We are saved through grace, but it doesn’t stop there. This devotional reading looks at how salvation leads to spiritual worship.
Nuggets
- God extends His grace to us through His message to bring light to all who would accept His grace.
- The action we have when we get God’s grace to the heart level is spiritual worship.
Boston gave us two verses to check out for his next point in his sermon. He wrote, “The spirit or spirituality of religion is the eternal grace joined to the external performance (John 4:24; 1 Timothy 1:5).”
Resource
I get the reference to the first verse. I am going to have to dig to find the connection to the second verse.
Let’s go ahead and do the second verse – eternal grace – before the first – external performance.
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 Outward and Inward Religion study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
We are using Boston’s sermon as the foundation for this series.
Resource
Eternal Grace is God’s Message
“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (I Jn. 1: 5 ESV)
God extends His grace to us through His message to bring light to all who would accept His grace.
God doesn’t want us to remain in sin. Therefore, through His grace, He proclaims His message to us so that we may gain salvation.
Grace is a free and unmerited gift of love from the Heavenly Father, given through His Son, Jesus Christ, that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers by the work of the Holy Spirit. 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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
This is a great gift that God has given us. It is the gift of light in the darkness. Darkness refers to sin.
It is our choice as to how we will receive it — or not.
We don’t want to not receive God’s message. “Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (I Thess. 4: 8 ESV).
Blencowe didn’t pull any punches when he talked about how Matthew 7: 21 people receive God’s message — and their disregard of it. He wrote, “And, first, I speak to those who are careless, thoughtless, and unconcerned about religion. You have not known God as a Father, Christ as a Saviour, the Holy Spirit as a Sanctifier. Next, I speak to those who are living in known sin. I have a message from God unto you. Break off your sin by repentance, turn to God through Christ earnestly, seriously, and at once; for remember that the unbelieving must have their portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.”
Resource
If we do not reach the heart level in our worship to God, we don’t care about the relationship to which God is calling us. This indifference keeps us living in sin.
When we do reach the heart level, that inward religion manifests itself into an outward show of repentance. Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to change our sinful ways to ways of righteousness through obedience.
- Obedience means submitting ourselves to the will of God as it is presented to us and living our lives accordingly.
Glossary
Our outward display of repentance shows God that we are genuine in our desire for salvation.
Matthew 7: 21 people can be backsliders. Backsliding is when those who have made a profession of faith but return to their sinful lives.
God doesn’t accept those who have turned away from Him. “ but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him” (Heb. 10: 38 ESV).
When we are Matthew 7: 21 people, we lie about our relationship with God. “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (I Jn. 1: 6 ESV).
Jay had an interesting take on fellowship. He wrote, “Here the ‘fellowship one with another’ means the fellowship that exists between God and us. He is their God, and they are His people.”
Resource
Fellowship isn’t just a warm fuzzy because we can attend the company party together or have a fun night at a friend’s house. It is having a relationship with God because we submit to His sovereignty. We must be imitating Him.
One thing we should never forget is God calls us to this fellowship. He wants salvation for us. He is the one responsible for the message and the gift it brings.
We can’t find a relationship with God through knowledge and study. It can only be through His call to us.
God reveals Himself to us so that we may have fellowship with Him.
Once we have salvation, we have eternal grace. When we get it to the heart level, it has to be all of us. Our sacrifice of worship has to be total — mind, body, and soul.
Then it manifests itself in our actions.
External Performance is Spiritual Worship
“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn. 4: 24 ESV)
The action we have when we get God’s grace to the heart level is spiritual worship.
Sometimes, we have trouble believing in God for Who He is. We can’t see Him because He is spirit, but that makes us question if He is real.
We are an image of God, but that makes us think that He is like us. No, we are a copy of Him – a really, really flawed copy because mankind has chosen to disobey Him.
Then we get to the concept of spiritual worship and really get confused. This Outward and Inward Religion study came out of the Finding Jesus through Spiritual Worship study. That wasn’t even the beginning because it came out of the Commit to Grow Our Habits study.
So, we’ve covered all this ground before. Let’s see if we can summarize it.
Spiritual worship comes out of God’s concern for the condition of our souls. It is all about having a heart that is right with God. It requires a change of reliance.
The only way we can worship God is through accepting God’s message – believe that Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer. We can only worship Him when we are in Christ. If we are in Christ, we are in truth.
Spiritual worship is 24/7/365/eternity. We must follow God’s leading and worship Him His way.
Worshiping God in spirit and truth means we worship God for Who He is. It is about Sovereign God and what He has done for us.
We should worship God because He deserves it. He is our Creator and Redeemer. We would be nothing without Him.
True spiritual worship is a duty. Our duties to God are based on Who He is.
We have an obligation to worship God in spirit. He is still God whether we worship Him or not, but it is for our benefit that we do.
We also have to totally embrace God and how He is calling us to live and worship. We are to worship God for what we do understand and commit to learn more from Him. We are to worship Him because He is more than we can ever hope to be.
True spiritual worship focuses on God, not us. Taking the focus off ourselves and our selfishness and putting it on God takes conscious effort.
We can’t focus solely on how we want worship and what we see as truth. We have to worship God’s way.
God want us to focus on our walk with Him. He has to have top priority. He wants us to yield our will to His.
The focus should be on God, with worship an outpouring of our hearts. We have to worship in the heart, soul, and mind – with all our being. We have to be totally submitted to God.
God’s commands aren’t random. But neither is He a dictator. God wants us to understand our calling and readily, cheerfully, and completely obey.
Our submission to God must be complete. (Only half a bull was never sacrificed — it was the whole animal.)
What we don’t always think about is that, if we are not submitting to God, we are submitting to Satan.
Making the Connections
Our relationship with God is a marriage between inward and outward worship. Our acceptance of His Plan of Salvation must be evident in our spiritual worship.
Anything less means we are Matthew 7: 21 people.
How Do We Apply This?
- Worship God His way.
- Submit totally to God’s Will.
- Walk with God minute by minute.
- Seek God.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
Father God. We love to hear the gospel story told time and again. Thank You for providing us the Plan of Salvation so that we can worship You. Amen.
What do you think?
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