THE AUDACITY OF HOPE

Adversity allows us the opportunity to demonstrate our trust in our Savior at the most difficult times, shining brightly in the face of Bad, knowing our Lord is in control. In this sense the Speed-Bumps on the road to eternal life are whetting stones that sharpen and increase our faith. The final outcome of any confrontation with the powers of darkness be it physical, financial, emotional or relational is much less significant than the faith attitude held during the journey, for faith must be tested to become a personal possession: The journey of faith allows the Holy Spirit to surgically trim away all the offensive callus around our heart, all that hinders the free flowing of the Spirit’s Fruit... Love... Joy... Peace, into the world’s darkness. God has His Threshing Floors strategically placed along The Way to sift the Self-Life out leaving only the Christ-Life. Speed-Bumps on the Threshing Floor of life slow us down and draw us God-ward... setting our mind on things above. In adversity we reckon and esteem our Joy...

The strength of faith is its audacity to hope, giving sustaining evidence of the unseen reality of God. It takes more faith to live undefeated in the face of death, never doubting God, than it does to be healed or delivered from death’s clutches. It is this 'If I perish, I perish", this “Though He slay me I will trust Him" attitude of the heart that totally defeats satan, regardless of the physical outcome. When we refuse to deny God our trust during the onslaught of Bad, disregarding the on-going demand of enduring and the physical outcome, we demonstrate great faith and we hand satan the ultimate defeat, demonstrating faith greater than any fear. Remember: Our Lord has All Power, All Authority, All Rule and All Dominion in heaven and earth, and has destroyed the sting of death. The enemy’s doom is sealed as sure as our glory is assured... for satan’s greatest weapon is our fear. And fear is its own punishment, for it deprives us of God’s peace and gives “place”, a toe-hold in the fallow ground of our heart, for the enemy to access. We hand satan a crushing defeat when we allow God’s “perfect love” to demonstrate through our faith casting out all fear!

Faith under adversity is a light to the world, like a city set on a hill, driving darkness from its path as a lighthouse among the reefs, showing others the safe way. The glory of God in us is simply faith demonstrating... radiating glorious light to a dark and dying world. Winning under adversity is not about health or wealth... not about earthly trinkets, rather winning is all about trusting God and standing fast... no matter what.   Trust is the cornerstone of faith, our assured reliance on God, and trust changes our lives when we act upon it.  Trusting faith always takes us back to the cross... back to our Oneness with Jesus: It is faith in our Lord’s resurrected life...the audacity of our eternal hope of participating in His life, which sustains us during adversity. Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet our inward man is being renewed day by day.  For our light affliction -- our willingness to partake of His death and share in His suffering --  which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.   And satan can’t touch that!

OUR BLESSED HOPE

THE SUBSTANCE OF OUR FAITH

OUR SUSTAINING POWER

HOLE-HEARTED FELLOWSHIP

The Greek word koinonia, translated “fellowship”, carries a very strong sense of fellowship, and is greatly maligned by churches today.  Koinonia means: “a relationship between individuals which involves a common interest and a mutual, active participation in that interest and in each other.”  In the New Testament koinonia is translated “fellowship” and used to denote our fellowship with Jesus four times, our fellowship with God three times, our fellowship with other disciples four times and our fellowship with the Holy Spirit twice.  Koinonia is also translated “communion” twice in First Corinthians 10:16: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?  The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?”  During communion we are fellowshipping with the blood and body of Christ: the relationship is between the assembled believers, the common interest is our relationship to our Savior, remembering His blood and His body, and we are mutually and actively participating in that interest, and sharing it with each other. 

In koinonia, we fellowship with God and we share that fellowship with other believers who are fellowshipping with God.  Fellowship actively engages both the physical and spiritual realm, but since contextually the common interest is always God, the core, the essence of fellowship is always spiritual.  When Luke says in Acts 2:48 “they continued steadfastly (i.e., to persist obstinately in) in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and prayer”, he is not talking about some secular hobby, activity or interest for koinonia is always God centered.  True koinonia in the body of Christ will always have a vertical (God) and a horizontal (other believers) component.      

The twenty first century church equates size to both satisfying the great commission and evidence of God’s blessing... as if getting a lot of people into a building meant something. The dynamics of size are suffocating to true fellowship, leaving a hole in the heart of the church. Small groups... man’s creation, are substituted for koinonia in an attempt to appease man’s need for fellowship. But fellowship without the vertical component... without God centeredness is not fellowship at all and will not satisfy the hungry heart.  

KOINONIA

BESETTING SIN

Besetting Sins are the sins we allow to continue, like treating our Self to an occasional piece of candy or an ice cream, the sins we make excuses for. It may be unforgiveness, or pride, or coveting... idolatry by another name, or any of the multitude of “lesser sins” hidden in our Self centeredness... masked by our Self righteousness. God understands our desire for pleasure, our lusting for material things, our hunger for prestige, prominence and power, our worry over the concerns of life, our preoccupation with Self... Self interests, over the things of God. He does? Really? “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God ...  And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” (2 Cor. 7:1; Jn. 3:3) What makes besetting sins particularly dangerous is their habitual nature. When “coming boldly to the throne of grace” for forgiveness is a well worn pathway we should be noticing the cracking noise... for we are on thin ice. “Whoever abides in Him does not sin”: “No one who abides in Him, who lives and remains in communion with and in obedience to Him—deliberately, knowingly, and habitually commits (practices) sin.” (1Jn. 3:6 NKJV and Amp. Bible) Habitual sin... besetting sin, destroys intimate relationship with God, leading to stagnation, alienation, and, ultimately, spiritual death... separation from the Great Lover of our soul. Therefore  “let us strip off and throw aside ... that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us, looking away from all that will distract to Jesus...” (Heb. 12:1-2 Amp. Bible)