Christian’s these days don’t seem to make much of their salvation. They don’t seem to have a focus on the proper thing, namely the Lordship of Jesus Christ. They don’t seem to realize that the supremacy of Christ is suppose to be their ultimate priority and focus in every breath they take. Daily, we go about our lives wondering what exactly the next buzz will be that will allow us to enjoy the season. We are all-too-often seeking our own sensational pleasure instead of being satisfied in and pleased with the God who has saved us. He alone is who we are to live for and anything less than that is sinful and unholy. Anyone who thinks that they will be saved from this fallen world without holiness has not learned from the Father. “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14, KJV)But you may then ask why does the Christian “world” (at large today) not seek to be holy and find their fulfillment in Christ and His greatness? Well, the answer is simple… we don’t know God as we should know Him. We have not sought Him where He can be found.

But then you may ask “where can He be found?” The answer is simple once again… we can find Him in His revelation of Himself, namely His spoken word – the Old and New Testament. The Bible must forever be the Church’s sole infallible rule of faith for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16-17) If it does not hold that position then anyone who claims the name of Christ will never know Him as they should and some may even find out on the Day of Judgment that they never knew Him at all, but even more so, that Christ never knew them. He will say to them, “Depart from me, you who work iniquity, for I never knew you.” (Matthew 7:23)

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Hebrews 3 – NASB

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house — whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today if you hear His voice,

Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me,

As in the day of trial in the wilderness,

Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me,

And saw My works for forty years.

Therefore I was angry with this generation,

And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,

And they did not know My ways’;

As I swore in My wrath,

‘They shall not enter My rest.'”

Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, while it is said,

“Today if you hear His voice,

Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.”

For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.

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Now, understand the thrust of this entire passage with all its richness and power… We know that all who hold fast their confidence and hope in Christ to the end of their mortal life have already been made partakers of Christ. But to any who fall away, they prove themselves to have never been partakers of Christ to begin with. Their ‘enlightenment’ was nothing more than a winsome show that inevitably results in greater punishment being delivered to them on the Day of Judgment. This is why we are to encourage one another and fellowship with one another, unless we should find that one of us is not really part of Christ and His people.

It is the failure of so many churches to encourage one another and confront each other when their brother or sister is fulfilling the desires of the flesh. Yet, all-too-often, it is us who is also listening to the sin that is in us and not able to help our brother or sister because of the “plank” in our own eye.

Therefore, we must seek this day to seek Christ through His revelation – the Bible – in order that we may remove the plank from our own eye and exhort one another toward Godliness that we may be holy and blameless on the Day of Judgment, knowing that we have been made partakers of Christ and His Kingdom!

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A Prayer from The Valley of Vision

Continual Repentance

“O GOD OF GRACE,

Thou hast imputed my sin to my substitute,

and hast imputed his righteousness to my soul,

clothing me with a bridegroom’s robe,

decking me with jewels of holiness.

But in my Christian walk I am still in rags;

my best prayers are stained with sin;

my penitential tears are so much impurity;

my confessions of wrong are so many aggravations of sin;

my receiving the Spirit is tinctured with selfishness.

I need to repent of my repentance;

I need my tears to be washed;

I have no robe to bring to cover my sins,

no loom to weave my own righteousness;

I am always standing clothed in filthy garments,

and by grace am always receiving change of raiment,

for thou dost always justify the ungodly;

I am always going into the far country,

and always returning home as a prodigal,

always saying , Father, forgive me,

and thou art always bringing forth the best robe.

Every morning let me wear it,

every evening return in it,

go out to the day’s work in it,

be married in it,

be wound in death in it,

stand before the great white throne in it,

enter heaven in it shining as the sun.

Grant me never to lose sight ofthe exceeding sinfulness of sin,

the exceeding righteousness of salvation,

the exceeding glory of Christ,

the exceeding beauty of holiness,

the exceeding wonder of grace.”

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“Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13:20-21 NASB)