What we need more than anything is peace and grace. We do not need them in measures that we can provide for ourselves. We need it in divine proportions that only God can pour upon us.
1) Remember to open the book
When I was going off to college, my parents threw a graduation party for me and people brought a lot of gifts. One of the ladies gave me a book titled “Promises of God.” I opened the bag and thanked her for the gift but felt a little deflated, “why would she gift me a book?”
However, I did take it to college. Throughout the early years, I never opened it. I would pack it away as I came back home for summer. In the room, it will be further down the drawer, all sorts of stuff layered on top and all other college life business gadgets. During my last year of college, we were scrounging around with our friends for every nickel, dime, and dollar we could find. I was looking through the big drawers, and I realized that the book was in the back, pressed up in the corner of the drawer. I reached back there, pulled it out, and smiled while thinking of Mrs. Holt, who had given me the book. I cracked it open for the first time.
The whole time, I have been scrounging and searching and feeling like I had insufficient funds, but there was something accessible and available to me, but I had to open up the book. Lastly, we opened the book, and we found out about a treasure we did not know was inside the book. We often give a cold shoulder to godly stuff until we run out of our worldly resources.
We do not have to live below our spiritual means. There is an endless resource for us, but unless we open the book we can’t operate according to the inheritance that has been given to us. If I had opened the book before anything else, I would not have run out of money or suffered from money deficiency.
2) The Ultimate Purpose of Little Reminders
2Peter1: 12-15 “Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them. And you’ve been established in the truth which is present with you and I consider it right as long as I am in this body, in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up,”
One of the things that sometimes becomes a little overwhelming to me as a parent is the reminders. I always end up saying the same thing over and over again. The same thing I was telling my 19-year-old when he was one seems like the exact same thing that I am telling him right now.
My children dislike that way of life. Sometimes, they just whisper the question reluctantly. So, I find myself having to search for my boys. And I keep telling them, “This is to your benefit.” I am just trying to be a good mother. I am trying to make sure I have daughters-in-law who rise up and call me blessed.
When we think about our lives, and our experiences, the stuff that has stuck with us over time are the things we’ve been reminded about. The reminders should not irritate you. They will instill a sense of routine and habit in your life, allowing you to make decisions and choose your words with ease and confidence. The kind of relationships that we choose or do not choose, a lot of that has stemmed from the reminders that we have been given. I remember my mother telling me, “Priscilla, it is not what you said. It is how you said it.”
These reminders will resonate in the season of your life when you actually need them. At that sensitive place in your life, that hard place in your life, the reminders will echo in your mind to help you make the right decision. Reminders are necessary because they give us a 3D perspective of a particular insight or a particular principle.
To grow spiritually, live a victorious life, and grab hold of everything that God has planned for you is to be stirred up by way of reminder. After being a Christian for one or two years, no one will stir you up by telling you anything you have not already heard before. The things you have likely already heard are the things you just need to be reminded of.
If you are reminded of old things instead of constantly trying to come up with new things, you will realize that the treasure you have been looking for, you already have access to. To be stirred up is by way of constant reminder. The reminder is necessary so that we can be awakened, encouraged, and challenged to remain alert.
3) Clarify the content of our faith
The first reminder is to consider and clarify the content of our faith. Make sure your faith is the same kind of faith as ours—apostles. Some false teachers were rising within the church, and they were preaching a twisted version of the good news. They were watering down the purity of the gospel. They were introducing twisted heresies and even denying the singular deity of Jesus Christ.
The way of the truth is being slandered. People are introducing slight perversions and hints of manipulation, added opinions, and philosophies. Make sure that your faith is the same kind of faith as the apostles. And it is the faith that comes through Christ alone to redeem you from your sins.
Our faith must cut through the lies and the errors and uplift the purity and the power of the good news of the gospel. Do not mess around with the faith you have received. Jesus suffered a gruesome death and became a ransom for all. There is no other way through which you can be saved except through this one who is indeed the Christ, our faith.
This is an important reminder because we are living in a culture and age where detestable faith has infested the church of Christ and claimed lives into the fire. The culture and traditions around us are seeking to water down the gospel. The culture is seeking to generalize God so that he is one of many options instead of a singular entity without comparison and with no counterparts.
4) Salvation comes solely through Jesus Christ
Here is the reminder: there is a great salvation, and that salvation comes by no other name and through no other way except through Jesus Christ. You are being stirred up by way of a reminder that the gospel is still the good news. It has not changed because our savior has not changed.
You have to be incredibly discerning in this day and age. You have to have a keen spiritual ear and listen to what you are being fed through your social media feed and on your TVs. As you sit in the building on some Sundays, you need to make sure that what you are hearing is, actually, what it is that Jesus says.
In this day and age where everybody’s just seeking to add little hints and cleverly devise tales and a popular opinion and that which is politically correct, you have to tune your spiritual ears to make sure this right here is the same kind of faith as the apostles. Just because someone says it passionately, charismatically, and didactically does not mean is right. If he adds to or takes away from the purity of the good news, then it is not the same kind of faith as ours.
Tune in your own discernment and balance everything against the truth of the word of God. You have to be clear, unashamed, and unmoved on your own salvation. Have some boldness to be clear about who your Savior is. The Lord has given you unmitigated influence in a way that previous generations did not have. It’s going to take some boldness and some courage to be willing to stand alone and separate yourself from peers who will refuse to have integrity and cave under the pressure of the culture.
You have to stand up and say there is only one name by which men and women can be saved, and that is the name of Jesus Christ. You have to be fortified because it will not be, at times, politically correct. You will be unfollowed, but you have to be like Paul and say, “It is by grace that I have been saved.” Let the love of God constrain you. He has done too much. He redeems you too radically for you to add or to take away from this good news.
It does not matter how clever the culture becomes. It should never supersede the wisdom of the word of God. A new set of ideas, ideals, and philosophies will arise, but our stand must never be shaken.
The scope of the gospel is very broad. It is for everyone from every nation, political party, race, and religious sector. The salvation of our God through Jesus Christ has been extended to every breathing human being. God has gone a great length to win you. Even when you wanted to run, the hound of heaven would not let you go. Our life span on earth is not enough to tell the stories of how we were far away from him, but he came and found us and called us to Himself.
The love story between you and God did not just start at your birth. It started before the foundation of the world. He knew in his sovereignty and omniscience that he was going to redeem humanity for himself. It was not by chance, nor did it surprise God the day you were born, the skin color you had, and the personality. Your birth might have surprised your parents., but not God. He was not in heaven saying, “Oops! That one slipped past me.”
You have been fearfully and wonderfully made: with that personality, with the way your mind is wired, and the creativity that you have or do not have. You don’t have time to compare yourself with anybody. God made you for a reason. He did it strategically and intentionally.
