It is being taught that the only purpose of the commandments found in the Bible is to show us our need of a Savior. Since we cannot keep them, it is reasoned, we must be saved by Divine grace (forgiveness).

No greater lie has ever been taught!

The purpose of the commandments is to show us how to please God. The goal of the Great Commission is that people on earth will keep God's commandments.

Does this sound to you like we are not supposed to keep God's commandments?

Of course we need a Savior to forgive our sins and to help us keep God's commandments. The Lord Jesus is able and willing to do this. But to turn away from the written commandments and ask the Lord to forgive us while we sin is not acceptable. The Lord Jesus will not forgive us when we do not adhere to His Word. For this reason the present generation of Christians is under condemnation and is soon to experience the fires of purification.

We are to meditate in the Word daily, praying that God will teach us His ways. As we do, the Holy Spirit will speak to us concerning sin and righteousness. As the Holy Spirit judges our conduct He also stands ready to deliver us and strengthen us so that evil is purged from our personality. This is an eternal judgment on sin, and together with the blood of the cross qualifies us to partake of the Tree of Life.

God's grace includes the blood, the Word, and the Holy Spirit.

If it were not for the Holy Spirit, obedience to the written Word would be an exercise in self-control. We are commanded to lay aside our whole adamic nature with its lust, idolatry, malice, drunkenness, and occult practices, and to put on the new man of love, joy, and peace.

Without the Holy Spirit, such a crucifixion, accompanied by the effort to be perfectly virtuous, would require a self-control few human beings possess. It would be a nightmare of attempting to grind away every shred of fleshly desire and to think, speak, and act virtuously.

But God has given us His own Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom, power, love, joy, peace, understanding, and comfort. The Holy Spirit guides and strengthens us in every aspect of crucifixion and resurrection.

What would be an impossible effort in self-improvement becomes a romance, a joy, a song, a never-ending adventure leading to the city of glory. We dance and sing in the heights of Zion though the world is in flames around us.

There are indeed painful moments as the Spirit works to uncover the roots of our fallen nature. We are required to endure years of denial, frustration, perplexity, heartbreak. Let no one say the Christian pilgrimage is easy or painless. It is not. It is a grueling discipleship in which only those of an honest and good heart are willing to follow the Lord through the temptations and dreads of life. It is no place for casual believers who insist on loving themselves and their fleshly comforts.

To be continued.