If there ever was a time, in which one must ask the question; “what shall I do best in order to meet Jesus and be at peace with Him when He comes?” now is that time my dear brother, my dear sister. “The storm is coming, the storm that will try every man’s faith, of what sort it is. Believers must now be firmly rooted in Christ or else they will be led astray by some phase of error. –Evangelism, p.  361

“The only defence against evil is the indwelling of Christ in the heart through faith in His righteousness. Unless we become vitally connected with God, we can never resist the unhallowed effects of self-love, self-indulgence, and temptation to sin. We may leave off many bad habits, for the time we may part company with Satan; but without a vital connection with God, through the surrender of ourselves to Him moment by moment, we shall be overcome. Without a personal acquaintance with Christ, and a continual communion, we are at the mercy of the enemy, and shall do his bidding in the end.” –The Desire of Ages, p. 324

“Christ and Him crucified should be the theme of contemplation, of conversation, and of our most joyful emotion.” –Steps to Christ, p. 103

Anyone of us has who accepted Jesus as his personal Saviour and by faith in Him, lives according to the Scriptures’ teaching, should develop a character that represents Jesus. This is all about genuine Christianity. We should always remember our covenant with the Lord and if it has been broken, we should go back and re-make our covenant with a contrite heart and genuine confession; when we do that there is mercy and acceptance from God.

I have met people in my journey with the Lord, playing with their salvation. People who say in their heart “my Lord delays”—thinking they can do whatever they want—even if they are so-called Christians. Let us consider some important things in this context. Think for a moment, what was your life like before you met Jesus, and what is your life after receiving Him? Is there any difference? Can we say that the Lord has been merciful unto us and forgave us all our sins? Do you really feel that? Do other people see the difference in your life before and after your conversion? Let us consider these questions and deal with them in this study.

Let us take for example the life of John, the disciple of Jesus.  John and his brother James, another disciple of Jesus, were fishermen on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus called them to follow Him. They later became part of Christ’s inner circle, along with the Apostle Peter. These three were privileged to be with Jesus at the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead, at the transfiguration, and during Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane. But what I want to mention in the life of John is not only his biography, but also how John was before his conversion, before his complete transformation by Jesus’ love.

After Jesus called His disciples away from their jobs and professions and into a new way of life, for 3½ years, John and the other disciples lived their lives together. Jesus was teaching and training them to become apostles—the ones He would send after His resurrection to preach the Gospel of God’s Kingdom to the world. On one occasion, when a Samaritan village rejected Jesus, James and John asked if they should call down fire from heaven to destroy the place. That earned them the nickname Boanerges, or “sons of thunder.” John’s example should teach us a lesson. Before God called us, as Jesus mentioned in John 6:44, we walked “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air (Satan), the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” Ephesians 2:2.

You see, my friend, John was not always the disciple of love, patience and endurance. He wanted supremacy; he was proud and arrogant in many circumstances in his life; he was selfish, ambitious and greedy, and as we know, the Bible describes those defects and traits of character as being the results of sin, sinful flesh that we were born with. But he became a man thirsty after God’s infinite love towards humanity. We meet a man that was absorbed by Jesus’ kindness and mercy. We see in Jesus’ disciple a desire for something better. Wasn’t that your desire when you first came to Jesus? Don’t you remember how hours of study seemed to be minutes? How you absorbed the words from the preacher’s lips as coming from Jesus? Do you still have the same desire? Maybe 10, 15 or even 30 years have passed since that time, but the question still remains: what’s your attitude now regarding your salvation? Do you and I still have the same desire to study God’s word and apply it to our personal life in order to form our characters? My friend, let’s see from John’s life, the disciple whom Jesus loved, what the secret was that made him so successful in his spiritual life?

TAUGHT AND TRAINED BY JESUS

The Bible depicts the disciples as a close-knit group. John was especially close to Christ; in his own Gospel account he refers to himself repeatedly as the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” John 21:7.  Jesus’ example of love for His disciples and all people would so affect His immediate followers that they eventually taught and practiced the same love. The godly love Jesus advocated eclipsed any human understanding of love.  The Greek of the original New Testament refers to three categories of love: eros for sexual love; philos for friendship or brotherly love; and agape for a godly, outgoing love for others, a love that sacrifices itself for others. This is the love (agape) that Jesus had for humanity while He was on the earth. Many people confuse that kind of love, as we see today in mass media. Families are broken just because there is a misunderstanding of what love means in the light of the Bible.  John’s early life perhaps prepared him for his later life’s service to God and humanity. Little is written about the disciple’s early years, except that he worked closely with his father (Matthew 4:21) and that his mother Salome, manifested an earnest desire for the welfare of her sons (Matthew 20:20).

OPPORTUNITIES TO SHARE GOD’S LOVE

Jesus gave John, along with James and Peter, special opportunities for involvement in certain activities and plans. The Gospel writers all mention John’s presence in the accounts of Christ and His works. They followed the instructions given by their Master and they succeeded in their lives. We should contemplate the love of Jesus, His mission and His work in reference to us as individuals. We are to say, “Jesus so loved me that He gave His own life to save me. The Father loves me.” “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16.

God’s love manifests itself in right attitudes and actions. A person who expresses God’s love is a person who is becoming like God. As we read earlier, God has called us to follow Christ’s example: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God: and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” 1 John 4:7–8. Who could write such beautiful promises if he had not experienced them in his personal life? The disciple John whom Jesus loved is an example of what Jesus can do through a person who really wants to be saved.

John shows us that God’s love is directly tied to the gift of the Holy Spirit: “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit.” 1 John 4:12–13. John was passionately devoted to the proclamation of truth. No one in Scripture, except the Lord Jesus, had more to say about the concept of truth. His joy was in proclaiming the truth to others and then watching them walk in it. His strongest condemnation was for those who perverted the truth and led others astray, especially if they claimed to be believers (1 John 2:4).

So, should we be less interested in walking in the truth and seeing others walking with Jesus? I think not; first of all because God called us to be His ambassadors to represent His kingdom. Secondly, we are debtors to the world for what God put in us through His Holy Spirit concerning salvation. Let us examine ourselves, brethren and ask, “Do we represent God’s kingdom correctly? Do we really love people for whom Christ shed His blood on that cross at Calvary?” I said in the beginning that we live in a dangerous time, a time when prosperity in a worldly sense is called by many Christians, a blessing from the Lord; a time in which our young people are looking for pleasures instead of godliness, forgetting the importance of their preparation for heaven. My dear co-worker, what are you doing for them when you see this spiritual degradation? Are you and I crying to the Lord to open their eyes to see the danger in following practices that are not according to the Bible?

Ellen G. White wrote, “Christ’s ministers are the spiritual guardians of the people entrusted to their care. Their work has been likened to that of watchmen. In ancient times, sentinels were often stationed on the walls of cities, where, from points of vantage, they could overlook important points to be guarded, and give warning of the approach of an enemy. Upon their faithfulness depended the safety of all within. At stated intervals they were required to call to one another, to make sure that all were awake, and that no harm had befallen any. The cry of good cheer or of warning was borne from one to another, each repeating the call till it echoed round the city.  –Gospel Workers, p. 14

I remember 20 years ago while I was doing my military service in Romania, the country that I came from. It was obligatory at that time, not an option as it is today, to go into the military service. I was appointed to be a guard during all my term there of one year and sixteen days. I was standing watch at an ammunition warehouse. For three hours on duty, three hours doing house work and then three hours of sleep—the same thing continued all year. To be caught sleeping, according to the rules of the military service, was to be put in prison. It was a very difficult time for me because I was only 20 years old, without experience and many times even being afraid of being attacked by the enemy. I remember how drastically those soldiers were punished who were caught sleeping by the officer. We were sixteen men and I remember how many of them had been punished just because they were sleeping while on duty. I was not in the faith at that time; I did not have faith in Jesus or trust Him. I was in the world, as we usually say. I was ambitious, and I said to myself, “well,” while laughing to my colleagues, telling them that this won’t happen to me. But one day, while I was on duty after one night of watching television and playing games instead of sleeping, I was caught by surprise to see the officer climbing up the ladder to the place where I was standing in the watchtower, and almost taking away my gun. Of course, I woke up immediately but too late. The officer reported me, and the time came for me to be chastened for one week, and in such a way that was sufficiently enough that the lesson was not to be forgotten and never repeated again.

God allowed this to happen to me in order to give me an idea of what it means to sleep only for a moment, or doing something else in our preparation time for eternity while we are on duty. Not a duty as I had in the military service, but a duty that is much more important, probably the most important in our lives, if you allow me to say. I believe it is our duty to warn people of the danger approaching them because, if they pay attention to it, they will save their lives.

Are we giving a clear sound? Are we watching over God’s flock? Do we see any danger approaching? Listen to these Testimonies and the words from Ezekiel 33. This is for us, my dear co-worker, brother and sister. Let it day and night instil in you and me the solemnity of this calling. We are not doing a common job; we are not employed by a common man; we are not accountable before men; we are not to be afraid of what they will say when we bring the truth before them, but rather we should be aware and be ready to listen to God’s voice instead of man’s voice. Of course, I totally agree with the fact that we need collaboration and support; we need to respect each Minister and Bible Worker. I do not mean to disregard God’s messengers but rather to pay attention to God’s warnings through them. If you look carefully, the way God dealt with His people in the Bible and the way He turned the hearts of the wicked to Him, you will soon notice that God had a message for them through His prophets, servants that would rather die than to give a false message. False prophets do not discourage sinners from sinning, they give the assurance that the sinner is forgiven no matter what he does—only confess and that’s it. Today many pulpits preach this message, a false justification. Let us take heed of what God’s servant says to us today.

“To every minister the Lord declares: ‘O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at My mouth, and warn them from Me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, . . . thou hast delivered thy soul.’ [Ezekiel 33:7-9.]

“These words of the prophet declare the solemn responsibility resting upon those who are appointed as guardians of the church, stewards of the mysteries of God. They are to stand as watchmen on the walls of Zion, to sound the note of alarm at the approach of the enemy. If for any reason their spiritual senses become so benumbed that they are unable to discern danger, and through their failure to give warning the people perish, God will require at their hands the blood of those who are lost.

“It is the privilege of the watchmen on the walls of Zion to live so near to God, and to be so susceptible to the impressions of His Spirit, that He can work through them to tell sinners of their peril, and point them to the place of safety. Chosen of God, sealed with the blood of consecration, they are to rescue men and women from impending destruction. Faithfully are they to warn their fellow-men of the sure result of transgression, and faithfully are they to safeguard the interest of the church. At no time may they relax their vigilance. Theirs is a work requiring the exercise of every faculty of the being. In trumpet tones their voices are to be lifted, and never should they sound one wavering, uncertain note. Not for wages are they to labour, but because they cannot do otherwise, because they realize that there is a woe upon them if they fail to preach the gospel.” –Gospel Workers, p. 14–15

We live in the last days, my friends. We are approaching the end of time with such a speed that even we do not realize it. We get tired while we are on duty, or maybe we tend to lower the standard God is requiring from each one of us as a member or gospel worker. Could this be the reason why people forsake the congregation so often? Could it be the reason our young people are looking for amusement and entertainment instead of preparing themselves to meet the Saviour, Jesus? Could it be the reason our churches are not working in unity to accomplish God’s purpose? I believe the answer is yes, my brother, my sister, my friend. I believe with all my heart that there is a way back to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Come with me to the place where you and I can have a new beginning; if that is what you desire, then you still have an open door. “Seek ye the LORD while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” Isaiah 55:6–7

According to the Bible, we live in the time of the Laodicean church. We have the understanding that we live in the time of judgement, such an important time, we must be aware of the meaning of this time. Jesus has a description of this last church in Revelation 3:14–17. The condition of the church is that its members became lukewarm and they feel they have need of nothing. Although they think this, Jesus gives us a remedy in verses 18 and 19. The question is: will we recognize our spiritual condition, according to Jesus description, and receive His counsel in order to get rid of this situation? There is no other way, my friends, to come to God, except through repentance. David had a deep sense of this when he sinned against God; and from his life we learn something, namely that God rejoices when His children repent and come back to Him for healing.

Do you feel that the burdens are too heavy and that you cannot bear them anymore? Do you want power in your spiritual life? Remember, the Bible has the way and the answer to all your problems. Why not ask Jesus right now to forgive and heal your wounds produced by sin. He is there to listen to you.

May our heavenly Father richly bless us in our journey towards heaven. He will come; it is very soon, my friend. We are almost home, so do not lose hope. Amen.

In Christ,

Nicholas Anca