May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
2 Peter 1:2 ESV
The more you know God, the more you experience the fruit of the Spirit. God is a Spirit and He can be known.
In fact, when you know Jesus as Lord and Savior, He baptizes you in His Spirit just as we are baptized in water when we publicly proclaim our faith and confirm our desire to be His disciples.
Baptism doesn’t save us. It is simply an appeal to God for a clear conscience. It’s an act of faith. It says, through our actions, that we identify with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. We lay down our old lives, bury them in the sea of forgetfulness and rise up in newness of life. All of our former sins are remembered no more. They were nailed to the Cross in the person of Jesus Christ.
Grow in grace. Grow in your knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Jesus is our peace. Without Him, there is no peace. Abide in Christ. Stay connected to the vine. How do you stay connected? Keep on believing.
Keep on believing in spite of your circumstances. Keep on believing in spite of how you feel. Keep on believing in spite of what’s happening in the world of sin. Keep on believing in Him who saves your soul and sanctifies your life.
His grace is sufficient. His unmerited favor will give you exactly what you need to endure. Life is filled with suffering. Without hope, suffering seems unbearable and we look for a way to escape. With Jesus, we understand suffering is how we learn obedience.
God doesn’t want to punish us, He wants to bless us. He demonstrates this clearly in the fact that He sent Jesus to be our Savior while we were still His enemies. See God’s heart. Know God’s heart. Trust God when you can’t see around the corner. God has your best interest in mind. Your flesh might not like it, but your soul and spirit will rejoice as you are conformed to the image and likeness of God.
There is nothing more satisfying than being in the manifest presence of God. Here we get a taste of what Heaven will be like. In Heaven, we will experience uninterrupted fellowship with God and the complete absence of all sin, darkness and wickedness. It will truly be an everlasting Paradise.
Remember that when the going gets tough. We are called to endure until the end. Keep the faith. Never lose your trust that God is working all things out for good.
May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Amen.