Walk just as he walked

“He who says he remains in him ought himself also to walk just like he walked.”

Those who belong to Christ and are following Him, ought to walk through their lives just like He walked through His life with the Father. Jesus walked in obedience to the will of His Father and carried out all His commands. As we read the life of Jesus we see one who was perfect and loved God completely with all His heart, thereby keeping the commandment to love God with all His mind and heart and soul. We must persevere to do this too and not baulk at life’s difficulties. It is difficult to live as a Christian in this fallen world, but we can do it in the loving arms of our Father in heaven and in the deep power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

We are bound to remain in Him and walk worthy of the Lord. We will always make mistakes, but there is forgiveness and peace at the end of the day when we confess our sin. Rehearsing sin is not helpful and can bring us down into discouragement and depression, but we acknowledge our wrong and ask the Lord to forgive us and give us the power to turn from it. He forgives us and does not constantly bring it to our remembrance, that is from the enemy and we resist him.

The Lord is able to keep us in times of temptation and weakness. Only He is able to do that and we rest on His amazing power and love. What would we do without our blessed Lord Jesus? He is our Saviour and the lover of our soul and will bring us safely home to heaven. Our preoccupation is to walk worthy of Him and to bring glory to His name. We remain in Him because of His sustaining power and His holy grip on our life that keeps us on the heavenly way.

Beloved, let us not hold back and miss the blessing of the Lord. Let us hold fast to our profession of faith and live as obedient children full of love, faith and good works.

Whoever keeps His word

“But whoever keeps his word, God’s love has most certainly been perfected in him. This is how we know that we are in him:”

If we are obedient and seeking to walk in holiness of life, then we can know we belong to the Lord and are in His family. The family likeness is seen in our life as we seek to conform to the image of Christ and be like Him. We are keeping the word of the Lord. That means we are searching the Scripture, reading it and putting it into practice in our own life. We say goodbye to the things we want and the guilt of old sins that may be dogging our psyche, and hold on to the forgiveness of the Lord. As we obey His word so He comforts us.

We do not always keep His word, but we are seeking to do so. We keep a short account with God and confess our sins to Him and keep our relationship with Him clean and clear. We wait on His goodness to us every day and see the many tokens of His love and acknowledge them to Him. This lifestyle brings us peace with God and in our hearts.

Love for God is perfected in us as we are obedient to the Word. We cannot say we love God and are not getting better in personal holiness. We must walk worthy of Him and know therefore that we are in Him. This is our daily personal assurance, that we are truly the Lords, that we hold His word dear to us, so dear that we obey it.

We also keep our conscience clear, and walk worthily before the Father in heaven. It is still a reliable guide and will motivate us to do what is right and follow our God. There is such comfort in knowing His closeness and the warmth of His love.

I know Him

“One who says, “I know him,” and doesn’t keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth isn’t in him.”

If we are not walking with God and living an obedient Christian life, then we are not really Christians at all. If we say we know God, but do not obey, we are termed liars. It is strong language with a stronger sentiment behind it. The truth of God is not in us. The Lord Jesus called Himself “the Truth” and without Him, our so-called faith is not real. We must truly know Him and seek to be like Him in all our ways and lay hold on the comfort of His Word in times or trouble.

This verse links with the previous verse, where knowing God depends on keeping His commandments. We might know the commandments, but if we do not keep them, or strive to keep them, we are not truly the Lords. Obedience is the key, as it was for Jesus who did nothing outside the will of His Father and fulfilled the whole law of God on our behalf. Because of the righteous life of Christ, we are set free from our unrighteousness and made right with God.

When we fail in our living, to keep the commands, we have an advocate with the Father, who has died for us and holds the keys of forgiveness in His hands. When we come to Him when we fall and fail, He is ever ready to forgive us. We must turn from our sin and put it away from us completely. We must not presume on forgiveness, but seek to live holy lives to God. The honour of God should come first in all our thinking and doing and to put His holy considerations above our own desires is paramount.

This is impossible to do without the power of the Holy Spirit in our life. Without the power of God, we are powerless to subdue the sinful urges within us and the fleshly desires that war against the Spirit. We must not give ourselves to the fleshly desires of our minds but commit all our behaviour to the Lord.

“For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire.”

Galatians 5:17

The Lord will help us and motivate us to be obedient children, that we might know Him better and love Him truly. Then we can truthfully say “I know Him…”

Keep His commandments

“This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments.”

We can express verbal sympathy with the sentiments of Scripture and verbalise our love for God, but without obedience it is all worthless. We can do all good deeds and make huge sacrifices to the Lord and His work, but without the obedience to the holy commandments, it is all just human good works. To know God is to be obedient to Him. Without this obedience we are not respecting His person or taking seriously what He is saying to us in the Word of God.

The Ten Commandments stand strong over the entire human race and are applicable to all, in every culture and generation. We ignore then at our peril, for they are the way to holy living and to please the Lord. We cannot keep them and do not keep them, but there is forgiveness for the sinner as we stand in the place of confession. Still we strive to keep the commandments and live a pleasing life to God.

To know God is to revere all that He is and to stand in reverence and awe at all His Word. We start at the commandments and then follow the instructions for holy living that we also receive in the New Testament. It is not legalism to obey the Lord, but we express our faith and desire for godliness as we live in the light of His desires for us. How can we possible say we love God, or know Him, and not understand what he wants us to do and how He wants us to live. We are justified by grace alone through faith, but our faith is seen in our good works towards the Lord and our desire to please Him through our obedience to His statutes.

“…that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;”

Colossians 1:10

We please the Lord as we live in a worthy manner in His will and decrees and as we walk in them, we continue to grow and know the Lord and His person increasingly. This is the assurance of our Christian faith, that we love the Lord enough to know Him and know what He requires from us and to obey His Word. As we walk close to Him we will produce the fruit of righteousness which He requires from his people, and not be sidetracked into sentimental feelings and futile thinking about the Lord.

The commands of the Lord become more and more important to us as we grow in grace and know the Lord more closely. We will seek not to offend Him and to bring glory to His name through our godly living and earnest seeking the path of obedience and faith. This is what pleases God, not our vaunted sacrifices and exalted opinions over other people. The Lord seeks the spiritual fruit of the Holy Spirit through the life of faith. There is no other assurance that we have faith other than this manifestation. Obedience to the commandments of the Lord, is walking this world as Jesus walked and overcame all temptation and evil for our sake. We model ourselves on Him.

The atoning sacrifice

“And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.”

What a comfort it is to know we are not left alone, and do not have to work for our salvation from our own sin. If we did have to work for redemption, we are already condemned. We all stand guilty before a holy God, and there is nothing we can do to pay for our forgiveness because we are already spiritually bankrupt. We have no funds that can make compensation to God for the breaking of His holy commandments, and yet we can be forgiven and be set free from them. God has already provided restitution for us, through the death of His only Son, our Saviour, Jesus. He has made a full atonement for us, that means the price of forgiveness has been paid by Him, so that we can be free from the guilt and punishment for our sin. Jesus has died, so we get to go free. His death on the cross is sufficient to save us and there is no excuse why everyone does not come for this free gift of His grace.

Jesus died to buy good things for us all. He died that we might have peace with God and know the love of God in our minds and souls. We do not need to be at enmity with the Lord, for peace is offered to us as a free gift through the sacrifice of Jesus. Because of what the Lord Jesus has done, there is no need to suffer for our sin, but to find our peace and full forgiveness in Him.

This verse does not mean that every person in the world will be saved, but that God has included Jew and Gentile in His plan of salvation. The whole world is represented by the members in the church of Christ, and there will be believers from every tribe and tongue in the kingdom of God. The death of Christ has paid the terrible price of sin for all those who trust in Him. His death is able to cover the sin of the least and lowest and He calls us to come to Him and find our soul’s life and comfort.

We take great comfort in the power of our Saviour to come and suffer for us in this way. We give Him all the glory and honour Him with lives given for His service and praise. We do not serve ourselves, but the living God, who alone can justify the guilty through the sacrifice of Himself.

We have a Councellor

“My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have a Counsellor with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.”

The Apostle John is writing this letter that we might be instructed in righteousness. He wants us to be clear about our sin, what it is, so that we can face up to it and repent from it. This is the way of walking peaceable with God. This is the path of righteousness.

Of course, we do sin with bad attitudes and thoughts that separate us from the peace of God. God shows us our sin so that we can turn our minds from it and be at peace. This is so important that we live lives in the attitude of peace towards our Heavenly Father and He will walk with us and work all things out for our benefit. The Lord is so warm toward us, as John is warm in his heart to those who will read this letter. God calls us His little children and brings us instantly into the embrace of His loving fellowship. He does not keep us at arms length, always chastising us, but teaches us and shows us the way back to Himself.

When we fall down and our cares and wrongs get the better of us, we have a Counsellor to stand with us before the Father and speak for us as our Saviour and Lord. His name is Jesus Christ, the righteous one, who has bought our freedom and forgiveness and ever stands as our mediator with the Father.

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus..”

1 Timothy 2:5

We are never left to fend for ourselves, but are guided and helped, prayed for and counselled by our loving Saviour and Lord. We can turn to Him in our times of deep trouble and heartache, and know His loving interventions. Only He is able to hold us, and He does hold every one of His precious people. We look to Him for Jesus is able to save and keep us through all our failures and adversity.

His word not in us

“If we say that we haven’t sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

Should we persist with the idea that we are perfect or at least excusable, this verse in the letter of John is very clear. We pit ourselves against the Word of God and as we continue to justify our behaviour, we contradict the Scripture and go up against the Lord. The language here could not be stronger. We actually assign dishonesty to the Lord rather than facing our own guilt. This is an unhealthy state to be in and will keep us from the joy of forgiveness and reconciliation to God.

Even if we are Christians and seek to keep the holy Word, we fail daily and often do not see our wrong doing and think we are living rightly. God works in our conscience to convict us of the sins we do and facing up to them straight away is the wise thing to do. It is too easy to excuse ourselves and allow our consciences to atrophy and become less and less sensitive to sin and we become cold towards the Lord.

It is best to believe what God says about us, rather than our boastful ideas.

“…for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus..”

Romans 3:23-24

If we believe God’s judgment of our state before Him then we are in a position to seek the forgiveness we need. The forgiveness is there for all who will come and will believe. Our Saviour will forgive us freely by His great grace, though we are undeserving. He has bought a great salvation through His sacrifice and it is sufficient to forgive all our sin.

Beloved, let us believe God rather than our self-justifying minds and give our hearts over to Him in true repentance for all our wrongs. We confess our sin and trust Him to forgive us and keep us close to Him.

Faithful and just

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Here we have the promise and the comfort to cope with the guilt of our wrong doing. With the Lord there is great mercy and forgiveness for all our sin. The Lord is faithful concerning His promises to us and the call of mercy speaks to us of free forgiveness for all, who repent of their sin and put their trust in Christ. The work that Jesus did on the cross can justify the sinner, for there He paid the price of sin so that the justice of God is satisfied. He died to save His people, all who would come to Him for this full and free forgiveness, and the offer of that mercy is still open to us. The offer stand to whoever will come to Jesus in repentance and faith.

The problem is not with the love and mercy of God, but with our reticence to confess what we have done wrong to Him and to ask Him to forgive us. Our fear and pride hold us back. Maybe we imagine that He will not forgive us this time and that His mercy has failed. This can never be, for His promise here is faithful and true. Maybe we don’t like admitting our failure to people in case they get the better of us, but our Lord Jesus is not like that. His love is always towards His people and He is ready and willing to forgive us and pour in His comfort. He is the only one who can do this because He alone has the right to forgive as He is the one who has paid the terrible price for us. We come to Him in the humility of faith and with the heart and word of confession, and He freely sets us at liberty from the guilt and fear. 

When we first come to Him, He takes our sin and cleanses us and gives us the righteousness of Christ as our eternal covering. When we fall down and fail as Christians, we can trust in that self-same love to cleanse us from our sin and give us the strength to turn away from it completely. He really does make us clean and we can walk through our Christian life in the knowledge that we are cleansed people. Other people may find it difficult to forgive, but the love of Christ is not like other people. Let us hold fast to our confidence in the Lord who has provided such a salvation and trust in that loving heart that has laid down its life for us. We keep our eyes on Jesus who has given us the faith and will keep us and bring us safely home to heaven. 

Psalms

This devotional commentary is now available on Amazon.

Search: Psalms Shirley Hamilton

This is a devotional commentary put together over many years of reading and meditating on the Psalms and benefiting from their deep wisdom and comfort. The comments are my personal responses to the Word of God, which has been so delightful to me and much comfort and strength over the years. The love of God is written in every Psalm and the antidote for all sorrow and inner pain.
I hope you will enjoy this commentary and that it will fill you with hope and wisdom as you follow the Lord.

We deceive ourselves

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

The problem of sin in human lives is an ongoing one. It follows in every generation and in every human heart and mind. Every generation and every individual must face its reality, outworking and consequences. We are born spiritually dead in its embrace and continue on the road that leads to moral destruction, unless the Spirit of God stops us. The idea that anyone would dare to imagine they have done nothing that contravenes the law of God, is just shortsightedness and foolish. We can easily see that we have many wrong motivations, deeds, words and thoughts and they happen in our life so easily and naturally.

To tell yourself that you are worthy to stand before the holy bar of God is massive self-deception. Mostly we do not think about it and are not that bothered by our sin. There are times our conscience may give us some grief, but we can justify ourselves and silence its pain in our souls.

The Ten Commandments stand as monuments to the judgments of the perfect Father in heaven. He requires nothing but perfection and even at a perfunctory glance we can judge that we don’t measure up. Again, we set the law of God aside and don’t really think about it. Our present world culture will encourage us to not take such perfections so seriously and to live a little. We ascertain that we are not a bad as some, and so placate our consciences that we will somehow be judged more lightly and sidestep the consequences of our sin. God has no favourites and is completely just, and all sin must be paid for. Either we pay for it by ourselves, which is an unthinkable situation, or we trust in what Christ has done on the cross for the payment of sin.

We all stand guilty before the holy God and will all give account for what we have done or not done. Only as we face our guilt and seek the forgiveness of our Saviour, Jesus, are we set free from the guilt and punishment of our sin.

Beloved, let us not be deceived by our society or by ourselves, but accept the just verdict of the holy God, that we are sinful and therefore guilty. Let us assuage that guilt in the way God has provided for us, through Christ, and not in the folly of our own self-justification.