Roots by the River

Loving Christians “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death” (1 John 3:14). Christians love non-Christians. Non-Christians love non-Christians. It takes a Christian to love a Christian. In her autobiography, Climbing , Rosalind Goforth tells of an elderly man who was unsure of his salvation. He said, “I wanted to convince myself all these years that I’m going to heaven, but I can’t.” She asked him if he loved the Lord’s people. He said, “Oh, it’s my greatest joy in life to be with the Lord’s people on the Lord’s Day singing the Lord’s praises.” Then she pointed out 1 John 3:14 to him: “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers.” Love for the brothers is evidence of salvation. Consider the opposite. Suppose you brought a non-Christian to church. He would not feel comfortable. He might admire and respect Christians, but he wouldn’t love them like they love each other.

Obedience “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him” (1 John 3:6). “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:9-10). “We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him” (1 John 5:18). We know we are saved because we are no longer living in sin. If it looks like we are living in sin, then there is no reason for others to know that we are Christians, and no reason for us to, either. “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands” (1 John 2:3). Obedience is not the means of salvation; it is evidence of our salvation. Are

“Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Romans 10:9-10). This confession is not a matter of the mouth only. People who do not have the evidence of the Holy Spirit say it in liturgies all of the time. “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). To be continued on Monday.   Excerpted from Assurances of Salvation , available at ccmbooks.org and Amazon.com.

This morning* my attention has been drawn to every phrase of the sixty-fifth Psalm. Here are a few of those phrases: Verse 3: “When we were overwhelmed by sins you atoned for our transgressions.” Verse 8: "Where morning dawns and evening fades you call forth songs of joy.” Verses 9-13: “You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks, and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing."   *Written June 1985. This post coordinates with Friday's reading in the To the Word! Bible Reading Challenge . If you are not in a daily reading plan, please join us a

“The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21). If this list describes your normal state, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-25). If this describes you, you are saved. Jesus saves out of the first list into the second list. If you find yourself in both lists, it is for one of the following reasons: 1) You are mistaking natural personalit

The Holy Spirit is a means of knowing you are saved. “We know that we live in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit” (1 John 4:13). “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Romans 8:16-17). God’s Spirit talks to our spirit to tell us that we belong to Him. We are His children. I cannot explain it, but to those to whom this has happened it does not need explaining. The Holy Spirit is the present guarantee of our final salvation, the resurrection of our bodies: “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory”

There is a minimum of truth without which a person cannot be saved. This is the gospel. “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve” (1 Corinthians 15:1-5). Here is the basic truth of the gospel: 1) Who Jesus is—He is the Christ. 2) Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture. 3) He was buried. His burial did two things: It confirmed His death—He was dead and buried. It confirmed His resurrection. 4) He was raised on the third day according to the Scripture. This is the truth that saves. Believing any less th

There is a wonderful phrase in the poetry of Jeremiah that tells us something of the character of God's forgiveness: “‘In those days, at that time,’  declares the Lord,  ‘search will be made for Israel's guilt,  but there will be none,  and for the sins of Judah,  but none will be found,  for I will forgive the remnant I spare’" (Jeremiah 50:20). Guilt and sins, regardless of how great and how many, cannot be found even when searched for, when God forgives. Zechariah said of his son John the Baptist in Luke 1:76-77, " And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;   for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation   through the forgiveness of their sins. " Sins gone, guilt gone, and a knowledge of salvation, all through the forgiveness of sins.   Written September 1989. This post coordinates with today's reading in the To the Word! Bible Reading Challenge . If you are not in a

“Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ Nathan replied, ‘The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the son born to you will die’” (2 Samuel 12:13-14). The complete story is in 2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12. David’s sins were awful. He violated the clear commands of God “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not commit adultery.” David, in order to hide his adultery, had Uriah called home from the front in order to attribute Bathsheba’s pregnancy to him. David was concocting a lie that did not work. David sent him to his home and sent him a gift. Uriah did not go home. The next day David gave a dinner for Uriah and made Uriah drunk. He did not go home. So David had him killed and then took his wife. David did not confess. He was still hiding his sins (or thought he was.) He was then confronted by Nathan the prophet. Be

"But you must not mention 'the oracle of the Lord' again, because every man's own word becomes his oracle, and so you distort the words of the living God, the Lord Almighty, our God” (Jer. 23:36). For study, the whole chapter of Jeremiah 23 should be read. I pulled this sentence because of its application today. Weekly I come across people whose own words are their revelation of "truth." It is always a distortion of the word of God. In churches that recognize the gift of prophecy, the same thing occurs. In many instances, there is no means or effort to shut down these false prophecies. Several chapters in Jeremiah are given to shutting down or standing up against these “prophets.”    Written July 1986. This post coordinates with tomorrow's reading in the To the Word! Bible Reading Challenge . If you are not in a daily reading plan, please join us at TotheWord.com . We would love to have you reading with us.