Forged By Faith

Matthew 3:8 NIV God's gift of salvation isn't meant to give us the right to do whatever we want knowing that He will forgive us for messing up. His gift of salvation is meant to pull us off of that path of sinful and selfish living and help us learn to actually live right in His eyes. We get that backwards a lot. It's easy to see His mercy as a ticket to follow our free will without having to worry about the consequences of the wrong choices we make in doing so. I know I've fallen into that line of thinking. We all have. But we have to understand that Christ didn't die so that we could keep on sinning. That just doesn't make any sense whatsoever! He died to set us free from the punishment that our sins deserve. He took our consequences upon Himself and gave us His hard-earned rebirth in exchange. We have been given the new start that all of us seriously need. Our pasts look like a battlefield. Laden with holes and scars from all the sinful choices we've made

1 Timothy 2:4 NIV While we're all busy focused on what we want, what God wants is easily overlooked and forgotten. It's far more convenient to think this is all about us. These are our lives. This is our time. It's our right to do whatever we want to do. It's our freedom to choose that makes us free. Whatever makes us happy has to be right. We have lived under this world's twisted version of truth for so long that we don't even know that it's wrong. We don't remember that God calls us to a much higher standard than the one this world has settled for. In fact, some may have never known that there is another truth. That's why we're here! We're here to share that message with everyone we can. We're here to tell people about Jesus and what He did for them. We're here to help break down those walls that the evil in our world has built up to keep people trapped in sin and shame. We're here to warn people about the very real danger of si

Proverbs 28:13 NIV As we talked about yesterday, following our own path has only led us to all of the problems that we have today. Contrary to what we like to think, we don't know everything and we definitely don't know what's best. Now we've spent a lot of time thinking otherwise. We thoroughly enjoy this idea that we're perfect and never mess up. That's basically the common mindset of our society these days. Nobody is willing to admit that they make mistakes. No one is humble enough to acknowledge their sins and repent of them. Everyone just wants to do as they see fit without any pushback or pesky reminder of the truth. I honestly believe that all of us know that we've gotten plenty of things wrong. I think we all know that we have sinned. But I think we're pretty good at ignoring that fact. We're good at telling ourselves that our mistakes aren't all that bad. We're good at convincing ourselves that we don't even make mistakes to begi

Proverbs 28:26 NIV There have been so many times that I've felt like I put too much of me into these posts. And that's definitely not what I intend to do. But I guess it's just me sharing all the lessons that I've learned so that they can maybe help someone else avoid the mistakes that I've made. And I have a ton of experience messing things up. I've gotten more wrong than I've ever gotten right. I've been the worst of the worst. I am just one sinner telling other sinners about the only hope we have at being set free from our foolishness. And if you don't know by now, it just isn't found in us! Living life our way only leaves us empty. It leaves us wanting more and more while never finding anything lasting that helps to fill those voids that sin and selfishness have created. It has left us with this enormous weight of guilt and shame from all the mistakes that we've made. It has led us down paths where there has never been anything good to be

John 3:30 NIV I want more than a life that only matters to me. For a long time that wasn't the case. We're all born into this sin that tells us to put ourselves first and focus on only what we want in life. And then we grow and learn in a world that is passionate about being selfish. We see how the self-serving around us seem to thrive in this place and that only deepens that idea that we should put ourselves first. It becomes so engrained in us that eventually we don't even know that it's wrong, we don't know that there's another way. But there is, and even though it goes against everything the world teaches us, it is in fact far greater! As I've talked about in the past, I've spent a lot of my life focused on what I wanted. Some of that stuff I got and some I didn't. The things that I selfishly achieved or acquired only left me wanting more when I found that they weren't as fulfilling as I thought they'd be. The things that I didn't get

Jeremiah 10:23 NIV Thinking that we call the shots is just what our egos crave. Control. Power. Authority. And all the pride boosting, arrogance fueling, warm and fuzzy feelings that our conceited human hearts desire. We're taught from early on that man is the master of his own destiny. You can be anything you want, do anything that you want, and live any way that you want to live. And we just eat it up. We become so focused on what we desire that we learn to ignore everything else. And eventually we become so blinded to reality that it shakes us to the core when things don't go our way. As we've discussed a lot recently, we tend to lean toward what's easy. We usually choose the path of least resistance and most comfort. We loathe the idea of change. We're not too big on anything that requires hard work. We don't like anything that makes us stand out and look different. We don't enjoy things that are hard or force us to admit that we don't know everythin

Proverbs 3:5 NIV Yesterday we discussed the story of God calling Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac and how impossible that must have seemed. He had wanted a son for so long and God had finally fulfilled that dream and given him one, and now He was asking Abraham to kill him! Can you imagine what Abraham must have thought? You just gave me this son that I have dreamed about, prayed about, and held out hope for and now you want me to kill him? Yet even with how impossible that must have seemed, Abraham loaded up and headed out to do as God had asked. That's the hard part about trust. That's the hard part about our faith. It will lead us in directions that we would never consider going. It will shove us way outside of our comfort zones where we have to finally realize that we can't control anything and have to trust in the only One who can. It will completely turn everything we know on its head and force us to learn a new way of thinking, a new way of living that makes n

Genesis 22:2 NIV What is God calling you to sacrifice? What is He asking you to lay down? What do you need to surrender to Him? What things are you clinging to that are keeping you from complete trust in God's plans? Reading through Genesis and this story is one that always jumps out. Abraham had hoped for a son his entire life. And God had promised to give him that son through his wife Sarah, even though she wasn't able to have children. Even in the face of impossible odds, he trusted God and believed that He would fulfill His promise to them. And He did because that's what God does! Sarah did give birth to their son Isaac, just as God has said would happen. He fulfilled His promise to them. But then this happens a while later. God calls Abraham to take this son that he had wanted so badly for so many years and offer him as a sacrifice. He called Abraham to give up this miracle, to surrender this hope that had been fulfilled, to let go of the thing that he had wanted for s

Revelation 3:20 NIV We've talked a ton about the horrid amount of sin in this world, and in our lives as a result. We've talked about how God's kindness and mercy in being willing to forgive us is truly undeserved. We've talked about what our sins actually deserve and how truly terrifying it is to think about. We've talked about how continuing to live in sin will never be okay and nowhere near good enough for anyone, let alone those who want to avoid the suffering that awaits those turned away from Heaven. But something hit me out of nowhere this morning. It's up to us. We have to let ourselves be saved. We have to let Him heal us. We have to be willing to learn how to live better lives. We have to realize that we have sinned, that we have messed up, and that we need His mercy because that's the only hope we have to be forgiven. God is willing to forgive us for all the wrongs we've done, but we have to let Him. We have to understand that our pride and ar

Acts 17:30 NIV One of the biggest problems with sin is that it seems like we get away with it. We don't face any immediate consequences. So we think that we can do anything we want without having to worry about getting in trouble. What makes it especially dangerous is that many sins are personal. They're things that we do without anyone else seeing them or knowing what we've done. So we get it in our minds that since nobody sees what we've done then there's no way that we're going to be confronted about it. There's no way that we'll have to answer for it. Well... That doesn't really work. You see, we can think that nobody sees what we do. We can believe that nobody could possibly know what we've thought or what we've done in private without anyone seeing us. We can think that it's all just our little secrets that we can keep hidden away. But God does see. He does know our thoughts. He does see all of those wicked things we do when there&#

Isaiah 13:11 NIV We think we've got it all figured out don't we? We make our own rules so that we never break them. We do as we please because it fulfills every selfish desire we have. We put others down to make ourselves feel more important. We lean on things like hatred and strife because humility and understanding just can't coincide with arrogance and pride. We've made a hobby of disagreeing and fighting with everyone because we're convinced that our opinions are truth and anyone who says otherwise just has to be wrong. We've made this world our playhouse and filled it to the brim with every sort of evil and sin that we can come up with. I've lived in sin. I've made every mistake known to man. I've been the worst of the worst, the lowest of the low. I have done things that have separated me from God. I have chosen to be like the world instead of trying to be like Christ. I've traded morality for immorality. I've hung out in the darkness,

Genesis 6:5 NIV Yesterday we talked about how God is good, and about how that's a problem because this world and all of us in it are not. You see, mankind chose to pick our own path over God's and we've never stopped walking away from Him. We've never turned around. Our society is just as twisted, messed up, and broken as it has ever been, maybe even more. And while it seems like we're free to go on doing as we please without consequence or repercussion, that's not going to happen. I started in Genesis the night before last and it really is incredible how quickly things go downhill for humanity because of humanity. It starts out talking about how God created the heavens and the earth. It talks about all of the things that He created to fill them and how every time that He created something new He saw that it was good. He created all of this to be good. But then we listened to a lie. We chose to hear what we wanted to hear. We chose to ignore God's one rule s

1 Corinthians 10:22 NIV What are we thinking? Do we really think that we can get by with doing whatever we want? Do we really believe that the filthy opinions of this world have the power to overturn God's truth? Do we honestly think that somehow, some way God will compromise His calling to be holy because of our arrogance and the desire to remain in sin? No. God will never be swayed by the sinfulness of this world. He is a jealous God and nothing will change His promise to deal with the evil in this world. So we better wise up and realize that there's only one right side to be on! We hear so often that God is good. He is good. He is the very definition of good. But as amazing as that fact is, it also poses a very real problem for us. That problem is that while He is good, we are not. We are far from good. We have all sinned. We have all really messed some stuff up. We have all chosen the lies of this world over His truth. We have all given in to those selfish desires to do as

Colossians 2:8 NIV Each and every one of us have a choice to make. We can put it off. We can ignore it, avoid it, convince ourselves that it's not coming. We can tell ourselves that we can somehow manage to choose a little bit of both sides. But at some point, we all have to choose between God and the world. And oddly enough, by postponing that choice, we're actually making a choice. You see, we're always learning whether we realize it or not. We're always picking up little bits of information and little habits that we may not notice. And until we choose to follow Christ and learn from Him, we're learning from the world around us. As we discussed yesterday, this world is definitely not the teacher that we should be learning from. This place is twisted! It's full of so many lies, so much wickedness, so much depraved deception that leads people into a life of darkness. And we unknowingly just go with it. We follow the herd because that's what we're told to

1 John 2:16 NIV More like Him, less like the world. More of His truth, less of our society's lies. More time spent chasing His calling, less time spent chasing after what's popular. You see, all of us have learned how to live from watching the world. We've watched what everyone else is doing and we've copied those habits ourselves. We've bought the lies, accepted the wickedness, and settled for what others say is good enough. But at some point we inevitably realize that how this world operates is not good enough. And when that truth finally breaks through, then we realize something has to change. Basically everything we've learned from watching the world around us is just wrong. All of the greed, the lust, the pride, the selfishness, it's all a far cry from who God created us to be and how He calls us to live. A long time ago the world chose to follow a different path than the one God laid out. And so living like the world and doing as everyone else does has

2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV As we talked about yesterday, this life of faith is a journey. It's a calling that we get to pursue every single day that we're given. It's the opportunity to leave the past and all our old ways behind while we constantly strain toward something better. It's the never ending process of becoming more and more like our Savior and less like the twisted world we're in. It is true rebirth into a new life spent learning from Him and working to make Him known to everyone here so that He can lead them to a better life as well. There is a transformation that takes place when we finally find Christ and submit our lives to Him. We realize that continuing to live like we did before just won't work anymore. All of the sins and wickedness just aren't compatible with His calling to be holy. We can't be who we've been and hope to be something new. We can't go on hanging out in the comfort of the shadows and walk in His light at the same ti

Leviticus 20:26 NIV Set apart. Made new. Saved. Redeemed. Changed. Called to be different. As we've been talking about for a while now, living lives that mirror those of the world around us is not good enough if we truly want to serve Christ. All of the evil, the wickedness, the selfishness is not anywhere close to good enough. All of those things are the things that He came to save us from. He came to show us that living that way isn't as great as it's made to appear. It isn't endless fun and excitement. It's not true freedom. It's slavery to sin and knowing that should light a fire in us to leave those ways behind and live a different kind of life. He didn't endure the cross so that we could see that image and leave only to return back to the vile lives that we've been living. He did it to open our eyes to the truth. We have to understand that sin isn't harmless. That's the message that the world around us preaches. But we have to choose whethe

Philippians 2:21 NIV As we've discussed a lot recently, our world thrives on selfishness. People are all about what they want and what they think is best for them. Our world wants fame. Our world wants what's easy. Our world wants riches, and glory, and comfort, and satisfaction. Sadly, it's gotten to the point that some have even twisted the Gospel to meet those desires. They've taken it upon themselves to spin the message of the Bible to sound more like what people want to hear so that they can fill seats and feel like they're winning people over to the Lord. But that stuff isn't helping people find Christ, it's helping them stay where they are. If you're following a Gospel that makes you comfortable where you are and how you're currently living then you're not following the Gospel of Christ. If you hear a Gospel that sounds all warm and fuzzy then there's a problem. If you hear a Gospel that says life will be easy and you'll find all t

John 16:33 NIV I think this may be the biggest misconception when it comes to Christianity. Some people think that this road is easy. They think that following Christ is all sunshine and happiness. Apparently some believe that choosing to follow Christ will bring about everything we want to find. I have no idea where any of that comes from because this ain't about us! There is nothing in the Bible that says that our lives will be easy. Nothing. In fact, it tells us several times in several ways that a life of faith is quite the opposite! So if you're looking for a comfortable and easy life by following Christ then you're going to be seriously disappointed. This isn't easy! This isn't comfortable. Faith doesn't bring worldly acceptance or the comfort that comes from the masses telling you that you're doing good. It doesn't lead us away from trials and challenges. It doesn't smooth out the road or move the mountains out of the way. It doesn't check