God forbid that I should
boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ… —Galatians 6:14
“When a person is newly born
again, he seems inconsistent due to his unrelated emotions and the state of the
external things or circumstances in his life. The apostle Paul had a strong and
steady underlying consistency in his life. Consequently, he could let his
external life change without internal distress because he was rooted and
grounded in God. Most of us are not consistent spiritually because we are more
concerned about being consistent externally. […] Get back to the foundation of
the Cross of Christ, doing away with any belief not based on it. In secular
history the Cross is an infinitesimally small thing, but from the biblical
perspective it is of more importance than all the empires of the world. If we
get away from dwelling on the tragedy of God on the Cross in our preaching, our
preaching produces nothing. It will not transmit the energy of God to man; it
may be interesting, but it will have no power. However, when we preach the
Cross, the energy of God is released. “…it pleased God through the foolishness
of the message preached to save those who believe.…we preach Christ crucified…”
(1 Corinthians 1:21, 23).” CHAMBERS
The value of our faith is not
that we will live a carefree, comfortable life.
The value of our faith is that we have eternal life and can stand in the
face of any circumstance with confidence that “if God be for us, who can stand against
us.” (Romans 8:31) I just had a
conversation with someone about living the Christian life. They explained that the reason they didn’t
practice their faith was the fault of other people. Our obedience should not be motivated by the
actions of other people, but by our love for God. That is not to say that other people cannot
influence our choices made to not pursue God, but rather, the person I
was talking to had chosen to focus on others and not God. We are individually responsible to God for our
obedience, our choices. When people are
around me who know who I am and what I believe, they try to be on their best
behavior, to not say or do anything that is offensive. Although my opinion is not the one that they should
be focused on, it does reveal the condition of their heart. All too often our enthusiasm
for our faith is dependent upon a preacher, a teacher, or other people who do
or don’t do right in our view. The reason
is, we have lost focus on the Cross, the source of our faith and salvation. How
about you? Do you have a list of excuses
as to why you have let your flame of faith die down? You need to get your focus
right. ELGIN
Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus | Helen H. Lemmel
O soul, are you weary and
troubled? No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at
the Savior, And life more abundant and free!
Through death into life
everlasting He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath
dominion— For more than conqu’rors we are!
His Word shall not fail
you—He promised; Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is
dying, His perfect salvation to tell!
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look
full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will
grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace.
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