Posted on 10/05/2022 5:42:37 AM PDT by metmom
Jesus is not in the drafting business; his army is all volunteer. You can be a believer without carrying a cross, but you cannot be a disciple.
I see many believers have opted for the good life with its prosperity, material gain, popularity and success. I’m sure that many of them will make it to heaven. They will have saved their skins, but they will not have learned Christ. Having rejected the suffering and sorrow of true discipleship, they will not have the capacity to know and enjoy him in eternity. This is opposed to all the saints who have entered into the fellowship of the suffering.
You will have to carry your cross until you learn to deny the one thing that constantly hinders God’s work in our lives: self. Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24, NKJV). We are misinterpreting this message if we emphasize the rejection of unlawful things. Jesus was not calling upon us to learn self-discipline before we take up our cross. It is far more severe than that.
Millions of professing Christians boast of their self-denial. They don’t drink, smoke, curse or fornicate; they are examples of tremendous self-discipline. Not in a hundred years would they admit, though, that it was accomplished by anything other than their own willpower. In some ways, we are all like that. We experience spurts of holiness, accompanied by feelings of purity. Good works usually produce good feelings, but God will not allow us to think our good works and clean habits can save us. That is why we need a cross.
Don’t take up your cross until you are ready to reject any thought of becoming a holy disciple as a result of your own effort. Before you take up your cross, be ready to face a moment of truth. Be ready to experience a crisis by which you will learn to deny your self-will, self-righteousness, self-sufficiency and self-authority.
You can rise up and follow Christ as a true disciple only when you can freely admit you can do nothing in your own strength. You cannot overcome sin through your own willpower. You cannot work things out by your own intellect. Your love for Jesus can put you on your knees, but your cross will put you on your face.
The Return ping
Hmmmm......didn’t our Lord “draft” the 12? Didn’t He choose them rather than them choosing Him?
What did Jesus say to several who wanted to follow Him by their own choice?
A.W.Tozer wrote a sequel to his classic book, “The Pursuit of God.” “The Pursuit of Man.” In it he corrected his earlier book by showing clearly it is always God who pursues Man, not the other way around. Always. And it is God who chooses men, not men who choose God.
“You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.”
“There is none who seeks God, no not one.” says scripture. Both in the OT and repeated in the New.
Then there is the knocking Paul off the horse on the road to Damascus incident.
I suppose he means that God doesn’t force salvation on someone against their will.
That is surely true as well.......
God bless....
My sin is ever before me, encrusting my life to make me unworthy of salvation.
Not one person on this planet is worthy of salvation.
That’s why it’s a gift.
Wrong: One cannot be a believer in heart in anything without effecting your choices and actions, and all we choose to do is a result of what we truly believe - at least at the moment. And thus it follows that one cannot be a true believer in the Lord Jesus - the person and all He is, not just a promise giver abstract from all He is - without not only trusting in His and His atonement for salvation, but seeking to obey Him. One cannot be a believer without being a disciple, characteristically following the Lord in whom they believe - according to the light and ability one has. Which includes repentance when convicted of not doing so.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (John 10:27-28)
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. (Romans 8:17)
But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned. But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. (Hebrews 6:8-10)
"Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost: So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing. (1 Thessalonians 1:4-8)"
But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. (Hebrews 10:32-39)
Basically, if you don’t live what you claim to believe, then you don’t really believe it.
No one is worthy of salvation. No one.
We are all sinners, selfish, self-centered, self-worshiping.
Jesus died for sinners, “of whom I am chief” said the apostle Paul.
Sermon on Mount Jesus explained that God looks at our hearts - and when our hearts are exposed - we all are equally sinful in God’s eyes.
Jesus blood cleanses from every sin - none is too dark, too black, too evil. If we trust in His finished work, He cleanses and forgives ALL and we are washed “as white as snow.”
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