Tag Archives: christian living

March 31, 2021 · 5:52 AM

Foundation Of Faith

One of the ways that my wife and I define success as parents is if our son grows up to follow Jesus. Each of us were given a heritage of faith. Like. A baton in a race, it’s been handed down from one generation to the next. I was in my twenties when I first recognized that godly heritage for what it is. I remember reaching out to my parents and grandparents to thank them for investing in my foundation of faith. I was taken to church every time the doors were opened whether I wanted to go or not. I was given the gift of a Christian school education as well where teachers poured into that foundation. Now, we are doing the same thing for our son. We explain to him why we believe what we believe and partner with family, friends, church and teachers to build a foundation of faith in him so that it doesn’t stop with us.

Throughout the first few books of the Bible, as God gives Moses and His people the Law and the Commandments, he reminds him that these are not just for them. God specifically asks them to teach them to their children. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, “Never forget these commands that I am giving you today. Teach them to your children. Repeat them when you are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working” (GNT). He didn’t just tell them to let them learn about them at church or school. It was the parents responsibility to daily pour into the children’s foundation of faith. It was up to them to talk about them all the time and to explain to their kids the great things God has done for them in their life and throughout history.

In one of my last conversations with my mom before she died, she recounted every time God answered her prayers from the time she was a little girl until that day. After what seemed like hours, she looked at me and said, “God has been faithful all my life. Whether He chooses to heal me or not, I have peace because I trust Him.” It was one of the most impactful conversations we ever had. As she was dying, she was continuing to pour into my foundation so that I would continue the family’s legacy of faith. It doesn’t matter if you’re a first generation Christian or fifth, our responsibility is to pass the baton of faith to the next generation. I once heard someone say that Christianity is only one generation from extinction. Don’t let it end with you. Give your kids the gift of a foundation of faith.

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March 30, 2021 · 6:09 AM

Faithful To The Fundamentals

Watching the March Madness college basketball tournament reminds me of the days when I played basketball. There was always excitement on game day, and a bit of nervousness too. When we would play in the opponent’s gym, sometimes they would have a rowdy crowd. When you’re shooting free throws, and the crowd is doing everything they can to disrupt you to make you miss, you rely on muscle memory to make the shot. Muscle memory is developed in practice when the fundamentals are poured into you and repeated over and over. You do the same routine over and over so your brain isn’t distracted by the craziness on game day. So, when you’re standing there on that line, you remember what you’ve been taught and practiced and make the shot.

In 2 Timothy 3, Paul let’s Timothy know that crazy, difficult days are ahead. He said, “People will be selfish, greedy, boastful, and conceited; they will be insulting, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, and irreligious; they will be unkind, merciless, slanderers, violent, and fierce; they will hate the good; they will be treacherous, reckless, and swollen with pride; they will love pleasure rather than God; they will hold to the outward form of our religion, but reject its real power. Keep away from such people” (2 Timothy 3:2-5 GNT). That sounds an awful lot like world we are living in now. There are so many distractions around us, and so many things trying to divide the Church. There’s pressure to leave the fundamentals of Christianity because it is opposed to all these things listed, which have been normalized. With all of this going on, it would be easy for us to miss the shot right in front of us. That’s why Paul told us what to do during these times.

In verse 14, he wrote, “But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you” (NLT). We must hold onto the eternal truth of God’s Word. While the world is trying to move the boundary markers of truth, we must hold fast to what is real truth. The fundamentals of faith are what we must hold tightly too and implement into our lives. Romans 12:2 reminds us not to conform to the culture of the world, but to continuously renew our minds. How do we renew our mind? By putting the truth of God’s Word into it daily so we can combat what the world is throwing at us. We are not to change God’s Word to fit into our culture. Instead, we are to be changed by God’s Word so that we stand out in this culture in order to lead people to Christ. We have a great opportunity to remain faith to God’s fundamentals.

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March 29, 2021 · 5:55 AM

An “I Will” Attitude

One of my favorite shows is Alone. They take ten people, put them in a hostile environment with ten items and have them survive until everyone taps out. It appeals to me for many reasons, but one of my favorite parts is when the contestants have been alone and hungry for about 30 days. There is a huge psychological battle every contestant faces as they document themselves on this journey. Some grow to hate the location, the hunger, the isolation and the constant struggle for food and water. Then there are others who are in a similar location a few miles away that get ahold of the negative thoughts and begin speaking positive words instead. In every case, the ones who continue to speak negatively tap out of the contest. The one who can continue to find positive things through the struggle is the one who wins.

I’m not sure there’s another person in the Bible besides Jesus who suffered more than Paul. He was imprisoned multiple times in jails that were dark, nasty and had no humanitarian standards for prisoners. He was shipwrecked, beaten to a pulp many times, dragged out of cities, lied about, stoned, robbed, left for dead and abandoned. The things he went through, many of us couldn’t survive. However, Paul kept preaching the Gospel, writing letters and encouraging others through it all. My favorite story is when he was in a dungeon of a prison, bleeding and hungry, and he starts singing praises to God for all to hear. No matter how bad things were, he found a way to praise and refocus his attention on God instead of his circumstances.

David was a lot like him too. In Psalm 34:1-2 David penned, “I will praise the Lord at all times. I will constantly speak his praises. I will boast only in the Lord; let all who are helpless take heart” (NLT). He didn’t say, “I want to praise the Lord at all times.” He was saying, “I will,” as in he’s not going to give his mind the choice to do anything else. Do you have have an “I will praise the Lord at all times” attitude? You need to decide that attitude ahead of your circumstances, but even if you’re in the middle of hard times now, you can choose it. Praising God doesn’t change your circumstances, it changes you in the middle of them. It strengthens you and puts your focus on the One who is greater than what you’re facing. If you haven’t chosen to praise the Lord at all times, do it today and put it into practice. He deserves to be praised in the good times and the bad.

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March 26, 2021 · 5:55 AM

Your Actions Matter

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Embracing Your Brokenness

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March 18, 2021 · 5:30 AM

Breaking New Ground

When you read the creation account in Genesis, it’s easy to think that God created everything with just His voice. “Let there be light. Let there be water. Let the land sprout with vegetation. Let the waters swarm with fish.” But in chapter two we find two things He made by hand. God formed man from the dust of the ground and He planted a garden where He then placed the man. I think it’s significant that out of all creation, He made these with His hands instead of with His voice. They were both made from the ground, but both had to be cultivated. Man needed the breath of God in him, and the garden needed Him to dig up soil so He could plant trees that bore good fruit.

If you’ve ever planted a garden, you know that the hard work begins with cultivating the soil. You have to break it up and churn it so that it is prepared for planting. Our lives are full of uncultivated soil that God wants to plant things in, but we must first be willing to till it. Many times we ask God for more, but we haven’t given Him the uncultivated parts of our lives. We tend to segregate our life into two parts: the part we let God into and the part we want to keep for ourselves. When the later part becomes unmanageable, we cry out to Him in desperation for help, but then promptly kick Him back out once the problem is under control. In reality, we should be seeking His blessings for every part of our lives and giving Him control of everything.

Hosea10:12 says, “Break up your uncultivated ground, For it is time to seek and search diligently for the LORD [and to long for His blessing]” (AMP). What parts of your life are uncultivated right now? If you’re wanting more of what God has in store for you, you’re going to have to clear away the weeds and break up the ground to prepare it for seeds of blessings. Seeds must have fertile soil to germinate in if they’re going to produce good fruit. God wants to have His fingerprints all over your life, but you’re the one who is going to have to give Him access. The Garden of Eden doesn’t just have to exist in Genesis. It can be cultivated in your life when you’re willing to break new ground.

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Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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March 15, 2021 · 5:34 AM

Explaining Your Faith

When I was a young kid, I remember learning to witness to someone using ABC. You were to tell someone, “All you need to do is Ask Jesus into your heart, Believe God raised Him from the dead and Confess your sins.” When I was in junior high, I learned the Romans Road. You’ll use verses in the book of Romans to walk someone through believing in Jesus (Romans 3:23, 6:23, 5:8, 10:13 and 10:9-10). In high school, we were given tracts and we’re taken to the local movie theater on Friday nights to hand them out. As an adult, we had an Evangelism Explosion class that taught us a method, and then we went door to door in the neighborhood around the church. While I love all these methods, the simplest form of witnessing was overlooked.

On the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit came down with power on a group of 120 people who had been praying for 10 days. There was a rushing, mighty wind that filled the room, fire appeared above their heads and people began praying in different languages. The ruckus created a crowd around their prayer meeting. People outside must have gotten loud because Peter stepped out and began to explain what was going on in them what happened to Jesus and then how to be saved from their sins. It was short and sweet and delivered with conviction. The Bible says that about 3,000 people heard his message and became Christians that day. I’ve never won 3,000 for Jesus, but I’ve found that the most effective at winning the lost is being able to explain who Jesus is and how He changed your life.

1 Peter 3:15 says, “And if anyone asks about the hope living within you, always be ready to explain your faith” (TPT). The thing that I had never really been taught was how to simply explain my faith. Those other methods taught me how to walk someone through accepting Jesus, but what we need is to learn how to give an answer for our faith and the reason for our hope in a chaotic world. There’s no formula for that. It’s simply explains your story of what Jesus did in your life and why you believe in Him. I want to encourage you today to spend some time thinking about that. Why do you believe in Jesus? What has He done in your life? How would you explain that to someone who asked you about it? Being able to explain those three answers will be your most effective witnessing tool.

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Your Holy Pursuit

Today’s world has us concerned mainly with our output. We measure what’s important to us. That could be our bank account, our income, our work, our busyness, etc. We’ve learned to value ourselves by our output. In this pursuit of value, we’ve overlooked our inputs. When do you feel most mentally alert? When are you feeling your best physically? When do you feel closest to God? Those are tough questions that we rarely give any thought to, but if you will think about them, you’ll notice patterns and behaviors that increase those feelings. Output activities drain you mentally, physically and spiritually, but input activities increase your energy in those areas. As I mentioned, we’ve become so focused on outputs that many of us feel tired, mentally drained and far from God.

Jesus constantly took time to get alone with God in prayer. That was His method of input or recharging Himself. All day long He would be doing output things like preaching, teaching, healing and forgiving. To make sure He had enough in the tank each day, He woukd withdraws to secluded places. David found his spiritual inputs in God’s Word and in worship. If you’ve ever read Psalm 119, you know it’s all how much He loved God’s Word. For the leaders of the Early Church, prayer was their input. In Acts 6, they appointed seven men to oversee some of the administrative side of the church so that they could give their full attention to prayer and the Word of God. So I’ll ask you again, what are your spiritual inputs? Have you been too focused on your outputs?

In Paul’s last letter before he was martyred, he wrote final instructions to Timothy on how to conduct himself. Part of 2 Timothy 2:22 says, “Whatever builds up your faith and deepens your love must become your holy pursuit” (TPT). Your spiritual inputs must become your holy pursuit. They must take precedence in your life. While this world, and even the Church, is concerned with your outputs, God wants us to be focused on our inputs. An empty vessel will have nothing to pour out. An empty vessel simply goes through the motions. Yet, it’s the empty vessel who will say, “Lord, didn’t I do all these things (outputs) in your name?” And Jesus will reply, “Depart from me. I never knew you (you never took the time to know me (inputs)).” Outputs are important, but inputs need to be our holy pursuit.

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March 8, 2021 · 5:34 AM

Activating Your Gifts

You may have heard it said that hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard. There are people who have acquired a skill, and work hard at it, that out perform people who are gifted and talented naturally with the same skill. I’ve learned that if a person will exercise or use their natural, God given talents, they will exponentially increase in their effectiveness. A person who isn’t naturally gifted with something will have to work much harder to increase their effectiveness, but they can do it. In both cases, it’s a matter of using that skill often and learning how to be more effective with it. That’s where the hard work comes in. The problem is that many people become lazy with their God given talents and don’t work to improve what seems to come naturally.

When David was just a boy, he killed a lion and a bear. That’s God given bravery and talent. Most of us would run the other direction in those circumstances, but he went at them. He used what God put in him. I can also imagine him practice his slingshot skills while he watched the heard. It takes hard work to aim one of those, and he was clearly ready when the time came for him to face Goliath. That skill, combined with his God given talent of bravery and fighting is what caused people to rally behind him. He didn’t just sit on his talents, he used them often to expand the territory of Israel. It wasn’t until he stayed home from using his talents that he sinned with Bathsheba. Instead of going to the war, he stayed behind.

In Romans 12:6, Paul writes that God gives each of us gifts and talents. He then goes on to say, “So if God has given you the grace-gift of prophecy, activate your gift by using the proportion of faith you have to prophesy” (TPT). He says something similar in the next verses about other gifts. We activate them or increase their effectiveness when we use them. Too many times, we’re like the person who buried their talent (a term for money) and didn’t increase its potential because we didn’t do anything with it. Whatever gift God has given you, it’s time to dig it up and use it on a small scale. Remember, we have to be faithful in the little things first before he can put us in position to do greater things. Look around you today and find at least one instance where you can use your God given gifts and talents.

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