Does the Christians of today know what it means to be strong in the Lord or to make every effort to make your calling and election sure? In the past the church has taught fellow Christians how to be strong in the Lord, but the teaching seems more like a recommendation than a diligent effort required on your part to ensure your Salvation.
You don’t have to be a Christian for very long before you notice that the deceit of sin affects the life you want and your fire for the Lord is no longer affecting those around you. If anything this deceit seems to be dragging you downhill and away from God at an alarming rate. Whether it is becoming lax or just getting comfortable as a Christian, sin is at your door and you must learn to master any sin that will eventually rule your life unless you do something about it.
You may not think that you have to make every effort to live a Christian life until you meet Satan who has mastered the art of deception. He has the skill of making sin look like the Fourth of July fireworks all sparkling, attractive and worth celebrating. However like a firework display sin is short lived because sin destroys the spirit God made into a new creation. When sin corrupts the person God made holy you notice a dramatic, but unwanted change in your relationship with God.
Satan is skilled at setting his trap to capture Christians, making them his slave again. How do you resist Satan who has had sufficient time to cultivate deception into an expertise to command? Satan has seen every kind of weakness Christian have and knows at the right moment to plant evil thoughts into your mind -- disguised as truth. Without knowing how to master sin we become a willing participant of sin.
Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Jo
Deception is easily demolished when the truth is known. God gave every an abundance of truth for every Christian to absorb while renewing their mind. God has given his knowledge and wisdom to anyone who chooses to carefully seek it with this advantage, Godly wisdom preserves the life of its possessor Ecclesiastes 7:12. Making every effort to make your calling and election sure demands that you become a disciple of Christ. Christians can easily forget to do what he has been taught when they do not put it into practice. Jesus said, the person who does what the word of God says will be blessed in everything he does. In other words truth does not benefit you unless you trust God to obey it. When you obey God’s word you will have the strength to live as a victorious Christian.
Success for Christian living demands that you allow God free reign through the personal commitment of your entire being. Jesus said, I know that my father’s command leads to eternal life so my words are precisely what the Father has told me to say John 12:50. Most Christians do not hear the words of God with their spirit as clearly as Jesus did, but even if we were to hear his words, would we be devoted to the father as Jesus was? Success demands that we meditate on God’s word day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.
"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us," Ephesians 3:20.
Do you allow God to work in you so he can use you for his glory? God is able to do more than you ask of him, but is limited by what you will allow him to do. You have the awesome power of the living God in you because your body is the temple of the living God 1 Corinthians 3:16. For in Christ the fullness of deity dwells, but you have to let Christ show the world his power in you by the way you live. The bible tells us greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world and again you can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens you. Within you is the unlimited power of God who is ready willing and able to do greater things than Jesus Christ did John 14:12.
We have the option of serving the Lord when it’s convenient or serving our God with our entire heart and being every moment of the day. As a husband you are the priest of God serving his family. As a father you bring up your child in the teachings of Christ. As the employee you are the person who serves his employer as if you were serving God. So that in everything you do it is done for the glory of God.
Making every effort demands a conscious effort to do everything within your knowledge to do the will of God. Be careful to do everything written in the word of God so you may live a victorious Christian life. When you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised so you will be able to give God the glory.
This world if filled with the distractions of sin that preys on men from every direction except through Jesus Christ, who is the gate that leads to life. Even then the road to heaven is narrow and filled with obstacles that try to divert your walk with God. On that road to life we find God has given man a plan of salvation with works prepared in advance to do. Man cannot afford to be ignorant or oblivious to what sin does to them. The dangers of sin are only known after it has been committed therefore Christians must be constantly aware of sin while it is approaching to avoid it. Sin crouches at your door with the desire to own your very life, but you must learn to rule over it before sin rules your life.
Like a slave who obeys his master, you belong to the person you have chosen to obey. Choosing to obey sin is a choice that leads to eternal death separated from the living God. By the same token choosing to obey God is the choice to have right standing with God and the life he has prepared for his family. Making every effort to live acceptably before God has another demand to know him. God is a God of love that establishes relationships, to know God requires a personal relationship with God, therefore the time you spend with God is time that you learn to know him personally.
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