Forged By Faith

Psalm 19:55 NIV Jamming to a little Jordan Feliz during my disaster of a chest day yesterday, and his song Your Great Hands just really stuck with me all day. That's always been one of my absolute favorite songs, and I'll drop a link below so you can go check it out. But one part of it says, "This goes against my every instinct, to loosen my grip and let go. But really all that I am risking is perfect peace in my soul." How accurate it that? We've all felt that kind of sticking point in our faith. We know that we can't handle whatever it is that we're facing by ourselves. But as usual, our pride gets in our way and can keep us from letting go and asking for help. We've been told that we have to do everything by ourselves and not expect anyone's help. And when you hear something enough, you're just gonna start believing it. So it's become our instinct to hold on, keep trying, wear ourselves out trying to do it alone. We get this rush from t...

Romans 3:23 NIV Ever find yourself staring down one of those days that you just know isn't gonna go your way? Well, I didn't think this was one of them. Then came my workout this afternoon and I was suddenly surprised to see that almost nothing I tried seemed to work. Nothing was feeling like it should. I couldn't feel the muscles I was trying to hit. Just a complete let down. Gotta love those surprise struggles that come out of nowhere. Did get something amazing out of it though: this verse idea. I spent the entire workout just getting more and more frustrated because nothing was going right. It just kept getting worse and worse until I was so frustrated that the old idea of quitting started making more sense. Didn't give in to it, but it made me realize just how easy it is to get upset and quit trying. We've all been there countless times in life. Things are harder than we want them to. Nothing is going our way. Everything just feels off and aggravating. And if we...

Matthew 12:34 NIV We talked yesterday about how we're all here to help make one another better, not stand in judgement or let petty nonsense keep us from making a difference. I saw this one earlier today and thought it fit pretty well. Hopefully we're all aware of the power of our tongues. Hopefully we understand the ability to build someone up or completely tear them down with nothing but our words. If not, hopefully this post will help. I love the second part of this verse because it's about as true as it gets. Our words are a direct reflection of our heart. What we say is a way of communicating what we feel or think. And those messages are heard. I think that can be the part that is easy to forget. We often just say things without considering them. We just blurt them out there and don't ever consider the impact they're going to have. It can only go one of two main directions. They help or they hurt. They build up or they pull down. They encourage or they discoura...

1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV Talked yesterday about the needless amount of hypocrisy in our world. I guess what I don't understand is how we're supposed to help others up by pushing them down. That's never made sense to me. After all, we're here to help others find Christ and work together to share Him with this world. Awfully hard to do that when all we're worried about is finding the flaws in those around us. I've heard a lot of talk here lately about how we're better together. Unfortunately, it seems like mostly talk in light of the current issues we're dealing with. Now I personally completely believe that we are in fact better together. We're able to lean on each other and encourage one another. We're stronger when we're working together toward a common good. But it has to be more than talk. It's easy to say that we're better together, but until we actually come together and work together, then we ain't gonna fix anything. There...

Matthew 7:3 NIV Most days it's amazing, and some it's even absolutely shocking how we just can't seem to learn from the past and start doing better. I know that our world is SERIOUSLY stuck in its ways, but folks we gotta do better than this. This is one of those messages that just keeps getting ignored. And no matter how truthful and important it is, it'll probably continue to be pushed aside. The level of hypocrisy knows no bounds in this place. People are always ready to point out the flaws or weaknesses in others. It's like we get some kind of morbid satisfaction in letting others know that they're not perfect and that we've seen their problems. How that's supposed to help anyone I have no idea, but it's something that our world just loves doing. Guess it's easier to put others down than to realize we're pretty low on the righteousness ladder ourselves. You'd think that we'd eventually get to the point where we realized that we ha...

1 Timothy 2:4 NIV Been talking about repentance for a couple of days. The whole point is that God just wants better for us. He often wants better for us than we even want for ourselves. That's why He sent Christ to do what we couldn't or wouldn't do for ourselves. We're the very definition of creatures of comfort. We like just doing what we've always done because we think it's easier than changing. But who cares what's easy when it's a matter of life and death? That's exactly what sin really is, and we've covered that pretty well over the past couple of posts. So now that we know the very real cost of sin, we need to ask ourselves why we wouldn't want to change? If our sinful ways are pointing us straight at a really horrible end, why not turn around and go a different direction? Again, that's exactly what God wants for us. He doesn't want anyone to perish. He doesn't want anyone to suffer. And He's given us all kinds of thing...

Acts 17:30 NIV Started off on this one yesterday, but it's just one of those seriously important topics that I think needs an extra post. As I said yesterday, God's not going to listen to excuses or let us get by with our messed up ways anymore. Our society has completely ditched the idea of personal responsibility. We loathe having to own up to our mistakes. So we ignore them. But that's just not gonna cut it whenever Christ comes back. I think one of the biggest hurdles is that we take His forgiveness for granted. We've went and got it in our minds that He will forgive us no matter what we do. That's not really how this Gospel thing is supposed to work. It's not some magical thought that we pull out so we don't have to feel guilty. It's not this freedom to do anything we want to do without any possible consequences or repercussions. Contrary to popular thought, life doesn't work that way. And you better believe that God doesn't work that way. H...

Acts 3:19 NIV Yesterday we talked a bit about how we all just need to let some things go if we're ever going to move on to the brighter future that we're hoping for. Well, I think we should take that thought a little further. Honestly, this is arguably the most important message of the Gospel. If we don't address and get rid of our sin, it will ruin us. Eternally. It's often easy to kind of gloss over the severity of sin. Our world is totally consumed with doing as many bad things as we possibly can. It's almost like we've turned it into some race to see who can come up with the most disturbing, disgusting, and most vile stuff possible. We don't just accept sin in our world these days, we actually celebrate it in some ways. And friends, as easy or comfortable as it may be to just keep on letting things go thinking they're not that bad, it will only bring our destruction. So if you didn't know, I guess this is the post to help you find out. Sin is wro...

Isaiah 43:18 NIV Okay, so I straight up don't understand something I've noticed in our world. Here lately there's been all kinds of stuff going on. I'm guessing you're aware of that part. But one of the main things that I've been hearing is that people are wanting to move forward to making our cities and neighborhoods better. Now that I get. But the part that I don't understand is that they also keep bringing up the past. So they want to move on to something better, but they keep rehashing past mistakes. I just can't wrap my mind around that. It's hard to move forward when you're completely stuck in the past. It's impossible to heal if you keep reopening the wounds. You see what I'm saying? It just isn't logical. Now I am well aware that our world is not very big on logic these days. But surely I'm not the only one that's seeing the hurdle here. I'm all for new. I'm always down with change. I love the idea of making th...

Proverbs 3:12 NIV Today we get to celebrate some of God's biggest blessings in our lives. Father's Day is the one day that our world sets aside to honor and celebrate the fathers and father figures in our lives. These people are some of the biggest gifts ever. They help shape and mold us into the people that we are. They honestly deserve more than just one day a year, they should be thanked every single day for all that they for us. It's almost like God knew all along that we would need people in our lives to help us along the way. After all, we're all way too stubborn and prone to messing up to be able to do this by ourselves! So He gave us our dads. He created this idea of fatherhood. He gave us these prime examples of so many amazing things that we just wouldn't be the same without. Hard work, dedication, leadership, compassion, understanding, humor, toughness, and the list goes on and on. I'm not a father, yet. I truly hope and pray that it's part of the...

Mark 16:15 NIV We just talked about how it's so easy to assume the worst in people. It's like that's become our world's new normal. We just assume that everyone is out to get us, hurt us, or make us look bad. So we're always walking around on the offensive looking to fight and argue with anyone and everyone. Now as I said yesterday, that whole mindset will only make our true duty in these lives nearly impossible to do. In this verse, Christ is calling His followers to spread throughout the world and share the message of the Gospel. He needs us to carry the message of His love and salvation to everyone that we possibly can. But if we're always looking to fight with someone, then telling them how much they're loved probably won't get brought up in those conversations very often. We just need to calm down a lot and remember that there's something a little more important than our pride at stake here. He wants us to help Him win souls, not arguments. Now ...

James 4:12 NIV Had us a little fracas earlier today. Apparently just something about bringing home groceries that doesn't go smoothly for some reason. Don't understand it. But anyway, it helped me realize something that I think would make a good post to share. It's awful easy to assume the worst in others. We're often so quick to judge that we don't leave any room to remain calm and think things through. Instead, we usually just freak out and lose control for a second. Why do we always, or at least almost always, see the worst in others? Why do we automatically assume the worst? Why do we rush to judgement before even getting close to understanding what's going on? Why do we instantly think that someone else means to hurt us or make us angry before we even stop to consider where they're coming from? Are we just really into fighting all the time? Do we really enjoy the arguments that this kind of thing leads to? Do we just crave a little bit of chaos to help ...

1 Peter 5:10 NIV In yesterday's post we talked about the enormous cost of sin. Hopefully we all understand just how deadly it is and why it needs to be dealt with in our lives. We really are at war with sin. It's doing anything and everything it can to drag us down and keep us lost and broken. Sin pulls us away from God. It pulls us away from joy. It leads us to this dark place of shame and guilt. And all of those bits and pieces add up to feeling completely lost and hopeless. I thought about this one last night. Even though we've all gotten our tails kicked by sin, there is hope. Yes, we've all wandered away from God's side. We've left our foundation of joy and peace and ventured out into the world looking for something else. All of that wandering, all that searching takes a lot of things away from us. We lose our hope. We lose our joy. We lose our peace. We lose our innocence. We lose ourselves. We lose a lot by living a life of sin. But not all is lost. God i...

Hebrews 10:26 NIV We shared the peaceful promise of Christ's overcoming of this world. He's beaten everything that we can ever face in these lives. He did the hard work of exposing sin and showing the true consequences of living life chasing darkness. Now, it's on us. It's on us to change. It's up to us to get ourselves right. There are no more excuses, no possible reasons, nothing left but to change. I woke up this morning with this idea on my mind: stop compromising. Each and every one of us knows the difference between right and wrong. We're fully and completely responsible for that knowledge. So every single time that we knowingly choose to do what's wrong instead of what's right, we're compromising. We're saying a little won't hurt. One more time won't make a difference. Everyone else is doing it too. The excuses need to stop. A little bit of darkness is too much because it takes our focus off of the light of Christ. One more time wi...

John 16:33 NIV In my humble opinion, this is one of the most peaceful verses in the Bible. There's something about knowing that He has already defeated the worst that this world can come up with. There's nothing that He's not ready for or able to help us get through. And when we're all facing times like we are right now, that's a really amazing promise to lean on. There's also a very real truth in this verse. We will have troubles. We will go through hard times. We will all face more rough days than we'd like to face. So it should come as no surprise when we find ourselves in the midst of yet another tough stretch in our lives. It happens. Happens to all of us. As much as we'd like it, there's just no easy path through all this. As I've always said, it's in those hard times that our faith grows the most. Those trials push us outside of our comfort zones, and they give us the perfect opportunity to see God's power at work. That's somet...

James 13:35 NIV All of the sudden everyone around our country, and many others across the globe are in a mad dash to look like good people. Everyone's suddenly transfixed with proving that they care about others. So many people are doing and saying whatever it takes to make it seem like they're part of something good. Well, I don't really know why that's such a new thing in our world. You want to be a good person? Want to show this world just how much you care about and appreciate other people. Want to feel like you're a part of something truly world-shaking? LOVE LIKE JESUS!!! Doesn't need to be hard, and certainly shouldn't be a new fad that we get involved in just because something bad happened. Loving others should be the very foundation of every single thing we say and do every single day. Truth is that we are a part of something that can and will change lives. We're on a team that will overcome all the darkness and hatred in this world. We are torc...

Ephesians 4:32 NIV My family and I just watched I Can Only Imagine for the second time, and what an amazing movie about an amazing band. MercyMe has been one of my favorites for a very long time. In fact, I'm pretty sure that their Almost There album was one of the first Christian albums I ever bought. But it's just got me thinking about how amazing forgiveness really is. It is undoubtedly one of the biggest gifts that anyone can give another person. And the incredible thing is that we all have the opportunity to give it. We have all messed up. Hopefully we're all mature and honest enough to agree with that. Every single one of us have said and done things that have hurt other people. We've all left scars. And that's one of those things that really hurts to admit. The person that I am now shudders at the thought of hurting someone else. But we still slip up and do or say things without thinking and continue to leave those painful marks in the lives of those around u...

Ephesians 4:27 NIV “An entire sea of water can't sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can't put you down unless you allow it to get inside you.” Goi Nasu. I heard that quote a long time ago and I really can't express how much I love it. It's one of those messages that every single person alive can benefit by learning. My family and I had this interesting, or better yet eye-opening, experience yesterday. Someone we know shared what are apparently lyrics to a song, and we found ourselves trying to understand this kind of music that we definitely don't listen to. I honestly didn't know that there could be that many curse words in a song, and pretty sure I even heard some new ones that I didn't know about yet. I've apparently listened to almost nothing but Christian music so long that I've forgotten that other stuff is out there. But it really hit me hard because I've been focused on living this life the ...

Romans 12:14 NIV So there's this guy that works at the apartment complex where my family and I live. Quiet, reserved, don't know his name, never heard him speak. Every single time I see this guy I wave. Never gotten anything in return. Never even acknowledges that I've been in his vicinity. And when I walked past him on my walk just now, same thing, but it got me to thinking. We don't know someone else's story. Now I'm not sure the situation or why he never counters my wave with a friendly nod or something in return. Maybe he's just quiet and not all that social. Maybe he has a lot on his mind that he's dealing with. Maybe he doesn't like me because I'm unreasonably handsome. Maybe it's because pretty much every time I walk by him I've just gotten done sweating for an hour and a half and I smell less than amazing. Whatever the case may be, we just don't know what it's like to be anyone else. Where we run into problems is that we a...

Romans 12:2 NIV My past few posts have been building up to this one. This is one of my personal favorites, and even though I know I've shared it several times in the past, it's just one of those messages that we need to lean on in times like these. There's so much going on right now, and I'd venture to guess that most of us are just trying to find our way through the mess. It's in days like we're experiencing lately that we need to cling to the power of our faith. The point that I've been building up to is that we can't lose ourselves in this world. I know that there's a ton of things vying for our attention right now. And with all that constant noise around us, it can be next to impossible to stay focused. We're being barraged with all kinds of messages, movements, changes, updates, and more than enough things to worry about. But again, we don't need to lose ourselves in the midst of it all. I just want to remind you guys that this isn't...

Joshua 23:8 NIV I've been thinking a lot about holding tight to our faith. It's one of those things that is always important. But I think it's even more crucial when we're in the middle of crazy times like we find ourselves in lately. Faith is hope. It's this power that helps us continue to see the good even if we're surrounded by all kinds of bad. Faith is something that will never let us down, so we can never afford to let it become just one little aspect of our lives. It needs to be the foundation that everything else is built upon. About halfway through leg day this afternoon I just thought of Lot out of nowhere. Have no idea where it came from, but that story of Lot and his family living in Sodom just really seems to fit perfectly with all that we're seeing in our world. I'm not saying that our society is as bad as Sodom was back then, wasn't there. But I think we can all agree that things are pretty rough. And let's face it, some of the thi...

Proverbs 29:25 NIV This may seem kind of like circling back to something we talked about not too awful long ago, but it's the other side of it. A couple of weeks ago we were talking about getting back to fearing the Lord and appreciating His power in our lives. Since we as humans always like to do the exact opposite of what anyone else tells us to do, we decided to try a different option. And it's not done much for us. We're terrified of others. Not necessarily in a physical meaning of the word. But emotionally, mentally. We're terrified of others not liking us. We're scared of them not approving of how we live our lives. We spend so much time worrying about trying to never let anyone else down that we forget everything else. While we're busy trying to please everyone else, we're slowly losing sight of the people that God made us to be. In yesterday's post we discussed the importance of continuing to press on toward something better than all this. I thin...

Philippians 3:14 NIV Yesterday we discussed the importance of listening to the voices telling you that you can do better. It might not always feel good to hear that you can improve or may need to change some things. But no matter how badly the truth hurts at times, it's always for the best because it does make us better. We can't allow ourselves to adopt this settling mindset that is so popular in our world today. There's always something to learn. Always something new to try. Always a different way of doing things that could be better than what we were convinced was already good enough. There's the rub. We've gotten it in our minds that good enough is good enough. Sure, there could be something better out there, but if what we have works okay, then why endure the arduous process of growing? Fact is that there is something better out there. I understand that sin looks all fun and exciting. But we've played that game and we all know how it ends. Doesn't end i...