John 8:31-32 - "So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, 'If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.'”
I am just as eager to accept the promises of God as the next man. However, it is often easy to take a promise out of context or without its conditions. Jesus' words here are a wonderful promise how the Son certainly sets us free through the knowledge of the truth. The quid pro quo of Christ's promise in this instance is the word "If" and then the condition of continuing in His word. What does that mean, to continue in His word?
In simplest form, it means obedience to what Jesus says. That does not mean picking and choosing what He says either. It means studying His love letters written to us in the Holy Bible everyday. It means understanding that Jesus was so full of love that He often spoke the truth with brutal honesty. It means loving the Jesus that weeps over the lost but equally as much the Jesus who whips sin out of His temple. Those who would just seek to "follow" Jesus' teachings will never come any closer to knowing this Man then if someone tried to follow the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi expecting to know him.
It often sickens me when I hear someone say they follow the teachings of Jesus. This shows me they have never met the Savior. No, what they follow instead is an idea or a concept. This is not Christianity. To be a Christian is to fall in love with the Man, Christ Jesus and want to know everything you can about Him. It is to become like Him because we have surrendered to Him, not to an idea. Then, beloved, we will know truth and the truth will set us free!
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