Instructing and encouraging you to live your life as a disciple of Jesus
There’s been a debate raging among Christians for a long time about whether we are saved by faith or by works. On one side of the debate are those who say that we simply need to believe in Jesus and accept Him as Lord of our life. In the other camp are those that say we must earn our salvation by the things we do. I submit to you that the Biblical model is not a question of faith or works, but rather the combination of faith and works.
At what point in our relationship with God did we begin to shrink Him down into a more manageable size? Remember when you first came to know Christ and recognized what a beautiful, awesome and powerful Creator He was? Remember when you prayed bold prayers and fully expected to see them come to fruition? There was a time when you cast all your worries and concerns on Him and left them there because you knew God was far greater than any of your problems. But somewhere along the way we stopped believing all of that. Oh, we still say that we believe He is all powerful and capable of anything because that’s what Christians are supposed to say. Deep down though, I wonder if you still believe it to be true.
I was studying the book of Revelation recently, and was reading the passage that contains the letter dictated to the church in Sardis (Revelation 3:1-6). As I read, I could not help but see the parallels between them and the current American church. I encourage you to take a moment to read the short passage above to provide context to this post.
What has God been telling you to do that you have been putting off? It’s okay to admit it; we’ve all been guilty of ignoring God many times in our lives. Even the apostle Paul said that he didn’t do the things he wanted to do, but rather kept doing those things he didn’t want to do (Romans 7:15). Each of us know the things we should be doing to glorify Christ, but more often than not we keep to our old habits and more “comfortable” ways. Who are we to believe that what we are doing is more satisfying than obedience to God? It’s ludicrous and very dangerous to flaunt our freewill in the face of the One who granted it. Yet time and again we play with fire and ignore the commands of Christ in order to continue our greedy and selfish pursuits.
If money and time was no object, what would you most desire to do for the Kingdom of God? So often we say we’d serve more if only we had the time, or we’d give more if our personal finances weren’t so tight. While there may indeed be truth behind these statements, I think it is too easy to use our circumstances as a convenient excuse for not living out the Kingdom mission of Christ. There are many ways to earn more money if we were motivated enough to do so, and time can be freed up by shuffling our priorities. So if you could find a way, what would you really do if you had unlimited resources of both time and money?