Do we go through life with the same failure to really understand, and live, knowing who Christ is? I think it’s almost better for us to have trails in our life so that we can see plainly our daily need for him in our lives. It’s an amazing thing to have someone that loves us even when we fail at understand him. That definitely isn’t how the world works. Thank God for that, really. We need to be reminded each day that Jesus wasn’t just some great teacher that we can learn from, he was the example for our lives and the only way to have a relationship with God. That is amazing, and we shouldn’t forget it.

What has also hit me this morning is that all along I haven’t been doing a very good job of simply choosing my attitude, choosing to live in the joy that God gives. The joy I have today is great, and there is no reason that I shouldn’t be able to continue living in that joy even when things seem rocky. Actually, my devotions today even talked about how Christ tested his disciples, and the question comes as to how I’m going to respond to his test, or tests, when it comes my way. Am I going to hold onto Christ and choose his joy or let the tests and the hard times bring me down?

Why is it that as new Christians it seems to easy to share about our new found faith with others, but as we mature in our faith we shrink back and find it hard to share with others? Not all Christ followers are that way of course. I’m not afraid to tell people that I’m a Christ follower, but I’m also not running around with an intent on telling people either.

Jesus made it very clear when he was here, either follow me or go your own way. However, we do see that Jesus didn’t feel the need to go around say “hey everyone, I’m Jesus the Son of God, come listen to what I have to say”. However, he did preach to thousands of people. He did go out in public and share God’s truth. One of the keys to Jesus’ ministry was the fact that he cared about people not everything else. I think that is where today’s Christians can miss the mark. We tend to get too focused on our programs and lose sight of the daily connecting with people. People, the relationships we invest in, those are what matter most, especially when given the opportunity to share what God has done in our lives.

This type of community is something I had an opportunity to be immersed in this past week at NTS Camp. It’s so amazing to live among a group of people that live real, and aren’t afraid to show their faults. It’s not about saying that our faults are ok, but purely the fact that none of us is perfect and allowing everyone to be open enough to seek the help of each other to overcome those faults. That’s what Christ intended for the church. We cannot be Christ followers alone. We need the help of fellow Christ followers to help us on this journey.

We need to keep in mind that when we are serving God, Satan is right there with his demons trying and stop us.

The next thing that I had to trust God for was how He was going to work out my relationship with Vanessa. I didn’t know 100% where God was going to lead us. Over the course of 6 or so months He lead us to deciding to get married. Now that we’re married we still need to trust Him each day to guide us in our marriage, but also guide our lives to be what He intends.

None of us knows the plans God has for us, but we do have the promise of His plans. That’s where are faith comes in, trusting God will reveal His plans to us when we are ready.

How are we as Christians living in our secular work places? I try to do the best I can at my job, however I’m not always good about making sure that I stand out as different from the rest. I need to work on being the guy that stands out, I need to bring salt into my workplace and even other places outside the church.

As Christians we are suppose to be living by Christ’s example, and he didn’t sit at the synagogue waiting for the people to come, no he went out into the people. He transformed peoples lives because he met them where they were at. We have this so messed up today. We need to be gathering together only to prepare us to transform the world around us outside of the church. God even commanded us to “go into all the world” (Mark 16:15), I think too many of us miss the mark here.

The biggest thing that we need to remember is that not all of us are called to be evangelists, but we are witnesses for Christ in our lives. We don’t have to be evangelizing in order to change the world, we just need to do what we are called to do as followers of Christ. Satan will do everything in His power to stand against us, but we have God on our side so we can stand against anything.

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