Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
(Philippians 2:12 - KJV)

What is Paul trying to communicate to us when he tells us to work out our own salvation? Very simply, he means that we have the responsibility of living out the salvation and the grace that the Lord has provided in our lives. Your walk with Christ is yours alone to take and while you will have the support of other believers on your way, nobody else can carry out this walk for you.

If there is one thing I hope you take from this ministry, it is the importance of knowing Jesus Christ for yourself, seeking Him out on your own in prayer and reading and knowing the Bible for yourself.  There is great danger in depending on men’s interpretations and depending on others to intercede for you in your walk with Christ. Now there is nothing wrong with sermons and nothing wrong with others praying on our behalf but if we don’t have enough discernment to test what is being said in those sermons and we ourselves don’t know how to pray on our own behalf, then we are not in a good place.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
(Philippians 3:8-11 - ESV)

Paul’s goal was to know the Lord and he wanted to know Jesus for himself. Do you have such a desire? For this privilege of knowing Christ is something that is open to each and every believer. Do you have your own personal relationship with Jesus Christ, that began when He revealed Himself to you through the gospel and you responded in repentance and belief? And if you have, are you really maintaining your relationship with the Lord yourself or are you waiting on Sunday for someone to pray with you or to read the Bible for the first time in seven days? The Lord desires a 24-hour, 7-days a week relationship with each and every one of us who are believers. And it is something that not only should we have but something that we need.  

When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.
(Daniel 6:10 - ESV)

Do you communicate with the Lord on a daily basis as Daniel did? How many times do we seek out people to pray for us and intercede for us without going to the Lord ourselves in prayer? Seeking out the Lord yourself is what will cause you to become closer to the Lord and mature in your faith. You need to know Christ for yourself and not rely on somebody else to know Christ for you. That means that you are the one who needs to seek out Christ, pray, read the Bible and live out your faith.

If you are a Christian, then you personally came to the Lord in repentance and put your own faith in Jesus. In order to live out the rest of your life as a Christian, it will take your faith to endure, not somebody else’s. Are you putting your trust in your pastor to stay true to the faith and to preach the truth to you?  Are you supporting the teachings and practices of your church just because they seem like they’re right and you have yet to go to the Bible yourself to see if they are in correct alignment with the scriptures?

The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.
(Acts 17:10-12 - ESV)

It’s not enough that we stand on tradition or what what learned from our parents or what a pastor has told us. Each of us need to examine what we see, hear and experience in light of the Bible. The Bible is our standard of truth and we can fall back on it, knowing that it does not change. Do you know the Bible enough that you can weigh any doctrine and any practice against it? Are you familiar enough with God’s word that when you see something contrary to it whether in the world or in the churches, a light bulb comes on? This type of discernment is severly lacking today and it is because too few of professing Christians really take an ownership of their faith. Do not let yourself be one of them.

There are an unlimited number of false doctrines in the world today, some this website will address in the near future. And the only way we are going to avoid being caught up in the deception is by knowing God’s word. Don’t wait until Sunday to read the Bible. Read it every day and pray the Lord every day for understanding. Put yourself in a place where you can test everything that’s out there rather than be in a position where you have to rely on your own way of human logic and understanding. Our human reasoning and understanding is no match for the devil’s craftiness and deception.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
and each one his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
(Hebrews 8:10-11 - ESV)

With the new covenant instituted by Jesus Christ, we no longer have to sit on the sidelines while people work on our behalf and act as our connection to God. Now, we are all priests as believers in Jesus Christ, meaning when we ourselves come to Christ, we can have a relationship with God. The old priestly system of the Old Testament is obsolete. Now the scriptures say that God will Himself teach us and will guide us in our individual walks. We do not have to rely on anyone but God. So how do the various roles such as prophets, teachers, etc. come into play? They come into play by the working of God’s power, as it is the Holy Spirit who works the prophecies in the prophet, the teaching in the teacher. So God is doing this things through the people. And they can be of benefit to us but do we rely on them instead of relying on Christ?

We need to realize that during the days of the early church, the Bible as we know it did not exist. So in those days, prophets, teachers, preachers and the other roles were even more important. Does this mean they are obsolete because of the Bible. No and the Bible gives no indication that these roles are no longer active. But with the Bible, we have a source that we can rely on to guard against potential false prophets, false teachers and false preachers. And better yet, contrary to what many churches will teach, you can know the scriptures for yourself because you have the Holy Spirit.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
(2 Corinthians 5:10 - ESV)

Your soul will be required of you at the end of your life and you will have to stand before the Lord and give an account of your life before the Lord by yourself. And God isn’t going to accept that you were fooled by a pastor you thought you could trust equally to Jesus. God isn’t going to accept that you didn’t know the Bible enough so you left the faith and became a Buddhist because someone convinced you in a way that appealed to your flesh. And God isn’t going to accept that the reason why you never believed in Jesus Christ was because you were following in your parent’s footsteps.

Take ownership of your faith and if your soul is going to be in anyone’s hands, make sure it is in the hands of Jesus Christ.