Praise be to God – He wants us to be kept from sin. This devotional reading looks at how our hope rests in Jesus.
Nuggets
- We are kept from sin because Jesus is praying for us.
- We are kept from sin because Jesus is our surety.
- We are kept from sin only through salvation in Jesus.
- We are kept from sin so that we may be restored to Him.
This is the last devotion in the Habits to Keep Us from Sinning series. The end of Wilcox’s sermon, which we’ve been using as the foundation, has a lot of Wilcox’s words and very few verses.
Those words give us assurance that our genuine faith will be rewarded. So, let’s see what Wilcox told us we have to consider.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the Habits to Keep Us from Evil study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
We are using Wilcox’s sermon as the foundation for this series.
Resource
The headings are Wilcox’s words.
That of the Person Praying
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17: 20-21 ESV)
We are kept from sin because Jesus is praying for us.
The complete quote from Wilcox reads, “That of the Person praying; the beloved, in whom the Father is always well pleased, and who He always hears.”
Resource
We know Jesus prayed for us right before His arrest. We know Jesus is our Advocate in Heaven, interceding for us.
- Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Rom. 8: 34 ESV).
- My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (I Jn. 2: 1 ESV).
- Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7: 25 ESV).
Why will Jesus be interceding for us? It will be the same topic as His last prayer on earth. “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us…” (Jn 17: 21 ESV).
Jesus, as always, is praying for our spiritual condition. He wants to keep us from sin.
We know Jesus, as God, hears our prayers. “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him” (Jn. 9: 31 ESV).
When we pray to God asking to become His child through salvation in Jesus, Jesus intercedes for us and removes our sin with His blood.
That of What He Asks for, and on What Ground
“And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day (Jn. 6: 39 ESV)
We are kept from sin because Jesus is our surety.
Wilcox went on to clarify that for what Jesus was asking and why. He wrote, “His request is for the preservation of His people, in order to their eternal happiness, which is most agreeable to the will of God, and the end for which He was sent by Him into the world (John 6:39).”
Resource
Okay, there are four concepts in that statement that are intertwining together.
- Our preservation
- Our eternal happiness
- Our following God’s Will to not lose our salvation
- His offer of salvation.
Our preservation is dependent on our acceptance of God’s gift of salvation. Only when we accept it are we given eternal life in Heaven. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3: 16 ESV).
We will not find eternal happiness if we do not accept God’s salvation. Jesus said to the goats, “… ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt. 25: 41 ESV).
When we accept the gift of salvation, we agree to submit to God’s will — even when it is opposite to our own. That is how we are sanctified.
Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
Sanctification is the transformational process of the mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration; gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit; and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
Glossary
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
When we follow God’s Will, we have surety of our salvation. No true disciple will be snatched out of Jesus’ hand. “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (Jn. 10: 28 ESV).
Jesus is our surety — not anything we do or don’t do — except accepting Him as our Savior and Redeemer and God as Sovereign Lord.
That of Him to Whom His Request Is Directed
“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8: 32 ESV)
We are kept from sin only through salvation in Jesus.
Again, Wilcox said a little more than what I put in the heading. He wrote, “That of Him to whom His request is directed, viz., the God who ‘spared not His own Son,’ &c.”
Resource
God has given us a lot of gifts and promises in His Word. However, He knew none of them would be worth anything if He did not offer us the gift of salvation.
Without our being cleansed of our sins, we cannot approach God. The only way we can initially approach God is through a genuine profession of faith where we ask for forgiveness by showing true repentance.
Faith is a gift from God and a work of the Spirit that enhances the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives and distinguishes us from others.
Forgiveness is, when we ask, the act of God pardoning us because we have shown repentance for breaking His laws and commandments, which allows us to become holy as He is.
Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to changing ourselves through obedience so that we no longer do the wrong things.
- Obedience means submitting ourselves to the will of God as it is presented to us and living our lives accordingly.
Glossary
Look how Chalmers described it. He wrote,
“When He did give up His Son, it was because He so loved the world. It was because of God’s longing desire after the world that He gave up His Son unto the sacrifice; [and] after the sacrifice has been gone through, He will not turn round upon His own [favorite] object, and recede from the world which He has done so much to save. That force of affection which bore down the obstacle that stood in its way will now bear onward with accelerated speed to the accomplishment of all the good that it is set upon.”
Resource
The motivation behind God’s gift of salvation through the death of His Son was love. He wouldn’t give this great gift and not give the smaller ones.
Think of it this way. “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5: 7-8 ESV).
We weren’t God’s children anymore. We were far from pure. Mankind had been disobedient for generations.
Christ died for us anyway so we could become God’s children, become pure, and start being obedient.
There is no way God is going to withhold Himself from us if we make a genuine profession of faith.
God won’t give us the forgiveness without the faith and repentance. We have to commit to being obedient to Him.
That of the Persons for Whom He Intercedes
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3: 16 ESV)
We are kept from sin so that we may be restored to Him.
Yep. Wilcox had more to say. He wrote, “That of the persons for whom He intercedes — His children and chosen, such as He has a special interest in and bears a peculiar love unto.
Resource
Jesus dying for us and God transforming us is all about keeping us from sin and its consequences.
I started to add keep us from the results of sin, but that isn’t totally correct. We will have to suffer the results of sin while we are still on this this earth. We won’t be free of them until we reach Heaven.
Making the Connections
The whole Plan of Salvation is about restoring us back to where we were prior to the original sin.
- In God’s presence
- Being pure
- Being totally obedient to Him
- Worshiping Him
That is the motivation behind God 0ffering us the Plan of Salvation – to eliminate sin in our lives.
How Do We Apply This?
- Study about Jesus’ love for us.
- Pray asking God to keep us from evil.
- Ask God to strengthen our faith.
- Follow Jesus as we walk with Him daily.
- Commit to grow in grace and knowledge so that we may spend eternity with Him.
- Be obedient children by imitating Jesus.
- Be an obedient servant.
- See and believe on Jesus.
- Believe in God’s promises and don’t think God will contradict them in what He has not revealed to us.
- Don’t think you will fail in sanctification.
Resources
Father God. Restore us to You. Amen.
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