Amen Sister Amy and Pastor Sean! Thank you for sharing Sister Amy! Many will be blessed by your post.
What must I do to be saved is the all important issue. There is something we must do in order to obtain heaven, or better yet to glorify our God. We must love the Lord our God with the whole heart. What does that mean? It means that we make a full whole heart surrender of our will to His will. We walk in the light as He is in the light. We cannot hold anything back no matter how small a matter it is. Many will say that this is too narrow or too steep. Yes, that is the conclusion the rich young ruler came to. But is it too much to ask?
When we exchange a sin polluted heart for a heart cleansed as white as snow what do we think? Is that a bad exchange? When we give the whole heart to Christ, the Holy Spirit comes into the heart and brings with Him all of the fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. When do we get these? At the moment we surrender all to Christ, not one will be missing.
Who does not want love, joy, and peace? The rich young ruler did not understand very well. He made a bad deal in rejecting Christ. So too are many today. They have been deceived as to what it means to reject the call of Christ. The "pearl of great price" is worth all and anything we can give.
Again, in today's reading there is revealed the doctrines that bring to us love, joy, and peace in this world and eternal life with Jesus in a world where there are no more tears, sorrow, or death. What must the rich young ruler do to obtain salvation? "Jesus told him that obedience to the commandments of God was necessary if he would obtain eternal life." Yet, we hear throughout professing Christian churches that we can do nothing to obtain salvation, it is a free gift. This teaching attempts to deceive in that coupled with this truth is the argument that it means we can enter heaven without repentance and keeping the commandments. In other words we are taught that we can have salvation when we sin a known sin. We don't have to keep the commandments of God. We can sin and be saved at the same time.
One of the well respected pastors in the Seventh-day Adventist Church teaches that "the monstrous teaching in the Seventh-day Adventist Church is that when one sins, he must be re-justified." He means that if I teach that we must repent of a known sin in order to have eternal life, this is a "monstrous teaching." Another highly respected pastor who has now passed beyond being able to deceive told me that if one sins on Monday, and does not repent until Friday, he has eternal life in between. He said he was teaching "relationship theology."
So many believe this that we may truly say the church remains in a Laodicean condition since they believe they are rich and increased with goods, but know not they are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked thinking they have eternal life, but do not. The rich young ruler was not in such a condition. When he walked away, he knew he was lost.
How do we reconcile the truth that we cannot do anything to obtain salvation and the truth that none will enter heaven unless they are keeping the commandments of God? The truth is that we must be transformed in character before we can enter heaven. Transformation comes when the heart is given wholly to Christ. How can this be? "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up." We must look and live. There is something we must do in order to obtain salvation, but it does not earn salvation. It leads us to the One who has earned salvation for all who will come to Him just as they are. If we will learn of Him who is the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world, we shall fall in love with Him and thus receive a new heart that has been cleansed from sin, and is as white as snow. Jesus wanted to give the rich young ruler a new heart. He had seen something of the loveliness of Christ, but he did not know Him enough to trust Him with his whole heart. He loved his wealth more than he loved Jesus.
He longed to see in him a humble and contrite heart, conscious of the supreme love to be given to God, and hiding its lack in the perfection of Christ.
What must I do in order to be saved and retain that salvation? I must drink in the grace of God each day in order to die to self daily. There is nothing good in me if Christ is not residing in my heart. I must cling to Jesus continually if I am to have supernatural power to be able to resist all of the temptations that come to me each day. It is the love of God that saves me. I must feed upon Jesus if I want to love Him all the time with all of my heart. The great truth which escapes most is that by looking upon Jesus uplifted on the cross, my heart goes out to Him. By beholding we become transformed in nature. We keep our fallen nature, but become partakers of God's divine nature. This is the greatest of all miracles. The Holy Spirit takes possession of the heart and empowers repentant sinners to walk in all of the light we have been given. The character of God is imparted to all who will love Him with the whole heart. By beholding His glory we are changed into His image by the Spirit continually. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 2 Cor. 3:18.
