“Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD…” (Hosea 6:3)
Faith in Christ is not an acceptance of facts about Jesus that gets you into heaven. Faith in Christ is the means by which sinners are turned into saints by the miracle of a new birth and given the wherewithal to be obedient sons of God on the earth. If you are not in Christ, you have no hope of being able to please God today or tomorrow, and certainly not for all eternity. Once a person is born again they are a new creature, their old man has been crucified with Christ, and they now have everything they need for a life of godliness. This rich provision, which is the gift and inheritance of God to every person who has been made a child of God through faith in Christ, is our possession through the promise of the gospel.
In order to experience this glorious inheritance, to eat of the precious fruit of Canaan land, we must continue to walk in faith, believing every promise of God that is yea and amen in Christ. Every believer is asked and expected to continue in faith, especially when the “giants” of the land appear mightier than our God’s promise. In the face of all that the god of this world would throw at us we must declare: “Greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world!” In the sorest temptations we must believe that obedience has been made possible through the redeeming blood of Christ and we are not hoping to one day be free, but we are free to resist and turn away from sin today. We must let the promise of God be the truth of our life. We must continue in His Word and follow on to know in our experience that he who the Son sets free is free indeed.
In short, we must apprehend all we were initially apprehended for. It is not that we weren’t given it at the start. From the beginning, every believer is complete in Christ. But if we are to follow on to know the Lord, if we are to be disciples indeed, if we are to grow up in Him in all things, we must never settle for less than the promised land.