Selfless Faith

In Matthew 13:22, Jesus describes a third type of person when explaining the parable of the sower saying, “now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.”

Another type of people Jesus describes is the type who are in love with the world. They will hear the word of God but also cast their eyes upon the fruits of the world. They know the word of God is living and powerful, but the desires of their heart is focused on themselves. The word of God teaches salvation through Jesus Christ and how we are to follow after Him. Jesus said we must deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Him. To be first, we must be the last and servant of all. However, a lot of us are not willing to take that position. Our pride is too strong. God hates a prideful heart. The world teaches to be proud and arrogant and to be first at everything. At the same time, the proud and arrogant are not liked much. In essence, the world teaches how “not to be liked.” We are to be in this world, but not of this world. There is nothing wrong with having nice things, but the problem arises when nice things have control of us; that hunger to be satisfied by the what the world has to offer. There is only satisfaction in Jesus Christ. Again, let us examine ourselves daily. It has been said we can have too much of Jesus to be happy in the world and too much of the world to be happy in Christ. Jesus said there is NO NEUTRAL GROUNDS and He hates the taste of lukewarm.

   Send article as PDF   

This leads into the next key factor on how to obtain from sin. We have our strength through Jesus Christ. He is our stronghold. He holds us up. He is our salvation. He is the Lord! When we are weak, He makes us strong. When we are scared, He calms our soul. When we doubt, He gives us assurance. My beloved, do you think when Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished,” He meant He was done with everything? Certainly not! He finished the act of reuniting us to God by dying for our sins, sealing our salvation, but He will never leave us nor forsake us. He is with us through His Holy Spirit. He guides our path allowing us to discern what is right from what is wrong. Although sometimes our flesh may rise and get the best of us in our walk with Christ, how great is our God that while the entire world may laugh at us while being down in the mud, face covered with dirt, our faithful Lord is always willing to extend His righteous pierced right hand to life us back up. We will fall down, sometimes very hard, but God always lifts us back up. The word of God is beautiful through its Christ centeredness. The law and the prophets and the entire Old Testament looked forward to Christ and the New Testament after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ looks back to what was done on the cross. Through His endurance on the cross, He sets forward the ability through Him to be able to persevere through any given circumstance. The Lord Jesus Christ said to Paul “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9). The Lord Jesus Christ foretells us of His Holy Spirit.

“If you love Me, keep My commandments.  And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:15-18)

Jesus knew we couldn’t keep the commandments on our own due to our sinful fleshly nature which is always self seeking; so to those who believe in Him, with just faith the size of a mustard seed, we will receive His Holy Spirit and He will develop us, and mature us into who He wants us to be. While all other religions tell us we must do all these things to probably be saved, our relationship with Jesus Christ tells us we ARE saved because we believe in His holy name.

This leads into the final section of this part three our series on enjoy our salvation through, from, and in the Lord Jesus Christ. I truly hope at this point, we are starting to enjoy god’s wonderful mercy and gift to us. However, there is an issue at hand; we must make sure we understand how we have obtained this salvation. Many people believe it is obtained by being good person, others believe it is by keeping the ten commandments, but few know it is ONLY by the grace of God. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves; it is a gift of God.” – Ephesians 2:8. Why is it a gift of God? We will answer that shortly.

First let us examine why we not saved by our good works, good deeds, or just being “good” people. Who is a good person? Our standards are nothing compared to God’s standards. We do not know everything. In fact, we barely know anything compared to the God’s knowledge. We are in no position to call anyone good or righteous by what they do and what we see from an outward expression. We must be concerned with keeping ourselves blameless and righteous before God in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord through His blood on the cross. In all honesty, the only good man to walk the earth is Jesus Christ. He is who makes us good, clean, holy, and a presentable offering before God the Father. Due to our faith in Jesus Christ, we are then able to do good. He is in us and with us to carry us and complete the good work which He has started in us.

“Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” – Phillipians 1:6

   Send article as PDF   

In Matthew 13:20-21, Jesus Christ describes another type of person “but he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.”

There are some people who hear the word of God, they do receive it with great joy, not because they have received salvation through Jesus Christ, but because they heard the promises and provisions God made for His people. These people hear what they want to hear. They want the promises but they are not willing to pay the cost. These are the people who pray to God to bless them and be with them but never opened their hearts to Jesus Christ to come into their hearts to become a new creation. They have absolutely no idea who the Lord is. Jesus said we WILL face tribulations as a child of God; if we are His. We must read His word cover to cover including the pages in between with open hearts to truly know the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, most importantly, we must examine ourselves DAILY to make sure our hearts our inline with God’s heart. Is our faith based on promises and provisions we want from God OR is our faith based, sealed, and confirmed by trusting, believing in, relying upon and holding on to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross for our salvation? Only YOU can answer that question.

   Send article as PDF   

In Matthew 13:19, Jesus begins to explain the parable of the sower, He describes the first group of people saying, “when anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.”

There are some people who hear the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ, yet it has absolutely no effect whatsoever on them. It is like throwing a rock at a brick wall and the rock just falls down to the floor. The devil will quickly take away from someone’s heart the word of God they just received. It is almost as they never heard it at all. When our hearts are hardened, the word of God can easily become meaningless to us, just mere words in a book. We can only pray that the hearts of people in that position become softened and see how vicious the attack of the enemy is. If anyone who is reading this has a heart of stone, we and all of our beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus pray that God softens your heart and you would allow God to take out that heart of stone and place a new heart of flesh filled with the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ!

   Send article as PDF   

In Matthew 13:16-17, Jesus says, “but blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear;  for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

Do you know how blessed we are to have the opportunity to hear the words of Jesus Christ? We have seen His wonders and He speaks daily to our hearts. This opportunity we’ve been given is truly a gift from God by His grace through our faith in Jesus Christ. We are extremely privileged. All the prophets and mighty men of valor who God gave visions, used to accomplish great tasks, and spoke the words to proclaim His word never fully understood what it all meant. They desired to know and make sense of it but regardless of not knowing and completely understanding, they faithfully preached the words God gave them. Now, it has been revealed to us; let us come before the Lord with open eyes, open ears, open minds and most importantly open hearts to believe on Jesus the Christ as Lord. Only through Him can we be presented blameless and unblemished unto God our Father.

   Send article as PDF