Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
I John 2:5 “But whosoever keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected; by this know we that we are in him.”
This passage helps to clarify that invisible relationship we have with the Father in our priesthood authorization. The verb “keepeth” is present tense in the Greek denoting one's habit of keeping God’s word. The word of God is learned from the Bible, (faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, Rom.10:17) and only as we learn the word of God do we come to love God. John says it is through the constant intake of God’s word and the subsequent application of God’s word to our daily tests that we demonstrate our love for God, that our love for God is matured this way. Mature love for God manifest itself through occupation with Christ in our thoughts and motivations. Only if there is a consistent intake of Bible doctrine on positive volition will there be a remote chance that you will be occupied with Christ. Otherwise you will be occupied with this present world. You will be occupied with sin and human good. Occupation with Christ is demonstrated by your humility to learn all you can from the word of God, and then with proper thoughts and motivations you appropriately apply that word to your life and the lives of others. Emotion and experience, which is emphasized so much today in Christianity, is not the path to a growing healthy relationship with our Father in heaven, nor is it the path to healthy relationships with people. We must think upon the word of God.
Our thoughts toward God and mankind should be motivated and directed by the ministry of God, the Holy Spirit. The thoughts are then shown to others in our ambassadorial functions of witnessing and ministering to both the lost and the saved.
If our lives are a mess then our ambassadorial effectiveness is limited. If our testimony is stained with sin then we are ineffective as a witness for the Lord. If our faithfulness to the Lord is unstable and our attendance to his word, especially on the Lord’s day, that one day in seven wherein we are called to stop all labor and worship the Lord, if on that day we cannot be faithful then there will be little if any divine production forthcoming from our lives. If the word of God is not precious to us in our private thoughts with God then the fruits of the Spirit will be hard pressed to find.
As per Gal.5:22-23 it will be hard to find the fruit of impersonal virtue love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control. If there are sinful habits manifesting the old sin nature then you will be hard pressed to talk to others about the Lord and it will be even harder for them to pay any attention to you. If our message is not first seen living in us, then it will fall on deaf ears. None of us wants to be used of God in spite of ourselves. We want to be used because God is seen blessing us.
I Jn.2:6 “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”
Rom.6:4 “Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death (positional truth), that as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
This walking in newness of life takes place every day of the week. We are not one thing on Sunday and something else the rest of the week.
And so, the in working of our private, daily, personal walk with the Lord (our priesthood function) is seen in the outworking of that relationship and fellowship in our ambassadorial calling.
If we are enamored with heavy mental attitude sins then our testimony will be pitiful.
If we are allowing the details of life to dictate our trust in God wherein we turn to the world for solutions then we will be a failure. If we moan and worry and fret over every little thing then what hope have we to offer the rest of the world.
If your personal love for God is being developed by the only means, which is the inhale of God’s word, you will have learned to cast all of your cares on the Lord as per I Pet.5:7.
This evident trust you have in the Lord will be seen on your countenance, in your speech, and in the content of your life.
Who will listen to someone talk about the all sufficiency of the Lord, if they are noted for moaning and complaining all the time about how hard life is. I know we all fall on hard times at times, but we never fall so far that God doesn’t catch us. God is not asleep on the job.
From Heb.13:5 “Let your manner of life be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have; for he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”
The bad news we get about the economy and the evil in our society could drive all of us into panic mode. The aspiring political leaders would have us believe they are the answer to our problems when we know better. My advice to you is to turn off the T.V., put down the newspaper, and turn to the word of God. If you will do this God will clear up Satan’s smoke screen of gloom and doom. Satan’s message of man being our hope will be replaced by God’s message that Christ is our hope.