“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you
that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that
whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.” (John 15:16 NKJV)
Is there anything any human can do for salvation both before
and after accepting Jesus as Lord? None, whatsoever. This is true for God loved
us first even when we were still sinners. If God loved us when we were His
enemies, how much more He shall love us when we have become His children. God
continues to love us who are in Christ not because we deserve but because He is
love and the God of promise. This is true to the people of Israel in the Old as
well.
“Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has
cast them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has
brought me in to possess this land’; but it is because of the wickedness of
these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. It is not
because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in
to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the
Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word
which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
(Deuteronomy 9:4-5 NKJV)
Therefore, we continue to live under the grace and mercy of
God now and forevermore because we are assured of His faithfulness and
sincerity of keeping the promises to the forefathers. Apostle Paul acclaims the
faithful love of promise in the Epistle to the Romans. “He who did not spare
His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also
freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32 NKJV)
Why did God choose us? To bear fruit that should remain. What
is fruit that should remain? The fruit of the Holy Spirit we shall bear for it
lasts forever. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace. “And now abide
faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1
Corinthians 13:13 NKJV) “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control.
Against such there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22 NKJV)
That’s why Christ died to sin in our place, so that we may
bear the fruit of the Spirit. Christ did not die for us to do our best to keep
up with the demand of the Law. It is impossible to keep the Law of God by any
means. That’s why Jesus paid the ransom in full for all the people who believe
in Him. It is forever impossible for even the regenerated Christians to keep
the Ten Commandments with their own might and power. If so, Christ had no
reason to die. We can’t obey God, but Jesus did, so we can now obey Him in
Christ Jesus. It is Him in us who obeys the Father in heaven. We continue to
live on this truth alone, even in eternity.
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