Turn From Death to Life

The scriptures say that God IS love. So if we want to know if a feeling we are really having is love; or if the person who is telling us that they love us, we should go to love Himself…
1Co 13:4-8
Love is patient, love is kind; love does not envy; love does not boast, is not puffed up; does not behave disgracefully, does not seek its own, is not provoked to anger, thinks no evil; does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…

Mat 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and let him bear his cross, and let him follow Me.

And if we think that it is an option to give up the things of this world, we are sadly mistaken…

Mat 10:38 And who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

After Jesus died he was buried in the tomb three days and nights. We too must also bury our flesh. The old man, the sinner must stay dead…

Rom 8:6- 14For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace;
because the mind of the flesh is enmity towards God; for it is not being subjected to the Law of God, for neither can it be.
And those being in the flesh are not able to please God.
But you are not in flesh, but in Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, this one is not His.
Christ rose from the dead after being buried. Therefore we must rise from the dead…
But if Christ is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
But if the Spirit of the One having raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the One having raised the Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies live through the indwelling of His Spirit in you.
So, then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to flesh,
for if you live according to flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

It is not enough to “agree” with the gospel, or that Jesus went through what he did. We must LIVE the gospel in our lives.
The good news/gospel is that when we do truly believe in him, we will turn from our sins and the world(repent), we will die to ourselves, we will bury our sins(our flesh), and allow the Holy Spirit to resurrect us to new life.
According to Romans 8:14 above how do we know that we are children of God? Only if we are led of the Holy Spirit. When do we know that he has taken up residence in us? When we have believed, repented of our old life, died to sin and have put sin away. He can’t give us new life if we haven’t put down the old life. We can’t put on the new beautiful garment of righteousness onto the old sinner. We would be fooling ourselves.
So my question in the beginning was are we disciples or are we just hanging out until we get to heaven. We have to be disciples to see heaven.

Luk 14:26-30 If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers and sisters, and besides, even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me, he cannot be My disciple.
For who of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has the things to finish;
that having laid a foundation, and not having strength to finish, all those seeing begin to mock him,
saying, This man began to build, and did not have strength to finish.