Who Runs Your Life?

Transcript

Alright. Thank you very much and hello again, radio friends. How in the world are you? Everything going Alright at your house? I trust so. Bless your heart. This is your good friend, Bob Cook, and I’m glad to be back with you. It’s a very special day for us, somebody that I know. I trust that you’ll enjoy it in a very wonderful way. For all of you, remember I think of you and I pray that these broadcasts might somehow contain God’s very word to your heart. I pray that every time I approach these microphones, and O, may it be answered today gloriously in your own life.

We’re in 2 Peter the first chapter and now we’ve come into verse 10. Now, remember Peter said “These things.” And he’s talking about what you take by faith from the Lord Jesus, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly love and Calvary love. He said “If these things are in you and abound.” If they just spill over you and your life is full of them and they spill over out of your life, you’re going to be fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus.

But he says, “He that lacks these things is blind, cannot see afar off, has forgotten.” We talked about those three concepts the last time we got together. Do you remember? Blind, you say. I just don’t get it. The reason you don’t is that you will not really get it, until you are willing for Jesus to modify your life. See, we’re talking about things that He adds to your life when you trust Him by faith. And so, when you trust Him to modify your life, you’re going to be able to see what God is doing in your own life.

Then, there’s nearsightedness where you’re focusing just on the feelings and experiences of the moment.

And then finally, there’s forgetfulness, it slips your mind that you really need that daily cleansing of the precious blood of Christ, “Hath forgotten.” He uses the Greek work that means “slip your mind,” “Has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.” Never forget how much you need the cleansing blood of Jesus. Every moment of every day, “if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son keeps on cleansing us”. See, it’s walking in the light, it’s being aware of your need of the cleansing of Christ’s precious shed blood. Do you follow that?

Now, verse 10 of 2 Peter 1, “Wherefore,” he said “Brother, instead of being blind and nearsighted and forgetful.” In other words, “Brother, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you shall never fall.” Now, he says, confidence in the Christian life then comes from adding by faith these elements that we’ve just been talking about, “If you do these things.” Now, that is an apposition to the phrase “Make your calling in the election sure.” Your awareness of the solidity of your Christian experience comes by letting God operate in your life. You’re saved by grace through faith. Nothing you can feel or do pay or promise is going to make you any more saved so far that is concerned. However, your awareness of what God is doing along this line is connected with your willingness to let Him work in your life, “If you do these things ye shall never fall.” Now, this is the second time that he uses the word “diligence.” He says in verse 5, “Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge,” and so on, things that Jesus can add to your life by faith.

Now, the second time, he says, “Give diligence to make your calling and your election sure, for if you do these things you shall never fall.” This is not losing your salvation. This is a matter of the certainty that you have about it. Do you want to get rid of your doubts? Do you want to get that feeling of “Well, I wonder if it’s all real of not.” Let the Lord Jesus Christ start to work in your life on the basis of faith.

Add to your faith virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly love and Calvary love, if you want to be sure in your own heart as to where you stand with the Lord. Remember nothing you can say do, feel, pay or promise is going to make you any more saved. But if you want to be sure about it, he says, “Do these things.” Because then, he said, “That takes the wobble out of it.” Now, I’ve been around a few years, as you know I am no longer called a teenager that’s for sure, but I feel young, just like lots of you. But you know you learn after awhile, that your doubts arise when your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is at its weakest. The closer He is to you, the more you let Him work in your heart, the more you just know that you belong to Him.

Doubts arise when you neglect the dynamic daily moment by moment connection with your blessed Lord. That’s why it’s so important to have that daily contact with your Lord in what we call “personal devotions,” not with somebody else but just you and the Lord. That’s why that is so important and it needs to be in the beginning of the day. Don’t wait until the day is all spent and you bring the tag end of all of your efforts and you’re half asleep and you say, “Well, goodnight Lord, take care of the world till daylight.”

Well, that’s a good enough prayer but you do far better if you just meet Him in the morning when your mind is fresh. Ben Weiss used to tell me, my good friend who was an educator, he was principal of one of the largest high schools in Los Angeles for many years. Ben Weiss used to tell me that it is the beginning impacts of the day that determine how things will go in your life. It is the first impressions that reach your conscious mind that determine how you will react to stimuli all day long. So, why not then on awakening spend some moments with your Lord? Why not on awakening spend some moments with your Lord?

There used to be a little booklet put out by the Navigators. I don’t know if they still publish it or not, how to have a seven minute devotional time. Two minutes of worship and confession, and a minute of praise, and three minutes of the Word of God, and so on. I don’t know how they worked it out anymore. But I do know that you don’t have to spend six hours in order to have a successful contact with your Lord. It needs to be early in the day, it needs to be genuine, it needs to comprise the Word of God, speaking to your heart and your earnest and humble prayer. Remember the acronym A-C-T-S, ACTS? ACTS, Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. These are the elements of successful praying. And you need everyday to have that contact. Why? Because if you want to be solid in your Christian life, as Peter says, “If you do these things.” What? Do what? “Add to your faith.” The things that Jesus wants to put into your life. If you do these things, he says “You’re not going to fall.” There won’t be any wobble in your life, because you’ll know that He is real. Do you follow that reasoning? Try it out for yourself.

I love to play a cassette recording that I got from my good friend Clint Utterbach and he is a great singer and musician, as well as being a fine pastor and preacher. He and Sarah have a great work there in Nanuet, New York. But he sings, he says “There is a quiet — when I hear Him say to me, before you were ever born, before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I loved you. I loved you then and I love you now. I’ll always love you.” And he goes on to say in his song, “It’s in that quiet time, that I know, that I know that He is real, that He cares. It’s in that quiet time, that I know, that I know, that He cares.” You get close to the Lord Jesus when you get quiet before Him, and especially in the beginning of your day when your mind is fresh, and your heart can receive the impressions of His grace. And you will know that He cares, and you will Him operating on your life, and He will take the wobble out of your willpower.

We wobble at certain points because we become the victims of our past memories and our present desires. And He will take the wobble out of your life. He will take the endemic feeling of hurt and pain that you’ve lived with, many of you because of what people have done to you through the years, He will take that out and give you love instead, and forgiveness, and peace. Jesus works when you let Him, by faith and when you do let Him work, then you’re solid. He said “If you do these things.” What are the “these things”? Add to your faith. By faith, let Jesus add what you need, he said “You will never fall.” Not when you’re trusting Him to work in your
life.

And then, he goes on in verse 11, “So in this way an entrance will be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Now, is that all in the future? Well, it certainly is in the future. The everlasting Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ is going to forever, isn’t it? And he says — if you want to read it that way, you can say “Well, when it’s your time to go on home, to be with the Lord, you’ll have an abundant entrance. There will be people to greet you that you have won to Him. They’ll be standing around the gates of Heaven to greet you. There will be a reception committee for you when you go on home.” You could read it that way.

But see the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is right here and now as well. Our Lord Jesus in His early sermons as recorded by Mark in his Gospel, his preaching was this way. He said “The kingdom of heaven is at hand. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent ye and believe the Gospel.” And he said to His disciples, “The kingdom of God is within you.” The relationship of my soul to God is that I have made Him, through faith and Jesus I have made God my King. That’s what we’re talking about here. Yes, there will come a millennial reign when He will set up His kingdom here on earth. Yes, there would be the thousand years of peace and quiet, and joy, and all the rest. We’re looking for that after the rapture of the church, aren’t we? But this matter of His kingdom is not simply all in the future nor is it reserved only for millennial truth. It starts, beloved, in your heart.

He said “You want an abundant entrance into this experience of God being your King.” You want to enjoy it, you want something that is abundant and it just got all you can hold and then some, he said “You these things.” You add — let Jesus add by faith, these elements to your life.
Through the precious promises, through His wonderful gift of grace, it’s all yours already. And as you apply the promises of God it becomes part of your life and then as by faith you take hold of what Christ is. He says “You’re going to have an abundant entrance. Your life will be rich, your experience will be rich because it’s full of God. The atmosphere around your life will be a blessing to people because it’s full of God’s presence, “An abundant entrance into the kingdom.”

So, I’ve given you two views to that. One, when you go home to heaven, there will be a delegation waiting for you, an abundant entrance and the other is right now. Because God is on the throne of your life, He is your king through faith in the Lord Jesus, you have an abundant life. Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” That’s what God wants for you right now. Claim it by faith and let Jesus run your life.

Dear Heavenly Father today, O, may we have the abundant life where God is the King. Jesus our blessed Lord is adding to us, those divine components that make for fruitfulness. In His name I pray. Amen.

Until I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!