Day 299: It Takes Faith

One of the most important aspects of being a Christian is faith, if we do not have faith how can we serve God. How can we believe in a God we have never seen without faith. Faith is a key ingredient to having a relationship with God. We must believe in Him.

Romans 10:9-10 says, If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

When many people refer to Christianity, they refer to it as ‘the Christian faith’ or we even talk about it as our faith. I do not believe that that is without reason. Following God take faith, it takes us believing first in God, and His word, and standing on His promises. Faith is choosing to believe in the things that are not seen. But if we want to get technical let’s get a dictionary definition.

Faith: confidence or trust in a person or thing.

Belief that is not based on proof

The trust in God and His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.

As Hebrews 11:1 tells us, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. That being said our faith is our proof of the living God, and God’s faithfulness to us is proof that we are not crazy people out here believing in a spirit that we don’t know is real. No we believe in a living God, the same God who created the heavens and the earth, the same God who spoke to Moses on a mountain top, we believe in the God who made it rain manna, the God split the red sea, the God who sent His son to die for our sins so that we can have a relationship with Him. That’s the God that we believe in, because we choose to believe. Out faith is not based on proof it is based on the goodness of God. The proof is all around, one thing that blows my mind is that God created the earth the way it is on purpose. According to science (which God created as well), Earth is the only known planet equipped with an atmosphere of the right mixture of gases to sustain plant, animal and human life. If Earth was smaller an atmosphere would be impossible, like Mercury. If earth we larger it’s atmosphere would contain free hydrogen like Jupiter, making it impossible to live on in both cases. Also if earth were further away from the sun we would freeze to death, if it we closer to the sun we would burn up. God placed us exactly where He wanted us to be and made us the right size. Aside from the scientific facts, our most powerful tool in our relationship with God is faith. Faith enables us to pray, it enables us to trust in His word, faith allows us to have that relationship with God.

Our faith is based on the signs and wonders, the miracles that we have seen in our lives. The moments where there was no other answer but, “there is a God”. This is what we know to be true, and if we want to take it further, science proves His existence. What I’m saying is, as Christians we live a life that is based on faith. #FaithBasedLiving We put our trust and confidence in God because time and time again He has shown us His faithfulness. I know we have all had moments in our lives where things didn’t go as planned they actually went better. We’ve all had those jaw-dropping moments that left us speechless, and eluding to the fact that God did it. What I’m saying here is if  we are going to serve God we must have faith. Without faith we can do nothing. If we do not believe in a true and living God how are we going to expect Him to do something in our lives. Better yet how can we expect to have a relationship with God if we do not have faith in Him. We talk about faith a lot, but we’ve never talked about it in this context. The basics of Christianity is faith. We start a relationship with God by declaring that we believe. Faith is what bridges the gap between man and God.

Often times I am asked, “What do I have to do to become a Christian?” The simple answer is have faith. Have faith that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and that He was resurrected three days later. Not just saying these things but believing them in our hearts. We must have a heart full of faith in God, it’s what allows us to draw closer to Him, it allows us to have a relationship with Him. Faith allows us to persevere.  It is everything we need in order to serve God.

All this to say, faith is the answer. It is the foundation of our lives as Christians, it all starts because we choose to believe in the living God and we make that decision daily.  

Response/Prayer Time

Take the time to respond in whatever way you feel led. Have a conversation with God about faith, and thank Him that He is so faithful and wonderful.

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 300!!!

Day 292: This Beautiful Image

Psalms 23

1The Lord is my shepherd;

   I have all that I need.

2 He lets me rest in green meadows;

   he leads me beside peaceful streams.

3     He renews my strength.

He guides me along right paths,

   bringing honor to his name.

4 Even when I walk

   through the darkest valley,

I will not be afraid,

   for you are close beside me.

Your rod and your staff

   protect and comfort me.

5 You prepare a feast for me

   in the presence of my enemies.

You honor me by anointing my head with oil.

   My cup overflows with blessings.

6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me

   all the days of my life,

and I will live in the house of the Lord

   forever.

I just want to talk about this beautiful image that David paints in the world renowned passage. We all know Psalms 23 or have heard it or read it somewhere. It is a very famous passage, but it was not until recently that I found myself taken by the beauty of this passage. We serve a God who does great things, and is always faithful. I think one of the things we can attribute to God is beautiful. Everything He is, everything He does, is beautiful. Beautiful beyond words. My favorite moments are the ones when I can just take in the beauty of God’s creation, take in the beauty that He is, and carry that with me. It feels so good, it’s a feeling that cannot be described.

I talk about this beauty because I think this passage has that. From the words that are beautifully written but most importantly the message. From the first verse to the sixth, the message here is awe inspiring. I’m going to do a verse by verse breakdown, because I want you to experience the beauty of this message as well.

We have everything we need because the Lord is our shepherd. Everything we could ever need is in our God. As long as we follow Him we will have it all.

God gives us rest. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a meadow or been in one but they are so beautiful and so relaxing. It’s like this large open field of grass, that just makes you want to relax when you see a picture of it. Then the scripture goes on to say that God leads us beside peaceful streams. I think this a testament of what it is like to walk with God. It’s a beautiful life. Not everyone is resting in meadows and walking beside peaceful streams. But this is where God takes His people.

Verse three talks about His strength. God renews our strength. He is constantly pouring into us. The more God pours into the more glory is brought to His name. God give us strength in every moment of our lives. Our lives will always bring glory to His name.

Walking with God means that there is no place for fear. Even when we are in our darkest moments, God is right there with us leading us through. He comforts us when we need it. He is right there protecting us, going to battle for us and destroying anything that will try to harm us. I wonder how many times God has intercepted an attack from satan. An attack that never reached us because God goes before us to clear the path.

Verse five, God does a much better job at handling our enemies than we do. God honors us in the presence of everyone who was against us. He pour so much into us that our cup overflows. God will pour out blessings, on blessings, on blessing upon His people. That’s how much He loves us, He will give us more than we ask for. Walking with God brings some pretty hefty rewards.

We will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Yes, serving God brings some hefty blessing but none can compare to eternity with Him. Nothing can compare to the Joy and peace we have in Him. It says goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life. God is in constant pursuit of our hearts. He is good, and His love is unfailing. This is the type of love that pursues. God wants us to know of His goodness and for us to experience His unfailing love. It is so beautiful how great He is.

All this to say, God is beautiful. He paints these beautiful images with His word, but going beyond that, God is just so beautiful. I mean He did create beauty. Everything He touches is beautiful, all things from God are beauty. I just want us to dwell in that beauty. Live in it. Life is beautiful because God is beautiful.

Reflection/Prayer Time

Take the time to go over Psalms 23, reread it again, and take in the beauty of this message, and the beauty of the image that is being painted with these words. Take that with you as you pray today. Have a conversation with God about what we discussed today. Take the time to praise Him and thank Him that He makes all things beautiful.

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 293!

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 42: God Knows My Heart

“I know what I’m doing is wrong but God knows my heart.”

“I don’t go to church, God knows my heart.”

“I’m not perfect, God knows my heart.”

How many times have we used the phrase, “God knows my heart.” as an excuse to do what we want, or get out of something we don’t want. Most likely when your grandmother asks when you're going to get your life right with Christ and start going to church again. I grew up hearing this from my older cousins and siblings, this statement only came up when we were on the topic of church, or being a Christian.

Jeremiah 17:9-10

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?  “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Proverbs  2:12

“Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.”

1 Kings 8:34

“You know what is in everyone’s heart. So from your home in heaven answer their prayers, according to the way they live and what is in their hearts.”

It is very true that God knows our heart, every inch of it, He sees. He knows the good, bad, the beautiful and the ugly that comes from these hearts of ours. Today we will address this overused statement and take it a bit further.

The heart is tricky, and can deceive us into thinking that we are always right because we feel it in our our hearts. I’m just going to do what my heart is telling me to do, because I know that would be right. Sometimes the heart is wrong. We are flawed human beings and our hearts do not always steer us in the right direction, especially when we are not firmly planted in the Christ. One of the reasons, David is called a man after God’s own heart is because He abandoned the desires of His own heart to submit to the desires and the heart of God. He sought after the perfect heart, in the perfect man. Our hearts are not always pure, our hearts hold anger, grudges, pain, deceit, violence but God’s heart is pure. In Psalms 51:10 David says, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”  I think David knew that His heart as is would continue to lead him down the path of sin, so He asked God to purify it, remove everything from my heart that is not like you. God knows our hearts, and He knows it’s not like His.

Do we really understand the depth of the statement, “God knows my heart”? To flip it on it’s head, it does not always have to be an excuse to our sin. God knows our potential, and He gives us a heart that will eventually look like His. God knows the person we are, because He made us. God knows us who we are, and He sees the greatness in us when no one else can. God knows how beautiful our hearts are, when we submit them to Him. Some people will choose to see the bad in us, but God judges the heart.

Sometimes we will go through periods where people don’t understand us, or they do not understand why we are doing things certain way. Sometimes people can’t understand how we are doing God’s will in the field we are in.  

As an actress who left acting for ministry and then stepped down from ministry to go back to acting I identify with this so much. Because of the career that I have chosen, and the field I am in people don’t understand why I would “give up” ministry to go into a “secular field”. Which is very off putting, because they act as if I have given up on God. I find myself trying to explain that I'm still a Christian rather than why I chose to be an actress. It feels so weird, I find myself trying to prove that I still have a heart for God, and always will. But God knows that, He placed this heart within me.

-Dyamond

But God knows that even no matter where we are as long as we are firm in our faith, and rooted in Christ our hearts will forever be lost in Him.

God knows the condition of every heart, and He knows how to heal every heart. The worst person in the world can have a complete turn around because they allowed Christ into their heart, but because of the their past people will never take the chance to get to see their true heart, but God does.  

God knows the honesty of our hearts, the depths of our hearts, He knows the scars on our hearts, and the weights that lie heavy on them. God looks at the one thing that man looks past, He pays very close attention to our hearts and the condition of them.. We can look one way to people and look completely different to God because He sees our heart, and He judges us according to what is in our hearts.

Reflection

1. What resonated with you the most today?
2. How often have you found yourself saying the statement, "God knows my heart" or something similar? Did you use it as as excuse? When did you use it and in what context?

Prayer Time

Read over the passages talked about today and ask God to search your heart. Pray the prayer David prayed in Psalms 51:10 “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Repeat this and allow God to change your heart. Know that His heart is greater than ours, and that he can remove anything that is keeping us back from Him. God wants our hearts, He can handle them better than we can.