Sometime back I fell while walking, doing extensive
damage to my left hand. I was taken by ambulance to the hospital where
the
doctor was more than an hour and a half in surgical procedures to save
the
hand, and the use of it. Upon leaving the hospital three days later, I
was
given specific instructions of the care that I must take concerning
that hand.
Now a question: At what time do you think that I
started obeying those instructions? Did I say to myself that I would
get around
to it “one of these days!” Or, did I say to myself
that I really didn’t care
what the doctor said, I would do things in my way, when I wanted to do
them?
Another question: If I should have said those things, what would be
your
thoughts of my sensibility? If I wanted to save the hand, I must follow
immediately the doctor’s instructions.
What is my point? Just this: How long have you known
what your Creator has said about what you must do, and how you must
live in
order to have the salvation of your soul? Why have you not followed
those
instructions (Mark 16:16)?
Friend
or Enemy?
By
Ernest S. Underwood
Are you a friend or an enemy of Jesus? A rather serious
question, isn’t it? The answer cannot be given based on
feelings, popularity,
political correctness or any other standard that man may devise. Listen
to the
answer that Jesus gives, an answer by the way, by which we will be
judged. Hear
Him: “You are My friends if you do whatever I command
you” (John 15:14). Here
Jesus makes use of the law of the excluded middle again. The
“if” is
significant. Language could not be plainer. Jesus did not say that you
are His
friend by doing what your pastor, preacher, priest or creed book says.
Question: What if one neglects or refuses to do what Jesus commands? Is
he a
friend or an enemy? Listen to what Paul said in Philippians 3:18:
“For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and
now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of
Christ.”
If one is a friend of Jesus because he obeys His commands, would it not
also be
true that he is an enemy who refuses to obey His commands? Again, there
is no
middle ground. As a friend of mankind, Jesus laid down His life. He
gave this
same mankind commands on how to be saved, and how to worship Him
acceptably.
Looking at your practice in the light of the Holy Scriptures, are you
His
friend or His enemy? Which do you truly
want to be?
