One of the things that many people struggle with at various points in their spiritual journey is wondering where they stand with God. This can look like working to feel and know God’s love, wondering if there is something you have done or left undone that is affecting your relationship with God, or even asking, “Can you or have you lost your salvation?” These struggles are real and can be debilitating. 

I remember in college feeling the constant struggle of wondering where I stood with God. I asked if this sin or that sin did me in. Looking back, I realize now that I didn’t have a clear picture of God’s grace and mercy and the power of sin. But that doesn’t make the questions any less painful in the moment. 

Thankfully, Jesus tells us some important things related to salvation and being able to have certainty about where we stand with God. 

In Luke 6 and Matthew 7, after giving what is known as The sermon on the mount, Jesus answers this question. Now, the context is critical. The sermon on the mount is where Jesus lays out what life is like in the kingdom of God, where Jesus is King, and we follow after him. He talks about what is truly blessed in the kingdom of God, which is different than the world around us. He talks about money, sexuality, judgment, and so much more. But all of that is in the context of following Jesus as Lord, Savior, and King. 

The first question a follower of Jesus must answer is, “Is Jesus my Savior, Lord, and King?”

Is Jesus your Savior, Lord, and King?
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Jesus asks in Luke 6: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say?” What is Jesus referring to when he says, what I say? I think he is referring to what He has just said in the sermon on the mount. Jesus says a disciple listens to the words of God and acts on them, does them. They don’t push it aside, think it was for someone else, or it doesn’t apply to them. 

A follower of Jesus is one who hears the words of God and does it.
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So, the first question we need to ask ourselves is, “Do I read my Bible and do what it says?” While this seems straightforward, it is easy to get out of it. 

• Think back over your recent times in God’s word. Has there been something you read that you didn’t think applied to you?
• Has there been a moment when you felt like the Holy Spirit was moving you to do something, say something, or not do something, and you brushed it off?
• Take a moment to confess that and bring that to our God of grace. 

Then, to help us apply this on a deeper level. Jesus tells a story about two men who build houses and get hit by a storm. One of the men built his house deep into the rock and had a solid foundation, and his house stood. This man, Jesus said, “Listened and acted on the words of God.” The second man built a house on the sand that collapsed when the storm came. This person heard the words of God but did nothing with them. 

A storm reveals our faith better than anything else.
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Take a moment and pull out a journal or a piece of paper:

• Think back on a recent storm you walked through. It could be health, relational, at work, or at home. Write out what happened. 
• What did you learn about yourself from that storm? What did you learn about God from that storm?
• Would you say that your faith was built on Jesus and stood the storm, or did it collapse?

Jesus tells us that one of the ways we see our faith is how it responds in a storm. 

A storm has a way of revealing where we stand and what is happening in us. It shows how quickly we turn to God or how easily we try to manage our way through a storm. 

A storm reveals where we stand and what is happening in us.
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The post What the Storms of Life Teach Us appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

Many times in Christian circles, we make God’s will into this mysterious thing that we are out looking for, hoping against hope that we’ll find it.

Yet, I don’t think it is a game God is playing with us. His will for our lives and our world is not a game of hide and seek.

It is right in front of us.

God’s Will is Right in Front of You
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Over and over in Scripture, we are told what God calls us to.

It starts in Matthew 28, known as the great commission where he tells his disciples: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.

What has he commanded us?

A simple way to figure out God’s will for your life.
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A few examples are to make Jesus first in our lives, loving our neighbor, if you are married we are given clear instructions in 1 Peter 3 and Ephesians 5. Same goes for parenting.

You see the commands of Jesus in the sermon on the mount where he lays out his vision of the kingdom in Matthew 5 – 7.

But, and here’s where we get off track, I want a specific plan for my life.

Oftentimes, when I’ve had someone tell me that, I’ll ask them if they’ve tried all the things I listed above.

The answer is almost always no.

I’ve done the same thing.

But what if, what if that is how we stumble into God’s will for our lives?

The post God’s Will is Right in Front of You appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

All of us build our lives on something.

And that something is the thing that determines what our lives become. The people we become, the places we go and the impact that we make.

The problem for us, is many of us never stop to ask what we are building our lives on. We keep going, keep pursuing, keep moving, but we rarely question, “Am I building on the right thing? Do I like where I’m going with this life?”

What life are you building?
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Joe Ehrmann, a former NFL player, in his TED talk said:

If you were on your deathbed today, knowing that you were doing to die tomorrow, and you wanted to measure what kind of man you were and what kind of success you had in life, it’d come down to two things and two things only.

The first is this: On that deathbed, you recognize that all of life is about relationships. It’s about the capacity to love and be loved. What’s it mean to be a man? It means you can look somebody in the eye and say “I love you” and receive that love back.

You know what the questions you ask at the end of your life are? They’re not about awards or achievements or applause or what you accumulated. They’re all questions of relationships. What kind of husband was I? Wife? What kind of father? Mother? What kind of son or daughter? What kind of friend? Who did I love and who did I allow to love me?

The second comes down to this: At the end of your life you want to be able to look back on your life and know that you made a difference. That you left some kind of mark, some kind of imprint that you were here. All of want to leave some kind of legacy behind.

You might choose family, kids, hobbies, career choices, vacations, and trips, or your 401K to build your life on.

What many of us find if we’re honest is, we overemphasize things that aren’t that important.

We overemphasize things that aren’t that important.
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If we’re honest, most of us have more strategies on how to make a career than we do on how to build a life.

Most of us have more strategies on how to make a career than we do on how to build a life.
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In Matthew 7 Jesus said,

Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.

What Jesus is getting at is a wholehearted devotion.

Jesus wants us to see the difference between merely saying something and doing something, between hearing and doing.

Jesus wants us to see the difference between hearing and doing.
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To help us see, he compares two people who build a house. One on the rock, the other on the sand.

What is fascinating about both of these guys is they are both building a house, building a life.

You and I can build something, really anything.

Let’s say you and I each build a chair.

How will we know if that chair is done? If it is completed and will work?

By looking at it?

No, by sitting on it.

How do you know if a house is built and will last?

When a storm comes.

What happens when you get hit with a storm in life?

You see what matters to you. You look at the relationships you have invested in, you know the faith you have built or not built.

Right now, you might be in a storm. Your finances, marriage, career, maybe one or all of them is not where you thought it would be. Life is harder than you expected. Right now, my wife Katie and I feel like we are in a sprint that we didn’t stretch out for.

In those moments, those places, you find out what you built your life on. You find out what matters to you.

Think about it like this, have you ever experienced a storm in life and didn’t like what you learned about yourself at that moment?

I know I have.

All of us can know the words of Jesus, but belief is a different thing.

You can know something and not believe something.

Belief is not required to pass a test, just knowledge.

Dallas Willard said, “To believe something is to act as if it is so.”

To believe something is to act as if it is so. -Dallas Willard
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Building your life on Jesus means that you do what Jesus would do if he were you. It means desiring that to be true of you, even when you miss it which you will.

The post How to Build a Life that Matters appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

Have you noticed that there are people in the world that are hard to love?

I know. Surprising isn’t it!

People disappoint us on a daily basis.

The people closest to us will often give us the deepest and most painful scars.

You disappoint people.

You will give the deepest and most painful scars to those closest to you.

For most people, we look past it, shrug and keep moving.

Yet, there is so much more to be had in relationships.

In Matthew 5:44 Jesus makes a startling statement, to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

What’s telling about this verse is, first, we will have enemies. We will have people who persecute us.

As I thought about this verse this past week, I was blown away by how often I’m surprised by this. We all are. But in reading Matthew 5, it seems like we shouldn’t be surprised by it.

Jesus doesn’t tell us why we will have enemies or persecution, only that we will and what to do when it happens.

Don’t be surprised when you have enemies.
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Now, some enemies come along because we make them and do something to hurt someone else. Some enemies come because of sin and evil in the heart of another.

What do we do with enemies? What do we do with people who hurt us? Make life difficult?

We pray for them.

Are you praying for the people in your life who are difficult to love?
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Notice that prayer and love are connected, so you get the idea that Jesus isn’t talking about calling down the wrath of God or thunderbolts, but praying as you would for someone you loved. Which means you’d pray for their good, their blessing.

Let’s stop here.

This is often the last thing we want to do.

This is hard and painful.

Why do this?

Jesus tells us so we can reflect the Father.

Have you ever wondered, What is it like to be on the other side of me?

What is it like to be on the other side of me?
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If you’re a follower of Jesus, the answer to that question should be, “It’s like being with God the Father.”

Can you picture the relationship that is the hardest for you? The person who is hardest to love?

Every relationship has a tough season and hard times, and sometimes those go on for a while. Things irritate us and hurt us — words, silence, and looks, distance.

Every relationship book will tell you the same thing, the way we keep intimacy in a relationship is what happens once something is broken, the next move.

What does Jesus tell us in Matthew 5?

Love, go the extra mile, do the unexpected, allow that friend to take advantage of your generosity.

What is amazing about all of this is that it is unexpected, but it is also something you decided ahead of time. They didn’t do it, you did. You chose it.

The post How to Love Difficult to Love People appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.