Faith is the Substance that Keeps us Strong to the End

Saturday was July 4th. It reminded me of the times when my mother used to prepare a recipe using cherry flavored jello and she would put diced up fresh fruit and shredded carrots and cabbage in it. It doesn't sound good, but it tasted good. She had this special pan that had a molded pattern in it. She would flip it over on a large serving tray, and the pattern would stay in the jello until the last of it was served. The secret to this happening without the jello loosing its form was a type of jello called Knox jello which you would mix with the flavored jello. It was the substance that you needed to keep it standing strong until the end.

Romans 6:17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient (from the heart) to that form of doctrine which you were committed
18: and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

I thought about that dish mom used to make, and I began thinking about my walk with Christ. If we want to become molded and changed to the likeness of Christ, we must be committed to His form of doctrine.

2Timothy 3:2:For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy
3:unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,
4:treacherous, wreck less, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5:holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.

This suggests that with my free will, I can choose one way or the other, and both ways our the exact opposite of each other. I need something that I cannot produce on my own. It must come through Christ. I need to possess something that has substance. One time mom made this dessert, and she poured it out, and shortly afterward she noticed that it lost its shape and became a pitiful pile of goo in the middle of the tray. She later realized, she forgot to mix it with the Knox gelatin.


Hebrews 11:1; Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

If faith is what I need to stand strong in Jesus, where do I find it?

Romans 10:17: So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ.

I need to activate and apply what I learn out of the Word so I can stand firm in the faith.

My prayer for my brothers and sisters in Christ is this:

Hebrews 6:11: and my desire is that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end
12: so that you will not be sluggish but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherited the promises.

One of the things that has greatly blessed me and others in the church was the Team Kids Club and when we first started planning it, there was a big emphasis on that whatever the plans were for each evening that the main focus would be to remind these young people about the scripture lesson. In the beginning , we were not seeing much progress, but now many of those same children have accepted Christ, and several have acknowledged their faith by publicly being baptized. Let us continue to look at the importance of the Word and keep our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith. May we continue to see people transformed to the image of Christ as we walk into newness of life as we live out the abundant life of faith and exercise and use what we learn in the scriptures.