Are you new here? Wednesday Word is where I post a short sermon and then give my commentary.
Okay, so living by faith.
She started off with an excellent point. By faith, we become Christians. We look at this story of a virgin giving birth to a baby that would save the world. We didn’t see this. Yet, we believe it.
So, why do we stop believing? After saying yes to Jesus, we tend to go on our own. Essentially the entire relationship with God and Jesus is built on faith. The concept of heaven is built on faith. There are people who have died, claimed they’ve seen heaven, and then are back on earth. But, for the most part, none of us have seen anything and we can only go by faith.
Such a difficult thing because our physical form tells us that if our five senses can’t embrace something…confirm…register…then it can’t be real. We use science. But, faith doesn’t give a hoot about science. Miracles don’t care about the laws of nature. Miracles laugh at those laws. Good for them. Good for us.
So, live by faith today. It won’t always be easy; but it’s worth it. God won’t let you down. Even when it seems like God dropped the ball, His ways and understanding are better and higher than ours.
Sometimes, when I listen to a short sermon, I feel like there’s not too much of an impact. But, there are some videos that I hear that just blow me away.
This was one of them.
It’s a simple message, yet it’s something we can have trouble with.
The gist of this, in case you didn’t get it, was that through Jesus, we are saved. That’s clear.
But, sometimes we don’t understand why that is, and that’s the point of this video. The biggest part was how he explained that we as Christians tend to think that by what we do or don’t do is what determines how God deals with us. Instead, God deals with Jesus.
And, because we are with Jesus, and in Him are of His likeness, God loves us.
It goes back to a point I made in an earlier post I had about how the Holy Spirit in us is what God looks for. God can only be with Himself. We are made in God’s image, but in a spiritual way. Adam and Eve dropped the ball and we died. Jesus came back and gave us life.
When we accept Him, we accept His spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. So, with God in us, we become like God. We exhibit the fruits and gifts of this spirit.
Like I said, God looks for His own because He is simply too perfect for anything less. Since we have God in us, it’s easy for God to say “come on in”. That’s the whole point of Jesus. Jesus came to fix the wrong of Adam and Eve. They were saved. They lost it. Jesus got it back for us.
So, again, it is through Jesus that we have eternal life. We need to understand this. It’s like the law of association. When we associate ourselves with Jesus, we put our stake on Him. We essentially are saying that “whatever Jesus is doing, we’re doing or endorse this”. Jesus treats us the same way. Consider this hypothetical scenario:
Jesus: I love these people.
God: Well, I trust you, Son. If you love them; I’ll love them just the same.
That’s about it. That’s why there’s grace and mercy. Jesus stood up for us. Don’t get it twisted; it’s not like God needed convincing to save us. It’s just the principle. Besides, Jesus and God are the same so who cares who did what? I’m not gonna dive into the trinity. Chill.
So, let’s not worry about our performance. I mean, yeah we need to follow God’s commandments and stuff. But, ultimately, our destiny lies in Jesus.
Now, in the NOT GOING TO HAPPEN scenario that Jesus and God have a falling out, then we’re screwed. Again, we’re hinging on Jesus. If Jesus is no longer the apple of God’s eye, you know we don’t have a chance.
Get it? Luckily for us, Jesus is God, so we’re fine.
This is a long sermon by my standards, but this is a very important message. Let’s take a listen:
The last couple of minutes were big for me. Sometimes, when we do something that the Bible tells us, there’s a reason for it. It’s for our benefit or it’s for someone else. But, sometimes, we forget that we do these things because God says so.
That’s the reality with all commandments. God said so, so, technically, that’s enough. But, it sometimes isn’t, and we have to tell ourselves that we win in the end by getting a reward.
Is that the only reason why we follow God’s commands? For the rewards? And, if they are not what we want, then we decide not to be a follower for the day?
We need to be real here: God’s commands should be taken seriously. It’s a happy coincidence in some cases that we get a little “prize” in the end. Technically, if God says it, then that’s it.
Loving our enemies is one of the hardest things to do. But the key word is “love” God is love. By that definition, the Holy Spirit is love. And, the Holy Spirit lives in His children. He produces fruit; one of them: Love. And so, as we are alive by the spirit of God, we produce this fruit. So, God’s kids are love. I’m not going to dive into the trinity and all of that. I’ve done that before. Let’s keep things on topic.
That’s why we’re told to love. It’s not only a “feeling”, but it’s what we are. We must do what we are designed to do. Love. Obviously, it’s easier to love people that show love. But, again, love isn’t a feeling. Not just a feeling, anyway. True love puts aside feelings and continues on. If love were based on feeling, we’d be screwed. God loves us unconditionally, but what if He only loved us when we didn’t sin? I guess we’d be doomed from the door.
That’s what loving is all about. Yourself. Your neighbor. Your enemy. Everybody.
Today’s Wednesday Word is one of those few times where I’m like, “That’s what I’ve been saying!”. This video really sends a message: Let’s go back to basics.
By the 2 minute mark, I knew what was going on.
That’s our problem. We have all of these denominations. I’ve always said that Jesus doesn’t care about that. All He cares is that you accept Him. John 3:16 says “for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life”. Jesus said disciples. To be politically correct, we’re the ones that created all of these denominations and titles. Jesus didn’t come for that.
And, like Kevin was saying, at some point, we need to just let go of various interpretations of what the Bible says and just say “We’ll never know”. “We’ll never understand”. And that’s okay. That’s fine. God is so great and vast that there’s no way we’ll understand Him and His ways. We don’t fully understand the simplest of things in our world, and yet we think we can tackle God? Alright.
Well, it can be very hard to trust God at times and that’s because we seem to be creatures that love control. We want to feel like we’re in control. Perhaps that’s the way we were made but we like to feel like we’re in control of many decisions we make and the events in our lives. Our destiny.
That’s the big reason why it’s hard to trust God. It’s not that we don’t think He knows what He’s doing; it’s just that we don’t understand it. And, as the verse says, we can’t lean on what we can grasp. We can only trust God and let Him handle it. That Jericho example was a really good one. God will ask us to do things that really don’t make sense. But, like my boy Fred Hammond says: He’s God and that’s just the way it is.
Once we trust God more often, we’ll have more peace, especially when God comes through; and He ALWAYS comes through even if we don’t like the result.
Remember this too: God wants your trust. He’s not going to force His will and way on you. When you’re in a situation and you don’t know what else to do, God is waiting for you to turn it over to Him. Give it to Him and He will take it and you will be great.
I currently run three types of weekly posts on DALANEL. I’d like to know which one is the one that brings you back for more. Daily Word is not included since that’s a daily post. Be sure to vote.
