Forged By Faith

Proverbs 1:33 NIV Whoever has ears, let them hear. That's one of those messages that you'll find all over the Bible. It's found nearly ten times in the Gospels alone! As one of my college professors always used to say, "If I say something more than once, it's probably something you should remember." That's where our modern world has gone off course. There's plenty of messages. There are plenty of people who love to talk. There are no shortage of folks who are willing to share whatever's on their mind. But we don't listen. In a society like we've built, all the talking just drowns itself out. People talk over one another. One message gets shared louder and more frequently than another. People only pay attention to things they already agree with and completely tune out everything that goes against their opinions or comes from a different perspective. So we've gotten to this place where it almost doesn't matter what you say or how badl...

Proverbs 1:32 NIV We've all spent many years running from God. Chasing after all the alluring promises of sinful lies. Buying into the lives of selfish satisfaction and personal gain. Building up these little kingdoms that we can rule and boast in as we show off our possessions and accomplishments to those around us. Seeking social validation and peer approval in order to feel like we matter. An entire lifetime of seeking something that we'll never find down the paths we've been walking. And yet, we just keep going. We just keep searching. We just keep wandering. Bouncing from one broken promise to the next hollow deception on down this endless line of a life completely void of anything lasting. And then we wonder why we never manage to find joy or happiness that hang around for longer than a day or two before the new wears off, the shine fades, and we're right back to rock bottom looking for another cardboard box to start building up some way to climb out of the pit we...

2 Timothy 2:13 NIV There have been many times in our lives when we've proven faithless. We've lived as traitors. We've run from God, shirked His ways, and ignored that small voice that tells us we're doing wrong. We have all been God's enemies as we've chosen the path of sinfulness over the pursuit of righteousness. But living a life running from the only version of peace and hope that exists has only left us broken. It will always leave us empty. It will only lead us to this desolate place of realizing that we messed up. Badly. We've been talking about how God deserves and demands our whole heart. No room for diving it up and giving it out to several different goals or dreams or desires. But that's exactly what each of us have done. We've given our lives to so many other things thinking that they would bring us happiness and joy. We've followed the paths that other people were walking in this assumption that they were all headed the same directi...

Philippians 2:13 NIV Yesterday we discussed how having a divided heart when it comes to our faith is simply not possible. We can't afford to see God, our walk with Him, or the kind of life that He's calling us to live as a hobby or pastime. God is a jealous God, and He doesn't deserve to have to share time or space in our lives with anything else that we may have once held dear. He paid a massive price to bring us back to Him from the sinful way of life that we'd lived. We owe Him more than joint custody! But when we start walking down His path we notice just how drastically alien it really is. We start experiencing all these changes that we would have never imagined making. We begin to realize how many things are being stripped away and left behind as we grow closer to Him. And it’s something that takes a whole lot of adjusting because what was once normal is replaced with a way of life that is anything but what we’ve been used to. What makes this change so unsettling ...

Jeremiah 29:13 NIV There is a seemingly endless supply of distractions in this place. Many we know and realize. Some we may have an idea. But a few are things that we would never consider being counterproductive. Personally speaking, I think that this whole mindset that has people living in fear of what others think is one of the biggest wastes of time and pointless distractions that there is. Yet it's one that is more common and more popular than we may realize. And it's also one that we can come up with plenty of excuses to help seem necessary. After all, the Bible tells us to love one another. It tells us to humbly put others before ourselves. It asks us to wash one another's feet. It tells us to submit ourselves to worldly authorities. It gives us the opportunity to become fishers of men. So a lot of who we're called to be and what we're called to do is in fact focused on those around us. But where we run into a problem is when we get lost in the purpose of it a...

1 Peter 1:17 NIV Misunderstood. Going back, I can say that's something that I've always kind of felt. Misunderstood. I've tried to find different ways to describe it. Different names to give how I live and how I see things and the way in which I think. Old soul. Old school. Laid back. Just quiet, reserved, not a lot to say. And I've had others take notice of the fact that I don't necessarily do as everyone else does. But as I've grown up and made it a priority to learn more about faith and the Bible and figure out who God made me to be, I've found this incredibly deep gratitude in the fact that He made me different. Yesterday we talked about how different isn't always seen as a good thing in our world. Our society just wants everyone to fit in, sit down where they tell you, and go with the flow so that nobody gets their feathers ruffled by something or someone who breaks through the walls that they've constructed to give the majority this sense of co...

1 Peter 4:4 NIV Yesterday we talked about this struggle that we often face in dealing with the responsibility to change that our faith requires. There are so many reasons that we come up with to pull out and avoid having to change. The time it takes. The effort involved. And even the people around us who seem to like us as we are. And all of these excuses just build up and compound on top of each other until we've become convinced that changing just isn't worth it. And so we settle for staying the same so that we don't have to go through the time and effort it takes or endure the loss of things that we had grown accustomed to. As we discussed yesterday, we're creatures of habit. We do so much settling for good enough because change is hard. Change does lead us into a life that we're not used to. Change may even bring about strained or perhaps broken relationships as we take on new priorities and perspectives that we learn in our transition to a new life. While we...

1 Peter 1:14 NIV Humans are creatures of habit. We find a nice little pattern that works for us and we stick to it. We may branch out here and there or look for little things that we can bring into our routine, but for the most part, we just prefer to live our lives on repeat doing what we've always done. And even when we do find the audacity to try something new or different, we do everything we can to make it fit where and how we want it to fit into those patterns that we're so comfortable living in. I think that's a huge reason why we see all this progressive religion. They're not trying to progress how they share the Gospel, not trying to do a better job of sharing the Gospel, not even trying to reach more people with the Gospel. All this modern religion is doing is trying to come up with a version of the Gospel that fits what people want their lives to look like according to what they've always done. We can't surrender. We can't let go of the patterns w...

2 Timothy 3:5 NIV What I can't seem to comprehend is this new religious movement that is completely willing and happy to completely overlook what we discussed yesterday. We each have the responsibility to build each other up in Christ and refuse to let anything worldly, anything evil, anything distractive take root and grow into even more sin than each of us already have to deal with in our lives. But sadly, that responsibility is being allowed to take a back seat to the itching ears, prideful arrogance, selfish confusion, and overall deplorable condition of the lost souls in our world. People are taking the idea of faith and spinning it into some method of gaining popularity and praise by convincing people that living to serve themselves rather than our Heavenly Father is just fine. They're convincing people to put themselves first and let everyone else worry about themselves. This entire me-first way of thinking has invaded the church, and rather than nipping it in the bud, i...

Hebrews 12:15 NIV If you've been reading these daily Bible verse posts for any length of time, you've probably noticed that I don't really shy away from anything. Things need to be said. Our arrogance needs to be humbled. Our selfishness needs to be addressed. Our complacency needs to be shaken up. And I realize that in the midst of sharing the truth and confronting the issues that we all deal with, you may have been offended or rubbed the wrong way by some things that have been talked about or said in these posts. What makes it even worse is that there are so many other voices telling people all this nonsense that has them believing that sin is okay. They’re telling people that it’s alright to pursue worldly gain because it’s some way of proving God’s love for us. They’re convincing people that sickness, poverty, injury, or any other kind of hurting is only evidence of a weak faith. I’m sick of it! What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul...

Hebrews 12:3 NIV We've been talking a bit about our tendency to find the path that allows us to coast. Laziness is like this stumbling block that's always right around the corner just waiting to catch us with our guards down. And when life gets hard and the storms keep raging, that relief starts looking really nice! Each of us have that option right there at our fingertips to give up, give in, and take the easy road. But the thing is that Christ didn't come to this earth to show us how to squeak by doing the bare minimum. He came to show us how to give our lives for something greater than ourselves. But still, settling for what's easy so that we can avoid having to put in more effort than we want to give seems the common mindset of humanity anymore. Stories of striving, overcoming the odds, and standing up to the evils around us are sadly growing more sporadic as days go by. And so it's becoming easier for us to adopt that mindset ourselves. If everyone else seems t...

Hebrews 6:12 NIV Yesterday we talked about the vital importance of perseverance in our faith. When all the pomp and pizazz of an enjoyable and exciting holiday has passed, we need to be able to maintain that same passion regarding our faith in the normal, mundane, day-to-day life that encompasses the vast majority of our time here. It's easy to make faith our focus for a day or two as we celebrate the big events, but it should still be just as meaningful and just as important every other day as well. Problem is that we tend to get lazy. We naturally look for the paths of least resistance in this continuing effort to satisfy our desire to simply slide through life with as little effort or friction as possible. And unfortunately, we don't really do it with just a few things. If we're not careful, that laxity can find its way into every facet of our lives, our faith included. And sadly enough, when you look around at the people who consider themselves to be religious, it can b...

Hebrews 3:14 NIV Yesterday we celebrated something that has a personal connection to each of us. It's not just some story that we've decided to keep remembering so that we can have parties and eat more than we should. It's a historical event that has meaning for every person that has ever taken a breath on this earth. The resurrection of Christ marks the victory over death, but not just for Jesus alone. It marks the victory over death for every single person who chooses to die to sin and accept the new life that God offers through Christ. That's what is so special about the story of what Jesus did in those few days. He became human to bear our human iniquities and carry them all to the cross and then onward to the grave where He left them dead and buried when He rose and left that tomb vacant just a few days after His sacrifice. He came to this earth, humbled Himself to our level so that we could find that same humility and that same power over sin through His gift of s...