Conclusion of Living with Assurance

Read James 2:14-26
This section of the Bible trips some people up. They argue works over faith because of these verses. But, what James is saying here is that works are evidence of our faith.

My take on good works is that when we become Christians, when the Holy Spirit takes up residency in our bodies and we become members of God’s Kingdom, not only are certain things expected of us (and the Bible is FULL of advice for how we are to live our lives – from Titus where older women are told to mentor younger ones – to Romans where we are told how to treat fellow church goers – to Proverbs, which tells us how to be a good spouse or parent), but because our direction in life is to become more like Christ, we look to Him and His words for how to live. (We need to spread the Gospel, we need to forgive as He did, we need to be His hands and feet on earth, we need to love our neighbors, etc. etc.)

So, yes, when I read, “faith without works is dead” – I think it’s very true. Can a Christian be a Christian without doing good works? I suppose – but I think it’s very unlikely.

Some other false assumptions (besides being good will get you into Heaven) –

Some people think if they just believe in God and even in the fact that Jesus lived and died they’ll get in. But, James 2:19 says, “Even the demons believe that – and shudder.”
Accepting a set of facts is not the same as being a Christian.

Others might say they’ll get in because they went to church every Sunday. Some because they were baptized – even that they responded to an altar call.

There is a difference in believing things about God and believing in God.

You can believe certain things, but unless you repent and put Christ first and in the center of your life – you are missing the boat. One mistake we often make is feeling like we can’t approach Jesus for forgiveness until we truly repent, when actually it is Christ that places a true desire in us to turn from sin, to see the love of God, the beauty of holiness, the joy of purity and then the longing to be cleansed and restored to communion with Heaven. Only then can we truly repent and only after repenting can forgiveness come. Whenever man recognizes sin and makes an effort to reform – it is the power of Christ that is drawing him. We are called to have an actual relationship with the Lord. We are suppose to talk to Him, love Him, worship Him and praise Him.

The author of this study writes: “As wonderful as the doctrine of justification by grace because of the work of Christ may be, it will be of no use to us unless it becomes ours personally. Yet having been justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, this state of spiritual warfare has been changed to one of peace. We have peace with God, make peace with others and experience a new measure of personal peace too. From our side we realize this new state imperfectly, often causing turmoil with others and within ourselves. But from God’s side this is a perfect peace with us through Christ’s blood – we still see our sins – and maybe even more so – but God looks at us through His Son’s sacrifice – and sees us as clean. We are secure after we accept this.”

Read:
1 John 5:11-13
John 10: 27-28
Ezekiel 36:25-27
II Cor.5:17

If it worries some of you that God is opening some hearts and not others – know that He calls everyone. It’s up to us to hear and respond. Read Rev. 22:17
Lord. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for not leaving us in our sin, but providing a way out – a way to You. Please continue to open our hearts to Your will. In Your Son’s Holy name we pray – Amen.



Amazing Grace Gifts

Living with Assurance

Over the next 4 or so days I’d like to share some of a lesson I taught one Sunday from the Lectionary Series my church uses.

The author writes, “There are many people inside and outside churches who believe they will be going to heaven, but who will not be. This may seem like a harsh statement, but Jesus was clear that not everyone who claimed to know Him was really His follower. He says in Matthew 7 “not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

The will of God being – repenting of our sins and believing in His Son, Jesus Christ.

This lesson is meant to clarify how a person can be certain he or she is a follower of Christ.

Many people compare themselves to others: “I’m no where near as bad as Adolph Hitler” “I don’t measure up to Mother Teresa.”

We tend to view our morality by comparison. We find the worst examples we can think of, measuring ourselves against him or her, and patting ourselves on the back for how good we measure up. When we pick out who we want to compare ourselves to for whatever reason, we can usually make ourselves look good – or at least ok.

Why do we spend so much time comparing ourselves to others? (our families, our moral condition, our finances, our religious devotion?)

The author of this study says many people are planning on gaining entrance into heaven because they are “pretty decent” people. The real question is, decent compared to whom? The standard of the holiness of God is the only one against which we will be measured and we already know we don’t measure up to that. The Bible says, “We all fall short.” But, somehow we go on playing the comparison game and act like we think God will grade on a curve and because there are plenty of people worse then us we’ll pass the test.

It’s in Jesus’ life that we see the principles of God’s law - love of God and man – perfectly exemplified. Benevolence and unselfish love was the life of His soul. It is as we behold HIM, as the light from our Savior falls on US, that we see the sinfulness in our own hearts.

People watch how Christians act. And because of this comparison thing we all seem to have going on – they love it when we are not acting like Christ. Another reason we should really work at that!

Read Luke 16:19 – 31

1. What do we learn about heaven in this passage?
2. What do we learn about hell?

You may have heard these 2 statements before (or at least similar):

Hell is the invention of angry and closed-minded preachers. A loving God would never send anyone to hell.

Heaven is a state of mind. We achieve it in this life when we are kind and loving with each other.

Well, first of all, God does not send anyone to hell. They choose to go there when they reject Him. And the Bible is the only authoritative truth source that says something conclusive about the life hereafter. It says that there are two places people will spend eternity: a real heaven, which has been created for people to live in God’s presence forever and ever, and a real hell, which has been created for people to spend eternity apart from God in condemnation and punishment. We are all going to be in one of those two places after this life on earth ends.

If you know someone who is not sure where they will spend eternity, it’s time to face this important issue. The problem with today’s society is that everyone lives for the moment. Many people lead their lives as if they will never die. But, we all face eternity and we need to face reality.

The good news is – where we go really is our choice. So how do we get the good choice!

There’s a joke I heard once about a man getting to the Pearly Gates and Peter told him he needed 10,000 points to get into heaven. The man said, “Well, I taught Sunday school for 20 years.” Peter said, “That’s one point” (!)

The man said, “Well…I tithed” Peter said, “OK, you’re up to 5 points.”

The man started to sweat. “I helped in the soup kitchen every month for most of my adult life.” Peter said “One more point”

The man said, “I don’t get this – I put my faith in Jesus when I was a teen-ager!”

Peter said, “Ok, there’s your other 9993 points – come right in.”