Forged By Faith

2 Timothy 2:15 NIV We've been discussing our inability to be perfect and how that shouldn't be our goal anyway. Jesus paid the price that our sins charged up and His love for us doesn't change just because we still make mistakes here and there. So working to gain His approval and acceptance is just foolish. As I said yesterday, He has already shown how much He loves us so why feel the need to work for something we have? Since we have all this free time now that we don't have to work for something He's already given us, maybe we can get to work doing what He actually calls us to do. You see, if we're going to work at something it should be something that does more than swell our pride or make us feel better about ourselves. It should be something that helps others. Maybe something that can make a difference that is bigger than just our lives alone. Maybe we can use our time to tell others about Jesus. Instead of working to gain His love we can spend that energy s...

Ephesians 2:9 NIV Talked yesterday about how our being perfect just isn't going to happen. We may live in a world that expects us to work to earn acceptance, approval, and appreciation, but we can't forget that God doesn't work like this world does. He came down to us. He offers the gift of salvation to us. He does the healing and restoration for us. Our job is to humbly open our hearts to Him. I think so many times we get stuck working for something we already have. Maybe it's because we're used to having to prove ourselves. Maybe we just think that if we can earn it then our pride won't take the hit of realizing that we're not perfect. It's not about us trying to look good or make ourselves feel better. It's about God showing that He loves us even though we've really messed a lot of things up! Just accept that and stop worrying about your pride. God's grace is something that none of us could ever hope to earn. As we discussed yesterday, we...

Romans 3:23 NIV This one has really been on my mind lately. We need to lighten up and give ourselves a break. I don't know about you, but I can get to the point where I'm so hard on myself that nothing I do seems good enough. This worldly aspiration to be perfect is truly consuming. We learn to see our flaws and if we're not careful then they just might become all we can see period! Now if you've read previous posts then you know I'm all about growing and improving. I believe that God calls us to strive to change for the better and never stop chasing after Him. But we need to be careful that perfection doesn't become our goal. That should never be our pursuit because it just isn't possible. If perfection is our goal then we will constantly be disappointed in ourselves and convinced that we'll never be good enough. I've had my eyes opened to how self-critical I'd become lately. I had noticed that being happy seemed a little further away. All the t...

John 12:19 NIV Happy Palm Sunday my friends! The kickoff to one of the most amazing celebrations for the greatest gift ever given. Reading through the story in John a little bit this morning and this verse really caught my attention. Nothing can change what Christ did all those years ago! Nothing can overturn His victory over sin and death. Nothing can stand in our way of the salvation that He offers! The world threw everything it had at Jesus. They ridiculed Him. They called names. The spread lies and rumors. They tried and tested Him. They doubted Him. They fought against what He said and taught. They punished Him. They crucified Him. They killed Him. They left Him in a grave. They thought that His name, His message, and His movement would fade. They were wrong! What we get to celebrate this week is a change. It's new way of life. It's a new perspective. It's a new priority. It's the chance to see our sins for what they are and the price they carry. It's our oppor...

Matthew 11:29 NIV We wear ourselves out by trying to do more than we're meant to do. We spend our time trying to figure out things that we're not supposed to understand. Anger and frustration become our norm when we spend our time trying to keep up or stay ahead. We learn the ways of this world and think that what everyone else is doing is the only way to go. But in truth, I believe that life is quite a bit simpler than all that. While we're busy running around trying to figure out life and every detail of it, God is probably up there just shaking His head. It's like overcomplicating things is our hobby. Whether we mean to or not, we often find the hardest, longest, and most excruciating way to do just about everything. It's no wonder that so many are always tired, always upset, always walking around like joyless zombies just searching for the will to live. It doesn't need to be like that! God didn't write these stories for us to spend our time trying to rew...

Ecclesiastes 5:18 NIV Life doesn't feel very fair sometimes. Our trials don't make sense. Our circumstances are harder than we'd like. Some of the things in our way on this journey seem like the odds are stacked against us and we don't have any chance of making it. Our days can feel mundane and repetitive. The things we have to do may not be all that enjoyable. So what do we do when we struggle to find joy in our lot? Well we can get upset. We can whine about how unfair it is. We can let ourselves be trapped in this miserable mindset where joy eludes us. We can focus only on the bad and neglect the good. We can let the hard days outshine the good ones and allow them to pull us down. We can sit around with this woe is me outlook on life and just believe that everything is against us and our happiness. All that's fine and often our natural reaction to things. But what does it get us? How do we gain anything from that? Does constantly seeing only the worst in life do a...

Psalm 18:30 NIV After a day like yesterday, knowing that God works differently is about the best chance at peace that we can have. So many things seem to go wrong in life. Plenty of rough days. We've talked a lot about the challenges that we face and the weight that they bring into our lives. It's in those moments that we need to lean most on God and the promise found in this verse. Yesterday was one of the days that you can't wait to be over. Seeing loved ones sick and hurting. Worrying about new issues that come out of nowhere. Not feeling well. Making mistakes. No matter what you try to do it seems like you can't accomplish anything. Stumbling through the entire day more than ready to go to sleep and hopefully wake up to something better. All of us have been there and we've all gotten through those days. They're not easy but God still leads us as faithfully through the hard days as He does the smooth ones. We lose ourselves in our circumstances. We become bli...

1 Samuel 16:7b NIV Been thinking a little bit about how God's ways are so much higher than ours. We should all be thankful that He doesn't conduct Himself like we do down here. None of the foolish hatred. No petty differences. No selfish ambitions. No unrighteous anger. When we look around and see the brokenness of this world it makes it even more clear why we should jump at the chance to live for such a faithful and loving Father! The past few days have brought us news of more violence and hate-fueled actions. Once again we're seeing how dangerous and just plain disgusting hatred and intolerance can be. More lives lost. More people hurt. All of it completely unnecessary. As we talked about a couple of days ago, every choice has a consequence. And a world that rejects Christ and scoffs at His ways will face the most dire of those consequences. I've asked this question in posts in the past, but can you imagine what our world would look like if we all tried to see others ...

1 Corinthians 1:9 NIV We become leery of faith and trust because we place them in all the wrong things. We put our hope in other people who may potentially let us down. Trust is given to things that break or opportunities that never come around. And when we continually put ourselves out there only to see our trust taken for granted it's all too easy to become hardened and close ourselves off. This can be a pretty cold and nasty world. Sadly too many people are only looking out for themselves and they'll only do what benefits them. Kindness and caring should be standard but that's unfortunately not always the case. That's why it always stings when someone else lets us down or proves that they simply don't care about us. We all like to assume the best and it's shaking when it doesn't pan out that way. But we can't afford to harden our hearts just because other people have let us down or simply don't care. At the end of the day it doesn't really mat...

Jeremiah 2:11 NIV I was given one of those rare opportunities to learn a very valuable lesson yesterday. Last week I decided that I was spending way too much time staring at screens so I made an effort to start fixing that. Yesterday I checked my screen time report on my phone and it was absolutely shocking! I spent a little over 11 hours less on my phone compared to the week before. 11 HOURS!!! And that doesn't take into account how much time I gained not looking at my computer, which is undoubtedly far more. I honestly couldn't believe that when I saw it. How could I have been spending that much time on some device probably just looking at silly stuff? But it made me realize just how much we trade away without even knowing it. Everything in life is a choice, and every choice has a consequence. By choosing to stare at a screen scrolling through social media or playing some silly game, I was trading away countless hours of my life. And having decided to do better I can honestly...

Philippians 4:11 NIV I've been thinking a lot about happiness here lately. I think it's one of those things that we all want in life but it often seems evasive. Hidden behind our circumstances. Dictated by our disappointments. The truth is that happiness is easy to find but it requires us looking in a place that not many people know how to find anymore. Happiness is directly connected to contentment. Being satisfied in life is definitely rare anymore. Everyone is always looking for something else. People never have enough, and what they do have can't come close to filling the holes left by hopes and desires. We've gone so far in the direction of materialism and comfort that we have completely lost the art of being content. And if we're not content with our lives, with who we are, with the simple things then happiness will continue to elude us. As I said a few posts back, if our happiness is tied to things then we're headed for disappointment. If we can only be j...

Psalm 37:4 NIV My family and I were talking about happiness last night. We heard that the annual World Happiness Report was released and that sparked our little discussion. I've really discovered something powerful this past week breaking away from all the technology as much as possible. It's a fact that I always knew but this little change recently has helped me realize it's even more true than I ever thought before. Happiness is inside! It's not in things. It's not in worldly opinions or approval. It's not in getting our way all the time. Happiness isn't reserved for only those rare days when everything is just right. No happiness is this gift that God has given us to enjoy whenever and wherever we choose to let it surface. Our joy never goes away it simply gets hidden behind other things like stress and worry. When our happiness is tied to anything outside of ourselves then we're probably headed for disappointment. Basing our happiness on something th...

Hebrews 2:1 NIV All of us have been disappointed plenty of times in the past. We've gone all in on something that someone told us would make us happy or bring us peace only to be let down. And it's never a good feeling to get your hopes up only to see them dashed yet again. We're often told that if something seems too good to be true then it probably is. So we adopt this sense of doubt as a way to help protect us from being fooled. But that doubt can cause us drift. We convince ourselves to not dive too far in to anything. We keep everything at a distance to make sure we're safe. But how long can we afford to make doubt our first reaction? How much are we missing by not allowing ourselves to trust in something that we can't possibly understand? I know that our faith can seem too good to be true but we can't afford to doubt it. Our faith is all or nothing! We have felt the power of salvation. We have felt the truth of God's word as we read the Bible. We know ...

1 John 2:15 NIV I've recently felt the need to make some changes in my life. It hit me a while back that I was maybe a little too caught up in worldly things. Becoming entangled in this place happens quicker than we realize! Before you know it you're completely sucked in and so turned around that you don't know how to break free. And that is definitely not what I'm looking for in my life. We often think of addiction as something that could never happen to us because of how it's normally seen. But it really does apply to more than drugs or alcohol. I've personally discovered that I had become addicted to technology. Always checking my phone for messages or updates. Scrolling through social media to stay up-to-date on news that I honestly didn't care about. Playing games that do nothing but waste time and strain my eyes. So I am fully committed to cutting the cord as much as possible. Four days in and I honestly can't believe just how connected I was. It...

James 1:21 NIV So much of what our world has created has become stumbling blocks and barriers that keep us separated from our Father. All of the earthly priorities and ways of living pull people in the opposite direction of where we actually need to go. At one point or another each of us started making choices and concessions that allowed us to better fit in with this place. And in doing so we slowly but progressively lost who God made us. All of us have become entangled in the filth of what's been deemed acceptable or important. We've fallen in line following everyone else because it's what we felt pressured to do. Fitting in and not feeling like an outcast is far more comfortable than the other side of that coin. So we bend, twist, give in, and go along with whatever the masses are doing because we want to feel like we belong. The issue with that line of thinking is that we have always belonged. We have always been God's children. We have always been loved and accepte...

Acts 15:19 NIV I read this one last night and I think it's a perfect follow up to yesterday's post. As we discussed yesterday, the Gospel is for everyone. Not just people living in Israel a couple thousand years ago. Not just those who belong to some group or wear a certain kind of clothing. Christ died for every single person who has or will ever live. No exclusions! As Christians we are called to love others with the same kind of love that He has shown us. No requirements. No limits. No questions. Just love and kindness. But that's not really the message that the church always shares is it? We say come as you are but that has to actually be how we feel not just what we say to make ourselves look or feel good. Christ paid the price to build a relationship with each of us, but we've taken that and turned it into religion. Humans have brainstormed all these little rules that folks have to adhere to in order to be accepted and worthy of joining our club. But we've for...

Ephesians 3:6 NIV I've been in Acts for a few days now and one message that just keeps popping up is that the Gospel is for everyone. We've been talking about the amazing gift that we have in Christ. His freedom through salvation is without a doubt the greatest gift that has ever been given. The opportunity to walk away from our sins and the shame that they cause is life-altering! And what makes it even more amazing is that nobody is ever excluded from that gift. It's not just for some exclusive club or specific group. He didn't die only for the people who looked or talked like Him. He didn't even do it for just those who believed in Him. Christ came to take away the sins of everyone. He is the epitome of one for all! The thing is that He chose to save every single person because God wants every single person to come to see the dangers of sin. He wants all of us to realize that we have made bad choices and lived apart from Him. He wants every single one of us to exp...

Acts 22:16 NIV What are we waiting for? Yesterday we talked about the incredible gifts that we receive when we turn to Christ and stay focused on Him. The peace, joy, fulfillment, and every other good thing we're looking for are found in Him! Why keep searching when we know where the treasure is buried? Say you lost your keys. You don't keep looking for them after you've found them do you? The same thing applies to our faith. It helps us finally wise up and stop looking to empty things to bring us fulfillment. A relationship with Jesus is the only thing that can fill all those holes inside and wash away all the junk that has piled up in our lives. And that freedom is available to everyone! All we have to do is turn back to Him and ask. He will do the rest! So again, what are we waiting for? Are we allowing shame to keep us chained in place? Are we worried that He will be angry with us for messing up so much? Are we letting doubt keep us from believing that such a gift is ac...

Psalm 34:5 NIV Don't we get tired of playing the victim in life? Always being defined by the opinions of others or the shame of our past mistakes. Each of us look for proof of our worth to make us feel like we matter. But when we seek that proof in worldly acceptance then we're going to be disappointed. When we try to justify our value by being perfect and never making a mistake then we're going to be let down there as well. Friends, our worth was proven on the cross. What more do we need? Will the approval of other people make us feel more important than knowing what Christ did for us? Will beating ourselves up every time we make a mistake make us better? Or will that constant need to find more validation only leave us feeling empty because we keep looking in places other than the Gospel? This is one of those things that I personally think about quite a bit. So much time gets spent trying to find joy in life. We look in so many places but nothing ever does the job. Again, ...

Proverbs 3:27 NIV Our failure to act when given the opportunity is our acceptance of the way things are. God gives all of us chances to do good things, be kind to others, and make a difference. And when we fail to do so we're saying that we're okay with missing that opportunity to have an impact. Now when you look around it's clearly evident that far too many are okay with how things currently are. But we shouldn't be. Maybe it's just a matter of all that my family has been going through recently, or maybe it's just the way that I see things period. Whatever the case, I personally feel that our willingness to love one another should never waver. If anything, it should become more and more important to us because the need for kind hearts and willing hands will never fade. We can't save up our good deeds for when we feel like being nice. They're not some hobby that we break out when we have a little spare time and nothing else going on. Kindness, as I'...

Psalm 118:24 ESV As I write this I just feel irritated. You ever feel that way? I woke up like that and I don't have any clue as to why. To be honest this has been a really strange season in my family and I's life. It's one of those times when everything just doesn't seem to make sense. Everything is harder than it needs to be. Just as soon as it feels like something is getting back to normal it all gets shaken up again. I know that we've all experienced times like that. Oddly enough I had a post in mind about finding happiness. And I actually think it's pretty fitting that I woke up today a little sideways. Happiness doesn't hunt us down. It doesn't just show up at our door when everything makes sense and the sun is shining bright. Most of the time happiness is hidden behind the clouds of frustration that often blow across our horizons. So we better get used to steadily seeking happiness in life. Our lives will never be all sunshine and rainbows. We oft...

Hebrews 12:14 NIV Yesterday's verse talked about how human anger tends to lead us straight into foolishness. It clouds our judgement and prevents us from thinking clearly. The more distracted we become by anger the more mistakes we're likely to make. Learning to calm down and not be so quickly provoked is a very important lesson that we can all seriously benefit from learning. I was thinking this morning about how we keep ourselves from being happy. We claim to want peace in our lives yet we make all these choices that make that peace nearly impossible to find. When we only focus on the things that irritate us then we're never going to find that peaceful life that we say we want to live. We're going to be stuck in this miserable existence where we can only see the bad in everything. As the Bible tells us in James 1:20, our anger doesn't produce the righteousness that God desires. It only creates more separation. It causes us to make more mistakes. It opens the door ...

Ecclesiastes 7:9 NIV Just gonna say it, we live in arguably the most foolish time in history! So much anger over such insignificant matters. Woke up this morning to see yet another person apologizing for something that they didn't need to apologize for all because some folks got their feathers ruffled. Not really sure when we decided that it was okay to judge everyone and be angry all the time but it's clearly not helping anyone make anything any better! Now as far as I can tell, this whole "cancel-culture" thing we've got running wild these days is the very definition of what this verse is talking about. Everyone is searching high and low for things that offend them. People are combing social media looking for anything that they can become angry about. Why so many want to stand in judgement and be so angry all the time is seriously beyond me! There used to be this hope that cooler heads would prevail. People were more inclined to aim for peace rather than strife....

Matthew 7:13 NIV I've been thinking about this journey that we call faith. Yesterday we talked about how we need to keep following Christ no matter what because that's the only way to reach the destination that He has planned for us. Now it can be hard to keep living a life of faith in this world. This road goes in a very different direction than where the majority of people are heading. That's why we need to stop worrying about why our lives look different than everyone else's. Alas, that's an all too common pastime of ours these days. We look around at what everyone else is doing and we can't seem to help but start comparing. We can start wondering why we're different, why our lives are going differently, and maybe even become slightly envious of their story. Well, this verse makes it pretty evident why we should be thankful that our stories are going differently than most. This road of faith leads to something bigger and better than anything this world wi...

2 Timothy 4:7 NIV I think it's easy to see our faith as a book. We try to contain it in a church. We confine it in songs and well-written articles or social media posts. We try to keep God in this box that makes sense to us so that we can remain comfortable inside of what we can understand. But our faith is alive. It's active. It's moving. It's this journey that keeps unfolding every day that God gives us. Our faith shouldn't be this accessory that we carry around. It should be the passion that drives us forward. It's not a part-time hobby. It's a life-long calling. It leads us in directions that we would never choose to go. It calls us into battles that we would rather avoid. It guides us up mountains and into valleys where everything we know is tested and tried. It is in that constant refining process that we actually learn what faith is. We can't try to keep our faith in this little box that makes sense to us. We can't pick and choose the parts th...

Proverbs 28:1 NIV Our faith empowers us to walk boldly through this earth. Knowing that Christ has forgiven us and set us free from the mistakes of our pasts leaves us with nothing to be ashamed of. We have been accepted and chosen by our Father so we have nothing to prove. Therefore we can spend our time focused on living out the calling of Christ to share the Gospel and live out our faith for the world to see. As I've said in the past, that may very well be the only Bible that some people read. Our faith should make us stand out because it's a stark contrast to the standard operating procedure of this place. Kindness instead of contempt. Compassion rather than indifference. Love and not hate. Light instead of darkness. The differences are massive and should be clear for all to see in how we treat others and in the words we speak. We have been made holy through the blood of Christ. Our sins are washed away. The stains are gone. The shame removed. He did all that for us so that...

Acts 5:39 NIV Got another one that stopped me in my tracks during my nightly reading last night. So many times we feel like we're being attacked on every side. As followers of Christ we are not going to fit in with this world. We're not called to. Being viewed as outsiders going against the grain of society will cause friction with those who are good with how this places operates. I get that it's not fun feeling like the world is against you. That's not an easy thing to get used to. There will always be plenty of people who don't like us, don't agree with our beliefs, and don't want any part of our faith. There will always be a large section of society that does not agree with or appreciate our Christian faith. But we don't need to worry about outside opinions. We don't need to take it personally because this battle is far bigger than us. We need to be the ones that share the Gospel and spread the good news that our faith has to offer. As this verse ...

James 1:15 NIV We've been talking quite a bit about letting go of things that hold us back from God and getting rid of everything that's been between us. Our selfishness and pride are a couple of the biggest stumbling blocks to a life of faith. They keep us focused on all the wrong things and completely shut the door to us relying on God for all we need. Sinful desires are without a doubt one of the biggest things that has to go if we truly want to live by faith. Sin is death, and when we're lost in that world of evil we don't know what it's like to be alive. It keeps us trapped in this twisted, dark, miserable existence. Sin makes us feel dead inside, but we never notice it. It keeps telling us that more happiness, more satisfaction, more comfort, more excitement are just ahead. So we keep following those broken paths only to never find anything good. We keep falling for the lies because we don't realize that we're being lied to! Sin is what separates us fr...

Hebrews 10:10 NIV Yesterday we talked about how we're only as close to God as we choose to be. There are no limits between us and Him. The only things that keep us separated are the things that we allow to linger in our lives. The sins we won't repent of. The poor choices we continue making. The shame that we allow to keep us in hiding. It's on us to let things go because He already has! That's the whole message of the cross! It was God's way of showing us just how ready and willing He is to forgive. He made the choice to look past our sins, weaknesses, and iniquities and give us the chance to be restored to Him. Christ gave His life so that we could have the opportunity to give up our old lives and take hold of eternal life through His love and mercy. However, I think we often feel disqualified. We look at all the horrible mistakes we've made and we can't possibly imagine how anyone could forgive us. Plus we're pretty used to being told that our imperfe...

James 4:8 NIV You're only as close to God as you choose to be. A friend of mine shared that yesterday and it's been on my mind ever since. Choosing to follow God is just that, a choice. It is something that each person has to decide to do for themselves. God won't force us to pick Him over anything else. And we can't force anyone else to choose Him either. It's a personal choice that we all have to make. I think one of the biggest things that holds us back is that choosing to follow God requires letting a lot of things go. It means turning away from the life that we've always known to head off in a completely different direction. It's basically learning how to live life again, just with a completely new perspective and all new priorities. And I think that much change is rather horrifying for some. But as scary as it might be to leave things behind, learn to think differently, and let go of this vision we've had for our lives, it's the only way to tak...

John 8:36 NIV It's not often that I have something in mind before I even go to sleep the night before. But this one kind of came out of nowhere last night and I couldn't wait to share it with you guys. Do you realize just how free we are? We've been talking about who we are in God and what our faith opens up for us, but I think it's so big that we can't wrap our minds around all that well. The freedom that Christ died to give us is limitless. If it was worth dying for then you better know it's huge! As I talked about in yesterday's post, we have to stop limiting God and His will for our lives. No matter how big or important we think some aspect of our faith is we can be sure that it's bigger still. And that's definitely true when it comes to the freedom of this faith! You are free to live! You are free to walk away from anything or anyone that's not good for you. You are free to stop worrying about what others think or say about you. You are free...