September 2021
Nougat 5
In life, we meet all types of people – the joyful, the disturbed, and the unkind. In today’s Holy Nougat
“Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but become an example of the faithful—in speech, in conduct, in love, in faithfulness, and in purity.”
1 Timothy 4:12 TLV
Many of us are likely to think of marriage and intimate relationships on seeing or hearing the word faithful. At best, we may think a call for faithfulness addresses our relationship with God in this journey. And all are correct. It is worth remembering that to some degree we live our faith openly and, even as the persecuted church; the way in which we live our relationship with God is public.
Faithfulness can be snapshotted as Call; Conviction, Consecration and Covenant
- God Calls each of us into intimacy. It is an invitation to relate with and to God, the Lover of our Souls. The invitation is extended by Jesus (Revelation 3:20). If we respond positively; our journey into a life of Faith begins.
God’s Spirit Convicts us firstly, about the validity of our choice; and also about How to conduct ourselves in the relationship. It is a Conviction supplemented by God’s Word; that offers a Fast-Track insight on the nature of God. A grasp of God’s awesomeness further convicts us of our actions and invites us to acknowledge the points where we failed to live as God desires. When that is acknowledged (and it is an ongoing process), we repent and seek to secure God’s seal of approval or forgiveness.
This seal could be understood as our being Consecrated. Consecration speaks to the act of setting one apart from the ordinary and commonplace; for God’s glory. And that’s what happened when we acted on our Convictions of God’s Godness by repenting and confessing our sins. When we are Consecrated; we are (once again) openly affiliating ourselves with God’s way. This is publicly affirmed initially by baptism or confirmation.
Our Consecration also tells the world of our decision to be in Covenant with God. A binding, Grace-filled agreement that we not only embrace God’s Consecration; but we are also intentional about living accordingly. We read God’s Word; seek God’s guidance for its implications for our lives; and maintain a relationship with Jesus that includes direct communication (aka prayer) and indirect communication by way of our relationship with others. To assist ourselves, we often opt to affiliate ourselves with others of like Conviction, for fellowship and worship. Of course we do worship on our own – that’s part of what we are Consecrated to do.
We sometimes err; and the Good News is, by Christ’s Resurrection from the dead; we have grace to confess and restore our covenant.
In living Faithfulness to God; we pattern a lifestyle that can transform the world – one person at a time. And by Grace, we can represent and repeat even when things weren’t as they ought.
Praying us into Faithfulness … by God’s Grace
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May all we seek be found in Christ