All tagged Living
When you pray for provision, healing, or anything else, are you expecting it to be provided? Do you believe that by asking Jesus to do a thing it will be done? If you don’t believe then how can you possibly expect to receive? Then I ask a second question... do you proclaim Your belief aloud?
How much time do we spend in God’s Word each day? Are we guilty of trivializing the process of study and meditation, neglecting it for the simple process of reading? Although reading God’s Word is important, it is only the beginning, it is the deeper process of mulling it over, and absorbing it that benefits us most.
Death, is it something we fear? As Christians we do not fear death because we know that our lives, which have been well spent in Christ, mean that we will find eternity following our final exhale on this earth. What most Christians fear is not death at all, but the dying; the sudden separation from earthly loved ones, the pain involved in dying, and leaving behind all that we have known. We fear that final step forward by faith into what we have not yet experienced.
Having spoken to some who claim to be Christian, and yet struggle with Jesus having risen from the grave, I am now careful to ask... Do you stand watching at the cross, and do you carry Jesus to the tomb? Then, do you return to the tomb after the Sabbath to find the grave empty, and believe He has risen? In this way I know their faith., because who are we, and who is Jesus without the resurrection? Where is our hope? Where is our victory? Where is our promise of eternity? Without the resurrection we are doomed to return to the grave day after day to tend to a body, and mourn the dead.
Are you a blessing to the Lord in all the things you do, the praise you give, and the worship to enter into, or do you just do good and moral things? Do you look to God for provision, healing, salvation, enlightenment, and other such blessings, or do you consider these things to be the result of the moral life you lead, and of your own doing? You acknowledge God, you believe Jesus Christ lived, but do you believe that they are just as as alive and active in your life today as in the times of the early saints? What is your expectation of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in your life?
Do you lean on your own understanding when you read scripture? Do you try to discern the meaning of God’s Word by your own insufficient intellect? The apostles had Jesus right there with them, and yet they were so often confused by what He said, and had to have it repeated and explained. It was not until the Holy Spirit came into them that they were truly enlightened.
Are you being a disappointment in your faith, and a worry to God? This is one of those questions we should ask ourselves from time to time. Ephesians 4:17-32 contains guidance for us pertaining to the new life we are living in Jesus Christ. Our question then becomes, are we living it fully as the Holy Spirit reveals and teaches us, or are we causing our God to worry over us?
You are a believer in Jesus Christ, and received the Holy Spirit who has given you certain gifts. Yet our tendency as human beings is to take this relationship and our gifts, and to keep them private between God and ourselves. Is this how you are in your faith? Do you have a relationship with God that is private and personal? Have you taken the instruction of Jesus to pray in secret, and applied this to the entirety of your faith? If so you are missing the fullness of living the faith.
Whether you are a believer or not, rest assured that this world will come to an end, and for those of faith... you will meet God face to face. So how do we prepare ourselves for this meeting? Should we be perfect in our recitation of scripture, or study diligently the nuances of faith? No, any scholar can do such; we should be doing those things we read, and are told by God... we should live holy lives, and conduct ourselves in a godly manner.
We begin our journey with Jesus by believing in God because if we have no faith in the Father then how could we possibly believe in His Son? Then, as our faith in God increases, and we believe the scripture is His Word regarding our existence with Him, we see the prophesy of the coming Messiah and find the promise of Christ. Every Jew in the day of Jesus made it this far, but it is here that they were separated; some believing that the scriptures were alive, and some that they were at best stagnant, and that they would remain in eternal expectation of a Messiah who, although prophesied, would never be accepted by them to have come. In what state is your faith? How far has your belief come? Where is it going?
Do you dwell on who Jesus Christ is? When asked about Him do you tell of what He did, how He redeemed you, and taught you things like loving your neighbor as yourself? These things are all true, but do you also tell them that He is the jar that holds the essence of your life, the container in which you dwell? Do you reveal to them that He has so changed you that He has become engrained in your very DNA; so completely intertwined that to extract Him would certainly certainly destroy you? If you can tell them this, then your faith has become the fullness of Christ, and you are no longer about Christ, but in Him.