Today’s thought: Being a Christian and being committed to the Church are inseparable. Click here to watch What God Really Thinks about First Baptist Church, part one
Today’s thought: The Conclusive Question about your Heart: Is there anything in my life that does not right now belong to God? Click here to watch Total Surrender, part seven
Today’s thought: When our heart does not completely belong to Him, we will begin to (1) Rely on our own strength, (2) Restrict the blessings of God, (3) Reject God’s instruction, and (4) Refuse to seek God’s help. Click here to watch Total Surrender, part six
Today’s thought: A heart that is loyal to God demands obedience from others. Click here to watch Total Surrender, part five
Today’s thought: A heart that is loyal to God is devoted to obedience. Click here to watch Total Surrender, part four
Today’s thought: A heart that is loyal to God depends on God. Click here to watch Total Surrender, part three
Today’s thought: A heart that is loyal to God enjoys divine blessing. Click here to watch Total Surrender, part two
Today, with the help of our Media Ministry, we will begin using a series of excerpts from recent sermons. The goal is to provide a single thought from a message in four minutes or less. While that will not always happen, our goal is to keep these thoughts short and easy to grasp. We will post a thought each weekday. At the bottom of the page there will be a link to the entire message, if you would like to watch to it in one sitting. We hope you enjoy this new approach.
Today’s thought: A heart that is loyal to God deals seriously with sin. Click here to watch Total Surrender, part one
Be Faithful until Death
Our suffering may be more emotional—an appeal to be silent about our claims about Christ. Regardless, the letter to the Church at Smyrna reminds us no matter our suffering we are to “Be faithful until death.” What are the keys to “being faithful until death?” First, we are to assume that we will be called on to suffer. Choosing Christ will often put us at odds with the world. Second, we can be assured of God’s character in the face of this suffering. Ultimately, He wins! This is the message of the whole Bible, the whole of Revelation, and all seven letters in Revelation 2-3. Since He has overcome, we are called to overcome through Him.
What if you were to receive a letter from God? Do you think that you would consider that letter to be important? In a sense, the whole Bible is a letter from God to us. Other parts of the Bible are literally letters. Some of the Bible’s most famous letters are the seven letters in Revelation 2-3. But, these are not just ancient letters of only historical value. Every single letter has a very important application to our contemporary churches and to us as individuals. Each of the letters follows this pattern: the recipients, the identification of the author (which is Jesus, Himself), the account of the church, an assessment of the church, a call to endure, and an appeal to hear what the Spirit of the Church is saying to the church.
The message of each of these seven letters is relatively easy to understand, but not necessarily easy to follow. For example, the concise message of this first letter found in Revelation 2:1-7 is to “Keep Jesus First!” We are confronted every day to be wholeheartedly in love with Jesus.
Know this about being in love with Jesus. God cannot be deceived about our love relationship with Him. Add to this fact that our good works cannot replace our love for Jesus. Neither can good theology replace our love for Jesus. Neither can Godly values. The Church at Ephesus gave evidence of all of these qualities, but the LORD of the Church, says to them, “But, I have this against you, you have abandoned the love you had at first.” The bottom line is that nothing can replace our love for Jesus.
So, we must do as the text suggests. We must remember what it used to be like. We must repent. Upon repentance, we must return.
The stakes are high. Jesus says, “We must either repent or He will remove us.” Removed from what? Removed from our place of influence. Removed from the power of God.
The Old Testament gives us the story of Samson. God told his parents that his hair should never be cut (a Nazirite vow). The covenant promise was that God’s strength would be upon him. Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah. The Philistines came to her and offered her money to discover the secret to his great strength. At first, he told her that if he would be tied up with seven bowstrings that had not been dried, he would become as any other man. She tied him up and called for the Philistines. He broke free and whipped the Philistines who had come for him. She asked again and this time he said that if he was to be tied up with new ropes, he would lose his strength. A third time he said that the strength would leave him if the seven braids of his hair would be woven into the fabric on the weaver’s loom. Again, he broke free. Finally, after “she nagged him day after day and pled with him until she wore him out, he told her the whole truth.” He told her that if his hair would be shaved, he would lose his strength. When he fell asleep, off came his hair. Awakening to fight off the Philistines, the Bible says, “When he awoke from his sleep, he said, ‘I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.’ But he did not know that the LORD had left him.”
I am so afraid that the church today is in danger of not even being aware when the strength and power of the LORD has left us. We are busy, so we think we have HIS power. We believe the Bible and thus have right theology, so we assume all is well. We stand for Godly things, so we think surely we are ok. But God says perhaps to some of us, “But what about your love for me.” Not your love for things, not your love for programs, not your love for busyness, not your love for the work of the church, but your love for me.”