Salvation
If you have not accepted the salvation only through Jesus Christ,
Maybe you don’t know who He is, maybe you think you do
but don’t think this concerns you.
Guard your heart, renew your mind, for under the sun, there is nothing new,
Proclaimed throughout the ages and retold now,
so that on judgment day you need not be ashamed or stand surprised.
In the beginning, back when God created everything,
It was good, all creation, and the man was king.
God warned man about disobedience and the sin that follows,
But the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
This fall led to the flood of Noah and later to the tower of Babel,
Where God delegated His care for nations, and instead chose Israel.
The devil influenced man to more evil, leading to Sodom and Gomorrah,
Finally, to understand sin and His standards, God gave us the Torah.
To restore all things, God gave His only begotten Son, Jesus the Messiah.
On the cross, for our sin, Jesus Christ died, rising again on the third day.
He fulfilled all Law’s obligations and reconciled us to God, our Father.
Return He will, to judge, renew, and to hand the Kingdom over to God, His Father.
In a heartbeat, this is what I preach, in a nutshell, this is what I teach.
The song remains the same, that to your ears must this good news reach.
That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
To understand His love, the peace He alone can give, our Lord Jesus calls us to know the path that He has paved.
As the Holy Spirit guides us to realize what is true,
I explain God’s grace through the Holy Bible; His plan to make our lives new.
Awareness of who we truly are
Just because we know a lot about God, doesn’t mean we know him intimately.
Just because we know a lot about the heart, that doesn’t mean we know ourselves fully, in some cases, at all.
- God will never advance your instructions beyond your last act of disobedience.
- New year resolutions, (self) will power?
- Things we know we must do
- Train our children… Love the world or the Lord
- When we fail, yet pretend all is well, duplicity in our hearts
- This divide is not healthy for us or to those around us
- We might fail, but we never give up.
- Failure is an event, it happened, but that does not mean that we are failures.
- Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
- Psalm 138:8 The LORD will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O LORD, endures forever; Do not forsake the works of Your hands.
We trust in God
- For the truth from His word that sets us free
- For His divine intervention in our lives
- To surround us with a community that supports and depend on the word of God
That way we know that we get the right counsel
- That way we know that we are not alone in this struggle,
- that we should never isolate ourselves.
The right relationship with God
Knowledge of who we are truthfully is necessary for a right relationship with our Father in Heaven.
The knowledge of our true self-identity is found in our awareness of the heart.
- The deepest sense of ‘heart’ is the genuine, the authentic man
- Man is made up of many layers.
- He who penetrates into the deepest layer of the heart comes to know himself thoroughly.
This same concept of heart carries over into the New Testament.
Now the knowledge of our self is part of the double knowledge that is vital to spiritual growth. John Calvin said
- “Without the knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.”
- “Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self.”
To acknowledge that the deep hidden person of the heart is our true identity is thus vital for our relationship with God.
Knowing that God has intimate knowledge of every thought and motive of our heart, we should be willing to walk openly and honestly before him.
- Psalm 51:6 Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.
Trying to hide something from God is not only futile, but foolish.
- Psalm 69:5 O God, You know my foolishness; And my sins are not hidden from You.
- The prophet Isaiah ha d a vision of God and declared, “I am ruined! … I am a man of unclean lips”,
- Isaiah 6:5 So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.”
- It is only as we come to know God that we clearly see ourselves.
- Psalm 26:2 Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; Try my mind and my heart.
Without an awareness of our spiritual flaws, we would never seek God but just gladly or perhaps sadly remain as we are.
The reality of God’s love for us
God’s intimate awareness of who we really are should also overwhelm us with the reality of his love.
- He knows everything about us.
- Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
- Psalm 69:5 my sins are not hidden from You
- Romans 5:5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spiritwho was given to us.
God, our Father in heaven, continues to love us with an infinite love and graciously works to transform our hearts so we might receive more and more of the life for which we were designed to live as guided by the Holy Spirit.
- Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Summary
Know the real you,
- Right relationship with God
- God will never advance your instructions beyond your last act of disobedience.
- The reality of God’s love for us
- Our relationships with other people
Double knowledge,
- Without knowledge of self-there is no knowledge of God.
- Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self.”
- Without an awareness of our spiritual problems, we would never seek God but just gladly or perhaps sadly remain as we are.
Identify the most important thing that you’re struggling with, that you need prayer for.
- This is not a prayer request for another person or an event, but what you personally need victory over.
- For example, I want my weight to be a healthy 70 kilograms.
God’s intimate awareness of who we really are should highlight the reality of his love.
- We trust in God for His divine intervention in our lives
- To surround us with a community that supports and depend on the word of God.
- We are not alone
- We should never isolate ourselves,
- Word of wisdom and the word of knowledge through the Holy Spirit,
- We need to get the right counsel from God.
Hemet of salvation
- Psalm 57:3 He shall send from heaven and save me; He reproaches the one who would swallow me up. Selah God shall send forth His mercy and His truth.
- John 3:16–17 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.