Reformation or Regeneration?

God didn’t send His Son to oppress you and put you down but to lift you up and set you free. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty!” And He who abides where His Spirit guides will know the Truth be free. Simply know God and serve Him, learn His ways and observe them. This relationship is between you and God and when you sincerely desire to love Him and do what’s right then your heart will lead the way. God’s abundant love, will saturate your heart from above, and by His Spirit in you, you’ll just know what to do.

Don’t let your heart be condemned by modern day Pharisees who focus on the Law and not the Liberator – “for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.” How many would be believers have been vexed and hindered from following God because a blind guide tried to make a big deal of some little issue in their lives? What happens when supposed “Christians” judge others and make a big deal of petty sins while they themselves commit the greater and break the royal law of love? It produces death on all counts because now the offender and the “offendee” have their eyes on sin and not the Lord of Life. It’s not our job to scrupulously examine those who would desire to follow God and point out all the faults of their following. It’s enough that they want to go and God Himself is the Author and Finisher of their faith and said that He would bring to completion the good work that He began in them. We must keep our eyes on the Lord and His Light lest we be lost in the darkness. "Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch?” We need to stop trying to reform ourselves and our families, friends and neighbors and boldly take up the message of the cross and the resurrection. Jesus didn’t die to accomplish a mere moral reformation but for complete regeneration. Not so that those who are “dead in sin” could try to act right and hope and pretend that their works could gain them access to life. But through death on the cross He destroyed him who had the power of death and gave us His life through faith is resurrection. We have been made right with God through His sacrifice and faith in that alone. Thus being made right his love compels us and shows us what is right in His sight. This frees us from death’s plight and the scorn the self-right.

So just follow God and let His love lead I grievously plead. Don’t follow the blind man who breaks God’s command, of which love is the greatest we must understand.

2 Cor 3:4-6
4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
NKJV

Matt 23:23-28
23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 24 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

25 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.

27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
NKJV

Titus 3:3-7
For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. 4 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
NKJV

John 13:34-35
4 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
NKJV

1 John 3:14-15
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. 15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
NKJV

John 3:16-17
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
NKJV

Rom 5:6-9
6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
NKJV

James 2:8-13
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you do well; 9 but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
NKJV

Matt 22:37-40
37 Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
NKJV

Eccl 12:13-14
13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:

Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man's all.
14 For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil.
NKJV