As we approached the end of the year 2019, the Lord had been ministering to me about the critical need for the church to grow in faith. Not only in this local assembly, but others in the Body of Christ need to be stronger in faith.
I have looked at some of the societal trends, and recognised that there is a concerted effort to squeeze God, and the things of God, out of our existence. Secular humanism and other atheistic beliefs are leading the assault against godly values and Judeo-Christian beliefs. All that is called God and the things of God are being relegated to irrelevance, and are viewed as regressive, by the pseudo-progressive left. Liberal Governments around the world are modifying legislation to facilitate rampant immorality and perversion under the guise of human rights. The effort to associate these atrocities with the civil rights movement is an insult to the clergymen and others, who fought long and hard to win equal human rights for a people whose only crime was that they were born black.
On the other hand, the church, to a large extent, seems to be in a state of apostasy. We have strayed from the fundamental principles and tenets of the early church. Christianity today is being defined as materialistic, secular, and carnal. More and more, we see significant moral failures being highlighted at the level of the clergy. Worse than that is the sickening trend of charismatic witchcraft and divination that is being accepted and embraced by a spiritually blinded and scripturally ignorant church.
There is an urgent call for the church to be defined again in terms of the holiness and purity that the precious blood of Christ, on Calvary, guaranteed. It is time for us to stand in the divine authority that characterised the Church, which was birthed at Pentecost, and against which, the Lord declared, the gates of hell shall not prevail.
As we usher in this new decade, we recognise the necessity for us, as the people of God, to be defined by faith—Radical FAITH! It is not a time for weak compromising Christianity. This is time for us to Believe, Pursue and Stand.
We must believe in God and believe God — in spite of the difficulties we may face.
We must diligently pursue God and the things of God — In spite of the consequences.
We must stand in faith (stand for the truth) and in defence of the Faith that was once delivered to us — in spite of the opposition.
In this regard, I have chosen to do my best to equip the church for this call. Throughout this year, we would be teaching on various aspects of faith, with the three above mentioned points as sub-themes. Each would be carefully addressed to give a comprehensive understanding of the basis of our salvation, which is Faith.