Day 6 - Doing the will
The goal of this little book of thoughts is that you should know how to live, because the quality of our life everlasting depends on the life we lead while we are here.
Allow me to repeat some things I have thought about before: to live as we should, we must set out to live by every word of God. To live by every word of God means not only to hear it, or even to hear it and believe it, but to do it as well.
We have learned two things about this; firstly that in eventual order to go in to the city of God, dwell there in peace and eat the fruit of the tree of life, we have to carry out his commands, and secondly that Jesus said, "Not every one who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
The Epistle of James instructs us "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. James 1:22 - 24
We are living in an age of spiritual ignorance. The art and skill in following Jesus is being desperately neglected on both sides of the church doors. Of those few who actually do hear it, how few of us are doing it! In this way we run the enormous risk of deceiving ourselves. Those that hear, but do not do, imagine they are on their way to heaven, when they may well not be.
The only way to heaven is by doing his will, not legalistically but with a will of our own. By way of illustration of this we can look quickly at a few texts,
"Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:31.
"If your enemy is hungry, feed him." Romans 12:20.
"But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Matthew 5:39.
"Heal the sick who are there and tell them, `The kingdom of God is near you.'" Luke 10:9
And those are only four. If we are humbly satisfied that we can live joyfully according to texts like these, then we might begin to tentatively conclude that our hearts are right with God.
But you must watch the other side of this coin, You must have a heart that does not rebel against any other, perhaps not so well studied, text in the Bible.
To enlarge the point, it could justifiably be said of us that many have taken care to create a moral arena in which we righteous rich can exercise our souls--not by selling everything and giving to the poor as Jesus suggested to us as a target, but by only giving away what we do not really want. In doing this we have forgotten the effect on the poor of our Christian patronage. We strong ones have reserved for ourselves the undoubted blessing of giving without receiving.
We must be doers of the Word. Without that, those assured hopes we had of eventually reaching heaven, of seeing Jesus and our loved ones who went before us, may never be realised by us.
Keep yourself in the love of God. Make sure, as far as you can, that your life reads every day like the life of Jesus reads, and then you will have an unshaken foundation for your hope.
