OBEDIENCE BORN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

   As I was preparing my message in 1 John 2:1-6, for Sunday night's meeting, I kept coming back to a recurring theme, we do not pursue obedience and holiness in order to be made righteous, we pursue obedience and holiness because we have been made righteous by the blood of Christ. Righteousness precedes holiness!  

1 John 2:1-6  My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.  Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,   but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:   whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked

Conversely, the lost are not going to hell because they sin, they sin because they are lost and going to hell.   Unbelief is the only unforgivable sin (blasphemy of the Holy Spirit).  The lost cannot obey God because they do not have the Spirit of God and they have one master, their own sin nature.  All people are natural born sinners, so all people naturally sin, unless they are regenerated by the blood of Christ.

Think of it in terms of patriotism.  An American patriot would never consider burning an American flag or spitting on a veteran.  A person who identifies as an American patriot does not struggle with desires to harm America, he naturally performs patriotic acts.  An American patriot proudly displays a flag and will proudly stand up in public, hand on heart, to recite the Pledge or sing the National Anthem. An American patriot does not worry that he will be considered weird or a fanatical, he wants others to know what he believes and why.

         Why should it be any different for Christians?  Should we not proudly live and identify with Christ, if we count Him as our savior?  The Apostle John believes we should.  A study of the first part of the second chapter of 1 John should help remove the question, "am I really saved?".  John goes on, in his letter, to say 1John 5:13  I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. If you are a believer, you should naturally exhibit a desire to know and obey God.  We cannot live like an atheist and claim salvation.  

     We are not required to work for our salvation, we are empowered to work by our salvation and our work should be a natural outpouring of the Spirit of God within us.