us first, rather than the other way around [JN 15: 16-17]. We thank and praise You for showing us love unparalleled from any other source. You are a patient and compassionate God, One Who gives us time to make the right choices, choices in concert with Your teaching. You unselfishly sacrificed the physical life of Your only begotten Son, so that we might be saved and justified in Your sight [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25; RO 4: 23-25]. As if that were not enough, You had Him send the Holy Spirit to indwell in us, so that we might have a conscience, Your guidance, and Your encouragement. What great gifts these things are! Dearest Father, You have said, “I have been like a husband to you” [JER 31: 32] to Your people, and that is the truth. You have loved us when we were still Your enemies and then made us Your friends [RO 5: 9-11]. The Lord Jesus has spoken to us, saying in JN 15: 13-15 that “The greatest love a person an have for his friends is to give his life for them. And you are My friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because a servant does not know what his Master is doing. Instead, I call you friend, because I have told you everything I heard from My Father.” You give us the power to emerge victorious when tempted and Your constantly loving presence and intervention in our lives. We offer You our love and devotion in the mighty and grace-filled name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Next week, we’ll examine MT 7: 24-27 [The Two House-builders] and MT 7: 28-29 [The Authority of the Lord Jesus]. While these things wrap up the Sermon on the Mount, there a few more vital subjects beyond that to help us learn how to get the most out of our time studying and meditating over the Bible. There are some home truths which have become quite obvious to me. One of them is that God singles out people to teach others on segments of the Bible that He feels needs them even more than their classes do. That is surely applying to me. I have learned that we should never take God or the Lord Jesus for granted. Yes, He’s there for us, but He insists that we respond to His offered hand. Without that response, we can’t gain the inner strength we need to cooperate with Him in the process of sanctification [preparation and perfecting for eventual glorification. Glorification is being brought back to the Father for a blissful eternity in heaven]. If we are able to fully obey God, it means that we have taken these steps: 1) decided that the status quo isn’t good enough for us; 2) learned God’s teaching in the Scriptures and from truly- believing witnesses, to make an informed decision to believe wholeheartedly in Jesus Christ; 3) with humility, confessed our sins; 4) lived our lives in conformity with God’s standards and not those of the world; 5) believed in Him and allowed Christ to be in leadership of our lives; 5) served God with the light and joy of Christ in our hearts-helping others; 6) witnessed by example and words to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and God’s teaching; 7) kept ourselves open to God’s teaching and other intervention through having an active prayer life; 8) watched for God at work in our lives and those of others around us; and 9) rejected Satan’s temptations and his evil; and 10) placed the Lord at the center of everything we do, both within and outside of our churches. Tall order? Yes, but we were created to be able to fulfill it-every one of us! Praise and thanks be to the Lord!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn