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Crucial to a Gospel Presentation: Explain Belief (part seven)
part one part two part three part four part five part six
When I preach the gospel to someone, I explain (1) that he is sinner; he’s not a good person, (2) that he deserves a penalty for sin: death (physical, spiritual, and eternal death), (3) that Jesus died for him, and then (4) that he must believe in Jesus Christ. Where I left off on number four, part of what it means to believe in Jesus Christ is to repent. How do I explain that?
Jesus, Not Me
You cannot believe in Jesus Christ and in yourself both. Sin is against the glory of God (Romans 3:23), so against God Himself, like David confessed in Psalm 51:4, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned.” Sin is my will, not His will be done. The root of sin is self over God and wanting what you want instead of what God wants. This relates to the first and the tenth commandments of the ten commandments.
Breaking the first commandment puts another god before God and violating the tenth means coveting. Paul in Colossians 3:5 says covetousness is idolatry. Disobeying the tenth commandment is also disobeying the first.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He is the way. To take His way, you’ve got to leave your own. This is to deny self and follow Him, which is repentance. Repentance, life faith, is not a work. Acts 11:18 says, “Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.” God grants repentance, just like He grants faith (2 Peter 1:1, Philip 1:29). “No man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor 12:3).
No Longer in Rebellion Against Him
No one believes in Jesus Christ and remains in rebellion against Him. He turns from his way to God’s way, from self to God, and from his sin to Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, to turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Rather than worshiping the creature, his self, He worships the Creator (Rom 1:25). The Father is seeking such to worship Him (John 4:23).
In Luke 13:3, 5, both verses, Jesus commands, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” In John 3:16, Jesus says, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you won’t perish, and in Luke 13:3, 5, he says, if you won’t repent, you will perish.” Faith and repentance are two sides to the same coin. To turn to Jesus Christ, which you do when you believe in Him, you must turn from something — your will, you way, and your sin. Paul represents the two in Acts 20:21 in his preaching:
Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Repent and Believe
A couple of other places put the two together:
Mark 1:15: “And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”
Matthew 21:32: “For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.”
Repentance is that moment when someone relinquishes control of his life. This is seen in the sequence that Jesus preaches at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. Someone recognizes his own spiritual poverty, he mourns over his sin, and then he is meek, that is, he gives God the charge of his life. The word translated “meek” was used of the horse that was broken. He now becomes useable. This is your life, God, take and use it. This is believing in Jesus Christ.
More Than Intellect, Also the Will
Faith that saves is more than just intellectual assent to facts. It involves the will. God knows when you have relinquished your self, your way, your life to Him. Many will say, Lord, Lord, Jesus says at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. He will say, Depart from me, I never knew you. It is he who does the will of the Father who is in heaven. Someone who keeps going the same direction has kept his life for himself and will lose life as a result.
More to Come
Is Love a Feeling? The Holy Bible on the Nature of Love
Is love a feeling?
What do you think?
__ Yes, love is a feeling.
__ No, love is not a feeling.
The Correct Answer Is …
“Yes”!
The correct answer is “yes” to both the question “Is love a feeling?” and the question “Is love not a feeling?” Love involves the feelings and affections, so in that sense love is a feeling. However, love is not merely a feeling, but it involves the will and the actions.
Love Involves Self-Sacrificial and Willful Action
Many in the world assume that love is just a sappy sentimental feeling, or that love is a teenage boy having his heart flutter when a pretty girl looks at him. This is a very Biblically insufficient definition of love. How does God love?
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
God’s love does not just involve sappy sentimentalism. The Father’s love led Him to give to rebellious sinners what was most valuable to Him–His own Son. His love involved self-sacrificial action. Believers must show this same kind of self-sacrificial, acting, willing, giving love:
John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
This sort of love is required in other relationships as well:
Eph. 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Clearly, love is not just an emotional high, but it involves self-sacrifice, action, giving oneself to the loved one at tremendous cost.
Love Also Includes the Feelings or Affections
At the same time, love is not the self-sacrifice of a drone or robot that follows a computer program to blow itself up and save someone else. Love includes the feelings and affections. We do not love as robots, but as people who have affections and passions. God wants us to love Him with all that we are–that includes our minds and wills, but it also includes our affections or feelings.
God’s love for His people involves His affections in whatever sense He has passions or affections:
Hos. 11:8 How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.
Hos. 11:9 I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city.Zeph. 3:17 The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.
Human love between spouses involves the affections or passions. In the Song of Solomon the husband and wife–who are to be patterns for marital relationships–are madly in love with each other and passions and affections are coming out all over the place.
Our love for what is of God also involves our passions or affections. Paul said: “I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Romans 7:22). “Delight” is a feeling or affection. The Messiah said, as a pattern for all the godly: “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8).
We could multiple examples for all other sorts of love that are dealt with in Scripture.
So is love a feeling? Yes, it is–God did not make us robots. Is love merely a feeling, or only a feeling, or primarily a feeling? No–it is much more than that, but it involves self-sacrificial action.
So in all your relationships–most importantly with God and secondarily with others–love like God does. Give yourself self-sacrificially to the Lord and to others. That is the most important thing–but don’t be a robot either. God wants you to love with all that you are, and that includes your feelings or affections.
–TDR
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