PASTOR DARRYL BAKER
teaching you how to walk in the light of god's word
Faith And Hope In God
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.
Because of what Jesus did to reunite our relationship with God we should now rest our hope and our faith in Him. Hope is where we start for hope is a confident expectation of good. When we find out through the Word of God of His promises He has for us, those promises give us hope. That becomes our goal for we now know what God has provided for us.
This is where faith comes in for faith then gives substance to what we hope 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 is based on God’s Word and comes by hearing the Word of God proclaimed. We need to take God’s Word and begin to proclaim those promises as already ours to build our faith.
As we do scripture teaches us to no longer look at what is seen in the natural, but to look to what is not yet seen manifest, the Word of God. As we continue to walk by faith, calling those things which be not as though they were just as God Himself does (Romans 4:17), we can see those promises come to pass. This is how we keep our hope and faith centered in God.
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Give Thanks Always
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.
Thanksgiving should be a part of the believers life everyday. 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. 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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Reconciled To God
Colossians 1:19-20
19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,
20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
The word reconcile means to bring back to a former state of harmony. The word peace means to establish harmony. If you have ever heard a group of singers you can always tell when someone is singing out of harmony with the rest of the group. But when they sing together in harmony it not only sounds beautiful, you don’t notice individual singers for they sound as one.
So it is when we get born again. Because of the sin nature of our old spirit man we were out of harmony with God. But once we get born again we become one spirit with the Lord. This harmony with God is what makes us so powerful in the earth. The devil wants to keep us blind to the fact that we are one with God. If he can do this he knows he can take advantage of our life through deception.
But when a believer realizes they are in complete harmony with God they can go through life victorious for God will never be defeated and neither will the child of God who knows they are one with Him. No weapon formed against a child of God that knows who they are in Christ will prosper because they are one spirit with the Lord.
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A Life Enriched
1 Corinthians 1:5
…that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge,
All who are “in Christ” have had their lives enriched in every way. The word enriched means to make rich or to fully furnish. Once you are born again you have all you need because you have God. To walk in the knowledge of what God has made available to you comes by speaking what is revealed in His Word. It is through His Word that we come to know what we have been given.
When you go to the written Word of God, primarily the epistles for these are the letters that reveal who we are in Christ, what we have in Christ, and what we can do through Him, and you begin to confess that over your life; then the knowledge of what you have been given will begin to become real to you. As it does you begin to lay hold of what God has enriched your life with.
For example scripture teaches us that we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us. Begin to confess this over your life. You may not feel like you are more than a conqueror, but we walk by faith not by sight. The more you confess what scripture says about you the more real it will become to you. Begin to confess who you are, what you have, and what you can do in Christ Jesus and you will begin to rise up into all God has enriched your life with through Jesus Christ.
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Choose God’s Will
1 Peter 5:10
After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.
In the verses that come before this Peter talks about the fact that satan will test the faith of believers to see if he can get them to stop trusting God. The devil will try to get us to give up on God and give up on God’s ways, trying to get us to do things our own way, allowing the cares of this world to affect us. But for the believer who will stand in faith, choosing to walk in the will and the ways of God, trusting in and choosing to honor and obey God’s Word, their faith will bring them through.
They will become strong, established, and unmovable. Many believers do not make it through such challenges for they would rather do things their way instead of God’s way. Even Jesus the Bible teaches us learned obedience through His suffering. The greatest suffering Jesus faced was in not getting His will, but choosing instead the Father’s will over His own. You see this in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus prayed in agony for three hours asking the Father if there was any other way He could accomplish what needed to be done, but He then declared, “Not My will, but yours be done”.
Jesus did not want to be separated from His Father for He had never been before. This is the difference in those who walk in great faith, and those who never see their faith grow. If you are going to live your life the way you want to, getting your own way, you won’t go the way of faith. His ways are not our ways, but they are so much better. For those who stand in faith, choosing the Father’s will over their own in which your flesh will suffer not getting your way, you will become stronger, complete, and established in faith and in the will of God.
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Growing Spiritually
1 Peter 2:5
…you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
One of the primary goals for the believer is to become spiritual (dominated by our spirit man, the real you), not carnal (dominated by our flesh). You are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a body. Man has learned how to develop his body and his soul, but has done very little to develop the spirit man within. For example athletes have worked hard to develop their bodies to win athletic competitions.
Many have also learned to develop the mind through education, but few have developed the most important part of man, especially for the believer. When your spirit is dominating instead of your flesh you are not ruled by your feelings. You also can be easily led by God in knowing and walking out His will for He leads us through our spirit man within. To develop your spirit man you need to:
1. Meditate on the Word of God.
2. Practice the Word.
3. Give the Word first place.
4. Obey your conscience (the voice of your spirit).
5. Pray in the Spirit.
6. Walk in love.
Do these things and you will grow spiritually. As you do the old fleshly nature will no longer rule you and you will be led by your spirit man, the real you on the inside.
#cffchurch #pastorDarrylBaker
We Have A Living Hope
1 Peter 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,…
Because of what Jesus did in restoring our relationship with God we now have a living hope, for our hope is in Him. Hope means a confident expectation of good to come. As a believer we should be living in hope every day. We can do so by first looking to hope past. The children of Israel had a promise given to them by God of good to come. A Messiah would come and deliver them from their sin.
That expectation of good came to pass just as God had said. We can now live in hope present looking at all that scripture teaches us that Christ has fulfilled for us and therefore we can expect good to come to pass based on all that He has done. Learning of the promises of God we have available in Christ by faith we can expect those promises to be fulfilled in our lives now.
We can also live in hope to come as we know Jesus will return for His church and we will ever be with the Lord. All who are born again are no longer without hope for God is their hope. Don’t live a hopeless life. Look to His Word and expect what He has promised to come to pass in your life for God is good to all who call upon Him in faith, knowing that what God has promised He is able to perform in your life.
#cffchurch #pastorDarrylBaker
Filled With The Fruits of Righteousness
Philippians 1:11
…being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
All who are born again have been filled with the fruits of righteousness known as the fruit of the spirit revealed to us in Galatians 5:22-23. They are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To bring that fruit to maturity we are told if we will walk in the Spirit we will not fulfill the desires of the flesh but will see theses fruits manifest.
Once you are born again your spirit being made new has all theses fruits within. That is why when we choose to live ruled by our spirit these fruits will be the result. One way we walk in the spirit happens when we become one with the Word of God. Jesus said His Word is Spirit. To become one with the Word we take time to read and meditate on scripture, especially the New Testament. As it begins to dominate us, we begin to walk in line with the Word of God.
A second key to walking in the spirit is to take the time to listen to the voice of your spirit known as your conscience. Before you speak or act if we take time to listen to this inward voice we will either have a check about doing what is not right, or a peace about what is right. This will lead to us obeying our spirit and the result will be the fruit of our spirit man. Walking in the fruits of righteousness will lead us to live a spirit lead life, dominated by our spirit and not our flesh.
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No Longer Slaves
Ephesians 1:5
He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,…
We are not adopted into the family of God we are born again by His Spirit into God’s family. The term “adoption as sons” refers to us being placed in a position of sonship, which we did not have before being born again. The children of Israel once taken captive in Egypt were slaves to Pharaoh and lived their lives under his control, but God sent Moses and delivered them.
Moses was a type of Jesus, and Egypt a type of the world. Like the children of Israel we have been delivered through Jesus Christ from Egypt (the world), no longer slaves to the world and it’s ways. But the first generation of Israel did not enter the promise land, the new way of living God had for them except for Joshua and Caleb. The problem was God had gotten them out of Egypt, but He could not get Egypt out of them. Their thinking had not changed and they did not see themselves as sons and daughters of God. This hindered their faith in God and His ability.
Scripture tells us they limited God. Why? Because they did not renew their minds to who they now were, no longer slaves but sons and daughters of the Most High God. So it is with many born again today. They have been taken out of Egypt, but if they will not renew their minds to who they have become in Christ they have not gotten Egypt out of them. Romans 12:2 tells us not to be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Doing so will help every believer to rise up into the promise of the new life God has provided for them.
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Justified By Faith
Galatians 2:16
…nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.
We were justified (given right standing with God) not by works, but through faith in Christ. Justified means God declares you righteous or right with Him. God sees you just as if you had never sinned for you are a new creation in Christ Jesus. As Romans 5:1 tells us, we having been justified by faith now have peace with God.
The wrath that God has toward man because of sin is taken away in Christ for all who have received Him and continue to walk with Him, they will escape the wrath to come. The devil will try to get us to pull away from God because of our past sin. Don’t fall for this lie. Because we have peace with God we can draw near to Him. We choose to do what is right in God’s sight because of what He has done for us.
As a believer if you do sin don’t run from God repent, acknowledge the sin, turn from it and run to Him. You have been given peace with God because of justification. Peace means harmony between God and man. God is for us, so don’t fall for the lie that God must be against you. Because of justification through Christ Jesus we now have peace with God and He is for us because we are one spirit with the Lord.
#cffchurch #pastorDarrylBaker
Pastor Darryl Baker
Join me each day as we dig into the scriptures and share God's wisdom that will help you grow in your walk with God.
