Christ said in Matthew 11:29-30:
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in
heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light."
Your placement into the body of Christ as a new believer is just the beginning of a thrilling new life for you! Now that you have become a member of God's family, there is a purpose and some responsibilities for you to fulfill. Just as you have a definite place in, and responsibillties to, your earthly family, so has the Lord need of you in accomplishing your part of His divine plan for mankind. If He did not have need of you...if your service were not important to Him...He would have taken you home to heaven as a prized possession the moment you were saved. Yes, He does have a plan for your life. How wonderful that God not only saved you, but that He is now providing the opportunity for you to work for Him. He will even pay you for this service - not with financial remuneration as you know it, but through victories and blessings upon earth and crowns given out the day your Christian life is reviewed before His Throne. Listen to the Apostle Paul who had fought the good fight of faith and accomplished God's will for his life in 2 Timothy 4:8: "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."
In order to determine just what it is that the Lord has for you to accomplish, you need to learn more of Him and pray specifically regarding His will. 2 Peter 1:2-7 is written below from the Amplified translation of the Bible. These verses will help you begin to realize the Lord's will for your life.
2 Peter 1:2-7 [AMP] 2 May grace (God's favor) and peace (which is perfect well-being, all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity, and freedom from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts) be multiplied to you in [the full, personal, precise, and correct] knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 3 For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and godliness, through the [full, personal] knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue). 4 By means of these He has bestowed on us His precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through them you may escape [by flight] from the moral decay (rottenness and corruption) that is in the world because of covetousness (lust and greed), and become sharers (partakers) of the divine nature. 5 For this very reason, adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy), and in [exercising] virtue [develop] knowledge (intelligence), 6 And in [exercising] knowledge [develop] self-control, and in [exercising] self-control [develop] steadfastness (patience, endurance), and in [exercising] steadfastness [develop] godliness (piety), 7 And in [exercising] godliness [develop] brotherly affection, and in [exercising] brotherly affection [develop] Christian love.
If these things be in you, the work you do in the Lord's will shall be fruitful. Although you could not be saved by works, now you can and should work to receive rewards and achieve an abundant entrance into heaven.
How and where does one begin on this road of serving and pleasing God?
Again, by looking to His Word, we find that there is a three-fold formula for achieving the abundant life.
Christ actually WANTS us to have this kind of life:
John 10:10. [NASB] “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly”
Christ has already prepared the way for us to succeed:
Ephesians 2:10.[NASB] For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Christ is the power through which you can and will accomplish this goal.
Galatians 2:20. [NASB] I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Your placement into the body of Christ as a new believer is just the beginning of a thrilling new life for you! Now that you have become a member of God's family, there is a purpose and some responsibilities for you to fulfill. Just as you have a definite place in, and responsibillties to, your earthly family, so has the Lord need of you in accomplishing your part of His divine plan for mankind. If He did not have need of you...if your service were not important to Him...He would have taken you home to heaven as a prized possession the moment you were saved. Yes, He does have a plan for your life. How wonderful that God not only saved you, but that He is now providing the opportunity for you to work for Him. He will even pay you for this service - not with financial remuneration as you know it, but through victories and blessings upon earth and crowns given out the day your Christian life is reviewed before His Throne. Listen to the Apostle Paul who had fought the good fight of faith and accomplished God's will for his life in 2 Timothy 4:8: "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."
In order to determine just what it is that the Lord has for you to accomplish, you need to learn more of Him and pray specifically regarding His will. 2 Peter 1:2-7 is written below from the Amplified translation of the Bible. These verses will help you begin to realize the Lord's will for your life.
2 Peter 1:2-7 [AMP] 2 May grace (God's favor) and peace (which is perfect well-being, all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity, and freedom from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts) be multiplied to you in [the full, personal, precise, and correct] knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 3 For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and godliness, through the [full, personal] knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue). 4 By means of these He has bestowed on us His precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through them you may escape [by flight] from the moral decay (rottenness and corruption) that is in the world because of covetousness (lust and greed), and become sharers (partakers) of the divine nature. 5 For this very reason, adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy), and in [exercising] virtue [develop] knowledge (intelligence), 6 And in [exercising] knowledge [develop] self-control, and in [exercising] self-control [develop] steadfastness (patience, endurance), and in [exercising] steadfastness [develop] godliness (piety), 7 And in [exercising] godliness [develop] brotherly affection, and in [exercising] brotherly affection [develop] Christian love.
In short, he states “…through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord…
·
add to your faith, virtue;
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and to virtue knowledge;
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and to knowledge temperance;
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and to temperance patience;
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and to patience godliness;
·
and to godliness brotherly kindness;
·
and to brotherly
kindness charity (love).
If these things be in you, the work you do in the Lord's will shall be fruitful. Although you could not be saved by works, now you can and should work to receive rewards and achieve an abundant entrance into heaven.
How and where does one begin on this road of serving and pleasing God?
Again, by looking to His Word, we find that there is a three-fold formula for achieving the abundant life.
Christ actually WANTS us to have this kind of life:
John 10:10. [NASB] “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly”
Christ has already prepared the way for us to succeed:
Ephesians 2:10.[NASB] For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Christ is the power through which you can and will accomplish this goal.
Galatians 2:20. [NASB] I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
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