I’M SAVED, NOW WHAT?
SERIES SUMMARY:
In this series, “I’m Saved, Now What?”, we have covered many
aspects of living the Christian life and what a believer should
expect after being saved (including a change in direction and
attitude).
Living the Christian life should never be reduced to a list of
things we should do and not do, but rather an adjustment in
our attitudes, habits, focus, and faith.
As well-known pastor once said, “God’s will for your life is not
a roadmap, but a relationship”. The intent of addressing specific
areas in the “I’m Saved, Now What” series was to:
(1) Help us (including me) get a better idea
of how we are doing with our obedience.
(2) Expose areas of our life where we may
be failing, but have overlooked as an
important part of our spiritual maturity;
an area where we need to improve if we
have a genuine desire to be more like Jesus.
God proved His love for us and our goal should be to show
our love for Him in return – through our words, thoughts,
actions, and attitudes. The scriptures give us guidelines
for living as believers and it is up to us to apply those
principles to our lives.
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way
you should go; I will counsel you with my
loving eye on you.” (Psalm 32:8)
Have you ever had a member of your family look at you
in such a way that you knew what they were saying, even
though they didn’t say a word? They may give us ‘the look’
because of the type of language we are using, the topic of
our conversation, or what we are doing at the time.
That’s the kind of close relationship that loved ones have
with each other. It is also the kind of intimate relationship
we should have with our loving Heavenly Father.
We should feel the presence of His “look” whenever we are
tempted to do something that we know displeases Him. We
should feel His “look” when He is urging us to do something
for Him and He is waiting to see if we will obey, or rebel.
We should sense His presence when we have done anything that
we know is outside His Will for His children. It is similar to how
a child feels when he or she knows they have disappointed their
parents.
God isn’t just watching us to see if we mess up so He can “zap”
us; He is watching us because He loves us and wants us to enjoy
His blessings. God wants to remove anything that stands between
us and Him with His blessings.
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges for believers is to realize
that we open the door for His blessings through obedience and
service. Most of us understand obedience, but many have given
little (or no) thought of serving God as part of our new life when
we are followers of Jesus. If we are sincere followers of Jesus,
and we know that He served God, then doesn’t it make sense
that we would want to serve Him as well?
As a starting point, we can serve Him by allowing others to see the
characteristics of Jesus living in us every day. Unfortunately our
selfishness gets in the way and we live for ourselves (our wants,
our needs, etc.), rather than living for Him (love, compassion,
encouragement, etc.).
As we go through each day, we should live as though we feel God’s look
upon us. We need to willingly and consciously give up “self-control” and
give control to the Holy Spirit. Of course this means that quite often we
will be required to go against our natural inclinations of selfishness.
Philippians gives us a good credo to live by:
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.
not looking to your own interests but each of you
to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3)
A children’s chorus begins with the words,
“Twelve men went to spy on Canaan;
ten were bad; two were good.”
It refers to the following scripture:
Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and
said, “We should go up and take possession of the
land, for we can certainly do it.”But the men who
had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those
people; they are stronger than we are. “And they
spread among the Israelites a bad report about the
land they had explored. (Numbers 13:30-32)
Can you name the two that were good? The answer, of
course is, Caleb and Joshua. But can you name any of
the others (the ten who were bad)? We remember the
people who stand for God, because they encourage us
as we strive to be more like Jesus.
Joshua (also called Hoshea) and Caleb stood for God.
Shammua, Shaphat, Igal and the others did not.
Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh,
who were among those who had explored the land,
tore their clothes and said to the entire Israelite
assembly, “The land we passed through and explored
is exceedingly good. (Numbers 14:6-7)
Perhaps today something will happen and we will have to
make a choice either to show our faith, or hide it. Even if
nothing happens, we need to remember that others are
watching to see if our faith is real, or if we are just being
‘religious’.
They don’t want to hear us use clichés, quote scriptures,
and talk about what we know about Jesus; they want to
see us living a life with Jesus in control and our desire
to serve Him.
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of
others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no
reward from your Father in heaven. “So when you give
to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the
hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be
honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received
their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do
not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father,
who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. “And
when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they
love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street
corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have
received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into
your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who
is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in
secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep
on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard
because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your
Father knows what you need before you ask him.
(Matthew 6:1-8)
Others observe our language, our attitudes, our anger, how we
treat others, etc. We need to make a decision now to stand up
for Jesus from this day forward. He stood for us in the most
humiliating and painful way. We shouldn’t fight becoming a
new person with the characteristics of Jesus; instead we should
embrace how we will represent Him through the way we live.
As we have seen, the Book of James serves as our “instruction
manual” for living the Christian life. We have learned a lot
about what God expects of those who follow Jesus. Hopefully
the information and instructions in James has clarified some
things, exposed some of our blind spots, and shown us the
areas where we need to improve as members of God’s family.
The topics we have covered in this series are:
1. Trials
2. Temptation
3. Learning more about James
4. Problems
5. Perseverance
6. Attitudes
7. Wisdom
8. Lack of faith
9. Lack of devotion
10. Humility
11. Wealth
12. Rewards for perseverance
13. Temptations
14. Measuring our faith
15. Gods gifts
16. First fruits
17. Our tongues
18. Our ears
19. Anger management
20. Dealing with evil
21. Obeying God’s Word
22. Just being religious
23. Pure and faultless
24. Favoritism
25. Discrimination
26. Partiality
27. Christian love
28. Lawbreaking
29. Judgment
30. Mercy
31. Faith in action
32. Living faith
33. Belief in God
34. Evidence of faith
35. Teaching
36. Stumbling imperfection
37. Use of tongues
38. Taming the tongue
39. Wisdom
40. Understanding
41. Humility
42. Envy
43. Boasting
44. Heavenly wisdom
45. Peacemaking
46. Internal battles
47. Greed
48. Righteous prayer
49. Friendship with the world
50. Evil practices
51. Covetousness
52. God’s jealousy
53. God’s grace
54. Humility
55. Confronting the devil
56. Evil desires
57. Where is God?
58. Mourning
59. Humble in God’s eyes
60. Slander
61. Being judgmental
62. Including God in your plans
63. Arrogant pride
64. Wealthy people
65. Using God’s blessings
66. Patience
67. Taking a stand
68. Grumbling
69. Patience exhibited
70. Blessings for patience
71. Using our tongues wisely
72. Praying
73. Joy
74. Sickness
75. Children
76. Relationships
77. Effective prayer
78. Concern for others who are backsliding
As a reminder, this entire series was a book that God inspired me
to write in 2015. Even though I had worked with a publisher on
a previous book, I never felt led by God to get this one published.
I thought about the book for years and never quite understood
why God had not encouraged me to get it published.
After 7 years of waiting, I now understand that God wanted the
information He gave me, to be prepared in advance for sharing
many years later. A published book might be read by a few people,
but sharing His devotionals through a blog has resulted in over
100,000 views worldwide.
With God’s plan, He gets all the glory, and I can only imagine
how He is using what He has provided to impact the lives of
people (many I don’t even know). When a book is published,
the focus is often on the author, but with God’s plan, the
focus is on Him and His Word. And, that’s the way it should
be, since He is ultimately the author of all He has provided.
Another benefit of His plan is, the devotionals are available
for others to reference, print, re-read and share with others
without having to purchase a book or give donations, since
they are all free. Now that we have been “armed” with this
information from God, we need to purposely look at how we
will use it to live more righteously.
For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a
righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is
written: “The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)
For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in
God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be
declared righteous. (Romans 2:13)
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him
we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing
worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost
all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be
found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from
the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness
that comes from God on the basis of faith. (Philippians 3:8-9)
But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness,
godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. (1 Timothy 6:11)
Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love
and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
(2 Timothy 2:22)
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training in righteousness, (2 Timothy 3:16)
“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might
die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been
healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive
to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
(1 Peter 3:12)
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)
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