The Holy Life

[th1b.taylor]

<style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } A:link { so-language: zxx } --> </style> [FONT=Georgia, serif]Jer 7:3[/FONT][FONT=Georgia, serif] Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. [/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, serif]Jer 7:4[/FONT][FONT=Georgia, serif] Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, [/FONT][FONT=Georgia, serif]are[/FONT][FONT=Georgia, serif] these. [/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, serif]Jer 7:5[/FONT][FONT=Georgia, serif] For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; [/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, serif]Jer 7:6[/FONT][FONT=Georgia, serif] [/FONT][FONT=Georgia, serif]If[/FONT][FONT=Georgia, serif] ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: [/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, serif]Jer 7:7[/FONT][FONT=Georgia, serif] Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever. [/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, serif]Jer 7:8[/FONT][FONT=Georgia, serif] Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. [/FONT]


[FONT=Trebuchet MS, sans-serif]In last Sunday´s Scripture Lesson the question was asked that is, by and large, ignored in this world today, ¨How much of your daily lifestyle is shaped by popular culture and how much is influenced by God´s Word?¨[/FONT]


[FONT=Trebuchet MS, sans-serif]The Grumpy Old Men´s Class did run 7 to 10 when I assumed the privilege of teaching it, for the want of a willing teacher. Because of my teaching the possibility of living a ¨Holy Life,¨ (a life devoted to the service of God. Rom. 12:1) combined with problems that occur in any Church Family with a very Biblical Pastor, two members left the class and the fellowship of the Church. Others have left for an assortment of reasons until the class is now made up of 3 to 5 members on any given Sunday. And here we are now striving to build the LORD´s Church Family with, hopefully, dedicated Christ Followers.[/FONT]


[FONT=Trebuchet MS, sans-serif]In verse 3 we see Jeremiah delivering a message to God´s people that, through-out the past six thousand years, has never changed, ¨Amend your ways.¨ From the time God called Abraham away from his family in Genesis, the LORD has looked for a separate, a different people. God created Adam a perfect man with a free will and Adam chose to follow his good looking woman, Eve, and to disobey God From that moment forward the ¨world¨ has been trouble and God has been calling people, all people, to return to Him. (2Pet. 3:9)[/FONT]


[FONT=Trebuchet MS, sans-serif]Jesus reduced the Ten Commandments down to two Great Commandments, which if followed, will see a man or a woman obeying all 613 explanations. Yet, in spite of Jesus' statement in the Gospels that He had not come to do away with the Law and that not one title would ever pass away, the New Testament Christian, an oxymoron, has, indeed cast the Law into the Dung Heap! And yet if we go no further than the Book of Romans we find Paul, in the KJV mentioning the Law 78 times in 52 verses.[/FONT]


[FONT=Trebuchet MS, sans-serif]Now, up front, we are not under the penalty of the Law, we, Christians, are under Grace but the Law is very important to us for many reasons, two of them I´ll mention here. First, the Law is the perfect Word Picture, or Illustration of Jesus who is God in the flesh of a man. And second, the Law is our Code Of Conduct! This is the example we are to seek to model to the Lost Man.[/FONT]


[FONT=Trebuchet MS, sans-serif]Over the years I have been permanently banned from a number of web sites, claiming to be Christian, because my teaching of the importance of the Law to the Christian has offended folks. God has not put His call on any man´s life to tickle the ears of the masses. If you look at teachers like Joel Osteen and Rick Warren you will see that tickling ears builds monster followings but who are they following? If a man, any man, follows God and obeys God to receive his messages, only, from God, he will offend people. God´s ways are not preferred by most of the world, that is why The Christian Faith is such a small following.[/FONT]


[FONT=Trebuchet MS, sans-serif]So, can a man live a Holy life? Not without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit! When Jesus departed the Disciples, He promised the Comforter would be sent, by Him, to us. That is the Holy Spirit and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is there with any Saved Man. The difference between a God fearing Christian and a carnal Christian is the quenching of the Holy Spirit. The God fearing Christian makes the effort to listen to the Spirit he or she is indwelt by and everybody else quenches that same Spirit whether saved and indwelt or unsaved and the Spirit knocking at their heart´s door. With the indwelling of the Spirit of God and the personal commitment to follow the leading of the Spirit, any person can lead a life dedicated to God, a Holy life.[/FONT]


[FONT=Trebuchet MS, sans-serif]Like myself, you will have times that you stiffen your neck and disobey but, again, like myself, you will fall down, repent and be forgiven and reinstated if you love God.[/FONT]

 

[for_his_glory]

The flesh is weak, but the Spirit is strong if we do not quench the Spirit in our own lives. We are not perfect and will fall at times, but grace will pardon our downfalls as we strive to live according to the will of God in our lives, but only when we know His will as Gods will is love and compassion as we need to display His love in our own lives towards those who lack knowledge of His word. We are only justified by the law if we chose to live by the law, but if you break even one of them you are guilty of breaking all of them and this is why we live under grace as no person can live by all the law as many of the laws were added to by man as they incorporated their own laws to justify their own deeds of self righteousness.


Rom 3:1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?
Rom 3:2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
Rom 3:3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
Rom 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
Rom 3:5 But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? I (speak as a man)
Rom 3:6 God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?
Rom 3:7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
Rom 3:8 And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.
Rom 3:9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
Rom 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
Rom 3:11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
Rom 3:12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Rom 3:13 Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
Rom 3:14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
Rom 3:15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
Rom 3:16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
Rom 3:17 And the way of peace have they not known:
Rom 3:18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Rom 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Rom 3:21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Rom 3:22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Rom 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
Rom 3:26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Rom 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Rom 3:29 Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:
Rom 3:30 Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
Rom 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.