Pastor John Collins of Love That Cross Ministries provides a daily devotional that is only a small part of his passion for the Cross and the love of our Savior, Jesus, and God. He preaches through out the country, and can be seen on podcasts on YouTube and heard on internet radio. His words cut through to the core of faith and Christianity, he preaches the way it should be, with truth and passion. He was recently recognized as an influential pastor in America. You are invited to see, hear and read more of him through the links provided. These posts are taken with permission from Pastor John Collins of Love That Cross Ministries, and can be found from previous posts on his Facebook page, John Collins (Pastor John Collins). God bless you.
“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” James 1:2-4
Let’s assume that you have some faith in your life. How often do you reflect on the lesson in the trials of your life? Do you look for the wisdom gained and apply it to your life or do you ignore the lesson and just appreciate that the storm has passed for now?
You can certainly claim Jesus as your Lord and Savior in a moment but righteousness takes some serious dedication and hard work. If God granted you complete faith in the instant that you believed, what would you do with it and do you understand what complete faith really is, anyhow? Complete faith is never doubting the truth of Christ and His work on the cross and it is living a life that is COMPLETELY in submission to God. Complete faith is a consciousness of God always not just sometimes. Complete faith is living a life that pursues the approval of God over all else. In order to claim complete faith you must work for it and it does not come easy.
Living in this world of distractions and entertainments and sinners and filth does not make it easy to choose to do the will of God every time and not only some of the time. It is through the tough times of tough choices that bring you a step closer to God when they become consistently righteous choices in your life. Every Christian needs to learn to want to obey God and every Christian needs to learn all of the tough lessons from God in order to claim complete faith and righteousness.
Pay attention to what motivates you and pay attention to the choices that you make and then be really honest with yourself about what the Bible says about your feelings, choices and behavior. One of the biggest mistakes that a Christian can make is to think that the Bible is antiquated and that God and Jesus really don’t feel strongly about the sin of today. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow and it is time that the Christian does better and gets back to reverence of our Lord.
“Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” James 1:12 LOVE THAT CROSS, PASTOR JOHN, BELIEVE THAT
No comments:
Post a Comment