Exhortations

Stay Justified

Stay Justified – Justification by Faith

When you do good things not only for yourself and humbly submit to God with all your heart and soul, you already show the goodness of God to humanity. We represent God in this troubled earth and our mission to continue to bring God into everyone’s heart is our primary mission as ministers of the Gospel of the LORD as delivered to us by the Son Jesus our Lord.

The Father sent the Son with a mission that the world may be saved through him, and the Son finished the mission that pleased the Father. The followers of Jesus Christ did the same work and continued the work of Jesus Christ as Apostles,  representing the Body of Christ and preaching the Gospel throughout the world. The world at that time is not as big as today because of the progression of the human race.

The good news of Jesus Christ about God the Almighty Father and the kingdom was first introduced as a church, the Body of Christ, but was not fully understood and accepted. That’s the way the Spirit has designed it. Jesus said that you should know the truth, and the truth will set you free, but how? Seek the kingdom of God first, and everything will be added unto you.

God will not give us a hard time finding Him if we know how to forgive and to be humble coupled with a pure heart and soul. This solely speaks for itself to be justified by faith, the first step towards salvation. Once we are justified, it could change both our spiritual and physical being; we could receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and once sanctified, we might be able to be a partaker of the Divine Nature of God.

To be justified and sanctified, we need Jesus Christ. God said in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” To interpret this passage in concise form for easy understanding means that God sacrificed his Son for the salvation of humanity. To be justified and not perish, we need to believe that he is the Son of God.

When Jesus said that “The Father and I are one,” many extreme religious leaders mistranslated and formed their group and were called Oneness, omitted the Father in their teachings, and even baptized the new converts only in the name of Jesus Christ. This became a controversy, and later as generations came to pass, it was fixed and started baptizing the new converts using the formula of the three persons of the Trinity.

We should not lose hope even though we are temporarily losing the battle. After all their winning, the end will come, and they will be on the losing end while it would be a victory for us. Even though we struggle to survive so as not to miss the mark,  we still have God’s open arms: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9 ESV

Stay focused on not getting lost in translation, and we will be able to maintain being justified and sanctified in our journey towards entire sanctification and through the final step towards glorification.

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10 ESV

God is all in all!

Bishop Joseph

Dr. Joseph Vitug, Ph.D. - Bishop Emeritus

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