Furthering Your Faith-5

FURTHERING Your FAITH-V—2Peter 1:9(:5-11)

Attention:-White Lie Cake:

Jenny was to bake a cake for the Women’s Missionary Union of Tuscaloosa, AL, but forgot to do it until the last minute. She remembered it the morning of the bake sale & after rummaging through cabinets, found an angel food cake mix & quickly made it while drying her hair, dressing, & helping her son pack for scout camp.

She didn’t have a fluted pan so she used a deep round casserole dish. When she took the cake from the oven, the center had dropped flat & the cake was horribly disfigured & she exclaimed, "Oh dear, there is not time to bake another cake!" This cake was important to Alice because she did so want to fit in at her new church, & in her new community of friends.

So, being inventive, she looked around the house for something to build up the center of The cake. She quickly cut out the sunken center of the cake & plunked in a roll of toilet paper, covering the paper tube with the lid from a soup can, & then covered it all with icing. Not only did the finished product look beautiful, it looked perfect.

Just before she left the house to drop the cake by the church & head for work, Jenny wakes her daughter & gives her some money with specific instructions to be at the bake sale the moment it opened at 9:30 & to buy the cake & bring it home. Jenny graciously delivers the cake, all the while praying her daughter will buy it in time.

When the daughter arrives at the sale, she finds Jenny’s attractive, perfect cake had already been sold!

Amanda grabbed her cell phone & called her mom.

Jenny was horrified-she was beside herself! Everyone would know! What would they think? All night, Jenny lay awake in bed thinking about her failure. She asked the Lord to forgive her for her fleshly indulgences surrounding the cake....

The next day, Jenny promises herself to try not to think about the cake, & would attend the fancy luncheon/bridal shower at the home of a fellow church member & try to have a good time. She did not really want to attend because the hostess was snobbish, who more than once had looked down her nose at the fact that Jenny was a single parent & not from the founding families of Tuscaloosa. But having already RSVP'd, she had to go.

The meal was elegant, the company was definitely upper crust old south, & to Jenny's horror, the cake in question was presented for dessert! The hostess had bought Jenny’s cake!

Jenny felt the blood drain from her body when she saw the cake! She started out of her chair to tell the hostess all about it, but before she could get to her feet, the Mayor's wife says to the hostess, “What a beautiful cake!” Jenny, still stunned, sat back in her chair when she heard the hostess(who was a prominent church member) lie thru her teeth to the Mayor’s wife, answering, “Thank you, I baked it myself.”

Jenny smiled & thought to herself, “God is good.”

*Like Jenny convoluted situation, some of you are taking way too much liberty with the wrong things, & way too little care of those things that matter to God!

You & I are urged, thru God’s word, to ensure & maintain, the FULLNESS of our “faith” in Christ, so that our experience, & the world’s experience with Christianity, will be Christ-honoring, positive, & beneficial to all!

Need:

?Are you satisfied with your walk with Jesus?

There is a very real sense in which every committed believer is indeed ‘satisfied’ with their Christian walk. Yet there is another sense in which to be fully ‘satisfied’ with your ‘Jesus walk’ could only be a statement of personal arrogance!

?Are you pleased with your working relationship with the Father, the Son, & the Holy Spirit?

?To What in particular, OR, How has God called you, to apply His equipping, in your Christian walk?

Some Christians....

•Struggle in general, with how to apply their calling & their giftedness.

•Struggle with using their calling & giftedness OUTSIDE of a church setting. And others struggle to apply their calling & their giftedness within the church.

The apostle Peter encouraged the Churches to bolster/strengthen/further support their initial faith in Christ, in order to provide an ‘abundant entrance’ to the Kingdom of God.

God’s people are obligated to further their faith.

Here Peter answers the question:

?What does ‘Furthering Your Faith’ involve or entail?

We are continuing to examine:

4 Factors For Furthering Your Faith.

In the last weeks we have examined the fact that,

Furthering Your Faith involves...

1. DUE DILIGENCE DONE(:5-7)?•[Part 1--:5a-d]?•[Part 2--:5e-6a]?•[Part 3--:6b-7]

2. FRUITFULNESS(:8)