A line from an old song for you. “You gave me life, now show me how to live.”
We ask Him to lead us, to guide us, to take us by the hand and show us the way, to reveal His will for us. We ask the Almighty to give us strength to perform the tasks He has set before us, to do so honorably and to the glory of His name, to make the path that He has set before us as clear as possible, to show us our mistakes, our faults, and we ask Him for the ability to serve Him well for His glory.
“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8)
But we ask of the Most High something else that I am not sure He answers, and if He does, I do not know exactly how. We ask Him for the desire to serve Him, we ask Him to make us want to serve for His glory.
This is in essence my friends more than the gift of changing our stoney heart to one of flesh over the course of our lives lived for Him, it is more than the request of our asking Him to modify our free will to conform it to His will. It is asking the Lord to make us love Him, and I do not believe He does that.
“If ye love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)
Here many perform deeds they consider works of love solely for the reason they have been commanded to, as proof to themselves of the love they suppose within themselves to possess. Others have within themselves an emotion of love, a feeling that is not always expressed externally, but simply makes them, or if you prefer, causes them to feel a love within themselves that many times I fear is nothing more than a deception of the heart.
Does the assurance of our salvation rest upon the actions performed for the Lord accompanied with the emotion of love within our heart? Many would say yes, these together would prove true salvation to not only others, but to that person. But I ask this question of you, those actions and that emotional state, do they prove belief in the truths of the Word of God in regard to salvation?
Works cannot save us; an emotionally uplifting state we like to call love will not bring you into the Kingdom of the Living God.
This deception though by many religious organizations lays this foundation as the means to salvation, that a work done in charity, in love, by an unrepentant person will be accounted to them by the Most High as justification for their salvation.
Works and love, even when combined, has never saved anyone from their sins, my friends.
God has never made anyone love Him.
“I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:3)
These truths are not meant to cause doubts within you concerning your salvation, but to honestly look at yourself, to judge yourself.
“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2nd Cor. 13:5)
There is an assurance within those who have truly been born again that cannot be fully expressed to others, that is revealed, yes, by our works solely for His glory, by a heart within us that realizes, without question, is not the same heart we were born with, nor the same heart that beat within us before we fell down on our face at His cross.
The words, “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done,” are never said falsely or with hesitation. This love knows joy and is the only love that sets us free.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9)
