Compelling Love

“Great peace have those who love Your law,
And nothing causes them to stumble.”  (Psalm 119:165)

We can obey God’s law without stumbling, with His help!

Jude, the brother of Jesus, writes:

Jude 1 (NKJV)
²⁴ Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
²⁵ To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power,
Both now and forever.  Amen.

Jesus Christ gave Himself as an atoning sacrifice for our salvation, which we receive by repentance, faith and ongoing obedience to God’s commands.  The first step is to turn around and give oneself to Him, confessing and repenting of sins, and committing oneself to follow Him.  God promises to respond with grace, forgiveness and cleansing:

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) 

Thus begins a victorious ongoing walk with God in light,  in fellowship with Him and with one another:

“⁵This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:5-7) 

True repentance is necessary for the blotting out of our sins.  Peter, after healing the lame man at the Gate Beautiful, exhorted the people:

“Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out”.
(Acts 3:19)

Jesus’ parable of the lost son illustrates how repentance is the key leading to grace and forgiveness.  Spiritually, this son was dead.  After he came to his senses, repented and returned home, he found grace and forgiveness from his father.  His joyous father declared, “this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found”.  This is a picture of how repentance leads to grace.

Luke 15
The Parable of the Lost Son
¹¹ Then He said: “A certain man had two sons. ¹² And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood. ¹³ And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. ¹⁴ But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. ¹⁵ Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. ¹⁶ And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.

¹⁷ “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! ¹⁸ I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, ¹⁹ and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’

²⁰ “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. ²¹ And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

 ²² “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. ²³ And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; ²⁴ for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.

David found grace and forgiveness after he repented and confessed his sins.

Psalm 51 (NKJV)
¹ Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.
² Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.
³ For I acknowledge my transgressions,
And my sin is always before me.

⁹ Hide Your face from my sins,
And blot out all my iniquities.

¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me away from Your presence,
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

¹² Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
¹³ Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
And sinners shall be converted to You.

Grace is costly, as Jesus shows in the parables of the Treasure Hidden in a Field and the Pearl of Great Price.  “Selling  all that one has” is a picture of being sold out to God,  living fully for Him.

Matthew 13
The Parable of the Hidden Treasure
⁴⁴ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

The Parable of the Pearl of Great Price
⁴⁵ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, ⁴⁶ who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Jesus, our Redeemer and Lord, comes with grace and forgiveness to those who renounce their sins, and keep obeying to win the kingdom of heaven:

 “The Redeemer will come to Zion,
And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,”
Says the Lord.  (Isaiah 59:20)

David Krause, dhkrause@neteze.com, 8/26/2017 https://compellinglove.net/