Friday, May 21, 2021

Are You Trying at All?

Are You Trying at All?

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. PHILIPPIANS 2:12 God’s great salvation is not a one-time, once-and-for-all event for a believer. Experiencing God’s salvation is actually a dynamic, lifelong process of implementing all the power, embracing all the love, and fulfilling all the plans He has for you. “Work out your salvation” means to access all God has made available to you. It is not a command to work for your salvation. It is a call to enter into your relationship with Jesus with all that you are. We who are privileged to be called the children of God have a choice. We can enjoy our status as adopted and beloved children of the King and know abundant life in Christ, or we can live as spiritual paupers and neglect all that is rightfully ours. It is not enough to know in our minds that we are God’s children. That truth must move into our hearts and impact our lifestyles. Don’t be like too many of the King’s children who choose to live spiritually impoverished lives. The process of salvation calls for us to apply energy and effort, focus and faith. The Holy Spirit empowers, Jesus embraces us, and God rewards us now and for eternity. - Blackaby Being Still with God 

When it comes to your life how much of it is lived for Christ and how much is lived for you?

Is there any effort on your part to learn about God? Is there any work on Spiritual matters that are part of your day?

Do you invest more in your personal happiness than you do in your walk with Jesus?

Have you honestly embraced craftily made idols and ideas of this world rather than what God has you here to do? 

How is it possible to hasten the Day of the Lord?  By believers living in obedience. 

The more Christians are obeying God the more of this world is impacted for Christ. 

The more it's impacted for Christ the more people find Salvation. 

When that last person who will be saved before the Rapture can happen is found, then the Day of the Lord can happen. 

What are you doing to do what you are here for?

Idolatry is rampant in our world.  Some obviously consider what I was told to say about this flood of sinfulness we live to be ridiculous. Look at what is said in Genesis by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The world was filled with evil. The thoughts of mankind were evil CONTINUALLY.  If water everywhere is called a flood then evil everywhere is called the same.  Evil is not winning in this world it's just getting louder and more effective in disrupting lives. 

In Christ we are more than conquerors. 

Are you at all reading the greatest love letter of all time, written to you and for you, the Bible?

Are you at all taking prayer seriously?

Are you collecting worldly things that you've convinced yourself are ok, yet are idols in God's eyes?  

Re-read the parable of the talents.  The 3 were given an amount by their Master before his journey to DO SOMETHING with.  He returned and each was to give an account.  When Jesus returns what account will you give?  What did you do with what God gave you?  

You are responsible for you.  Just as those 3 in that parable. 

I am ashamed of much of my life as to what I embraced throughout my life that was wood, hay and stubble, that will burn up to nothingness when tested on that day of giving my account before my Savior. 

Will you have anything that will withstand that fire by which what you have done will be tested by?

Now is the time to live rightly before your God.  Now is the time to get real with yourself about what are really idols in your life.  I stopped collecting anything in this life because I saw it for what it was.  A cleverly disguised idol.  I would get passionate about what those things were but have come to realize that I wasn't nearly as passionate about my life in Christ.  I stopped many things in my life once I saw them as God sees them. What about you?  

What do you highly value from this world that God sees as an idol?  Embracing worldly things, from fantasy to sports and every kind of entertainment takes that much time you are given away from God. 

Be passionate about what matters to Jesus.  Reaching people who are in this world who are possibly heading for Hell.  
Invest in your walk with God. Invest in prayer.  Jesus is our Brother, King, Lord, Best Friend...not our Butler.  He's more than a person to ask to bless the food we are eating. 

Lastly in this post we read a possible prayer for all of us that's from Dr. David Jeremiah's book Life-changing Moments with God:

My brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Lord God, Your grace is sufficient for me, for Your strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. I will go in Your strength, my Lord God; I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only. The gospel of Christ is Your power of salvation. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I also labor, striving according to Jesus’ working which works in me mightily. I have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of You, Almighty God, and not of me. Your joy, Lord God, is my strength . . . and I am strengthened with all might, according to Your glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy. Almighty God, I praise You for sharing Your strength— through Christ—with me that I might glorify You with my life! 

EPHESIANS 6:10; 2 CORINTHIANS 12:9–10; PSALM 71:16; ROMANS 1:16; PHILIPPIANS 4:13; COLOSSIANS 1:29; 2 CORINTHIANS 4:7; NEHEMIAH 8:10; COLOSSIANS 1:11

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