Scripture
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”
~Romans 1:17, NASB
Quote
You can not follow Christ and remain the same.
~Source Unknown
The Christian life is a walk of faith from start to finish. Our life in Christ begins with faith and following Him daily requires faith. From time to time, God challenges our faith with a command or call that seems irrational or maybe even preposterous. Henry Blackaby labels these moments “Crisis of Faith.” Our default setting is to follow our logic, to be reasonable but faith defies human logic. Jesus put His disciple through a series of test and each test was intended to deepen their faith. For our faith to grow, it has to be tested or challenged; this is the nature of faith. So the Christian life, as Paul says, is from faith to faith; from one faith exercise to another. My call to preach challenged my faith. At the time, I thought I had made the ultimate commitment but nothing could be further from the truth. God requires faith: He cannot be pleased otherwise.
We have a multitude of things working against us. The older we become the more important comfort becomes. Peter was the only one of the twelve that was willing to leave his comfort zone. He went overboard while the others sat in the boat. It is true that Peter got wet but he also got a miracle. Putting our comfort before Christ can be a problem. Fear is another problem. I think the two greatest problems in the body of Christ are [1] compromising our faith [lack of integrity] and [2] fear. Approximately 90% of professed Christians never share their faith for the two reasons I just mentioned.
I’m sorry folks but I have a problem with bible study groups and that can include Sunday School classes that read and discuss God’s word every week and yet never act on it. We should study the word of God but that study should move from our mind to our heart and then to our hands and feet. As David MacCasland says in today OUR DAILY BREAD, “We must go beyond education to transformation.” The word of God needs to change the way we think and act. Many years ago there was an old Spaghetti-O commercial that featured a 5 year old name Mikie who favorite line was…“Talk, talk, talk: when do we eat?” For Baptist it is: “meet, meet, meet; when do we go?” James the brother of Jesus said, “That kind of faith is dead or useless.” Faith, active faith is very important: look what happened to the Israelites when they gave in to unbelief. Yes, we start with faith but then it is faith to faith to faith and each time we obey our faith expands.
What is God challenging you to do?
DAY ONE of VBS was a big success. Darlene had a little boy in her class tell her, “This has been the best day of my life.” The kids loved the tractor rides. Sue Ellen had the audacity to refer to my rig as Anglo-Saxon Rigging. Hey, it works! There are two reason I ran this pic and one is so that you will see what I want…870 John Deere [straight shift]. This model is 25 years old but I want you to be on the look out. The only problem is that the road gear is only 12 mph and the kids want to go faster. I think Mandy takes comfort in the fact that it doesn’t go any faster. That is a guess, I could be wrong but it isn’t likely. We had 191 on Monday with it raining. The Fourth Grade as 23.
We have some sick folks to remember: don’t forget old Gregg, he hit a bump in the road which has slowed his recovery but I think he is making progress. Vickie Livingston had a heart attack yesterday. She is in Birmingham but I don’t know what hospital. Morgan Haynes {Jay’s sister and Trina’s daughter} was in HH yesterday for test but they are going to send her to Vandy when a room opens up.
Had a pleasant and very rare experience last night. Someone phoned me and told me that God had used one of my sermons to encourage them. God works in mysterious ways. I was shocked by his comments. I would have never known had he not shared with me. This verifies what I already knew: God works in ways we are not aware of and I praise Him for doing so.