The reason that most of the children of men will not serve God, that they will not love Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, (Mark 12:30) is not because they do not believe there is a God in heaven, but because they refuse to accept that He is the Most High. Religious organizations around the globe for centuries have tried to make Him less than the Almighty, from Molech and Dagon, Ashtoreth to Buddhist, from the Roman Catholic Institution, to the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, all have determined that He is not the preeminent, that there are those that are equal to Him, that man alone has the power to determine who God is and what His attributes should be.
It is not a matter of belief, for He has written eternity in the hearts of all men, (Eccl. 3:11) “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20) It is because we as a race refuse to accept that any have control over us, we are our own gods, we accept the totality of no ruler over us, even men who know for a fact that their next breath will be their last will not admit to any rule over them. For many born-again believers, it is called “The five percent rule,” they will admit that the Lord God Almighty is Sovereign, that indeed He rules in the kingdom of men, (Dan. 4:17) but they attempt to hold on to a vestige of rulership within their own lives, there is a need within us to be gods if even in the smallest, most insignificant way. We can reason, we can think, we have the capacity to determine to a greater or lesser degree, our own paths in this life, but that life will come to a close.
The belief structure in some form of a deity is not a question, if one does not serve a god externally, they will serve the god of self, foregoing any contemplation of the end of their lives here. If there is one thing from this simple letter that you must remember and see as truth, it is that nearly everyone living today does not truly believe they are going to die, and there is a spiritual reason for this, it is because they are not going to die, all souls are eternal. “Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” (Eze. 18:4) We will leave this flesh behind someday, we will be reunited with these bodies, “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Dan. 12:2) And so in the strictest terminology of the word, the lost have every right to believe they will not die, it is just that they are contemplating these thoughts, as rarely as they do, towards the flesh, and not the soul.
By these truths they retain some form of power, by neglecting the Sovereignty of the Lord God, they deny themselves the truth. Anyone who lives in your house is allowed to walk freely in and out of that house, those whom you have not allowed to do so are not. So it is with the servants of the Most High, we have a freedom within His kingdom the lost do not know, but we have that freedom only because we have submitted ourselves to His will. Those who are saved, but are holding back a part of themselves to the will of God cannot know the fullness of Him, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (1 Cor. 13:12) There are, for all intents and purposes, partial Christians, servants, but only when they desire to serve, only the percentage of themselves they have decided to give to the Lord.
The Sovereignty of the Lord is not determined by how much of us we have decided to relegate to Him, “The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” (Psalm 24:1) And that means you too. Who we serve matters very little if we do not serve well, no matter what religious ideology you may adhere to, but if it is not the Lord God Almighty that you serve, then you have completely and totally wasted your entire life, you served no purpose. If you are truly born-again believer, and have determined to hold back fifty percent of your life for yourself, what makes you think you are going to receive one hundred percent of heaven. Who we serve matters of course, but how much, how well we served, is the determining factor for the believer.
