From Pastor John Collins:
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| It is through the tough times of tough choices that bring you a step closer to God ~ Pastor John Collins |
“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 (NKJV).
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 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 (NKJV).
