Part 2
[Jhn 3:19-21 NLT] “And the judgment is based on this fact: God's light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants."
I have considered myself a “Christian” my entire life of over 50 years, but I can clearly prove that my actions showed that I was more interested in serving my body as if it were created to be an instrument of pleasure rather than for its intended purpose, a Holy Temple for God to literally enter. But I was buried in illicit sex, inappropriate contentography, strip clubs, alcohol abuse, anger, rage, malice, revenge, hatred, murder, suicide.…and on and on. I abused just about everything, for that’s all that I knew. I would guess that I have always pondered my sense of immaturity at least once per week….I have always known that I was in terrible, terrible condition. But again, I never seriously questioned my salvation thinking that it could be in jeopardy. How is this possible? We lie about everything….
[1Jo 2:4 NLT] “If someone claims, "I know God," but doesn't obey God's commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth.”
We know that God cannot intermingle with liars, thus liars are unable to inherit the kingdom. And what about those who claim that they have no sin, that everything is great in their lives?
[1Jo 1:8, 10 NLT] “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. ... If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.”
What in the world? Why would John ever interweave the two ideas of a person “having no sin” with asserting the notion that God is “a liar”? This isn’t easy to explain….Within the context of true Christianity, those who claim they are without sin are essentially saying that they possess the indwelling Holy Spirit, for anyone with the indwelling Spirit cannot continue to go on sinning.
[1Jo 3:9 NIV] “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.”
For the Holy Spirit proves Himself in our lives of word, action and thought. If we possess the Holy Spirit, who is said to be guiding us, how could this same Spirit use our same lives, words, actions and thoughts to create and generate the lie that we have no sin? Anyone who lies about possessing the Spirit does not and cannot possess the Spirit, for it is impossible to lie about the Holy Spirit if the Holy Spirit is the driving Force and Power (Grace) for our thoughts and actions?
[Jhn 9:41 NLT] "If you were blind, you wouldn't be guilty," Jesus replied. "But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.”
If we struggle with telling the truth, what are the chances of any form of success, particularly if we’re lying directly about the involvement of the Holy Spirit in our lives? Imagine lying to a therapist; a therapist can only give us their help based upon the information we give them. Or, do we expect them to be mind-readers?! Aren’t we setting a therapist up for disaster and failure by giving them a fictitious Cinderella story? How can a successful character change come through lying and hiding the very flaws you need to address? Explain how it is that we can we tell our friends and family that we want to kill ourselves, yet turn around and tell our therapist the next week that “Everything’s great!”? If we are battling with lying to one another, we belong to the Devil.
[1Jo 3:10 NLT] “So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God.”
[1Jo 1:6 NLT] “So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth.”
For the sake of all eternity, don’t be misled….God will hold you accountable regardless of what you might think of yourself and your swindling sins.
[Eph 5:6 NLT] “Don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him.”
For our Powerful, Almighty God is not entertaining us with Planet Earth and all of its glories and riches just so that we might flourish in our selfish and self-centered ways. And there are millions of “Said Christians” who truly believed that their desires for Christ alone will grant them eternal life. This notion just is not true.
[Mat 7:21-23 NLT] "Not everyone who calls out to me, 'Lord! Lord!' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, 'Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.' But I will reply, 'I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God's laws.”
Why? How? What spirit would ever possess Jesus, forcing Him to reject those who were literally prophesying and casting out demons in His own name? First, let us ignore the false teaching that this text set proves that obedience does not grant our way into heaven. This text set is not about obedience, but about what is believed in these people’s minds. One way to consider these individuals would be likened to “money changers” in the Temples. They were using the Temple of God as a source of income instead of way to worship the Almighty. Frankly, they weren’t obeying the God of Abraham, Isaac or Jacob, and worse, they’re not even true “believers”, thus they were only using the “concept” of Jesus so as to generate their worldly gain or provision.
In light of Jesus’s omniscient ability to know others hearts, their motives, Jesus knew exactly why these “Law breakers” were supposedly prophesying the Word of God, and the reasons were disingenuous. As said earlier, these people were not true believers, for Jesus made it clear that they were not doing the will of His Father in heaven. Their hearts were not after God, but after some sort of worldly gain or provision, but the work that they were doing was not being empowered by God’s indwelling Spirit. They truly did not believe in Jesus wholly as Abraham believed and trusted God. Without the indwelling Holy Spirit, a person sense of “faith” in Christ is only superficial. Therefore, our belief system is in error by default, as it is incomplete, for an incomplete faith is as useful as an incomplete set of directions.
The downfall of the Corinthian church was not an actual matter of obedience and behavior, but of what they believed. It was what they believed, or what they were not believing and understanding that was placing them into so much serious spiritual trouble with the Apostle Paul, a true representative of Christ. After extensive in-person training by Paul and other key teachers of the Christian faith, not to mention the training through his three personal letters, this group of “Christians” in Corinth seemed unable to retain the Gospel of Christ.
[1Co 3:1 NLT] “Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn't talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life.”
[1Co 14:20 NLT] “Dear brothers and sisters, don't be childish in your understanding of these things. Be innocent as babies when it comes to evil, but be mature in understanding matters of this kind.”
Note that Paul is not asking or begging them to do anything other than read his words. Paul is speaking as the way things truly are. He is clearly saying that he wants them to be mature in the Christian life, but also to be innocent as babies to evil. Paul wants us to stretch our understandings of the Christian Faith so that we might continue to grow and become more like Christ. Paul is calling for the testing of ourselves, and through this testing we will find damaged ideologies within us. We must refine our thinking so as to bring about change, so as to develop true Godly understanding. But these Corinthians, these people tested Paul, pushing him to the edge of his patience, seemingly shocked that this group of people were becoming more and more like the Israelites. And what we they like? They didn’t possess the Holy Spirit, thus they were very much on their own, trapped by their own ignorance of why we are here, in this body and on this planet.
It’s apparent that Paul at least felt in his heart that they didn’t believe he’d be coming back to them, therefore, there were a “freed” church. It seems that they felt a sense of freedom from responsibility; a freedom from obedience that would allow them to become most proficient in their sexual conquests, for both young and old. These people had become so worldly, so secular, so incredibly numb to the Almighty Powers of God, that they didn’t understand that talking about sexual conquests between mother and step-son, members of the same church, was and is a colossal abomination. These people were falling deeper into sin, and that cannot happen to anyone who has truly surrendered, given his life to Christ, believing in Him as Abraham believed in God….Jesus will then send His Holy Spirit to you and you will be eternally marked as His property for eternity. Therefore, how could anyone, who truly possess the Spirit of God, could ever behave in such a way that would cause Paul to react to them in such a wordly, anti-Christian way and manner of speech? It seems that this letter was about to be his last should the Corinthian church not repent and turn, for the first time, truly, to God.
[1Co 4:18-19, 21 NLT] “Some of you have become arrogant, thinking I will not visit you again. But I will come--and soon--if the Lord lets me, and then I'll find out whether these arrogant people just give pretentious speeches or whether they really have God's power. ... Which do you choose? Should I come with a rod to punish you, or should I come with love and a gentle spirit?”
This church was in such poor condition, that Paul felt that he needed it be known that he questioned whether or not anyone in the church even held the indwelling Spirit, so as to judge Spiritual matters.
[1Co 6:5-10 NLT] “I am saying this to shame you. Isn't there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these issues? But instead, one believer sues another--right in front of unbelievers! Even to have such lawsuits with one another is a defeat for you. Why not just accept the injustice and leave it at that? Why not let yourselves be cheated? Instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong and cheat even your fellow believers. Don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don't fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people--none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.”
Who and what have we become? Is not John describing our society on the whole when he wrote:
[1Jo 3:17 NLT] “If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion--how can God's love be in that person?”
Is this not who many of us are even today?
[1Jo 4:8 NLT] “But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
The point that John is making is that when a true Christian possesses the indwelling Spirit, by default, they [will] demonstrate true love for others. Compassion is a byproduct of the Holy Spirit. So if God is Love, and if God sends His Spirit to Indwell us, and if God and the Spirit are one, then the Spirit is also this same Love, for God is Love. Therefore, if we have the indwelling Spirit who is one with God, the Spirit is also this same Love and will use our willing bodies and souls to serve and worship Him through the righteous acts that His new indwelt body will complete for Him. We are to be ambassadors. We are to be examples of Christ. If we have the indwelling Spirit, the four become one; God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit with our own individual spirit last.
