(Series: Who Are You?)
by Pastor Darryl Woodson
1st John 4:16_And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
Becoming love in every area of our lives is of great essence and more so in evangelism, witnessing to unbelievers and sharing our faith. As concerning evangelism, living and abiding in love means always being ready to witness and not only as a time-tabled affair.
It also means that we live out of who God has made us and not what we want to make ourselves. And the beginning of this lifestyle is that we know who God is and thus we know who we are, because we are made in His image. If we do not know who we are, we do not know what our work of love is. Let us abide in God.
It is common knowledge that our old nature suggests that we do good to get good and do good to get rid of the bad around us. On the other hand, our new nature is that we are born of the Spirit of Love (of God) so goodness flows from this new nature and all around to affect the situations around us.
Galatians 5:24_And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Thinking that positive thoughts are effective and make our lives easier is of the old nature and is unproductive in the spirit. Usually, positive thoughts are for self, but when we get free from ourselves (no longer a slave), from what we think we deserve and live only and purely for the cause of Christ; we get free from every person around us and what they think of us.
Galatians 4:6-7_6And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” 7Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
2nd Corinthians 5:17-19_17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.18Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
James 1:25_25But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
We shouldn’t allow our past to shape our lives and future. We are commanded to continue in the ministry of reconciliation because we who have been redeemed are not trying to be something, but are who we were meant to be.
- Our destiny – to bless others with the Truth (Discipleship)
Matthew 5:16_16Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
James 2:14_What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?
The conception that we will be happy when we receive something from someone is a deception. We are to be happy now, today, rejoicing in the Lord and tomorrow is assured by God! Happiness before the physical realisation of what we hope for is a work in itself of the hope we have.