PASTOR DARRYL BAKER

2 Corinthians 2:15
For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; …

Before salvation we had the smell of death, but in Christ we now have the fragrance of new life. That fragrance is the love of God. When you are born again that love is poured out into your heart, your new spirit man. Walking in God’s love is a choice we make every day. It is a choice to treat others the way that you would want to be treated, no matter how people treat you.

When you are walking in love you are walking with God, for God is love. But when you choose not to walk in the love of God you are not walking with Him. This takes you out from under God’s protection, and you can fall prey to the ways and the works of satan. But when you choose to walk in love you are not only protected from the works of darkness, but you also put off the fragrance of Christ, living as He lived.

People will take notice because you do not look like nor act like the world. This love is not an emotion but revealed through actions and words. You simply choose to show God’s love no matter how you feel, for that love is in every believer and is manifest as we choose to follow the way of God’s love. As we walk in love we can draw others out of the smell of death, and bring them into new life, and a new way of living through the fragrance of God’s love.

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Christian Faith Fellowship – Ponder Texas

Ephesians 4:16
He makes the whole body fit together and unites it through the support of every joint. As each and every part does its job, he makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

It is from God that we are provided with His gifts that knit us together and strengthen us as a body. When we walk in gratitude for what Christ has done for us, we will desire to fulfill our role within the church body we are a part of. Finding our place in the body is of great importance. In using our gifts within the body, we are helping to build the church in reaching more people, and helping one another to become a disciple of Jesus Christ.

This is why every born-again believer is to find their shepherd and get connected to a local church family. Not doing so makes us weaker, and it hinders the body of Christ in fulfilling its purpose of reaching people with the gospel. If we are not connected to a local church body by finding our shepherd, we are not fulfilling one of our primary purposes as the body of Christ. In fulfilling our part of the body, it also helps us become stronger against the attacks of the enemy.

Scripture teaches us that our enemy goes after stragglers, those who are isolated from the body of Christ. But when you become knit together with a body by helping to do the work not just sitting in church, you have others around you to help strengthen you, for iron sharpens iron. Get connected by being involved with the local church body God has called you to by finding your shepherd. Be faithful to Jesus in doing your part, and it will bring growth to the body, and bring a great strength to your life.

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Christian Faith Fellowship – Ponder Texas

Hebrews 12:2
We must focus on Jesus, the source and goal of our faith. He saw the joy ahead of him, so he endured death on the cross and ignored the disgrace it brought him. Now he holds the honored position—the one next to God the Father on the heavenly throne.

I was a bull rider for 16 years of my life, and there was a saying we referred to all the time. You are going to land where you look. If you ever watch bull riding, you will often times notice before a bull rider bucks off his bull he turns and looks that very direction. One of the keys to being successful in making a qualified ride is you do not want to take your eyes off of that bulls shoulders. Wherever his shoulders are headed his front feet will go, and you want to be headed that same direction.

You do not look at a bulls head because he may often throw his head one direction while then making a move to go the other direction. And if you look away from him to the ground you are going to wind up there. You have to stay focused on his shoulders in the midst of all the different moves the bull throws at you. So it is for the believer to walk by faith and not by sight. You must get your focus on Jesus and never turn away. Jesus is the Word that became flesh. To focus on Him, we focus on who we are, what we have, and what we can do in Christ revealed through the Word.

Many things in life will try to get you distracted to look at the circumstances you are facing instead of your Savior who has already given you the victory. Notice it refers to Jesus here seeing the joy set before Him enduring the suffering of the cross. Jesus looked beyond the suffering, and He saw the victory that He knew was on the other side. That is what faith does. It looks beyond what is trying to distract you from what Jesus has done to provide victory for your life. So don’t get distracted. Stay focused on Jesus through the Word, and you can overcome any challenge you face and like Jesus be victorious.

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Christian Faith Fellowship – Ponder Texas

Hebrews 10:19
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, …

Here we see the primary reason that Jesus shed His blood for us, so that we could once again approach God unashamed, and have fellowship with Him. The enmity that stood between God and man was removed by the blood Jesus shed for us. Once you are born again you now have complete access to the Father. Take time to fellowship with God so that you can develop an intimate relationship with Him, for He has everything you need.

One of the easiest ways to approach God is spending time in God’s Word. The key is taking time to listen, giving God your full attention. God will speak to you through His Word if you will listen. You also need to sit under the teaching of God’s Word, but again you must listen with all your heart and not get distracted. Jesus said take heed how you hear. For example, today you often see people looking at their phones when someone else is talking. Not giving your full attention to the other person will keep you from clearly hearing what they are saying. So it is with our fellowship with God.

We also approach God through prayer. We should develop in prayer where we can learn how to quite our mind and hear God reveal things to our spirit man. God is a spirit, and He bears witness with our spirit. Those who do will find answers, and their relationship with the Father will flourish and grow. The door is open, and your heavenly Father awaits to fellowship with you. Take time to draw near to Him and He will draw near to you. You will be glad you did.

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Christian Faith Fellowship – Ponder Texas

2 Corinthians 3:17
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage, freedom).

The moment one becomes born again, the Lord Jesus by way of the Holy Spirit coming into your spirit man liberates us from the sin nature, and all that came as a result of that sin nature. The word emancipation, referring to liberty, is defined as the act of setting one free from the power of another. Just as slaves in our Country were liberated through emancipation, so also everyone born again has been freed from the evil one and given liberty through Jesus Christ.

The word “Lord” means supreme in authority. There is no higher authority than the Lord Jesus Christ. To be born again Jesus must be acknowledged as the “Lord,” the supreme authority in your life. You can have this liberty and yet live as a slave to the old nature’s ways, and to the works that satan brought with it. There are several reasons why some still live like a slave to these things. One reason is a lack of knowledge of what you now have in Christ Jesus. God’s people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6).

But not only do we need to know what is now rightfully ours because we are sons and daughters of God, we need to now yield to the Lord of our life. Choosing to make our own choices apart from the Lord’s way for us brings bondage not liberty. When we choose His way of thinking, His way of speaking, that will change our way of living; allowing the Lordship of Christ to rule over us, in us, and through us, and that leads to liberty.

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Christian Faith Fellowship – Ponder Texas

Hebrews 9:14
…how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

When a person is born again, they receive a brand new spirit within them for they are cleansed of the old spirit man. The voice of our spirit man is our conscience, that inward knowing deep down inside. When you are born again the conscience is therefore also cleansed because you have a new spirit. Our conscience, this inward knowing, is how God leads us, for the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit man (Romans 8:16).

If we will learn to listen to this inward witness, we can follow God’s leading for our lives. In John 14:26-27, Jesus tells us about the Holy Spirit, our Helper, who will come to us when we are born again. He then tells us that He is leaving with us peace, and that our hearts should not be troubled nor afraid. This inward peace is how the Holy Spirit confirms when we are headed the right direction in life. The words troubled and afraid refer to an agitation or timidity.

When we are heading the wrong direction in life, we will feel agitated or timid, an uneasiness within our spirit. This is how we know the way we are headed is not God’s will for us. But when we are headed in the right direction, we will have a peace, complete calm within our spirit, and this is how God by His Spirit will guide us in life. So, listen to your conscience. If you have unrest in your spirit, know the Holy Spirit is revealing to you this is not God’s will for you. When you have that peace within, you are on the right path.

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Christian Faith Fellowship – Ponder Texas

Hebrews 12:24
You have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant between God and humanity, and to His sprinkled blood, which speaks a greater word than the blood of Abel crying out from the earth.

The moment you are born again you have entered into a covenant between you and God. This word covenant means an obligation undertaken by a single person; a promise fulfilled on the part of God. Jesus is the One who fulfilled all that was needed for this covenant. By the shedding of His blood, He has made available to all everything God has promised to us under this new covenant.

God has given us this promise of a new covenant founded on better promises then that of the old covenant. When God makes a covenant, He is obligated to fulfill its promises. All we need to do is to realize He is obligated to do so because it was a covenant that He established with Jesus for us. Jesus negotiated this covenant with God, and therefore God will fulfill His covenant that He initiated with His Son because of the blood He shed for us.

We have now been given the right to be partakers of these promises solely based on our negotiator, Jesus Christ. All we have to do is to receive these promises by acting upon them in faith. As we put our complete trust in this covenant we have been given, we can walk in what He has provided for us. The promises have already been provided, because Jesus through His shed blood is the One who made this covenant for us with the Father. As Jesus Himself said on the cross, “It is finished!”

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Christian Faith Fellowship – Ponder Texas

1 Peter 1:21
Through Him you believe in (adhere to, rely on) God, Who raised Him up from the dead and gave Him honor and glory, so that your faith and hope are [centered and rest] in God.

How do we get our faith and hope centered on God? We begin by going to the Word of God and find out what we have been given through Christ Jesus. Once we see these promises of what Christ has done for us, our hope (an expectation of good to come) is set on those promises. Hope is the goal setter of what we know He desires for us. We cannot have hope until we have knowledge of what God has said is ours through what Christ has already done.

Faith is needed to see these promises come to pass for as Hebrews 11:1 says faith is the substance of things hoped for. Faith lays hold of the goal in our hearts (what became our hope), and it is by faith we obtain God’s promises. Faith does not hope one day what God has said is already ours through Christ will come to pass, for faith lays hold of that promise by seeing it as already so, for in the eyes of God it is already ours. Romans 4:17 tells us God calls those things that be not as though they were. Faith believes, speaks, and acts upon what God said is ours.

Faith is trust in God, and our faith in Him is developed by hearing from Him for faith comes by hearing and hearing Him speak to you through His Word. Trust is developed in getting to know someone. The more we hear from God through His spoken Word, the more we get to know Him, and the stronger our faith (trust) becomes. We can then release our faith in what we had hoped for, and our faith (trust) in Him will bring it to pass as our faith will accept it as already ours, just as God has said.

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Christian Faith Fellowship – Ponder Texas

Hebrews 13:15
Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.

Giving thanks should be a part of the believer’s everyday life. Notice it says in this verse we are to continually offer thanks, even as a sacrifice of praise. It’s easy to thank God when things are going your way, but what about when you are facing difficult circumstances. It is in those times you need to thank God the most, when you don’t feel like giving thanks.

As scripture teaches us, we walk by faith not by sight. Colossians 4:2 tells us we are to be vigilant in prayer with thanksgiving. We don’t thank God for the difficult circumstances, but for what He has done to help us overcome them. In all things, in every situation of life, we are to be thanking God for what He has done for us through Christ Jesus.

When believers lose their heart of gratitude, they become bitter not better, and this will only rob you of what God has for your life. Don’t allow the enemy and circumstances in life to take from you the gratitude we should have for God and for all that He has done. Continually thank God for what He has done for you through Christ Jesus, and you can see God bring you through to victory.

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1 Corinthians 9:24,26-27
24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.
26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air.
27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

The ultimate prize for a believer is to know our God, and to therefore walk by faith in Him. The apostle Paul stated at the end of his life he had fought the good fight, he had finished his race, he had kept the faith. We are to live a life of faith in what Jesus has done for us. Those who “live” by faith daily walk trusting in what God has said, never moved by what they see around them. This takes two major things. Desire and discipline.

This takes a desire to follow after Jesus, and Paul certainly had that desire. In Philippians 3:10 he stated his desire was to know Jesus. Not to know about Him, but to know Him intimately as a close friend. If this is not our daily desire above everything else, we will not fight the good fight of faith. How can you have faith, putting your complete trust in someone you do not know. This is the biggest hindrance to most believers walking by faith. Without a desire to know Him, it will be very difficult to fully trust in someone you don’t know.

It also then takes discipline to get to know Jesus. Paul disciplined His body. If you do not apply discipline in your life in dealing with your flesh, you will automatically drift to pleasing your carnal nature instead of drawing near to God. James 4:8 tells us if we draw near to Him, He will then draw near to us. He is waiting on us. As verse 26 above reveals, Paul lived his life with a determined purpose, and that was to walk with God. You can as well. It just takes a desire above all else to know Him, and some discipline to do so. You will not regret it.

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Christian Faith Fellowship – Ponder Texas