I highly recommend you go to Amazon and buy the book “Real Christianity” by William Wilberforce. So far I am devouring the pages. These are thoughts worth sharing…
“Believing in Jesus means we personally accept His work on our behalf and open our lives to His indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Those who are not familiar with the teaching of the Bible must come to terms with this statement of the Bible: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.’ Acts 16:31
Submission and dependence are the appropriate responses to the teaching of Jesus: “Remain in Me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:4-5
You cannot work your way to Heaven. You cannot do anything to earn the grace and forgiveness of God. Your good behavior does not balance out the guilt of your sin. The great distinction between Christianity and cultural religion believes all these things can be obtained by your own efforts. True Christianity is looking for something much greater.
True Christians look to God to restore the image of God to their soul, but know that this is not something this is able to accomplish. All their hopes of attaining this rest on total reliance on the Holy Spirit who comes to indwell them when they open their lives to Jesus Christ….
Having entered into this relationship the true Christian then seeks to grow in his or her spiritual life by studying the Bible in order to understand the doctrines of the faith. In studying and contemplating the life of Christ, the true Christian attempts to model his or her behavior after that of Jesus. It is the neglect of study of the Bible and reflection on the life of Christ that is at the heart of the practical errors of the majority of confessing Christians….
If we are to walk worthy of Christ, we must practice a central discipline…we must FIX OUR EYES ON JESUS.
This is the key….It is maintaining this focus we realize how logical it is to make an unconditional surrender of our total beings to the will and service of God. If we are truly not our own, but have been purchased by God and belong to Him, then it makes sense to live with a passion to glorify God in all we area and in all we do….
Can we compromise our attitude and response to sin without immense shame? When we fix our eyes on Jesus we see in the most vivid colors how hateful sin is to the perfect holiness of God. Rather than sin going unpunished, God gave His only Son and allowed him to suffer for our sin.
It takes unthinkable vanity to believe that God will not treat unrepentant sin harshly when we see what it cost Him to provide forgiveness.”
7 comments
Excellent post. You make me want to run out and get this book pronto! Sounds challenging and like very good food for thought! I love books that keep me growing in my understanding of HIM and in faith in my Lord and Savior! He is sooo Good!
Thank you for sharing this!
In Christ,
Lydia
THANK YOU, KELLY.
Wonderful thoughts!
awesome.
The great distinction between Christianity and cultural religion believes all these things can be obtained by your own efforts.
There you go!
The distinction is also that our God is so superior in love and ability than any other “god” 🙂
Remember, the Bible uses the word “submit.”
It does not use the word “obey.”
You can submit without obeying.
I think it is very telling that God did not choose the word obey. He does not want women to obey blindly.