7/20/2022 0 Comments Battling our temptation1 Dear brothers, I humbly present this post for your courage and support. I find that I am most susceptible to temptation when I am discouraged. And I am discouraged when I lose sight of the nobler and greater purpose of imitating Christ and become distracted by a seemingly unfair "game over" life event in a fallen world. And my discouragement is caused by just that; it is caused by my confusion in my moral conscience whose job is to constantly sift through things and tell me what (or better, who) is most valuable. In Luke 14, Jesus says, "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters and his own life, He cannot be My disciple." In other words, whom you value most in your life, and hence upon whom hinges the entire moral values of your mind, is whom you worship, whom you live and die for. So I suggest, practically speaking, the entry way for our temptation can be viewed as our moral conscience. I find this to be in line with the archetype of all temptations, the temptation of our mother Eve in Genesis 3. I believe, within the interaction of the woman with the serpent, lies the clear steps of the enticement process of all temptations: 1. We first become distrustful of God's good character, His infinite wisdom, and power. 2. We become deceived in our moral conscience by calling an evil thing as a good thing, and God as evil for prohibiting us from pursuing it. 3. We become frustrated due to our unfulfilled lust for the forbidden pleasure which can only be experienced through disobedience. So we seek greater justification to fully convince our moral conscience to overthrow God's authority. 4. We find justification by slandering God's "uncompassionate" character, and we end up worshipping an idol in God's place who will lead us to what we see is our true happiness (which leads to futility). 5. We perform our new self-idolatrous religion's rite of blasphemy by calling God a liar. We say, "Wages of sin is not death," "Jesus' yoke is not easy," "There is no truly honourable purpose for my life as a follower of Christ." 6. And the cycle of shame and guilt and continual villainizing the "oppressive" God continues, making repentance impossible. Brother, look to Christ the Saviour, the source of all happiness and beauty, who forgives, and who has called you to a noble purpose, so that you do not grow weary in working for God's kingdom. 2 We all know the word of God which says that sin so easily becomes an obstacle that hinder our advance toward Christ-likeness and true usefulness (Heb 12:1, 2Ti 2:21). We know that our only goal in life is to reflect Christ by exposing evil, preventing corruption in society, and adding "flavour" to life (Php 3:14). This word is for your encouragement, beloved brother who is running the race well... Keep focused on the work for the kingdom which you enjoy doing, in accordance with the gifts God has given you, in whatever station you are in life, and derive your adrenaline and happiness from the work. Remember not to be discouraged: It is not the outcomes of the work that commend us to our Lord, but it is our own faithfulness to exercise whatever stewardship God has given us (i.e. our possessions, our gifts, and our relationships). Also remember, after all our work, we will not have even begun to offer to the Lord what He is truly worthy of; we must always live with this holy discontent and continue to exercise every imagination, aspiration, and motive on how best to make His name glorious. Yes, temptations will come, and all kinds of discouragement and distractions will come your way. But for as long as you keep focused on the true value of Christ and the weighty honour of becoming like Him, you will see the utter worthlessness of sin, and be able to repent with honesty at the first slight pull from the flesh. And this word is for your edification, beloved brother who keeps falling into temptation... Always remember that the Lord Jesus has already suffered the infinite wrath of God in our place, and has already forgiven every sin we have committed, are committing, and will ever commit until we finally enter His kingdom and are freed from all presence of sin. Also, know that you are not alone in your battles; all your brothers line up left and right in the battlefield (that is, this world) right here with you. Yes, it is no secret to any of us how sin is the most slippery slope; make one seemingly small justification to feed the flesh, and the flesh demands more. The series of yielding more and more, because we will not look at God and repent, then becomes impossible to stop by virtue of our own persistent volition. But is the temporal thing or lack thereof which makes you become so discouraged worth being made into a point of contention that you are willing to lose sight of your eternal rewards for reflecting Christ in this world? In this battlefield, you may lose an eye or your limbs, but until you arrive at complete death, it is our honour to always, always keep fighting for the Lord’s great cause with whatever means we have left. Brothers, we must all remember that our usefulness in this dangerous world is directly proportional to our sanctification and our own pursuit of Christ-likeness in all His beauty. Do not be deceived: whatever a man sows, he reaps. We may think little of our besetting sins to which we have grown accustomed and think little of its consequences, but we will certainly lose our usefulness to our Lord and certainly disqualify ourselves from a particularly meaningful service and certainly lose our eternal rewards, for the Lord uses honourable vessels. 3 What does it mean to be a Christian? It means to love the Lord and hate evil. And how do we love the Lord more, and be more obedient to His will, and consequently hate sin more? Believe and study the Bible? Yes, the Bible, both OT and NT. And there is no other way. Explanation is below: Paul says in Romans 8, "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren." The Christian's one goal in life, then, is to become more and more like their Lord Jesus, and reflect and represent properly who Jesus is in our beliefs, emotional reaction, thought, conduct, and speech. As we become more like our Lord, the greater our sensitivity to the sin's odour will be, and more and more set apart for God's purposes. So how do we become more like our Lord? How do we truly ascribe to the Lord His worth and see His likeness as far more better thing to pursue than all the fleeting pleasures of sin? Again, Paul says in 2Corinthians 3:18, and 4:6, "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit... God is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." The answer is: Behold Christ. Study Him. Discover His beauty. And He is found in only one place: the word of God. And the more you know about the Lord, the more there is to love Him. And the greater emotion you will have to hate that displeases Him. And sure enough, you are being changed, and being matured into Christ-likeness. 4 There is an interesting animal study of rats being forced to tread water to exhaustion. Then they are rescued when they are about to drown, dried off, given a break, and then put back into the water. Then the rats tread water at a far greater (almost supernatural) duration of time. The hypothesis was that the rats were able to endure longer in the second treading, because the rats expected that there would be a rescue in the end. I cannot confirm whether the rats truly trod water that long (60 hours?), but you see that there is a true and biblical principle for the Christian that is reflected in this study: the importance for hope. 1John 3:1-3 says, "Behold, what love the Father has given us, that we would be called children of God... Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." By the Holy Spirit's regenerating work, we became alive to God, and put our faith and hope in the Son of God, and God became our Father. And as we continue to gaze upon the beauty of Jesus in the Scripture, we become conformed to His image more and more. But John tells us that, sooner than you think (longer than you perhaps wish), you will see Christ face to face. You may meet Christ when He comes back to earth (as Christ has been on His way back ever since His ascension), or you may meet Him through physical death. Either way, once you see Christ, you will be transformed instantly and completely to reflect His righteous character. This is the great hope/faith of any Christian which makes him supernaturally strong in his darkest trials and the most turbulent temptations. There is an eventual and humiliating end of all the attacks from the devil, the world, and the flesh. And only Christ will then remain, and you will be freed from sin for all eternity. Then you will join His host and come back with Him, the Victor and our Hero. All your sufferings will be as a bad dream in a blink of an eye, and you will wake up in fulfillment of Christ's promise of eternal life. May the Holy Spirit always guide your mind toward Him. 5 "God raises the dead." This is what Abraham, the father of all the faithful, believed, as he walked with his son Isaac to a mountain of Moriah. The very son, conceived miraculously from an old couple (whose bodies are as good as dead), in whom are all the promises of the covenant God made with Abraham, now God commands Abraham to kill. Does Abraham fret? Does Abraham bite his nails, comb his beard, or pace around in anxiety? No. By faith, he willingly goes with Isaac to the mountain chosen out by God... to see a resurrection (Hebrews 11:19). Now... How much do we lose out on the opportunity to bring the due honour to the faithful Lord who keeps all His promises and lose out on knowing Him more, becoming more useful, because we will not endure to the end in our temptation? The same Lord who commanded Abraham to offer up Isaac is the same Lord who says "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you," is the same Lord who says, "This is will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality." Do we disagree with Abraham? Do we refuse our Lord, who commands the impossible, who is worthy of our faith and obedience? Then let us be like Abraham, and seek after our only goal in life, which is to reflect Christlikeness in this dark world, and to serve our Lord well in our individual trenches to the end... because with God, nothing is impossible. 6 In a few years, all your pains and sufferings will be resolved in a blink of an eye, And what will remain before you is the glory of the Lord... So take heart, brother! Whatever you do, do what is for the glory of the Lord. -- I was just recently reading an encouraging post on the blessed hope of those who are in Christ, that is the hope of being freed from sin forever in the favorable presence of God, forever advancing in joyful ministry and fellowship never-ending learning about the beauty of God in the new heavens and earth...... Then absolute terror gripped me when I realized the converse is also a reality: the majority of the world will die, sealed in their unconverted state, forever doomed to never stop sinning, being in endless torment with no hope for eternity. And if it were not for the sheer mercy of God and His choosing to reveal Himself in His word to me, I would be doomed to the same wretched end which I deserve. God is greatly to be feared and truly He will not be mocked. Brothers, we of all people have truly endless eternity to give thanks to God for: for choosing us for His kingdom and opening our eyes to see the surpassing value of Christ Jesus above all, and opening our hearts to repent. Then let us keep repenting, and cast aside all folly and works of darkness and things that holds the penalty of terrifying death, and pursue Christ our Saviour and Lord. -- Do not lose heart, my brothers. And do not worry. Your Lord sustains all things by the word of His power. And He will have His way with what is His own. Your life and all your stewardship remain for as long as He chooses. When the Lord humbles you, He will exalt you in due time. -- The purifying fear of God is when you realize whatever He says goes and all rebellion is futile and God will not be mocked. You dare not challenge Him, and you surrender all to Him and acknowledge defeat of all your own personal ambitions and dreams. True fear is dreading ever finding yourself at the wrong side of His name, so that your destruction is His glory. No, may it never be. Let your dignity be His glory. -- If we were to be content with the idea of being trapped in our home forever only with access to our wickedness, then that is what we worship... But Jesus is the Niagara Falls, every sunrise and sunset, every beauty of woman all rolled into one, the Creator of all things whom we will behold forever. -- In the end when you get to heaven, you will be in bliss but you will enjoy no more opportunity as you had on earth to prove to God and to the world the surpassing value of Jesus compared to fleeting pleasures of life. -- When David heard Goliath blaspheme, it did not matter to him he was a giant. He only knew Goliath should not be allowed to live any longer. And he took action. Let us be that way with besetting sin that utters blasphemy within us. 7 Brothers, Pray. Please call out to the Sovereign when you are discouraged. And pray that the Lord will fix the issue, but at the same time… confess that your body is not your own, but bought and owned by the Lord Jesus, and take comfort in His sovereign control over all your stewardship. And take courage to keep suffering well and keep working for the kingdom. In this battle field, the work that the Lord has prepared for you to do is not over until it is over. And as long as you have an arm left, you use it to keep firing against the enemy, for you are still alive and not out of the fight yet. 2 Timothy 2:1-4 You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No solider in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a solider. Please pray for my courage. I'll also be praying for your courage, brothers! 8 Thoughts from today's sermon on 2 Timothy 1:17... Does a role model play a role in our own spiritual walk? The apostle Paul says "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ" (1Corinthians 11:1). What Paul means to call us to imitate is: his faithfulness to his Lord. At first glance, the call to imitate Paul seems nonsensical. The apostle Paul is an... apostle, who has first-hand encountered the risen Christ, who has had first-hand visions of heaven, who has been an instrument of performing supernatural works of power, who has been used by God to write the infallible revelation of God. Surely, it is not reasonable to expect us -- the regular, Spirit-indwelt, slaves of Christ, bought by His own substitutionary atonement and owned by the Lord of the universe for His holy use -- to live as zealously and selflessly and courageously for the Lord as the privileged apostle Paul did... is it? Wrong! Yes, the apostle Paul saw first-hand visions of heaven. The apostle Paul had indeed, according to God's purpose, performed some miracles in order to authenticate his apostleship, a ministry to be fulfilled as one of the founding apostles for the new covenant in Christ. But his zeal for Christ's honour and his pursuit of obedience to God's word did not come from any of his special apostolic privileges. It came from the very same reality that we believers all have experienced: the second birth; the Spirit-wrought regeneration of the entire soul, the Spirit-wrought, irrevocable promise of eternal life and the complete forgiveness of all your sins, and Spirit's indwelling power to walk in obedience to His word. Is the apostle Paul's body of work and his enduring life of integrity which has protected his credibility owing to some superpower that we do not possess? No. But rather, "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). We believers have partaken in all the new covenant blessings (blood atonement offered by the Messiah; freedom from slavery to sin, new heart, new desire, spirit of obedience, breaking the power of sin within the soul, indwelling of the Holy Spirit, shining revelation of the Word on all moral and knowledge darkness, complete forgiveness of sins, eternal fellowship with God), and there is nothing else left for us to receive. What more would you like the Lord to do for you in order for you to live for Christ's honour with selflessness and overflowing thankfulness in your hearts? You possess the very Spirit of God in you (if indeed the Spirit dwells within you)! Brothers, let us all pursue Christ and cast aside all entangling, worthless things destined for the fire. Let us all imitate Christ by imitating Paul (and other men of faithfulness whom God has put in your life). And let us remember the man Paul, who was cold and dying, awaiting in his dark dungeon for his eventual execution, having been forsaken by his peers, slandered as the public enemy of Rome, and yet... whose first and only concern on his mind is the advancement of the gospel of Christ, and the fulfillment of his ministry with integrity, and Timothy (and all the future witnesses for Christ), the one to whom he gives his solemn charge to remain faithful to the Lord with power, love, and self-control. Then when we are at our end (which is sooner than we think), we will say, like Paul, having served the Lord with a clear conscience, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord will award to me, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing." 9 A cautionary tale from my morning: Yesterday, I have completed a step in one of my projects which took rather a great effort and care to accomplish. Then I woke up this morning with a sense of smug complacency with no thought of pre-planning my day to engage in other projects. So there I laid on my bed, lackadaisically scrolling through Facebook feeds... Then I was convicted of my sin of laziness, lack of resolve to pursue the work of the kingdom, the great foolishness of putting myself at risk of temptations that may come through those Facebook feeds even as I lay on the bed. And I was ashamed of myself, and confessed to the Lord, and by the grace of God made the resolve to not give into complacency. Brothers, you who enjoy the weekends after days of work, you who hit a special milestone in your achievements, you who have accomplished any work for Christ... Rejoice and be encouraged in the Lord's work through you, as Barnabas was (Ac 11:23). But look up when you have reached the small plateau of refreshment after a long climb, that always before you stands another height of glory to scale. Brothers, never stand still! For to be self-satisfied and stand still is no different from doing evil. Yes, rejoice after the hard work for the Lord. Yes, enjoy the produce of your toils. But also, always, always direct your mind to what is ahead, and never be satisfied with where you are! We will never be able to accomplish all the work that His honour is due. But we nevertheless press on the impossible goal, because our great Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ is worthy of all our effort. 10 As someone who has been discouraged many times, may I suggest this to you who are discouraged because you do not have what you want out of life: I am more content than you are, not because I am doing better than you career-wise, relationship-wise, or ministry-wise. But I am more content because I learned to imitate Paul in Php 4:11-13. The Lord will have His way with what is His own, and my stewardship (everything that I am given; gifts, relationships, possessions) remain for as long as the Lord chooses. Whatever the Lord has planned for me, I know my singular duty in life: read the Bible, pursue Christ-likeness, and focus on my work for the kingdom and get better at the work. Period. So what if you had a bad day at work? Get better at doing the work. So what if you don't have a wife yet? Paul said being single is more advantageous than being married anyway (1Co 7). And why not trust the Lord to provide while you focus on your walk? So what if you are a slow study? If you keep studying, you will get better at it. You may not like to hear this, but your discouragement comes from idolatrous pride (the same source from which the people, on the other end of the spectrum, boast in their own abilities and gifts, and consider their own gifts as their source of happiness, not the Lord), and it is a sure way to reject God's authority, get burned out, and inevitably fall into temptation. And it must be confessed and repented of if you want to pursue true joy and honour of Christ. 11 Neuroplasticity - Using the Brain the right way (based on the book by Steve Kotler: The Rise of Superman) This post might be tad long, but I hope it is helpful to the brothers who finish reading. :D Neurologically speaking, how do we rewire our brain to stop the cycle of temptation? Our brain remembers the path (called the reward system) that we tread often to harvest the feel-good neurochemicals. When we achieve the happiness, our brain strengthens the pathway as we inevitably are drawn to the path more and more. Those feel-good chemicals are: 1. Dopamine (imitated by cocaine); it helps us learn and incorporate new information into our tool belt, and makes us able to perform a task faster and more efficiently by building the brain muscle memory (i.e. "level up"). 2. Norepinephrine (imitated by speed); it helps us focus on the task. 3. Anandamide (imitated by marijuana); it allows us to recall and harmonize obscure memories and disparate ideas to help us formulate a cohesive conclusion. 4. Endorphin (imitated by morphine): it dulls the pain, so we can push ourselves to maximum effort. 5. Serotonin (imitated by mood stabilizers); it helps our endurance and readiness for new challenges. Along with all the other chemicals, serotonin helps us to socially bond with the community during the activity so that the community as a whole may continue to strive for a greater progress in the activity. Athletes have a name for the event when their brain taps into the release; they call it "the flow." If your brain is calm, focused, out of its comfort zone, and in a special environment, then you are able to enter into this hyper-focused zone called the flow state where your capacity for insight, creativity, and problem-solving are tapped into. The environment that is most conducive to the flow must meet certain criteria: 1. It must be dangerous. The stakes must be high, and you must be fully invested in the outcome. 2. It must provide a rich, immersive experience. Your attention must be constantly engaged with a steady sensory "data" stream that offers unpredictable and complex problems to solve. 3. It must provide a new learning experience, and a slightly more difficult challenge. 4. It must establish a clear, achievable goal. 5. It must constantly give you an immediate feedback for your performance, which will keep the brain in the flow state. Once the brain has taken its "leap of faith" with the hope of the new skill acquisition, it shuts down some parts of the brain, so that there is no more anxiety, no more regret, no more fear, no more self-doubt, no more impulse control, no more sense of spacial boundary so that you feel that you are "flying high" in the wind, no sense of time. Now...... What kind of worthwhile activities is your brain using the flow chemicals on? What neural pathway is your brain paving in order to get to the flow chemicals? What activity uses your brain's cycle of learning, long-term memory storage, and motivation to continue learning? It goes without saying that you can seek after these good chemicals designed to help you become better at mastering your gifts, by engaging in those activities that are... yes, difficult... yes, challenging... yes manly... but rewarding, useful, and bringing honour to your Lord who has called you to the life of sanctification and honour. And building the new neural pathway to usefulness and true fulfillment always begins with a commitment to keep working hard at it. 12 "Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us." - the apostle Paul (Philippians 3:17) Who is the "brethren" that Paul is addressing here?
The "brethren" are the same "brethren" in 3:1, "who worship in the Spirit and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh." In a word, Paul's "brethren" are believers: those whose eyes had been opened by God to see the utter worthlessness of their blood lineage, their achievements, their paper-thin moral facade (Php 3:4-6), who have been imputed the perfect righteousness of Christ through faith (1Co 1:30; 2Co 5:21; Php 3:9), who now have been given the privilege of knowing, representing, honouring Christ more and more (2Co 3:18; Php 3:8,10-14), the only limiting factor of which is the level of their own effort (Php 2:12,13). Paul, however, emphatically excludes those whom he calls the "false circumcision," who suppose that their family blood, their achievements, their morality, anything within themselves, will make them righteous before a holy God who burns against self-righteousness (Mt 3:9,10). In other words, if one is not a true brother in Christ, then this Spirit-mandated obligation to imitate Paul does not concern him, and he needs to stop reading now. What does it mean to follow the example of Paul? The apostle Paul calls his Christian brothers to imitate his pattern of life. However, one might ask, "Well, why should they do that? Did not Paul, though being a commissioned apostle, yet enjoyed all the same New covenant blessings (indwelling of the Spirit, complete forgiveness of sins, the power to walk in obedience to God's laws due to a new heart and new desire, repentance from sins; ref. Eze 36:27,31; Heb 10:16,17) in no different way from any other believer? In fact, was not Paul very much conscious of his own sinfulness (Ro 7:24)? So what makes Paul so special that we should consider him as an example to follow?" Yes, Paul indeed was commissioned to be a founding member of the church of Christ by virtue of his role as God's messenger (Eph 2:20), yet is nonetheless no different from any other believer in each of whom dwells all the blessings of the Spirit (Ro 8:9; Eph 1:3). Yes, Paul was indeed painfully aware of his sinfulness... but not in the same pattern of those who are easily tempted and weakly bow before their idols (Jas 1:14,15). Rather, since his encounter with the risen Lord on the road to Damascus, Paul had resolved to discipline every aspect of his life in order to serve his Lord with a clear conscience (Ac 23:1; 24:16; 1Co 4:3,4; 5:7,8; 9:27; 1Ti 1:5,19). After having obliterated all the strongholds of his flesh (i.e. the unredeemed humanity which competes with the Spirit for control over the mind; ref. Ro 7:23) by the power of the Spirit, Paul's exasperated cry for deliverance from his sinful "body of death" is not a cry of one intoxicated with the poisonous weeds of his flesh, but a cry of one who is sober and whose conscience is so fine-tuned that it alerts him immediately at the earliest sign of yet another weed of adversarial desire springing up from his unredeemed flesh. Paul's life is as holy as a believer's life could get, and yet he feels much worse about the presence of his unredeemed flesh than someone who has allowed the tendrils of his flesh to overgrow and entangle his mind. The reason why Paul and those of his kindred spirit are biblical examples to study and imitate is because they have made the resolve to pattern their lives after the character of Christ Himself (1Co 11:1). His militant call for Christians, whom he calls "fellow soldiers of Christ" (ref. 2Ti 2:4), is a call to the sum total, the singular purpose of existence, the beginning and the end of the Christian life: to have the same resolve and pursue Christ-likeness (Ro 8:29). Knowing then our singular goal in life, that is, to become more like our Lord Jesus Christ in both mind and conduct, how do we follow the examples of Paul and other godly men in our lives? 1/7 Consider carefully the great salvation which God has given you by His great mercy. Remember that you were spiritually dead, unwilling and unable to respond in love and obedience to your Creator God who is the source of all life (Ro 7:7-13; 8:7,8; Eph 2:1-3). You were however alive in the sphere of all things evil and abominable to the holy God, and were ripening the fruit of your works which would have eventually fallen on your head -- the eternal wrath of God and eternal hopelessness (Eph 2:3,12). As part of the God-hating world, you were doomed to repeat the same way of life passed down to you from your forefathers' proud traditions and cultural heritage (1Pe 1:18), utterly void of any meaning and purpose by virtue of their slavery to sin, then reap its outcome -- death (i.e. eternal separation from the God of life; ref. Dt 32:18-22). Remember how you have lived in your slavery to sin, ignorant of the terrifying threat of death which constantly hung over your head, suspended only by God's merciful hand (1Co 15:9; 1Ti 1:13-15). But God, of His own volition, invaded your soul and gave you spiritual life, so that you became aware of the coming wrath, responded in faith and repentance to His command to flee to His Son, and submitted to His Lordship (Jn 1:13, 3:3-8, Ro 8:29; 1Co 1:27, Eph 1:4,5). Never forget that God had, from eternity past, determined to include hell-bound, unworthy you to partake in the great New covenant blessings (2Ti 1:9; Titus 1:1,2). And all that you bring to His covenant are two empty, needy hands that have never ceased from violating His laws. God, by His own choosing, forgave all your sins, redeemed you from your slavery to sin and made you a slave of Christ, transformed your sinful nature into a holy nature, made your body His temple by putting His own Spirit within you, gave you the desire and the power to walk in obedience to His statutes for His honour and for your dignity (Dt 30:6; Jer 31:33,34; Eze 36:25-27; Ro 8:9; 1Co 6:19,20; 2Co 5:17; 1Pe 1:18). And through the New covenant, your life (which is not really yours) then has the great privilege of being of eternal value, and being used by the Lord in His great work of calling the rest of His elect to faith (Ex 19:6; 1Co 3:9; 1Co 15:10, 2Co 2:16; Php 3:8,14; 1Pe 2:5). Yes, you enjoy these blessings as yours forever, never to be forfeited since these covenant promises are entirely dependent on God's faithfulness. And the reason why you can freely enjoy these at no cost to you is only because God has paid in full the infinite cost. God, in order to free Himself from the demands of His own justice, sent His Son into the world so that the Son may become the substitute for all the sinners who would ever be saved, and suffer the infinite wrath of God on the cross in their place and credit His own righteousness to their account (Is 53:10; Lk 22:42; 2Co 5:21; Gal 3:13,14; Php 3:9; 1Pe 1:19; Heb 2:9; 10:12). Yes, you enjoy the New covenant blessings to the full, which is yours by faith alone apart from any works (Ro 3:28), through which you are also scheduled to partake in the future Abrahamic and Davidic covenant blessings in the messianic kingdom. Therefore, you know that you owe God your very life, doubly His -- both created and redeemed. Your present attitude toward your Saviour from the moment you were saved to all eternity should be nothing other than that of humility, fearful reverence, overwhelming gratitude, committed love, allegiance, obedience. If this knowledge of great salvation in Christ is not enough to move a so-called brother toward obedience, then he has not received this salvation (Titus 2:11-14; 1Jn 3:9). He is no different from the Pharisees who are devoid of any spiritual life, devoid of any love for God, who abound in many external regulations yet are unclean on the inside (Mt 23:25,26). 2/7 Fear God. You were a sinner but you were predestined to become a saint by the mercy of God (Ro 1:7; Eph 1:4,5). You were once an object of God's eternal wrath, but now are an object of God's eternal mercy (Ro 9:23). So now that the wrath of God against your sins have passed from you, do you think that you no longer have a reason to fear God? Do you think you have the license to live now in any sinful way as you please with no repercussions (Ro 6:15)? No. But rather, your immature fear of God which motivated you initially to flee to Christ will only mature to a greater fear for God (Pr 1:7). He who has been given mercy has been set free from the slavery to sin, and has become a slave of God (Ro 6:22). Not only for the first time in his life does he know obedience, but he also desires to live in eternal obedience because he fears ever displeasing his Lord (2Co 5:9). The fear that is characteristic of a true slave of God is not the fear of being cast into God's eternal hell (which actually should be the fear of every unbelieving soul, but paradoxically the horror of hell are only truly appreciated by those who fear hell enough to flee to the Lord Jesus). But it is the fear of the God who is the eternal hell yet who is mercy toward him. It is the full appreciation of the God of both wrath and mercy that produces reverence, gratitude, obedience (Dt 10:12, Pr 8:13; Ecc 12:13; Heb 12:28,29), hence fear. Having the fear of God as Christ's slave means to: i) be in holy dread of the Lord's sovereignty over all. He has absolute control over all realms, both spiritual and physical. Not a sparrow hops apart from His will. Not a maverick molecule resides in His universe that does not accomplish His plan. Not one evil scheme is executed without serving His greater purpose. God is the sovereign Lord of the universe, and He accomplishes all His good pleasure (Ps 115:3; 135:6; Da 4:35). The hearts of men, both redeemed and wicked, are all in His hands, and He moves them however He wishes (Ex 7:3; Pr 21:1; Ro 9:17; yet He by no means acquits the guilty, for He abhors evil; Ps 5:4; 7:11; Pr 19:3; Jas 1:13). He has His way with what are His own, and there is nothing that does not belong to Him. He saves; He condemns. He opens eyes; He makes blind. He transforms hearts; He hardens hearts. And the righteous Judge of all the earth owes no man any answers for His decisions, as if there is such a thing as justice outside of Himself (Ex 4:21; Pr 21:1; Ps 2:1-12; 50:21; 97:2, Mt 10:29; 28:18, Jn 19:11, Php 2:9-11). ii) be in awe of His unbending impartiality. The same God who executed 23,000 people that craved after idolatry and immorality in the wilderness (1Co 10:8), is the same God who put to death those who have tried to test the edge of His patience and mercy (1Co 10:9), is Jesus Christ the Lord who is already on His way back to Jerusalem to establish His kingdom and rule the world with a rod of iron (Ps 2:8,9; Rev 22:20). On the day of His return, He will cast out all the wicked and the hypocrites who have found no mercy from Him, and He will examine each one of His slaves and reward them according to their works (Mt 25:14-46). It will be a day of reckoning and great fear for all without exception, for the Lord will not consider any excuse from the wicked for their unbelief, or from His own slaves for their laziness (1Co 3:8-15, 4:5, 10:9-11,22, Gal 6:7-10, 1Pe 1:17). iii) be grateful for His sovereign mercy. If it were not for His mercy, you would still be dead, unfeeling, unmoved, unable to repent and believe, unable to see the precious value of God's mercy, blind to the beauty of God in Christ (2Co 4:3-6). If it were not for God's choice to birth you into His family, you would still be a child of the devil filled with self-destructive pride just like the rest of the world, headed for your doom (Jn 1:13; 3:3; Jas 1:18). The salvation from the eternal judgment and from the power of sin is completely by mercy, from beginning to end. You owe God your everything (Jn 3:3-8, Ro 8:29, 9:11-18; Eph 5:20; Col 3:16,17; Heb 12:28). iv) obey His commandments. You do not test your Saviour who gave you mercy. You do not ever have any other attitude toward your Lord except reverence. You do not dare deviate from your allegiance to the Lord. Why? Because He is your loving Master, and you are His loving slave, chosen and bought with His own substitutionary death. It is that simple (Mt 7:21; Lk 6:46; Jn 14:15, 15:13; Ro 10:9; Php 2:11; 1Pe 1:18,19). v) extol His supremacy. When you fled to Christ for salvation, it was because you saw that the value of knowing Jesus the Lord surpasses all the passing pleasures of sin in your life. Though you constantly are tempted to belittle His worth, you now know what is His worth without doubt. You know that He is worthy of your undistracted allegiance, now and forever. Whenever there is a conflict between His desires and a man's idolatrous desires, you know what your choice should be. All the intimidations from foolish men do not faze your commitment to follow your Lord, because you know to whom belongs all authority and power. You know that you live at His mercy, not at the mercy of the wicked men who themselves are living on borrowed time (Lk 13:6-9; 14:26-35, Ac 5:29-32; 20:24, Php 1:27,28, 1Pe 3:14,15). You who are repulsed by the idea of fearing and revering the Saviour God, you who presume upon His mercy in your continual wallowing in sin's putrid mire, take some serious time to examine yourself (2Co 13:5; 2Pe 1:10). Perhaps the reason why you have no fear of God and consider His mercy to be a license for sin is because you have never received His saving mercy in the first place (1Co 16:22). 3/7 Take some serious time to reflect on your sins. Let's be honest and dispel any wrong ideas about why you keep falling into the same sin again and again. The fact is that you know the gospel; you know the preciousness of the salvation in Christ; you know the worthiness of Christ to receive all glory and honour; you know the duties of all who have been saved, and what great rewards await those who labour for His kingdom. Yet you choose to give into temptation (Jas 2:18-20). Why? The reason you have a besetting sin in your life is not because you are some noble warrior battling insurmountable evil. It is not because you lack some higher knowledge of ingenious, elaborate tactics that will help you overcome your temptation. And it is certainly not because the Holy Spirit who can overcome all sins does not dwell within you. But rather, you keep falling into temptation, because you are weak in faith and lack the resolve to even take the first baby step of denying yourself as a Christian (Mt 16:24), plain and simple. Stop planning whatever you think you are going to do to combat future temptations (Ex 33:1-10). Forget about switching to a flip phone; forget about "Covenant Eyes" or whatever similar software you use to babysit yourself; forget about counting your days; even forget about engaging in a menial effort in Bible reading, prayer, accountability meetings; forget about any other Pharisaic external regulations which have no power to combat the internal flesh. You have just as much ability to win over your future temptation as you do to hold your breath underwater without passing out, because the power to overcome sin does not come from clever gimmicks; it comes from your Spirit-empowered, intentional, tough work of hacking away at the weeds of your flesh (Ro 8:13; Php 2:12,13). But after you have cooled down your flesh in the putrid mud of sin and satiated your lust, do you think that the Spirit of God would be honoured then to finally have your permission to bless you with His power so that you can simply dust yourself off and pursue righteousness again (as if you had the resolve)? Do you honestly want to play the game of testing the mercy of God who is a consuming fire (Heb 12:28,29)? Instead, in light of the fact that you have committed a willful transgression against your Lord, take the time to reflect on your sin, not as a way to pre-plan your future Spirit-devoid, self-help "tactic" (but if your goal in abstaining from sexual immorality was only for self-improvement rather than for the honour of the Saviour, then stop reading; just be satisfied with your clever tactic; but realize that you have nothing to do with battling sin, because battling sin is what saints do who love the Lord). But reflect on your sin as a way to share the Lord's grief over your sins, because you indeed love Him (Jas 4:9). Show reverence toward the holy God who, in order to save you from His wrath, has sent His Son Jesus Christ to be your Mediator (Ex 32:11-14,30-34; 33:12-17). Give glory to Him in this way: i) Acknowledge your sin as sin (1Sa 15:22,23). Your pattern of sin is not some quirky, idiosyncratic, annoying habit that you have the power to kick by trying some six-step program. No, sin is a willful violation of the law of God, your failure to value the sufferings of Christ as far better than any of your self-absorbed carnal interests (Heb 11:25,26). You chose to ignore God as the source of all happiness (Ge 3:5,6; Ps 16:11). You refused to trust God's infinite wisdom and power by which He works all things together for your good and for His glory (Ro 8:28). And despite God's having granted you eternal salvation from sin and judgment, you have chosen to call your God evil, and your sin good, and bowed down before another god in pursuit of your "good" lust (Is 5:20; 1Co 10:6,7; Jas 1:14). If you commit adultery in your heart, your guilt is no different from the adulterer who was put to death in theocratic Israel (Mt 5:28). If you commit fornication in your heart, you are as guilty as the fornicators who are already in torment (1Co 6:9.10 || Sidenote: although hell-bound people's logic, when hearing this, is "I might as well enjoy my sin to the full if I am as guilty for only fantasizing about it as someone who does the deed," while heaven-bound people's logic is, "I should nip this thought in the bud, and repent since my Lord is giving me mercy and patience"; Ro 2:4,5). You have walked contrary to the Spirit's will. You have acted as if the New covenant's salvation blessings were completely powerless to save a sinner from the penalty and power of sin. Every grievous sin that is committed presumptuously against the loving Saviour has its consequence; God's previous dealings with Israel's sins are written as an example for the believers, to show that God, being merciful, yet is impartial (Ex 32:26-28; 1Co 10:11). Through your sin, you are made docile and gutted of your masculinity and your potential dangerousness to the kingdom of darkness (1Co 16:13,14). You have disqualified yourself from being fully useful to the Lord despite your God-given gifts, and you have forfeited the right to participate in some meaningful work of the kingdom (Ps 50:16; 1Co 9:27; 2Ti 2:19-21; 2Pe 1:5-8). You have disqualified yourself from being an effective evangelist and bearing meaningful fruit (Mt 12:33; 15:19), for you have relinquished your trustworthiness and credibility (1Co 9:27). Realize that removing you from a ministry is not done by men, but by the Lord who wishes to mercifully prevent you from further misrepresenting His name so as to spare you from greater judgment (Ro 2:24; Jas 3:1); you may even be a pastor, father, et cetera, but your toil has been diminished in its eternal value due to your presumptuous sin (2Ti 2:5; 2Jn 1:8). You know that you have no right to the assurance of salvation given by the Spirit if you do not walk in the Spirit (Ro 8:13-17; Eph 1:13,14), so you are going to be miserable from the fear of eternal hell. You know that your sin is an abomination to the holy God who has only been compassionate and loving toward you (Ro 8:35-39). ii) Mourn over your sin (Jn 21:17; Jas 4:8-10). You have grieved the Lord with your sin (Ps 78:40-42; Mt 18:31; Eph 4:30), the One who had compassion on you and forgave all your infinite debt that you have incurred for yourself due to your transgressions (Mt 18:27; Col 2:14). So be mature in your thinking, and deal with your sin. Do not try to hide anything from the Lord (as if you can). Be full of stress and anxiety over your sins. Confess all your sins before the Lord. Take your place low in the dust of the wreckage your have created. Do not grieve over your sins as the wicked does, who only seeks to do evil without receiving its bitter consequences (Mt 27:3; Lk 3:7; 2Co 7:10; Rev 18:9-19). But rather, grieve as the Lord grieves; be angry and be sorrowful over yourself (Mt 18:34; Lk 22:61,62); be moved by the fear of God and love for Him, for He loves you and is moved to great compassion toward you when He causes you to be sorrowful (though causing you sorrow is necessary in order to lead you to repentance; ref. Paul's godly compassion for the sorrowful Corinthians in 2Co 7:8); long for the restoration of His fellowship who is near to the broken-hearted and the humble (Ps 51:17; Jas 4:6,8; 1Pe 5:6); make zealous haste to repent (2Co 7:9-11). Plumb the depth of your sins, and understand how you have dishonoured the name of the Lord (Ps 32:3-5; 38:1-3,17,18; 51:17; Is 6:5; Lk 18:13; Heb 4:13; Jas 4:6-10). iii) Mourn over your inability to understand the depth of your sin and what sacrifice God has made to save you from His wrath (Ps 38:4-8; 103:4,11,12,17; Mt 26:38,39; 27:45,46). After your deep remorse for grieving the Lord who has loved you even when you were a rebellious sinner (Ro 5:8), sweating over the impact of your sins on your usefulness and the reputation of Christ, you have not begun to understand the depth and breadth of your sins. Mourn again, and be grieved over your inability to understand your sins enough, confess enough, grieve enough, truly despise enough to the degree of its heinousness to God (Lk 18:13; 1Ti 1:15). You will never fully understand the infinite depth of sin's curse that Christ has plumbed in order to purchase your freedom from sin, now and for all eternity (1Co 15:55-57; Gal 3:13). iv) Repent and rejoice. Turn from your idolatry and worship God (1Th 1:9); confess evil as evil, abomination as abomination, worthless as worthless. Abhor what God abhors (Ac 3:26; Ro 12:9). Confess God as the source of all goodness, all righteousness, all things of true value (Ps 16:11; Ac 13:22; Jas 1:17). Come to Him just as you are, knowing that He has the power to conform you into the image of His Son regardless of what station He finds you in (Mt 8:2; 11:28; Lk 5:8). Breathe the fresh air of the mercy of God, and rejoice in His unfailing love for you. Be overwhelmed by the greatness of His forgiveness and faithfulness, and be humbled by His great compassion for those who seek after His countenance as a thirsty deer seeks after water (Ps 42:1; 51:17; 63:1; Jn 6:37); you will find that your mouth will stay quiet about the things it once grumbled about (Eze 16:63). Repay His mercy with gratitude and renewed vow of obedience. Pursue once again His work and His honour with a cleansed conscience (1Jn 1:9; Jude 1:21). Be like the Christian who was harassed by the homosexual lust, who was utterly terrified to make the resolve to disassociate himself completely from his past pleasures of sin, who served a false god as his source of happiness all his life, but, by the power of the Spirit, who was willing to die to his old way of life and follow Christ because he loves his Lord. Rejoice in the fact that God has already granted complete forgiveness of your sins -- past, present, and future (Ps 103:11,12). Christ will never disown you, because He has chosen you and bought you with His own blood (Jn 10:28; 1Co 6:20). The Spirit of God dwells within you, and secures your destiny in Christ's kingdom (2Co 1:22). As great as the pile of your sins is, the mountain of His mercy is greater still and completely overshadows the mountain of your sins (Ro 5:17,20). Unless you are encouraged and believe that God has forgiven you and will restore you, you will fall into more grave sins, for sin begets sin. Before you think that your station cannot grow any worse, remember that it will grow worse unless you repent, forget what lies behind and reach forward to what lies ahead. However, if God's great mercy in Christ cannot motivate you to take this basic step of turning away from sin in order to walk in obedience and so honour Christ in your life, then His word has no place in you. You are not His slave; you are not forgiven; you do not possess the Holy Spirit (Jas 2:17-20; 1Jn 2:3-6). 4/7 Train up your conscience. Your conscience is a compass which monitors everything that goes on in your mind and behaviour, which either affirms you or warns you. It is informed and calibrated by the voice of whomever you worship. And it only functions properly if it is calibrated properly. And what calibrates it properly is the voice of the true and living God, the knowledge of what is valuable and what is worthless, what is good and what is evil (Ro 2:15). Its effectiveness in strength and accuracy to navigate you toward the things of true value and away from worthless things is dependent on training it consistently with the word of God (2Ti 3:16,17). The ultimate target of all temptations is always the conscience (which is guarded by your faith), the beachhead on which temptation lands first in order to dominate your entire mind (Ge 3:1). And the temptation does not come in an obvious sinister, demonic form, but as a attractive angel of light (2Co 11:14). Through this deceiving bait, the enemy's goal is to lure you into following the voice of a false god, calling evil things as good things, and thus ultimately overthrow the authority of God's word (Ge 3:1; Jas 1:15; 1Pe 5:8). The temptation can only be effective if the conscience thinks that God is also subject to one of its evaluations of things. However, your conscience knows its rightful place: always under the supremacy of God's word because you worship God as the Supreme One. You have tasted the goodness of the Lord [Ps 34:8]. Your eyes have been opened to see the value of God's word by His great mercy. The word of God is the only foundation on which your conscience can be trained to grow stronger, and thus remain uncompromised and detect even the subtlest deception, because to value and study the word of God is to conform to the mind of Christ more and more (1Co 2:16; 2Co 3:18). As you begin to think like Christ more and more, your conscience will be more and more repulsed by the ways of the evil world. The more you study Christ's word, the more you will value and love Him. And the more you value and love Him, the more you will be motivated to obey. Then you will learn more and more that this passing world truly possesses nothing of value that is worth envying or admiring, whereas the minds of all the unbelievers are captivated by the god of this world (i.e. the devil; ref. 2Co 4:4; Eph 2:2) so that their consciences are out of order (Eph 4:19; 1Ti 4:2). You do not chase after selfish, idolatrous endeavours like the citizens of this kingdom of darkness, after shameless sensuality along with them, but you remain utterly unimpressed, repulsed by the worthlessness of sin because your conscience is well trained by the word of God (Ps 101:3; Php 3:8; 1Pe 4:3,4; 1Jn 2:15-17). What is more, your conscience is so certain of the surpassing value of Christ that you are willing to suffer all hatred and mistreatment from the citizens of this world in order to follow after Christ (Ac 20:24; Php 1:20; Heb 12:3,4; 1Pe 4:1,2). Therefore, continually study the word of God, and think maturely like Paul. There is no way other than studying the word of God to train the conscience to navigate you through life, to filter out worthless things and recognize the deeds of value that honour Christ (Dt 6:6-9; Jos 1:7-8; Ps 119:11; Col 3:16; 1Pe 2:2). However, if you do not take in the word of God, your conscience will remain weak; and you will constantly be an easy prey to your own lust, the world, and the devil (1Pe 5:8); you will not know how to think, feel, or act wisely; you will be in constant danger of early retirement from any meaningful service to Christ (1Co 11:30). 5/7 Divide up your life in terms of projects. Your time on earth is very, very limited. Every day brings you closer to your appointed end, and you do not know when that is (Job 7:1,6,7; Ps 39:4,5; 102:3; 144:4; Jas 4:13-15). And there is an unlimited number of works to accomplish for the Lord. Do you honestly want to waste what little time you have left on engaging in the worthless deeds of the unbelievers, or do you want to redeem the time by engaging in the deeds that honour Christ eternally (Gal 6:9,10; Eph 5:16)? If you love the Lord, then you already know the answer. An unbeliever, when threatened with the shortness of his life, will plunge deeper into all the pleasures of sin that he could find, and cause as much destruction as possible (Ro 1:24,26,28; Eph 2:3; 2Ti 3:1-6; 2Pe 2:12-14; Jude 1:10,11). Contrarily, for believers, they will even be more energized to store up as much treasure in heaven as they can by working for the kingdom to the last dying breath, because their earthly stock is about to crash (Mt 6:19-21; Lk 12:31-34; 16:1-12; Ro 13:13; 1Th 5:4-6). You know what stewardship you have from the Lord; you know what your gifts are. So use them. Work with what you have been uniquely given, and wisely choose and work on projects that have eternal value (1Pe 4:10,11). Whatever project you choose to do, remember that it is always going to be a costly, time-consuming project (Lk 14:28). Thus, your first and last question in your evaluation of all things in life is, "How does this thing have any eternal value (1Co 10:31)?" Think like film makers, pastors, missionaries, any worker who receives a commission for their work; you have a clear deadline for your project (1Co 7:29), and you have no option but to complete it by that deadline (Eph 2:10). Once you are done with one project, then take the time to celebrate what you were able to do with the Spirit's help (Lk 6:23). Then immediately plan your next project (Ac 15:27,36). Create several checkpoints for each project so that you can track your progress and receive feedbacks (Ac 14:21). Then when your time runs out, you will have left an oeuvre of eternal effect because it exalts Christ, the Saviour of the world (Php 1:20; 2Ti 4:6-8). The choosing of which projects to work on is as diverse as the gifts given to each person within the body of Christ (1Co 12:4-7). But they all share these common denominators: i) They are the exercise of your own gifts. You might ask, "Well, how do I know what my gifts are?" You do not identify your gifts by daydreaming about what your gifts might be; you know what your gifts are only by exercising them. In other words, your focus should not be on your gifts (as if they are really your own and you do not need to give an account for how you used them; ref. Mt 25:19; Lk 19:15; Ro 14:12); but your focus rather should be on service and the work of the kingdom (Mt 6:33). So when you seek to meet the needs of others around you, it is not difficult to know what your gifts are. Your gifts are what the Lord has uniquely given you (1Co 12:5-7), what you desire to do (Ps 37:4; 1Ti 3:1), from which you derive your happiness (Ecc 2:24,26; 3:22; 5:18-20), and, of course, which can and should improve ("level up") in its effectiveness and its influence more and more through intentional training (1Th 4:10; 2Ti 4:5). ii) They benefit other believers' lives. Your project meets the needs of other believers spiritually and/or physically, so that you all may be encouraged to serve Christ with undistracted devotion (Ac 20:35; Gal 6:10; Eph 4:12-15; 1Co 16:14; Heb 10:24; 1Pe 4:10). iii) They benefit the unbelievers' lives. Your project builds up your reputation among the unbelievers as a person of fortitude (i.e. a person of conviction, courage, strength; ref. 1Co 16:13) and as someone who is a benefit to their community, hence so honour the name of Christ (Ro 12:17; 2Co 8:21; Gal 6:10; Php 1:27,28; Titus 2:5,8,10; Heb 12:14; 1Pe 3:13,16; 4:16). iv) They serve the Great Commission (Mt 28:19,20). Your project has an evangelistic purpose, because you recognize that the only thing which matters matters eternally (Lk 12:20,21; 16:9). It supports the message of the gospel, that God forgives and saves sinners (1Ti 1:15-17). v) They increase your joy in Christ (Mt 5:12; Gal 6:9). Your project, even at production stage, gives you a sense of its eternal value, so that no obstacles can discourage you from completing it; in fact, only death can stop you from completing it (Ac 20:24; 21:13). You have the hope of enjoying its eternal fruit, that is, being granted the privilege of offering up a thanksgiving offering to Christ (Ro 12:1; Heb 12:11,28). 6/7 Resolve to pursue righteousness. You have one goal in life: to become like Christ (Ps 27:4; Mt 16:24; Php 3:14; 2Co 3:18). Pursue obedience without being distracted, to the point of facing threat of death (Ps 101:3; Jn 21:22, 1Co 7:35; 9:24-26, Heb 12:1-11). Pursue the work of the kingdom according to your gifts (Eph 4:12; 1Pe 4:10). Pursue excellence in your service (1Co 9:24,26; 1Th 4:10). When one is thirsty, all he can think about is water; when one is starving, all he can think about is food; when one is suffocating, all he can think about is air; think on survival mode in regard to Christ-likeness so that no distraction will toss you around. The Lord has commanded you to leave the worthless deeds of darkness, and to pursue His honour and your dignity. Then ask yourself the (obvious) question: do you think the Lord would be pleased with you simply because you are not engaged in an overtly sinful behaviour and yet if you stubbornly refuse to do right (Jas 4:17)? The goal is not to simply refrain from evil (Eph 4:28; 2Ti 2:22). If you do not make the commitment to abandon altogether all your past evil practices and intentionally seek Christ to be exalted in your life (Ro 13:12; Php 1:20), then you are not ready to stop flirting with your lustful desires; you have already surrendered yourself to be defiled again, testing God's mercy once more (Ac 5:1-5; 1Co 5:5; Pr 7:22,23; 1Jn 5:16). Always set your mind toward the things that matter eternally (Col 3:2). Never be self-satisfied with your current level of maturity or achievement, because, if you stop pushing ahead, you will surely start making some allowance for your flesh and then inevitably fall back into temptation (Pr 26:12; Ecc 4:13; 1Co 4:8; 8:2; Php 3:12; Col 3:5-14; 1Th 4:10; 2Th 3:9-13; Jas 4:17; 2Pe 2:20,22). You cannot pursue purity if you are not pursuing purity. The only way to mature and become more like Christ is to follow Christ. And you cannot follow Him if you are not following Him. A rocket with dead propellors will not fly or glide, but will crash and burn. If you refuse to follow Christ, then you have no right to be called as one of His disciples who refuse to associate with the person that he was, who died to his sinful ways of life and was raised to live a life of righteousness (Lk 14:26,27; Ro 6:11). 7/7 Look for the imminent, unannounced return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul (and all believers in every century after) lived with the expectation that the Lord will return in their lifetime. This event is not the day of the Lord when He will destroy all unbelievers from the earth and establish His millennial kingdom from Jerusalem (Zec 14:4; Mt 25:31-45; Ac 1:11); the second coming will occur with unmistakable signs preceding it, albeit still unannounced (Mt 24:29,30,42-51). The specific anticipated event is the Rapture -- the Lord's snatching away all believers from the earth conspicuously before the watching world -- which will occur without a warning (1Co 15:51-53; 1Th 1:10; 4:15-17). Ever since the Lord has ascended into heaven, the believers have been living in the last days that lead up to the final end of this evil world system (Heb 1:2; Jas 5:3; 1Pe 1:20; 2Pe 3:3-7; 1Jn 2:18; Jude 1:18). And the next event on the schedule is the Rapture of His church. The believers not only walk in holy fear that the Lord could snatch them up at any moment, but also they walk with the longing hope that the Lord will indeed snatch them up, for to be with Christ is infinitely better than to wrestle with the flesh, the world, and the devil (2Co 5:8; Php 1:23). When the Lord comes like a thief in the night (Rev 3:3), their earthly ministries will end. They will see Christ in all His glory, finally reach their goal of Christ-likeness (which they could never reach when they were in the flesh), and finally be conformed to His image (2Co 3:18; 1Jn 3:2). Then the Lord will reward each according to how much they have suffered for Christ yet stood firm in their faith (Mt 5:12; 20:21-28; Ro 8:18; 2Co 4:17; 2Ti 2:3-6,12; Heb 10:35; 1Pe 3:14; 4:13-16), how much they have toiled for His honour (Mt 25:14-23; Lk 19:11-19; 1Co 3:8,10-15; 4:5; 2Co 5:10; Gal 6:9; Rev 22:12). Knowing the imminence and the unexpectedness of the Rapture, in what kind of behaviour would you like the Lord to catch you? Would you want to be caught in a compromised, shameful behaviour, surrendered to your lust? Or would you rather want Him to catch you while you are diligently working for the honour of His coming kingdom? Then, be sober-minded, be firm in the faith, be diligent at all times (1Th 5:8-12; 1Pe 1:13; 5:8). This hope of seeing the beloved Saviour and Lord Christ Jesus face to face sanctifies, motivates, and reminds the believer of his finish line, hence it is the most essential part of the mindset of the believer in his daily walk (1Jn 3:3). The Rapture is always imminent, and can happen at any time. Whether the Rapture occurs in one's lifetime or not, the one who belongs to Christ cannot help but always hope for His coming, for he loves Him (1Co 16:22; 1Th 1:10; Titus 2:13; Jude 1:21; Rev 22:20). At any rate, whether He comes for us or we go to Him, your finish line is closer than you think. When and how you reach your finish line is not determined by you. But you can determine for yourself (by the power of the Spirit) to live each day as if it were your last (because it might be), so that you have no need to be ashamed when you meet Him unexpectedly (Mt 24:45-47; 2Ti 2:15; Heb 10:34-39; 1Jn 2:28,29). -- In summary, as a follower of Christ, you have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain; you have nothing to gain from this worthless world; and by the grace of God, you are given the privilege of "losing what you cannot keep in order to gain what you cannot lose" (as pithily said by Jim Elliot the Ecuadorian martyr); you have a clear conscience, because you have confessed and repented of all shameful things; you are so tired of your own weaknesses; you want your Lord to be honoured more than anything; you seek eagerly after His coming. For you, to live is to imitate Christ, and to die is much, much gain (Php 1:21).
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CategoriesAll Discourse Doctrines Gospel Humour NT Commentaries OT Commentaries Tactical Life Date
August 2023
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