Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
8 12 2024
This week we welcome to our readership those who were Baptized just a short time ago.
Please pray for them.
Not only were they Baptized they are starting the follow up class to baptism called “Following Jesus”. They are excited about Jesus, excited about making him number one in their lives. Excited to plant the Holy Seed of His word to lay the proper foundation.
I know too many Christians who do not have a solid foundation of faith undergirding them.
If a house does not have a proper foundation, it is like a house built on sand.
It will fall when the storms come. When we are unstable there, we are uncertain,
undecided, undisciplined, wishy washy, walking through life without a correct standard
of truth, love, forgiveness, humility…you name it.
Humans naturally make stuff up as they go alone.
They learn to adapt to the changing cultural scenes…BECAUSE…they don’t have a basis for God’s truth. They don’t have faith developed enough to stand up during turbulent times to speak God’s truth. Culturally they have succumbed to the cultural pressure of being accepted…being one of THEM.
The pressure especially for our children is too much to bear without knowing Gods word…
without having a tribe around them to support them in their stand for God.
People have a lot of names they call people, young and old, who do not walk and talk like them. Nerds…bible thumpers…holy rollers…weirdo’s… radicals…
Jesus told His disciples: “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master. ‘ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). He promised that if we follow Him, we will be looked at differently, our faith will be challenged.
Matthew tells us, Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Jesus tells us to pray for those people, not fight with them. The Gospel and God’s Holy word are paramont to living the life Jesus has called us all to. Without His word and His standard of truth we will be like the seed defined in the Parable of the Sower.
In Matthew 13:3-23, Jesus tells the parable of a farmer who sows seeds in different types of soil,
including by the wayside, on rocky ground, among thorns, and on good soil. The seeds that fall on the wayside are eaten by birds, while those that fall on rocky ground or among thorns don’t produce a crop. However, the seeds that fall on good soil grow and produce a crop, with some yielding up to a hundredfold. Jesus explains to his disciples that the seeds represent the Gospel, the farmer represents those who proclaim it, and the different types of soil represent people’s responses to it.
To take a harder line. Many Christians refuse to study God’s word. I say refuse because they make no real effort to know God, to understand God, and His character and how we are supposed to live. We understand the world refusing the gospel. Matt Henry’s commentary on Matt 24 says “those who will not hear the messengers of peace, shall be made to hear the messengers of war. But where the heart is fixed, trusting in God, it is kept in peace, and is not afraid. It is against the mind of Christ, that his people should have troubled hearts, even in troublous times”.
John Piper said The Bible Is Indispensable
“And none of this great final goal of creation will happen without the Scriptures. God has made the written word as indispensable as the incarnate Word. For the achievement of God’s ultimate purpose, he has made Christ essential and the Bible essential. The Bible is not as glorious, not as ultimate, not as foundational, as Christ. But both are indispensable.
Without the written word — explaining and preserving for us who God is and what he has done — there would be no saving knowledge of God, no new birth, no faith, no seeing and savoring of God’s glory,
no experience of forgiveness, no transformation, and, in the end, no completed and beautified Bride for the Son, and no white-hot worshipping family for the Father.
The ultimate aim of creation, the ultimate aim of inspiring the Scriptures, and our ultimate aim in reading them is that God’s infinite worth and beauty will be exalted in the everlasting, white-hot worship of the blood-bought Bride of Christ from every people, language, tribe, and nation.
Oh, how thankful we should be that God has given us, and preserved for us, his Word!”
Starting Thursday night August 15th, from 7pm to 8:30 pm, for five weeks, we will join together in this Following Jesus class to set down a clear anchor of our faith taken from Gods word. If some of you would like to join us online via Zoom let me know. But pray for these younger believers who have committed their lives to Jesus and want to learn how Jesus instructs us to do that. I am available by email or phone.
Blessings,
Dennis 813 967 1727
Thank God I do Lauren Daigle
