Love-- Life -- Longevity

 

Psalm 34:12-14

(12) Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days
(13) keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from telling lies.
(14) Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

Do you want to love? Do you want to love being alive? Do you want to see many good days? That is, do you want longevity? All of these are good questions. And the answers are filled out, in simple form, here for everyone to see. Yes, this ancient wisdom has some really good answers for 21s Century life questions: 

For Whom Are These Promises?

Let me say, before I proceed, that these are promises for God's people. And by God's people, I mean people who are Christ Followers. I mean that these are for people who actually deny ourselves, turn from our sinful ways, to follow Jesus sincerely daily. 

This self denial, and Christ Following, are precisely how Jesus declares what believing in Him really means. For Jesus described what believing in Him actually looks like when He said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up the cross and follow me." Matthew 16:24. And He continues His description of what believing in Him means as he says, "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." Matthew 16: 25. 

Authentic believing is not just mentally accepting Jesus is Savior, it involves making Him Lord as well. Keep in mind what James said: "You believe that there is one God? Good! Even the demons believe, and they tremble."  James 2:19. But none of them, through their counterfeit belief, experience salvation, nor do they have grace to enjoy God's promises like the ones above.

This Is For You, IF

Therefore, Christ Followers, this is for you. Love, Life and Longevity are for you! Praise The Lord!  IF you really want to love, then you need to love, and love comes from God. 1 John 4:7-8. If you don't love, according to this 1 John passage, you don't even know God, and you are NOT born of God. HE gives the power to love to all who are actually His Christ Followers. Do you want life? Sell out to Jesus, and you will have it! John 10:10. Do you want longevity? Let me ask it another way, do you want Love -- Life -- and longevity, as in "eternal life?  Then your behavior needs to reflect you are a follower of Jesus Christ: In addition to what we have said, God expects you, me, us and we to, "keep our tongues from evil, and our lips from speaking lies." It's important that what we say fits the life we actually live, and I am talking about how we actually live secretly. 

What You See "Ain't" What You Get

Presenting yourself to the World as holy, but be deceitful, and going around secretly living one way, while publicly putting yourself on stage "performing" differently to look the way you hope you can manipulate people to see you,  will put you at serious risk for not having longevity or not having eternal life. Why? Because you do not actually know the Lord, as evidenced by  you not doing His will. In Matthew 7:21, Jesus prophetically proclaims, "Not everyone who calls me 'Lord Lord' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The only ones who enter are the ones who do the will of God."

This is not my judgement. This is Jesus's judgement:  Evil living, though you may look good on the outside, doesn't fool God.  Christ followers cannot live hypocritically. Christ Followers must, and will be, Godly as the Creator truly creates new creations who are, indeed, God's transformed Christ Followers. Needless to say, as God's Word is declaring in Psalm 34:14, it vital you "turn from evil." It is imperative that, by God's grace, you "do good." And it follows that you "seek peace," and that you intentionally pursue it. It is completely wrong, that your public persona is different from who you are privately. If what you see "ain't" what you get, Love - Life - Longevity "ain't" yours.

This begs some questions, and each of us need to answer:

1. Do you love God, your neighbors, your family, immediate and extended?
2. Do you demonstrate love both publicly and privately?
3. Do you keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies?
4. Do you turn from evil, and by God's grace, do you actually do good?
5. Do you seek peace? Do you pursue peace? Or do you do differently?
6. Do you seek to live peacefully with everyone? Is this a priority for you?
7. What secrets are you keeping, while putting on a holy front?  Are there any?

Your answers to these questions are important for
 Love - Life - Longevity (Eternal Life Living.)

SoJourner