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Sermon Manuscripts
The Imperative of Faith
a sermon in the series,
Hebrews: An Epistle of Encouragement
A sermon delivered
Sunday Morning, February 4, 2001
at Oak Grove Baptist Church, Paducah, Ky.
by S. Michael Durham
© 2001 Real Truth Matters
Hebrews 3: 12-19
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Never had a people showed such promise, and never have there been a people who so miserably failed. Israel, like no other people, had the bounty of the truth and the power of God given to them, and yet in the end, they missed it and perished in unbelief. They not only missed the Promised Land, they missed heaven, the true land of promise. In this third chapter the author begins by making a comparison between Moses and Christ. He establishes the fact that Moses, although a man of God, was merely a servant in God’s house. He was a member of the household of God, and Christ is the Son over the house. Christ is the ruler and builder of the house, and therefore, by position He is superior to Moses. Writing to Jewish Christians, he reminds them that although they have great respect and reverence for the prophet Moses, they should all the more respect, revere, and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. This is He whom Moses served.
In chapter two the preacher asks, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” That is a question to seriously ponder. How will we escape? A much worse penalty will come upon those who neglect Christ than on those who neglected the message of the prophets and angels. And so in the third chapter, he continues to build his argument. If the children of Israel fell in the wilderness because of unbelief, how do we think we shall escape if we neglect the greatest of all lawgivers, Christ Himself? If Israel refused the revelation of God through Moses and they did not survive God’s judgment, why should we think our prospect will be any better if we neglect a greater Messenger?
We should read our text today with a fear and trembling in our souls. If this people, Israel, could have so many signs and evidences of God's presence and still miss it, we need to humble ourselves before God, and His Word, and seek grace.
The book of Hebrews is teaching us the imperative of faith. We as Baptists believe that a Christian cannot fall totally away and apostatize. We teach that a person who has been born again cannot lose their salvation. Many Scriptures teach us this. For example, our Lord's promise in John chapter ten and verse twenty-eight, "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." If we have correctly interpreted this and many other passages like this, then how could the apostle be stating here in verse twelve, "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God."?
How can a Christian fall? How can this apostle dare insinuate that we could perish? Well, this verse gives us the mindset of the early church on the subject of the security of the believer. The apostles in the early church would have been opposed to much of the modern Baptistic teaching on the eternal security of the believer. They clearly had a different mindset than the modern Christian when dealing with professing Christians. Please note, I said, modern Baptistic teaching. I do believe that the apostles believed in a security of the believer, but they didn't believe as so many are teaching it today.
This passage is actually a warning against three dangers. First, it's a warning against an “easy-believism.” The apostles faced an early form of this teaching. Easy-believism is a teaching that states that all one must do to become a Christian is profess faith in Christ. While that may sound Scriptural, there is a problem with it. The problem is obedience to Christ is not required of the person who has professed faith in Christ. Modern dispensers of this false teaching advocate that it is possible for a Christian to live in utter disregard of God’s commandments. He can live his life as a “carnal Christian,” never making Christ Lord of his life.
Now in fairness to any who would teach this, it can be said that many of them do so because they want to safeguard salvation by grace. They believe it to be their duty to defend the doctrine of justification by faith. Any thing that would be added as a necessity to salvation, other than faith, is to be considered a works-oriented gospel. Now, I am as concerned as any with the integrity of the Gospel being maintained. It is incumbant upon all of us to preserve the faith that was “once delivered to the saints.” But to divorce genuine faith from obedience is impossible. Obedience does not merit salvation, but faith always begets obedience. If a person truly believes in Christ unto salvation, then works of righteousness will naturally flow from his faith.
Jesus said,
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. (John 14:21)
And again Jesus said,
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. (John 15:10)
John in his first epistle is very clear that obedience must be active in the life of a professing believer. He writes,
He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (1 John 2:4)
Obedience is the fruit of saving faith. If the faith professed does not bear this kind of fruit, then, you need not be mistaken, it was not saving faith.
There are at least three different kinds of faith we read about in Scripture. First, is a human faith. Human faith is seen in John chapter two and verse twenty-three through twenty-five. It's the kind of faith that says, “I with my mind agree to the truth of Scripture and the truth of God.” Human faith is something that we all possess. It is the ability to analyze facts and to trust or agree with them. But human faith is not saving faith. You can by mental assent agree with the facts of the gospel, but that alone cannot be the faith that God requires.
For example, in John chapter two and verse twenty-three, John goes out of his way to show that there were many people who had believed upon Jesus, but they did not really believe in Jesus to eternal life. They believed in what He was doing and they believed what He said, but they didn't believe in Him. What does that mean? It means they did not rest, rely, and place their eternal confidence in Christ with their lives. In John two, twenty-three, the Bible says
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. (John 2:23)
But now notice verse twenty-four and twenty-five,
But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man. (John 2:24-25)
In other words, Jesus didn't need somebody to tell Him what was in the heart of another man. He knew what was in these people's hearts, and therefore, He did not commit Himself to them because He didn't trust them. He knew that they believed with this human kind of faith and not with the saving kind that is necessary.
Today, much teaching in evangelical Christianity says, “if you simply believe these truths and pray this prayer you are saved.” Now, it's true that if I believe upon Christ I will be saved, but not with a mere faith in the historic facts about Jesus. If I appeal to the intellect in the mind only and say you must agree with the Scriptures and that's all faith is, then I will breed a group of false converts who will be proud in what they know, not humbled by what they have experienced.
The second kind of faith that we see in the Bible is demonic faith. James alludes to this, that even the demons believe and tremble, but they're not saved. But there's a third kind of faith that the apostle here is encouraging us to have, and that's saving faith.
Saving faith is when you not only believe the gospel with your mind, but with your heart, with your whole being. You rest in those facts and you place your whole life and eternity in Christ, believing Him to be sufficient to get you home with Him in heaven. It goes beyond just the intellect. Of course the intellect is involved, but this faith is an experiencing of God. The experience of saving faith is upon this line, the truth of Christ in your head moves to your heart with such a persuasion that your heart swells with joy over it. It is not so much a comprehension of the truth as it is a persuasion of it. The truth becomes alive. As a result of this kind of faith you experience the cleansing of sin and reconciliation with God.
The author of Hebrews is first warning his audience against easy believism. He is pleading with them to make sure they have a faith that endures and produces the fruit of obedience. If this enduring and obedient kind of faith does not exist, then repent and look to Christ. He is a dispenser of such faith. By mercy He grants to the weary a faith to rest. To the doubting He gives assurance. Open your heart and let Him do the work of faith.
The second danger that the reader is warned of is presumption. This is a warning that a believer could depart from God and apostatize. God has promised that He will prevent this from happening, but God’s promise of preserving the saint does not diminish the fact that apart from God the believer could fall. Thus, God uses the warning to incite faithfulness by encouraging a desperate dependency upon God for preserving grace. This is the duty of all believers. There is no room for trusting in your ability to run the race. Thus, the warning becomes a means of grace.
The apostles refused to rest upon presumption, but rested instead upon spiritual reality. For most people faith and being saved is a presumption they make because someone said, “If you do this or that, you are saved.” And so they presume these things to be true. But friends, saving faith is not presumption, it is real. It is tangible. It is something you experience. You need no one to tell you that you are trusting Christ, you will experience trust. You may not understand at the moment that what you have experienced is salvation, but you will know that there has been a change in you. It's not based upon presumption.
I don't like the term "once saved always saved," not because it's not true, but because of the common perception of what that phrase means. For most people it means a person can profess that they have been saved, and they will not be able to lose their salvation. Their lifestyle may not show love and faith toward God, but that does not matter, because once a person has made a profession of faith they are in and can’t get out. I disagree. Salvation is the reality of knowing Christ, and so the writer of Hebrews is saying here, “Be sure, be very sure that you're not presuming something, but that you've actually experienced it.” Such a teaching that says you can simply profess with your mouth and there doesn't have to be a transformation of life and character is rejecting the Biblical teaching of a faith that produces godliness, righteousness and love of God. It's exactly the same perception of faith and security that James was attacking in his epistle, an attitude that says “my faith is private and it doesn't need to be seen.” Well, James, as well as the writer of Hebrews, is saying that if your faith does not produce in you works of righteousness and the fruit of the Spirit, then your faith is not of the saving kind. The only thing that you can be eternally secure about is your place in hell. Once you reject Christ and die in a state of unbelief, you are eternally secure in the flames and torments of hell’s judgment.
The warning that a believer could depart from God and apostatize is, thirdly, a warning for us not to forget we are a community of grace. He's warning us of going opposite of our last point. The last point was presuming I'm saved because I followed some man-made rules like professing faith, praying a prayer, or going to church, instead of experiencing the reality of Christ. He is warning us to not expect people to jump through a set of hoops before you will accept their profession of faith.
It was not the practice of the apostles to make people prove their profession of faith before accepting them. Although they expected the profession to be real, they did not wait to see fruit before baptizing them. If the profession eventually proved false, they would deal with it under the instructions of what's called church discipline. Therefore, when a man or a woman professes faith in Christ, we should wholeheartedly open our arms, welcoming them into the brotherhood. And that's what I think he’s saying here.
Why do I think this? Because we cannot see clearly the heart of any individual, much less our own, the writer of Hebrews calls them all believers. He did not bother to make a distinction between those who were really saved and those who were only professing but weren’t. In verse twelve he simply says, “Take heed brethren.” That serves as an indication of how the early church dealt with all professors. You accepted the profession unless evidence bore witness that the profession was false. We often don’t know our own hearts. Therefore we can misjudge the heart of another. The author of the epistle did not know the heart of all those he was addressing, therefore he addressed them all as believers. According to outward appearances one may seem genuine, but the truth might be, he or she may be a hypocrite. The point is, we do not always know. And so I think he's warning us here against making quick, rash judgments about other people’s spiritual condition.
Let me say that the writer does believe in the security of the believer. He is not minimizing this blessed truth one iota. But he is warning all to take heed. The believer who read this passage would be stirred to keep running the race of faith. But those who thought they were saved and had not experienced the reality of saving faith perhaps would read this warning and see the signs of unbelief and take heed.
Let me move now in our passage to verses twelve and thirteen. In these verses the writer is giving us an answer against faithlessness. We must remember he's dealing with a church that had defections. Some members had gone back to Judaism because of persecution. The remaining members were confused because men whom they thought to be Christians had renounced Jesus Christ and forsaken them. No doubt we can name such kind of men. Men whom we just knew were Christians. We lament in confusion, “I just knew he was a Christian. I was there when he prayed to receive Christ, and we saw him baptized and he even taught our Sunday School class. But he’s back in the world, living like he used to. I don’t understand.” These dear people, to whom the letter of Hebrews was addressed, were saying, “How could this happen?” The apostle had taught them that a man really saved couldn’t go back on Christ, that he will remain faithful to the end. The apostle is responding and is explaining how one can lose out in the end because of unbelief.
In verse thirteen, he encourages them with the message of body life. The answer against faithlessness in your life is the encouragement of body life. Verse thirteen reads,
But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:13)
In other words, every Christian has to battle to be faithful. Every day is a war with our flesh, with the devil and the world. All three will attack us at the point of being faithful to God. Being encouraged by another Christian is a line of defense for the Christian against faithlessness. The apostle of Hebrews admonishes that we should take every opportunity to encourage one another. In fact, he tells you how often the opportunity should occur, daily. He says, "While it's called today." I wondered why he said it that way, quoting, of course, Psalm chapter five. The answer is because you can't encourage your brother tomorrow. Tomorrow's not here yet. When is the opportunity to encourage a brother and sister? Right now. Right now is when they need it. Don't say, “I'll call them tomorrow.” Don't say, “I'll see them at church Sunday and I'll ask them how they're doing.” The Bible says today.
Brothers and sisters, let me take opportunity again to say to you that one of the dynamic principles that encourages faithfulness is missing in churches. It is true biblical fellowship that encourages each other to stay close to Jesus. Fellowship that occurs in most churches is fellowship with the back of each other’s heads. What do you see of your brother or sister mostly in church? The answer is the back of their heads. There's not much fellowship going on. The early church was a church that gathered in the public places, like the temple, and heard the apostles’ doctrine, but they also broke bread daily from house to house. I know all the reasons given why such won't work in America today. We're too busy. We're too structured. We're too compartmentalized. It is said our culture is not suited for such. May our culture be damned that we might obey God! Every single day that I do not obey this Scripture (it is a command) I have sinned against the living God and my brothers and sisters.
How then can we do this? How do we obey this passage to encourage one another? I do not know that I have all the answers today, but I know God does and we can ask Him. It doesn't mean that you're always in somebody's home, but you have a phone. You can call a brother or sister when the Spirit of the Lord lays him or her on your heart. You can pick up the phone and call them. Some of you are excellent at writing letters and cards. You can sit and write a letter or card today, but do it while it's today.
The encouragement of body life is an answer against faithlessness. The text is of eternal importance, "lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." This type of exhorting is absolutely necessary to the prevention of falling into the trap of sin’s deceitfulness. This truth may make the difference in you, or someone you know, not falling like others who also professed faith in Christ. But you object and say if any man has fallen, then he was never a believer. Yes, but you and I do not know who among us is genuine and who is not. Besides, even if we assume all that profess faith are genuinely saved, they still need encouragement.
I think he's saying two things here to us. First, our encouragement could be the means of saving a brother or sister. For example, since we do not know one another's heart, and though they profess and show to us outwardly that they are converted, they may not be. As they go through difficult times, in the midst of your encouraging them, it might be discovered that they do not have genuine faith. This could result in your sharing the gospel and their believing unto salvation. I have seen this happen before with some folks I have counseled. In this church some of you are saved as a result of something like this. You came to me for encouragement, for hope, for an answer, and in the midst of trying to encourage you, we discovered that there was nothing to encourage. Hope had not been born in your heart by the Spirit. We shared the Gospel with you and you were saved. So this principle of encouragement is eternally important.
Second, encouraging a genuine believer might be the difference in their running the race well or poorly. Friends, I just don't want to run the race and place, I want to run it victoriously. And I am, as I said to you Sunday night, humbled by the thought that I cannot run this race by myself. I used to like track events because it was an individual sport. I didn't have to trust anybody, didn't have to rely on anybody. I could do my best and I often won. If I lost it was because of something I did, and I could work on it. I could hone and sharpen my skills and get better. Brother, the Christian race is not that kind of a race. What pride to think that we could run this race by ourselves, independent of any. Oh, dear friend, it is not possible for this preacher, and it is not possible for you. The difference between running well and running poorly is other brothers and sisters in Christ.
The writer of Hebrews gave his readers so much to sink their teeth into. Not only has he taught these things, but also he's teaching us here, as well, the principle of faithfulness and how faithfulness works. This is all a part of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saint. The doctrine of the perseverance of the saint states, "Only the genuinely saved persevere and only those that persevere are the saved." God has promised to preserve His children, but that does not diminish our responsibility to persevere in faithfulness. The inspired author is not suggesting that a true Christian can lose out with God in the end and go to hell. Verse fourteen makes this very clear,
For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end. (Hebrews 3:14)
Let me ask you a question as you look over those words again. Surely we cannot believe the writer is saying that one can only be a partaker of Christ once he has run the race and finished? In other words, nobody really knows if they're saved until they die and go to heaven, then they know for sure. Is that what he is saying? Is he saying that you cannot be a partaker of Christ until you finish the race? He cannot be meaning this because Peter told us to make our “calling and election sure.” Peter also told us that there was an abundant grace available.
According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that [pertain] unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue. (2 Peter 1:3)
We can know for sure, here and now, that we have partaken of Christ and the divine nature is in us. Look at the words "are made" in verse fourteen of Hebrews chapter three, "For we are made partakers." The Greek word is “ginomai” (pronounced ghin’-om-i) which is also translated "become." In fact, in Matthew chapter eighteen verse three, Jesus said, "Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become . . ." The word “become” is the same Greek word for the words “are made” in Hebrews chapter three and verse fourteen. Now it's also noteworthy that the Greek word which is translated “are made,” or “become” is in the perfect tense which describes an action being viewed as having already been completed in the past, once and for all, not needed to be repeated. The writer is saying that those who are partakers of Christ were “made” partakers in the past. It has already been completed and doesn't need to be done all over again. Thus, we can read this verse to say, “For we have already become partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.” In other words, those who are true partakers of Christ will persevere to the end.
The final test that you really have become a Christian is that you have endured. And only those who are partakers do endure. Therefore, the way you know you've become a partaker is by keeping your confidence steadfast. Those who keep their confidence steadfast to the end have partaken of Christ in the past. This is the inspired author’s meaning. It does not say that a Christian can lose his salvation. It reinforces the truth that those who have genuinely been born again are saved by grace. And not only justified by grace, but sanctified by grace, and finally glorified in heaven by grace.
Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)
This is the reason this passage is of eternal importance. It's extremely important that you keep running because that is the sign you have become a partaker of Christ. If I have partaken of Christ I will hold fast my confession to the end. So then, Jesus' words in John chapter ten and verse twenty-eight are forever true. "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish."
No one should have false assurance because of this. Let me again state it clearly, if your faith is genuine, godly living will occur in your life. Only those that live godly in Christ Jesus are those who have partaken of Christ. Now to those who would argue that I am adding something to justification other than faith, I would deny this accusation. Once again I state that the faith that justifies also elicits obedience. The same faith that justifies is also the same faith that sanctifies. We cannot blur justification and sanctification together as an artist mixes two different colors to get a third color. Yet, we cannot separate justification and sanctification because they are both components of the same salvation. If one has been justified by faith, God has also promised to sanctify that person by the same faith. It is all part and parcel of this glorious salvation we have inherited in Christ Jesus.
Those who are thought to have misunderstood some modern Baptists who use the term, “once saved always saved,” have probably not misunderstood what these Baptists have said. They've seen what we have said with our lives, and they know that the way we live can't be Scriptural. There is no works of God, no fruit of the Spirit, no righteousness, no love of God demonstrated in some of these people running around claiming to be saved. But, dear brother, that doesn't negate the truth that those who are genuinely saved will continue in the faith. They who have partaken of Christ will continue to the end. The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is a very precious one to me for it tells me that He who has begun a good work in me will finish it.
Let me also make sure you understand something else here. To finish the race, or to keep your confidence steadfast to the end, does not mean that you keep repeating your profession of faith. In other words, that all your life you keep telling people you are a believer in Jesus, and you never recant that profession. No, that is not what the writer of Hebrews is stating. The author is talking about maintaining faith “in” Christ.
Israel started well, but they didn't run well or even finish. They left Egypt and they professed to believe in God, but when they got to the wilderness, they were exposed for what was really in their hearts. They never truly trusted God. Listen and be fearful. It is easy to make professions when God is at work around you. Professions of faith are easy to make when your emotions are stirred, but most difficult to endure if you do not have genuine faith. In fact, it is impossible. You cannot live up to the demand of true faith which is heartfelt obedience and faithfulness. And when the test of God comes, that which is not born of the Spirit and energized with heaven’s faith will not survive. Israel could not, and neither will anyone who does not have God’s kind of faith.
Now lastly, faith is the fuel of perseverance. Do you want to persevere? Do you want to run your race well? How do you do it? Well, you need the fuel of faith. Now it's apparent in this passage that whoever the author is, he is dealing with a total and final falling away or departure from God. But on a different note, let me say that there can be a temporary departure from God in the life of a true believer. In fact, unfortunately, there can be many such departures. There are many times when you and I temporarily fall. We stumble, we disobey, and we rebel against God. But there's still faith in our hearts, although very weak and very little. The preacher of our text is addressing the recipients of the grace and love of God, and he is sharing with them the very fuel that perseverance runs on, and that is faith. Faith is the fuel of perseverance. Faith is the key to keep us from falling temporarily or drifting.
We need to understand how a true believer temporarily departs from the living God. Here's what happens. It happens when your faith is low. Weak faith is a low of confidence in God. Weak faith produces a weak dependence upon God. Self-sufficiency takes over and you are more dependent upon yourself than you are upon the Lord God. Faith is nothing more than trusting and relying upon God. Trusting and relying on Him to keep His word to you, and it's produced in you by grace. It is an attitude in our hearts that is persuaded that the Lord knows better than we do what is good and pleasurable for us.
Therefore, faith is a relinquishing of self-sufficiency and a relying upon God's sufficiency. If you've been saved, you have quit relying upon yourself to save yourself. You have trusted wholly upon God's sufficiency to save you. It is no different for the living of the Christian life. It is a continuation of that first moment when you placed trust and reliance upon God. Faith is that work of God in us that causes us to refuse to depend upon ourselves and to become desperately dependent upon God.
However, when your faith is in low supply, self-dependency is higher because you've got to run on fuel. You're going to try to run the race. You're going to try to continue to act like a Christian. You're going to try to put on the smile and say everything is all right. You will continue to say all the right things. But instead of trusting God to live His life through your life, you will trust yourself. Weak faith always means you’re trusting in something or somebody more than you trust the Lord God. You don't study your Bible like you used to because you don't see it as the needed fuel as you once did. You have life under control.
The next step of the progression downward is realized rebellion. When dependency upon God is low, dependency upon Him to know what is best for you is also low. When you are tempted, you trust yourself to know better than God what's good for you, and so you choose to rebel. You say things like, “Well, I know that God will forgive me. After I sin I can just ask for forgiveness.” Dear friends, such thinking is an absolute unbelief in what God has said about sin, His holiness, and about His Son's substitutionary death. It's an act of unbelief, not an act of faith, to toy with sin and say, “If I do this God will forgive me.” You have not heard God's Word and you have not believed it when it said to depart from sin. As a result your sin and attitude becomes more defiant against God.
The third step in your digression will be refusing to believe God's Word about forgiveness. As soon as you sin, the devil will come back to you with condemnation. The very one who tempted you to sin will tell you God’s Word does not mean it when it says God will deal with sin. He will be the very one to accuse your conscience before God. He’s going to try to put up every obstacle for you not to believe God's Word again, but this time not to believe in God for mercy and forgiveness. And this, my friend, is what comprises a fall in the life of a believer.
The protection or security of the believer is the faith of God active in the believer. The more faith you have in Christ, the more desperately dependent you are on Him. The more God's at work in your heart, the more you have to be thankful and to rejoice in Jesus Christ for. The key is not doing more for God. The key is becoming so humble and submitting to God in order that He will work through you, so that what He does through you, you can now rejoice in. This is the work of faith. It feeds our belief in our inadequacy and engenders reliance upon Christ. Christ produces this in the child of God, and faith grows. As faith grows, more of God’s power is revealed, which increases the believer’s rejoicing in Christ. The more the Christian rejoices, the more his or her joy in Christ increases.
When our dependency upon God grows and our dependency upon ourselves diminishes, our joy and experience of God's love increases. Now friends, there are only two ways that the writer of Hebrews gives for that to happen in your life. There are others, but he highlights only two. First, body life, meaning, encouraging one another, and second, by the Word. When a church is encouraging one another with the Word, faith grows in that body. A dependency upon God is fostered and nurtured in that kind of environment. It is a necessity for maturation.
God has spoken to you today and He has showed you exactly where you are in your walk with Christ. Perhaps He has shown your faith to be weak. You have closed your heart to His sufficiency and you have opened it to your own sufficiency. You are relying more on you than you are on Him. Self-sufficiency versus God-sufficiency. Self-dependency versus God-dependency. That’s the battle raging on the inside. I believe God has spoken to you and you know it. Amen. |
