Just like God and Jesus, I want everyone to be saved. Everyone that I can reach with the urgency of the time I want to make sure that people KNOW they are saved.
There is no judgment but there is sadness that I know people who by all appearances, aka their fruit, think themselves to be saved. They have turned their backs on God. They are not living their lives in any form the way a true Christ-follower would live. Yet they prayed "the sinners prayer" and have their fire insurance salvation but I am afraid for these who will end up being told by Jesus "depart from me because I never knew you".
That fear and the desire to have God say to me "Well done, my good and faithful servant" motivates me to persevere through trials and hurts and devastations and questionings and doubts.
I want to continue to follow Jesus.
Saving faith always endures to the end.
In looking at the Scriptures from yesterday to you realize that the writers were all talking to the church. Every letter was written to a church somewhere.
God gives us warnings if we would just heed them. He wants us to nail down our faith with fear and trembling. He wants us to not take His grace for granted.
So what about those who really get caught up in the spiritual high moment? What about those that were so "on fire" in the beginning? Yet years later or maybe just even a short time later they are nowhere to be found inside the church. These people are just like the seeds we talked about yesterday.
Faith that fades, no matter how fruitful in the beginning, is not saving faith.
See, our intensity or emotions in the beginning have nothing to do with our saving faith. Saving faith and superficial faith are different because of their endurance over time. Praying a prayer isn't the end all to assurance you are saved. The assurance comes from continuing in that faith until the end of your life, diligent in pursuing Christ from Alpha to Omega, the beginning and the end.
Hebrews 6:11 "We desire that each of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end."
Philippians 2:12-13 "So then my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not just in my presence but even much more now in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure."
We aren't talking about a works based salvation here; we are talking about a saving faith where a true believer never stops following Jesus.
As my pastor said not too many weeks ago, working out our salvation with fear and trembling is taking a look at where we are right now with Christ. It's not basing our saving faith on what has happened in the past; it's basing our saving faith on what Christ is doing in our heart right now, in this moment, in this situation.
Is my heart for Christ or against Christ? Is my life one of obedience and a desire for obedience or am I living my own way without a care as to what Christ desires for me? Is He Lord of my life or not?When you look at these questions we can see there is no middle ground, there is no way to straddle a fence with Jesus. He either IS or He ISN'T.
Are you trying to straddle a fence in your walk with Christ? It's not very comfortable and it doesn't work.
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Make sure your faith isn't fading.
I sure am.
Until he comes...
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