Forged By Faith

Hebrews 12:6 NIV How sad it is to have become a people so willfully blinded by the rebuke that we've no longer the ability to see the reward. In all of our “advancements” and “progressions” it seems as though we’ve finally arrived at a place where we fully misunderstand and mishandle basically everything in life. From truth to reason to responsibility, the very fundamentality of morality, it’s all just this endless cavalcade of sinking ships being torpedoed by a vanity and stubbornness so deep that we’ve agreed to let them define our very identity. Folks today literally even believe in a version of love that mustn’t correct or warn or encourage as those things have been assumed as harmful to the feelings so widely cherished. As a result, there's something about even hearing the word 'discipline' that sends chills down the spines of nearly every human being alive today. It's been given this weighty connotation that has us unfortunately equating it to something more a...

1 Thessalonians 5:19 NIV When a people agree to always run from pain they risk rejecting the healing that's only found on the other side of it. You see, the initial workings of the Holy Spirit force us to consider our past prisons which were made from then present predicaments we didn’t realize we had the responsibility to handle properly. We're asked to acknowledge and admit our many errors and the wayward mindsets which led us to their making. The process demands hearts not partially surrendered but so entirely humbled that they eagerly confess every possible failure so that none are left as hidden hassles saved for a surprise stumble along a path we know we'll not be able to walk well. And it's all of this heaviness which causes many to do exactly as we're told not to do in this verse from Paul's letter to the church in Thessalonica. Do not quench the Spirit, even though it might well feel like that Spirit is drowning us with guilt and shame and regret and re...

Romans 6:21 NIV The beauty of hindsight is that it's seen through eyes unstained by the moment. But the misery of it is that we often see our mistakes only after we’ve made them, long after that moment proved more fleeting than we could have imagined. You see, we've set out to create for ourselves this ability to warp any given situation or undertaking in such a way that makes it seem everything we want it to be. We've taught our eyes to look past the obvious issues and concerns and warning signs so we can see only the glory which can be gained in seeking indulgence. We carry these minds broken down and reconfigured to actually think that everything unhealthy, unhelpful is actually helping us in some way. We have in every way chosen to become blinded at any given moment simply so we don't have to see what we don't want to have to be responsible for having realized. And that's the true nature of sin. It's missing God in the moment. It's choosing to ignore...

Isaiah 1:31 NIV One day the inescapability of eternity’s reality will prove that everything a sinful man's hands have found to do was only their undoing. All of this devotion being given to create for ourselves a shelter within ourselves only arrests our understanding that the only shelter which can withstand what’s coming is found in the One who’s already been through the grave and back. Look at the cross. Can you or I do what Christ did in our place upon our cross? Not at all! So who are we assume we’ve the strength, the ability, the intelligence to stand before God and prove ourselves worthy of such a gift for which we’ve never lived showing our humble appreciation? And if we’ve not the strength nor the ability nor the authority to determine for ourselves our own worth or destiny, well then who are we to live as if His salvation is something we can somehow be owed in return for our self-perceived perfection? Is that not all we’re doing in trying to prove ourselves perfect within...

Romans 10:3 NIV Having been given all we truly need in order to become all we’ve never been able to be and yet still seeking ways in which to prove ourselves already sufficient is a kind of foolishness only possible in minds so warped that eyes can only see inward. Humanity's preference for self-righteousness is creating a chasm which will potentially forever remain uncrossed, with many a soul caught in a place they only think they want to be. All of this effort to climb ourselves to Heaven is not merely time and effort being wasted. It’s time and effort being doused with gasoline, set on fire and rolled down a hill toward a fireworks factory. We’re creating our own destruction every single time we seek to construct something that we think will appease God’s expectation of righteousness. He sent Jesus because we cannot be the righteousness He created us to be before we traded that image in which we were made for an arbitrary facade which allows instead for our ongoing failures to b...

Ecclesiastes 7:16 NIV The religious among humanity are undertaking a great effort to prove themselves able to become something our pasts have already proven we're unable to be. And that egocentric mindset is one that all of us have at a time adopted unto ourselves thinking that within righteous acts done under our own strength and through our own effort we might prove ourselves worthy of God's benevolence therefore sidestepping the guilt of knowing that we ourselves, through our past transgressions, lived a way of life in which we held the hammer that drove the nails that pierced the flesh of He who'd done no wrong against us. Yet, in our great endeavor to prove ourselves of sufficient holiness so as to render Christ's sacrifice moot on our behalf, we've taken what's merely a part of this calling of the cross and twisted it into something that's led us only away from He who hung in our place. We're at dire risk of idolizing an aspect of faith rather than...

Proverbs 28:26 NIV Of what account am I that any should place their hope, their trust, their lives in my hands? I sit here writing this while wrestling with this thought that never leaves my mind telling me of all the things I’ve cost myself in living as if I knew what I was doing. Seems as though every dream I once had has floated off into the nullity beyond nonexistence. All I once wanted and wanted to be has now become only scars that prove the decimation that comes from following yourself down a path you think you’ve the authority to write into perfection with a mind bent toward blindness and a heart deceitful beyond compare. And now considering I highly advise everyone to not trust in me, why would I ever trust in myself? Why is it that we refuse to tear through the veil keeping us reliant upon ourselves, instead choosing to remind oblivious to the fact that doing so is the epitome of foolishness? How often do we seek to lambast ourselves in such unrestrained manner as to admit we...