Where's Your Faith At?

We live in a world where we are taught many different things that are, in the grand scheme of things, inconsistent. Let me give you an example, every year, car manufacturer's come out with a newer model of a vehicle that is supposed to be better in every way than its predecessor or they'll come out with a whole new fleet of vehicles. What car manufacturers and their marketers do is teach the consumers, that what vehicle we have isn't good enough and we need their newest car to make us happy. The car we have now, doesn't have the best gas mileage, the sweetest car stereo, enough horsepower, the outside doesn't look like the Audi R8, you get the picture. You might be asking, what's the point I'm getting at? The point is, is that this world has nothing to offer us that will sustain our joy and happiness. Think about it, every product out there is supposedly better than something else.

Tony Horton, the creator of P90X is known for this extreme workout that will whip your rear end to get you into the best shape of your life. It was a craze, people spent a good amount of money to buy this product to look beautiful. Here's the thing, the product works if you do it correctly. Then shortly after Shaun T created the Insanity workout. This workout is supposed to make P90X look like it's nothing. The body you'll get by doing in Insanity will be better than what you'd get doing P90X. There's always something better out there, telling us that we're never happy with what we have now. The world's beliefs and messages it sends us is inconsistent and will ultimately fail us because it won't meet our expectations.

If you put all of you faith into another person, let's say your boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse, what you're expecting them to do is make you happy. The problem with that was that a human cannot sustain joy that you desire. They will fail you and then you end up resenting them because they haven't done what you've expected of them. That type of thinking will lead to heartbreak, trust me I've been down that road, it doesn't end pretty.

Jesus, on the other hand, the man that lived a life without sin, that came down from heaven, to earth to save a bunch of messed up human beings, by dying on a cross to forgive us for our sins, because we are separated from God, and through His death on the cross we can be reconciled with God. Then three days later, He rose from the grave to prove that He's a savior worth putting our faith and trust in. Here's the thing, He did that all because He loves us (Rom 5:8). Jesus is the way to live a life full of joy, direction, and love. He is the ONLY thing we need (John 14:6). At the end of the day, Jesus Christ is the only one who will never change about anything, His love for us far beyond our understanding, and all He wants is a relationship with us. Jesus isn't after our begrudging submission or our behavior, He's after our joy and our heart. (Ephesians 3:17). When we let go of wanting to be in control of our own lives and let Jesus take over, we'll learn that He won't fail us.

So what do you put your faith in? Is it the ways of the world, where culture teaches us inconsistent things, which are actually lies? Or will you put your faith into Jesus Christ who loves you so much that He doesn't care where you're at in life, He just wants to have a relationship with you, and follow Him. Coming from a 25 year old man who's put his faith into all the wrong things that I thought would make me happy, but ultimately left me feeling more alone, depressed and lost, like alcohol, drugs, and the opposite sex, I can tell you from experience and I tell you the truth, in love, Jesus is the only way.

Exercising Your Spiritual Muscles

After a long and well rested break from blogging, we're coming back with a bang. Hopefully, everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's with family and friends!

This week's blog is going to be about how strong we are and how we can become stronger and closer to Jesus in our every day lives. As some of you know me very well, you know that I LOVE to workout. I mean, I REALLY enjoy working up a sweat, ripping muscles and becoming fit. Some of you think that is probably slightly on the insane side, I say at the end of the day I'll feel 100% better about working hard and trying to be healthy. Working out, in the grand scheme of things, is a pretty simple concept, think about it, the more you exercise (and do them properly) and work on having a healthy eating habit, the stronger you'll become and the better your body will perform in all areas of your life, including immune system. On the other hand, if you never work out, don't really try to practice healthy eating habits, your body's muscles are more weak than they should be, you probably get some love handles and a belly on you, maybe some pudge right there around the triceps, and you're more opt to getting sick and to be injured as well when you do get physical. To me there is nothing more satisfying than seeing my body transform on a weekly basis (sometimes) to reach my goal; which is to have a lean cut body.

The same is also true for my spiritual muscles. If I'm not getting my daily dose of God's word and applying it to my life the best I know how, praying continuously, and even talking to other people about Jesus, whether they are believers or not, my spiritual muscles become weak. Let's unpack this a little bit. Personally for me, I love reading my bible, like, I freaking LOVE reading my bible. There is so much knowledge and wisdom to be taken from it, and Jesus has pretty good sense of humor, dude makes me laugh. I also love reading other books on growing in my faith. I thrive to learn and never want to be complacent in my walk with Christ. When I am CONSISTENTLY reading God's word, actually studying it and applying it to my life, my spiritual life will become stronger, and healthier. If I don't, it becomes weak and I become distant from God. The good news is, you can be as close to God as you want to be. But, there have been times in the past when I hadn't read my bible for a few days, and I noticed things; my attitude was more negative, taking my thoughts captive becomes nearly impossible, I'm almost a different person. I just simply struggled, some of the things that I fight the most, (like lust, along with every other man) became easier to give into. Now when I say fight, I'm saying I don't surrender to whatever sin is in my face at that time. A little hint, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, sexual impurity will harm your relationship with Christ more than you can possibly imagine, trust me.

It is very important to understand that if you want to have an amazing relationship with

Jesus, and other people, the amount of time you spend with Him, the stronger you'll become.

Like any other relationship, you can't get to know someone unless you spend time with them. You're

life will dramatically change the more time you spend pursuing Jesus. Another great way to grow

in your walk with Christ, attend church! The people around you that also love Jesus will have a

greater impact than you might think. If you're feeling distant from God, don't think that you're

supposed to be waiting on Him to blow your mind and life changes drastically. He might be

waiting on you. Know that He WANTS a relationship with YOU! And He is ALWAYS faithful! Allow

His love for you to draw you closer to Him.

Have a great week and I pray ths week's blog has helped! God Bless!