Forged By Faith

1 Corinthians 3:15 NIV If it survives So shall it receive a reward given unto such salvation as undertaken in what is a partnership with He who already finished said achievement only to thereafter ask that we ourselves take part in it in what is the continuation of our own working it out within what is a walk walked within fear and trembling in regard to the faith we’re building as is to be built in Him if we’re to share in Him and thus survive the fire that comes for all. For the fire does come, leaving all then that’s left our own now choosing what will be left when it has passed. Or rather simply continuing to choose to just not worry about such a warning. And while the latter has proven the matter to matter most to most, all of us in fact, the point remains that promises are promises whether or not we like the wording. Which is something we talked about at fairly good length not to awful long ago, that distinction between promise and warning and how both are basically one and the s...

1 Corinthians 3:13 NIV That which won’t withstand. Such is what He’s always asking me to understand as being the necessity of what He’s asking me to go ahead and let go before I go to where I’m going as, once there, there’s no more leaving left to find. And so anymore I find that I feel that His helping me to come to see the many things that are still in me that aren’t likely to be found welcome where I hope to be welcomed, again, such is what He's asking me to surrender, to sacrifice, to settle upon seeing as something seen as being as unnecessary as He's always known it's always been. It’s just then that I’ve myself never known many things to have always been as unnecessary as I never imagined they might prove to be. Rather within this life we daily see some new thing, thought or theory that seems so intriguing that we almost can’t help ourselves but to insist ourselves unto the buying wholesale as much as we might in the moment afford. And it’s in fact this worldly afflu...

1 Peter 1:7 NIV The proven genuineness of your faith. That's why we face the trials and challenges that push us, test us, beat us up a little bit. It's not because God is trying to break us down and crush us into submission. It's because our faith needs to be genuine, and what better way to test and see just how real our faith is than to test it? It's like back when we were in school. Our teachers didn't just assume we knew everything that they had taught us. They didn't just teach a few lessons and then hope for the best. There were tests where we had to prove that we had been paying attention, practicing, and that we'd actually learned something. Our faith is no different. God didn't just send Christ down here to teach us all a bunch of lessons hoping that we would find it in ourselves to be interested and pay attention. He sent Christ to bring a truth that we're required to live by. Whether or not anyone chooses to pay attention is on them. But we...

James 1:3 NIV Whether it be jealousy, hatred, persecution, illness, injury, outside circumstance, or inner turmoil, we need to stop seeing things as a reason to complain or feel sorry for ourselves. We're going to face hard times in life. We're going to be hated by those around us. We're going to have days where it seems that everything is against us. But what if rather than seeing those challenges as something unfortunate that we don't want or need in life, what if we could see them as chances to increase our faith? So often we look at the things we come up against and take them personally. We take the jealousy and judgement of those around us as personal attacks on us. We look at the trials and tribulations that our lives are full of and think that maybe someone somewhere doesn't want us to be happy. Taking things in life personally is nothing but the first step down this road of seeing ourselves as victims of unfortunate circumstances. It's the first step tow...