Our Footsteps: War and Peace

Sunday, October 12, 2008

War and Peace

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ - Romans 5:1

What is the opposite of peace? War. If we aren’t at peace with God, then we are in a spiritual war with Him. Many unbelievers may think that because they really aren’t aggressively against God that they are at peace with Him. Others may believe that indifference or neutrality toward God certainly does not rise to the level of ‘a spiritual war’. Still others may actually believe there is a supernatural war going on, but they choose to be nonpartisan, failing to realize that they are the very enemies of God. Those against whom God is warring are operating in the flesh. Another verse in Romans (8:4), indicates that "the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God".

How do we come to a truce in this spiritual war? The hostility toward God must cease, but it cannot end as long as we are at enmity with Him. God’s anger is kindled against those who are at enmity with Him and these will be objects of His divine wrath. But God has also made humankind objects of his divine compassion by sending Jesus Christ to us. By placing our personal trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, surrendering our lives to His control, and turning away from our sin, then our spiritual war with God will be over.

A new war begins at this point: the war with the enemy, Satan.

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I Believe...

1). I believe that there is one God. I believe God consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
2). I believe that God is holy, righteous, loving, and just.
3). I believe that mankind is separated from God by sin; that sin entered the world through Adam and death through sin.
4). I believe that, because of sin, man is condemned. Because of God’s utter hatred for sin, there is an eternal conscious punishment in hell for all those who do not come to God on His terms, dealing with their sin.
5). I believe that confessing our sins and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord is the only way to properly deal with the sin that has infected everyone. Jesus Christ paid our sin debt on the cross; reconciliation by substitution. There is nothing we can do to add to the finished work of Christ.
6). I believe in the security of the believer, that once he is truly born-again, there is nothing that would cause him to lose his salvation.
7). I believe that upon the death of a true believer in Christ, that he is ushered immediately into the presence of the Lord, where he will live in everlasting joy in Heaven, experiencing eternal fellowship with God.
8). I believe in believer’s baptism by immersion. I don’t believe baptism is necessary for salvation, but it is a beautiful outward profession of an inward possession.
9). I believe in a literal 6-day creation where God created the heavens and the earth and then rested on the seventh day.
10). I believe that the words written in the Bible are truth. I believe that the Bible is inerrant in its parts and in its whole. I believe that the 66 books that make up the canon of scripture make the Bible complete and that God inspired the words written therein. The things that were written down in the Bible are sufficient for every need we have. Not only is God’s Word sufficient, but it is far superior to any other method of handling the problems that man faces, since He has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness.