Lip Service is Not Enough to Save You

[Christsfreeservant]

“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 7:21-23 ESV)​

Again, we have another passage of Scripture where what is being taught by Jesus is the opposite of what so many humans are teaching today as the truth. For the popular “gospel” being taught in America today indeed tells people that they can just say, “Lord, Lord,” and now all their sins are forgiven (past, present, and future), and that heaven is guaranteed them and it can’t be taken away from them, but regardless of how they live. And so many are teaching that we don’t have to repent of sin and obey God.

For they take Romans 10:9-10 out of context, and they give people the impression that they can just make a verbal confession of Christ as Lord, and they can just claim to believe in their hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, and that now they will be saved, end of story. But we need to read this in context and we need to read it in the context of the whole book of Romans, for Paul did not teach that we can make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ and now we are saved, regardless of how we live.

For in Romans 2 we read that God is going to render to each one of us according to our works, and for those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury (see Romans 2:6-8).

And then if you skip over to Romans 6, we read that by faith in Jesus Christ we are crucified and buried with Christ in death to sin, and we are raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer as slaves to sin, but as slaves to God and to his righteousness. Thus, we are to no longer let sin reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey its passions, for if sin is what we obey, and not obedience to our Lord and to his commands, it will lead to death, not to life eternal with God (see Romans 6:1-23).

And Paul taught the same thing in many other passages of Scripture where he taught us that if sin is what we practice, that we will not inherit eternal life with God, regardless of what we have confessed with our lips, and regardless of what we say we believe in our hearts. For true belief is obedience to the Lord and it is divine persuasion to do the will of God. It is not a free license to continue living in deliberate and habitual sin against the Lord while we claim Jesus as Lord and heaven as our eternal destiny.

[Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 15:1-11; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-11; 2 Tim 1:8-9; 2 Tim 2:10-13; Tit 2:11-14]

So Paul taught the same thing that Jesus taught. He taught that we are not saved and all our sins forgiven based on lip service or an intellectual assent to who Jesus was and to what he did. He taught that we must die with Christ to sin and that we must now walk in obedience to his commands and no longer in sin if we want to have salvation from sin and eternal life with God. And he did teach that works are required of us by God and that we need to live our lives to be pleasing to God if we want eternal life with God.

[Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; 1 Co 15:58; 2 Co 5:9; 2 Co 9:8; Gal 5:6; Gal 6:8; Eph 2:10; Eph 5:10; Php 2:12-13; Col 1:9-14; 1 Thes 2:4; 1 Thes 4:1; 2 Thess 1:11-12; 2 Tim. 2:4,21; Tit 2:11-14; Tit 3:8; Heb 11:6; Heb 13:6]

So, please believe Jesus’ words, and please know all that Paul taught, and read what he wrote in context so that you don’t come away with the wrong idea about what he taught. For so many preachers today are teaching lies because they are taking Scriptures out of their context, some of them knowingly and willfully, and they are twisting the Scriptures to say what they do not say if they are read in their appropriate context. So many of them are teaching no works, no repentance, no obedience, and lip service only.

But what did Jesus say? He said that not everyone who says to him, “Lord, Lord,” is going to enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING the will of God the Father in heaven. And he said that many will confess him as Lord and will claim the things they believed they did in his name, but his response to them is going to be, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” And this is because they had the idea that obedience to our Lord was not required and that a once in their lifetime confession of faith in Jesus Christ was all that was required of them.

So, please read the Scriptures in their full context, and stop believing other humans without even testing their words against the Scriptures to make certain that what they are teaching is actually the truth. For far too many people are accepting this idea that they can just make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ and now they are good to go to heaven regardless of how they live. And so many of them are continuing in deliberate and habitual sin against the Lord, but according to the Scriptures, they will not inherit eternal life with God, but the wrath of God is what they will be facing instead.

Broken Cord

An Original Work / August 29, 2018

Your bond is broken with your Lord and Savior
And your testimony is separate from Him.
Your words not matching your actions today.
Repent of your sin and bow down and pray.
Live what you testify in truth always.

Purity’s lacking in your life and witness,
For you profess one thing, but other you do.
Not moral, spiritual. Still of the flesh.
Not living in truth to what you confess.
Lying about it puts you in a mess.

Living a lie is your practice, ‘tis true of you.
Masquerade righteousness – none of it true.
Your heart is not given to your Lord God.
Because of how you live, you are a fraud.
Turn from your sin and give your life to God.