There is a vast difference between intellectual knowledge of the Holy Bible and saying one is a “Christian,” and being a true disciple of Jesus Christ. A repentant change of heart. A NEW heart, a NEW spirit, a NEW mind, a NEW life in Christ.  Not of our effort or doing. From the free gift of grace, mercy, forgiveness and love of God and Jesus, and of truly having the Holy Spirit enter into the heart, the mind, the spirit, the soul, the body thus truly becoming born anew, a true disciple. Taking up our cross daily to serve Him.

This is quite different from the stories of many proclaiming to “know Jesus” and be “a Christian.”

To truly be born anew? The old man or woman dies. Within. The spirit of this world, their driving selfish carnal nature is subdued and bows to their spiritual nature with the actual event of the Holy Spirit entering their heart, mind and life. We are each crucified with Christ, in true discipleship, to be resurrected as Christ was when we seek, come, bow, repent, ask forgiveness, and then OBEY His commands, OBEY His word. And desire to live to please the Lord and not ourselves. Walking not as the world walks. Not selfishly fulfilling our sinful worldly lusts, desires and ways.

Fashioning ourselves after the Lord. Which can be known by spending greater time in prayer on, meditation over, study of, and reading of God’s word and less time in vain, worldly pursuits. Wasting precious time the Lord has given.

It is not enough to merely say, “I believe!” That is but the first awakening, the first step.

From that point on, each successive step must be in making Jesus the LORD OF YOUR LIFE. 

Not lip service. Not in attending a church on Sunday’s, or being so involved in events, activities so on of a church.

It is a HEART AFLAME FOR THE LORD!

A renewing of mind and spirit. Which entails and means putting aside our carnal lusts, our sin and desire for this world, our love for this world as we once held it within our hearts and now placing the desire to please the Lord uppermost in our hearts.

Oh, we will still sin. We will have constant, daily, every minute of the day warring between flesh and spirit. The word of God tells us such truth. But when we are true disciples we go to God in prayer. We seek the Lord and the Spirit of God to avail us, lift us, remove us from temptation, from continuing in sin. And we know when we sin, what is a sin, and it is abhorrent to us. We ought to be living to mortify sin in our bodies. Not embrace it or allow it or excuse it.

Oh, we will continue to sin right up until the time we die. But that does not mean we excuse sin. That we do not take notice of our sin and have it revile us and have us turn to the Lord seeking His help and strength in overcoming. Which the Spirit of God will do. Every time. If seeking to live as a true disciple of Jesus and no longer making living in the world, living to please ourselves rather than God.

Crucified with Christ! Dropping our nets and immediately following Him when He asks us to follow Him. Not only follow, but OBEY. Serve, work for the Lord — not that our works save us, but we are eager to work in service to the Lord, to further the gospel, to obey the Great Commission out of thankfulness, joy, awe, reverence, obedience, willingness due to the Lord having the love, mercy and grace to save awful, horrendous, stinking, rotting wretches as we are!

Putting the old man or woman not just aside — but AWAY WITH IT! And putting on the full armour of the whole word of God.

The article below, written by Laura Perry, provides one modern-day example.

Do you really belong to Jesus? Deceiving ourselves does not lead to eternal life or pleasing the Lord. No person can pretend, to deceive, to not only lie to themselves but also imagine they can deceive the Lord Jesus Christ, or God the Father, or the Holy Spirit!

You will know within your heart and mind of you truly belong to Jesus.

Because you will desire to live each day, each hour to please Him, follow Him, obey Him, love Him, adore Him and serve Him more than yourself. You will find His grace and mercy far surpasses anything this temporal material world can offer up.

It’s all about the heart. It’s all about eternity. It’s all about the truth vs. the deceptions, the lies. It’s all about making Jesus not only Saviour but LORD OF OUR LIFE! 

It’s about a heart on fire for the Lord, for God the Father, for the word, with the Holy Spirit within blowing the words, the winds of God’s eternal word on the embers of our heart to ignite within us a light to be seen by the world.

True discipleship is not merely saying “I believe in Jesus.”

For the devil believes in Jesus. Why as you ought to know Satan was face to face with Jesus. Satan spent time tempting our Lord. In person. The devil knows exactly Who Jesus is. He believes in Jesus — but the devil isn’t going to heaven. The devil will not have eternal life but rather eternal damnation in the pit of hell.

Go, go now and ponder, meditate upon what it is to be a true disciple. And then allow the words of God’s living and active word stir and blow its life-giving winds over your heart and spirit to ignite then aflame for the Lord Jesus Christ!

Ken Pullen

Wednesday, May 6th, 2020

ACP — A Crooked Path

Do You Really Belong to Jesus?

By Laura Perry

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2020

Reprinted from: American Family Association

Recently, I ran across a young man on the street near my office and felt compelled by the Lord to stop and talk to him. I asked him if he knew Jesus and immediately, without hesitation, he piped up:

“Oh, yes, I know Jesus.”

I asked to clarify, “How do you know Jesus?”

He responded, “He’s my Lord and Savior.” I have been stunned at the number of people that I have had such dialogues with recently, who seem to give me all of the correct answers, and yet at some point in the conversation, it becomes evident that they are living in unrepentant sin. While they know the right church answer, it is clear they have no true concept of what it means to follow Christ. While I cannot judge their soul, I at least want to present the truth of God’s Word clearly and allow the Holy Spirit to convict them.

So, still not getting a sense of peace from the Holy Spirit with this particular young man, I pressed further. I shared how I had believed in Jesus most of my life, intellectually. I had also believed on and off at various points that I was saved. I would rededicate my life to Jesus when I would grow weary of my rebellion. That is, until the lusts of my flesh would entice me again, whispering to me from the shadows. This cycle repeated over and over in my life more times than I could count.

In fact, when I truly did give my life to Christ, as I began to pray, I was ashamed of how many times I had “dedicated my life to Jesus”. But I knew that I had never really done so with my whole heart. And that day I was so radically changed that I immediately knew that I was a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).

I shared the passage that changed my life from Matthew chapter 16:24-26,

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Still, he heartily agreed, assuring me he followed Jesus in like manner. But I could see on his face he was growing increasingly uncomfortable. Intending to leave it at that and walk away, a woman passing by interrupted our hearty banter with a greeting to the young man. They were apparently acquaintances. I assumed the young man would continue his walk with his small dog. Frustrated with my current dead-end conversation I turned to the woman and called after her, “Do you know Jesus?” I asked. She spun around with a bewildered look on her face. She said,

“God has only spoken to me twice in my life. Once about a month and a half ago, and then again today (referencing earlier that day).”

I meant to ask her what God had spoken to her, but the Holy Spirit led the conversation in a new direction. She quickly added that she had been waiting for her bus for over an hour and a half, and it hadn’t arrived. I knew this was a divine appointment. As we begin to talk, the young man joined in with us.

Things took a bit of a turn for him, however, when I brought up my testimony and how I had been set free from transgenderism. He threw his head back a little, as if both offended and caught a little off-guard,

“Well, I’m gay.” He said emphatically. I can’t recall all of the rest of the conversation. But as we talked, I shared how Jesus had not only set me free but many others as well. He kept repeating emphatically that being gay was who he was, and he couldn’t change. I read to him the following out of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Convicted by the clear teaching from Scripture, my personal testimony, and that of those I know, he changed his excuse: “but I love men.” As we talked, it was clear he was choosing homosexuality over Jesus. I was deeply disheartened by the conversation as he stated over and over that he would choose “loving men” over Jesus and going to heaven.

Remember, he claimed he knew Jesus as his Lord and Savior. And yet, when faced with the decision of leaving his sin or following Jesus, he chose his sin. It was strangely reminiscent of the rich young ruler Jesus encountered.

And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.  You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’”  And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! (Luke 18:18-24)

Jesus knew that there was a part of the rich young ruler that wanted God, or at least to be in His good graces. Having believed he had kept all the commandments from his youth (which is impossible to do perfectly), he probably thought he was pretty good with God. But when Jesus asked him to forsake all to follow Him, the rich young ruler went away sad. And Jesus let him go. Jesus didn’t chase him, or cheapen the gospel, or water it down. He didn’t lower the bar.

Jesus calls us to surrender, to confess and repent (turn away from) of sin, and to forsake all to follow Him. None of this earns salvation, to be clear. These are not works of the flesh. We can do nothing to earn it, it is by grace alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). Surrender and repentance are letting go of what we have held onto and trusted in.

The Bible is replete with warnings that we cannot claim to love or follow Jesus and yet live in willful, unrepentant sin. While all of us continue to sin daily, we confess and repent and turn from those things. We don’t choose them, we don’t identify with our sin, and we don’t love it. We abhor sin.

We are to keep His commands.

• If ye love me, you will keep my commandments (John 14:15).
• Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me (John 14:21).
• If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love (John 15:10).
• By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5:2-3).

We are to die to our flesh.

• Those who are in the flesh cannot please God…For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live (Romans 8:8; 13).
• But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires (Romans 13:14).

We are to live for Christ, not our lusts.

• I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20).
• For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21).
• For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them (Ephesians 5:5-7).

The story I told in this article is true. I encountered both on the street by divine appointment. Both heard the gospel. Both were offered eternal life. One, the woman, asked how to give her life to Jesus. The other, the young man, like the rich young ruler went away sad.

We are warned over and over in Scripture not to be deceived. Friend, brother, sister: Do not be deceived. The Bible is clear that those who live in willful, unrepentant, continual sin, will not inherit the kingdom of God. Fornication (which includes all sexual sin outside of a covenant marriage between one man and one woman) is among those things that are condemned over and over and included in these lists of disqualifications. If you are able to live comfortably in those lifestyles without conviction or repentance, then I ask you the same question: Do you really know Jesus?

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few…Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:13-14; 21-23)