[Life Fellowship] A Word from the WORD: "WHOLEHEARTED PURSUIT" (Article 218)
Life Fellowship
Repentance is the first step one needs to take to enter the Kingdom of God. This was the initial message preached by John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the apostles to the crowds who came to hear them (Mark 1:4, 14-15; Acts 2:37-38). However, that call for repentance was not final.
As we study the letters of Paul and the message of Jesus to the seven churches, we see how repentance was also expected from believers established in the faith. Some had fallen back in intensity and purpose, others were straying away from sound doctrine, while still others had begun to indulge in patterns of behaviour characteristic of their old life. Each individual was exhorted to return wholeheartedly to the Lord and walk in His ways.
When we consider the Church at large these days, we find a glaring lack of repentance. This is not because people are abounding in holiness but because believers are having a lesser degree of the revelation of God. It is alarming that people have become so busy these days that many do not have any time to wait on the Lord unhurriedly, seek His face earnestly and study His Word diligently.
It is even more sad that believers often find it easy to see others’ faults and can point out what is wrong with everyone else when their own lives need to be looked into and straightened out. Jesus spoke of the need to remove the plank from one’s own eye before attempting to remove a speck of dust from another’s (Matthew 7:3-5).
We must be on guard against the “hardening of our hearts”. This is a real possibility which the writer to the Hebrews warns us about (Hebrews 3:13). The hardening of the heart develops when we continuously neglect the voice of the Spirit or repeatedly fail to pay heed to the conviction He arouses within us. Soon the promptings of the Spirit become increasingly feeble and our passion for the Lord decreases. Our Christian life then ends up as a mere ‘ritual’ without the ‘relationship’.
There is an example of this scenario during the time of the prophet Amos where lots of sacrifices were being offered by the Israelites in worship to God but without any love for Him or righteousness in deeds (Amos 5:21-24). For them, ritual had replaced relationship. They were more interested in the observance of religious customs and traditions than in seeking the Lord and walking in wholehearted obedience to Him. And in course of time, they ended up going after ‘other gods’ which were no gods at all. God had to strictly warn them and finally severely chastise them.
We may not be openly running after other gods but in effect that is the very essence of what we are doing if we are not running after the Lord with all our heart (James 4:4). We need to honestly examine our lives and consider whether He is truly our primary joy and delight.
When the Lord spoke to the Church in Ephesus, He grieved over the fact that they had lost their ‘first love’ (Revelation 2:4) . The use of this particular term indicates that God has a standard of measurement to evaluate us. We read in other places where Jesus described some people as those with ‘great faith’ (Matthew 8:10; 15:28) and Paul talks about ‘perfecting holiness’ (2 Corinthians 7:1), and ‘growing in love for other believers’ (1 Thessalonians 4:9).
So how can we know whether we are genuinely and increasingly in love with the Lord? We can measure it by considering certain features of love- by the closeness, the joyousness, the preciousness of our communion and fellowship with God (Psalm 27:4; 42:1); by the longing to be in the secret place (Psalm 63:1); by how closely we are connected with Him during the course of a regular day (John 15:9-10; 1 John 1:5-7); by the degree of hunger we have to read His Word (Job 23:12; Psalm 119:72); by the number of things in our life we adjust or sacrifice because we long to please Him (1 Corinthians 10:31; 2 Corinthians 5:9); by the little ways we seek to bless others because of our love for Him (1 John 3:16-18).
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you!
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