Struck down, but not destroyed (Part 4 of 4)

My son, don’t blindly approve and believe that God made the new covenant and abolished the old covenant. And think that the words of God recorded in the Old Testament of the Bible and God’s wrath against treacherous and deceitful people are not important. Our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, is using His own precious blood to establish the new covenant, so as to fulfill the old covenant. As stated in Matthew 5:17-18:

“Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. 
For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished!”

The God who created the heavens and the earth loves us very much. Although we don’t know him, the Heavenly Father sent his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to come to the world. He experienced all the human’s ability to distinguish between good and evil and radiated all kinds of lusts and temptations, but without sin. He leaves us an example, so that we can rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us in our hearts and hope for salvation. My son, but please remember what the Lord Jesus said in John 12:47-48:

“If anyone hears My teachings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.
The one who rejects Me and does not accept My teachings has one who judges him: the word which I spoke. That will judge him on the last day.”

So at the end of the world, when our Lord returns, the judgment will first start from God’s house, and we will be judged by God. Don’t believe in the specious theology of grace, saying that God has already forgiven your previous, present and future sins when you accepted the Lord Jesus as the savior of mankind. You don’t need to confess your sins and repent again in your like. My son, Dad tells you that I used to hear some Christians around me often said this. I often prayed for them in prayers when their name came to my mind. Then one day, when I read Psalm 32:3-6, 8-11:

“When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away
Through my groaning all day long.
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality failed as with the dry heat of summer.
I acknowledged my sin to You,
And I did not hide my guilt;
I said, “I will confess my wrongdoings to the LORD”;
And You forgave the guilt of my sin.
Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found;
Certainly in a flood of great waters, they will not reach him.”

Then, it seems that God used verses 8-11 to answer the prayer of the poet:

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go;
I will advise you with My eye upon you.
Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding,
Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check,
Otherwise they will not come near to you.
The sorrows of the wicked are many,
But the one how trusts in the LORD, goodness will surround him.
Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous ones;
And shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.”

Because when I was reading this passage, what my Christian friends said appeared in my heart, I knew that the Holy Spirit responded to me with this passage, just as John 14:26 said:

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and remind you of all that I said to you.”

Then a question slowly came up in my heart, thinking about what kind of people are upright in heart? Then when I read Ecclesiastes 7:29, Holy Spirit let the question appeared in my heart again:

“Behold, I have found only this, that God made people upright, but they have sought out many schemes.”

Thinking back to my question, I realized in my heart that a person who is upright before God will not do what Adam and Eve did. They shirked responsibility for their sins to others, or escaped their own faults. Or even some may think that they are more spiritual or holy than other sinners, and some people are worthy of death as they claimed from what the Bible said. An upright person will confess his sins before God after the Holy Spirit reveals his sins and asks the Lord to forgive him. Like King David, except for the only crime he committed in his life to kill Uriah, and rob his wife, he was still recognized by God that he did not violate everything he commanded in his life except that sin. In addition, the LORD rebuked David through the prophet Nathan for the crime of murder and robbery of other’s wife. David did not refuse to confess his sins similar to the kings of Israel after him, he responded to God positively because of God’s rebuke: “I have offended the Lord!”. Such a person is an upright person. An upright person will listen to the teachings of the Holy Spirit, accept the counsel of the Holy Spirit, confess his sins, and walk in the path of confession and repentance that God is guiding him. And a person who will confess his sins and repent under the guidance of the Holy Spirit will understand the value of salvation, and will not be afraid of his sins being illuminated by the Holy Spirit. As recorded in Luke 1:77:

“To give His people the knowledge of salvation
By the forgiveness of their sins,”

If we do not confess our sins under the work of the Holy Spirit, if we do not repent and our heart of confession is commensurate, if we only hope that after believing in Jesus, we can escape the wrathful words of God when the Lord returns, then the eternal life that God has placed in our human hearts will be impossible to be rooted. Just like we are now, even if we have a citizenship certificate in another country, if we are infected by the COVID-19 virus, we will not be able to enter that country with a citizenship certificate, because we are infected by the virus (sin), just imagine would the Customs Officer of that country let us enter the country? Some people would give it a try, thinking that the customs officer would not know that he was infected with the virus. However, please remember that the customs officer of that country was also our Creator, our King, and our Lord Jesus. He knows whether we have been infected by the virus or not. If we don’t recognize that we are sick, go to see the doctor (our Lord) for treatment, and ask the doctor to heal our sickness. The virus (sin) we have contracted will never be cured. Some people may think that even if I am infected, or my own body can fight the virus, it is not impossible to slowly return to health myself. My son, I will only tell you in this letter that spiritual viruses are voluntarily infected by human beings, and they cannot be healed by ourselves. Only through confession and repentance will we understand how much the Lord Jesus loves us as the self-seeking human beings. God has lowered his standards to the point that as long as we are willing to bow to Him, He has promised to forgive us. If you don’t bow your head, seek medical advice, don’t let the Holy Spirit illuminate your heart, and don’t repent. You don’t have the ability to experience the reality of the hope of eternal life given by God from salvation to you. Just like a person learning skydiving, he will learn a lot of knowledge and make preparations during his training, but when he jumps out on an airplane for the first time, he will be nervous and worried because he has never tried to jump out of an airplane before. Salvation from God and the hope of eternal life are very similar as a person who has never tried skydiving. No matter how much preparation and knowledge that person has before, when he truly jumps out (leaves the world), he will also feel apprehensive and scared because he has never had such an experience before. But when he, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is being illuminated the dark side of his inner life, in front of the Lord Jesus. After confessing his sins, repenting, and receiving forgiveness, the salvation and the hope of eternal life that were only the knowledge of his mind will be in his heart. Real fruit has been born in the mind. Therefore, those who have never asked the Lord Jesus to forgive our sins will not truly understand the truth of 1 John 1:9:

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Then, the hope of salvation and eternal life from above is only the knowledge of our minds, not the personal experience of salvation born out of the forgiveness of sins. Since it’s just the knowledge of the mind, we have never experienced forgiveness. Nor have we often experienced the illumination of the Holy Spirit in life, knowing that the Lord really as long as we are willing to confess our sins from the heart, He will forgive us and give peace of forgiveness. How can the hope of eternal life be born from the bottom of our heart? How can we not miss this world and hope to leave this world returning to heaven to meet the God who loves us and forgives our sins? Dad reiterates to tell you the truth again, you must keep it in your heart, Dad only knows that those who are enlightened by the Holy Spirit and confess their sins and repent will truly understand the value of salvation, will have the hope of eternal life and will not breathe at the last breath in the world at a loss not knowing where we would go after death and were afraid. Instead, we are waiting with joy, and eager to return to the heavenly house to see the Lord’s face.

Salvation comes from being revealed by the Holy Spirit in all things, begging God for forgiveness, and being forgiven by God. Only by being forgiven by God, we can truly know the value of salvation and how much our God loves us! The motivation that can change one’s bad habits, even willing to discern the truth of the God who loves us, to be ridiculed or humiliated or killed because of what he testified. This is born from the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness of sins, as the result of the response to God’s indomitable love. Our God only asks his disciples such as Peter, Thomas, Paul, etc., who were following their own likes and dislikes, after repenting and confessing their sins, being forgiven by the Lord, and guided by the Holy Spirit, will they go to death without fear, but also to prove the Lord Jesus is the Son of God and our Savior? Moreover, those who are often enlightened by the Holy Spirit and are willing to respond positively and repentantly, because they do not resist the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they will get the presence of the Lord Jesus and the Father, so that those who repent will become good friends of the Most High God and His present every day. The Lord helps you in difficulties, He heals you when you are sick, and He corrects you when there is self-righteousness within you. As John 14:21 and 23 and 15:14-15 said:

“The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him.”
…
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will follow My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.”

“You are My friends if you do what I command you.
No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

My son, Dad’s knowledge is limited, but I have never heard of any religion or philosophy, as same as recorded in the Bible by the God who created the heavens and the earth will treat us as friends. It is such a great honor that people will repent and confess their sins and return to the embrace of the Most High God. You can become good friends with the God who created the heavens and the earth, and you will never be separated! Dad used to think that eternal life means being able to return to heaven in the future. Only after repentance did I slowly realize that eternal life defines me as reconnecting with the eternal Creator through repentance, being with him every day and being guided by Him in His present. Because of His eternal life and eternity, no matter where Dad is, I also has the hope of eternal life with God. The Holy Spirit only allows Dad to understand the relationship between salvation and eternal life from the direction of confession and repentance. This is also the most precious experience that I can pass to you with the love of knowing God in my life. Our human lust is like a toilet. Even if you don’t use it, it will slowly stick to the dust. If it is not cleaned at a certain time, it will slowly produce stains. My son, if you feel that the analogy I said is hard to listen to, this is normal, because we, humans, live in a real society where we do not bow our heads and survive the survival of the fittest. Everything must be visible. What is right and valuable in reality is right. No matter what the inside is, the outside must be done decent enough so that it will not be laughed at. We can accept the Most High God who loves us and sent His beloved son Jesus Christ to be crucified for our sins. We counted it as we are blessed. We can accept the blessing, but it will be very difficult for us to bow our heads and confess our mistakes. We would rather think that we are much better than other sinners. God will love us because we have not committed anything sinful in the world. But the Book of Job recorded a fact in 9:2-4,20:

“… But how can a person be in the right with God?
If one wished to dispute with Him,
He could not answer Him once in a thousand times.
Wise in heart and mighty in strength, Who has defiled Him
without harm?
…
Though I am righteous, my mouth will condemn me;
Though I am guiltless, He will declare me guilty.”

A missionary once shared something with me. I remember it like this:

“Jesus came to us because God wants to stay with us. Sin is a block to his purpose. Sin is not the main point, God’s presence in our life is the main purpose of His redemption plan. We repent from our sin because it blocks our connection with God our Lord.  He does not give us a ticket of entrance to Heaven, but He gives Himself to us when we accept Him as our savior.”

My son, the Most High God puts eternal life in the hearts of the people of the world, but God’s deeds cannot be penetrated by the people of the world. When we are guided by the Holy Spirit, we are illuminated with the hidden darkness in our hearts. After we ask God to forgive us, we will continue to be illuminated and ask forgiveness, and then the forgiven heart, will slowly grow a humble and contrite spirit because of God’s unforgettable love. Harmonize with the faith, we are willing to get close to the God who loves us, listen to the Holy Spirit’s teachings in the heart, and read the words of God every day. We are waiting for the Heavenly Father to speak to us through the Holy Spirit when we read the words of God every day, and slowly have the heart of Jesus Christ, no longer easy to be self-righteous even if we are overthrown by the selfish desires in the heart. Because we are not afraid of the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, we will come back to the Lord and confess our faults. We are forgiven by God so we can stand up again and walk the path that the Heavenly Father wants us to walk in our life. On that path every day, we will see the God who created the heavens and the earth. Our God is a living God and He is leading and walking with the humble people every day.

May the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who bought us with His holy blood, can keep us from living in the Lord, and the Holy Spirit sent from the Father to live in our hearts will always guide you in your heart. To experience His love and mercy, and guide you to understand the truth, so that you will not be afraid of the light of the Holy Spirit in your life, shining in the dark of your heart, cleansing, and walking with God who loves us every day! As long as you are not afraid, come back to Him and let Him examine you. The first few times, although it is uncomfortable, you will know for yourself that God loves you and will no longer be afraid. As 1 John 4:18 said:

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”

This is my personal experience. I hope the Holy Spirit will let you understand His intentions in your future life. Amen!

Next: One Thought Sinking into Hell (Part 1 of 2)

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