Philippians 1:5
“in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.”
Being a christian is an active thing. It’s not merely having a set of beliefs. What are the action steps?
Being convicted of sin. When we hear the Word of God, we see the need forgiveness. God is perfect and we are not. Next we go to the cross and ask for forgiveness. We trust that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was enough to pay for our sins.
This causes us to be born again. We get a new, godly nature that loves Him and wants to connect with and follow Him. We do this by being obedient to His Word. So, we have to read it and hear it in church. We ask Him for help to do so.
We will stumble and sin, so we follow the advice of I John 1:9, “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. He picks us up and we go on our way. We have to forgive ourselves as He’s forgiven us. Our sin may be against another, so we need to approach them and ask for their forgiveness.
We learn to obey Him. We’ve asked Him to be our savior, we also need to obey Him as Lord. That’s usually His Word, but sometimes our conscience that nudges us or sometimes it’s an idea or a prompting that we suspect is Him. It’s not always Him, but sometimes it is.
We learn to discover the gifts we have and exercise them. Those include, serving, teaching, encouragement, counseling, mercy and so on. It’s a blessing to find our place in the body of Christ. This brings much joy. We feel His strength and blessing flowing through us as we serve Him.
We share the good news with others. We see some come to faith and follow Him. Then they get blessed and share with others. We are all participating in the gospel.
Lord, thank You for new life in You. We’ve been rescued, adopted and empowered to follow You and be a blessing. Thank You.