Taking Your Next Step In Following Jesus Christ

The second building block in having a solid faith foundation is that of God's Word. When the police are in pursuit of a suspect, they are chasing after this person at all costs. They will do whatever it takes to apprehend the suspect. Just the same, we need to be in constant pursuit of God’s Word so that we can apprehend God’s truth for our lives.

Our final episode looking at the first building block of surrender to Jesus Christ will examine practically what it means to seek Him first. Too many times we seek other things first in our job or education while putting Jesus second. Sometimes we just need to adjust our perspective and realize if we put Him first then all the "things" we are working for will be added unto us according to Matthew 6:33. 

What does it mean to live a surrendered life to Jesus Christ? It involves a daily decision of saying yes to Jesus and no to self. It involves us pledging full allegiance to Jesus Christ regardless of what may happen in our lives.

As we begin building a solid faith foundation, the first building block is that of salvation and surrender to Jesus Christ. Since Jesus Christ is the Chief Cornerstone, then He is the only way to build a faith life and the first step in building a solid faith foundation in our life. 

In order to build the foundation of our life right, we must build block by block. The key building blocks that we are talking about are: surrender to Jesus Christ, God's Word, prayer, fellowship, evangelism, and obedience. We will talk practically about establishing a spiritual growth plan that we can use consistently. 

What we build our faith life on will directly determine how we can withstand all that Satan and the culture throws at us. Are you building on a rock or on sand?

We all want a good return on our investments. Whether it is an investment of money or time, we want to make sure we are receiving the most we can. What do we get if we are willing to meet the requirements of following Jesus? We don't have to wonder because Jesus tells us what we will get in return in the same passage that He gives the requirements.

There are prerequisites to things in life. Whether it is a certain class to take or a certain age to meet, there are requirements that must be met in order to do some things in life. Jesus gives is two requirements that are absolutely essential to following Him. We will unpack each requirement and see how we can fulfill it in order to follow Him.

We all have people that we follow on social media, YouTube, sports, and in church. We decide who we will and will not follow. For some, we follow intently and could tell you everything about them. Yet for others, we clicked follow but rarely see them. Jesus gives us a very personal invitation to follow Him and for this episode we want to evaluate our lives to see who it is we are really following. We want to make a commitment to follow him for this semester.

People will have specific questions that we need to be prepared to answer. On this episode we talk through questions and statements like these:

• Doesn’t the Bible justify abortion since it is silent on abortion?

• You shouldn’t push your beliefs on other women. 

• The Supreme Court decision is setting women back.

• What about embryonic stem cell research?

• Until pro-lifers are ready to help each pregnant woman, they need to shut-up. 

• If the embryo (who doesn’t have a brain yet) is so valuable it cannot be killed by abortion, how do you justify pulling the plug on brain dead individuals?

People will have specific questions that we need to be prepared to answer. On this episode we talk through these two:

• Shouldn’t abortion be allowed in cases of rape and incest?

• Doesn’t a woman have a right to her own body? (My body, my choice.)

In this episode, we talk about some practical tools you can use to engage people in conversation such as: using logical reasoning, engaging with questions, bringing in the toddler, and revealing the forgiveness and healing found in the Gospel.

Satan has placed a mental block, according to 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, in people's minds in order to prevent the truth from being received. Our goal is to identify what that mental block is and try to remove it. Our goal is to engage people in conversation not to silence them. To do so, we must present the truth in love and compassion. This can open up a dialogue to discover the mental block and to share the truth to remove it. 

What determines when a person receives the right to life that every other human being possesses? Is it based on the size of the human? Is it based on the level of development? Is it based on its location or its degree of dependence upon another human being. These are the criteria that pro-choice and pro-abortion advocates insist a human must meet before it can have human rights. If this is the case then there is no such thing as human equality. It would be based on what a person can do or not do.

The abortion issues boils down the this question, What is the unborn? How we answer this questions will determine how we answer the issue of abortion. On this episode, we will establish that the unborn is a distinct human being and not some other kind of thing that transitions into a human being after delivery. We will also establish that the unborn is living from the moment of conception. To say otherwise goes against the findings of science.