A Call to Holiness
(Hebrews 12:14-17)
(Hebrews 12:14-17)
13Therefore prepare your minds for action. Be sober-minded. Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Prepare your minds, get serious and roll up your sleeves;
Be sober: “It denotes a condition free from every form of mental and spiritual loss of self-control; it is an attitude of self-discipline that avoids the extremes.” (Hiebert)
Grace, it was given to you and CONTINUES throughout your entire life.
"I will love them freely."
Since the word "freely" is the very key-note of the text, we must observe its common meaning among men. We use the word "freely" for that which is given without money and without price.
"I will not accept their works in barter for my love; I will not receive their love as a recompense for mine; I will love them, all unworthy and sinful though they be."
Remember, with regard to God, that his grace to man was utterly unsought. He does give grace to those who seek it, but none would ever seek that grace unless unsought grace had first been bestowed.
God is good from the simple necessity of his nature; God is love, simply because it is his essence to be so, and he pours forth his love in plenteous streams to undeserving, ill-deserving, hell-deserving objects, simply because he "will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom will have compassion," for it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
He does not love because Christ died, but Christ died because the Father loved.
(Excerpts from Spurgeon)
Read his full sermon here;
We are hell-deserving objects!
Blessings, David
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