Forged By Faith

Psalm 51:10 NIV The newness and renewal brought about by this faith and made into promises only by God's great goodness are truly blessings simply too monumental to summarize in mere words. You see, a mind corrupted by the stains of sin is all we've known. The way of life spent following habitual downfalls and discrepancies has defined our entire existence here. And while that brings with it a great many consternations, it also brings a realization that offers some of the purest excitement possible due to the gift of a new mind filled with all that we've yet to know outside of the death we've lived chained to ourselves. Up to the foot of the cross, life has only been able to be lived one way. Hostile to God. In enmity with God. As His very nemesis aimed at ignoring His very existence. Before we found out about this Name that is and was and will always be above all others, a Name by which we must be saved, all our minds ever chose to know is that which is worn, weary, wr...

Luke 5:31 NIV All of this talk about sins and mistakes and taking responsibility for our choices has left me thinking. I'll be the first to admit that I've gotten a lot wrong in life. Made a bunch of really bad choices. But as I've been thinking back on some of them, I had a really weird thought cross my mind. While I have my regrets, I wouldn't change very much of it. I wish I had started trying to do better a long time ago. But looking back now, I can see the lessons that I've learned. And I know that they've made me stronger. We often look back at our lives and see all those mistakes we've made and feel this sense of guilt and shame. Nobody likes messing up. Nobody finds pride in making mistakes. As we discussed yesterday, our mistakes have made us feel the need to hide out in the shadows so that our weaknesses and errors aren't known to those around us. We don't want anyone to know that we're not perfect. We don't even want to admit to ou...

Luke 17:19 NIV The power of faith is something that I think we often underestimate. It's more than simply believing in something. It's more than a hope that there is a God somewhere who might happen to hear a desperate prayer sent up in a time of panic or pain. Our faith has the power to not only change our circumstances but to completely change who we are and the entire trajectory of our lives. We seriously need to stop limiting that to something that we lean on only in an emergency. I’ve been thinking a lot about the healing that’s found in Christ’s salvation because it’s something that all of us need more than we often care to admit. All of our lives have been damaged and possibly even destroyed by sin. We all bear the marks and carry the scars of poor choices and dumb mistakes. There isn’t a person alive who can claim they’re without sin, and therefore there isn’t a person alive who doesn’t need the healing that He offers. Came across this one this morning and it’s a perfec...

2 Chronicles 7:14 NIV Here we are yet again. We're sitting here tonight as one more of our nation's cities burns. One more night of civil unrest. One more moment of rage and uncontrolled aggression. One more day of violence. One more case of looting. One more day of continuing to run in the wrong direction as fast as our selfish and sin-prone hearts will take us. This thing seems to just be the norm anymore, and I don't really have the words to express how much I don't understand any of it. When are we going to learn that this way of living and behaving just ain't working? When will we see that more hatred and more darkness only makes the problem grow bigger and bigger? When we will finally see the sin and brokenness that has infiltrated our hearts and minds to the point that riots, violence, and hate-filled messages are common? When we it get through to us that there's one big piece missing to this puzzle that we're blindly trying to put together? We've...

2 Chronicles 7:14 NIV Tomorrow we celebrate our nation's freedom. It's always been one of my favorite celebrations, let's face it, who doesn't love hot dogs and setting things on fire that go boom? But this year it just feels different. The celebration of this country's freedom seems a little dampened. I think it's because of all the turmoil that we're facing. Just makes it a little harder to celebrate when we're in the middle of such a mess. I may be the only one that feels this way, and I'm okay with that. I've got no problems being unique and different. But I've been thinking about this verse for a little bit today, and well, I think it's pretty apparent that this great nation still has plenty of work to do. We've often been considered one of the best countries on this planet, and for some pretty good reasons. We do have liberties that many others don't get to experience. We do have a wide array of unique and interesting people...

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...