I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
-- St. Paul to Timothy, from 1 Timothy 6:13-16
Keep the commandment of Jesus until He returns!
Although these words were initially given by Paul to Timothy, it's hard to ignore the high emotion here, nor is it easy to escape the charge as a general command to all Christians. That is, if you believe what Paul says about Jesus and God.
Jesus will return, or in the language here, appear.
God will (re-)send Him.
And God is the blessed and only Sovereign.
God is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
He alone has immortality.
He dwells in unapproachable light.
These statements are true, and not believing in those statements will not make them untrue. Hence, whether you keep the commandment of Jesus or not will have ever lasting consequences.
Two questions, then.
If you doubt the objective, eternal truthfulness of these statements, why do you try to imitate Jesus?
If you do believe the statements to be true as they are, then why are you content with your feeble attempt, nay, failure to keep Jesus' commandment?
No comments:
Post a Comment