VOICE OF HOPE
17 June 2022
John3:16-17 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”
When we look at how salvation has been explained for many decades it is said that when we repent and turn our lives over to Christ with repentance we are delivered from the sinful nature of man, saved and have received salvation, and according to man without a doubt, we received our ticket to heaven. But how many of us as believers evaluate the salvation in our lives we were given? Where do we stand with Christ? What do our spiritual lives look like? Are we comfortable in the place where we are at? Are we truly walking on the narrow path or are we lukewarm? Are we enduring to the end or have we turned back into the world of destruction? Are we dependent on God for everything or are we relying on our strength? Are we faithful or are we standing with one foot in Christ and the other with the pleasures of life and its comfort?
Let's look at Philippians 2:12;21 which states "Therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now how much more in my absence work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure; For everyone looks out for their own interest, not those of Jesus Christ" So now if we read with the understanding we see that it indeed says that we should work out our own salvation not just in His presence (place of worship)only but in His absence with fear and trembling implying that we should live in such a way that every step we take, every decision we make should not exclude God in our lives we need Him every single day and in Fear of asking ourselves is what we do Holy and pleasing before the Lord. We need to understand that we need to work hard even to the point of death as Christ did because the road to salvation was and will never be made easy because God does not want us to become comfortable and fall away. God is a God of love but we also need to know that the Holy Spirit will come down to where we are but we got to go to where He is, so God's intention is for us to keep seeking Him and have our eyes focused on Him and only Him. We serve a jealous God so we should watch ourselves. Many lack knowledge of the truth behind salvation and that is due to a lack of revelation leading to a lack of knowing the heart of God. We think that it is okay to sin and repent, continuing in a cycle of thinking that God will continue to forgive us just because we are saved. That is undermining the power of God. We know that He is a just God.
1 Corinthians 9:24-24 "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever." How wonderful is it to know that we run this race of our salvation to receive a crown that will last forever?
Jesus said that He is the way the truth and the life and that no one goes to the Father except through Him, so we can’t run this race without Jesus nor the Holy Spirit because if we rely on our own strength we will get tired and weary and eventually fall away and that’s how we fall short of His glory. The verse said that all runners run the race (our journey to salvation) but only one gets the prize. This tells us indirectly that not everyone will get to heaven. We should know that God will always find a way to bring us close to Him but we’re the ones who get to run the race to salvation. It is equivalent to a joke I read once which said, first we were born without our permission now our future lies in our hands (lol), so we really should reflect and check our spiritual lives to see where on the map of the spiritual realm we are because being in a comfort zone could most definitely have us far off course and away from the path of righteousness.
Are we fearing God today? Because the fear of God is the extent of knowing His power. Living in a comfortable space and being a lukewarm Christian is undermining God’s power and because we are not knowledgeable of the truth behind salvation this leads us to destruction, for the Bible declares that due to lack of knowledge we will perish.
Therefore, as Christians, we need to know the truth behind salvation. Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.”
You cannot maintain what you don’t know.
In His Service
Prudence Cornellison