Category: Faith Fix

Does it matter to God if we are buried in a casket or cremated? “I was doing my own research and read somewhere that scripture teaches us to honor our bodies as it is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) and burial is seen as a sign of respect, whereas cremation is a sign of disrespect for the human body and shows contempt for the person. How accurate is this information?

This is a good question, one that I have been asked many times. I want to first address 1 Corinthians 6:19. It says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”

This is commonly one of those scriptures that people use wrong. What I mean is, it sounds good to use it, especially with something that applies to our bodies when people want to condemn some action. The problem with that is if you look at the context of this scripture, it has nothing to do with things like death or cremation. This scripture addresses moral sin. More specifically, it talks about the gravity of defiling the temple (which is our body) with sexual sin.

This brings up an interesting thought. Does that mean you can never use scripture for any purpose other than for what it specifically addresses? See, there are two main things that I believe scripture is for, correction and direction. Everything generally falls into one of those two categories. If we try and condemn with scripture what scripture doesn’t condemn, we get into a dangerous place. That place is known as religious bondage. (That would be a good Faith Fix in itself should someone care to ask.) We should not ever use scripture to attack or tear down what it wasn’t meant for and we should be very careful about doing so. That drives people away from God, not to Him.

Galatians 5:13 tells us, “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” Basically the understanding we get from the law of freedom (and we could talk so much about that too) is that if something isn’t spelled out in the Bible as wrong, is generally accepted among people, and our conscience can be ok doing it, we are free to do it. Now, to be careful, you need all three of those working together for something to be right. 

When it comes to what we do with someone when they die, the Bible seems to address it basically like it does weddings; no specific instructions. It does seem that tradition was more in favor of burial but that may be more for superstitious reasons than any legitimate law. What we know is this and this we must remember, when God wants His people to do something specific, He always instructs very clearly in His Word. With that in mind, I can confidently say it comes down to personal preference. A simple and quick search of biblical instruction on burial yields almost no fruit. 

For those who have come up with reasons why it is bad I would ask this; what if someone dies by fire? Will God not receive them? What about all the wonderful Christians who were martyred by being burned at the stake? Will God say, “I’m sorry, you can’t come in, you should have died another way!” Of course not, the thought is preposterous! The truth is, burial, like weddings, like a myriad of other things is more tradition based than it is anything else. Think of the process of embalming. One could wrongfully argue (yet using the same logic), “Well, the Bible says from dust you came and dust you return yet you’ve preserved the body and it can’t turn to dust so God doesn’t like it.” Embalming after all was developed by the ancient Egyptians and they weren’t exactly the model of Godly spirituality! Now, it is true that often burning a person upon death or even to death was either showing judgement or contempt for a person and therefore looked down upon. However, I fully believe that that is more about the attitude behind the action rather than the action itself. 

Jesus addressed people who think in these ways like this: Matthew 23:24 “You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” What He was saying is, religious people so focus on things that don’t matter that they forget about the things that do. They get distracted by little things while the big things go unnoticed. My pastor always said, “Don’t major on the minors!” Religious bondage, sometimes by well-intentioned people, is a tool of the devil to distract people from what really matters and to bring them into discouragement.

I want to add something here and I will say this applies equally to two main things we do in tradition, marrying and burying. People get under such great and unnecessary bondage by wrong thinking. I have seen people with long lists of requests for both. The problem is these requests usually have to be carried out by others who are already overburdened, and the focus of the requests are only flesh based anyway. If I have a long list of demands for either my marriage or my death, am independently wealthy, and pay to ensure that they happen, well then great. For everyone else, you may have to settle for what you get. I know that may sound harsh but I have seen people who are often unable, trying to “please” someone by doing things that simply don’t matter. To drive this point home, huge industries are built around these venues in response, making people rich at the expense of others. I have seen funeral directors (not all) try to upsell grieving widows with special vaults and expensive caskets, only to be buried in the ground and decay. They make a lot of money on such things and I assure you, the one going in them, doesn’t care even for a minute.

I am convinced that when we get to Heaven, if the one who passed is there, they will say to us, “You should have spent that money getting people saved!” If they are not there, they will certainly not be concerned with the type of wood used to bury their body! It does not truly honor people to make a big to do out of their passing, it only satisfies the flesh of those still present. I’m not saying we throw them in a ditch, I’m saying we don’t make the focus about what the focus should never be about. The best thing about funerals is they force living people to deal with the reality of eternity. The best way to honor those that have gone on is to ensure everyone has the chance to choose right before they themselves die. This is God’s greatest desire, and it should be ours as well.

Be Blessed,

Pastor Jeff 

We pray to God in the name of Jesus but do we pray to Jesus? I know we should talk to Him but what do we talk to God about vs. talk to Jesus about. I usually just pray to God in Jesus name but then I rarely talk to Jesus and then feel like my relationship with Him is lacking. What do we pray to God about vs pray to Jesus about? Or do we pray to one and talk to the other? Is there a difference between praying to them and talking to them?

I actually really love this question and the reason is because it allows me to help a bunch of people get some common Christian frustration cleaned up. What’s all this praying business about?

Prayer in its most basic for is communication. It is talking to God. Now God loves conversation with His people, He desires it greatly and I’ll get back to that specifically. There is truth to the idea that prayer can be simple and it can be complex. It’s conversation. Think about it like this, a kindergarten teacher and a college professor are both teachers but they have very different audiences. If a professor tried speaking to little kids the way he does to college students he would lose their attention quickly. I remember coming across my kindergarten teacher as an adult. She was just as sweet as she was when I was 5. All those years spent with children made her conversations different. It wasn’t bad, she was just used to a certain audience.

Similarly, no matter your age, when you come to God you’re a baby. He doesn’t expect for you to know everything and understand how spiritual things work. However, He does expect you’ll grow. My teacher when she saw me after all those years wasn’t disappointed that I was an adult. She was excited for me, even though I didn’t talk to her the way I did before.

When we read John 16:23-24, we see some wonderful truths about prayer. Jesus said, “In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.” Jesus was addressing His disciples based on the fact that He was present but knew He wouldn’t always be. Look carefully though at what He said, “If you ask the Father for anything in My name.” When we pray, we can talk to the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. When we want something, we ask our Father. Jesus asked the Father and the Holy Spirit only does the will of the Father. So in basic asking, we ask the Father, but in the name of Jesus.

What does it mean to ask in Jesus name. Well we say that right? “We pray these things in Jesus name!” Does this mean if we do not add the tag line “Jesus name” to our prayer they won’t be answered? If it seems a bit superficial it’s because it is. Asking in Jesus name is not using certain words but it represents the authority by which we have right to ask.

You see, we are sinners by nature. Sin separated us from God because He is holy. Separation from God means we do not have the right to ask for anything. My children can ask me for anything and I’d give it to them. Not so with the neighbors’ kids. I’d be good to them, but they don’t have the same rights. My children ask me confidently based on the authority of our relationship. We ask God based on the authority of relationship, based on the blood of Jesus. In John 14:13-14 Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” 

Some people get religious about it and think you have to use the actual word, Jesus. Did you know there’s nothing specifically special about that word? Jesus is the same word as Joshua, just different languages. If it was about the word, then you could end prayers with “in Joshua’s name.” I know that sounds funny but see religious minds are trained to be religious. I have heard of plenty of people in some cultures named Jesus (pronounced like Hey Zeus). That is the way the word sounds in that language though it means the same. The fact is, there were many people with that name in Jesus’ time. Like Peter, James (Jacob), or John. The mean doesn’t mean near as much as the authority behind it.

When questioning Jesus on what He was doing the Pharisees asked him, (Mark 11:28) “By what authority are You doing these things, or who gave You this authority to do these things?” He didn’t say in Jesus name! Conversely, there are plenty of people that end their prayer with the phrase, “in Jesus name” yet their prayer has no power. Jesus authority was given to Him by the Father, and every demon knew this. Our authority when we go to God was given us by the Son and therefore we can have confidence in what we ask. This is true prayer, coming to God boldly because of Jesus and knowing He will answer because of Jesus. That’s what it means to ask in His name!

Now there are many forms of prayer, prayer for different purposes and it is good that we learn that. It is about development of our spiritual walk. A person who only goes to God to ask Him for things remains a kindergartner in faith. We should desire to have deep spiritual conversation with God, as I said He desires to communicate with us. I told you I’d get back to something and here it is. Once when I was seeking the answer for some things I really needed the answer to, I began going through the list of ministers I could ask. As I did, I heard the Lord say in my spirit, “Why don’t you ask Me!” Wow was I corrected! See God desires us to desire to talk with Him.

So basically, most things we direct to the Father in the authority of Jesus name. That is, most things we ask for. Now there is prayer to Jesus and the the Holy Spirit but that is a whole other subject all together. If you’re just beginning, keep it simple. If you want to go further then ask. There’s always further to go with God, it just depends on our desire to go.

Be Blessed,

Pastor Jeff 

Can you talk about surrender? What does it look like in our daily lives? What does it mean to “take up our cross and follow Him”? What kind of difference would our lives make if we lived Galatians 2:20 and died to ourselves, and lived unto Him fully? Do you have any examples of times you’ve done this in your own lives? 

Surrender is really another word for submission, and is probably the one word that will get the most people mad. For the sake of the rest of this writing, I will use the word submission. 

Submission is maybe one of the greatest of all Christian commands. I can say this, because all things we are instructed to do from the time we first hear about the Lord’s sacrifice, to the receiving of it, to the walking it out, come down to this one thing. True love, submission. Following the Spirit, submission. Being part of a Body, you guessed it, submission. God requires submission for every believer, but why?

The world would have people think it is because God is a control freak. He wants control and for some reason lost control and demands His sheeple to be back under His control. Some think it’s the way religious leaders keep people under their power. Certainly many people with evil intentions have distorted God’s design of personal submission in order to build their own kingdom. However, just because some people do wrong, or think wrong, doesn’t mean that something becomes inherently wrong. Power is not bad, as long as it’s controlled. Passion is good, in the right context. Marriage is one of the most wonderful covenants we have, though it can be and often is abused. But we know not to throw out the baby with the bath water, don’t we?

You mentioned the scripture found in Luke 9:23. It says, “And He was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.’” You asked what it means to do this. I point to the full context of this verse. If anyone wishes to follow Him, they must deny themselves. First there has to be a desire to follow God. Though this seems like a basic first step, it’s one many trip over. They want to follow their own path, not His. That desire, if real, will drive a person to the next important thing. Submission!

Denying yourself and taking up your cross are one in the same. What the Lord is pointing to here is Himself. God’s plan for His life was the cross and Jesus knew that. He submitted His own will to this (not My will but yours) long before He ever went to the cross. What Jesus did was make His entire existence about what God was calling Him to. Have you ever wondered why the Word says, “Many are called, but few are chosen”? It’s because God calls out people, but “chosen” happens when one has yielded themselves to that call.

Recently, while spending some time seeking Him, God started revealing to me things in my life that were not wrong or sinful, but were areas that kept me from fully diving into what He has for me to do. I was surprised because I thought I had been doing pretty good. The truth is, I was doing pretty good, but God isn’t ok with us being pretty good. He wants to make us outstanding. Now, this isn’t bondage to me because He gives me the option. But truth is truth, better only happens the way better happens.

One day my grandfather was sanding porch spindles when he was building a deck. He was a remarkable carpenter who had been trained by an old school carpenter years ago. These spindles he was sanding were typical spindles you could buy at any home improvement store and I had seen many people use them over the years including myself. What I had never seen is someone hand sanding them. He made this statement to me from something he had been taught, “The paint job will only be as good as the sand job.” Now most people would never know this detail, they’d never pay attention. But this extra detail, one that required sacrifice of time and labor, made his porch more excellent. It was something that separated my grandfather as a master builder. God is a master builder.

When the Lord showed me those things about myself, He showed it to me like this. I saw an unfinished stone sculpture, one like you’d see in a museum. Everyone of those begins as a block of rough stone but with great care and labor the artist chisels off one chunk after another until that block of hard stone can appear as fair and smooth as skin or cloth. God is taking time to make us a perfect specimen, but if we stones fight back or resist, we’ll never be worthy of display. 

In Ephesians 1:18 Paul said, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” Pay attention to the last part of this scripture, it’s one commonly misunderstood. Notice it says, “the glory of His inheritance.” What Paul is talking about is that the Christian should understand that when we know and act out who Christ has made us to be, we are His inheritance. We are the trophy that God gets. We are the sculpture that has been masterfully carved by Him that He displays for all of creation to see. This does not happen in who we are, but what He through our submission makes us to be! Wow!

To sum all this up, dying to ourselves is a daily thing and to specifically answer your question on what would this look like, it would look like a church that is without spot or blemish. The kind that Jesus will be looking for when He returns. God doesn’t want garbage. He is taking what sin made ugly and building masterpieces. The real question is, will we allow Him to do it in us? 

Be Blessed,

Pastor Jeff 

Are the “Last Rites” a catholic tradition and/or is that needed before death?

The answer for this is coming from the stand point of someone who is not real knowledgeable on the reasons for specific practices of another religion. What I mean is my understanding of why certain religions practice last rites is not exactly solid from their stand point and I don’t want to misrepresent someone as to why they feel they should do something. The place I can answer this from is scripturally, and I do believe I can do so with good understanding.

Basically, and again from my understanding, last rites are a type of prayer offered for a person who is about to die. It may or may not include giving communion to a person who is dying. In my limited research according to a certain minister, “The Catholic tradition of giving the Eucharist to the dying ensures that instead of dying alone they die with Christ who promises them eternal life.”

The question here is, is this a necessary thing? This question can open a can of worms from the standpoint of personal beliefs. What I have found is that people often so hold their personal beliefs and traditions that you cannot convince them otherwise. My job is to instruct people in righteousness. What that means is, in everything I do I point people back to the Word of God. John 17:17 is a powerful statement made by Jesus, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” Though I am not opposed to having traditions, even in the church, my tolerance with that ends when it violates the Word of God. Our beliefs can and should be only built on God’s Word. Now if someone has things they like to do as tradition that don’t violate His word, I’m ok with that. 

As far as the communion aspect of last rites we have to look at what is communion for? Now because of time and space and to stay on topic, I’m not fully going into what communion is about but I will give a brief overview. Should someone desire to know more about that, we can write a Faith Fix on it. Communion is for the living, not the dying. It does a dying person no good. Communion is about the Body of Christ, which is His church. It is remembering what Christ did, in its fullness, so that we keep ourselves in the proper mindset. It is spiritual, but the act of communion does not bring us any closer to Jesus. Once a person is born again, Jesus is on the inside of them. He does not leave. Jesus died for all who would choose to believe and His blood is the covering and cleansing of our sin so that we can always have access to the Father. Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, BUT CHRIST LIVES IN ME; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Now, from the prayer aspect of this, the Bible tells us simply in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “pray without ceasing.” I have prayed with people many times on their death bed. It is a hugely honorable thing I can assure you, to sit with someone who is passing and encourage them and pray with them. However, if they know Jesus  already all this does is make that transition smoother for themselves. It helps bring them peace. A minister I know once said, “We teach people how to live, but not how to die.” I believe there is a lot of truth to this. Believers are too often afraid of death and this just shouldn’t be the case. If they are afraid, they don’t really understand what this is all about.

There is no instruction that I know of in scripture that tells us to pray a specific thing or perform a specific rite over the dying. You don’t see Jesus or the apostles do it and there is no instruction to the churches (Paul’s letters) that tell us to. If it were important, God would have made sure to emphasize it, and He certainly did not. Again, I have no issues with someone praying with someone who is dying, in fact I’d encourage it. I just can’t point to scripture that tells us to. Because of this I can say that it is not specifically necessary. 

I will close with this, in the case of people who don’t know Jesus, if we have opportunity we should try to speak with them when they are dying and try to get them to pray and receive what Jesus did for them. Our prayers cannot put someone in Heaven in the sense that we can cover for them. Romans 10:9 is the best way to lead someone in prayer, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Each person must make the decision to make Jesus their Lord, and this can be done even with their last breath. Being with people in death is good because it’s relational and God is relational. We should surround people with our faith, whether they are living or dying.

Be Blessed, 

Pastor Jeff 

If death and sin were never part of God’s original plan, then why did He create the tree of knowledge of good and evil?! We are taught that God knows everything before it happens. Did He know Adam and Eve were going to sin ahead of time?!

Many people mistakenly take God’s foreknowledge of what will happen and equate it to His will. God knows all things, there is nothing hidden from Him. Hebrews 4:13 tells us, “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Just because He knows it doesn’t mean He chose it!

To create a being in love, you have to create them with choice. Why? The Bible tells us that love is free to choose, it is not forced (read 1 Corinthians 13). God didn’t create us to obey Him, He created us to love Him. If He said, “you have to love Me,” then we would not have been created out of love but forced in bondage. Think about it like this, how good is a relationship where the one of greater power says, “you must love me, and you have to be in this relationship with me. Because I love you, I will make you love me!” Doesn’t sound appealing does it? It doesn’t because it is not love. God created us in love, to love, and so with that we have the choice to or not to.

God cannot help that He is all knowing. I know that may seem to be a paradox but it isn’t. You cannot be all knowing without knowing everything and if you know everything then you by default are all knowing! This is God, He just knows. That said, God also loves and desires to be loved. He wanted a creation that loves Him truly, because they wanted to. He created everyone to be able to love Him, but this they each must choose. 

God also loves variety. How do we know this? Point to scripture, I demand it! Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” God didn’t just make one kind of tree, or flower, or rock, He made them all! Each is different, each has purpose and we can understand how He does things by what He has done. If He created the lesser things like this and was pleased, the greater things like humans would be no lesser. Every variety of human has the ability to love God the same. However, that doesn’t mean everyone will. 

All of that said, I do not believe that scripture is clear as to exactly why He created the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I do believe that we can draw conclusions to this through what we do know of God and His will. I will share my thoughts but with this caveat, you may get to Heaven someday and find out I was wrong. If so, please have patience with me, I did my best!

God loves knowledge. He wants us to also have knowledge. Proverbs 4:7 says, “The beginning of wisdom is: Acquire wisdom; And with all your acquiring, get understanding.” The scripture is a book of knowledge though it isn’t a book on all knowledge. We also cannot all handle all knowledge all at once, but we must grow into. I believe this was the purpose to this tree in the garden. Given time, had man listened, God would have prepared him for this knowledge and how to handle it. 

Now you may ask, why place the tree there at all? When God created the garden as well as everything else, He called it good. Just because something is good doesn’t make it good for all or all the time. For example, many would agree with me that a real tasty medium rare steak is good, but you would try feeding it to a one year old. They have to grow to be able to receive it. To a baby, it would only make them choke. God saw it as good, knew that where He put it was also good, but that it wasn’t good for man to eat of it. At least right then.

He knew Adam and Eve would eat of it, but He still had to give them choice. Remember this, and this I want to stress: God knows what’s truly good and what’s not. If He saw it was both good to exist and good where it was placed, then it most certainly was! Just because we weren’t meant to partake at that time or even at all does not change this fact. I would assume that because God is only good, this had good purpose! To think another way, consider water. Water is good and life sustaining, however in the wrong context it can be very bad and life taking. Drinking of it, verses drowning in it. That fact makes water no less good.

Now let me present another, well, what if. What if because God knew we would sin because we would not resist free will, He created things in the best possible scenario to allow that but also allow our redemption. What if because God wanted creatures that loved Him, had to make us with this likelihood of sin, but did it all in a way that ensured a path back to Him? In other words, in exactly the way all things were created, God made absolute the possibility of free will and imperfect creatures with ability to rise to perfection? I know this can be confusing but my ultimate point is, an infinite all knowing and perfect God can and will do that which is perfect. We have to believe His purposes have the greatest and perfect affect to achieve His perfect plans.

Of course, I presented a lot of what ifs and if you continue in this line of thought, I’m sure you will discover more. We simply will not and cannot know all things here. God however has ensured that we will have access to way more knowledge than we could possibly embrace in this existence. After all, we are trying to understand an infinite God with a finite mind. That alone is an interesting thought! 🤔 

Be Blessed,

Pastor Jeff 

In Psalms 1 it says, “The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgement nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.” Does this mean He looks away from us, like depart from Me, I never knew you?

Questions like this give us an opportunity to teach a little bit about Bible interpretation basics. One of the most important things we can do as believers who want to know more about the Lord is learn how to study the Bible in context.  Let’s look at the whole of Psalm 1 and we will see that, in context, the righteous and the wicked are put up against each other here as to compare and contrast the two. 

PSALM 1

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,

Nor stand in the path of sinners,

Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

And in His law he meditates day and night.

He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,

Which yields its fruit in its season

And its leaf does not wither;

And in whatever he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so,

But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

But the way of the wicked will perish.

There’s much to unpack here and I’m glad you have asked about this because there are important truths we can pull from this psalm. First, notice the one who is blessed is the one who doesn’t receive counsel, which also means both advice and purpose, from this wicked world. This is so important for us to understand as we live in a world where there are louder and louder voices that would advise us opposite of the ways of the Lord. If our life is spent walking down the same paths as those who don’t know Jesus, we’ve essentially decided we don’t want the blessing of the Lord. Good luck being blessed the world’s way! 

Who is blessed? It’s the one who delights in the truth of God. It’s the one who hears the Bible, even the parts that challenge the way they’ve always done things, even the parts that call for sacrifice of the things that feel good to the flesh, it’s that person who will see the blessing of God. Notice though in verse 2, that in order for us to walk in His ways, we’ve got to meditate, meaning to study, to speak out, to read, to think about and ponder, the Words and commandments of God if we’re to know them and walk in them. When someone delights in something it means it’s a joy for them to partake of that. I delight in time spent with my family. A believer ought to delight in time spent with God. 

Now look at verse 3, this person, the one who delights in meditating on the Word, will be like a firmly planted tree. We have a lot of firmly planted trees in our woods on our property. They have been there a long time and their roots have become established into the ground. No storm that comes even shakes those strong trees. It’s the dead trees that become uprooted and fall down when the storms come. Likewise, the storms of life will knock down those people who aren’t firmly planted in the truths of God. Also on our property, we have a couple fruit trees that we’ve planted. We have put some tubing around them until they become established because there’s always animals and winds that will threaten them until they have become firm in their roots. As we protect and nourish these trees, we can expect fruit to grow on them. Our prosperity likewise depends on how firmly planted we are. Now, when I say prosperity, understand the biblical meaning of this. When the scripture says here that your life will prosper it means, it will be successful, good, and profitable. There will be progress and advancement. When? When you delight yourself not in the purposes and advice of this world, but in the purposes and advice of God and His Word. 

Now this brings us to the scripture in your original question. Consider what a chaff is. Chaff is the part of the wheat stalk that blows off in the wind. Chaff is the part that gets thrown away while the seeds are harvested. Chaff is not valuable or fruit producing. The seeds are the fruit and the fruit producers. Let’s look at this scripture in the Amplified Bible. Psalm 1:5, “Therefore the wicked (those disobedient and living without God) shall not stand (justified) in the judgment…” The only way we stand justified before the Lord in the day of judgment is by living for Him. Now, with this, we must remember His mercies are new every morning and if we repent He is merciful and just to forgive, but our hearts should be to live for Him, each and every day. The wheat will always be separated from the chaff. The righteous will be separated from this sinful world. Will we be counted as righteous? It’s entirely up to us. 

Look at Romans 12:1 (NKJV), “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” He paid for you with His life. It’s reasonable for you to give your life to His purposes. 

Be Blessed, 

Pastor Renée