The Progression of Faith
Faith is the first requirement:
You are saved through faith, (your faith in what God has said about salvation and His Grace is necessary for this).
Without faith it is impossible to please Him, (It requires faith in who He is and what He says has, is and will do for you).
You must also believe in His perfect Love for you and that He will do what He says.
If you Believe about what He said about Himself is true then you will make Him your God.
You will do three things:
Pursue holiness (rejecting all Satan suggest you do).
Be a good steward of all He gives you to look after Him:
People (including yourself),
Possessions,
Finances,
His work for you.
You will try to have the same attitudes He has to everything you encounter.
You will also learn all you can about Him and His requirements of you.
You will be thankful for all that happens to you no matter how bad it may seem because you God is in charge of it and promises to provide all you need if you wholeheartedly serve Him and that includes the experiences you need to get to heaven.
Any unbalance in your Christian life means one of these items is not in place.
Salvation is a relationship
Salvation is a relationship. So how do you know you have a salvation relationship?
How do you maintain a relationship?
You spend time with each other.
You tell each other personal things you would not normally share with people.
You encourage and help each other.
You enjoy being in their presence.
You defend your friend and speak only good of them.
You learn about them so you can relate to them better
Whatever you do will be best for both of you..
This is how you should relate to your best friend, God! And this is how you will relate to God is you have a salvation relationship.
The Holy Spirit is sent to help us and guide us in this.
Like little children
Jesus said:
“Unless you stop thinking like adults and have the same attitudes as little children do you will not enter The Kingdom of God!” Matthew 18:3.
So what did Jesus mean?
The first thing to ask is what attitudes do little children originally have before they are taught otherwise?
They trust people who have authority over them.
They take things at face value and what people say as being true.
They are eager to learn and try out new things.
They respond to love and give it unconditionally.
They desire to please (serve) without thought or any reward for doing it.
They rely on people in authority for all their needs. (physical, mental, spiritual emotional).
They rely on people in authority to teach them life skills and relational skills.
We are adopted children of The Father, so how should these attitudes be shown in us?
In Matthew 6:33, God promises to provide all our needs and in John 16:13, God promises to show us all the truth we need to know about things: both spiritual and physical.
They trust people who have authority over them.
We must trust The Father completely in all He does for us and to us otherwise we will have fear in the relationship and it will not be as it should.
We need to believe Romans 8:28 that all God does for us is for our best otherwise we are calling God a liar saying something He does not mean.
They take things at face value and what people say as being true.
We must trust what Jesus said and not try to read things into it or find ‘hidden’ wisdom or mysteries or add to it in the believe God has not told us everything and we need to find these out for ourselves.
If we do not accept what Jesus said as being truth then we call Him a liar.
They are eager to learn and try out new things.
Fear stops you learning and doing anything new God desires you to do so fear stops you from growing in your spiritual life or allowing God to take you into new adventures in your Christian life.
They respond to love and give it unconditionally.
Or primary attitude should be love for The Father, Jesus and The Holy Spirit and this will be reflected in love for others.
There is no fear in love so fear stops you loving others as you should in the way God desires you to relate to them.
You may not like what they do but that should not stop you loving them as someone your Father in heaven created and loves.
So for His sake you should love others and serve them as He loves and serves them and you.
They desire to please (serve) without thought or any reward for doing this.
IF you Love God and appreciate what He has done for you, then you will serve Him and show this in your love for others as you have the attitude required to do this – His Quality of Love for them.
You will show His quality of love to others and tell others what He has done for you and can do for them because you love Him so much you want to tell others about Him and what He has done for you and can do for them.
They rely on people in authority for all their needs (physical, mental, spiritual emotional).
We must rely on God to teach us through The Holy Spirit and to bring to us people to help us in our Christian life who show by their lifestyle they are worthy of being listened too.
We follow God because He is worthy of being followed and so we should find teachers who are worthy of being listened too and not just because they have something ‘new’ or appear to be spiritual in what they do.
‘New’ is different to restoration and usually implies a ‘new knowledge’ not previously in the church and because of this should be carefully evaluated against scripture.
If we do not trust God when He said He would provide all we need if we served Him with our whole heart then we are saying He lied in Matthew 6:33.
They rely on people in authority to teach them life skills and relational skills.
We can learn values on how to live from what God teaches how we should live in His Bible.
So we should be studying The Bible to see how God desires us to do things and accept them at face values.
He also gives us His Holy spirit to guide us in this and if we do not listen to The Holy Spirit in our daily life God says we are not a child of His, (Romans 8:14).
In Summary
It all gets back to knowing what God desires you to do and then just doing it, trusting Him for the consequences.
It means to accept what The Bible teaches as truth and not try to explain it in a way people can accept but which modifies or distorts it truths
It needs the attitudes of a child to be able to do these things and not that of a mature adult of the world who reasons things out and believes they know what is needed for living each day without the need to consult God in all they do.
“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you,” Matthew 6:33.
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God,” Romans 8:14.
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose,” Romans 8:28.
~ Through Neville Salvetti
Neville Salvetti is a deliverance minister and can be contacted via The Web Pages of Neville Salvetti and at: salvettina@bigpond.com if you desire deliverance or to know how to do it.
Neville have been told to preach three things:
♥ Deliverance ♥ How to Hear The Holy Spirit ♥ How to fight Satan
This is the need of the hour as it demonstrates The Kingdom of God, which is what attracts people to Jesus.
Halleluyah!