Within this verse we have two commands…walk in obedience, & walk in love, the two going hand in hand. First, to know Christ is to have close communion and love for Him…and so by knowing Him, we keep His commands out of love not just lip-service. And the proof of our love for Him is then found in our day to day obedience. Secondly, when Jesus told His disciples to love one another, (John 13:34) it was both an old & a new commandment…old because it dated back to the dawn of the Christian era when Jesus taught its principles here on earth…but it is also a new command…continually being reapplied in new acts of love and service we do one to another. So in the end, walking in obedience & love meld together, in our relationship with the Lord and with others.
Author: kezha1
A Christian mother, grandmother, and retired nurse living in Illinois. Called into a ministry of encouraging others to find their ultimate plan and purpose in life through Christ.
I Kings 3:9 ” Give Your servant a discerning heart to govern Your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.”
If you would stop someone on the street and ask them if they knew the difference between right and wrong, most would tell you, yes. That’s because we inherently have a moral compass called our conscience that governs our thoughts, acts, and motives…helping us to conform to the principles and standards of right & wrong in society. Except when knowing it’s wrong but doing it anyway is a whole different matter. That’s when we get cunning & crafty in our unethical and immoral behavior, (done many times under the cover of darkness)…for we don’t want to be caught. Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Morality may keep you out of jail, but it takes the blood of Jesus Christ to keep you out of Hell.” For no matter how good you think you are, or how decent, honest, and upright your actions may be…you’ll never be good enough to go to Heaven on your own. That’s because it’s only by the blood of Jesus that you can be saved. (Romans 3:25)
Romans 8:37 ” No, in all things we are more than conquerors.”
We can live a victorious life through Christ Jesus even in a hostile world full of persecution, oppression, and injustice. How? Our triumph comes not from anything we’ve done but in the fact that God demonstrated His great love for us by sending Jesus…representing us in His life, death, & resurrection, that we may be justified by faith and reconciled to our Heavenly Father. This gives us the strength to endure, but not just bear up under persecution but thoroughly conquer it.
Isaiah 28:16 ” The one who trusts will never be dismayed.”
It’s so easy to allow discouragement, and dismay to creep into our lives when we’re not careful. Bad reports coupled with lack of sleep & frustration can cause the best of us to be disheartened with our current situation. And if we add the element of fear…it’s no wonder we start questioning our confidence in the Lord. But our confidence can quickly be brought back to where it needs to be by this…focusing the object of our faith on the faithful One, Jesus Christ and by prayer. Isaiah went on to write, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am Your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10) This verse is bursting with encouragement & assurance from the Lord…the words “I am with you” being the reality summed up in His Name Immanuel – God with us. We also have God’s promise here that His Presence will always be with us… as He graciously delivers, exalts, and vindicates His children.
Genesis 6:11 ” Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.”
It was the corruption of mankind that prompted the devastating flood of the entire earth in Genesis Chapters 6-9. For even as Moses was at the end of his life he predicted that Israel would rebel against their God after his passing and become utterly corrupt. (Deuteronomy 31:29) With the people becoming even more corrupt than their fathers by the sheer stubbornness of their hearts. (Judges 2:19) In Psalm 7:9 David prays a prayer of deliverance from such wickedness, cruelty, and lawlessness when he pleads, “O righteous God, Who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure.” And so today I also ask God to bring an end to the world-wide oppression, evil, and violence that has filled every corner and affected some many innocent people.
Daniel 7:13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His Presence.”
In his vision, Daniel called Him “son of man”… a divine-human ruler, specifically the God-man, Jesus Christ…Who was fully God, all the while, being fully man. It’s the same title that Jesus used most often to describe Himself. And when asked point-blankly by the Chief Priest of His identity in Mark 14:62…expressly, whether He was Christ the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus quoted these verses in Daniel, “I am, said Jesus. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming in the clouds of heaven.” For the Son of Man will rule as God intended from the beginning.
Matthew 11:25 ” Jesus said, ‘I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.’ “
Here and in Matthew 13:10-17 Jesus is explaining to His disciples the reason why He spoke in Parables. To the Believer, the Spiritual truths revealed in the Parables only deepened and fostered their relationship with their Savior…but to those who had already rejected Him, they lacked divine enlightenment…and no amount of explanation would ever enable them to understand the concepts. Paul wrote about this in I Corinthians 1:26-29 showing that no one can “know” God by worldly wisdom & learning. Nor is His election contingent on the worldly qualities of wisdom, power, pedigree, or purity, that is until God’s grace washes & sanctifies the person in Christ…removing the veil from supernatural revelation.
Galatians 6:7-8 ” Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”
It’s all quite simple, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) Our sinful nature “pays” us slave wages we’ve earned…namely death. Whereas God graciously bestows on those who trust in Christ Jesus the gift we could never earn on our own…namely eternal life. And no amount of “work” on our behalf will ever get us close to heaven, that’s because the things of this world are incompatible with the Kingdom of God. (I Corinthians 6:9) But the Cross changed all that…breaking not only the grip of the Law, but the flesh, as we are raised to new life through Jesus Christ.
Psalm 119:36 ” Turn my heart toward Your statues…”
Everyday it’s a battle between our faith in God and our mood, feelings, and emotions. We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus…not the powerful feeling prayer meeting Jesus, nor the super exciting Church Conference Jesus. For we can’t trust all those warm fuzzy emotions to override a strong determined confidence in Him and Him alone. When Proverbs 3:5 tells us to, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” it means that we are to be obedient with our whole mind, strength, and will…which includes all the rollercoaster array of emotions & feelings we experience daily…taking captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (II Corinthians 10:5)
Deuteronomy 4:31 ” The Lord your God is a merciful God.”
God’s great love and faithfulness can be found in His great mercy for us. When the Psalmist asks the question in Psalm 77:9, “Has God forgotten to be merciful?” The resounding answer is, “No!” That’s because, even though God isn’t obligated to show mercy, He freely chooses to do so in abundance. However, as Luke 6:36 and James 2:13 warns, we are to show this same mercy by alleviating misery & relieving suffering in our fellow man…but if we refuse to show compassion towards others, we won’t receive mercy from Him.
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