I'll Be Honest

There are many verses in the Bible that talk about being saved by faith, and there are also other verses that seem to indicate that we are saved by our own effort and striving. How do we reconcile these two? And once we are saved, how can we have assurance that we're actually saved and haven't deceived ourselves?

I cannot account for my life except for the fact that Jesus is a risen and living Savior. None of this pulling yourself up by your religious bootstraps. I had no strength to pull myself up by any bootstraps. Jesus came and visited me... and changed me forever - Chuck Vuolo

Emotions are an essential element of how God has created us. However, with the fall and sin entering the world, emotions have been disrupted and corrupted. Yet through Jesus Christ, there is restoration of our emotions and believers grow more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

There are many possible factors as to why a church may have members that don't give their money sacrificially to meet needs. Many of these factors are problems. But the root of the problem is that we don't love God enough. Love will fuel us to give sacrificially. We will make the most sacrifices for what we love. And if we truly love Christ, there will be proof of it and we will express it. The proof and expression will be in what we sacrifice for Him.

What characterizes the Christian is not that they don’t do bad, but it is that they are zealous for good works. We must get away from a Christianity that has a negative emphasis; where the focus is on everything you don’t do.

The Bible teaches that as a man Jesus possessed the essential elements of human nature. Jesus was not constricted in His emotions, or corrupted and controlled by His emotions. He was perfectly balanced in His emotions.

Jesus’ sorrow and compassion spring from His observation of the effects of man’s fall. As believers we must imitate the emotional life of Jesus and his sorrowful compassion. The only way that we can be like Jesus is to cultivate our own relationship with Christ.

Jesus’ anger sprang from His recognition of the sources of man’s fall – Satan and sin, but also death. The motives of Jesus’ anger were pure: love for God and love for others. The joy of Jesus springs from His contemplation and anticipation of the solution to the fall which He came to bring!

A stranger is someone who is different, alone, out of place, and doesn't fit. The world is filled with strangers because what truly makes someone strange is being a stranger to God. Christians are no longer strangers because they've been brought near to God through Christ. They can see a face and hear a voice that no one else can see or hear. Christians can also know that they're no longer a stranger because their strangeness is gone. Christ is now real to them in a way that He never was before. They're no longer strangers to Christ because Christ is no longer strange to them, but rather He's glorious and lovely to them.

If Christians are to grow in grace, we must be sure to keep close tabs on our conscience. We must learn to make our conscience take precedent over our emotions when they are unstable and are going against what God would have us to do. We also need to be sure that our conscience is careful when it comes to small things and that we don't lose the battle in small areas of our lives. How are things with your conscience?