Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
- Hebrews 12:14
From this verse we can see: We should pursue purification in believing in God. Only in this way can we enter God’s kingdom. His kingdom is holy and He absolutely forbids any filthy and corrupt people to enter it. But many brothers and sisters believe that after we confess and repent before the Lord, He has forgiven all our sins and we have become holy, so we will be directly raptured into the heavenly kingdom when the Lord arrives. However, have we already broken away from sin and become holy? Although Jesus has forgiven our sins through His work of redemption, our corrupt satanic dispositions such as arrogance, selfishness, and deceitfulness are very deeply rooted in us. These are the roots of our sins. If our corrupt satanic disposition is not resolved, we cannot stop ourselves from committing sins, resisting God, and betraying Him. Therefore, we all live in the vicious cycle of committing and then confessing our sin. And there’s no way to free ourselves from the bondage and control of sin. We cannot get rid of our sinful nature by ourselves, and nobody can do the work of saving mankind. So, the Lord Jesus predicted, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come” (John 16:12–13). Obviously, we cannot achieve holiness if we only accept Jesus’ work of redemption. We still need the returned Lord in the last days to express the truth to do the work of cleansing. Only in this way, can we break free from the bondage of our sinful nature, achieve purification, be gained by God, and receive His promise. Just as God says, “A sinner such as you, who has just been redeemed, and has not been changed, or been perfected by God, can you be after God’s heart? For you, you who are still of your old self, it is true that you were saved by Jesus, and that you are not counted as a sinner because of the salvation of God, but this does not prove that you are not sinful, and are not impure. How can you be saintly if you have not been changed? Within, you are beset by impurity, selfish and mean, yet you still wish to descend with Jesus—you should be so lucky! You have missed a step in your belief in God: You have merely been redeemed, but you have not been changed. For you to be after God’s heart, God must personally do the work of changing and cleansing you; if you are only redeemed, you will be incapable of attaining sanctity. In this way you will be unqualified to share in the good blessings of God, for you have missed out a step in God’s work of managing man, which is the key step of changing and perfecting. You, a sinner who has just been redeemed, are therefore incapable of directly inheriting God’s inheritance.”
God’s Word for Today