Salvation in Christ

Advance God's kingdom like yeast through dough.

Grow Your Desire To Advance God’s Kingdom

September 15, 2018 by Matt Pavlik 8 Comments

Before we Christians can hope to advance God’s kingdom, we must first be able to see God’s kingdom. The kingdom Jesus talked about is spiritual. To see it you need spiritual eyes. After you see it, you can enter it; after you become part of it, you can help advance it.

Nicodemus sought to understand God’s kingdom:

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”
John 3:1-2 ESV

Jesus revealed to Nicodemus the secret to understanding:

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
John 3:3-6 ESV

Jesus advanced God’s kingdom and He left us a recipe for how to continue in His absence. Permit me to paraphrase the Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6:9–13):

Father God is perfect.
He wants to advance His kingdom on earth.
He meets all our needs when we can humbly receive them.
He meets our physical, emotional, and kingdom desires.

Disarm Sin To Advance God’s Kingdom

Before Jesus died and rose again everyone was confused about Jesus’s purpose. Even Jesus’s disciples didn’t get it. Was Jesus on earth to start a military campaign? That would be easier than dying on a cross but not a final solution to the problem of sin.

Jesus waged war in the spiritual realm. He disarmed sin once and for all. He did the heavy lifting, so all you need to do is be willing to join God’s fight against sin.

Tap Into God’s Power To Advance God’s Kingdom

Keep in mind that to make a disciple, you first have to be a growing disciple. Being a disciple means you have experience being aware of your needs and receiving from God and others. You accept the help of God’s Holy Spirit who is present in the life of every believer.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
John 14:16–17

Bear Fruit To Advance God’s Kingdom

To advance God’s kingdom means to expand the reign of God like yeast spreads through dough and causes it to rise (Matthew 13:33, parable explanation). Yeast enters the dough and slowly transforms it. You and I, as Christians, are the yeast.

When righteousness, peace, and joy increase, the kingdom of God is advancing (Romans 14:17). The most direct and practical way to advance God’s kingdom is to fulfill the great commission. The great commission is as simple as you knowing God and helping others to know Him, too.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
Matthew 28:19–20a

The Secret Ingredient Needed To Advance God’s Kingdom

Your desire for God’s kingdom is important. “Thy kingdom come; they will be done.” How potent is your desire to see God’s kingdom come?

If you want to advance God’s kingdom, you need to think long-term. One common phrase for this is “playing the long game.” To do this, you accept short-term setbacks for bigger gains later. That’s what Jesus did with His death and resurrection, right? Easier said than done, I know.

It’s your life. What are you going to do with it? I’m thinking now of the How To Train Your Dragon moment when Astrid says, “What are you going to do?” and Hiccup responds, “Probably something stupid.” But here’s the difference: in God’s kingdom there is no stupid.

If that still sounds like too much stupid, then think of it as a wise investment. Put your talent to good use.

Are you ready to Play the Long Game to advance God’s kingdom? Read To Identity and Beyond: Play the Long Game, Advance God’s Kingdom, Enjoy Abundant Life.

Live As A Free Person

January 23, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Do you live more like a free person or a slave? A free person lives without the burden of guilt and shame. Guilt is like a ball and chain. It slows you down and in some cases, it might completely immobilize you. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus died so you can be free of these horrible burdens.

God introduced the Gospel to us 430 years before He introduced the law (Galatians 3:8, 17). It’s the law that tells us we are guilty (Romans 3:20). The Gospel is based on the promise God gave to Abraham and Abraham’s response in faith. This established the means of salvation well before we even knew about the law.

Faith in God’s Promise Equals Freedom

Salvation is activated by faith (believing God honored His promise in Jesus Christ), not by works (self-righteous acts that attempt to fulfill the law). When you want to know if you are an heir to God’s promise, you only need to verify that you take God’s word (His promise) as the truth. If you believe it, then you are a child of God: a new creation with a spiritual connection to God.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 3:26-29 NIV

Anyone can activate their salvation, if they can believe. God does not discriminate between His creation in any other way. It doesn’t make a difference if you are a Jew or you are a Gentile, a slave or free, a male or female, you can gain access to God through faith in Christ Jesus.

Once you have this access by faith, you must continue to maintain the access by faith. God’s way liberates you from the burden of fulfilling the law through your own effort. Paul encourages those of us whom Christ has set free to never return to the old ways.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1 NIV

In fact, because of what Christ has done for us, attempting to follow the law is always a wasted effort. Anyone who attempts to achieve salvation through works must fulfill the entire law (Galatians 5:3). Our effort or lack of effort counts for nothing.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.
Galatians 6:6, 6:15 NIV

Being a New Creation Equal Freedom

Are you a new creation? This is the same as asking if you have been born again. Have you experienced a spiritual rebirth (John 3)? If so, you have been set free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). You are no longer a slave; you are a child of God (son or daughter).

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
John 8:34-36 NIV

Reach John 8:31-47. Jesus makes a clear distinction between those who belong to Him and those who don’t know Him. What burdens are you carrying that you no longer need to carry? Set them down. You are free.

3 Reasons Hope Is Always Attainable

June 13, 2021 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Hope might be easy to lose but it is also easy to gain. If you’ve ever become discouraged, I bet something negative happened that you weren’t expecting. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to feel crushed. Even a small amount of hate from another can weigh you down. Read on if you want to feel hopeful instead of discouraged.

It’s only possible to lose hope when you lose focus on what matters most. Biblical hope is the “joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation.” If you’re focused on anything else as a source of hope, you risk becoming disappointed or full of despair. Consider the following verse which is meant to increase your confidence in your salvation.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13 NIV

Verses like this one lead believers to know their salvation is secure. God wants you to feel hopeful because of your salvation. If your salvation wasn’t secure, what is there left to put your hope in? Yes, the Christian life is based on faith, but it is based on the guaranteed future reality of eternal life, not a one-in-a-million chance. Believers must have faith in God, trust God, and hope in God because what God promises is in the future. When you see the word hope in a verse, think of the biblical definition, not the I hope I win the lottery use.

You Can Hope Because Jesus Crucified Sin

Sin might have some immediate (as in earthly) consequences, but Jesus has saved you from the worst possible consequence: spiritual death. When you become a believer, you are no longer condemned, so you are no longer without hope. Nothing can separate you from God’s love (Romans 8:1, 38-39).

You Can Hope Because God Made You An Expert

No human is gifted in every way possible. Your weaknesses tell you what not to pursue in life just like your strengths tell you what you should pursue. Both are necessary. You’ll make yourself sick if you try to compete in areas where you lack ability. But you’ll experience peace and joy when you understand (and live out) the reasons why God created you.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

God has a purpose and a plan for your life. Stay on target and you’ll feel hopeful.

You Can Hope Because You Are Growing

Not only are we not born perfect, but we also aren’t born mature. God isn’t done with you yet. It’s okay if you need more time to fully mature into all God is making you to be. It’s possible what you aren’t capable of today, you will be capable of tomorrow. If you have seen enough reasons to hope yet, here is another:

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
2 Timothy 1:6-7

God wants you to grow the gifting He’s given you. God is the author and perfecter of your faith (Hebrews 12:2). Do your part to receive what God has given you and allow God to do His part to shape you into the work of art He has in mind. Keep both of these in balance and you will overflow with hope.

See the definition of the word hope.
Read about how to increase hope.
Image by Meine Reise geht hier leider zu Ende. Märchen beginnen mit from Pixabay

3 Deaths And You Are Out Forever

February 23, 2020 by Matt Pavlik 3 Comments

A baseball player has three strikes before he is out. People have three deaths before they run out of life. Everyone will experience at least two deaths(*1), but some will manage to get a hit before striking out.

People are born into a physical life and a spiritual death (strike 1!)
People will eventually experience a physical death (strike 2!)
People who have not experienced a spiritual rebirth will experience the final death (strike 3!)

Just like there are two states of spiritual health, there will be two different experiences of judgment at the end of our physical lives. God will judge believers and unbelievers differently.

God Will Judge Unbelievers and Assign Death as Punishment

If people are already spiritually dead at birth, why is a final death needed? I think it is related to the tree of life found in the garden of Eden. The tree of life causes people to live forever (Genesis 3:22). God didn’t want Adam and Eve to live forever as physically alive but spiritually dead. Similarly, the final death removes all opportunity for the physically dead to ever become alive spiritually. It’s permanent like losing a body part that won’t grow back.

When unsaved people die, they face God’s judgment for their sin. Without Jesus to intervene, God will judge them guilty. He will hold their sin against them. The judgment will be straightforward. Those whose names aren’t found written in the Book of Life will be sentenced to the final death (Revelation 20:11-15). There won’t be an appeal process, but only a final and permanent removal of all opportunity for life.

God Will Judge Believers and Reward Valuable Work

Saved people will bypass the unbeliever’s judgment because Jesus knows their names are written in the Book of Life. They will be judged righteous based on Jesus’s record.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
John 5:24 ESV

However, saved people will not escape all forms of judgment. They won’t be judged as to whether they will end up in heaven or hell. Everyone who is saved goes to heaven. The believer’s judgment will be more like the grading of a capstone project. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul describes the judgment of believers.

For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.
2 Corinthians 5:10 NLT

Could this verse be addressing both saved and unsaved people? Is it meant to instill fear in believers that Jesus will judge their sin and find their name isn’t written in the Book of Life? No, the context of verse 10 is not discussing the state of a person’s salvation (verses 1-9).

Even so, some people attempt to use this verse to argue that no one can know until the moment of judgment if they are entering heaven. They argue that this is necessary to prevent people from being lazy after they become saved. If a person knows for sure they will be saved, why would they try to be a better person? What incentive do they have to stop sinning? But this goes against many scriptures (Titus 1:1-2, 3:7, Romans 8:1, John 10:27-28, and John 5:24, to name several.

God is going to judge us believers for what we do with the talents God gives us (Matthew 25:14–30). This will be positive overall, however, this is also where we get to see if our work holds up to the test.

Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.
1 Corinthians 3:12-15 NLT (my emphasis added)

So, believers will be saved, but they will be judged for the quality of their work. If you don’t build well, you may lose your reward, but not your life.

So this judgment is not meant to be a to-the-death competition. Instead of God using fear to motivate good behavior, He uses love. God empowers the believer to succeed. If a person refuses to try, obey, and love, this is evidence that they aren’t saved.

It’s not like there’s only one first place and we need to fight each other for it. Instead, based on the Parable of the Talents, we are each to give our all according to the gifts and abilities God has given us. Those who are genuine believers can obey and love by the power of the Holy Spirit (1 John 2).

You are running a race in which the only competition is yourself. I like this because I can experience both the security of knowing God’s love and provision for me and also the challenge of expressing my will to be all that God made me to be. I want to cooperate with God during the sanctification process. I want to stay connected with Jesus so I can bear fruit.

You should feel positively motivated to serve God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. If you’re not, consider what is missing from your relationship with God.

This post is part of a series on eternal security. You can read the introductory post: eternal security means full assurance of salvation.
For more on judgment, consider this article I found.
(*1) except for Jesus (no spiritual birth or death), Enoch and Elijah (no physical death), Adam and Even (no physical birth).
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Relax Into A Reliable God

January 19, 2020 by Matt Pavlik 2 Comments

God is reliable but not predictable–He does not change in shifty ways (James 1:17). Have you ever lost something important and then felt a sickening panic when you couldn’t find it? Ever felt like you misplaced God? Nothing is lost if you know what you are looking for, where to find it, and how to detect it.

In the Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo has a moment when he can’t find The Ring. He looks all over for it and works himself into a frenzy. But then after only a few minutes, he finds it in his pocket (where he left it).

When you’ve lost something important, a few anxious minutes can feel like an eternity. When this happens, more than a physical sensation is involved. A spirit of fear can take hold. You can almost touch it like you are walking through a dense cloud of it. Before you know it, you can believe you are doomed.

God is Reliable (He’s not hiding or lost)

In Luke 15, Jesus tells several parables about us being lost and the rejoicing that happens when we repent and move toward God. While Jesus never worries or panics, it is clear that He misses us when we become distracted with life and forget about Him.

From our perspective, isn’t it usually the other way around? We think we know where we are and we declare that God is missing.

I can’t feel God anymore. God, are you there? It doesn’t feel like you are there. Don’t you care that I’m suffering?

This reminds me of Mary when her brother Lazarus died. “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32). She is hurting and disappointed. But she knows that God’s presence makes all the difference.

God is Reliable (but you might not feel His presense)

When God is present, it is first a spiritual experience and second an emotional experience. If you find yourself all alone in the sense that you can’t feel God’s presence, you might be tuned to the wrong channel.

If you only go looking for God with your feelings, you might miss Him. He’s always there, but you can’t always feel Him. You can read the Bible and know He will never abandon you. But I’m talking about something different.

When Jesus left us, He sent His Holy Spirit to be with us.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you.
John 14:16-18 NLT

God is Reliable (your salvation is secure)

God will never leave you. If the Holy Spirit is a deposit to guarantee your salvation, then it isn’t possible to lose your salvation. There are definitely times when circumstances can convince you God is gone. The enemy is a deceiver. He wants to mislead you so you will become discouraged and stop living for God. You can’t lose your salvation, but you can “misplace” it.

God is right there “in your pocket” but if you panic, you won’t be able to sense Him. If you are blinded, God could be right there with you but, if you panic, you can blind yourself to His presence and stray into a dangerous mental state. If you can’t seem to see God and can’t believe He is with you, check if your eyes are covered with lies (real eyes realize real lies).

As believers, we can sense God’s presence without necessarily feeling God’s presence.

I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining. I believe in love even when not feeling it. I believe in God even when He is silent.
Anonymous

The next time you feel like God is absent, try reaching out with your spiritual senses. Affirm God is with you spiritually. Then ask the Holy Spirit to teach you about God’s truth and love.

This post is part of a series on eternal security. You can read the introductory post: eternal security means full assurance of salvation.
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Jesus Promises He Will Never Cast You Out

April 28, 2019 by Matt Pavlik 2 Comments

Some companies offer lifetime guarantees. But, there’s always some limit or exception. Jesus offers an upgraded guarantee: a personally backed promise.

In a company guarantee, “lifetime” applies to the purchased item, not to the purchaser. Imagine if washers and dryers came with lifetime-of-the-purchaser guarantees. You would need a replacement every five years, but you’d only have to pay for them once. No company can afford to sell a dryer for $500 and make it last 100 years.

Things don’t last like they used to. Nothing lasts forever.

Jesus’s Promises Last Forever

In a world of broken and replaceable things, it’s easy to believe I am broken and replaceable too. If there’s no such thing as a lifetime guarantee, then is there such a thing as eternal security? Maybe even God can’t offer a lifetime guarantee. At least, that’s what the enemy wants me to believe.

Jesus doesn’t offer lifetime guarantees like the world. He promises infinitely more!

Jesus offers something completely different from a typical lifetime-of-the-product guarantee. He offers an upgrade: an eternal life promise. He promises to keep you alive forever, even while other things break and pass out of… Share on X

Jesus’s Promises Cannot Fail

God the Father and Jesus have an understanding. God wills something to happen; Jesus makes it happen. If you believe in Jesus, God’s will is for you to have eternal life.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
John 6:37-40 ESV

Do you believe? If you believe, you have eternal life. The only work you have to do is to believe (John 6:29). When you believe, you trust that the Father has chosen you and given you to Jesus.

Then, you will come to Jesus and He won’t cast you out. You have the Spirit’s seal of approval. You are secure in Jesus’s eternal life promise.

Jesus Promises that You Belong

You belong only because of Jesus. God adopts you into His family. Anything good you have comes from God. You can accept yourself and count yourself as good and worthwhile because your creator says so.

Your life would have no meaning apart from the life of Jesus Christ. But because you are joined to God through Jesus, all of God’s blessings flow to you. To reject yourself in the face of this reality would be to reject the very words of God.

Security and belonging are not optional for emotional health. Jesus provides both. What does life look like without security and belonging? I like how Brene Brown describes life without belonging:

A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don’t function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick.
Brene Brown, Research Professor at the University of Houston

It’s possible to struggle to feel God’s love and acceptance. In future posts, I’ll explore breaking, falling apart, and numbing so you can work toward becoming whole.

If you don’t feel like you belong, first consider how secure you feel. Do you trust that Jesus will follow through with His promises?

This post is part of a series on eternal security. You can read the introductory post: eternal security means full assurance of salvation.
Image created by Matt Pavlik.

Is Grace Cheap or Costly?

February 9, 2019 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

As Christians, are we under the law, or are we under grace? If we are under the law, we are obligated to obey the whole law to achieve righteousness (see Galatians 5:3-4). If we are under grace, we have no obligation to obey the law (to achieve righteousness).

The whole purpose of Christ’s sacrifice was to move us out from under the requirements of the law and into grace. But without obligation, some people might take advantage of this. Does this make grace cheap?

God is Graceful (not dumb)

If someone thinks they can outsmart God, then they are already deceived and hopeless. Salvation isn’t a tradeable commodity. If you find a free movie pass, you can use it to get into a movie theater even if the pass wasn’t intended for you. But a “salvation pass” doesn’t work that way.

God issues a salvation pass to a specific person. The pass is bound to that person’s heart by faith. No one else can use it. You might be able to sneak into a movie theatre, but not heaven.

If a person tells God he believes in Him so he can acquire a pass, and his heart isn’t in it, he is only deceiving himself. His heart isn’t in it, so it won’t work. He isn’t a new creation. He doesn’t have a new heart. No one can trick God into giving out a salvation pass.

Grace is Deep (not superficial)

I used the following image in my book, Confident Identity, to show the contrast between someone who only changes on the outside (conforming) versus someone who is changing from the inside (transforming).

God is about internal change, not shortcuts or appearances. For those of us who have put our faith in Jesus Christ, we have a new heart. We are under grace. We don’t need to meet the demands of the law because Jesus already did that for us (Romans 8:1-4).

Amazingly, God made the offer of grace while we were still enemies of God.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
Romans 5:10 ESV

If we received grace as enemies, certainly we will continue to receive it after we have been reconciled and are now friends with God. With such extravagant love, how can we not be secure in our salvation?

Grace and Accountability are Compatible (not conflicting)

Can a Christian take advantage of God’s extravagant grace? A genuine Christian can’t. In the short-term day-to-day perspective, we depend upon God to forgive our sinful choices. We must have His unmerited favor. In the long-term perspective, we have a new heart and we won’t keep on willfully and carelessly sinning (1 John 3:6). This is because you have been set free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).

Paul makes this clear in Romans 6:

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Romans 6:14-15 ESV

Therefore, you can both:

Be saved and possess God’s full grace and righteousness, including eternal life (Romans 5:21), and,
Be accountable to grow spiritually and make the choice to stop sinning (see all of Romans 6 for the complete context).

In fact, the only way you can conquer sin is to be genuinely saved and continue to depend on God’s grace. You don’t have to worry about being lazy because you’re relying on God too much. There’s plenty of work to go around as you resist sin and choose righteous living.

Consider how you relate to God. Is your attitude still one of the old code (the law)? You do wrong. God removes His grace. You suffer. You must clean up your act before you can be assured God accepts you as a member of His family.

I hope your attitude is of the new code (grace). You do wrong. You feel bad for your behavior. You cry out to God as your Father. He works with you, His child, to correct the problem. There’s always a way forward in this scenario. There’s always loving security.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
Romans 8:14-15 ESV

The grace you have removes the need for fear. It didn’t cost you, but it did cost Jesus. That cost allows you to have a pass with your name on it. The pass is yours to keep forever.

This post is part of a series on eternal security. You can read the introductory post: eternal security means full assurance of salvation.
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Comprehend Your Salvation With Humility

February 3, 2019 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

You can’t be a little bit pregnant. You’re either pregnant or you’re not. The same can be said for salvation. You can’t be a little bit saved. You’re either saved or you’re not. But once you are saved, can you return to an unsaved state?

At first reading, Philippians 2:12 seems to indicate that you can lose your salvation.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
Philippians 2:12 ESV

People with a law-based mindset might interpret”fear and trembling” in its most negative connotation. This might be done to maintain leverage and control. If a wife fears her husband’s sin, she might be tempted to manipulate him by telling him that if he doesn’t stop sinning, he will lose his salvation.

But this only sets up a state of constant anxiety. Can Paul be writing to Christians with such a positive message in Philippians, but then throw in such a negative statement? Other scriptures beyond verse 12 reveal an interpretation consistent with once-saved, always saved.

Salvation is Peaceful (not stressful)

The Bible uses the phrase “fear not” (or “be not afraid”) over 100 times. 1 John 4:18 shows that God does not want us to live in fearful anxiety. God, through His love, is working the fear out of us.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
1 John 4:18 ESV

Fear has two different meanings or contexts. You can “fear” when something terrible is likely to happen. This kind of fear occurs as you rely on yourself. You can also “fear” when you are dependent upon someone else. You can fear being abandoned. You can either trust God or fear that He will abandon you.

Salvation, when understood correctly, will result in less worry. Instead of focusing on avoiding negatives like, “Don’t go near the cliff, you might fall,” you can trust God and spend your time climbing mountains for God.

The non-Christian who climbs up the face of the cliff under their own power should fear falling. But not the Christian. Salvation grants “anti-gravity boots” that protect from a catastrophic loss. There can still be consequences for sin, but never a loss of salvation.

Salvation is Serious (not trivial)

Paul’s use of “fear and trembling” means to pay attention, be alert, take a personal interest in, or take it seriously. You can only do this if you are humbly dependent upon God. A prideful attitude would be fearless, careless, and boastful. But eternal life and its accompanying faith are a free gift so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Reading further in Philippians confirms this:

for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Philippians 2:13 ESV

Working out your salvation with fear and trembling means you should take your spiritual growth seriously. The more you comprehend salvation, the more you will show deep respect for God’s work in you. The CEV uses different wording that helps this come across:

My dear friends, you always obeyed when I was with you. Now that I am away, you should obey even more. So work with fear and trembling to discover what it really means to be saved. God is working in you to make you willing and able to obey him.
Philippians 2:12-13 CEV

Salvation is God-Powered (not self-powered)

Someone who isn’t a Christian might get the wrong idea: I can take my eternal security and abandon God. But eternal security and God are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other. If you have God, you have eternal security; if you have eternal security, you have God.

What should your response be to God’s work to enable you to obey Him? How about humbly working out your salvation, as you see it unfold before your eyes? God is the one who is enabling you to accomplish His great purposes.

Don’t take credit for your salvation. Recognize you are dependent upon God. Even though you have eternal security, you aren’t self-sufficient. Your eternal security is possible only because of God’s love and power. Your fear and respect for God should help you desire to move closer to God and to know and receive His love.

This post is part of a series on eternal security. You can read the introductory post: eternal security means full assurance of salvation.
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Relying On Righteousness Keeps You Safe

January 26, 2019 by Matt Pavlik 2 Comments

Are you the kind of person that learns the hard way or the easy way? Do you rely on your own effort or God’s effort? God’s righteousness will keep you safe. Self-reliance won’t. Developing a relationship with God is to experience eternal life.

If we are to trust in God’s righteousness, does this mean we can sin all we want without consequence? I’ve encountered some people who believe such grace is cheap. They argue that the certainty of salvation removes the incentive to stop sinning. They believe it is possible to lose salvation. The fear of losing salvation becomes the incentive to keep people from perpetual sin. Rules and consequences keep a person honest, they say.

But there is a better way to live. To feel at peace, remove your reliance on these three roadblocks: resources, responsibility, and restlessness.

Rely on Righteousness over Resources

The need for fear in a relationship with God works against the need to trust God for the security of your life. Love is a far superior motivator than fear. Love produces trust. Fear produces doubt and distance.

The distance grows as people flee the demands of obedience. The fear breeds self-reliance. Then people want freedom on their own terms. They want God’s provision but not God. They quickly receive any gift but lack respect for the giver.

The need to have resources stockpiled with no strings attached is really avoiding the fear of trusting God for your salvation. But resources bring a false sense of security at best (Luke 12:13-21).

Being responsible for your own load is a mark of maturity. The young son in the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15) learned this lesson well when he was willing to work as a hired hand for his father. He understood he had taken advantage of his father and wanted to repay his father. Fortunately for him (and you and I), his father confirmed his unconditional love for the younger son. He allowed him back without demanding repayment.

Rely on Righteousness Over Responsibility

Relying on someone else to meet your needs can be a humbling experience. Some people panic when they have nothing to do but rest. They feel their life is pointless if they aren’t carrying their own weight. They require having a fear of failure hanging over their heads because it drives them forward. They need to earn their passage in life. They resist accepting any gift.

In Luke 15, the older son was responsible (“I’ve never disobeyed you”) but he lacked the humility to receive the father’s invitation. The older son wanted to continue to rely on self-effort. The younger son, when he left his father, wanted to rely on self-indulgence. When the resources ran out, he switched to self-effort (“Make me your hired hand”), but quickly accepted his father’s correction; he accepted the ring of sonship and the invitation to the feast.

Both the self-indulgent person and self-righteous person value control over the vulnerability of depending on God. Both are uncomfortable feeling needy. The irresponsible person tries to secure their freedom through any means necessary (often by being bad). The responsible person tries to earn their own way by being good.

Rely on Righteousness Over Restlessness

So long as you’re depending upon God’s righteousness, you can be sure of your salvation. Eternal security depends on the faith, trust, and hope you place in God. Those who worry about losing their salvation are stuck in a moment of time. They refuse to walk the path that increases their reliance on God. They can feel no hope because they are focused on fear rather than on God.

Years ago I went repelling for the first time. Somehow I intuitively understood that to descend to the bottom, I had to lean all the way out from the edge of the cliff. Without a rope and a secure anchor, this would result in a much faster (and deadly) descent. But trusting in the anchor and leaning all the way out made for a pleasant, peaceful descent.

The same is true for your life as a Christian. You must put all your trust in your connection to God to experience a peace that surpasses understanding.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7 ESV

This post is part of a series on eternal security. You can read the introductory post: eternal security means full assurance of salvation.
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Discipline Ensures Victory

January 6, 2019 by Matt Pavlik 3 Comments

Reflecting on your life experiences, do you feel more neglected, disciplined, or condemned?

Neglect results from a lack of loving concern. Condemnation results from a lack of loving redemption. Both abandon people into the hopelessness of a world filled with evil. Neglect is a passive condemnation. You might not immediately be aware of the danger you are in, unlike condemnation which is much more obvious. But discipline includes the best of both and discards the worst. It not only points the way out of destruction but also provides the means to get to safety.

Neglect and Condemnation Eliminate All Hope

To be condemned is to be hopelessly abandoned. Punishment doesn’t include redemption. Punishment destroys. There is no provision for any kind of desirable future.

The one who punishes is evil and selfish. The one being punished only becomes more afraid.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
1 John 4:18 NIV

While you are being punished, you might not believe your situation is permanently hopeless, but in day-to-day living, you will likely feel overwhelmed with despair.

People who fail to develop faith in Jesus will face condemnation. They will finally reap what they have sowed. They won’t be able to escape God’s wrath.

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Matthew 25:46 NIV

They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.
2 Thessalonians 1:9 NIV

Discipline Creates Confidence

The one who disciplines invests in a positive outcome. As God corrects you (not punish or condemn you), you will experience a curious mixture of sorrow and hope (Hebrews 12:11). The hand of correction stings for a time, but awareness of its gift soon follows.

God always guides those who are His children into righteous living. Such training requires an investment. As God corrects you, He accepts the responsibility to see you become something more and better. God is on your side. God will never abandon you.

You can have eternal security and endure strong discipline from God at the same time. In fact, you can’t have one without the other.

And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.
Hebrews 12:5-8 NIV

Isn’t being able to claim yourself to be a true son or daughter such a great reward? God’s discipline is for your eternal benefit, not eternal condemnation. When you can feel the difficulty of life weighing on you, you can simultaneously recognize God is working to help you become better. God’s correction leads to hope. God cares about your life; He wants you to swim not sink.

God won’t simultaneously condemn you to hell and invest in your future. Sensing God’s sincere effort to remodel your life is yet another way to validate your eternal security. You can confidently say, “I’m a child of God. God cares about me enough to correct me and keep me on the right path. He wants me to make it safely across the finish line and to be at home with Him forever” (Psalm 23).

This post is part of a series on eternal security. You can read the introductory post: eternal security means full assurance of salvation.
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Unconditional Love Calls For Absolute Devotion

December 29, 2018 by Matt Pavlik 1 Comment

Is God capable of unconditional love? Is God for you or against you? These are dangerous but necessary questions. Dangerous because, who are we to question God? If God isn’t perfect, then no one is. Necessary because we must have the answers if we are to trust God.

Unconditional Love Does Not Eliminate Hardship

The Bible contains several stories that may cause you to question whether God is for you or against you. You might feel like one day He is on your side, and the next, He is working to thwart your success. Why would God allow Joseph’s brothers to betray him? Why would He kill Uzzah for touching the ark? Why did He kill Ananias and Sapphira for lying?

Anyone who deliberately goes against God’s purposes can’t expect to have a positive outcome. In the case of Joseph, it was his brothers who suffered because of the famine. They lived with guilt for years. Joseph suffered too, but he didn’t act against God. Uzzah directly disobeyed God’s command. Similarly, Ananias and Sapphira intentionally tried to lie to God. The quality of suffering is vastly different when sin is involved.

In all these situations God’s purposes prevail. Some people are examples to others for what not to do. These are exceptions for the most part. God’s discipline might lead to physical death but not spiritual death. The important takeaway is, no matter how much you suffer, you must continue to trust God.

Unconditional Love Eliminates All Obstacles

Sin and the love of this world prevent many people from entering the kingdom of heaven (James 4:4). Determining if God is for or against you might be as easy as knowing whether you are for or against God.

Many attitudes and actions go along with being “pro” or “for” someone. You would likely:

count yourself as on their side.
speak favorably of them.
be willing to be under their authority.
act for the sake of their interests.

God takes this one step further and asks His follower to be willing to give up anything and potentially everything to become a member of His family. It’s a true mark of being a believer. Absolutely nothing should prevent you from following Christ. Only true believers can see that nothing is more important than God.

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:26-30, 33 ESV

To respect God’s offer of unconditional love believers must meet it with their own unconditional surrender.

Unconditional Love Guarantees Absolute Security

Unconditional love is the greatest virtue and therefore the greatest measure of God’s character. God isn’t a trickster. God is for us, not against us. As believers, we are God’s elect, chosen and justified by Him. God is on our side, working for His purposes which includes our benefit. And furthermore, God is “kind to the ungrateful and the evil” (Luke 6:35). He is patient and kind to us even when we don’t deserve His unconditional love.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
Romans 8:31-35 ESV

If nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, we always have reason to hope. If you could lose your salvation, how could you continue to feel hope and connection with Christ? You couldn’t. Thanks to God’s unrelenting and indestructible love, you can live in security, not live in fear.

This post is part of a larger series about eternal security.
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The Faithful Are Perfect Forever

December 21, 2018 by Matt Pavlik 1 Comment

The Gospel has the power to perfect you. The change is so radical because it is irreversible. When you accept God’s salvation by faith, you leave behind sin as part of who you are. Christians can believe they have been permanently set free or they can cling to their old self-image. But once you cross over to perfection, it’s impossible to return to imperfection.

Jesus is Permanently Perfect

Never having to worry about losing your salvation might seem too good to be true. But it is only possible because of who Jesus is, not because of who you are or what you have done. Jesus is Lord and He lives forever to intercede for all believers. Previous sacrifices by human priests had no power to save. Jesus paid the price for your perfection. He paid it one time, for all time.

And by [God’s will] we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Hebrews 10:10 ESV

You are Permanently Perfect

Through Jesus, you are perfect for all time. That means your sanctification is guaranteed to be complete. It is inevitable. God considers you as sanctified and perfected, even though His work in you must continue throughout this life.

We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Hebrews 10:14 ESV

Therefore, you are both perfect and being perfected. You have been sanctified and are being sanctified. You are perfect in a way that you can’t reverse the process and become imperfect. At the same time, you are continuing to be sanctified.

Living By Faith Keeps You Perfect

God has the power to make you perfect, but you must do your part, too. You must activate the faith to see yourself through God’s eyes. You must agree with God and consider your sinful self (your “old creation”) as dead and your spiritual self (your “new creation”) as alive.

For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:10-11 ESV

Further along in Hebrews 10, verse 38 at first makes it seem like believers can fall away from their faith.

but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.”
Hebrews 10:38 ESV

“Shrinks back” and “has no pleasure” might not sound too severe, but the following verse clarifies that shrinking back can lead to destruction. Thankfully, it continues to clarify that those who have a genuine faith will preserve their souls. It is vitally important to not miss the word “if.” Because of verse 39, we can conclude that “if” indicates only a hypothetical possibility, not a definite occurrence.

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
Hebrews 10:39 ESV

When you read Hebrews 10 you must recognize who you are. Do you identify yourself as a non-believer, who lacks the faith to believe in the gospel message? If so, you live as an enemy of God, with your sin blocking you from reaching perfection.

Or, do you identify yourself as a believer, incapable of shrinking back? If so, you preserve your soul through your believing faith. Keep your faith in Jesus. You are truly saved, safe, and secure when you entrust your life to Him. It’s not possible to be a believer and not live by faith. Living by faith is the very essence of being a Christian. Where there is faith and the Spirit of God, there is freedom and there is no longer condemnation for sin. Your sin can’t prevent you from keeping your eternal life.

God Desires You To Be Secure

December 16, 2018 by Matt Pavlik 1 Comment

What would it take for you to feel secure? Would money do it? Health? Fame? What about possessing the certainty of God’s promises to you? That is my most valuable possession. How about you?

What assurances of eternal life do you have? Believers possess full assurance of salvation, gain complete joy because of salvation, and can abide in Christ.

The way to be saved is by believing that Jesus is the Christ. If you have persistent doubts about your salvation, you’re probably not saved. But if you’ve made this declaration and you know in your heart it is true, by faith, then you have been born of God.

Whether you are a believer or not will greatly influence how you interpret and understand the Bible. To the degree you doubt whether you are saved, you increase the chance that you’ll interpret the Bible incorrectly. That’s because only believers have the Holy Spirit and the only way to understand the Bible is through the Spirit. You won’t be able to put your confidence in the words of truth if you can’t even know for sure that you are saved.

Believing Confirms You Can Feel Secure

1 John says clearly that once you cross over to being a believer, you can know with confidence that you have eternal life. Several verses in chapter 5 drive home that you can feel secure.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.
We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.
1 John 5:1, 13, 14, 18 ESV

When you are confident in Jesus, you believe He will listen to you when you pray. If you are born of God then:

You won’t keep on sinning.
God will protect you (and keep you from continuing to sin).
The evil one can’t snatch you away from God’s hand (John 10:28-29).

Joy Results When You Feel Secure

John, even earlier in Chapter 1, provides a formula for having complete joy: to have fellowship with the Father and the Son. Jesus is the life made manifest, the eternal life. To know Jesus is to secure life for all eternity (John 17:3).

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
1 John 1:1-4 ESV

Abiding Keeps You Secure

1 John 3:6 makes it clear that those who keep on sinning (with a hardness of heart and without repenting) never had salvation. If you have any doubts also consider verses 5:1 and 5:13.

No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.
1 John 3:6 ESV

The entrance into the Christian life is all or nothing. Only believers will be with Christ forever. This will keep some people out of the kingdom of God. However, it also means that once you are in, you will remain in, because God is the one who has the power to keep you secure.

If there is a way to lose salvation, the only way would be not believing and trusting in Jesus Christ. God promises you eternal life as long as you keep in your heart the gospel message which you heard when you became a Christian (see 1 John 2:24-25). This should be the very thing we as believers are eager to do.

Holy Spirit Guarantees Your Inheritance

December 8, 2018 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

God desires that you feel secure with Him. He accomplishes this through His Holy Spirit, given to you when you are born spiritually. Once you are saved, He accepts responsibility for you and is able to keep you from falling away (Jude 1:24).

Holy Spirit Seals You

God gives the believer His Holy Spirit. As soon as you believe, God seals you with His Holy Spirit so you can feel secure. You become a genuine believer by hearing the word of truth, which is the gospel, and believing the truth.

God personally guarantees your inheritance until you receive it. If God is the guarantor, there be no doubt that He will keep His promise. God is the giver of good gifts. He is not one to revoke His gift (James 1:17, Matthew 7:7-11). This makes sense, doesn’t it? God is not someone who plays games with us. Once He chooses and calls you, He doesn’t change His mind (Romans 11:29).

A genuine believer can know he or she is eternally secure because of Ephesians 1:14.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
—Ephesians 1:11-14

Holy Spirit Intercedes for You

God is master and we are His followers. As a follower, you don’t need to know as much as God knows. You can’t know as much as God.

Since you are weaker than God, this places you in a position of dependence. Believers relate to God through faith and trust.

You don’t always know what needs to happen or what you should pray for. God makes up the difference by intervening in the best way possible. He knows us completely. Therefore, He cannot miss a necessary detail. He has life figured out. He has you covered.

In certain ways we are weak, but the Spirit is here to help us. For example, when we don’t know what to pray for, the Spirit prays for us in ways that cannot be put into words. All of our thoughts are known to God. He can understand what is in the mind of the Spirit, as the Spirit prays for God’s people.
Romans 8:26-27 CEV

Holy Spirit Guides You

When people are blind, they especially need someone to direct their steps. Chances are, you are not blind, but even so, you cannot see everything.

Since you see less clearly than God, you must depend upon Him. You must walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). This means moving forward in confidence that God is on your side, God is protecting you, and God is preserving you.

In the physical world, salt is a preservative. In the spiritual realm, truth is a preservative. Without the truth, you decay and die. The truth strengthens your resolve to face all that you must endure in this life.

The Spirit shows what is true and will come and guide you into the full truth. The Spirit doesn’t speak on his own. He will tell you only what he has heard from me, and he will let you know what is going to happen.
John 16:13 CEV

Consider all these words and may the peace of God rest upon you now and forever.

This post is part of a series on eternal security. You can read the introductory post: eternal security means full assurance of salvation.
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Eternal Security Means Full Assurance Of Salvation

December 2, 2018 by Matt Pavlik 12 Comments

All born-again Christians have eternal security: a full assurance of their salvation. Jesus guaranteed this when He paid for our sins once for all time (Hebrews 10:12).

A promise of security that is temporary or conditional wouldn’t provide assurance. But worse, it would be fraudulent. The reasons to worship or trust God would be limited. Security is an emotional need that God fulfills through His care for us. Fortunately for us, God is fully capable of meeting our need for assurance:

The name of the Lord is a strong fortress;
the godly run to him and are safe.
Proverbs 18:10 NLT

Even when I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will not be afraid,
    for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
    protect and comfort me.
Psalm 23:4 NLT

Psalm 23 ends with David’s conviction that he will live forever:

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the Lord
forever.
Psalm 23:6 NLT

Assurance is Possible Because Salvation is Freedom

When interpreting the Bible, it is important to look broadly (across many scriptures) and narrowly (in the immediate context of a verse). Also, everything written has an intended audience. The Bible has two main audiences: the Christian and the non-Christian.

The question of eternal security is a positional one. The Christian should approach the Bible as someone who is already saved and interpret every verse from this perspective. The true believer has complete freedom and no condemnation (Galatians 5:1,13; Romans 8:1). As a Christian, you can: Interpret The Bible With Your Christian Identity. The non-Christian should feel condemnation for their sin and the need for the Savior.

Can we agree on what is required to become a Christian? All of us should be able to evaluate whether or not we are saved at the present moment. If you can’t assert that you are saved right now, then that is a different problem: you then must consider if you are saved at all.

Assurance is Possible Because Salvation is a Gift

The process of gaining salvation requires putting your faith (actively believing) in Christ’s work on your behalf. You can’t provide any “work.” All that is required is your faithful belief. Salvation is a gift. Gifts are received not earned as Paul makes clear:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV

If someone can lose their salvation, there must be an equally clear procedure of how that happens. I suppose someone could return the gift, but there isn’t any reason why a true believer would want to do that. Only someone who hasn’t already received the gift can refuse the gift.

Assurance is Possible Because Salvation is Rest

If you can lose salvation by not working hard enough at it, then this would make salvation a trap: it’s easy to step in, but once you’re in, you have to work increasingly harder to stay in, otherwise, you’ll be kicked out. But then is it easy or hard to get back in again? Besides being confusing, this seems to go against the Gospel message and many Bible passages that grace, not works, saves you.

Consider Jesus’s words about coming to Him for rest:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
—Matthew 11:28-30

Salvation is not gained by working harder to avoid sin. That would be self-effort to keep salvation. Jesus is saying that salvation is the process of finding rest for your soul.

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Demonstrate Faith To Complete Your Training

October 23, 2021 by Matt Pavlik 1 Comment

The fourth and final step to complete your training depends upon the lessons learned in the first three steps. The first three steps build faith so you can achieve victory over significant life challenges. This post describes step 4 of 4 of the transformative journey.

Depend on God Alone to Demonstrate Faith

From steps two and three, a person learns to tell the difference between friends and enemies. To complete your training you need to learn more than that. You must also come to realize that even friends can let you down. They can and will help, but they are limited just like you.

In Star Wars, Luke wants Han Solo to help but he presses forward even when Han plans to return home when the rebels need him most. Luke listens to Obi-Wan’s prompting to “use the force” instead of relying on his ship’s computer sensors. But Luke is the one who turns off his targeting computer.

Only God gives inward peace,
    and I depend on him.
God alone is the mighty rock
    that keeps me safe,
    and he is the fortress
    where I feel secure.
Psalm 62:5-6 CEV

When have you been tempted to wait for someone (other than God) to rescue you? Even when your friends help, keep in mind that God is the only one who can bring about a victory. Count on your friends, but never stop counting on God no matter what else happens.

Confront Goliath-sized Problems to Demonstrate Faith

What good would all the trouble of the first three steps be if you didn’t put it into practice? God prepares us for bigger problems than we can handle alone. Our active faith in Him paves the way for victory.

Luke takes on the death star, against incredible odds. He stays focused on his target while relying on fate. After his victory, Obi-Wan says, “Remember, the force will be with you always.”

David certainly had to rely only on God to be able to defeat Goliath. All of his other friends were too afraid to attack him. But David attacked Goliath in the name of the Lord. “In the name” is the same as saying “by the power.”

Today the Lord will help me defeat you. I’ll knock you down and cut off your head, and I’ll feed the bodies of the other Philistine soldiers to the birds and wild animals. Then the whole world will know that Israel has a real God. Everybody here will see that the Lord doesn’t need swords or spears to save his people. The Lord always wins his battles, and he will help us defeat you.
1 Samuel 17:46-47 CEV

Have you ever felt like God has abandoned you? Are you so discouraged that you have stopped trying to exercise your faith? You wouldn’t have a need for faith if you alone had the power to obtain the victory. Step out in faith to tackle problems bigger than yourself that you know God wants to resolve.

Mentor Others to Demonstrate Faith

As God has been faithful to you, share your faith with others. No matter how old you are, your faith will continue to grow as you put it into practice. You can testify about God at any age, but those who have walked with the Lord longer will have a stronger story to tell.

Now that I am old and gray,
do not abandon me, O God.
Let me proclaim your power to this new generation,
your mighty miracles to all who come after me.
Psalm 71:18 NLT

Take some time to remember all the ways God has been faithful to you. Don’t stop remembering until you can conclude that God has been faithful to you. This doesn’t mean you have never had trouble or heartache. It only means that you didn’t lose the sense of God’s goodness along the way.

A strong faith believes in God even when circumstances are challenging.

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Learn To Trust To Complete Your Training

October 17, 2021 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Trust is an essential skill for many aspects of life. It’s the foundation of every relationship you have. You need relationships to move forward in life. This post describes step 3 of 4 of the transformative journey.

Learn To Trust: Be Vulnerable in Relationships

You can’t accomplish anything apart from God. And, since God uses other people, you probably need them too. Trusting involves risk, but it also results in vulnerability which is required if you want to grow more emotionally healthy. It’s easy to trust when no suffering is involved. But God wants us to wait patiently for Him during our suffering.

The Lord’s people may suffer a lot,
but he will always bring them safely through.
Psalm 34:19 CEV

In Star Wars, when Luke attempts to rescue Princess Leia, he ends up trapped in a room-sized trash compactor. When a creature in the compactor strangles him and pulls him underwater, and yet again when the compactor starts shrinking, he must rely not only on his friends Han Solo and Princess Leia but also his droids C3PO and R2D2.

I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
Psalm 40:1 NIV

When have you had no choice but to trust others when you’ve been at the bottom of your pit?

Learn To Trust: Replace Lies with Truth

In the midst of suffering, God would have us both accept the suffering and yet confront the lies that the suffering makes possible. When faced with the hopelessness of the moment, hope in God’s decisive, but future, victory is the only way to endure the pain.

Luke escapes the compactor only to see his mentor Obi-Wan struck down by Darth Vader. At that point, he lacks the understanding that something better is coming. But before Obi-Wan dies, he tells Vader, “You can’t win. If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can imagine.” I imagine that’s what Jesus could have said to the devil.

Obi-Wan’s sacrifice is Luke’s gain because he can speak directly to Luke through the force. I know the force is fiction and impersonal, but it’s hard not to think of the parallels to the Holy Spirit after Jesus’s sacrifice. Obi-Wan guides Luke similarly to how the Holy Spirit guides Christians into truth.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
Psalm 40:2 NIV

What lies are you believing about God or yourself that keep you in a pit? When have you experienced God removing sin, cleaning you, and blessing you with the truth so your footing is firm?

Learn To Trust: Accept a Positive Interpretation of Your Life

When you experience God the Holy Spirit within you, you have no choice but to see who you are from a positive perspective. You can rejoice that God’s sacrifice sets you free to contend with evil. Life can be hard, but victory is not only possible, it’s guaranteed.

After Luke feels the sting of Obi-Wan’s death, he resolves to continue to fight against evil. His confidence increases as he realizes he has the skills needed to contend with evil. “It’s not impossible,” Luke says as the rebels discuss the death star attack plan. Later he agrees with an old friend that, “they will never stop us.”

He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
and put their trust in him.
Psalm 40:3 NIV

When have you had a goal so big that you have no choice but to trust God for a positive outcome?

God is worthy of trust no matter the degree of difficulty you face in this life. There are plenty of “false gods” to choose instead of God, but these will only keep you in a pit.

Blessed is the one
who trusts in the Lord,
who does not look to the proud,
to those who turn aside to false gods.
Psalm 40:4 NIV

What false gods do you need to put out of your life so you can accept the amazing plans God has for you?

Is Your Fear Healthy?

October 20, 2019 by Matt Pavlik 1 Comment

Halloween can be a fun time of dressing up and eating your favorite form of sugar. But for the careless, it can be an invitation to journey further along a dark path, unaware of the real danger ahead. It’s possible to be so ignorant or hateful of what is good, that looking upon evil with fascination is preferred.

You nearly scared me to death! We say this after becoming connected with our deepest fears when we didn’t have the time to analyze what was really taking place. Our bodies act defensively before we understand the threat is relatively harmless.

Whatever we’re focused on is where we’re heading. If we’re obsessed with fear, how will that ever end well? Excessive fascination with anything other than God is, essentially, an addiction.

I don’t blame anyone. We’re all looking for a way out of suffering. In our desperation though, let’s look to what will bring life.

Have you ever been “scared to life”? It’s an opposite reaction to a fascination with evil. One day you realize your focus is leading you over a cliff and you finally feel appropriately scared. You want to turn around and run the other direction.

That’s awesome! But if you run recklessly in another direction, you’ll eventually come to another cliff.

Healthy Fear is a Respect for Reality

A healthy fear of a deadly weapon, such as a gun, keeps you alive. With a lack of fear, or with a hysterical fear, you might end up losing a life.

Healthy fear has nothing to do with anxiety or worrying. A healthy fear recognizes that God is in control and dependence upon Him is the only way to stay alive.

Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 10:28 NLT

If you know of anyone who is fascinated with fear, Pergamum might help save their soul.

Pergamum is a haunted trail in Southwest Ohio “Where the dead, come to Life!” “The goal of Pergamum is to use the Halloween holiday to bring people to the realization that there is life after death. At the end of Pergamum, every visitor will be given the life-changing message of Jesus Christ and the opportunity to choose life over death.”

Image by Andreas Lischka from Pixabay

Security Leads to Trust

September 22, 2019 by Matt Pavlik 1 Comment

Even in heaven, we won’t ever know everything there is to know. We might as well get used to the idea during this life.

Sometimes I think life would be so much better if I knew everything. Having an explanation is good, but at some point, too much knowledge only complicates matters. If you don’t need to know something to live a happy, productive life, then it’s probably not necessary.

Seeking out wisdom doesn’t result in you having all the answers. You can be wise and not have all the answers. There’s always more to learn. In fact, it is the fool who thinks no further knowledge or learning is needed (see Proverbs 10:14 and 12:15).

To the one who has everything, what motive is there to act?

To the one who feels completely well, what motive is there to seek a doctor?

To the one who knows everything, what motive is there to seek wisdom?

It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.

It is God’s privilege to conceal things and the king’s privilege to discover them.

God is praised for being mysterious; rulers are praised for explaining mysteries.

We honor God for what he conceals; we honor kings for what they explain.
Proverbs 25:2 ESV, NLT, CEV, GNT

You can seek knowledge forever and never know it all. But you can know love in one instant and it can last a lifetime (see 1 Corinthians 13:1-13). Share on X

A balance is needed between pursuing knowledge and trusting God. You can enjoy pursuing God and all His mysteries. But don’t let yourself become miserable in the present moment because you don’t understand all that God is doing.

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13 ESV

Finding God doesn’t mean you will find all the answers. Find God means finding His loving arms so that you can experience the warmth of His love. When you are secure in love, a lot of other details don’t matter any more. When you can trust God to guide you, you don’t have to worry about the condition and direction of the road.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6

What is the condition of your road? Maybe the road is scary, but that doesn’t mean you have to be scared. Ask God for a touch of His love. Ask God for wisdom. Then trust God with whatever road is before you.

Image by enriquelopezgarre from Pixabay

Lord Jesus Have Mercy On Me

May 11, 2019 by Matt Pavlik 2 Comments

When I get stressed I sometimes pray the Jesus Prayer to help me focus on God more than my concerns: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me (some people add, a sinner).

I first heard about the Jesus Prayer through a friend who uses it for his personal meditations. According to Wikipedia, it first came into use around the 5th century BC and is based upon three separate scriptures. The prayer definitely brings to mind the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax collector in Luke 18:

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
Luke 18:13 ESV

The parable focuses on dependence upon God. It’s a humble plea for forgiveness. The prayer’s references to Jesus and Son of God emphasize God’s strengths amidst our weakness.

Because I know Jesus saved me from my sin already, I don’t repeat this prayer to secure my salvation. God hears all our prayers the first time. Repeating the prayer helps me focus on God’s presence in the moment of my concern.

I can struggle with how to best use my time while I’m still on earth. Am I focusing on what matters most? Will I have enough time to accomplish my goals? I realize God knows what is best; where my goals differ from His, His goals are more important. But this knowledge alone doesn’t remove all of my stress.

The prayer helps me focus on surrendering my life into Jesus’s hands. Praying this way reminds me that He is in control. The more I’m able to do this, the more relaxed I become.

Would you like to strengthen your connection with God? Connecting with God can help put your worries to rest. Repeating the Jesus Prayer can create a unique focus. The main goal is not to see all your wishes come true. Instead, the focused prayer, when used the right way, becomes worship. Whenever you worship God, you are automatically more relaxed.

When you repeat the phrase multiple times (sincerely and pausing in between each time) it’s impossible to not come away with a sense of Jesus’s position of power and your position of vulnerability. The moment this happens, you can release your burdens to the One who has all things under control.

Alternate Uses

You can customize the Jesus Prayer according to your immediate need. I recommend you start with the original phrase and then consider various changes to move deeper into prayer. When you are ready for something different, try emphasizing words or shortening the prayer. Eventually you might try substituting different words.

Emphasize Key Words

Focus on one or two words at a time. For example, if you emphasize Lord, you can begin to examine how Jesus being Lord influences how you feel about your concerns.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.

Focusing on the name Jesus Christ allows for more intimacy. You are calling the God of the universe by His personal name. When you experience God’s care for you, that’s personal.

Son of God emphasizes that Jesus comes from God and is God. But it also alludes to Jesus being the son of man, which emphasizes that Jesus is our human priest who is perfect and can sympathize with our weaknesses.

Emphasizing mercy is also helpful when you want to acknowledge and confess your sin. “Have mercy on me” is an intimate plea to experience God’s love and forgiveness.

Remove Key Words

Next, try shortening the phrase to discover different meanings. Each of the following has a different feel to them than the longer version.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God.
Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord Jesus.
Lord.
Lord have mercy.
Son of God have mercy.

Substitute Key Words

Swap out a word to create your own meaning. For example, instead of “have mercy on me”, you could say, “strengthen my spirit.”

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, grant me wisdom.
Lord Jesus Christ, your will be done in my life.
Lord Jesus Christ, my savior, have mercy on me.
Jesus, be near to me and save me from my troubles.
Jesus, I surrender all of me.
Jesus, forgive me for all of my sins.
Lord Jesus, have your way with me.

You can’t go wrong by focusing on powerful truths about who God is. In case you are wondering, repeating specific words doesn’t grant you any special or magical powers. But, there is power in prayer and in the truth of the scriptures.

You can trust a powerful God who also cares enough to relate to you in your weakness. The brevity of the prayers allows you to focus on the spiritual connection so you can relax your heart and mind, instead of filling your mind with many words and many worries.

Speaking of which, here is another type of prayer from me to you:

The Lord bless you and keep you;the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26 NIV

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

An Eternal Life Is Never A Fragile Life

January 13, 2019 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

What exactly is eternal life? If you’re thinking about your former life, before you knew Christ, you probably have the wrong idea. Even your current life as a believer, can’t compare because it has pain and suffering mixed into it.

Eternal life is far superior in both its quality and its quantity. Your former life and your present life can’t be the real-life Jesus talks about as He prays to the Father.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
John 17:3

This makes sense, doesn’t it? Only a few chapters earlier Jesus proclaimed He is life.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
John 14:6

Eternal life encompasses more than simply the quality of being unending in duration.

Eternal Life is Strong

Eternal life could also be called “strong life.” It’s not weak, frail, or sickly. When you receive eternal life it preserves you without fail. Jesus is faithful to finish the work He started in you and He lives forever, never ceasing to intercede on your behalf (Philippians 1:6, Hebrews 7:24-25).

Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.
Jude 1:24 NLT

If you know Jesus, you abide with Him and are connected to Him forever. God’s strength keeps you safe.

A person cannot become strong without first becoming connected. If a person stays separated from Christ, the person remains weak and can’t accomplish anything worthwhile (2 Corinthians 12:10, John 15:5).

Eternal Life is Abundant

If you know Jesus, you have abundant life, not insufficient life. To know Jesus is to have eternal life: Life to the fullest. Eternal life is the fullest sense of life. You can live the high life. The worldly definition of high life is an extravagant or luxurious style of living. The life Jesus offers is something else entirely.

Jesus is inviting you into the spiritual high life. To possess the spiritual high life is to have spiritual eyes which enable you to see and know God’s spiritual realities. You can grow in knowing God’s goodness, experiencing the full height, depth, and breadth of best God has to offer.

Eternal Life is Nourishing

If you know Jesus, you have nourishing life, not junk-food life. You can begin to experience this spiritual nourishment today, but you can’t fully experience it until your time on earth has passed. In this context, we can say that knowing Jesus is having an ongoing relationship with Him. You don’t have to know Him completely, yet, to possess eternal life.

To begin receiving spiritual food, you only need access to God through the way: Jesus Christ. The entering into God’s eternal care is life itself.

When something is eternal, it transcends time. Therefore, you can describe the new life you possess now in past, present, and future terms. You have already secured it; You are in the process of receiving more of it; And, you will receive it totally when you leave your current physical body.

Eternal Life is Forever

If you know Jesus you have eternal life, not temporary life. Something that is temporary is brief, limited, makeshift, perishable, substitutionary, transient. It’s meant to be replaced. If anything in the Bible is meant to be temporary, it’s the old covenant (Hebrews 8:1-13). Something that is eternal is abiding, boundless, constant, enduring, everlasting. It never needs to be replaced. It never breaks down. It never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8-12).

What kind of life do you want? What kind of life do you have?

Overcome Resistance To Complete Your Training

October 2, 2021 by Matt Pavlik 1 Comment

In order to complete a transformative journey, you first need to overcome your resistance to asking for help. This post describes step 1 of 4 of the transformative journey.

Often, life must become unmanageable or unbearable in some way before a person will be willing to seek help. There is a saying, “Only when the pain of remaining the same is worse than the pain of changing, will someone make the effort to change.”

You can let your pain build until it reaches such a critical level that you suffer a catastrophic breakdown. If you want to avoid this and move forward in your life, don’t make the following three mistakes.

Mistake #1: Fail to Overcome Resistance by Ignoring Problems

When a person is in denial they will attempt to cope with their problems so they can remain self-sufficient. Coping attempts to minimize the pain instead of eliminate the pain. Most people think of a problem as a negative event, but a lack of a positive event can also be a problem.

In Star Wars, Luke’s problem was more than the fact that he wasn’t happy as a farmer. He also wasn’t happy because he wasn’t able to pursue using his gifts for an even greater good. Helping his aunt and uncle was good, but helping to destroy the death star was far better.

There is a path before each person that seems right,
but it ends in death.
Proverbs 14:12 NLT

Are you on a path that seems good, but it is really leading you nowhere?

Mistake #2: Fail to Overcome Resistance by Clinging to Selfish Goals

When a person believes lies (such as “I’m worthless”), they lack the insight to look beyond their own circumstances. A person who clings to their selfish goals will fail to overcome problems and will experience painful loss.

Luke wants to fight the empire but he can’t see past his obligation to help his uncle. He does what seems right until fate brings serious trouble to his doorstep.

A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions.
The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.
Proverbs 22:3 NLT

Are you pressing ahead just because you want to or because it seems to be the safest route, despite some sense of looming consequences?

Mistake #3: Fail to Overcome Resistance by Refusing Help

The foolish person will refuse help even while they are suffering. Fear can stop many a dream from becoming reality.

Luke knows the rebels need help defeating the empire. Obi-Wan asks Luke to join him and offers to train him. Luke isn’t ready yet to leave home. He uses the excuse that he can’t get involved because he has work to do.

Fools think they know what is best,
but a sensible person listens to advice.
Proverbs 12:15 CEV

But when he finds that the empire is looking for his droids, he realizes that his aunt and uncle are in danger. Only when he is faced with their death does he have nothing left to prevent him from accepting Obi-Wan’s offer.

This logic might look like I’m saying that a young adult should always put their own ambitions ahead of their parent’s counsel. There might be more times that it is prudent to follow your parents. But in this case, the parents are the ones holding their child back from what is better–meaning what is better for God’s kingdom.

If you love your father or mother or even your sons and daughters more than me, you are not fit to be my disciples.
Matthew 10:37 CEV

So then, consider if there is anything you are refusing to do that would benefit God’s kingdom more than what you are already doing. What help do you need to overcome your resistance and make it happen? Who has already been offering their help? Ask God for wisdom and understanding so you can see your best path forward without serious consequences, if possible.

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7 Principles To Grow Your Marriage

March 7, 2021 by Matt Pavlik 1 Comment

Marriage is both the most challenging relationship and the most rewarding relationship. While working on your marriage, allow these principles to guide you.

1 – Two Healthy Individuals Make A Healthy Marriage

God says two people will become one flesh—meaning husband and wife function together, inseparably, like one body. You are on the same team which will grow stronger as each individual grows stronger. Your loyalty to each other should be greater than all other relationships. God gives each sex its own role to contribute to the good of the team. Being one flesh doesn’t mean you lose your individuality. The more you become the person God made you to be, the better off your marriage will be.

Read Genesis 2:15-25 and Mark 10:1-9.

2 – Change The Marriage By Changing Yourself

When you focus on yourself, which you can control with God’s help, you help your marriage in the most efficient way. Life is primarily a place for you to explore how you can grow and secondarily a place where you can expect God to address your partner’s flaws. Focus on your own growth twice as much as your partner’s growth. Increase your awareness of what is happening with you. Ask God for what you need rather than demanding your partner be a certain way.

Read Matthew 7:1-12.

3 – Your Partner Does Not Owe You Anything

Each of us is on our own journey to become more loving, which is clearly God’s goal for every believer. Do not judge your partner (do not condemn); instead use discernment to determine your response. You are accountable to God for your behavior regardless of your partner’s behavior. Making requests is legitimate because marriage is a cooperative effort, but coercing your partner into your desired behaviors won’t work in the long run. If you take advantage of your partner, you are also hurting yourself. If you are depleted, first look to God, the source of everything good.

Read Romans 14:12-13 and Galatians 6:1-4.

4 – Your Relationship With God Outlasts Your Marriage

Marriage ends upon death and it doesn’t exist in heaven. A covenant is unconditional. Your vows and commitment to your partner are first made to God—to serve His plans and grow His kingdom.

Read Matthew 22:30.

5 – Boundaries Are Protective Not Harmful

Relationships thrive on freedom and self-control. Decide for yourself but let your partner decide for himself or herself. You can enforce a boundary for yourself (choose how you want to respond) but boundaries are not placed on others (don’t imagine you can control your partner’s behavior).

Read Galatians 5:1, 5:13-25, and 6:5.

6 – Your Partner Can Manipulate You Only If You Allow It

If your partner attempts to persuade you, your response is your responsibility. Speak for yourself only. If you don’t want to go along with your partner’s request (or aggressive demand), speak up to declare your disagreement. A healthy individual maintains their integrity at all times. Don’t compromise who God made you to be. This is not a license for selfishness.

Read Galatians 5:13-25 (again).

7 – Only God Knows Everything

Learn about your partner but don’t presume to know your partner’s thoughts, feelings, or motives. If you believe you are discerning a particular idea, mood, or attitude, ask for clarification tentatively. Instead of stating, “You are…” ask, “Are you…?” or state “I am…” Overcommunicate with each other to reduce the chances of misunderstanding.

Read 1 John 3:20 and Hebrews 4:13.

These 7 principles aren’t the only ones I use in counseling, but they are a good place to start if you are seeking help for your marriage. As you can hopefully see by now they carry the theme that you should focus on what you can control and leave the rest up to God. You can’t ever go wrong by pursuing a better marriage that way.

Box Your Concerns And Give Them To God

June 14, 2020 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

The last few months have been especially stressful because of the various global crises we are all facing. In addition, each of us has our personal struggles. It’s overwhelming.

As Christians, we live between the truth that we will have trouble in this life and the truth that God comforts us during our struggles. Jesus had a lot to say to His disciples in the weeks before His death and resurrection.

A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
John 16:32-33 NIV

Jesus knew that even His closest followers would be disturbed by his capture and crucifixion. They lost it and deserted Jesus. But, He prepared them well by explaining everything ahead of time. More importantly, He sent the Great Comforter in His place.

What can you do when you feel stressed beyond your limits? If you don’t manage your feelings well, you’ll end up reaping destruction. If stress isn’t addressed in a healthy way, the stress stays on you and in you. Then your body can end up bearing the cost of the stress. Or, you can hurt others out of your anger.

Any extreme response to difficulty doesn’t help much and usually makes the situation worse. The extremes I’m talking about are either:

Denial of the problem which requires complete isolation from the problem. This is over-compartmentalized.
Over-reaction to the problem which inevitably involves retaliation instead of reconciliation. This is under-compartmentalized.

Both options miss the best approach which is to face the problem and embrace the problem at the right time and under the right circumstances. When people reconcile they can’t get everything they want. Most people would choose to erase the harm if that were possible. Since it isn’t, there has to be a way to work through it. The working through it involves both:

Letting go of what has already happened. It can’t be changed. What’s done is done. This usually involves a lot of sadness.
Taking steps forward to make needed changes that are reasonable for all involved. This might involve some anger. But it needs to be anger that motivates positive change.

Are you feeling overwhelmed? When I’m counseling others, I like to assign exercises that help people find the most direct way to grow emotionally and spiritually. Here is an exercise to try:

Think of a concern you have.
Now imagine a box big enough to hold it. Put your concern in the box. Close it up and label it with a description.
Think about what remains. If you’re still concerned about something, go to step 1. If you sense everything is boxed up, move to step 4.
Thank God you made it to step 4. Seriously! If you made it this far, then for the moment your life has some sanity.
Ask yourself what is left. If your concerns are put aside, there’s probably some good things left. Thank God for the good things.
Ask God to take the boxes for safe keeping. He might destroy some boxes. Others He will hand back to you at the right time so you can work through your healing. Then, at other times, God will give you a box of blessings.
Acknowledge that God is in control. Approach the boxes of concern at a pace you can handle.

Hopefully, when you finished boxing up your concerns, you found the truth remaining. You are significant and loved.

How does it feel to have your concerns separated from the truth of who you are? Problems put into perspective aren’t as big as we imagine them to be. That’s because God is bigger than any problem you can imagine. God doesn’t fit in any box, but there’s always a box big enough for your concern.

Photo from: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/597668

Who Are You Really?

May 26, 2019 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

What do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt?

Do you know who you are? Can you know who you are? If so, can you tell me with absolute certainly?

Who you think you are may not be who you really are.

Question Reality

Do you accept reality as you see it? Are people basically good? Has anyone ever called you naïve?

Are you ever a little bit curious about another’s motive? If you’ve been betrayed, you might have become doubtful or suspicious. Could others be plotting your demise?

Too much questioning encourages fear. Paranoia is a sickness, but some suspicion might help you sniff out reality.

Think about your two closest neighbors or friends. Could one of them be an alien from another planet? Maybe some people you know are spies from another country, or wolves in sheep’s clothing.

It’s easy for me to question reality. I wonder about some people more than others, and you should too.

Am I being silly or am I being serious? Either way, you’ll never know before it’s too late. Maybe I’m an alien with a plan to take over the world.

Protect Reality

Question what you know to be true to strengthen your convictions. You will have less fear. You will have more assurance and peace.

The people of this world are concerned with protecting their territories:

How can we protect earth from an alien invasion or asteroid collision?

Who should we allow in our country?

Can you trust your neighbor?

Efforts to protect your home are necessarily. But more important than guarding your physical borders is discovering who you really are.

Discover Reality

I’m convinced there is a truer reality beyond what you can see. This truer reality is greater than you can imagine. You can’t see it completely, but it is still knowable. To see it you must search for it with spiritual eyes — the ones connected to your brain AND to your heart.

In C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, four children discover a magic wardrobe that contains a portal into another reality. The adults in their lives see only a plain wardrobe. But those four children, with their childlike innocence, see and enter into the truer reality. They begin an all-immersive adventure, and you can too.

Know Reality

If you believe in God, there are many surprising truths about God’s reality that apply directly to you. Are you an alien from another planet or a child of God? Maybe both, right?

You are more than a stranger to this world. But you are not a bizarre, diabolical alien. God says you are an ambassador. You are from “planet” God and one day you will return to Him.

You are more than a spy. Beneath whatever clothing you wear, are wounds, scars, and weaknesses that you want to keep secret from the rest of the world. But, instead of staying hidden, you seek to be brave enough to come forward as a witness and reveal your true identity.

You might fear you are a wolf because sometimes you behave like one. But in reality, you are a new creation made by God. You are an innocent sheep under God’s care.

Are you hiding your victories, gifts, and strengths from others and even from yourself? Your greatest victories come from your most painful wounds. Your gifts grow out of your scars. You are strong because you are also weak.

If you want to know the reality of who you are, you must look to both your strengths and your weaknesses.

Conclusion

There is a truer reality beyond what you see in front of you. You must seek it out with spiritual eyes. When you do, you can know for sure who you are.

I’m Matt Pavlik. I’m an ambassador who sometimes feels alienated from God, a witness who sometimes hides like a spy, and a sheep who sometimes acts like a wolf. But more than that, I know for sure I am a child of God (John 1:12).

If you’re ready for an adventure and you can see the portal, step through and start discovering who you really are.

Get Out of Spiritual Debt

October 26, 2019 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

How are you doing spiritually? Would you say you are running your spiritual race with ease or friction? By friction, I mean the weight of spiritual debt.

What Is Spiritual Debt?

Spiritual debt is anything that slows you down from advancing God’s kingdom. Spiritual debt = doubt = disbelief.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
Hebrews 12:1 NLT

Our human economy operates on money; God's economy operates on faith. Share on X

Having doubt is like having debt. You can still move forward in life, but your opportunities are limited.

And without faith it is impossible to please [God], for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that he rewards those who seek Him.
Hebrews 11:6 ESV

But I Struggle With Doubt

Doubt is okay for the moment, but it’s something to actively work to get out of. Don’t feel condemnation if you have doubts; everybody doubts. But heavy, chronic doubt is an indication of weak, immature faith. You can’t feel close to God while simultaneously doubting Him.

God doesn’t want you to be weak or ineffective. Faith is like a muscle. You must exercise your faith muscles daily.

You can’t manipulate God into doing your will, but exercising your faith brings you deeper into His presence. Faith is belief. Faith is a gift of God.

Increase your faith by holding firm to all you believe.

Remember to stay alert and hold firmly to all that you believe. Be mighty and full of courage.
1 Corinthians 16:13 TPT

Increase your faith by asking God to increase your faith. Ask God to increase your conviction that He is good and wants to reward you.

Image by birgl from Pixabay

Faith Hope and Love

December 7, 2019 by Matt Pavlik 1 Comment

What is the difference between faith, hope, and love? Why would it matter to you? It matters because you need all three for a healthy spiritual life.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV

So, love is greater, but faith and hope are important too.

Faith and Trust Fit Together

If you have faith, then you must be trusting in Jesus Christ. To trust in Jesus Christ must mean you have a vibrant faith.

But, faith comes before hope:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1 NIV

You could hope for something, but lack the faith (the confidence) that it will come to pass. That kind of hope is essentially worthless (it isn’t biblical hope). You can hope it doesn’t snow tomorrow, but nobody is going to promise you that it won’t snow.

If Jesus never promised us anything, there would be no need for hope. Faith would be enough.

Hope and Future Events Fit Together

Hope is the excitement around an anticipated event. When you have faith in Jesus, you’re able to trust His promises. You’ll have hope that what He says will eventually come true.

For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?
Romans 8:24 ESV

So, you trust a person and you hope in a promise. Through faith we have hope that carries us along to the finish line. What about love?

Love Makes Faith and Hope Possible

If Jesus wasn’t full of love, He wouldn’t have provided the way for us to trust or hope in Him (Ephesian 2:8-9).

Love is the greatest because it involves action with the greatest effort and risk. Love would sacrifice everything.

Anyone can hope. Many people believe in something. They trust and have faith. Few truly love.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

How to Climb High (Without Falling)

February 16, 2020 by Matt Pavlik 2 Comments

I’m not afraid of heights (at least not as much as I used to be). But I’m not fearless either. A few years ago, my wife and I decided to paint the exterior of our house. It’s a tri-level. Not only that, but one section has a sunken patio.

I was fine with 8′ ladders, but this job required a 25′ ladder. At first, I was scared to go much beyond the 8′. By the end of the project, I was climbing all the way to the top. I found a healthy balance between too-afraid-to-climb and too-fearless-to-prevent-accidents.

Perfectionism is completing a task with a greater amount of energy or effort than is needed to meet the task’s objectives, in a way that leaves other areas of life lacking needed attention. Unchecked perfectionism creates an imbalanced life that can produce significant deficiencies.

Procrastination is different but can be related. You could spend an extra 2 hours cleaning your car because it allows you to delay an undesirable task (such as apologizing to your spouse).

The pure perfectionist finds satisfaction in the cleaning (for example) while not necessarily avoiding something else. Instead, the perfectionist seeks perfection to satisfy their desire for perfection. Sounds perfectly logical, doesn’t it?

The desire for perfection is okay. Nothing wrong there. Perfectionism becomes a “sickness” when it becomes obsessive or irrational. No person can hide that all of creation is under a curse–but that’s what a perfectionist tries to do. The time spent to bring order to one area of life means another area will suffer. When the effort becomes out of balance, life can become out of balance.

We took four months to paint our house. We kept up with our normal everyday tasks, but we cut out the non-essentials. I don’t think we could have shaved more time off of the project. I certainly didn’t want to have to paint it again. But I admit I’m somewhat of a perfectionist.

A desire for excellence is different but can be related. If perfectionism is over-compensating, then its opposite, negligence, is under-compensating. Both miss the mark. A perfectionist might call the negligent person “lazy.” Perhaps the lazy person has more fun?

The perfectionist doesn’t give up soon enough. The lazy person gives up too quickly. Somewhere in the middle is the pursuit of excellence. But even then the pursuit of excellence at some point must surrender to “it’s good enough for our purposes.” Every once in a while the perfectionist should ask, “Is there something more important I could be doing with my time? Has another task worked its way up to the top of my priority list?” Actually, those are the same questions a “lazy” person should ask, too. Although, I suspect they’d answer differently.

Perfectionism can also be expecting a higher standard than is necessary or possible at any given moment. The cost of missing the mark can be high.

The core questions are, “When is enough, enough?” and “When is not enough, not enough?” These are actually best left as deeply personal (subjective) questions. Keep in mind that all behavior (including lack of behavior) has consequences. Just because you’re fine showing up for work 30 minutes late most days, doesn’t mean you’re employer will agree.

Just because you’re fine to keep on sinning and pursue your own way of life, doesn’t mean God approves. God expects you to be perfect (holy), but He also provides the help you need to get there, which includes His infinitely loving patience. Thank God He is a lover of excellence and not a ruthless demander of instant perfection.

God’s love both accepts us as we are and motivates us to reach our full potential. Love wouldn’t be love without both. God sets the standard as high as Himself but then provides the ladder you need to reach it.

An unhealthy person might:

go for perfect foot placement on each rung and never reach the top.
climb all the way to the top but extend beyond the ladder too far and fall off in the process.
worry about how high the ladder goes and never start climbing.
look with hatred or mistrust at the person holding the ladder and walk away.
freeze during the climb, unable to continue up or down.
climb part of the way and jump off because the jumping is fun.
climb part of the way and fall off because climbing requires letting go of things considered to be too important.

Of course, I think you know the correct way to climb:

trust the ladder holder.
don’t look down.
don’t climb too fast or too slow.
focus on the ladder holder, not how high you have to go.
when the time is right, drop the heavy stuff that you don’t need anymore.
don’t wait until you are fearless to start climbing.

Knowing The Truth Will Set You Free

April 4, 2021 by Matt Pavlik 2 Comments

Knowing Jesus is different that knowledge about Jesus. If you want to know the truth, you first must ensure your source is reliable. The Bible is the truth, but only the Holy Spirit can correctly interpret it for you. Any other source has the possibility of being tainted.

If you want to know the truth intimately, you must also go to the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of Christ). He is the only one who can provide an accurate experience of God. You need the Spirit’s power to know God.

All knowledge comes from an experience of something. In Ephesians, Paul makes a distinction between knowing Christ’s love (primary knowing) and knowing facts about His love (secondary knowing). The primary is far superior to the secondary.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesian 3:14-19 ESV

Primary Knowing is Relational

To really know someone you need a direct and intimate experience of them. This is also called heart knowledge. Strong’s concordance defines the word know (#1097 ginóskó) as to come to know, recognize, perceive especially through personal experience (first-hand acquaintance). Because it’s focused on personal experience, it can mean knowing someone intimately, even sexually.

Secondary Knowing is Factual

To know about someone you only need someone to pass along their knowledge to you. This is also called head knowledge. Strong’s concordance defines the word knowledge (#1108 gnósis) as a functional (“working”) knowledge gleaned from first-hand (personal) experience. It’s a derivative knowledge–being only as accurate (reliable) as the relationship it derives from. Therefore, you can think you know the truth about something, but what you know can be incorrect if the person (or experience) is unreliable.

You can also know a fact but not have an experiential belief that it is true. This is how the devil can know that Jesus is God, but not have a saving faith (James 2:19).

Secondary Lies Are Factual

All lies are wrong, but some lies are worse than others. Some people lie to protect themselves. They use words that hide the truth. They hide facts about who they are or what they’ve done. While this blocks intimacy and erodes the relationship, it doesn’t necessarily harm you.

Primary Lies Are Relational

When someone lies to you, about you, and you believe them, you are deceived in the worst way possible. You end up believing something false about yourself. So, as you can imagine, this significantly damages your self-image and self-worth. It also hurts your relationship with God because you trust another’s opinion of you more than God’s opinion (I write more about this in my book To Identity and Beyond).

Can you see how easily any of us can become confused? Much of our lives are based on misleading experiences. We believe the experiences which propagate lies because we generally trust the people in our lives.

To be healthy emotionally, you need to identify the lies you believe and work to correct them. As a Christian counselor, this is my main objective. I want my clients to have life-transforming experiences.

To completely eradicate a lie, you need to know the truth at all levels. Factual truth is important. It allows you to speak, teach, and testify about the truth. But your communications will be mostly hollow until you gain the intimate, experiential truth. The truth must come to you direct from the source. Jesus is the truth (John 14:6). When you know the truth this way, you will be truly free (John 8:32).

Learn more about how to eradicate lies with life-transforming experiences.
Image by John Hain from Pixabay

What To Do When Life Feels Out of Control

April 18, 2011 by Matt Pavlik 1 Comment

3 Steps When You are Overwhelmed

Life happens. What do you do when it’s not what you were expecting? If God is loving, how come He allows (seemingly) random tradgedies in our lives? When we are in serious pain, it is easy to push a (seemingly) passive God further away. Sometimes it even feels God is aggressively destroying us. How does God stand idlely by? Should our goal be to rid ourselves of pain? What other thing do you instinctually grab for even when the “right answer” is before you? These questions can be summarized down to one other question. Who (or what) do you really trust in? We know the Bible says God is trustworthy. Often God doesn’t feel trustworthy. What can you do when you feel overwhelmed?

Endure Hardship

Endure. Be still. Refocus. We can accept hardship as discipline. Can we? Does it work? What happens when we are already not trusting God, and something (else) terrible happens? God has “rejected us”, so we want to reject Him! Maybe that is good. Because, the God we are angry at is not the true God. We should reject the false God and look to the true God. We can accept hardship in our lives. The trick is to see it in the right light. Most of the time we see hardship as negative – an indication that God has removed His love from us. But Hebrews 12:5-11 turns this around. Hardship proves we are legitimately God’s child.

Fear or Faith

When we are overwhelmed, it leaves the door open for fear. In the midst of feeling overwhelmed, check in with yourself. How high is your fear level? Are you a conduit of fear or faith? Fear has a way of disrupting life and making matters much worse than they are (pretty much true of any kind of darkness). The Bible says perfect love casts out fear. Each day, find some way to open the door to God’s love.

Cast your Anxiety

We can open ourselves by casting our anxiety on God. God knows we suffer, because He suffered too. There is no better way to suffer than to suffer in the presence of God. With our faith, we trust again that God will hear. We pour out our feelings to God, so God can fill us with good things – perfect love. This is not an easy process. Grieving never is. But it is on the path to healing.

Reflections

Is it easier to endure hardship when you know (you really feel) you are God’s child?
When you are overwhelmed, pay attention to how much you responding in fear or in faith. Are you surprised? How much is pure fear?
How do you feel about pouring out your anxiety in faith?
Jesus, help us turn to you when our circumstances do not make sense. Teach us to trust. Amen.

Resources

Hebrews 12:5-11

… Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. …

Read on Bible Gateway

1 John 4:18

18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Read on Bible Gateway

1 Peter 5:6-11

… Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. … And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Read on Bible Gateway

Nothing Is Impossible

October 12, 2019 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Soon maybe an asteroid will collide with Earth. Soon maybe people will walk on Mars. These would be historical, once in a lifetime events.

I don’t believe in chance. You can’t witness a once in a lifetime event by dumb luck. What you experience, when you experience it, has a purpose. God has your life planned out, but your every step counts (Proverbs 16:9, 19:21, 20:24; Psalm 37:23; 139:16; Jeremiah 10:23)!

When you forget your way and all else fails, the Gospel never fails. You can completely lose at life, but be the supreme winner (Matthew 10:39).

Nothing is impossible… for God (Luke 1:37). An angel of God said this speaking of the virgin birth. When life seems hopeless… when only a miracle will do… God is more than capable.

When you’re guilty, wrong, suffering… when you’re at your worst… when you’ve reached bottom… you’ve reached the bedrock of the Gospel. You need not sink any further.

Where the Gospel is concerned, nothing is impossible. You can return to the event of Jesus’s sacrifice and receive cleansing and forgiveness. You can always start over refreshed. Every day can be new.

Don’t Give Up

You need to understand your past, so you can learn from it and find healing, but you need not let your past hold you back from God’s best for you today.

If you give up, you might miss what God is doing. Now is the time to stay alert (1 Peter 5:8). Wait expectantly. Your waiting and watching is not in vain. All that God promises will be fulfilled. Be prepared for once in a lifetime moments.

Consider the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). Five were wise and five were foolish. Five were prepared and five were lazy. God can change your circumstances at any moment. Are you ready?

If you live expectantly everyday, you can start to see everyday as a once in a lifetime moment.

Future posts will expand on the idea that with God, nothing is impossible.

Image by Родион Журавлёв from Pixabay

Be Spiritually Competent

April 11, 2021 by Matt Pavlik 1 Comment

Being spiritually competent probably means many different things to different people. I take it to mean a combination of discerning the truth and living out the truth so that you become emotionally healthy. The spiritually competent Christian knows how to interpret the Bible and actively pursues spiritual growth.

Carl Jung, a psychologist, said, “To be fully aware and embracing of all that is within us and consciously seeking to be all that we can be is our most noble quest.” To be that aware is only possible with God’s divine help. If we want to know ourselves better, we must also know God better. When we know God better, we will also know ourselves better.

Each moment in life presents an opportunity to either improve your competence or to remain indifferent. Your choice won’t change your worth before God, however, how you experience life will be vastly different.

Jung had another well-known phrase, “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.” It is profound but it is also somewhat cryptic. It’s worth a deeper look. Put another way, Jung is saying you can either suffer legitimately or suffer neurosis.

The Spiritually Competent Avoid Suffering Needlessly

The greatest way to suffer needlessly is at your own hand. So often we inflict unnecessary punishment upon ourselves as a penance. Life has enough consequences built in without you adding your own.

Christ has already paid for your past, present, and future sins. What happens if you don’t fully grasp this core truth of the gospel? You probably develop some sort of neurosis.

C. George Boeree thought of neurosis as a “poor ability to adapt to one’s environment, an inability to change one’s life patterns” with symptoms such as “anxiety, sadness or depression, anger, irritability, low sense of self-worth, phobic avoidance, impulsive and compulsive acts, lethargy, unpleasant or disturbing thoughts, repetition of thoughts and obsession, habitual fantasizing, negativity and cynicism, [unhealthy] dependency, aggressiveness, perfectionism…” (1)

Is it possible that these symptoms show up as a result of avoiding the hard work of spiritual growth? I’m not suggesting it’s wrong to feel anxious or depressed but I am suggesting that it’s certainly possible to reduce and even eliminate them.

Jung was an early advocate for character development in its most pure sense. He knew that we can only really be happy, fulfilled, and socially productive when we have not only come to know but also come to terms with our biggest challenge: ourselves.
Dr George Simon, Phd (2)

The Spiritually Competent Suffer As God Wills

Hebrews 10:32-39 and 1 Peter 3:13-17 provide a biblical perspective on legitimate suffering. It’s better to suffer while doing good than doing evil. Sometimes no matter what you do, you’re going to suffer. So it might as well be for the noblest reasons.

To suffer legitimately means you accept life as it is. You don’t need to escape from the fact that all living beings experience some suffering. The criminals on their crosses illustrate this idea:

One of the criminals hanging on the cross next to Jesus kept ridiculing him, saying, “What kind of Messiah are you? Save yourself and save us from this death!” The criminal hanging on the other cross rebuked the man, saying, “Don’t you fear God? You’re about to die! We deserve to be condemned. We’re just being repaid for what we’ve done. But this man—he’s done nothing wrong!”Then he said, “I beg of you, Jesus, show me grace and take me with you into your everlasting kingdom!”Jesus responded, “I promise you—this very day you will enter paradise with me.”
Luke 23:39-43 TPT

The first criminal was trying to weasel his way out of the punishment as if he didn’t deserve it. The second criminal accepted the punishment but appealed to God’s grace. The avoidance of developing character leads away from legitimate suffering and toward distressing symptoms. The worst kind of suffering is suffering for no good reason.

If you try to cheat life by hoping someone will ignore your sins and give you a free pass, your circumstances will likely overtake you. This requires no effort on your part, but you can end up suffering more this way than the way of character development.

If you choose growth you will become more resilient and better able to meet life’s demands. This way requires you to choose humility by owning your sins and relying on God’s grace. Accepting responsibility for what you’ve done doesn’t usually remove consequences. You might still suffer, but your suffering will bear fruit, and being spiritually competent will ease your pain. Isn’t the attitude of the second criminal much better than the first?

Read more about suffering needlessly.
(1) modified from what I found on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosis
(2) Additional thoughts on Carl Jung can be found at https://counsellingresource.com/features/2010/08/03/jung-words-of-wisdom
Image by Jeff Jacobs from Pixabay