In my younger years, I played a lot of sports and actually ended up going to Temple University on a wrestling scholarship. In every sport, my coaches would always emphasize, ‘stick to the basics’.
Throughout my life I worked in many phases of construction including setting the foundation of homes by erecting poured concrete walls in the ground. As I matured, I came to understand the importance of establishing a correct foundation.
In I Peter 2:5 God likens each member of the Body of Christ to “… living stones that are being built into a spiritual house”.
In Psalm 11:3, we are told, “If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do”?
As I look around in the body of Christ today, it seems like there are several classes of Christians.
Some profess to have enthusiastically followed the Lord at first but are currently just sitting on the sidelines defeated.
Some go to church and fellowship regularly with other believers but have little power or vibrancy in their relationship with the Lord or in their service to him.
Others are on fire for the Lord, full of the Spirit and the Word. They go about doing exploits with the Lord, in vital union with Him and with their brothers and sisters in Christ. Have you ever noticed this and wondered what makes the difference?
I believe that more often than not, this has to do with the foundation that has been established in one’s personal life.
Its true that one of Satan’s favorite strategies against the Church is to keep her ignorant or in error of basic Bible doctrines! If Satan can keep a believer ignorant or in confusion concerning the basic fundamentals of their faith, he knows that they will never live victoriously nor become a formidable threat to his kingdom. As long as he can hold us in error, he is elated!
But, the Good News is,… He is defeated!
The Bible says, It’s not up to him whether we remain ignorant or not, It’s totally up to us!
(Mt.18:18) “Whatever We bind on earth is bound in Heaven, whatever We loose on earth is loosed in Heaven.
In short, this verse means, “Whatever I/You forbid on earth is forbidden in heaven”, (the 1st heaven where Satan and his spirits dwell, not the 3rd heaven where God the Father dwells), “and whatever I/You allow, God allows.”
One of my favorite scriptures in all of the Bible, and the sole reason I would attribute to most of the misunderstanding of God and His Word is Hosea 4:6. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…”
In II Tim.3: 15, the Body of Christ is commanded to, “… study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, ‘rightly dividing’ the Word of Truth”. In John 8:31-32 Jesus said, “If you continue in my Word, then are you my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”.
I believe that the main reason for defeat and lack of any kind in the Church is ignorance of God’s Word! In Hebrews 5:12; in the Holman Standard Bible translation we are told, “Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you ‘the basic principles’ of God’s Revelation again. You need milk not solid food.” In Hebrews 6:1-2 it names several of the ‘basic’, ‘fundamental’ or ‘first principles’ of the Christian life and doctrine.
In conclusion, if we find that our life dose not resemble the Lord (I John 4:17) , “As He is, so are we in this world…”. It may be that we are in error or somehow believing wrong. After all, the Bible declare several times, (Prov. 23:7) “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.”
We could have been taught wrong by a well meaning pastor or teacher and ignorantly accepted error as truth, or we may have just been lazy and not studied the Word for ourselves.
Whatever the reason, if we are not living a victorious Christian life, isn’t it plausible that we might ought to revisit our foundational beliefs (II Cor.13:5), and allow the light of God’s Word to bring correction and revelation (Prov.4:20-22)?
