Tuesday, August 13, 2019

IF I STUMBLE


Jesus requires of us to be perfect. We
have to obey His words and commandments and follow Him until the end
to have eternal life. He requires utter obedience and holiness,
without which no one will see the Lord. We are all human, fallible,
capable of making mistakes. We all stumble. How do we deal with it?
Do we carry on in sin, or in our
mistake, or do we immediately correct it and take every precaution to
avoid falling into the same trap again? We must realize that we are
the masters of our own destiny. Our actions will determine whether we
enter heaven, or end up in hell. The words of Jesus are clear. Those
who disobey Him will not enter heaven. We have to decide whether we
want to live, have eternal life with Jesus, follow and obey Him, or
go our own way and end up in hell.
If we are serious
about eternal life, we will immediately correct our error, as soon as
it occurs, plead Jesus’ forgiveness and do our utmost not to repeat
that mistake. If we don’t we will certainly not enter heaven. Some
people say it is impossible. I want to set before you a scenario. I
was a pilot. As a pilot, your life and those of the people flying
with you are in your hands. If you make an error and do not correct
it in time, you can be in serious trouble. You will die. The onus is
on you alone to make swift effective correction. I flew for many
years and I made many mistakes, but I survived. I was not the best
pilot that I knew, I knew many brilliant pilots, some of them, who
killed themselves, because they took chances, got reckless or just
plain complacent. They paid for it with there lives. I also made many
mistakes, but I never became complacent. I was always careful to stay
within my limits and that of the aircraft, but nothing is perfect or
predictable in air space. You cannot just stop, get out and correct.
You will go down, and you seldom are able to choose where you crash.
You never know what can happen. You may develop a mechanical problem
with the aircraft. You need to check that out and correct it before
you take off. Once you are in the air you are on your own and your
actions determine whether you survive or not. You might take off and
fly into bad whether. You might encounter high headwinds, causing you
to consume more fuel, reducing your endurance so that you might not
have enough fuel to reach your destination. If you don’t take
timely action, divert and take in fuel sooner, at a different
location, you will run out of fuel and crash. You have to plan your
flight, endurance, fuel management and availability, alternates and
deviations. You are not the only person in the air, you have to look
out and make sure you do not collide with other aircraft. I am not
trying to give you a lesson in flying but I want to stress to you how
important it is to do everything right if you want to stay alive as a
pilot. It is the very same in our walk with Jesus. As a pilot I made
mistakes, got lost in the air, got caught in bad weather, storms,
thunder, lightning, high winds, cross winds on landing that can flip
your plane and throw you on the side of the runway, kill you, and
many more. I survived because I was cautious, avoided taking chance
and above all, Jesus kept me alive. I called on Him many times and He
saved me from death and destruction.
We have to be careful in our walk with
Jesus, not to sin, not to fall into temptation because that mistake
that we make can be fatal. If we call on Jesus and take corrective
action, we can save ourselves from hell and damnation. Many people do
not repent, they do not correct their ways. Many are on the wrong
way, they will reach the wrong destination.
Jesus will never leave us. He will
never reject us if we come to Him, call on Him. He will always help,
forgive and accept us back, if we repent of our error and come to
Him. We leave Jesus, He never leaves us. However, He will never force
us to obey Him. The wages of sin is death. Even if you are an old
pilot, if you make a mistake you can die. Even if you are a seasoned
Christian. If you sin you will burn. Jesus requires utter holiness
and obedience. We must be extremely careful and make every effort to
avoid sin. Remove all things from your life that can make you stumble
or fall into temptation. Practice self control. Choose right and do
right. If we do stumble we must immediately correct, repent and live
holy, follow Jesus. You cannot afford to allow yourself to be
distracted from Jesus, from living holy, righteous in obedience to
Him. Our conscience and the Holy Spirit immediately warns us, the
moment we go wrong. Stay focused on Jesus. He will guide you. Take
heed, listen, obey, correct and stay on the straight narrow road,
that leads to life.
The righteous may stumble, but they
immediately repent and correct. Sinners continue in their wickedness
and look for excuses. Some believers knowingly sin and commit
adultery and fornication, with the intention of later asking
forgiveness. They are not honest in their hearts, they keep their sin
in their hearts and never repented. They will perish. God is not
mocked. Jesus said that he who looks at a woman with lust is already
guilty of adultery. Do not take chances. Many live in sin and hope to
have the opportunity to have a death bed repentance before they die.
Many die every day, unexpectedly. As you live, so shall you die. If
you live in sin, you will perish in your sin.
Jesus saves from sin, but then we have
to live holy, follow and obey Him until the end, to have eternal
life.
May Jesus bless you.

7 comments:

  1. Does Jesus require us to be perfect as you start out this days writing?

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  2. As we follow Jesus every day we grow in perfection, if we stay with Him and obey Him. Practice makes perfect.

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  3. Jan
    I read your blog almost daily and find your interpretation of scripture to be "right-on". Your opening sentence on this date, for anyone not used to your writing would cause them heartburn.
    Can you expand on this sentence?
    Jim

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dear friend, Jesus said:"Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." If a person gets heartbearn from that then they obviously have not read the words of Jesus yet.

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  5. Jan, what about the sins that you don't know you have committed? I understand that we grow in holiness but we cannot achieve full holiness here on Earth, that is what I understand from 1 John 1:10. What is your interpretation of that? What if a Christian dies who diligently was trying to follow and obey Jesus but he forgot to repent of something? Wouldn't the blood of Jesus wash him off and he would still go to Heaven?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is why we need to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, dear friend. If we follow Jesus we will walk in the Light and never be in darkness. The moment we sin He will corect us, so we can stay in His perfect will. Without Jesus we can do nothing.

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