Day 353: That's Life: Series (Part 1)

Ecclesiastes 3:12-13

So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

Ecclesiastes 8:15

So I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life. That way they will experience some happiness along with all the hard work God gives them under the sun.

This is the start of another series leading to the end of the year. This series we are going to talk about life and uno the teachings that we have been taught for so long, that allows us or makes us see life one way and one way only. We often talk about how pain and suffering is a part of life. But as much as they are so is joy, peace, love, happiness, life is good too. We need to talk about that a bit more than we talk about all the bad things that can come out of life. Life can be rough but that is not all there is to it.

As humans we have become so overtaken with this idea of struggling through life. Fighting against something our entire lives to get to where we are. Proving that we are strong because we’ve been through something. People actually say that until you’ve experienced hardship you haven’t experienced life. We have become what seems like obsessed with the ideas of struggle. The more we’ve gone through the better the testimony. We have misconstrued what life really is. We have taught our children and we have been taught that life is a struggle. Life is hard. Prepare ourselves. Have tough skin. But what if I told you that that was wrong. What if I told you that struggling is only a small part of life compared to good. Pain is only a moment compared to the joy and happiness.

There is just as much peace as there is violence and evil. It’s in us. We have to change our perspective. Not of what we see but how we see things. We have to choose to hang on to that glimmer of hope. Life isn’t all struggle and pain. Trust me it’s not. For the moments when the pain and struggles ceases, why can’t life be butterflies and unicorns? Why can’t we enjoy life to fullest. There’s no one telling us we can’t .Life is beautiful. Life is a gift. Life is a blessing. Witnessing life is a privilege. 

There’s so much more to this life than that we overlook, because when we think about real life we only think about how hard it is. How brutal it can be. How it can chew us up and spit us out. Real life is actually beautiful and full of joy and love when we think about it. Real life is laughing with your friends until the break of dawn. Real life is taking a chance and going on that date with that person. Real life is the thrill of throwing your hands up on a roller coaster. Real life is watching your friends and family succeed and being just as happy for them as you would for yourself. It’s being able to travel across the world to climb a mountain or taste real Italian food. Real life is building up the courage to ask that girl to marry you. It’s being overwhelmed with emotion because you are so happy. Life is sharing moments, the beautiful moments the joyful moments. Life is seeing the smile on the face of someone you love because they've just accomplished something they've been going after for a while. It's seeing you prayers for people come to fruition. Life is all the little moments strung together to make up what we get to describe as living. Life is being vulnerable enough not to just cry when you’re in pain, but to cry because you are happy. Life is not being ashamed to walk down the street holding hands with your best friend because you are grateful God has blessed you with them. Life is telling your family and friends you love them. Life is hugging your family or friends. Or hugging the stranger with the free hugs sign. This may sound crazy to many of you.It sounds crazy to me as I write it. Because we have been conditioned and taught that life is hard. We’ve been trained to be tough so life doesn’t knock us down. We’ve been told since we were young kids in school that life is hard and it can get the best of us. But I want to undo all of that and tell you that you will get the best of life. It will not get the best of you.  

All this to say, we weren't prepared for the beauty of life, or the joys of life, because we've only been conditioned to be tough so that life can't knock us done. With that being said we don't really know how to enjoy life, we don't know how to relax or take a break because we want to be ahead of the game. I want to encourage your day to take a chance and see that there si more to life that being in a constant battle. God did not intend for us to struggle every moment of our lives. Believe or not He actually wants us to enjoy life. He gave us the pleasures of life to enjoy, give yourself permission to enjoy it. 

Reflection 

1. What is your perspective on life?

2. Do you find yourself constantly in the pattern of thinking of life as only a struggle?

3. What are some things you can do to change that perspective?

4. Are you rally living life to the fullest?

Prayer Time 

Allow you answer to the above questions guide your prayer today. Take the time to talk to God about life and thank Him for blessing us with a beautiful life. 

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 354!

Day 329: Recap!

Day 323: All In A Day's Work

Today we talked about how God does so much in a day that in our eyes in would amount up to a thousand years. We talked about how God is constantly moving and even though we may have to wait a bit longer His timing is nothing less than perfect. We focused on 2 Peter 3:8.

"It’s really God that’s giving us the means to take care of ourselves. We have to set ourselves aside to see and understand how the glory of God is constantly being played out in our lives."

Day 324: God Wants the Best For Us

Today we talked about how God only wants the best for us. We talked about the common misperception that God is some mean old man in the sky that wants us all to perish. Spoiler alert, it's not true. We focused on 2 Peter 3:9.

"He calls us to repentance so that anything blocking us from Him can be removed and we can have freedom to dwell in His presence."

Day 325: Patience My Love

Today we talked about seasons inspired by the Hillsong Worship song 'Seasons" off their later album. We focused on the lyric, "If you are not done working, then God I'm not done waiting." We focused on Psalms 27:14.

"Sometimes we act as if God is only making us wait because He can, we act as of God is making us wait for no reason at all. But have we ever considered that the reason we are still waiting is because God is not done working?"

Day 326: Thanksgiving!

So today was thanksgiving in America, so we talked about taking the time out not to ask for anything but to thank God. We talked about how important it is to sometimes just stop and thank God for all the wonderful things He has done and He is doing. We focused on Psalms 28:7 and Psalms 30:12. 

"There is something beautiful about acknowledging what He has done and what He continues to do."

Day 327: Ride It Out 

Today we talked about waves and surfing, and what that means is we talked about how living life can sometimes feel like trying to surf a storm without falling off your board. We talked about how sometimes the storm can be very strong but we have to ride it out. We focused on Hebrews 10:32-36. 

"Life is scary, sometimes those waves are bigger than we thought, but even in those moments of fear we have to ride them out. God knows what we can take and we cannot just walk away because we are afraid, but we must endure, we must endure because we know what’s on the other side, we know what it will all be worth in the end."

Day 328: It Makes No Sense

Today we talked about walking in the light, and how if we are going to walk in the light with Christ we cannot have an ounce of darkness in us. We talked about how we sometimes hold on to darkness because for the longest time it was all we knew. We focused on 1 John 1:5-7.

"It makes no sense for us to claim that we walk in light when we are still living in darkness. We must let go of anything keeping us in the dark and know that God is taking us on a beautiful journey and we cannot get to where we are going in we cannot see, spiritually and physically."

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone, go back and read your favorite devo from this week. Make sure to come back tomorrow for Day 330!

Day 306: Lose Control

Proverbs 19:21

You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.

Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Isaiah 55:9

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”

You ever felt like you were navigating through life but not really getting anywhere? You have a plan, you know what you want and you're going after it but it doesn’t seem to be working out the way you planned. Everything thing is out of control and falling apart. It’s like we’re losing a grip on everything. What if we’re think about it the wrong way. What if we have it all wrong, what if everything is out of control because no matter how hard we try life is too hard to navigate alone. Sometimes we think losing control of our life is the worst thing possible. Not knowing where we’re going and feeling lost is the bane of our existence. But, what if it’s not, what if it’s the start of something beautiful. When we’re in these positions we tend to open ourselves up to direction, when we’re losing control we try to find a way to get a hold of life again. It is in these moments when we find ourselves submitting to God. It’s in these moments that we realize how big He is and small we are. Sometimes we have to lose control to know that we never had it anyway. Sometimes we have to be lost to understand that only in Christ can we be found.

What I’m saying is we cannot walk around with our planners, our schedules, or six month plans and completely cross God out of the picture. There is nothing wrong with plans, goals, and following our dreams but we must keep a loose grip on them because we never know what God is going to do. If anything we hold tightly to God and His plan because it is better and greater than anything we could ever imagine. We have to learn to let go of our control over our lives and give it God. It sounds crazy but it’s not. Only when we completely surrender to God will we see how His hand has always been on us. We will see how His plan for our lives has been, is being, and will continue to be played out in our lives. When we constantly feel the need to be in control we are in a constant state of anxiety when things do not go as we planned them to go. But God is like, “I got this, don’t worry, I got this.”

All this to say, lose control. Submit to God and know that He is always in control. Don’t fight against it.

Reflection

1. Are you the type of person that needs to constantly be in control?
2. Do you really believe that God’s got this (your life in His hands)?
3. Why do you think it is so hard to fully submit to God?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Have a conversation with God about giving up the need to be in control to Him. Talk to Him about submitting completely to Him and trusting in His plan.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 307!

Day 286: Living Well Series (Part 2) - Winning At Life

1 John 5:12

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God's Son does not have life.

Are you winning at life?

What does winning at life look like to you?

I’m sure we have all heard these concepts of “winning at life”. Buzzfeed had probably posted articles about how to win at life, buzzfeed also probably posted a quiz, that most of us probably took, about how to know if you are winning at life. When we think about this idea of winning at life, do we think of it as just something tangible. Are we thinking about winning at life as beating our enemies, or just being better than everyone else? How does it look to win at life? What doe sit mean? First let’s define that word, to win. What does it mean, according to my dictioanry.com app on my iphone, there are quite a few different meaning of the word. All the definitions are centered around success: to finish first, to succeed by striving or effort, to gain the victory, overcome an adversary. The slang definition is to be successful or competent and be acknowledged for it. These definitions are sometimes how we as people define ourselves. We always have to be first, we have to be the best. We have to prove that we are the best and the winners by constantly working hard. The last one hits close to home, we all want to be recognized for our success. We want to be acknowledged for winning at life. Often times we put up an image, most times on instagram, to make our lives look successful, and they might be. But how successful are we if we do not have Jesus? Are we really winning if we do not have Christ in our lives?

I can tell you right now that winning at life does not look a certain way as a matter of fact it lives a certain way. How we live determines how we win. What I mean is that we cannot win at life if we are not living in Christ. The very man who gave us life, how can we live apart from Him. To take that even further how can we win at life if we do not live in Him. It took Jesus to come from His throne in heaven to not only teach us how to live, but also it took His life so that we can have life. Before Jesus came we were dying in our sin, we were losing this game of life. Jesus gave us the tools we needed to win. Theres is only one way to win at life and His name is Jesus.  John 14:16 says. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”

The idea of winning at life is the idea of pushing hard to earn it, but with Jesus we didn’t earn it, He gave it to us. All we have to do is believe, all we have to do is give our hearts to Him. True winning is when we are truly submitted to christ, that’s how we win at life. We give our hearts to the man who gave up everything for us. Winning at life is still having life in eternity when everything of this world fades. When all else is gone and we still have Christ to hold on to, that’s how we know we’ve won at life.  See as long as we have Christ we are winning, if we define winning at life by how successful we are, we will never truly be winning. Because we are not always going to be or feel successful.

All this to say, winning at life is declaring our victory in christ, not in the world. Jesus gave us the tools we need to win at life, and we cannot live apart from Him.

Reflection

1. Are You winning at life?

Prayer Time

Take the time to talk to God about what we discussed today. Have a conversation with Him about what it looks like to win at life. Thank Him for Jesus, take the time to thank God for giving us a savior who has given us eternal life.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 287!

Day 285: Living Well (Series, Part 1)

James 3:13-18

Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom—it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the other's throats. Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.

Today marks the start of a new series. Throughout this series we are going to explore this idea of ‘living well’ and what it truly means to live well and win at life.

As Christians many of us reference our faith as a lifestyle as opposed to a religion, or organized religion however you put it. The honest truth is that our faith shows a lot in the lifestyle we live, everything from loving our neighbors to making the right decisions. I wholeheartedly believe that being a Christian is so much more than just going to church every sunday and raising our hands every now and then during worship. It is how we live when we are not at church. It’s the lifestyle we talk about leading. It’s about loving our neighbor and being patient. Living well is more than just looking good or getting by. It’s about much more than surviving. We can look good on the outside, but how is our heart, how is our soul? We can talk about living well but are we actually living good, or do our lives just look from the outside? Living well is not about what we have or how successful we are, it is about our relationship with God. If we do not have a relationship with God, a solid foundation in Him; if we have not found our identity in Christ are we really living well. We cannot live well, or have a good life outside of Christ. For many who are not Christian that is a bold statement for me to make, but we as Christians know what it was like to try to live outside of Christ.

As Christians we must be committed to living a life that pleases God, we must be committed to our lives changing to fit His word and who He is. Not the other way around. His word impacts our lives and we begin to live according to what is written in that bible. The bible does not change to fit us. When our lives line up with the bible that’s how we know we are living well.

All this to say, is that Jesus is the way. If we want to win at life, we have to walk like Christ. Living well has such a deeper meaning than what we are taught by society. Life is beautiful and we are going to explore that throughout this series.  

Reflection

1. Based on your own definition, what is good living?
2. Are you living well?
3. What do you think or believe God’s definition of living well is?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers the above questions guide your prayer today. Have a conversation with God about what we discussed today, and talk to Him about whatever is on your heart.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 286!

Day 280: Recap!

Day 274: The One He Left the 99 to Find

Today we talked about the measures Jesus took just to save us. We talked about how He would be willing to leave the 99 to find the one that was lost, to find to one that had strayed. We talked about how great His love is for us that He would do something like that. We focused on Luke 15:3-7.

"He loves us so much that instead of replacing us, which He can do if He wanted, He leaves the ninety-nine to find us. "

Day 275: More Than Exist

Today we discussed how we are to do more than just exist and "get by". We talked about how God wants to live our life and enjoy it, He gave us a life for a reason. We talked about how sometimes we are so focused on making life "worth living" and overlooking the fact that every moment is worth living. How we should not wait for life to be perfect before we start living. We focused on Ecclesiastes 18:5, 3:11-13, and11:9.

"What I’m saying is, life is beautiful, enjoy it, be happy. Don’t get stuck in going through the motions. There’s more than just getting by. Why only stay afloat when we can swim."

Day 276: Good to Everyone

Today we talked about being good to everyone. We talked about how we are not to live our lives seeking revenge on the one's that have hurt us or done us wrong, but we are to love and be kind. With everything going on in the world we can use some kindness. We focused on 1 Thessalonians 5:15.

" Treat others how you want to be treated not how they treat you, There is something so freeing and beautiful about not seeking revenge but loving people through the pain and doing good in evil situations."

Day 277: Less Talk More Prayer

Today we talked about how easy it is to gossip but more beneficial to pray. We talked about how prayer can change things while gossiping lips do nothing but spread things. One works and the other doesn't. We were challenged to pray for people, and not talk about them, and actually pray when we're saying we're going to. We focused on Psalms 34:13, 1 Thessalonians, 5:25, 1 Timothy 2:1-2, and Galatians 6:1. 

"It’s easy to gossip and talk about people but how much better would it be if we talked to God about them, If we prayed for them. We can easily go to a friend and talk about how bad someone is doing and have it change nothing but what about when we talk to God about it."

Day 278: Patience With Everyone

Today we talked about patience with other people. We talked about how one of the fruits of the spirit is patience and that it is one of the many ways in which we are called to love our neighbors. We focused on 1 Thessalonians 5:14.

"If we took the time to encourage and take care of one another, being patient would not be an issue. But the problem with that is taking time for someone else is taking time away from self. When we think about it,  impatience is a pretty selfish trait."

Day 279: Hold On to What is Good

Today we talked about how we are to hold on to what is good. We talked about how there are certain thing sin our lives that stick with us forever. We talked about taking hold of the good things and doing away with all the bad and evil things that life has to offer. We focused on 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22

"Even if we do hold on to things that are bad for us, or the things people have done to us to hurt us, we eventually come to the realization that it is not good for us. So  we let those things go. However the things that are good tend to stick with us forever, and that’s the beautiful thing about life. We are so often under the impression that we as humans remember the bad things over the good, however that is not always true. No matter how angry we are at someone, and we may not want to admit it, there is so much good we see in them."

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to go back over you favorite subject for the week, share it with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 181!

Day 275: More than Exist

John 10:10

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Ecclesiastes 8:15

So I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life. That way they will experience some happiness along with all the hard work God gives them under the sun.

I have heard so many young people describe their life as, “getting by” or “staying afloat”. When asked how we are doing we often say something along the lines of, “I’m here.” There’s so much more to life that just getting by or being present. I mean our lives are meant to be lived and enjoyed. I know we have so much going on, from school to bills and family. However we should not be slaves to these things. Sometimes we are so busy trying to make a living for ourselves that we forget to live. I understand it, I get it completely, trust me I’m in the same boat. But Jesus didn’t come and set us free just so we can be slaves to our own lives. I won’t believe that He has. It is okay to enjoy life, and take the time to have fun and do something for ourselves. Yes, we have a million things to worry about, our generation wasn’t handed the best economy or the best minimum wage, so we have to work very hard to sometimes make ends meet, but we also have to enjoy to fruits of our labor.

Ecclesiastes 3:12-13

So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

Ecclesiastes 11:9

You who are young, be happy while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

We’re not going to be young forever, one day we’re going to wake up and be old. So we have to experience life in our youth so we won’t regret it when we’re old. The biggest regret to have is never having lived while we had the chance to do it. Now is the time to experience life, we should not be worried every minute of everyday about how we are going to live. Worrying about living isn’t going to change anything we we might as we live instead. Life isn’t going to be perfect, it doesn’t start out perfect, but if we wait until it is to start living we will die never having experienced anything in this beautiful life God has given us. What I’m saying is, life is beautiful, enjoy it, be happy. Don’t get stuck in going through the motions. THere’s more than just getting by. Why only stay afloat when we can swim.

All this to say, don’t miss out on life while trying to make a life worthy of living. Live through every moment, enjoy. God wants so much more for us than just to pay bills and die. Jesus came and gave us life and life more abundantly. Before we were set free we were just getting by, but Jesus opened the door to so many new and beautiful possibilities. Explore as man as you can, while you can do it. I learned that a bit late but I’m learning to enjoy and experience this beautiful life God has blessed me with. I want you to do the same.

Reflection

1. Are you just existing, or getting by?
2. Do you believe there is more to life?
3. Do you believe that God wants more for you?
4. Are you so busy trying to make a living that you are forgetting to live?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Talk to God about what we discussed, whatever is on your heart pour it out to Him. Ask HIm to open your eyes to begin to see how beautiful this life is and that you will start to live, enjoy, and experience it.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing Day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 276!

Day 273: Recap!

Day 267: Exposing Darkness

Today we talked about shining a light on the dark places in our lives and exposing them for what they are. We talked about how, although we try, there is nothing we can hide from God, He sees all. We talked about how in order to be fully devoted to Christ we have to walk in light and that means getting rid of all things dark in our lives. We focused on Ephesians 5:11-14.

"...walk in light and when I say walk in light I mean walk in Christ."

Day 268: He Humbled Himself

Today we talked about taking a big dose of humility! We talked about how Jesus humbled Himself when He gave up a throne in heaven in order to come to earth and save us from our sin. We talked about how we are seeking honor from man and not God, how we are seeking honor from God without a relationship, and also how we just want to be honored and glorified. We focused on Philippians 2:6-9.

"If we do not humble ourselves before Christ we cannot grow. How are we going to survive if we cannot grow in Christ?"

Day 269: All Loss for One Gain

This one was probably my fave of the week. We talked about how sometimes we have to lose everything to gain one thing, Christ. We talked about how Paul said he would count it all as lost if only to gain Christ. Christ is everything we need and if losing everything gets us there then we will have gained everything! We focused on Philippians 3:7-8.

"I can live without these worldly possessions, tangible, and even sometimes intangible things that make up my life here on Earth, but I cannot live without Christ."

Day 270: Why Worry?

Today we talked about worry and stress and anxiety. We talked about how even though we have a million things to we can think of to worry and stress about, when we think of who God is we really have nothing to worry about. God has it already figured out so we just have to trust His plan, go with it, and see what happens. We focused on Philippians 4:6-7 and Matthew 11:28.

"We see the beauty of life when we begin to understand that God is completely in control. He has it all figured out and He’s guided us through it all. There’s comfort and peace in that.  We may not know or understand what God is doing in that moment, but there is beauty in it all, even in the unknown."

Day 271: All You Know

Today we talked about God's everlasting and unchanging love! We talked about how even though He knows everything there is to know about us, everything we've ever done; the good, the bad, and the definite ugly, He still loves us. His feelings towards us never changes. We focused on 1 John 3:20, Psalms 139: 1-6, Hebrews 13:8, 2 Timothy 2:13, and Romans 8:38.

"In the midst of everything we do in our lives, and every place we’ve been; from the highest moments to the lowest, His love never changes. His love stays the same."

Day 272: Chains of Freedom

Today we talked about how we are constantly running to the very things that keep us in chains, even though we have been freed in Christ. We talked about how we tend to hold on to the very things that are killing us as if it were going to save us. Comfort can do that to us. We focused on Ephesians 2:8-9, 4:22-24, Romans 7:15-17, and Romans 6:23.

"... don’t be so afraid of change that you die never knowing the freedom you could have had in Christ."

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening, be sure to share this with someone. Go back over your favorite discussion from this week and come back tomorrow for Day 274!

Day 272: Chains of Freedom

We as humans have a bad habit of holding on to toxic things. We hold on to the very thing that’s killings us as if it’s going to save us. We sometimes find it very hard to choose salvation. We sometimes choose to be stuck in our chains even when we have to key to release ourselves. It’s like we’re running from what is freely given to us but we run towards the things that will cost us our life. Why is that?

Today I want to talk about this human condition. Let’s talk about it.

Ephesians 2:8-9

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

Salvation is a gift from God, freely given to us. We just have to choose to accept it. We have to choose to accept Christ into our lives. This is often the hardest decision to make for us as human beings. It’s a huge life changing decision, but our lives will change for the better. However we sometimes find that committing to Christ is extremely hard. It requires us to live for someone and something other than ourselves. The thing about salvation and gifts is that we choose whether or not we want to accept it. Even though it’s free, we still think there’s a catch or there’s some sort of cost. No, salvation is free, Christ paid it all on the cross. Somehow, even with that knowledge we still seem to be on the fence about accepting God’s love and salvation. A lot of that skepticism has to do with Ephesians 4:22-24,

...throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.  Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.

Wait a minute! Hold the front door! You’re telling me that once I give my life to Christ or accept His gift of salvation, I have to change? That’s exactly what I’m saying. Surely we did not think that we could still go on living in sin, when Christ died so we wouldn’t have to...  Here’s the thing, change is scary. Stepping out our comfort zone, no matter how toxic it is, is scary. We seem to have gotten too comfortable in our life of sin. So when we finally come to Christ, letting go of it is hard. Because sin brings pleasure, and a false sense of freedom. However when we come to the understanding of who God is we see how toxic that lifestyle is for us. The sad part is, sometimes we just decide to live with the fumes because letting go is too hard. Why do we stay in the same situation we are in even though it’s killing us?   

Romans 7:15-17

I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.  But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

I have heard so many people say, “when you know better, you do better.”. While I agree with that 100%, I also agree with the fact that knowledge doesn’t change who we are. It changes what we know. We can know everything there is to know about God but if we decide that we aren’t going to change, that knowledge can only go so far. We can talk about much faith we have but if at the end of the day we have not laid our sins at the cross and let them go, does it really matter how much we know? Knowledge isn’t going to get us through those pearly white gates. Salvations will, a life lived in Christ will. It’s hard to let things go, sometimes sin is living in us and we don’t even know it, or we choose to ignore it. We don’t see it until we do the very thing we promised we weren't going to do. The problem with that is, we are trying to rid ourselves of our sin. That’s a paradox in itself, the sinner cannot free themself from sin. Which is why we need Jesus a perfect man, 2 Corinthians 5:21 says,

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

The more we try to do it ourselves the more we will fall deeper into it. When sin lives in us, we act based on what it is our hearts, no matter how much we try to suppress it. Suppressing sin and actually being freed and delivered from sin are two completely different things.

Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

All this to say, is we are sometimes constantly running from that which is free in order to run towards something that will cost us everything, even our life. Why walk in chains when we are free. We have to stop running back to the chains of bondage when life gets to hard for us. What I’m saying is, our chains are comfortable, and sometimes we find ourselves sadly running back to them. For some odd reason we view sin as freedom. We don’t commit ourselves to Christ because we want to be free and do what we want. Salvation is freedom, there is more freedom in salvation than anything. Sin gives us a false idea of freedom, it seems free until we have to give up our soul. Living in sin can only take us so far. It will give us fun and pleasure but at the end of the day it will have consumed our life, Leaving us empty and constantly wanting more. Sin will never fulfill us in the way that christ can. Salvation and eternity is free, don’t be so afraid of change that you die never knowing the freedom you could have had in Christ.

Reflection

1. Are you afraid of change?
2. Have you found yourself running back to your old like when things got too hard?
3. What’s stopping you from submitting your life fully to Christ?

Prayer Time

Allow your answer to the above questions guide your prayer today, and continue to respond in whatever way you feel led. Talk to God about what we discussed today, whatever is on your heart. Whatever is tugging on your spirit respond to it with prayer. Be honest with Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for day 273!