Forged By Faith

Ephesians 4:17 NIV Only a few find their way through the small gate onto the narrow path toward life. That's the verse that we discussed in yesterday's post, and how unfortunately it means that many will miss out on the reward that's been offered to those who choose to humble themselves and accept Christ into their hearts as their Lord and Savior. We like to imagine that nearly everyone will make it into Heaven, but with how highly sin is praised and enjoyed in this place, Heaven's population is likely dwindling due to the continuous choice to serve self over serving God. So how do we find the narrow path that leads to life? How do we set our sights on chasing down that prize of eternal peace? How do we know that we'll be among the few who one day walk the streets of gold without pain or sorrow or any other negative thing? Well, thankfully, Scripture helps us out, and in all reality, it's not too difficult to understand. Actually, it's rather simple, but whe

Matthew 7:14 NIV Yesterday we discussed this sudden onslaught that Christianity is facing due to the recent changes that our country has made. It's one thing for our faith to not be all that popular because it does involve this responsibility to at least try to live upright and righteously, and that's just not something that all that many care to do. But it's a whole different ball game when the unpopularity turns to full-on hatred and disdain. And unfortunately, that's what we're starting to see as people are no longer holding back their true feelings about this faith that we proclaim and the truth that it's built upon. As the world continues along its chosen path of foolishness and hatred and evil desires, our faith will grow more unpopular. It only stands to reason that a people who want only to run wild and live recklessly don't want to hear from anyone who professes a faith that goes against that way of life as it may reveal the flaws in the armor that

1 Corinthians 1:18 NIV I'm not on social media all that much anymore. Sounds kind of weird considering I post these Bible verse discussions every single day, but outside of doing this, I find that I have a waning interest in the cesspool that is social media these days. But in the few times that I've gotten on my accounts over the last several days I have seen some of the most vicious, hateful, threatening, demeaning, and downright disgusting rhetoric ever. I've also had others bring things to my attention that they've seen as well, and I think what it boils down to is this: Get ready, because Jesus wasn't joking when He said, "You will be hated by everyone because of me." For basically the entirety of my 34 1/2 years on this earth, people have been relatively civil and polite. Growing up it was a true rarity to experience pure evil-driven hatred. But as we've gone along and our country has chosen to continue to devolve into this collection of folks wh

2 Timothy 4:3 NIV This time, my friends, has arrived. We've actually been here for quite a while, but it's increasingly evident that folks nowadays have absolutely no interest in listening, learning, or trying to understand. We talked a little bit yesterday about the importance of listening to others, but unfortunately, ain't nobody got no time for that no more. Society as a whole has decided to divide themselves up and draw lines in the sand so that we all know we're on opposing sides in whatever debate or topic or controversy is unfolding. And in order to make our little groups feel more impervious to being called out or challenged, people gathered around them others who say the same things, have the same thoughts, and see things the same way that they do. We naturally find strength in numbers. So the more people we can find who agree with us and say the things that coincide with our opinions, it just brings us the sense of validation that we tend to need as not many

James 1:19 NIV I think we could all agree that this past week has been interesting to say the least. I mean, these days it seems like there's some new outrage or misunderstanding or problem to be discussed almost daily. That whole "world peace" idea has basically gone by the wayside and folks are seeking other priorities instead. Now that's not something that should be surprising to us because Scripture tells us that the world will plummet into even deeper darkness than anything we've seen before. But still, it is shocking to see and hear many of the things that we're witnessing unfold around us. One of the growing problems that I’ve noticed, and that I assume many others will agree with, is that we’re impressively unwilling to listen. We’ve learned to tune our ears to only what we agree with. If something is confrontational, offensive, hurtful, or coming from a different perspective then we’re probably just going to tune it out. I mean after all, we have our

Isaiah 55:7 NIV It seems I've been doing more thinking than normal over the last couple of days, and I've realized something about myself that I think may be something a lot of other people do without realizing it as well. I somehow manage to be pretty oblivious to some things. I think it's just a matter of there being so many different things in life to learn or pay attention to, and so we have to choose. We have to choose what we're going to focus on and what matters the most to us because we can't pay attention to everything or know everything. So we find ways to limit life down into the amount things that we're comfortable with learning or focusing upon. But as we narrow our focus down into the things that matter most to us, it becomes pretty easy to start overlooking nearly everything else. And while we can't become experts on everything and we don't have enough hours in the day to pay attention to absolutely everything that happens, we still need t

Galatians 5:16 NIV You know, there are times when I sit down to write these posts and things come out that even catch me by surprise. Every now and then there are things that I keep on thinking about after I’ve shared them. Some have even become things that I think about constantly, even weeks and months after I typed them out. I wrote something in yesterday's post that has left me doing more of my own soul searching than I was doing before. And I think it's something that all of us need to stop and contemplate because I have this feeling it's something really big. Each of us have un-repented sins in our hearts. For the most part, we go about our daily lives not thinking too much about the big things in life. We settle into the status quo and find a comfort in squeaking by most days. But when it comes to our faith, we should be seriously uncomfortable being comfortable. We're fooling ourselves if we honestly think we know all we need to know, have all of our problems sq

Proverbs 21:2 NIV We've been talking a lot about repentance lately. As we've been discussing, it's something that is a vital part of our faith because God's forgiveness can only be sought when we realize that we need it. Nobody seeks forgiveness for something they don't realize they're doing wrong, just like you don't go to the hospital when you feel perfectly fine. We have to learn to be able to see the mistakes we're making so that we can start pruning them before they grow into bad habits and eventually habitual sin. The eye-opening thing that hit me this morning as I started writing today's post is that all of us have sins in our lives that we've not yet repented. Each of do things or say things or think thoughts that we don't even realize aren't right. We make those mistakes that go unnoticed either out of complacency or convenience. But the fact remains the same that each of us are doing or saying or believing things that simply hav

Matthew 3:8 NIV As I mentioned the other day, repentance isn't a one-time deal. It's a daily choice, a constant responsibility, a life-long calling for every single Christian to undertake. The reason being that sin doesn't just vanish. We don't wake up on day and find ourselves suddenly free from temptation and immune to making mistakes. Sin is something that is all around us in this evil world, and so it's something that we will have to fight off every single day that we're here. But unfortunately, this world sends this message that we can't help but hear. We're told by so many just how fun and carefree sin really is. People make it out to seem completely harmless, and in many ways they even pass it off as something to be enjoyed and celebrated. And when we're constantly surrounded by that kind of thinking, it can quickly rub off on us and things that once seemed horrible may start seeming a little less dangerous. Things that we once wouldn't co

Proverbs 28:13 NIV We humans like to think we're pretty smart. We can come up with all sorts of ways to avoid things that may be uncomfortable or inconvenient. We can craft witty excuses to help us ignore problems and pretend things are alright. But in all of our "wisdom" we've managed to learn to handle the idea of guilt completely wrong. We've decided that it's just better to pretend we've not done anything wrong than to face the crushing humility of admitting the truth. People love this illusion of innocence. They think that it makes them better people to pretend they have no flaws or faults. They've gotten it in their minds that painting on this picture of perfection to hide their shortcomings is more important than simply addressing those issues and moving on. There's no problem that we can't ignore if we try hard enough! So people just keep trying. They just keep lying to themselves and to the world around them so that nobody has to think

Acts 17:30 NIV Yesterday we talked a bit about how we've all taken some time to do things our way. We've all spent some years putting ourselves first and doing what we wanted to do. We've spent some time chasing after a few idols and allowed ourselves to dabble in some sinful choices. We've had the fortunate opportunity of learning the hard way that our way usually isn't everything we want it to be. And when we finally run out of steam, reach the end of ourselves, and realize that our paths led to nothing and nowhere, then we're left with this crushing sense of guilt and hopelessness. So much time spent running away from the path we should have taken. So many days wasted worshipping worldly goals that could have never brought us any lasting joy or peace. So much life gone and unable to be redone. And the weight of all those mistakes over all those years just sucks! We look back at who we once were before we got that idea in our minds that we could find another p