Our Persevering in Preservation

Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?  (Jas 2:22)

There is a danger of living an unregenerate Christian life and hope that we will be caught up and meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess 4:17). This is a poor understanding of salvation by grace. Salvation is the doorway to a pilgrimage of being made faultless for His appearing (Jude 1:24). Action-less faith is dead faith.

…… are changed into the same image from glory to glory…. (2Cor 3:18)

We are called out of the world, leaving the state of the ‘old man’ (Rom 6:6) into higher than good; a respectable and useful life. Don’t be contented with the good but live in the place of God’s direct hand in leading and dealing that constantly escalates us from the human good to God’s best. Abraham’s work was to leave (Heb 11:8), persevering in the mundaneness of life for decades until coming to the most heart breaking action of laying down his son, his only son (Gen 22:2). If we say we have faith, the Lord requires action. The patriarch never knew the leaving will led him to a dying inside, in that dying foreshadowed the work of Christ on the cross. We may content that Jesus ‘did it all’ on the cross. Yes He did. He carried His cross; now following Him has the same exigency. What can better regenerate a life unto God than one that faithfully perseveres in carrying his or her cross daily? Dying of everything, including the best that a man or woman can bring forth and alive to God, not self (John 3:30, Romans 6:11). Usefulness to mankind does not equate usefulness to God.

…. sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ…   (Jude 1:1)

We are not to be kill ourselves on the cross, but just faithfully carry it. Sanctification is a sovereign work of God not to be tampered with by human will. It is only when we are no longer engrossed in ‘self’ that we are hidden in Christ, Who is our only preservation.