In the Christian life this is especially true.   Once you have made a commitment to serve God and leave behind a life of sin, that commitment is for a lifetime.  You can’t go back to your former life.  To do so means death – especially spiritual death.

Lot’s Wife Looked Back

The best example of this is Lot’s wife.  You will find the story in Genesis 19.

The Lord was about to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their atrocious sins.  The Lord decided to save Lot and his family because of his righteousness.  The angel of the Lord told Lot to take his wife and daughters and flee the city immediately.  He also told them to not look back otherwise they will die (verse 17).  However, Lot’s wife could not help herself; she looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt (verse 26).

You see, by looking back essentially she was saying, “I will miss this place despite all the wrong acts it committed.”

Change for the Better

The Christian life means change for the better.  A life filled with blessings and accomplishments.  In Proverbs it states:  “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”  (Proverbs 26:11)

Don’t be a fool and keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, but keep working to improve your life and you will reap the rewards.

Road not Easy, but Rewarding

A Christian life may not be easy as you will not always get the things you want when you want it, as well as face persecution from those who are against your beliefs.  But despite the trials, it is a much better life than one lived apart from Jesus.  The bible teaches that:

“There is wonderful joy ahead, even though it is necessary for you to endure many trials for a while.  These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure… So if your faith remains strong after being tried by fiery trials, it will bring much praise and glory and honour on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world”. I Peter 1:6-7

Your trials help you to build faith and not to mention the great reward you will receive when Jesus Christ returns.  If you give up, you will lose.

Keep looking at the road and ahead and at no time look back, because God is at the end of the road.

What is apologetics?  The word comes from the Greek word Apologia which means ‘defense’, so Christian Apologetics essentially means ‘defending the Christian faith’.  A person who is versed in apologetics is called an ‘Apologist’.

Even though apologetics may appear to be a new branch of Theology, it is rather quite old.  People have been defending their belief in a living God since in Old Testament times.  You will find scriptures in the bible that command you to defend your faith.

“Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life.  And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it”.  I Peter 3:15

I guess you can say Paul was one of the greatest Apologists of all time.  Here’s what he says in 2 Corinthians 3 -6:

“We are human, but we don’t wage war with human plans and methods.  We use God’s mighty weapons, not mere worldly weapons, to knock down the Devil’s strongholds.  With these weapons, we break down every proud argument that keeps people from knowing God.  With these weapons we conquer their rebellious ideas, and we teach them to obey Christ.  And we will punish those who remained disobedient after the rest of you become loyal and obedient.”

This is what being an apologist is all about – using God’s weapons to fight those whose purpose is to destroy God’s Word and those who believe in Him.

There are certainly a lot of tools to learn and master to become a good apologist.  Attacks on the bible and Christianity have certainly become more prominent and sophisticated in our time.  A true Christian now needs to know how to properly answer those questions that deny the existence of God and Jesus Christ, as well as those aspects of the bible that persons try to distort and discredit.  It is a lot of work, but certainly well worth the effort. 

It goes to show that I too, have a lot to learn, but I am well prepared to open my mind and heart to all that the Lord is teaching me so I can go out and teach it to others, as well as to effectively defend my faith.

If you wish to know more about Apologetics you can study these Free Courses

Mountain

What is Faith?

“It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen.  It is evidence of things we cannot yet see.”  Hebrews 11:1

This is what a true christian lives by – faith. 

Many people don’t believe in God the creator because they cannot see him.  Even the Israelites that Moses led out of Egypt lacked faith from time to time.  They even built an image to worship when they got impatient after Moses went up to Mount Sinai.  This is what we do sometimes, when our patience runs out because God does not seem near, we falter in faith.

“So you see, it is impossible to please God without faith.  Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek Him.”  Hebrews 11:6

We must live by faith and not by sight.  Anything you want for your life can be achieved if you just have faith.

Now don’t confuse faith with wishful thinking.  It is not a matter of sitting around waiting for things to happen, but by working toward making it happen.  But while you are working, you are praying and believing.  Some things just take a little time, and there may even be times when we don’t get what we want, but that does not mean that God is not with us.

God promised Abraham that he would be a father of many nations.  Abraham did not live to see this happen, but it did happen because God promised.  Some of the things we hope for may not happen in our lifetime, but it still can happen and benefit our loved ones.  God does things His own way and we should not question it.

However there are some things that you do need to wait on God for.  Perhaps you are terminally ill, then you need to have faith that God can heal you.  It takes a little faith to make big things happen.

“I assure you, even if you had faith as small as a mustard seed you could say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there’, and it would move.  Nothing would be impossible.” Matthew 17:20

Have you ever seen a mustard seed?  It is very small indeed.  So imagine what you could do with a whole lot of faith.

We must live by faith for you see, we will not always get what we want in this life, and we have to face trials and challenges that we sometimes don’t understand, but there is a higher reward awaiting us.

“Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.” Romans 5:2

 In God’s Kingdom we will be rewarded for all our faith and patience.  We should not be anxious about anything but continually trust in God for all our needs.