You Can Know You Have Eternal Life
#674
Man's Search for Inner Peace (88)
Honorable Citizenship in Jesus Kingdom (10)
by Jim Mettenbrink
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Often people think becoming a Christian
is merely belief that Jesus is God and Savior. Some believe
one only needs to utter the so-called sinners prayer accepting
Jesus into their heart and thereby are saved, thereby becoming
a Christian. Yet others believe they become Christians
via some sort of mere ritual calling it baptism. All of
these are contrary to the teaching of the New Testament. When
it is boiled down, we either accept Gods word or we do
our own thing! True conversion in becoming a Christian
is a radical lifestyle change, which is in continuous process
over ones lifetime. Conversion begins with a decision
to follow Jesus according to His word!
God commands Christians not only
to change their lifestyle by turning away from what most recognize
as sin (eg. lying, stealing, cussing, fornication, etc.), but
also by adopting Christlikeness. The apostle Paul emphasizes
this change For
as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Galatians 3:27). Citizens
of Jesus kingdom are to put off the old man of sin and put on
the new man (Colossians 3:5-10; Ephesians 4:20-24). Previously,
we considered some of these Christlike qualities (love, joy,
peace and longsuffering & kindness). Paul lists goodness
as the next aspect of fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22).
It is easy to think kindness and
goodness have the same meaning, yet Paul makes a distinction.
As we considered last week, kindness is a quality of gentleness,
such as a shepherds attitude toward a newborn lamb (kindheartedness).
This is good, but it is not the meaning of goodness.
Since goodness is a Christlike
trait, how is it Jesus could cleanse the temple in such a demonstrative
manner which some today would call intolerant hate? Because
...the
wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle,
willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality
and without hypocrisy
(James 3:17). The temple, being Gods earthly dwelling
had been polluted by greed (John 2:13-16). Jesus
was angry, not for His sake, but for God the Father righteous
anger (Romans 3:5).
Goodness is the opposite of evil.
Goodness can be compared Gods righteous justice
giving men what they deserve. Goodness desires to go further,
by giving a person that which will benefit him and help him.
Paul acknowledged the goodness in the Christians in Rome
-Now
I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also
are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to
admonish one another
(Romans 15:14).
Admonishing is instruction warning
or correcting a person regarding sin in his / her life. The
emphasis is not on gentleness, but goodness, that which is right
according to God. Even though one admonishes with gentleness,
it might be perceived as hate. The citizen of Jesus kingdom
must not cower in the face of evil, retribution, ridicule, accusations
of hate (2 Timothy 1:7). Exercising goodness requires
conviction and boldness (Acts 4:29; 13:46; 1 Thessalonians
2:2).
Jesus has commanded citizens of
His kingdom to adopt His attitudes as their own (1 Corinthians
2:16, 11:1; Philippians 2:5). This is called Christlikeness.
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