Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
– 1 Timothy 6:12
We Christians, together with the heaven, celebrate every time an unbeliever receives Jesus Christ in his heart. Nothing compares to the joy of being used by God to save a soul from eternal damnation. When a person receives Jesus Christ in his heart, it is an access for God to have His way and work freely to the life of that person who just started to surrender his life to Jesus.
Receiving Jesus Christ in our heart is just the beginning of our eternal journey. Along the way, God will teach us different things so that we will grow in our faith. May it be in the form of revelation, challenges, discipleship, and encounter. God wants us to mature and be intimate with Him and to keep in step with the Holy Spirit everyday. There will also be people whom God will send to help us cultivate our spiritual life; a pastor, a mentor, a discipler, or spiritual parents and family. It has always been God’s will to draw us so close to Him and that nothing will snatch us from His hand (John 10:28).
God has designed us for this very purpose. But there are times that things do not always go as God planned them because of our stubbornness. Yes, it is God’s will that every single person in the world experience the fullness of Him, it is His will that we all go to heaven. But because we have freedom and there are times that we tend to abuse it, we are drifting away from God.
Jesus said in Revelation 2:4-5,
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
Sometimes, our relationship with God is being shaken by different things that serve as distraction: worldly passion, self-centeredness, laziness, unfaithfulness, struggles, etc. Proverbs 3:3 says, Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.
God wants us to walk faithfully with Him. But we can only be faithful to Him if we love Him and make Him our first priority.
Our life as Christians doesn’t just end by simply receiving Jesus into our hearts, but by sustaining our love for Him. Let us not be like others who fall away in their Christian walk. Let us live for Jesus and be faithful to the calling we have received from Him.
Here are some practical ways we can sustain our pursuit of God:
1. Worship: This doesn’t just happen in the church or every Sunday. Worship should be our lifestyle and it is not limited with music and singings. The Lord is after our hearts and we can worship Him in many ways everyday. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
2. Praise and Thanksgiving: Worship is declaring who God is–gazing upon His beauty and adoring Him. Meanwhile, praise is declaring what God has done in our lives. It is an act of thanksgiving. Psalm 9:1 says, I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
3. Prayer and Fasting: This is bringing our petitions before the Lord, laying down to Him all our concerns. We fast to kill the desires of our flesh to be more intimate with God and be sensitive to His voice so that He can move more powerfully in our lives. Daniel 9:3-5 says, So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed: “Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws.”
4. Bible Reading: We usually term it as our ‘devotion’ or ‘quiet time.’ It is important that we READ and MEDITATE on God’s word day and night. It makes us mature and firm in our faith. In Psalm 119:11, it says, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
5. Fellowship: It is true that going to church does not make us go to heaven. But what is the purpose of the church? Church is there for family. Church is for fellowship. It is the coming together of the believers to grow and encourage one another in their faith. In the church, we are also able to use the gifts God has given us and we become involved in different ministries to function in the body of Christ. Proverbs 27:17 , As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
May the Lord always find us faithful and in love with Him.

Sunday Sunday Christians... Come and learn

eezeribe:
Sunday Sunday Christians... Come and learn

Call / bring them to fellowship.