Derek finishes this week’s teaching by summarizing what really makes a disciple. Jesus told His disciples that if they loved Him they would keep His words and that He and His Father would come to indwell them. Love is the motivation for obedience to Jesus, His Word, and the Father. Your obedience in love is what draws them.

Derek continues providing three more issues that must be dealt with: preconceptions, unbelief, and rebellion. He then asks, “What is your attitude to the Bible?” Do you realize that Jesus and the Bible are both referred to as “the Word”? Your attitude toward one is your attitude toward the other.

In today’s program, Derek shares two ways in which we can wisely begin to build on our foundation. But first, there are issues in our lives to be dug out of the way—such as traditions and prejudices. No matter what culture you grow up in, there are things that need to be eliminated.

Derek uses a dialogue between Jesus and Peter to give four phases we must all experience when we encounter Jesus: confrontation, revelation, acknowledgement, and public confession. Each of us at some point will come to a critical moment when we openly acknowledge or deny our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In this first of a series of teachings on Laying the Foundation, Derek uses the picture of constructing a building to show how important laying a solid foundation is to building the Christian life. There is only one foundation for this structure, and we must be sure our lives are built on Jesus Himself.

Derek finishes this study by bringing out that these works God has done in us are in the past tense. They have been done; we just need to grasp that and live in them through faith. This is heavenly reality. God made us alive together with Christ and seated us with Him in heavenly places. Through His ascension we are glorified—we are in the glory of heaven with Him.

What does it mean to be justified? Derek says to be justified means I’m “just-as-if-I’d never sinned.” God’s own righteousness has been reckoned to me as a gift. And this comes on the basis of my faith in what Christ accomplished through the cross and through His resurrection. No guilt, no shame, no punishment.

Derek describes this next stage as salvation from sin—from its guilt, its condemnation, its power, and its defilement. Salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit described by three successive phases: a washing or cleansing, a regeneration or a rebirth, and a renewal or a new creation. You must believe in your heart God raised Jesus from the dead, and you must confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord.

Today Derek moves this study from eternity into time as he explains God’s individual call on and looks at the how this impacts each of us. Called simply means to be invited or summoned. God confronts us with a call that demands a response. Our positive response leads to salvation and determines the whole course of our lives.

To be predestined means that God has arranged in advance the course that your life is to follow. Derek makes clear you are not an accident looking for a place to happen. Instead, you are part of an eternal plan. You’re destined to become a member of God’s family, and it all takes place through His grace and for His glory.