Walking The Walk

The only thing harder than quitting a bad habit is beginning a good one. At least that's been my experience. I've had a very long habit of starting my day off in the Bible and with prayer. My routine varies-- lately I've been studying in Romans. I spent about a half an hour reading and studying, and another half an hour writing in my prayer journal. I rarely miss a day. But it was a difficult in the beginning to get into that daily habit. But I've found over the years, it has become my favorite part of the day. I've got a couple tips I hope you will find useful in setting aside a little time for God each day. My first time is to start small. I mean it really small. Don't plan to spent an hour on it every morning--you're setting yourself up for failure if you start with an unrealistic goal. How about instead, just find a nice five minute devotional to read each morning, and spend a few minutes in prayer. Perhaps you could find a journal to write you...

"You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts."   ~2 Corinthians 3: 2-3 Think about that for a moment. You are a letter from Christ. Every day, your neighbors are reading you. They're watching how you handle stress, how you treat your family, how you respond when things don't go your way. They may never pick up a Bible, but they're reading the gospel story written in your daily life.   The question isn't whether people are reading your life, because they are. But what story are they reading? Are they seeing Christ's love, patience, and servant heart reflected in your everyday actions? I've lived in the same small community my whole life--in fact, we built our house on the corner of the family farm. Small towns have a reputation ...

"He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken."  ~Psalm 62:6 I talked a little bit last Sunday about how sometimes we tend to compartmentalize our life.  We have our faith life, and then we have our regular life.  But our faith should play a role in all aspects of our life.  It should be the foundation of our life, not an aspect of it.   But in a world of constant uncertainty, many of us struggle with spiritual doubts. We question God's presence, His goodness, or His plan, and we fall back into depending more upon ourselves than God. But this psalm confronts us with a bold declaration--not a suggestion, but a statement of unshakable truth. When you look at this psalm, note that David doesn't say God is like a rock or similar to a fortress. He states with absolute certainty: He ONLY is my rock  (emphasis is mine).  When David wrote these words, he wasn't lounging around the palace in comfort and excess. He was likely fl...

I didn't come from a family of church goers.  I found God through my best friend Jim growing up--his family were believers, and they didn't miss church.  I'd often spend the night there on Saturday nights, and you can bet we all went to church on Sunday morning.  Without fail.  And I liked it.  It was my first exposure to God, the Holy Bible, and the church.  And it was then that I became a lifelong student of the Bible, and a believer.  After six or seven years of tagging along to church with my friend's family, one Sunday morning when the call went out, I stepped forward.  My friend Jim's father baptized me that Sunday--that was in 1983 and in many ways the beginning of my life. I continued to attend that little church until I enlisted, and after I was done with Uncle Sam, I joined a larger church and worshiped there for many years--I was in the choir, played the piano, and attended Bible study.  Since then I've attended a number of chu...

His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?" ~John 9:2 When things go seriously wrong in our lives.  When we're dealing with a difficult situation.  When we're dealing with a tragedy or an unexpected emergency.  When we seem to be going through a string of hardship on after another.  Sometimes we feel like we're being punished.  Sometimes we feel like we are being punished.   When Jesus' disciples saw a blind man, according to the teachings at the time, they believed the man was being punished.  They asked Jesus if the man was being punished for his sins or for those of his parents.  And Jesus said, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned." We need to stop seeing things that happen to us or others as punishment and start recognizing that God doesn't punish us that way. Hardships are part of this broken world.  Challenges are inevitable.  But our faith is always strong enough to stand...

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.   For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.  ~ Hebrews 11: 1-3 Our faith is the most essential thing we have.  Faith is accepting Jesus.  Faith is knowing that the Gospel is fact.  Faith is believing.  Without faith we can't be called a Christian.  That's where it begins.  Accepting Christ as the Savior.   Faith is the starting point.  Faith is where we begin in our Christian life, and it grows as we mature as Christians.  And as we travel and our faith grows during our journey the greatest thing we can do with that faith is share it.  Let that faith that has grown within you change the life of another person.  Allow that faith that saved you, to save another.  Be the instrument tha...