God's call to relationship has been gracious and patient, His heartfelt gifts too numerous to count and not the least among them, the life of His own son has been presented for our redemption to Himself - the offering of His own great heart at great personal cost in pursuit of His bride. Who will count themselves void and worthless to Him? Who will reject Him - to be forever driven from His presence and lost to His loving and eternally promising purpose?
Good deeds alone won't save anyone. The perfunctory exercise of organized religion doesn't save anyone. In fact, some Pharisees had the habit of compliance to religion and the practice of gathering together and going through the motions for the sake of appearances. If we've done diligence to study scripture, we might know how Jesus felt about that - He rebuked them. What God wants from us is a true relationship - not just words, but true submission and interaction with Him.
There's only one way to begin - only one door that our God's made available for us to enter into that relationship and that is to accept Christ Jesus' sacrifice as the atonement for our offenses against God's standards - making Jesus our Savior, repenting of (turning away from) our sin and our complete submission to Him and all that He's taught. The process of sanctification and the renewing of our minds begins at that point and our relational walk with our God from there is guided by what He's made available for us to know through scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit. Our desire to learn what He's given to guide us and made available for us to know about Himself is one of the confirmations of our true involvement with Him in relationship.
The Lord doesn't speak without cause or reason, or out of a desire to hear His own voice, but He speaks to the cause of profiting those who will listen. He speaks clearly and with a wealth of terrifying power and wisdom in His possession as He states His case for relationship with us. His words are eternal and true and His cause is just in sifting the hearts of men to bring to Himself from among the throng of mankind, a people of His own to be His eternal bride. Who is responding obediently with honesty and true fidelity out of love ... and who is attempting to answer simply with a primary motive of gain - to escape punishment or just to gain an address in heaven? He knows. Our hearts, our motives, our thoughts and our actions speak for us and often more truthfully than our own lips. I fear many are still standing in the doorway.
Who among us truly engages and studies with diligence to know the heart and spirit of God while He may be known - the heart of the perfect suitor while He may be found? He won't seek forever to court those whose hearts are untrue and those who reject Him. From our beginning, mankind's only purpose was for His pleasure and our only reason to exist was to respond to Him. When the time of courting is done, if that purpose has been denied, we will have spurned Him and rejected His graceful kindness. For this, without repentance, our punishment will reside in His eternal anger. Agony and self loathing will then be our eternal companions.
The fickle of heart, feigning faithfulness to Him while entertaining other suitors in front of Him will find themselves there as well - God will not be mocked or relegated to a standing of competing with perishing pursuits, false gods, or far lessor beings. To the prideful, the thought of submission to anything draws their indignation based on self imposed rights, but God gives all men one ultimate choice and right - choose to submit to the purpose that He's given them or fail to their own destruction.
While there's still time, He patiently calls for an answer - an orderly response of submissive obedience and faithfulness. He's called before for repentance and He's still holding open the door to our only hope
"When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God." Romans 5:6-11 (NLT)
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