Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. Ephesians 4:14–15 (NLT) When you were a baby, your parents looked a er your needs and took responsibility for your actions. As you grew, you entered a different season and started taking more responsibility for your own actions. In the Christian world, there are also different seasons of growth. The first season is when you get saved. …
Not in your strength
[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight. Philippians 2:13 (AMPC) Over the past few days we’ve been talking about how we need to work out our own salvation. We are made right with God the moment we give our lives to Christ, and there’s nothing we need to do to add to that fact. We are instantaneously delivered from things like sickness and poverty, but we need to renew our minds and believe in order to experience those promises. But it can’t come from our own strength, as today’s verse …
Fully complete it
Work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ). Philippians 2:12 (AMPC) Have you ever started a project that you didn’t fully complete? Let’s say a man wants to repaint his car. He gets it primed and all the rust spots covered with reddish paint, but then he stops there and drives it around like that for the next few years. He’s so close to being finished, but he just doesn’t take that one extra step! Well, the Bible is saying that a lot of Christians haven’t fully completed their salvation. …
Storms don’t strengthen
Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Matthew 7:24 (NIV) We o en think that God sends us the storms of life—pain, tragedy and heartache—to make us stronger. But is it true? In Matthew 7, Jesus told a parable about two houses: one built on the rock and one on the sand. When a storm hit, the one on the sand was destroyed, but the one on the rock remained. Let me ask you a question. What built strength into that house on the rock to cause it to stand? Did the storm strengthen the house? Did the sky rain down concrete to secure the foundation? Did …
Like Jesus inside
And all of us, as with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18 (AMPC) Christians often become fixated with trying to find their unique destiny—their one true calling in life. Although it’s true that you have unique God-given gives and abilities and that He has an individualized plan for your life, you have to be careful. These are not your primary focus. You haven’t been called to a position. Your destiny is to be like Jesus. If …