Psalm 103:11-13 “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear and worship Him [with awe-filled respect and deepest reverence]. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father loves his children, so the Lord loves those who fear and worship Him [with awe-filled respect and deepest reverence].”
Pastor Kyle states that if we stay in a state of guilt, then it will be very detrimental and paralyzing spiritually and emotionally. The fear of God is reverence, as we would never desire to let our loving heavenly Father down or disappoint Him. Once we recognize our sin, confess it as sin, sincerely repent of it and God forgives it as promised because of Jesus’ atoning death on the Cross to pay for it, restoring us to an upright position that we may progress forward. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The Christian walk is progressively forward for the glory of God, on track until our glorification in Heaven.
Omniscient God, who seeing the end from the beginning and understanding the cost, created the world knowing that man, as free beings, would fall in sin and either die to spend eternity suffering and separated in Hell from Him or accept the death and suffering of His only Son to save them. The good news is this: we have been given grace that flowing out of the love and mercy of Almighty God. God’s grace though faith in our blessed Redeemer Jesus Christ is the reason for our progress. Grace is the motivator to continue to grow, mature and progress.
The fifth way of “what it looks like to continually align our thoughts, words and actions” is (5) to keep a close watch on yourself and the teachings that you receive. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” Eternity is literally at stake. Everyone is a communicator of the truth of God to the people that they know. The great Commission to “Go and make disciples of all nations” was not the “great suggestion”; it’s a commandment of Christ, our Lord. As children of God and citizen of Heaven, we are called to be “salt and light”, speaking the truth in love to a lost and dying in sin world, reconciling others to Christ as we were. Luke 19:10 says, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” That is the Christ-follower’s mission also. You are a teacher of God’s truth through His holy Word to those who do not know the Lord rightly. When making sure that the Gospel message of Salvation and forgiveness gets out into our culture, it matters for all of us.
Ephesians 4:11-15 “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists,
the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.”
We, ourselves may need to repent of obsessively focusing on the non-essentials of the faith, repent of not spending enough time in the Word of God or with Him in prayer. Repent of not making it a priority to know God’s Word, applying God will and way into our lives, repent of not being Theologically informed from the basic resources that the Christian church has available today, and repent about being angry about things without praying about those things. The right faith and the right model of Christ really matters … to our world, to our family and to our neighbors.
In Christ, Brian
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