Category Archives: Healthy Faith

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What does it Mean that ‘God Makes us New?’

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Living with a new heart, new life and new status can be incredibly difficult. I often say that we don’t realize how much freedom we have in Jesus. The reason? We are so used to slavery, what is old and what we know. We know how to live when we care deeply about what other people think, when we let other people define us, when we let our guilt, shame and regret define us. We know those things. They are familiar.

Yet, we long for new. We long for what we are promised in Jesus: freedom, life.

We do nothing to earn this grace. It is given freely by God the Father so that we can be rescued from His wrath. What is amazing is that in Romans 5 we are told that while we were still sinners, before we knew our need for God, for grace, for the cross, Christ died for us.

So what does it look like to live in this new life, this new heart, this new status?

1. Remember what you were saved from. This is what communion reminds us of. In communion we pause and think about not only how broken we were but also what we were rescued from. Maybe a good image to think of is the road that your life was on and where that road was leading. And I’m not talking about hell versus heaven. In real practical terms, what did God rescue you from?

2. Practice confession. 1 John 1:9 says that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. This verse often gets quoted to people who don’t know Jesus, but 1 John was written to Christians. This means we need to continually confess our sins. Not to be made right with God, because that was accomplished on the cross, but to make sure there is nothing in our hearts that hinders our relationship with God. Confession is not telling God something new. He already knows what wars for our hearts and the brokenness we can fall into. Confession is to remind us of what wars for our hearts and what we need to fight in order to live in the new life of Christ.

3. Remember you didn’t deserve it. It is easy to think we were worth saving because of who we are or what we do, but we aren’t. We didn’t deserve it. God didn’t need to rescue us, yet He did. John Piper said, “God did not spare His Son because it was the only way He could spare us.” If you deserved it, it wouldn’t be grace.

4. Know that Christ’s death is your hope for life. We often focus strictly on eternal life whenever we talk about the life we have in Jesus, but that life starts now. Living in freedom now, bringing God’s kingdom to earth through your life in the power of the Holy Spirit today. When you are tempted to sin, to fly off the handle, to control your life, to let other people define you, remember you were bought and rescued. Your freedom has been granted. That memory, that thought, that mistake, that generational sin passed down, in Christ that isn’t who you are anymore. That, “I’m just the man that ____.”; or “I’m just the woman that _____.” In Christ, that isn’t who you are anymore.

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How our Searching Faith often Misses God

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searching faith

Boasting is a tricky thing. It is easy to think we don’t boast because we are down on ourselves. We lament how things don’t go our way, how difficult our life has been or even how God could never love or forgive us.

The other side is that we think so much of ourselves. We puff up our talents, gifts, experiences, our behavior and how great we think we are. We have been told over and over that we can do anything. We get trophies simply for showing up.

Both of these views of ourselves get placed on God and have enormous effects on our relationship with God.

The first keeps us from experiencing God’s goodness in difficult times. We keep God at a distance because of our brokenness, never experiencing God as Father, never experiencing His grace or feeling His love. We are so afraid of betrayal, so afraid of God being “like we thought He’d be like” that we don’t trust the Bible. We don’t trust the promises of God. We don’t trust that God always does what is good, right and perfect.

Do you keep God at a safe distance?

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The second keeps us from experiencing God’s joy and peace because we are always doing, always performing, always running, always making sure things are perfect, making sure we keep up with the Joneses in our lives.

Do you experience God’s joy and peace?

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Both miss grace.

Both miss joy.

Both miss peace.

Both miss God.

How we miss God.

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What we see in Romans 4 is that grace is extended. We are made right with God, not by doing something for God, not by being obedient to God, not even by believing in God (the book of James tells us that even the demons believe in God), but we are made right with God and experience His grace when we believe God.

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3 Things Habakkuk Teaches Us While we Wait on God

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At some point in your life, you will find yourself waiting on God.

It might be a prayer that is seemingly unanswered. A request for healing, physically or emotionally. It might be a request for guidance or direction for God, a look into an open door that never comes. It might be asking God to change someone or a situation, only to find that it stays the same for years.

The waiting is brutal at times.

Yet, most of our life is spent in the waiting.

Most of our life is spent asking God to deliver us, rescue us, change us.

The waiting can be wasted if we aren’t careful and we find ourselves back waiting again without learning the lessons or seeing the insights we were supposed to see.

Is there a point?

Yes.

Three things happen while we wait on God:

  1. We are reminded we are not God and that we are not in control. Instinctively we know this. Even the people who don’t believe in God know they aren’t God, yet we live with the illusion of control in so many areas of our lives. Thinking we can move people like chess pieces, simply toying with emotions, trying to change someone, manipulate a situation to our liking. When we do this, our heart hardens and we keep God at arms length. While we do this, God sees our pride and moves in the life of others. He will move in our life, but it will not be the way we would like. If you are like me, you don’t like to be reminded that you are not in control. Even if you know you aren’t, you will do everything in your power to keep the smallest shred of control to feel comfort. This again keeps God at arms length and our pride pushes him out.
  2. We are reminded of our need for God. In the waiting we are reminded of our great need for God. If you see your brokenness, you know that you need God. Yet, there are many times that we don’t like to be reminded of our need. This goes with the first one, but many times we like to act like we can save ourselves, save our kids or our spouse, that we can make things right in a relationship, make things right with God. This negates the cross and says, “Jesus I don’t need your sacrifice, I got this.”
  3. We are reminded of where hope is found. In the end, the waiting shows us where our hope is found. Often, the waiting is keeping us from where we want to be, where we believe God wants us to be, the place that will finally bring us everything we have hoped for. A child, a marriage, a job, a degree, a scholarship, a friend, a parent who says, ‘I love you’, the completion of an adoption, a larger church, a home business, getting out of debt. Notice, none of those things are wrong, yet we place so much value on them, that without them we think we aren’t worth anything, we aren’t good enough or important enough. The wait shows us that “thing” while precious, amazing and a longing of our heart is really not where our hope is found. It is good, yes. But not the best, not the greatest hope of Jesus.