Recipe for the Christian Life - FAITH
Today we begin a new series on growing in our Christian Walk. Developing a Christian life is kind of like baking a recipe - good ingredients creates a perfect treat. Adding good characteristics to our faith produces good Christians.
We begin with an empty mixing bowl - our FAITH.
I looked up the meaning of faith in the dictionary:
faith - belief in something that cannot be seen, trust in & loyalty to God, confidence in a person, thing, deity or doctrine. Conviction, assurance, devotion.
Our faith is precious. Look at the verse above - greater than gold!
Please read this passage in your Bible:
1 Peter 1:3-9
I want to highlight this wonderful excerpt -
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
(1 Peter 1:3-5)
When we become a Christian and accept the gift of forgiveness through Jesus Christ who died and rose again for our sins, then our sins are washed away and we begin our Christian life with a "clean mixing bowl" (so to speak). We need to make sure that we ONLY add good ingredients, otherwise we will be creating something that is inedible. In our Christian walk, if we add bad characteristics then we will NOT be living a Christian life. In Hebrews 10:38 & 39 it says "those who shrink back are destroyed." Therefore, we need to make sure that every detail of our life glorifies God!
I'm always quoting the saying "actions speak louder than words" and this passage focuses on that exact topic:
Please read this entire passage: James 2:14 -26
As I mentioned previously, it is true that to be saved all we have to do is believe that Jesus died for our sins and accept God's wonderful gift of eternal freedom through Jesus Christ. However, what follows this change in the way we believe should and must also be a change in our actions.
When one believes in something with all their heart not only do their thoughts change to follow that belief but their emotions and actions also change. You are fooling yourself if you say that you have become a Christian but continue living the way you did before that change of faith. As it says in the scripture above: "....faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." Those people around us see more of who we really are through our actions and not so much through what they hear in our words. Any non Christian is watching you more than listening to you.
I want to clarify - I do NOT believe that you can lose your salvation. As it says in John 3:16 "..that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." That decision to believe takes a second but our "Christian Walk" takes a lifetime. We are all sinners, even after we have become a Christian - the difference is that now (as believers) when we sin we acknowledge that sin, we ask for forgiveness, strive to never commit that sin again and try to be more like Jesus in word & in action everyday.
There will be hardships and tragedies in our life but we must continue to follow Jesus without understanding why certain things happen. We might not know the reason for these life problems until we get to heaven but we still must continually act by faith. This is why what we add to our FAITH must be only good characteristics.
Over the next few weeks we will focus on good characteristics from 2 Peter 1:3-11 that we can add into our FAITH mixing bowl.
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