Every passing day, God says something to you and I. Unfailingly, everything God says is linked to a promise He has made or will make. The onus rests on us to grab hold of all of God’s promises. In Part 1 of this series, which focused on Joshua 1:8, we saw that the key to laying hold onto God’s promises was to ‘observe and do’ and that the ability to observe and do comes to us by God through salvation.
Salvation and nothing less is the requirement because no one can ‘do’ like God through human effort or the force of their will (Zechariah 4 vs 6 touches on this.) A person with a metaphorical heart of stone cannot observe and do God’s will. A non-practicing “Christian” cannot observe and do God’s will. Truly, only saved Christians can ACTIVELY observe and do God’s will and get God’s promises. To leave no room for ambiguity, God’s promises require salvation to become yours. A person may come to directly or indirectly enjoy the benefits of God’s promises (the indirect route is temporary) but one thing is sure: God does not and will never reward sin.
Inherent in the idea of salvation is the expectation that the recipient changes and starts to observe Him and do like Him. To observe and do requires God’s grace. Grace and salvation came to humans as a result of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and, knowing of His imminent death and departure, Jesus was intentional about sending the Holy Spirit to help us in our walk with God. So the long and short of it is that getting God’s promises requires Holy Spirit.
Unsurprisingly, Holy Spirit only comes into our lives with salvation. So, when you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you get God’s Spirit dwelling on the inside of you who – with your cooperation – enables you to live up to God’s standards. Your conscience, the thing that tells you not to do wrong or that makes you feel guilt, is not Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is a person. He is God’s Spirit. Holy Spirit is also God but your conscience is not a person.
Let’s take a look at John 5:39. It is a bit of sleeper of a Bible verse but it is loaded. It was Jesus speaking some hard truths and saying that some people are content to read the Bible, be ‘Christian’, marry a ‘good Christian’ boy or girl, be ‘good’, give to charity and to take the Bible as a novel – while believing that all that leads to heaven – but that it all misses the point if the Bible doesn’t change them to be like Him.
Jesus was saying that everything in the Bible, everything done in the Old and New Testament leads to Him – not eternal life, not heaven, just Him. Him first, then He leads you to the promises. He is the way. So when God says observe and do, He is telling us to get saved, to get Holy Spirit, to make use of grace, to observe with the help of Holy Spirit and do as led by Holy Spirit. It is all this that eventually gets you His promises.
That Christian Next Door 