Jesus is our life.
I think comment my opinion, the most frightening, awesome, and amazing thing about God if he's given us this thing called free will. We can do whatever we want. And He will not stop us! Honestly, I do not like that. It would be so much nicer if, for example, what we're about ready to gossip about someone, an Angel would, like, smack us on the head, or take hold of our tongue and prevent us from say anything stupid! It would be nice if when we are tempted to sin in any way an angel would just appear and stop us, wouldn't it?
Well, unfortunately, that's not the way it works. God lets us do whatever we want. However, he does allow us to reap what we sow. We do whatever we want–but there's consequences. I've heard it been said that we have as much of God as we want. The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He doesn't force himself on anyone. Jesus never forced anyone to follow him. I love to imagine how the Lord Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, a cool breeze coming off the lake, his hair fluttering in the wind, the cacophony of the fisherman working the lake next with the seagull sounds, and the spies one of the fishermen, he walks up to them and says, “Come, and follow me!”, and those disciples, as the Bible says, left their nets. It was her personal choice. Jesus forced no one. It's hard for us to understand, I think, how much God loves us, he knows what's best for us, and yet he doesn't force himself on us. He allows people to go to hell. That I don't understand. Yet, he values our free will so much that he will not violate us by forcing us, against our wills, to believe in him, even receive the free gift of eternal life.
There will be no one in hell that does not deserve to be there nor has not chosen to be there. Hell is a choice. The lake of fire is a choice. We are the sum total of all the moral choices that we've made in our lives. And yet, God in his infinite mercy lovingkindness continually drawing us to himself, wooing us, sending people are way, signs from heaven, to persuade us to follow the narrow way. Heaven is choice. It is a difficult choice. He endures to the end will be saved, Jesus said.
I've recently been pondering the fact that Jesus said that very few would be saved. Wow! Very few. And few means not many. Pretty simple. The broad road leads to destruction. The narrow, difficult, constricted, hard way leads to eternal life.
We don't get to heaven by our good works. But bad works can send us to hell. That's why Jesus warns us that we should repent, as he stated in one of his letters to the churches in the book of Revelation, that if they would not repent their names would be scratched out of the book of life. Notice in the letters to the seven churches in the book of Revelation Jesus never says I know your theology, your vast amount of biblical knowledge, your dissecting of the original text, your superb knowledge of Aramaic, Chaldean, and ancient Hebrew, he says that he knows there WORKS. Not just what they believe. Lord Jesus, I do not want my name scratched out of the Lamb's book of life!
What do you think it means when Jesus says he will vomit the lukewarm out of his mouth? That's scary, be extremely scary thing about being lukewarm is that you're convinced that your tepid condition is hot. You are on fire for Jesus, well, in his book all you are is lukewarm and you'll be stone of his mouth. The nature of deception is that you don't know your deceived. And I reckon that the nature of being lukewarm is that you don't know that you're lukewarm. When we think we have arrived, were generally mistaken, we've never even left to go anywhere.
I believe with all my heart that humility is the key for us to be able to enter the kingdom of heaven. God resist the proud. How may times have you been proud. Of your accomplishments, preaching, and fasting, and our prayers, just like the proud Pharisees of Jesus's day.
Only the humble will make it into the kingdom of heaven.
Lord, do whatever it takes to keep me out of the lake of fire! Interestingly Jesus spoke more about damnation in hell than he did about heaven. Why? Well, I'd venture to say that the Lord Jesus knew that all those who would end up in heaven, who would follow the narrow the road, who had hated sin, and who did not frustrate the Spirit of grace, wood and up in heaven. Nevertheless, those who made a free moral choice to continue in sin, after the Bible itself was filled with warning after warning for Christians to flee in morality, gossip, anger, hatred, etc. all of those things which the Bible says are the works of the flesh, which God himself has stated that he will not be mocked, that we will reap what we sow. If we sow unforgiveness we will reap unforgiveness eternally.
Jesus said, “be holy, as your heavenly father is holy”. Jesus meant when he said–and said what he meant. It's time for Christians, especially Western Christians to wake up to the fact that saying a prayer one time in your life is not gonna save you for eternity if you are not truly born again, or if you leave your love for Jesus and began to once again love the world. The apostle John warns us to “Love not not the world, neither the things that are in the world, for all that is in the world, the last of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of this life, or of the world, not of the father.” If a person continues to love the world the love of the father will not be in him–he will not make it into the kingdom of heaven.
Remember the book of John how many of Jesus is original disciples left him, all there was left were the 12. In Jesus even turn to them and ask, “Will you go also?” To which the apostle Peter replied, “Lord, where else would we go, for only you have the words of eternal life!”
Jesus gives us free will to either love him or ignore him and his warnings.
Jesus is coming soon. We must love Jesus with all of our strength, all of our mind, all of our emotions, and the measuring stick, the ruler by which we measure our love for Jesus is in direct proportion to our love for others.
Being a true disciple of Jesus is absolutely impossible. You cannot do it on your own. No amount of willpower, or asceticism can make you be a disciple of Jesus Christ. It is a work of the Holy Spirit, coupled with your free will, choosing to yield yourself to him, that accomplishes the being conformed to His Image! It's God work in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure! Nonetheless, you must work out your own salvation with fear and trembling!
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