Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
Our proper adjustments to the justice of God in time are critical to our success at the judgment seat of Christ. As we grow in the grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ we afford God the opportunity to mature us spiritually. This growth process involves our individual responsibility of thinking through the doctrines we are taught. It involves us adjusting to the just standards of God. As our former pastor-teacher, Dr. Richard Frampton, said often, “if we do not adjust to the justice of God, the justice of God will adjust to us.” If you do not believe this statement then you are already doing your own thing. God will show you that he is not asleep.
The spiritual growth process involves us understanding God through studying his word, not merely as an academic exercise, but a real connection between our soul and our Lord. Spiritual knowledge and the leadership of the Holy Spirit are our daily link to God, not our activities or our feelings. Prov.23:7a says, ..."For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he...", thus what we think is what we are. I Cor.2:16 tells us the word of God is the mind of Christ, and Paul tells us in Phil.2:5 “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”
When the mind of Christ; which is the word of God, becomes the motivator to our thinking, and that thinking is mixed with our free will and the providence of God then we honor God. As we think properly, we respond to the Holy Spirit’s leadership in our works. If Jesus Christ is important to us then what he thinks has to be important to us. Obviously none of us will have honored the Lord as we should have all of our Christian life. We all have gone our own way at times where we have allowed our free will to serve the old sin nature in some form or fashion. But the big question will be: What has summarized your practice in life? What has predominated your life?
James 1:25 “But whosoever looketh [aor.active participle] into the perfect law of liberty [freedom in grace], and continues in it [aorist middle participle], he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed [future active indicative] in his deed.” Freedom in grace doesn’t mean the child of God can live in sin if he wants. This is not freedom, this bondage to sin. Freedom in grace means the child of God is free to abound in the blessings of God without worry or guilt or sin.
The successful believers at the judgment seat of Christ...
1. will be the believers who have honored the Lord as a habit of life.
2. have not practiced a lifestyle of submitting to the dictates of the old sin nature
3. have not participated in the resistance movement of the cosmic system. The cosmic system has a nasty disposition toward the word of God. It is a system that lowers the honor of God and exalts the feebleness of Satan and mankind in both the unbeliever and the negative believer.
Have you been overall positive to the word of God or overall negative. Have you been ambivalent toward the word of God? How far along in the Christian life has your positive will toward God carried you?
Did you give up when you had tough decisions to make regarding living an honorable life unto the Lord?
Have you cracked the spiritual maturity barrier whereby you ...
1. are grace oriented because you have chosen to obey the Lord and you know your place as a servant of God, not self. You’re learning the basics and moving forward.
2. have the mastery over the details of life where God is your number one priority, not people, circumstances or possessions. You have not allowed your circumstances to dictate your faithfulness unto the Lord? The details of life and your interaction with people have not distracted you from faithfully absorbing, under command of the Lord, his word?
3. have a relaxed mental attitude of virtue love where mental attitude sins do not cloud your judgment and spoil your witness for the Lord.
4. have virtue love whereby the character of Christ shines through with everyone you meet. This love puts others ahead of you. It is not touchy, or easily offended. It does not keep score on others. It is not boastful. It does not seek nor receive satisfaction at the hurt of others. It is not selfish.
5. share in the happiness of God and exude spiritual nobility befitting of the son of a king.
Since all of these questions will be important at that day when we stand and give account to Him then they certainly are of paramount importance now. None of us will have an acceptable excuse for not reaching spiritual maturity, or being highly decorated for valiant service on that day because we all have the grace assets needed to be honorable for God.
There is no reason we should not get the well done on that day. We all have equal opportunity to be outstanding ambassadors for Jesus Christ, both privately and publicly.
You may ask how am I an ambassador for Christ privately? The answer is you are being observed by powers and principalities just as Job was.
The sooner we acknowledge this fact the sooner we get past ourselves and on the band wagon to spiritual maturity. The clock is ticking.
Growing in the grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ may be trying at times. It may be repetitious, but that’s what it takes to develop divine instincts. If you grow weary in growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ you will not grow at all. Just as God perseveres with patience and long suffering on our behalf, so must we persevere in his will for our lives. We must process Bible doctrine from gnosis, which is academic learned truth, II Pet.3:18. Then we must take the time to meditate on it and allow it to be understood whereby it becomes epignosis knowledge, a higher spiritual knowledge and understanding of God’s will. Next we must stay in fellowship with the Lord, and by so doing the Holy Spirit leads us. When we are tested we then are in a spiritual condition to readily apply the truth we have stored in our hearts. This must become a consistent exercise in our daily lives. You and I do not scale the cliffs to spiritual maturity in a single bound or in giant leaps. We must pick our way inch by inch as we learn God’s word precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little. We must trust him for our footing and our grip. Our position is safe in Christ, but our practice takes due diligence. We must pay attention to how we are thinking at all times.