Volume 26, Issue 9
WisconsinChristianNews.com
Page 21
God And the Individual
knows what you think about any subject that passes through your mind. God knows what you think about your par- ents, your ministers, the government. You may be very private about what you think, or you may be very vocal and God knows you and holds you accountable to do what is right. If you have hidden sin in your life, you are guilty of the body and blood of Jesus. God did provide a hiding place for us — Jesus is our hiding place. David
matters, in child training, in social matters, in brotherhood relationship, and in witnessing. God wants us to be free in our walk with Him because that is the only way we can be free from Satan’s bondage. If we are chaf- ing under some restriction, we are not free. The Apostle Paul lived with a thorn in the flesh that God would not take away. Did he continue to chaff under that? No he rejoiced that God gave him the grace to live with it. We should not live long with any grief or we will become bitter. We need to learn to accept life gracefully and give God thanks for His personal care. That is where the real test is — giving God thanks in everything. As an individual, can I say; “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want?” What a privilege to have Jesus as our Shepherd and walk with Him each day! Alone as an individual on the Judgment day God gave messages to the seven churches. Part of the message was; “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” Sardis had a name that they were alive but they were dead; but they had a few names even in
Sardis. Even if one is in an apostate situation it is possible to walk with the Lord in an acceptable manner. The converse is true. One may be in a faithful brotherhood and surrounded by those who are walking with the Lord and yet be apostate. You can be one who is not open and honest with God or his brethren. At the judgment we will be sheep or goat and God will know where you are in your heart. It will not be enough to be married to a Christian. It will not be enough to be raised in a Christian home and ed- ucated in a Christian school. God’s call is to each person to be saved, converted from the old life and walk- ing with the Lord in truth. God is longsuffering, not willing that any should perish, but God will not force anyone to be a Christian. We must open our heart to the Lord Jesus each morning and walk with Him. That personal walk with Him will bring us into harmony and fellowship with others who walk with Him. Rod & Staff Publishers W6053 County Rd. X Withee, WI 54498 (715) 229-9400
By Isaac D. Martin February 2026
saved but we, personally, must do what needs to be done to be saved. When we are saved, we become a part of a family and in that family, we make our personal contribution. As in a natural family, each child is different and each makes his own kind of con- tribution, so it is in the family of God. We allow for that diversity, but each child must abide by the rules of the family or there will be some kind of consequence. Many, if not most, of the commands are to the individual. Consider the commands of 1 Thessalonians 5:16- 22. “Rejoice evermore.” This is some- thing no one can do for you. We can do it with you but not for you. “Pray without ceasing.” We can pray for you, but we cannot do your praying. “In everything give thanks.” This is something I must do as a person. Some people are grumblers and you can surround them with thankful peo- ple, but they will probably grumble all the more! “Quench not the Spirit.” This is a very personal matter, but others will see if you are doing this or not. “Despise not prophesying.” What we do with the preaching we hear is very personal. We can drink in the truth and love it, we can put it to prac- tice or we can despise it. “Prove all things” is personal and in some ways it is also collective. “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” A brotherhood can encourage us in our personal re- sponses to life but we each are ac- countable to be obedient to God. Man likes to hide behind something and Satan makes us think we can hide. Peter warming himself by the enemy’s fire was trying to hide, but Jesus knew where he was. No one can hide from God. God is the One you will need to answer to. Being a member in a brotherhood makes us accountable to that brotherhood. But people can hide at least for a while, but they cannot hide from God. He knows what we are all the time. God
found God’s hiding place and we can find it too and use it in a right way. As individuals we have our private com- munion with God. We take our sinful selves to Him for cleansing and re- newal. We seek His power and grace to face a wicked world with a testi- mony of God’s truth in our heart. We can also go through the motion of having a time of devotions and still love self, the world, or money. We can carry in our heart hatred or bitter- ness. When we go to town, it may be that God is the only One who knows how I waste His money. It is to Him we will need to give an account. God knows what I read and what my thoughts are about what I read. These are all private matters, but they reveal whether or not I am a Christian. We are members of the body of Christ, but personal in our responses to life. Our walk with God is personal “Enoch walked with God.” This is a very old concept. It is not just a concept; it is a practice of God’s children all though time. In one of Israel’s dark times, God said, “I have 7000 in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” They were people walking with God and it continues in our times. In the brotherhood we encourage one another in our walk with the Lord. When we see people living after the flesh we call attention to the danger of living after the flesh. When we see a brother making decisions based on how much it pays, we warn them of the error. But that is as far as we can go. Their response is per- sonal and determines their rela- tionship to God. We walk with the Lord when we carry the awareness that He has His will in all matters. We contin- ually think about His will in money
“If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sis- ters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:26. We speak much about brotherhood and it is an integral part of any true believer’s life. Because of all the wrong thinking about brotherhood we may have gone to the other extreme in our emphasis on brotherhood at the expense of right thinking about the individual and his personal ac- countability to God. There is a per- sonal aspect to every individual’s response to God and to life in gen- eral. When a man marries a wife, he con- tinues his personal life in many re- spects. However, he carries another in his heart wherever he goes. He no longer can make personal choices without considering his wife. Yet as a person, he is accountable to God for what he thinks and what he does. The Christian in a brotherhood is very much like that. When we take on Christ, He is with us wherever we go and directs our life. At the same time we are a part of we are part of His body — the Church. See Romans 13:14. In this article, we want to focus on the individual and his relationship to God; his personal walk with the Lord; and that he will be alone as an indi- vidual before God at the judgment. Personal accountability to God for all conduct “Ye must be born again” is a very personal matter. No one can be born again for another. We each must open our heart to the Lord Jesus. You can be born into a Christian home, be educated in a Christian school and be surrounded by Christians, but we each must be personally born again to be saved. Others can tell us the story of Jesus and tell us how to be
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