Hello everyone, I love you all!

Here’s something that I would like you to consider.  I personally think it’s very important.

Jesus Christ became man, was crucified and was resurrected for you.  All of God’s laws of love, the foundation of which are the 10 Commandments require the blood of those who transgress it.  The wages of sin is death. Sin is transgression of the law.  Either the blood of the law breaker or the blood of one who is perfect and without sin must be applied to the law in order to satisfy it.  If there were any other way to save us from death and satisfy the law, God would have not had to sacrifice His Son.  God’s laws of love are immutable. 

If you believe in the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ and claim His blood as your defense, you will substitute His blood for yours and satisfy the law.  It is in this way that you are forgiven for your offenses and found blameless in the sight of God.

This pure saving precious blood of our Savior is not a license to sin.  You cannot use it over and over again to be held blameless if your intention is to continue sinning.  You must turn your back on sin.  Learn about the character of Jesus Christ.  Do this because He was sinless and because He is a perfect reflection of the character of God Himself.  Then learn about yourself and be open and honest about who you are and what is in your actions and in your heart.  Jesus sees everything within you, so you must learn to see everything within you. Compare yourself with Jesus Christ and do whatever you have to in order to bring your character closer and closer to that of Jesus.  As you do, Jesus will pour out on you his strength, his wisdom and his vision.  As you progress towards perfection, Jesus will give you every tool you need to remain sinless.  You cannot do this on your own.  You by yourself are powerless against sin.  The only way is to keep your eyes on Jesus and let Him give you the strength and vision you need.  Follow Jesus.  Once you accept Him and start on your path, He will give you the strength to continue if you keep your eyes on Him!  If you take your eyes off Jesus, you will put them on someone or something else and you will slip backwards.

The world is filled with millions upon millions of Christians who profess faith in Jesus but use His perfect sacrifice as a get-out-of-jail free card.  They do little or nothing to leave their sin behind or even bother to learn what sin is.  They say to Jesus “Whatever I’ve done wrong, please forgive me.”  Then they go back to doing whatever they were doing before.  I’m sorry, but this just isn’t going to work.

You don’t really think God sacrificed His Son just so you can do anything you like without consequence do you?

“And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”
Mathew 11:38

You know what I mean by following Jesus, but what about taking up your cross?  You’ve heard the term “We all have a cross to bear”?  The truth is that what I’m telling you takes effort.  Learning about the character of Jesus and your own, then working at changing your character to be more and more like His, takes some work.  Bearing a cross takes some work too doesn’t it?  Jesus has done quite a bit of work for you hasn’t He? Didn’t He bear a huge burden for you?  He’s not telling you to put a literal cross on your back and walk around with it.  The cross represents a burden that you must carry.  It means follow Him is going to take some effort on your part.

When He bore His literal cross, on His way to give up His blood for you He fell down.  He didn’t fall down spiritually, but that cross was very heavy so He fell down literally.  When you take-up your cross and follow Him, you’re going to probably fall down too.  He understands this.  He fell down under the weight of His cross too.  Your cross is different, but it still can be heavy and Jesus knows that.  As long as you don’t just drop it and walk away, He’ll see you struggling and help you with it.  He’ll get right in there and lean into it with you, because He wants you to follow Him. He’ll do this for you because He loves you.

I think that’s one of the biggest barriers we face between us and Christ.  If it’s free and without cost like his blood is we’ll gladly take it.  After all, who could afford to pay for the perfect sinless blood of Jesus to be used to save yourself from the judgment of the law? If no one can afford it and God wants everyone to have it, it has to be free. 

It’s the next part we don’t want to know about.  The part about taking up your cross and following Him.  The big thing to remember is if you give this effort and take-up this cross, you’ll be taking away from yourself all the things that are getting in the way of your happiness!  After all, sin hurts you.  That’s why God’s laws of love say you can’t have any, because it does you harm!!

I promise you it gets easier.  The first steps are hard, but if you want to follow Jesus, isn’t it worth it?  Then you’ll discover you’re getting happier and you are not as anxious and worried and troubled and your relationships with everyone around you are getting better and better.  Then it gets easier because you see the benefit.  When you see how amazingly well it works to take away hurt and hate and sorrow and strife and conflict from your life, you’ll be addicted to Jesus’ love and you won’t think it was burden at all!  It’s the first step that’s hard, but how bad do you want it?

May God and Jesus love and bless and strengthen you all.
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