| E-MAIL SERVICE | Sign me up to receive the daily Word of Righteousness free via my E-mail address! ( ONLY AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH ) | |
| ARCHIVES | I want to check out the daily Words of Righteousness for any of the last fourteen days or from previous weeks. ( ENGLISH ONLY ) | |
| FEEDBACK | I have a question or comment about today's Word of Righteousness. ( ENGLISH AND SPANISH ONLY ) | |
| BOOK LIST | I would like to see the complete book list of the Words of Righteousness author Robert B. Thompson. (SOME SPANISH TITLES AVAILABLE ) |
The Daily Word of Righteousness
Your Role in Your Salvation, #4
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. (Ephesians 2:1-3—NIV)
Can you see in the above passage that the Christian no longer is gratifying the cravings of his sinful nature or following its desires and thoughts?
We can believe and praise God all we want to. But we are not abiding in Christ until moral transformation is taking place. Moral transformation does not take place until we, with the help of the Spirit of God, begin to obey the commandments of Christ and His Apostles.
The Mercy Seat in Heaven is always ready to hear our prayer for help in keeping the numerous commandments found in the New Testament. When we pray, grace is sent to us so we can overcome worldliness, the lusts of our flesh, and our stubborn self-will.
Repentance is something we do. As Paul said, we should repent and turn to God and prove our repentance by our deeds.
No matter what relief we obtain by believing and praising, if we do this apart from proving our repentance by our deeds we eventually will find our good feelings and enthusiasm drying up. We must read our Bible and pray each day that we may discover the will of Christ for that day. Then we must do what He commands.
For example, God does not allow us to hold a grudge against another person. If we do not forgive others, God will not forgive us.
We must continue to pray to the Lord until we are able to forgive. If we do not, but just believe and praise God, not actively seeking to overcome the grudge we are holding, nothing will take place in our personality. We may go through our entire life holding that grudge because we did not actively press into Christ until we received the grace to forgive the individual.
And so it is with all aspects of the Christian life. God has sovereignly called us to be perfect in Christ. Then He has shown us in the New Testament what we must do to attain perfection.
A careful reading of the Book of Acts will reveal that the Apostles did not preach the forgiveness of sins apart from active, vigorous repentance on the part of the convert. None of the books of the New Testament emphasizes mere belief accompanied by praise as being the means of obtaining the salvation promised by the Lord.
We must learn today not to judge the work of the Lord by the seeming results of an endeavor but by the written Word. If the Word is being left behind as we rush toward satisfying human needs, we may have a temporary, apparent success; but over a long period of time we will witness a crumbling of what seemed so glorious at the beginning.
The Bible is as a rock on which we can depend. If we are to have true success we must meditate in it day and night and not depart from its commandments.
To be continued.