Because your reading the faith section in The Alpine Sun then you probably consider yourself a Christian or your searching for truth or maybe just bored and looking for something to read. If your just looking for something to read let me get you caught up. Last week we were discussing what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Christ and listening for His voice. We looked at the importance of not just talking about bible verses but how we need to walk in the words we hear from the Master putting them into action in our own lives.
Because your reading the faith section in The Alpine Sun then you probably consider yourself a Christian or your searching for truth or maybe just bored and looking for something to read. If your just looking for something to read let me get you caught up. Last week we were discussing what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Christ and listening for His voice. We looked at the importance of not just talking about bible verses but how we need to walk in the words we hear from the Master putting them into action in our own lives.
The first word we hear from Jesus as He begins to teach His disciples is the word “Love”. Love happens to be the first commandment of Jesus as He told us to first love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and strength then that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.
Over the past two thousand years, men have continued to redefine what the “correct” way is to worship God. Many teachers along with their dogma have been elevated to a point where division and denominational walls are encouraged and built up around their particular interpretation of scripture. However, Jesus instructed us that those who seek to worship the Father must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
The main truth in both the Old Testament and New Testament is that God both promised and provided the world a Deliverer, Messiah or an Anointed One who would pay the price or sin debt incurred through Adam and Eve. Jesus, the carpenter’s son from Galilee, fulfilled or will in the future fulfill all the promises of God foretold in scripture.
The Jews throughout history have added many new laws and regulations to the commandments God gave to the world through Moses. Christendom has also added rules and regulations to the simple faith that Jesus Christ left us with. In the book of Romans we read in the 10th chapter 9th verse “that if you confess the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
You don’t have to put your right foot in and your left foot out, do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around to be saved. As history is coming to a close break loose of the chains that bind you. Don’t get caught up in fabricated denominational extra biblical teachings but rather just read what Jesus taught and live the way He outlined in the bible.
This brings us back to what Jesus modeled for us and taught us. His whole mission was to demonstrate what “Love” really is. Because God first loved us, by giving up His Son to death, we are now free to love others through the power vested in us by the Holy Spirit.
We all have been given gifts that we use to some degree. Many times we swell up with pride and believe that it’s our own strength that is responsible for the planting, watering or reaping of God’s Devine purposes but all glory is God’s. Read the following passage how the apostle Paul explains this truth.
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”
Jesus taught that we all need to evaluate ourselves before trying to correct someone else. He instructed us to remove the log from our eye before attempting to remove a splinter from our neighbor’s eye. Read this list of works of the flesh: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outburst of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness and revelries. Did the Holy Spirit bring to mind anything from this list that you need to repent of?
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” I want to encourage you to practice these at all times. If we walk in the Spirit we will not fulfill the lusts that are associated with our flesh.
