#12a Living life as an open book(9oct2004)

Living life as an open book

A) The brevity of man’s life on earth

‘Man that is born of a woman. Is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down’
Job 14:2

‘If a man die, shall he live again?’
Job 14:14

B) The promise of man’s resurrection to eternal life or damnation

Every men and women, alive or dead will face our Maker on judgement day

‘So man lieth down, and riseth not;
Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake’
Job 14:12

C) Belief

This is the first response needed to take up God’s forgiveness and salvation offered

‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved - you and your household’
Acts 16:30-31

How can you take up the offer of salvation if you do not believe in its existence?

D) Repentance

Even the devils know about the Kingdom of God.

‘You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe – and
tremble’
James 2:19

Repentance of your sins and thanking God for His grace will open your heart to receiving the Holy Spirit into your soul and body.

E) Trust and obey


1 When God lifted the ‘blindness’ in our hearts,
He wants us to grow in Christlikeness, to be the image of God.

‘For He(Jesus) shall grow up before Him(God) as a tender plant. And as a root out of dry ground’
Isaiah 53:2
2. God doesn’t need us to ‘pay for our sins.’ It has already been paid for by His one and only beloved Son, Lord Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ was placed in the world

- to show be all the way he lived, what it means to be a child of God

- in His God-given infinite wisdom, miraculous powers of healing and in his unmitigated love and humility for ‘the lost sheep,’ the people of the world.

- As an unblemished sacrifice whose blood washed away our sins and put us on a clean start with God.

‘But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement of our peace was upon him; And with his stripes we are healed’
Isaiah 53:5


3. God only wants us to respond in obedience and trust in our daily walk with Him as He leads.

God gave us His Words(as in the Bible) to guide, teach and correct us as we walk with Him

‘For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two- edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrows, and is a discerner of the thought and intent of the heart’
Hebrews 4:12

God gave us the Holy Spirit, who resides in those who believe in Him to lead and guide us through the darkness of this sinful world.




F) Am I living life right with the world, but wrong with God???

1. I have never ceased to tell anyone who cares to hear that “I am a man of God”

‘If you rely on the law and brag about your relationship with God.
If you know His will…..
If you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in dark
Romans 2:17-22


Yet, you do contrary to what you say

You who brag about the law, do you dishonour God by breaking the law?

God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you’
Romans 2:23-24

God is not looking for wonderful works, but obedience

‘Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross’
Philippians 2:8



2 To win over the world, I have to be like them!!

‘For what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelieve make the faith of God without effect? God forbid; yea let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written’
Romans 3: 3-4

It is true that Jesus did sit down with the taxcollectors and other ‘lowly denizens’ of the world to the consternation of the self-righteous Pharisees. But Jesus never compromised on the Word of God


‘….circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God’
Romans 2:29

God is looking for you to be like Him

‘For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure’
Philippians 2:12


3. They are sinners, I am ‘righteous!!’

We should not judge but always be glad when a brother or sister move from Satan’s realm to the Kingdom of God

‘….Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad, for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found’
Luke 15:32

God want us to to reflect our imperfect selves against His glory and not others against us or vice versa


‘…..work out your own salvation with fear and trembling’
Philippians 2:12


4. Nobody believes in what I am saying!!

‘who has believed our report?’ And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’
Isaiah 53:1

It matters not, look to God

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength’
Mark 12:30

‘At midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God’
Acts 16:25


G) What God wants

In accepting God’s grace,
you die to sin and is born to Christ. You are reborn, your life starts as a clean slate.

‘Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God..’
1 Peter 2:23

If you will let God,
God will begin to write the chapters in your new life.
He will fill up the pages of your life with joy and peace.
And bind you firmly in His grace through the storm of this sinful world, till the launch of the New Heaven.

As God transforms you,

‘Do you see that faith was working together with his works and by works faith was made perfect’
James 2:22

As you with all your imperfections, warts and all, moves nearer to God’s perfection,

That you truly live for the day, with God’s grace and your life reflect this verse

‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want’
Psalm 23:1

That as you receive God’s love and learn to love Him and to love your neighbours rather than yourselves

‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’
Romans 13:9

The unsaved will have less refutable reasons to want to take a chance of you being right, and they being wrong in disbelieving

‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who are teaching you the way to be saved’
Acts 16:17