Focus: The Four Unless!

Text: 1Cor.15:2

"By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, UNLESS ye have believed in vain."

I have four 'unless' to share with you from the Holy Scriptures, and I'm convinced that they will bless your life tremendously. 

The first 'unless' is from our text - 1Cor.15:2. This is the 'unless' unfailing faith - faith with the right anchor. The Christian faith rests on a firm foundation. The gospel of Christ has given us a firm footing. Our faith is standing surely on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our faith is not a delusion or an illusion. It is not something faked; it is not a myth, a fairytale, a figment of human imagination, a fabrication of our own mind, a cunningly devised fable, or a cock-and-bull story. No, not at all! The Christian faith is concretely based on the historical birth, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our faith is centered on the good news of Christ's redemptive death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Child of God, your faith in Christ is not meaningless, useless or a mere waste of time.

Our faith is constantly refreshed by the memory of the gospel that produced it in the first place. We are ever conscious of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as the bedrock of our faith. We carry it in our memory. 

Our faith is sure and solid. We have not believed in vain. Our faith has a firm anchorage. It is built to last, not to pass. It can never be said of us, "Unless you have believed in vain."

The second 'unless' is from Psalm 27:13. The psalmist says, "I had fainted, UNLESS I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living." This is the 'unless' of faith - faith in God's goodness. Faith in God turns around our story. By faith glory breaks out of the story of our lives. We are the people of faith. We faint not because we believe in God and we trust Him to keep His word. Our faith triumphs over fainting. We do not belong to the world of the fainthearted. Like our God, we faint not (Isa.40:28). Jonah said, "When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple" (Jon.2:7). We always brace up and forge ahead whenever we feel greatly challenged by life's twists and turns. We neither chicken out nor succumb to fainting. To the first church in the book of Revelation, Christ says, "And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted." 

We are not given to fainting, but to prayer. Having received mercy from our God, we faint not, and for the cause of our faith, we faint not. We constantly refuse to faint in order to reap the harvest of our good works. We patiently wait for our sure harvest. Even in face of tribulations we refuse to faint or give up. When our Lord rebukes us for our wrongdoing we refuse to faint, and by constantly looking on to Jesus Christ, we are encouraged never to faint.

We believe to see the goodness of our God in the land of the living.

The third 'unless' is found in Ps.94:17, which says, "Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence." This is the 'unless' of divine help. With the help of God we can live a great life and rise to the top. Minus God, our lives would have ended abruptly. Take God out of the equation, our existence on planet earth would have been pointless. Had we marginalized or trivialized God, we would be leading lives of total shame and insignificance - pointless and unrecognizable existence.

The good news is that we have made God our helper. He is the main factor in our day to day living. We survive and succeed because of Him. For being our helper, we are striving and thriving.

The final 'unless' is from Ps.119:92, and it says, "Unless thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction." The word of God preserves us even in times of trouble. This is the 'unless' of the word of God - the 'unless' of the Scripture. By delighting ourselves in God's word we gain divine immunity. Affliction cannot end those who cherish and delight in the laws of God.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly! Eat and chew the word! Believe it! Love and enjoy it! Obey it! Store it in your heart! Share it with others! Confess it! Act on it! Honor it! Reckon with the infallible truths of God's word! Rest on it! Hear and do it! For by the word of God you will sail, and not sink. Amen!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter