5. Service to God must be based on love and not fear – You can’t coerce, threaten or force someone to serve God. It must come from the heart out of love and gratitude for what God has done for us. God made us and he loves us. God is our Father and we are his children. As children of God we return that love. How could we not? God sent his only begotten Son in heaven to come to the earth and die on the cross so that our sins might be forgiven. God gave up what he cherished the most so that we could have eternal life in heaven in his presence. God showed his love for us and saved us from hell. How could we not love a God who cares for us so deeply? How could we not serve a God who provides for all our needs? Accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior leads to saving grace. It means to serve Christ out of love and for what he has done for us.
Romans 12:1- 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.
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 – For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
Ephesians 4:1 – I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.
6. Sin severs fellowship with God but not the relationship – There is no moral flaw in God’s character. God is holiness personified. God cannot abide sin. Light and darkness cannot exist together; therefore a holy God and an unholy person cannot have communion. Fellowship with God is only possible if the believer walks in the light of Christ, whose blood cleanses us of all sin. This fellowship between the believer and God is easily broken by unconfessed sin. God is gracious and merciful to forgive our sins if we repent.
1 John 1:5 – This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
1 John 1:7 – But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.
1 John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Communion between the Savior and his own does not require repeated baths of regeneration (salvation), only daily washings of the soul that has become soiled walking through a hostile world. That happens as we confess our sins to God daily, asking for forgiveness. What this all means is that God may stop talking to us because of our sin if we don’t confess it but God will never let go of our eternal souls. We belong to God. Our salvation is secure. We will be in heaven one day in the presence of God our Father.
John 13:10 – Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”