Whatever you are thankful for in your life multiplies.
I remember one day I was very discouraged and realized that I was discouraged because I was focusing on negative things and wasn’t thankful. As soon as I began to thank God for the blessings in my life I immediately received strength.
The Bible teaches that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Thus, it is imperative that God’s people learn how to cultivate faith in their daily walk. It is also imperative that those who are not yet in the Body of Christ have the opportunity to experience faith for salvation.
After Pentecost (Acts 3 and later), Christ-followers were first involved in something called “the Way” (Acts 24:22). After the gospel progressed to the non-Jewish world with the planting of the church in Antioch, the world called Christ-followers “Christians” because they were made up of both Jews and Gentiles who exhibited a radical devotion to be like Christ (Acts 11:26).
Often, many people view the resurrection of Christ merely as a historical event that supplies us with Christian doctrine without understanding the vast implications it has for believers. The following points will attempt to make the implications of the resurrection of Christ much more real and practical to us.
Since my connection to Christ in 1978, I have observed many models or concepts people have regarding how they connect to the body of Christ. The following are some of the popular concepts I have observed regarding how believers define the church for themselves.
The Protestant Reformation correctly brought the Scriptures back into the hands and vernacular of the common people. Because of this, those who did not understand the Latin version (the Latin Vulgate translated in the 4th century by St. Jerome) could read Scripture in the common tongue (the King James Version of 1611). Thus, the pendulum swung from one extreme to another: from professional clerics interpreting the word for the people to individuals with no theological training interpreting the word without the church’s hermeneutical aid.
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Because all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we all sin and we all need second and third chances ad infinitum!
In this day and age, gifts and personality seem to be of premier importance in the Evangelical church. Many are building their ministries on the aura of gifted people with the manifestation of persona overshadowing the presence of God! All this, in spite of numerous biblical passages telling us that God opposes the proud and unbroken, and lifts up the lowly (see Isaiah 57 and Psalm 138:6).
Did you ever get caught up with something that irritated you that it almost made you miss something else very important in your life? Sometimes we allow a thing to inconvenience us and become such a major source of annoyance that we lose focus on the bigger picture of life and what we are called to do.
