God's Breath Publications

THE TRIUNE CALLING OF THE CHRISTIAN

THE TRIUNE CALLING OF THE CHRISTIAN

Part One – Love God

By Michael K. Farrar, O.D.

© God’s Breath Publications

When we are saved from our sins and become a follower of Christ we need to understand that in our service to our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Father wants us to follow our calling. Our calling will be fulfilled as the Holy Spirit, who is given to us as a gift to reside within us at conversion, empowers us accomplish this calling.

Some would say our calling as followers of Christ is to impact society through political and social means by voting, obeying the laws of the land and providing assistance for those in need. While these are activities that responsible Believers should participate in, they are not the main calling that is upon our lives. Others feel that our calling is to attend church, learn about the Bible and worship God every Sunday. While this is also a good practice for the Christian, it is not our main calling. Still others would say that our focus should be that we pray for and practice, signs and wonders, including experiencing encounters with His Spirit. While these can be beneficial at times in the life of a Christian they are not the calling of the Christian. The desire for signs and wonders, as well as spiritual experiences, without the proper basis and wisdom of God’s Word can actually become a distraction or hindrance to the true calling of a Believer.

I believe the call in the life of the follower of Christ is threefold or triune. One part of our calling as a Christian is found in Matthew 22 in verses 36-40. In this passage Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is;

“’Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.’” Matthew goes on to state another aspect of this calling to love God when he writes, “’And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’” Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6:4-6 and Leviticus 19:18 and thus demonstrates His respect for the entirety of God’s Word. He sought to fulfill the Old Testament Law, not do away with it.

The magnitude of this love in this commandment is great because it is not only directed towards God, but also others. The Greek word used for love in this passage is “agape.” This is a deep, self-sacrificial love whereby you love seeking nothing for yourself. Your focus and attention is on the person receiving the love. Your passion and dedication is to serve them with your whole heart, mind and soul. This is the love we are to have for God as a follower of Christ because this is the type of love God has for us. It is also the love Jesus demonstrated when He died for us and the type of love the Holy Spirit empowers us to have for God and others once we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Master. This calling to love God and others is repeated in two other gospels. In Luke 10:25-27 as well as Mark 12:28-31. It is interesting that in Mark, in addition to heart, mind and soul is added the word strength, with which we love God.

Loving God would seem to be a natural response that would come from the experience of receiving forgiveness for all your sins, past, present and future. But often our past experiences and inadequate knowledge of God hinders our ability to know how to love in this “agape” fashion. It is a love we never knew before, a love we never gave before, a love we were never equipped to have before. Burdened by a sin nature, a slave to the sinful flesh within us and our sins of the past, this love is a stranger to us until we are saved. Once the love of God is both experienced and realized when we receive salvation, the training and instruction begins in this calling. The Holy Spirit begins to prompt us in how to respond to our loving Savior, our Heavenly Father and to the Holy Spirit Himself. He begins to reveal the meaning of scripture which tutors us in this calling. The Holy Bible contains numerous examples of how to love in an “agape” fashion. It teaches us in what it means to love in this manner and how the Holy Spirit can empower us to truly love in the way that God loves us.

The training ground for loving God is in the obedience of God’s commands in His Word and this is also the proving ground of our love for Him as well. John the apostle speaks to this truth in 1 John 5:3 where it states;

1 John 5:1-3

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,”

While many people might think obeying commands, even God’s commands, might be burdensome and a hardship, they are not if you truly love the Lord. When you are walking in step with the Spirit of God and loving God with all your heart, mind and soul, the commands and laws of God are a pleasure to live by and it brings you joy to live both in the security and the blessing of His guidelines.

In Matthew 22:36-40 we have a description of how we love God. First we love Him with our whole heart. The word for heart here in the original language stands for the core of a person’s identity. It is the inner self that thinks, feels, and decides. In the Bible the word heart has a much broader meaning than it does to the modern mind. The heart is that which is central to man. While we think today of the heart as the seat of our emotions, the Hebrew thought of it as the thoughts of the mind and a person’s will. Proverbs 4:23 tells us to, “Guard your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life.” Everything comes out of our heart. The heart reflects the feelings of the mind, the thoughts of the intellect which produce the thoughts we think, the words we say as well as the actions we carry out in life. Proverbs 23:7 also reveals that what we think in our heart reveals who we really are. So we are called to love God with the deepest part of our heart, which are the thoughts and feelings that reside within us.

Next we are told to love God with all our soul. The soul relates to our emotion of thought, that which motivates and directs our action. It indicates not only the entire inner nature of man, but also his entire personality. Matthew 26:38 says, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful.” So the soul has emotion but drives actions and thoughts. To love God with all your soul means we are to love Him with all of who we are as a person, our entire being and personality. This means whether we are quiet and reserved, outgoing and gregarious, or intellectual and a thinker we are to love God with all of who we are and how He made us. What a joy it is for God to be loved by each person with their unique soul or personality. What variety He must experience as love is given to Him by extroverts and extroverts who have natural and spiritual gifts that He has given them to express towards Him and others.

Next we are instructed to love God with our entire mind. Mind refers to the thinking capacity within us. What we think is very important to God, especially in how we love Him. He wants our thoughts to be focused on loving Him. This is why it is important that we study His Word so that it can be buried deep within our mind and thought life. It has often been said that most spiritual battles are focused on what we think in our mind. Our mind makes decisions for how we act. It can have a mighty influence over our heart and soul and can turn us from sin and disobedience if we listen to godly guidance that is based on godly thoughts. The mind is a very important part of a balanced Christian life. While emotions and feelings in our heart and soul are important for the spice of life, if we let them rule our lives without the balance of the mind we can run down all sorts of paths of imbalance and distractions. The Corinthian church is a good example of possessing all the spiritual gifts, but their emotions got the best of them and there was great imbalance in the church because of it. Paul wrote not only two letters to the Corinthians but possibly four. These were not just for encouragement, but also for strict accountability because the Christians at Corinth had gotten out of control with their emotional passions, stressing experience over careful godly thinking with a mind focused on God’s Holy Word. As you can see from what has been said before there is a blending of the heart, soul and mind when you attempt to define these aspects or parts of who a person is.

We have another reference related to the passage in Matthew that lists one additional way we can love God. In Mark 12:30 we are told to also love God with “all our strength.” This refers to the degree with which we commit ourselves to love God. We are to put the full force and power of who we are in our heart, mind and soul behind the love we give to our God. We don’t hold anything back. We don’t hesitate to put our entire being into our passionate love for God.

There is another crucial aspect of loving God that is required as proof that we really love Him as we should. Matthew tells us that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves. You can’t say you love God and ignore those around you or harbor hate for them. The minute you are angry towards someone, your love for God has begun to erode. 1 John 4:19-21 verifies this when it says, “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

In Galatians we are given a list of the fruits of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given to us when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord our Savior and dedicate our life to loving God in all we do. When we receive this special gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives He begins the process of not only training us in holiness and encouraging us in living the Christian life, He also manifests characteristics of who He is because He is God living in us. The fruits of the spirit are fruits that will be revealed in our lives as we keep in step with the Holy Spirit in our walk with God. If you notice the order of these fruits, the first is love.

Galatians 5:22-25 states, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”

Love is the foundation from which all the other fruits can be manifested. If we have love for God and others we will have joy in our heart and peace in our mind. Love for God and others will manifest in our actions of kindness and goodness expressed toward them. Loving God and others will be fostered by our faithfulness and self-control. The fruit of gentleness will be a result of our love for God and others because the “agape” selfless love of God will permeate our heart, mind and soul.

John Stott who dedicated his entire life to serving the Lord as theologian, pastor and Christian author stated, “Love is greater than knowledge. Love is greater than faith. Love is greater than religious experience. Love is greater than service.

1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

1 John 4:7-8 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Part Two – Be Holy

I believe the call in the life of the follower of Christ is threefold or triune. One part of our calling as a Christian is found in 1 Peter 1:15-16. This passage states, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

Here Peter is quoting Leviticus 11:44-45 “I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground. I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.” Peter is tying the Old and New Testaments together just as Jesus Christ did in His teachings. God called the nation of Israel to be holy, pure and blameless and He also calls us as followers of Christ to do the same. This is a high calling we have and we must understand what it means to be holy. So let’s begin at the beginning when we first committed our lives to Christ as our Lord and Master.

When we submitted to Christ as the Savior and Lord of our life at our conversion we were justified by faith through grace (Rom. 3:24, Eph. 2:8-9, Titus 3:4-7). Our sins were forgiven (Rom.4:7). We were accepted into God’s family, adopted if you will (Eph. 1:5-6). This is what we know as justification. Justification changes our position before our Heavenly Father. There is no longer a barrier between us and God. Because the debt for sin has been paid we have been declared holy in God’s sight. In other words, God views us as holy from a positional standpoint. We are no longer under God’s judgment because we are now holy from a legal standpoint due to the fact that Jesus paid our debt for sin at the crucifixion. Justification is an instantaneous, external, objective and legal method which allows us to have fellowship with our Heavenly Father. Romans 5:1-2 states,

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”

So we are “positionally” holy by our act of submitting to the lordship of Jesus Christ over our lives and accepting the payment He made for our sins on the cross. But our present condition is not holy. There is growth that still needs to take place in obedience to God’s Word in the way we live, act, think and treat others. Jesus gave us an example to follow and we are to pattern our lives after His so that we can grow in the holiness that is reflected in our present condition. As we seek to obey God and grow in spiritual maturity this process of becoming holy is continually going on and is called sanctification. So we were justified as holy when we are first saved so we can fellowship with God and be part of His family. But we are in the process of becoming holy in our condition through the process of sanctification (2 Peter 1:5-9). It is this process that Peter is alluding to when he shares that God commands us to be holy as He is holy. This process of becoming sanctified is nothing more than becoming more and more like Christ each day as we grow in our faith. This is a cooperative process between God and us. Philippians 2:12 says, “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” This verse tells us to work out our salvation but also states that God is at work in us as well. Therefore we must supply the obedience and God supplies the spiritual transformation. Sanctification is not an event. lt is a process. It is internal, subjective and experiential. While we may be justified holy in our position before God, we are in need of a transformation in our spiritual condition and this takes place the rest of our lives as followers of Christ.

Now you might ask, “When do we become totally holy?” Well that will never happen in our life on this earth. While our position before God is holy because we are a follower of Christ, our condition will always be below the mark until we reach Heaven. That is part of what we look forward to in our future in Heaven. We can expect to live with God in heaven and receive glorified bodies that will never die (1 Cor. 15:52-54, Phil. 3:20-21, 1 John 3:2) and be completely holy in our Heavenly home. This is known as the glorification of the saints. When Christ comes to take us home we will be reunited with all those saints that have gone before us and we will worship our Heavenly Father forever.

So in our Christian lives we have a past when we became justified as holy in God’s eyes and we will have a future where we will be holy and glorified. But, our situation in the present is drastically different. We are not perfect in our spiritual condition and so with the help of the Holy Spirit, God who lives live us, we seek to obey God’s Word following the example of Jesus Christ to become more holy each and every day.

1 John 3:2-3 also speaks of this process of becoming sanctified and eventually glorified.

“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.”

Here the apostle John tells us that right now we are children of God, but what we will be (glorified) is not yet known. But we know when Christ returns we will be like Him (glorified). Because we have this future hope, we now, in the present, seek to obey Jesus and purify ourselves in the process of becoming holy through obedience and service.

Remember the verse from Philippians I shared earlier. This verse helps us understand how to blend our efforts with God’s influence into a combined process of seeking holiness, which is what we call the process of sanctification. Here is the verse again:

“Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

This verse demonstrates the mutual responsibility of both God and us in this process of becoming holy, of becoming sanctified. We need to become what we have been declared to be. While God provides the power we supply the obedience. We are justified and sanctified by faith, but when we are justified we bring nothing to the process. When we are sanctified we do bring something to the process. The phrase “with fear and trembling” was a stock phrase in Paul’s day. It meant to do the addressed task with an attitude of humble dependence. God works in us to develop our holiness as we cooperate with Him through obedience. Without our obedience God cannot bring us to holiness and without Him we cannot achieve it in our own efforts. We might compare this to the process of remodeling an old house. Our spiritual life is like an old house that needs to be remodeled. We can’t remodel our life by ourselves and have any success at it. Only God can provide the expertise and the power to remodel our lives and make them holy. But He can’t do this without our cooperation. He won’t force us to work at being holy, but He does command it and asks us to participate with Him in the process of becoming holy, what is called the process of sanctification.

Obeying God’s commands is not a burdensome task (1 John 5:3) for we do it willingly because we love God so deeply. If we place our love for God over our love for self, then we are anxious to obey His commands and walk in a way that honors our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. We also must understand that we live by God’s grace. He is perfectly patient with us knowing that we will make mistakes at times. We will make choices that will cause us to stumble in our walk with Him, but as long as we seek forgiveness for our failings and sins (1 John 2:1-2) we can know He will forgive us and lift us up to try again. Even if we willingly disobey Him, God is the perfect parent and will discipline us in such a constructive manner that we will seek to return to Him so we can regain our fellowship with Him. This is all part of the process of sanctification, or becoming more and more holy in our spiritual condition.

Here is a summary to illustrate these concepts.

Past – Justification

Positional holiness granted at conversion.

Present – Sanctification

A continual process of becoming more holy in our actual spiritual condition.

Future – Glorification

The heavenly blessing of becoming holy as Christ.

Our calling to be “holy as God is holy” existed not only before we were born, but even before the world was created! Ephesians 1:3-4 states, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” How amazing is that! So let us as followers of Christ seek to give thanks for our justified holy position before God, pursue, through obedience, becoming more holy in the process of sanctification and look forward to the blessing of our glorification in heaven. Let us live up to the calling to be holy as God is holy. May we seek this task with the understanding that God will work in and through us as we become willing vessels for Him to use and conform to the image of Christ.

“You can’t get holy in a hurry — but you start taking steps in that direction right away. Beg God, “Put within me some holy motivation.” Malcom Cronk

“Sow a thought. Reap an action.

Sow an action. Reap a habit.

Sow a habit. Reap a character.

Sow a character. Reap a destiny.”

Hebrews 12:14

“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.”

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”

Hebrews 13:20-21

“May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

Part Three – Make Disciples

I believe the call in the life of the follower of Christ is threefold or triune. One part of our calling as a Christian is found in Matthew 28 in verses 16-20. In this passage Jesus gives His final command before ascending to Heaven;

Matthew 28:16-20

“Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Here we see what takes place during the last few moments of Jesus’ life on the earth. He instructed His disciples to go to a specific mountain to witness this event. They did not know what was to take place, but Jesus knew He was to ascend back to Heaven to wait the time for His return to the earth.

I believe the commands He gives at this time are the main calling we have as followers of Jesus Christ. As I have mentioned in previous parts to this series, our calling as believers is to “love God with all our heart, mind and soul” as well as to “be holy as God is holy,” but this last part of our calling is the most critical. This is the last command, the final statement of direction Jesus gives His disciples before leaving. It is crucial that they understand this last order for upon it rests the destiny of many men and women. When you are leaving for a long time and wish to communicate critical information that will impact the lives of people you care about, you are concise and to the point. Yes Jesus wants us to read the Word, obey His commandments, minister to the those in need, love God with all our heart, mind and soul as well as be holy as our Heavenly Father is holy, but most importantly, He wants us to make disciples and teach them in the ways of Jesus Christ.

Jesus knew that the focus of our Christian lives should not be hording the truth to ourselves while creating Christian “clicks,” “clubs,” or “social networks” that exclude non-Christians. We are to be around and about in the world mixing with those who don’t know Jesus so we can introduce them to who He is and His purpose for coming to earth. Those we come in contact with need to know that Jesus came to set people free from their sin. If people don’t know Jesus as their Savior, they can’t love God adequately. They can’t even begin to seek holiness. They can’t know God as their Heavenly Father. They can’t understand scripture so they can know how to properly obey God’s commands. They can’t experience the Holy Spirit living within them. But all of these are available if a person accepts Christ as their Savior. But they can’t accept Him if they don’t know about Him and that is our ministry, responsibility and calling as followers of Christ. Jesus knew this and that is why He gave this most important command.

Jesus often spoke of the need to make disciples and share the gospel. This was one of the main reasons He chose His disciples. Mark 3:13-15 states, “Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve, designating them apostles that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach,”

After Jesus ascension to Heaven we see the disciples traveling all over the known world sharing the gospel. Paul, Barnabas, Silas, John, Peter, John Mark and others made extensive trips to numerous towns and countries so that the gospel message would spread and people receive salvation. They were following the instructions of Christ, the main focus of His reason to come to the earth to save people from their sins. But unless people hear about the gospel they don’t have the choice of accepting Him as their Savior. Romans 10:14-15 speaks to this when it says, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

The purpose of their ministry was to prepare people for their opportunity for becoming part of the kingdom of heaven by accepting Christ as the Messiah and as their Lord and Savior. When Jesus would later die and rise from the grave, they could enter the kingdom of heaven by accepting Him as their Lord and Savior. Jesus wanted to prepare their hearts, minds and souls for this opportunity. The soil of their spirit had to be prepared for the sowing of the seed so that it could be received and accepted then it could take root and grow through a commitment to Him as Lord and Master.

God’s desire for a relationship with men and women was fulfilled by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Jesus was God in the flesh living as a man to die as a living holy sacrifice for sin. This is the gospel that Jesus taught and lived. This is the good news that Jesus wanted the disciples to share with others and we have this same responsibility.

Many verses speak of Jesus’ passion to share His gospel and the need for us to as well. In Matthew 9:35-38 it says, “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’” Here we see that the gospel must be spread by workers who share the gospel with others. We are the workers as followers of Christ. The vast numbers of friends, relatives and neighbors who have not accepted Christ as Lord are the harvest. We are the workers that must go out to love people and share the good news of salvation.

The disciples set the example of sharing the gospel in whatever town they lived or traveled to. Luke 9:6 states, “So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.” And Acts 8:40 says, “Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.”

Paul gives us a model for the degree of passion and concern we should have for those who have not committed their lives to Christ. In Acts 20:24 he states, “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me — the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”

We should confidently share the gospel with people we come in contact with because there is power in it. The gospel can save the souls of people and give them eternal life. Romans 1:16-17 verifies this when it says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

We should not be afraid to share the gospel even if we feel we are inadequate to share our faith for it is not how or what we say, it is the power in the message that saves souls. The Holy Spirit is the one that ministers and convicts and He can use the weakest most humble words to move someone to accept Christ as their savior. 1 Corinthians 1:17-19 states, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel — not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” And 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5 tells us, “For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.”

Paul spoke of how tenacious he was to share the gospel. He attempted to relate to anyone anywhere in order that he might share the gospel of Christ with them. 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 illustrates this when it says, “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” This does not mean Paul pretended to be someone he was not or was untruthful about who he was. It means Paul sought to relate to the person he was speaking to, to make it possible for him to share God’s truth with them. When we desire to share the gospel of salvation we must first get to know the person we are talking to. We ask questions to reveal their needs, their past, the troubles they face, the thoughts and feelings that bother them so that we can share how the gospel not only relates to these issues, but can bring insight, freedom and answers to their questions. The gospel is relevant to the needs of people because all people sin and the only answer to sin is salvation from them through Christ.

Because many people know about Jesus and are aware to some degree of His ministry we assume they know what they should do to be saved. But often they do not. They are often misinformed or deceived as to what the gospel of Christ truly is. It many instances the gospel is hidden from them as it speaks about in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” That is our job to share the message of Christ and pray that their eyes are opened and hearts are receptive to receiving Christ as Savior and Lord.

So seek to love God with all your heart, mind and soul. Be diligent at obeying God’s commands in order to be holy as God is holy. But especially desire to share the love of Christ with others so that they might be saved from their sins. Everyone will spend eternity somewhere and it is critical that people know that eternity in Heaven is only provided through Jesus. Once this ministry of evangelism is complete Christ will return. Matthew 24:14 “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Encouraging Christians In their faith In Christ, sharing the gospel with those without Him.

Home

THE TRIUNE CALLING OF THE CHRISTIAN

HOMILIES BY TOPIC