Category: Today’s Truth

“For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing,” James 1:3-4 states. The testing of our faith is not something we necessarily want. It is usually not pretty and requires some brokenness to take place. However, as these verses state, testing is needed for growth for the Christian.

Just as a child grows every year, a Christian must grow in their faith. They must not stay where they began, but must grow everyday. The testing of faith is what brings about the most growth. When you are tested, you will give your endurance a chance to grow. This verse says that when your endurance is fully developed, your faith will be perfect and complete. Look at a child and how they develop vocabulary. As a young child, they know very little language, but as they have more experiences, they grow and learn. If once they were adults, they only stayed at a young vocabulary stage, they would not be able to do most of the things that adults do. The Christian life is the same way. If we do not allow our experiences to grow and change us, then we stay at the same faith we had when we first came to know Christ and never change.

Trials and tribulations are necessary for growth. It is in those times that we depend on the Lord and grow closer to Him. May the testing of your faith bring about growth in your faith and the joy to see you through.

James 1:2 tells us, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.” We can have joy if we are in trouble? This sounds impossible when the days seem to crash in around you. It is impossible without God. There is no joy anywhere but Him. If you try to live without God and His promises, you will only find emptiness. He is the only one who can fulfill. He brings life, He breathes life, and revives the weary soul.

Joy can be found in Him because He sees every moment. He knows what comes before and what comes after. He is the keeper of the days, so He can be trusted. Psalm 139:16 says, “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” He knows our days, so we can trust Him.

We can have joy in the midst of sorrow because we know the author of the story. He works for our good, as Romans 8:28 says. That doesn’t mean that we will only know good things. Instead it means that He will be the good in the midst of everything that is not.

In the Old Testament, the Priest was responsible for sacrificing animals for the people’s sins. When Jesus died on the cross, He took on those sins eliminating the need for sacrifices from the people anymore. As 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” He was the perfect sacrifice, unblemished and clean. His sacrifice would mean hope for the world. It would mean no more sacrifices. The world would have a choice to make. Accept the sacrifice of Christ and God’s forgiveness of sins, and inherit a life of joy with God on earth and eternal life with Him in heaven. Anyone who chooses His perfect sacrifice, the free gift of salvation, is made right with God.

Everyone in this world has a choice to make. Romans 3:23 tells us that we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of Christ. No one is righteous. Everyone is in need of a Savior. Evaluate your own life and if you have accepted this great gift. Then, spend some time in prayer for the people you know and love. Pray for their salvation. Call them each by name before. The Lord, pleading on their behalf. Ask Him to send you into the world to carry the message. Pray and seek His face today.

We are God’s message bearers. We carry the greatest gift and message known to mankind: the gift of salvation. 2 Corinthians 5:19-20 calls us His ambassadors, “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

God’s message is a powerful message we need to share with the world: He has reconciled man to Himself and because of the death of Jesus on the cross, He no longer counts the sins of man against Him! This is such good news for man! We must share this with the world. However, in order for man to accept this message, he must understand what sin is and that sin separates us from God. This is hard for man to understand. We must share the urgency of this message, but also the beauty of it, knowing that God, in all of His love for mankind, gave up His beloved Son so that we might live with Him in eternity.

He has made us ambassadors, ready to share the message with the dying world, pleading with them to come back to God. We have such a great privilege and pleasure carrying this great message.

Salvation is a gift from God for the purpose of bringing us back to himself through Christ (“And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him” 2 Corinthians 5:18). God’s first act of reconciliation was through Jesus Christ. He brought His Son into the world to save the souls of man and reconcile man to God.

The second act of reconciliation is through God’s people: believers. He wants us to reconcile others to Him. Our job is to share the hope of His salvation with the people around us, our community, our nation, and to the ends of the earth. We can do this locally by sharing about what He has done in our lives with the people around us. We can get involved in mission trips both within our nation and globally. If that is not something you can do, then you can participate by giving and praying for those on mission.

Work to reconcile others to Him out of the love you have for God. He has reconciled you so that you may spread His great love to others.

2 Corinthians 5:17 is one of the best promises in the Christian life! “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” When someone comes to know Christ they are completely made new; the old is gone and the new has come!

Has there ever been anything you wanted to redo? Maybe you said something or did something to someone and you regret it. Maybe you lived in sin. Jesus came to give us new life and restoration. We get a new start. It is not very often in this life that we get to redo something, yet, when we accepted the gift of salvation, that is what God did, He gave us new life.

Your new life should not have the characteristics of your old life, but instead you should look like a new person. This is not necessarily something that happens overnight, but with time. God is constantly changing us into the person He wants us to be. Spend time in prayer today and ask God to continue to make you new.

As Christians, it is not our job to judge others. We are to live as Jesus lived, yet we are not to judge those around us. 2 Corinthians 5:16 says, “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!”

Before you knew Christ, you only had head knowledge about Him. You only knew what you could understand and nothing more. You saw Him through human, fleshly eyes. When you came to know the salvation of Christ, you began to see Him differently. Now, you saw Him through the Father’s eyes, spiritual eyes. You saw Him as Savior and Lord.

We must see others through the same eyes that we see Jesus. They are the creation of God, after all. We are not meant to judge them or evaluate their lives. We are meant to show them the same grace and mercy that Christ shows them. Isn’t that how we want others to view us as well?

Christ’s death and resurrection was for every person on this earth: past, present, and future. This does not mean that every person will accept Him, but He died for all. There is no discrimination against anyone. However, as it says in 2 Corinthians 5:15, we must receive this new life and live for Him (“He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them”).

Since you have received His great gift of salvation, you are free to live for Him. He died for you so that you will live for Him instead of yourselves. What does that look like? It means spending time with Him everyday in prayer and study of His Word. It means joining together with other believers in fellowship and worship. It means sharing the gospel with those around you so they will experience new life.

A new life looks different than the old life. If you are a new believer, then you are a new creation with a new life. Your old life cannot look similar to your old life. Instead, it must be transformed.

What drives you in your relationships with others? Is it common interests? Is it your history with them? What about love? Are your relationships grounded in love? Everything we do in this Christian life should be grounded in love. The relationships we have with others and the way we act toward them should scream love. We need to allow God’s love to control us as it says in 2 Corinthians 5:14, “Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.”

Christ’s love for us should be the driving force behind everything we do. It should be the reason we share Jesus with those we love. It should be the reason we serve others. As 1 Corinthians 13:3 states, “If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.” Love is the motivation for the Christian. If you try and serve others but do not have love, then your service means nothing to the Lord.

1 Corinthians 13 ends by saying, “Three things will last forever-faith, hope, and love-and the greatest of these is love.” Love is what binds everything together. It is the greatest of all other qualities. God’s love covers all else.

2 Corinthians 5:11 says that “Because we understand our fearful responsibility to the Lord, we work hard to persuade others. God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this, too.” Our mission as Christians should be to persuade others to come to know the saving grace of Jesus.

The word persuade means to prevail on (a person) to do something, as by advising or urging according to Dictionary.com. When we witness to others, we should do so in such a way as to advise them or urge them. There has to be a sense of urgency when we talk to others. We have to see them in light of eternity: saved or not saved. If those we love are not saved, then we have to have a sense of urgency for their salvation.

Who do you long to see saved? Do you have family or friends who need to know Jesus as Lord and Savior? Do you have a sense of urgency for them? Pray and ask God today to give you a longing for others’ salvation.