Sermon: Our Spiritual Climb
Building Faith in God's Love to Never Turn Back
#1705A
Bill Onisick
Given 22-Apr-23; 45 minutes
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transcript:
As Richard concluded his recent message, he reminded us that our journey to the Kingdom is not going to be easy. As he put it, it is like a long hike, uphill, with a heavy backpack. And as May approaches it is that time of year when some begin what is considered the most difficult and risky adventure. No, I am not talking about marriage; although this metaphor could certainly apply there too.
Each May brings but a really short window of time when the conditions are just slightly more favorable for the opportunity to reach the summit of Mount Everest. At over 29,000 feet, that is roughly five and a half miles straight up, Mount Everest is the highest peak on earth. And it is also the windiest place on earth with often hurricane force winds that can go up to 175 mph. It has got to be difficult to hold on at that wind speed. Less than half that attempt to make it actually do reach the top to celebrate and many more do not survive the journey back home after they celebrated and took that short photo.
Since it was first climbed in 1953 roughly seven people a year die trying. That is over 300 and counting deaths of those that have tried to climb Mount Everest. There are over 200 frozen bodies that have never been recovered. Some like "Green Boots" have served as a frozen human mile marker for years. Many that live to tell about their journey do so with less than 10 fingers and toes remaining. The most common causes of death include mountain sickness, falls, avalanches, and hypothermia. But it is really the mountain sickness that makes it so difficult, the disorientation.
Now, Everest is not considered the most difficult in terms of technical climbing challenges. It is a combination of its altitude, temperature, hurricane force winds that make it feel a bit like running on a treadmill at a 45 degree incline while breathing through a straw. Just think about that. And as you near the top, there is less than 66% oxygen in each breath that you take based on the comparison between closer to sea level. The human body really is struggling to survive with that oxygen level. The elevation poses this greatest threat because the brain deprived of oxygen starts to swell. It triggers nausea, vomiting, and difficulty thinking. We become quickly disoriented.
In order to survive climbers must a acclimate over several weeks to the lung-crushing conditions. They take trips back and forth from base camp, each time going just a little bit higher, trying and pushing themselves a little bit further so that they can build up their strength and stamina. And after months of preparation and waiting for that small break in the weather that may not come that year, by the way, climbers usually begin that final push at 10 PM, in the middle of the night. If all goes well—it usually does not—they will reach the summit by 5 AM.
The level of physical and mental exhaustion is intense with many, many forced to turn back. Successful climbers must relentlessly push beyond all perceived physical and mental limits. And at the peak, they have just that moment to celebrate and take a photograph before turning around for the 12 hour hike back, hopefully before nightfall, if all goes well—but it usually does not. The physical exhaustion of walking over those narrow ladders, those ravines, climbing for hours and hours on end at a steep incline is indeed draining.
But contrary to what you might expect, climbers state it is much less about physical strength and stamina. The lack of oxygen challenges you mentally to keep it all together. And the combination of aching muscles, the pain of frostbitten fingers and limbs, the wind whipping around, the hours upon hours upon hours of walking within just an inch of your life and certain death, it requires a superior mental strength to reach the summit. In fact, most successful climbers, believe it or not, are aged between 50 and 60 years old. Well, well beyond peak fitness years. So it looks like we still have some time.
Fellow family members, I contend that our spiritual climb, our successful spiritual climb, is much like that climb to Mount Everest. Those that reach the summit and survive must have three things in common.
One, we must start with a clear understanding of the cost, to count the cost, to understand the risk of death and the extreme difficulties that we will indeed face. We cannot begin thinking it is going to be easy or it is going to get easier. Second, we must work hard to prepare through a daily work and little tests to strengthen our mental capabilities. Third, we must never look back or even consider giving up. Those that successfully climb to the summit are so set on attaining their goal they will sacrifice everything: fingers, toes, even their very death if it is required, to reach the summit, to reach and obtain the goal. It is through superior mental strength and stamina that they can relentlessly continue moving forward. And so must we continue to relentlessly move forward and build our mental stamina.
We have many physical challenges to overcome on our journey here on earth. But in the end, again, success is not about the physical. Obtaining our spiritual summit in God's Kingdom is all about overcoming our mental deficiency. We must build our mental stamina.
We are going to begin in Luke 18. You can start turning there for our first scripture. So we are called into this battle of our minds that transcends our physical senses of sight, sound, and touch. That battle in our mind is really to overcome one thing: our self-sufficiency and pride, which often causes us to become spiritually disoriented. When we become disoriented, we lose our way. Just like oxygen is to the physical brain and body, so too is faith to our spiritual brain and body. And as we begin reading Jesus' Parable of the Persistent Widow here, I want us to capture how He starts. Why is He speaking this to the end time church?
Luke 18:1 Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, . . .
Now, this parable is given to us so that we will always pray and not lose heart on this difficult journey at this end time. So let us hold on to this as we read through this parable.
Luke 18:2-8 . . . saying: "There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, 'Get justice for me from my adversary.' And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, 'Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.'" Then the Lord said, "Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?"
As Martin Collins explains in his 2004 Forerunner Bible study on this parable, "If the unjust judge because of a selfish irritation avenges a troublesome widow, how much more will the selfless God come to our aid? We can expect substantially better treatment from a God of lovingkindness than a heartless judge." God has assured us that He hears and answers prayer. We must have the faith of Christ that God can provide what we need and enjoys hearing us ask according to His will and desires to give us abundantly what we should have.
At the end of this parable, I want us to reread verse 8b, "Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" As my late mentor John Reid highlights in the Forerunner article, "Will Christ Find Faith?" the implication here seems to be that very few when Christ returns will have the strength of faith that Jesus is talking about. How about us? When Christ returns will He find us faithfully walking forward?
As we tie this together with the preceding parable where Jesus contrasts the unjust judge, who could not care less to our great agape God who could not care more, Jesus tells us He gave us this parable on God's faithfulness and love to encourage and strengthen our faith so that we will always pray and not lose heart. But what exactly is the faith that Jesus is looking for in us? Faith can be somewhat elusive at times. It is a faith that is beyond just believing that God exists. He is looking for a faith that goes beyond knowing God is indeed the most powerful Being. Brother James tells us that even the demons have faith in that.
The faith Jesus was looking for goes beyond—way beyond—just the mere knowledge of the Bible, the Scriptures, the prophecies. The faith Jesus is looking for extends even beyond the belief that He actually did come to this earth to die for our sins. All these things are very important to our faith, mind you. But the faith Jesus is looking for, I contend, when He returns can be summarized in one simple question to each of us. One simple question. Do we really believe that God the Father and Jesus Christ really, really, really love us just as much as They love each other? It is so hard at times to really believe that, but it is so true. He tells us this in John 17, just as much as They love each other, two Beings that have always existed and been together forever. Their level of love for each other is the level of love they have for each and every one of us. Wow!
Our faith starts with belief in God, yes. But it must grow into an ironclad trust in God's great love for us. Faith in His love gives us assurance that we need, the assurance we need to reach the summit in His Kingdom. He is the omni-agape Creator. He will never put us through anything He does not consider absolutely necessary and critical for our spiritual growth and development. If we really believe His love in us, we will trust His will. In fact, we not only trust it, we want it, we want His will over our will. That is the mental discipline that we have to develop in order to reach the summit.
Now, when we think about people in our lives that we have complete trust and faith in, who comes to mind and how did we develop that level of complete faith and trust? It comes with a relationship, does it not? We heard Austin [del Castillo] talking about our relationships and they are so important, brethren, and a relationship takes time to build, it takes sacrifice. It takes an investment to build over the years. These people that we trust have been faithful and we have grown to love them. That love creates a strong bond of trust and we would literally put our lives in their hands. We trust them that much and we would in turn, if we had to, lay down our lives to save theirs without a second thought.
What was it that caused us to build that level of trust? It was over time, right? Over time our engagement with that person, our time, our investment, and little trials, right? Little trials over time that allowed us to see, hey, they are faithful. They do love me, they care for me. And this is exactly what we have to go through with our relationship with God. This is what He wants us building. He wants our faith to grow every day, praying that He would help us to understand the depths of His love. (We will get there in a second.)
Jesus tells us in John 15:12-13, "Greater love [greater agape] has no one than this to lay down one's life for his friends." Not only did He give us the Word and faith, but he demonstrated the way. Our faith is the foundational building block in our lifelong process of reaching our summit. Everything flows from our relationship and love of God and Jesus Christ. Walking by faith requires us to use His Spirit of power, agape, and self-control. We use that Spirit to overcome and grow and show our love by keeping His commandments and doing good works that bring Him glory.
Now, Jesus gives us this Parable of the Persistent Widow to encourage us to put the power of persistent prayer to work and thereby to strengthen our faith in God's love for us. Satan is constantly working on us, brethren. He is constantly working against us to put doubt in our minds and plant seeds of pride and self-sufficiency, seeds that disorient us spiritually. We start thinking in the midst of a trial that we know better, that God must not really love us. He has forgotten about us or, you know, things are not working out the way I think is best so God does not really love me. That is Satan working in our minds. When we say we cannot see the good in something we are letting him control our mind. No, we cannot see the physical good often. But if we have trust and faith in His love, we know whatever we have experienced is for our own good. He tells us this, and He is faithful.
Jesus continues to remind us how much He loves us and He demonstrated that love by holding nothing back. And that is what we are called to do as we reach for the summit. It does not matter how difficult a situation might be in our life, how tragic an event. God is faithful and we can trust Him. Our primary battle, brethren, is in our minds. Yes, there is a lot of physical things we have to endure to reach the summit, but the primary battle is against Satan in our minds and he is going to continue to work with us to get us to doubt God's great love for us and we cannot allow that to happen.
Faith is indeed the evidence of things unseen, the evidence of God's great love for each of us. God tells us in Jeremiah 31:3, "Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you." God draws us. God the Father does the calling. He calls us to Him. He loves us before we were unlovable. He loves us now, even though we are often still unlovable.
How do we know God's love? Paul tells us first in Ephesians 2, it is by grace, the gift of God, that we are saved through faith. Then in Romans 2, he adds, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." Now, let us pause on that one for a second. Think about that. Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
Why is prayer and study so important? It builds our faith. It builds our faith because as we hear God's Word spoken as we read them to ourselves. He is building up our faith and confidence in His love for each of us. And it is so important because every day Satan is going to be sitting there talking to us trying to say God does not really love you. "Look, Bill, look at all this, this trial that you have right now. You know, whatever it might be, this went wrong, this went wrong, this went wrong. You know nothing's going right. God doesn't love you, Bill." That is what he is going to keep saying. That is why we have to get on our knees and we have to pray and we have to ask for His help, strengthen our faith, and trust in Your love.
Jesus adds in Luke 11:28 this is really [?] because we have heard now we are saved through faith, which is a gift of God. Faith comes from hearing, hearing by the Word of God.
Luke 11:28 "Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it."
We can tie this together to bring brother James' admonition: We must show our faith by works.
There are hundreds of scriptures out there that confirm God's great agape love for His people. He loves us so much He gave His very life for us! But let us turn to Ephesians 3 and I want to focus a minute on Paul's inspiring prayer; and this prayer is to God the Father on our behalf. It is a prayer about strengthening our faith in God's agape love for us.
Ephesians 3:16-19 That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love [in agape], may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Our daily prayers should include something similar each day. Asking God's help to increase our faith, help me to really understand the depths of Your great love for me so that I will not doubt, so that I will trust Your will, so that I will actually seek Your will. It is so easy to say those words, is it not? It is easy to say, seek God's will. But how hard is it really for us to seek God's will over ours? Satan plants those seeds of pride, the self-sufficiently, and we just know better. We know how this needs to work out, do we not? But we do not. That is the point. We have to trust our loving Creator knows exactly what we need.
Now we are going to leap back to Luke just before the scriptures we read earlier and we are going to pick this up in Luke 17, verses 28-33. And it is important to note here that Luke's style was one of order. He was a physician, he was a man of order. So most of the time when we read his scriptures those things happen sequentially, in that exact order. And so we are going back a little bit in time now to pick this scripture up. And this is before the Parable on the Persistent Widow.
Luke 17:28-33 "Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who was in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot's wife. [Jesus says] Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it."
So Jesus tells us here at the end time, just as in the days of Noah, just as in the days of Lot, it is going to come suddenly, it is going to come quick. We must remember Lot's wife. This is a warning, brethren, to the end time church.
Let us double click on this together. And I want to point you to John Ritenbaugh's seven-part Faith series, which has certainly helped my study here. We are going to turn back to the book of Habakkuk as I provide a bit of background and I marked mine so I can actually find it. It is one of those hard chapters to find. (It is just after Nahum.)
This writing was occurring just before the Babylonian's capture of Jerusalem. And he points out that there is an injustice and sin as He questions why God is not taking a more visible action. He had been praying on this matter apparently for quite some time. "How long will I cry to You and not hear? I cry out, 'Violence!' and You will not save," he pleads. Things have gotten really bad in his day and he was getting a bit impatient because God was taking a little too long, he thought, to respond.
There is a lesson here for us and it ties right back to persistent prayer. We must not grow impatient. We must not allow ourselves to become disoriented as we strive for the summit. We must remember: God really loves us. He is actively working out His plan for each of us to the exact second to perfection.
Habakkuk 1:5-7 "Look among the nations and watch—be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you. For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation which marches through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful; their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves."
Habakkuk is like whoa, whoa, wait a minute, God. Hold on a second now, I did not expect you to stoop so low to use the evil Babylonians to execute judgment on Israel. I was thinking you might use, you know, a more righteous nation to correct them. Apparently he was looking for a more righteous punishment. But that is the point. These Babylonians did not know any better. God had not given them the truth. So they should have known better. The Israelites were given the truth. They were given the opportunity to have faith and believe in God. And so God was going to use these evil Babylonians to teach them a lesson.
Habakkuk 2:2-4 Then the Lord answered me and said: "Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though at tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith."
Our biggest challenge in reaching the summit is overcoming that mental deficiency; that mental deficiency of self-sufficiency and pride that thinks we know better than God; that mental deficiency that does not completely trust what God tells us, that does not really believe that God loves us. That is the mental deficiency that will cause us to go spiritually off track and become disoriented. And when we become disoriented, we lose our way, brethren.
"The just shall live by faith." Said another way, the proud will die.
Habakkuk ends the book (and we are not going to go there for sake of time) rejoicing in the complete trust and faith in God.
Now over to Genesis 13. Abraham was traveling with his wife, Sarah, and all that he had, which we are told was a lot. (No pun intended because Lot was with him too.) Abraham is certainly the greater of the two. He is the uncle, the elder. Lot is the underling of sorts, the companion. It appears he is unmarried because there is no mention of his wife here; and Lot does pretty well under Abraham and his flocks and his servants multiply. Then we start to see the collision of their herdsmen. And so Abram humbly offers Lot to take his choice on the land that he wants to settle on. They are going to separate slightly. And Abram humbles himself even though he probably had the right to the better land and says, "Hey, pick what you want."
Genesis 13:10 And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zora.
So Lot chose the land that was well watered. This land was the clear physical choice as that fresh water brought an abundance of life and wealth to those nearby cities. I mean, just think about how much time had to be spent fetching water back and forth from a bucket to do anything: to clean, to water your animals, to cook with, right? They spent a ton of time doing that. Cities in close proximity to water they actually thrived. They had fish in water bodies so that was a a food source that was not available in the desert. They had perhaps transportation via water, whether it was a lake or a river. They had more fertile soil often from the over-flooding of the banks.
And so the land Lot chose was far superior to the land that Abram chose, and Abram knew this, but he still offered him the first choice. Lot was driven by sight. He was driven by the physical. He chose the superior physical land. Abraham humbled himself. He took the inferior desert land. It was a small sacrifice and he did not really care for physical wealth. He was fine living in a tent.
Abram barely got the words out of his mouth. I can just see this happening, right? He barely offers Lot, "Hey, take your pick." "Yeah, I'll take the plain of Jordan. Yep, that's what I want." All that easy access to water, we read, led to the downfall of those cities. They became fat, they forgot about their God, and they became too occupied with the physical things. Verse 13 tells us they were exceedingly sinful.
Now, there is an interesting detail that I have often just passed over in chapter 14, where nearby kings form an alliance and steal all the wealth and the women from those cities around Lot's land, including Sodom and Gomorrah. But when Abram hears about this, he takes his army, he goes and he defeats them and he brings back all those stolen goods and his stolen women to Sodom and Gomorrah. And the kings there want to reward him with the spoil. But he says, "I will take nothing [of yours], from a thread to a sandal strap, . . . lest you say, 'I have made Abram rich.'"
Well, what is interesting here is this. I never thought about this, but it dawned on me. This likely made Lot a bit of a celebrity in those cities. Just think about it. They had lost everything and because of his uncle Abram who came and rescued them, they now had their women back, they had their wealth back. And this might explain why Lot is sitting in the city gate, which is a place of importance that signifies wealth and power.
We do not know, there is some speculation there, but it certainly makes sense if you think about it. We know Lot made some bad choices that led to him kind of walking by sight because he ends up living in that sinful city. His wife likely came from that city. We do not know, it does not say where Lot's wife came from, but there is no mention to her before. He seems like he is traveling alone. So the logical place would be he found her in the city.
Now we skip forward to chapter 18 and the Lord appears to Abraham (notice the name change because the covenant had been formed) and He appears with two angels and Abraham offers him some Southern hospitality, fixes a meal as the Lord reveals the good news about Isaac's upcoming birth. Then we hear Sarah laughing at her age. Abraham, by the way, did his laughing in the prior chapter. It is kind of interesting. We pick on Sarah, but he laughed and doubted too.
Genesis 18:16-19 Then the men arose from there and looked towards Sodom, and Abraham went with them to send them on the way. And the Lord said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him."
So, as they are looking towards the city, which is soon going to be destroyed and judged, the Lord tells Abraham he is going to be the father of the faithful, God's chosen people. He was to relay the promise and God's command to his children and grandchildren that they would keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness. Abraham's faith accounted to him for righteousness, we read. But right after the promise to keep that way—God's way—we see the curse to those that turn away.
It is very interesting. Right there together, right as the promise is being given and here is what happens, the judgment that is coming to the evil cities if you forget your God. And we can tie this right back to Deuteronomy and the blessing and cursing that goes side by side. In verse 20 the Lord explains to Abraham and his descendants what He must do to these evil cities and it is to become a permanent memorial of judgment against those who do not obey.
So the two angels now leave, they head to the city to warn Lot because Abraham is successful in his plea to save Lot's life. So once again, Abraham has come to Lot's rescue. And when the two angels arrive in town, it is pretty interesting, Lot is sitting at that gate. It says in Genesis 19:1, he sees them and he rises to meet them and he bowed himself with his face to the ground. Lot recognizes them. He bows to them. Had he seen them before? We do not know. But it is very interesting.
He pleads for them to stay in his house. He makes them a meal and a lot happens that we will not go into for the sake of time. But the angels warn Lot of the city's imminent destruction. Take them out of this place. We're about to destroy this place. Lot unsuccessfully tries to convince his two sons-in-law to leave with him. The angel warns the next morning, take your wife, your two daughters lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city. But again, Lot is still lingering.
Finally, the angels had to take his hand, his wife's hands, the two daughters hands, and literally drag them, set them outside the city. Wow! It is very interesting. In verse 17, we read.
Genesis 19:17 So it came to pass, when they had brought him outside, that he said, "Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed."
Apparently just being rescued from certain death to the remote mountains is not enough for a Lot because he complains. He wanted to be delivered to another city, a nearby city, not the mountains, not the wilderness. Take me to a city. The angels agreed. And they say, hurry, escape there. Now, how much time did Lot waste as he lingered and tried to negotiate that better place of rescue? It is kind of interesting to think about.
Finally, the verse, we were looking for.
Genesis 19:26 But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
Now, this was not just a spur of the moment mistake to hear some noise and turn around in astonishment or surprise. No, no. Way before she had turned around, she had stopped moving forward. She did not want to leave in the first place. It likely started with maybe just a slightly slower pace as Lot and the two daughters kept moving on, but her pace slowed a little more. She had fallen behind a good ways and she was spiritually disoriented. Her brain was not functioning. She died because she had a longing to retain that life she had come from, that former life. She had grudgingly left in the first place, taken each step reluctantly, and she longed for her former life.
Said another way, she drew back from her relationship with God and His promise to save her. She had left behind her family and friends, she had left behind all her possessions, the amenities of a modern city. She had likely grown up in the city. It was probably all she knew and her reluctance to leave resulted in her being a good bit behind Lot and her daughters when that fire and brimstone came down and incinerated everything.
Jesus' warning here is to us, brethren, the end time church. Just as in the days of Noah, just as in the days of Lot, He is coming (*snap!) just like that. We must remember Lot's wife. We must be careful that we do not get too drawn into this world in the cities that we live in. It is so easy for us to lose our faith in God's great love for us. It is so easy for us to become disoriented, to become prideful, self-sufficient with all of the things that we have. It is so easy for us to focus on the right things, but we cannot serve God and mammon at the same time.
Jesus Christ tells us this: to follow Him requires walking forward. We must count that cost. We must know the cost. We must know the risk and we must be willing to not just not turn back, we must be willing to run forward quickly. We must make progress, brethren, in correcting our values, to not think too highly of ourselves. We must overcome the idols of ourselves to trust God's will and His love for us. God has made it clear that He will destroy this world and we must not get too attached to anything—to our homes, to our possessions, our lifestyles, our money. In the end, it is all going away.
Please turn with me to Hebrews 10 as we start to wind down. We must work harder to yield to God's creative work to build up our faith and with it, our complete trust in God's agape love for us.
Hebrews 10:35-39 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: "For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him." But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of our soul.
Galatians 5:5-6 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love [agape].
Faith working through love. The Greek word here for working through or working by is Strong's 1754, energeo, and it comes from the underlying Greek word Strong's 1756, naergas, which means to be active, efficient, effectual, powerful. Our faith is effectual. It is powerful when it is powered by God's love. Faith is put into motion by love. In order for faith to be active and not dead, in order for faith to be efficient and effective, it must be rooted in God's Spirit of agape. A working faith is producing thoughts and actions of love.
Brethren, God is faithful to the nth degree, as Austin told us just a little while ago. To reach the summit of being with God and His Kingdom will take everything we have and we must be willing to sacrifice everything if that is what He requires. We must count the cost and know the risks. And remember, it is not going to be easy. It is not going to get easier as the end time comes.
We must prepare for our journey to strengthen our faith through daily prayer, asking God to help us trust Him more, to believe, to really believe in His love for us. And we must never look back. We must keep moving forward to the summit. God is faithful, brethren. He loves us, He really loves us. And we can do it—with His help.
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