SERMONS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BECOME OUR COWORKERS (III)

The sermons in this book is very ideal for co-workers indeed. This book is really a guideline to our faith after receiving the remission of sins.
It tells us that, all too often we tend to measure God`s love by our changing circumstances. We try to measure God`s love by our material successes and failures, so when things don`t go our way, we feel neglected by God. However when we look at God through our spiritual eyes, we can see that He loves us unchangingly. God loves us with all His heart, and He has blessed us abundantly. His blessings are not just future promises, but He has bless us already.
Using Abraham as an example, God told him to leave his country, his family, and his father`s house. And even though the way to the land of Canaan was extremely difficult for Abraham, he still had God`s guidance and help whenever he struggled. And ultimately, Abraham became a blessing just as God had promised, and the nation of Israel was born from him.
God has also given us this very same promise. He has called us to lead us to a blessed way and to turn us into the fountain of blessings so that everyone would be blessed to make a g r eat nation our of us. It is for this purpose that God has told us to leave behind all our comfort of our flesh. Abraham followed the Word of the Lord God because he believed in His blessed promise. Like this, faith begins with the concrete Word of God. That`s why we follow this Word. And because the Word of God guarantees us clearly that He has already blessed us wholeheartedly, we can follow God and begin to live our faith unwaveringly. Every life of faith begins based on this measured Word of God and grounded in His love.
The author Paul C. Jong makes it clear that God loved us so much that He bore all our sins through His baptism and remitted them all away by being crucified to death. And we can never forget this love. But because we still have many shortcomings, we still stumble, make mistakes, and sometimes even disown God as the Apostle Peter once did. However, God blessed us even as He knew all about such weaknesses. We could reach our salvation precisely because God loved us unconditionally rather that being contingent upon our acts.
The book admonish us not to rely on our transient acts to be blessed. Rather, it`s because God loves us and ha already blessed us that we can and must live a godly life. We must serve the Lord and live a godly life in this world not because God will bless us only when we do this, but because He has already blessed us wholeheartedly. All of us therefore aught to abide in the Lord`s love by faith and praise Him in our lives. The exact starting point of our faith begins from the knowledge that God has blessed wholeheartedly and loves us with all His heart. We must abide in this love by faith and praise God because He has blessed each and every saint in His Church across the whole wide world.
The author also explains that faith must not be conditional. If your faith is conditional, you must cast away any and all such beliefs. We must have unconditional faith in God and live complete obedience to the Lord. The book tells us that, the very first thing that we must learn in our lives of faith is obeying God by faith. If you have not become a man of faith yet, your must learn to obey God first. If you accumulate nothing but Biblical knowledge, you are bound to become arrogant and boastful. In contrast, once you learn to obey God by faith, it`s only a matter of course for you no only to reach spiritual faith, but also receive spiritual blessings. Whatever the Church says, we must obey regardless of whether we find it likable or not. Obeying God only when we find it fitting and convenient to our own thoughts and disobeying when we don`t is not really what obedience is about.
There is nothing stable in this age and time. So worries and anxieties can make their way into our hearts without even realizing it. However, if we follow the Word of the Lord God, then He will take care of us and protect us completely both now and in the future. Everything is up to God. Those who follow the Word of the Lord God are vibrant and green throughout the seasons like a tree planted by a river. They are always ready to bear fruit, and they always bear fruit according to the season.