Joh 14:15 "If
you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
Mat 7:16 "You will know
them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor
figs from
thistles, are they?
Luke 6:46 "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell
you?
Thus an
essential element or ingredient in saving faith is a yielding to the authority
of God, a submitting of myself to His rule. It is very much more than my
understanding assenting and my will consenting to the fact that Christ is a
Saviour for sinners, and that He stands ready to receive all who trust Him. To
be received by Christ I must not only come to Him renouncing all my own
righteousness (Romans 10:3), as an empty-handed beggar (Matt. 19:21), but I
must also forsake my self-will and rebellion against Him (Ps. 12:11, 12; Prov.
28:13).
~AW Pink
Again,
many are willing for Christ to officiate as their Priest, but not for Him to
legislate as their King. Ask them, in a general way, if they are ready to do
whatsoever Christ requires of them, and they will answer in the affirmative,
emphatically and with confidence. But come to particulars: apply to each one of
them those specific commandments and precepts of the Lord which they are
ignoring, and they will at once cry out "Legalism"! or "We
cannot be perfect in everything." Name nine
duties and perhaps they are performing them, but mention a tenth and it at once
makes them angry, for you have come too close home to their case. After much
persuasion, Naaman was induced to bathe in the Jordan, but he was unwilling to
abandon the house of Rimmon (2 Kings 5:18). Herod heard John gladly and did "many things"
(Mark 6:20), but when John referred to Herodias it touched him to the quick.
Many are willing to give up their theatre-going, and card-parties, who refuse
to go forth unto Christ outside the camp. Others are willing to go outside the
camp, yet refuse to deny their fleshly and worldly lusts. Reader, if there is a
reserve in your obedience, you are on the way to hell.
Again,
there are multitudes who are quite ready for Christ to justify them, but not to
sanctify. Some kind, some degree, of sanctification they will tolerate, but to
be sanctified wholly, their "whole spirit and soul and body" (1
Thess. 5:23), they have no relish for. For their hearts to be sanctified, for pride and
covetousness to be subdued, would be too much like the plucking out of a right
eye. For the constant mortification of all their members they have no taste.
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