More Words Of Jesus
In my studies since my last post, I ran across a number of passages where the Lord Himself spoke. These words shall never pass away and will not return to Him void. We will be judged by the Words of Jesus. If we don’t heed these words and put them into practice we will be condemned on the last day. I encourage anyone who lives by the mantra “I am saved by grace” yet still practices sin to read both my prior posts on the WORDS OF JESUS, but also my post on UNDERSTANDING GRACE. Just click the links. You are saved by Grace if you are saved but you must properly divide grace in order to follow Jesus. God through Isaiah said “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
What are some other words Jesus said? Let’s explore some more. This one is shorter than the last one.
My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it. We must not only hear and believe the word of God (that is what hearing refers to “believing”), we must actually do it. Totally consistent with Paul in Romans 2:13, Galatians 5:19-21, 1 John 2:29 and …… all the epistles if properly divided.
If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily. Salvation isn’t a cakewalk, there is a real cost to be paid said Jesus, we must suffer said Peter, we must be crucified said Paul and soforth. Live like the world, pursue the lusts of the flesh, you are not denying yourself. You are deceived if you think you are saved.
You have answered rightly; DO this and you will live. This was Jesus response to the man who correctly answered the question Jesus posed about what that man must do to reap eternal life. His answer was to Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul. Of course if we don’t do this, the implication is we will perish which is consistent with everything else Jesus and the Apostles and the whole of scripture tells us. People that claim we have to do nothing know not the gospel. People teaching that should be accursed. We don’t save ourselves but when Jesus says scores of times and the Apostles the same that we must actually DO something, I would not be trusting the false workers of righteousness teaching the perversion of grace.
But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and KEEP it!” Again and again, keeping the word (obeying it) is the never ending theme of the entire Bible. Howwe got the perverted Apostate Christianity we have today is mind boggling yet is was prophesized to usher in the end times.
Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole bodywill be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light. If we practice sin, who actually believes we have no part dark in us? God wants us to be a shining lamp and tells us how to do this. Why would Jesus tell us something that was not possible?
But Jesus answered him, saying,It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone,but by every word of God. EVERY WORD are the key words here. We can’t cherry pick the Bible or the words of Jesus. That is taking them out of context and spinning or perverting the truth. That is exactly what the Apostate churches (which are the majority) have done. They preach what people want to hear, not the truth of God.
You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve. Paul told us in Romans 6:16 that we are slaves to the one we obey. If we practice sin we are not obeying, and Jesus cannot be our Lord. The Apostle In 1 John 3:10 went even further and said Satan was our Father if we practice sin. All professing Christians accept Jesus as their Savior, but few have accepted Him as their Lord. He must be both, if He is not your Lord, He will not be your Savior. Repent, turn from Your Ways to His Ways. Turn from doing your will to do His will. Jesus said that only those that DO the will of His Father shall enter life.
And do not think you can say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father.” I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Don’t hang your hat of salvation on the fact you are descendants of Abraham. I have heard several sermons that essentially said the opposite of this statement by Jesus. There is no eternal security, there is no such thing as Once Saved Always Saved. IF we don’t bear good fruit, and abide in Jesus we will be cut off, cut down and thrown into the fire.
He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Believing in Jesus means you obey Him. What other interpretation can one derive here? God is a God of love but He is also a God of judgment. While mercy triumps over judgement, mercy eventually runs out, it is not unlimited as the Bible tells us. Above all God is Holy.
If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. I just used this to show another conditional IF statement about salvation. We must follow the rules of the Lord who is Lord of Lords. We can’t invent doctrines of men, call it church and hope He likes it. He told us exactly what we needed to do.
To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand. Some people don’t get it. That is true and God said it would be true. I take no credit for my revelation knowledge, it is all from Him and totally unmerited from my end. I speak and write the way I do because that is a gift God gave me including boldness. I am learning to use it with more gentleness and outward expression of true love. I want us all to spend eternity with the Lord. Paul wrote of the God sent delusion in 2 Thess. Those that believed in God but took pleasure in their unrighteousness (ie their sins) are the ones that are going to be sent this delusion. I pray that by being bold, some of them can be awakened but it will be totally up to God if any of His truth gets thru to them, whether from me or anyone else He has sent.
A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. We are supposed to be like Jesus right? We are told by Paul to aim for perfection. Jesus is perfection. The perfect ONE told us to obey His commandments.
But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.” Hearing the word in God in church on Sunday and practicing sin the rest of the week is DOING NOTHING. Great will be the fall. We must have a foundation of actionable faith just as James told us otherwise we are phonies. In the coming tribulation, many foundations of faith will crumble because they were not built on solid foundations based on biblical truth.
But the one who endures to the end, it is he who shall be saved. We will not be spared tribulation on earth or in the last days contrary to rapture proponents teaching. I see a problem coming when those of weak faith will be shaken out because they believed the lie of the pre-tribulation rapture. I have a three part blog series written in October 2008 that walks one thru the truth about this doctrine. The same teachers that teach your sin doesn’t matter are the very ones that teach this doctrine. Oh how great is the apostasy.
Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe it for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. This is going to happen to many of the professing church as things begin to get uglier economically, politically, and militarily on the earth. This is the great falling away as foretold by Paul in 2 Thess.
He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. This was the disobedient steward who did not stay the course, who did not endure to the end. The master came at a time when he did not expect and he was not ready and because of his disobedience with knowledge of the truth was assigned an even worse punishment than the believers who go into the lake of fire.
All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. These words come from when Jesus told the Disciples about the tribulation they would endure after He was to go back to heaven but then He spoke about the promise of the Holy Spirit. He wanted to prepare them for the tribulation but let them know they were equipped to handle it. This is not the place for this argument but know that there will be no pre-tribulation rapture. If alive in the flesh, we all will be here on the last day, we must endure to the end. Jesus has equipped us also to handle it. He will never leave us or foresake us but He never said we would be spared tribulation. The verses quoted in 2 Thess and Revelation are been twisted by people wanting to come justify their conclusion while ignoring 10 times as many verses that go against their doctrine. My problem with all of this is that the faith of many is going to be shaken when they do not get spared the great tribulation that is coming. Do not fall away, endure to the end to be saved. If we teach the truth, people will be prepared and will not fall away, just as Jesus prepared the Disciplies prior to their tribulation.
Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. This verse shows that believing in Jesus as used in the Bible means an actionable belief that results in obedience and transformation into the likeness of Christ. Paul told us therefore there is no condemnation for those “in” Christ. Being IN Christ means we have been transformed, we are walking in the spirit, our flesh has been crucified, our old man is dead, we have suffered in the flesh, we have renewed our mind and that we have the mind of Christ. That is what Jesus meant here when he says we have crossed over from death to life. If you doubt this, go read the following three verses in this chapter of John.
John 5:26-29 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. ”Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. Sadly no eternal life for them.
What is impossible with human beings is possible with God. Exactly. We cannot obey on our own power or desire until God calls,we accept the call, stand in His grace. Grace is what enables. It is the enabler of our salvation as Paul told us in Titus 2:11-13.
Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around your neck than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. One had better be absolutely sure from the Holy Spirit that they are teaching correctly. If we teach lies and cause others to stumble, we will be held to account. It is hard for me to imagine how a teaching that says you are saved by grace but that you still need to obey the thousands of words Jesus some of which I have quoted in this series; can be misconstrued to be a false teaching. Jesus told us to obey his commandments period and made it clear the consequences of not doing that. Ignore the King’s words and follow a false teacher’s words at your own peril.
Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets. False teachers are very popular, many have very large congregations, write books that make a lot of money, go on TV to give interviews, and the world loves them. The true teachers of the gospel will be reviled and persecuted by many including those professing faith according to Jesus in the Beatitudes.
I believe God’s judgment is at hand, right at our door here in 2009. We must be ready for the return of the King. It is His kingdom and He sets the rules which He has told us clearly by His Word. Those very words will be our judge when He does return to initiate His Kingdom. He has been speaking to me and whispering Preach From the Rooftops. Time is short.
I am not a pre tribber at all, but in any case I don’t wish to engage in debate and chest beating about who has all the light. None of us do. I believe that if anyone claims to have figured it all out, they are a liar and God will confound the wise. I assume that what drove your question was my call to action at the end of this post about Jesus is coming soon. Jesus told John in Rev. 22 that He Comes Quickly. God’s clock is different that ours, so we men can only speculate about what quickly meant, or words like “soon to take place”. As the inventor of time, there may be mysterious aspects to it that we as mere mortals cannot comprehend unless God Himself reveals it. In fact Paul told Timothy in 2 Tim 6:20-21 that man made science would falsely be used to discredit His truth. Maybe “quickly” was one aspect Paul was referring to with Timothy. Just to clarify my writings in this post.
We are entering the early stages of tribulation. THe faithful will not be taken out of the world, we need to hunker down, stand firmly on our faith and speak up against the apostasy that is rampant in the church as the love of most will wax cold as things progress. Exactly how long we have, I don’t know, but I am closely watching, discerning and searching the scriptures daily and praying for revelation about the times. God has been faithful and has given me some revelation, only what I can bare but what He has told me, I am not to keep it to myself. As end times approach, it is the nuts that hunker down in caves but we are never to remain idle. We are not to resist an evil man, we must be willing to lose our life to save it. God needs His workers in the field to rise up and bring in the harvest to His Kingdom. GOd said His House Will Be Full. I see no downside to God’s people in telling them to Fear Him and Obey Him as His return and judgments are relatively speaking imminent. Thank you for the references, I will certainly check out these two web sites. God Bless.
FOR PRETRIB RAPTURE REPEATERS
Congratulations! You are now fulfilling the Bible which says “Come now, and let us repeat together.”
Be sure to repeat what Walvoord, Lindsey, LaHaye, Ice etc. repeat what their own teachers repeat what their own teachers repeat etc. etc. etc.!
Repeat that Christ’s return is imminent because we’re told to “watch” (Matt. 24, 25) for it. So is the “day of God” (II Pet. 3:12) – which you admit is at least 1000 years ahead – also imminent because we’re told to be “looking for” it?
Also repeat the pretrib myths about the “Jewish wedding stages” and “Jewish feasts” (where’s your “church/Israel dichotomy” now?) even though Christ and Paul knew nothing about a “pretrib stage” and neither did any official theological creed or organized church before 1830!
You should read “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty” on the “Powered by Christ Ministries” site to find out why you shouldn’t repeat everything your pretrib teachers repeat.
Do I have to repeat this?
Absolutely Not. Jesus told us Matthew 6:24
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.
We must decide, we are either going to live to do our will or His will. There is no in between, we can’t serve both. There will indeed be a cost of discipleship if we choose to serve God and DO HIS WILL. We must be willing to pay it. We will suffer in the flesh. But that is the price of salvation if we want it. It isn’t a cakewalk, and Jesus never told us it would be, despite what you might hear Sunday morning.
We must indeed crucify ourselves. We must die to self to be born again. We don’t just say some prayer. Unless we die to self (by denying ourselves) we cannot be born again. We cannot be a new creation in Christ if we are not Born Again. Verily I say to you, said Jesus in John 3:3, unless a man is born again he will not see the kingdom of God.
But worry not about what you have or your needs. Mat 6:33 says “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things shall be added unto you.” This doesnt mean you will live in a mansion or drive a BMW, but what you really need will be provided.
God Bless
Can one serve both self and God?