constantly seeking to find and do the works and will of the Father with outreservation and God abides with us in our hearts. This abiding is the definition ofthe grace that saves. Nothing can keep us from being saved for his Spirit is givenwithout measure to all who are fully yielded to Him. "For he whom God hath sentspeaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him."Jn. 3:34 We will find it necessary to suffer the same reproach from the rebels inthis world as our Lord Jesus did, being made faithful by his power until death,even martyrdom.God created man to populate his eternal Kingdom in the New Jerusalem. Theglory of the kingdom had to be much more than the ornamentation, than in thestreets of iridescent gold. It had to be in the quality of the subjects who populatedit. They had to have freedom and the power to exercise private initiative,innovation and free will. For God to create this glorious kingdom, to have thesubjects with this dynamic autonomy, God the Son had to decide to come anddie at the hands of rebellious men before the creation of man. He placed manover all the world to subdue it, to sow and to reap. He then declared that manwas His crop or his flock. "O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneelbefore the LORD our maker. For he is our God; and we are the people of hispasture, and the sheep of his hand." Ps. 95:6-7 With the motive of love hecreated us and awaits our choice to come in "poorness of Spirit" that is to say inrepentance and faith to serve him.If when we die we are in rebellion against our Creator we are chaff to be burnedeternally. If we have broken our rebellion and have come to Him in repentance,His spirit dwells with us without measure and by this walk in the Spirit weovercome all rebellion and sin.
Do you Sin?
When I have spoken with a pastor who has been taught this "grace plus nothingdoctrine" about no sinner can be saved, he becomes a bit perturbed and asksme. "Do you sin?" I answer, "No! as a child of God I must quit sinning." Heimmediately opens his Bible to I John 1:8 and reads, "If we say that we have nosin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." He says, "the Bible saysthat you are deceived and are deceiving me. You are proud and insensitive toyour sin."Notwithstanding the aggressive response, I must comment that you have takenthis verse completely out of context. This text is for the people we all know whotell us that they are not afraid to die, that they have never done harm to anyone.We must admit our sin to be born again. The whole book of I John as well as thewhole Bible teaches and I quote from I John "He that saith, I know him, andkeepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whosokeepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we thatwe are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even
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