A great incentive to be authentic in our love to God is to recognize our best religious efforts duplicated in hell.

Consider the demoniac in Luke 8:28.

When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech you, do not torment me.”

1) The devil has religious insight: he recognizes Jesus as the Son of God.

2) The devil is religious; he prays to Christ and entreats his benevolence: “Do not torment me!”

3) The devil prays in a humble, contrite posture: “He fell down before him.”

4) The devil prays earnestly and with expressions of deep feeling: “He cried out … and said with a loud voice.”

5) The devil uses humble expressions in his prayer: “I beseech you!”

6) The devil uses respectful and honorable designations for Christ: “Jesus, Son of the Most High God!”

What is missing here? One thing: love.

O, how many who go under the banner of the saints render their religion to God out of constraint and not love! But how miserable must be such a life! So much self-deceit! So much burdensome duplicity! So much unnaturalness!

Away with it! Let us be pure! Or let us be pagan!

But mark this: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And to see God is to sing! And we were made to sing. We were made for sacred pleasures and for songs of purity. We were made to be real. Real. Real! Through and through. O, the joy of being genuine with God and man!

Taste and see that the Lord is good! Compared to his excellencies all the world is egg-whites. The honey of heaven makes the eyes glow.

Come buy wine and milk
without money and without price!

Yearning for your joy,

Pastor John