LEARNING DAILY

Matthew 7: 21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven.”

There are days I think I read too much. It is those days I read something that causes me to sit back, close my eyes and wonder how what I have read applies to me. The choice then becomes to grow from this or just keep moving in the same daily experiences. Yesterday was one of those days.

As I wrote several days ago, I have picked up several books written by Charles Spurgeon and A.W. Tozer. Both have written about sin. Spurgeon wrote about sin being worse in people’s lives than they even imagine. Here is a sample of what I read from Tozer yesterday. “When will we realize and confess every sin is now a moral incongruity? As Believers, we are supposed to have died with Jesus Christ our Lord. When we were joined with Him in the new birth we were joined in His death. When we were joined to His rising again, it should have been plain to us that sin is now a moral incongruity in the life of a Christian.” He continues, “But a Christian dies with Christ and dies in Christ and dies along with Christ, so that when he lays his body down at last, the Bible says he will not see death.” In other words, the Christian steps right into eternal life to live with Him in His kingdom. Tozer then writes, “I believe the gospel of Jesus Christ saved me completely – therefore He asks me for total commitment. He expects me to be a disciple totally dedicated.” And that’s where I had to stop reading, close my eyes, and consider my commitment, my total dedication to being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

I am not proud of the way I have lived as a Christian. The cleaning and purifying, the dying to self has been a struggle. Yes, many changes have occurred in my life since asking Jesus to save and change me. He has, but there was a lot of the world in me. I am so thankful that He never gave up on me and continued to change me. Sin ought to be an outrage for the Believer because it insults the One who shed His blood. Before anyone mistakes what I am saying (and what Tozer has written), it needs to be understood that we all sin. This is about the one who claims to be saved but wants to sin; understand the difference.

I am not condemning anyone. Let me be clear. Christians should be the cleanest, most righteous, holiest and happiest people in the world; Jesus Christ, through His shed blood, has forgiven every sin a Believer has and will commit. That does not permit the Believer to continue to sin. What concerns and confuses me is the person who is not willing to walk on the narrow way as God demands. Tozer writes “that a person cannot walk with Him unless he is obedient to His Word; if the person does walk the narrow way as He desires, there is not fruitfulness and blessing.”

The central teaching of Tozer’s writing is that a person cannot walk with Jesus Christ on the narrow way and still desire to sin, to walk as the world does. To know the Lord’s righteousness, a Believer must agree to walk the narrow way as the Lord desires and that means living as He demands. Tozer asks, “Can a man be on the road to heaven when he is habitually performing the kind of deeds that would logically indicate that he ought to be on his way to hell? How can the two walk together except they be agreed? If I walk in an unholy way, how can I be in fellowship with Him?”

May I suggest if you are doing things that Jesus Christ would not approve of – stop doing them! If you are doing things that gratify your flesh or are building you up in the eyes of the world. You need to run from this “stuff”! If you are trying to be friends with the “world” and still walk on a narrow way, God is not pleased!

Let God’s Word speak to you and then be obedient to it!

James 4:4, Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with the God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

1John 2:15-16, Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the father but is of the world.

“These words of God are not before us for our consideration; they are for our obedience and we have no right to claim the title unless we follow them” (Tozer).