living in Christ

Living in Christ is something that I hear and often even see all of the time. But what exactly does it mean? What is this mutual relationship? What does it look like? 

"The one who keeps God's commands lives in him, and he is in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us." (1 John 3:24)

The mutual relationship, living in Christ as he lives in us, shows itself in Christians who keep these three essential commands: (1) believe in Christ, (2) loves the brothers and sisters, and (3) live morally upright lives. The Spirit's presence is not only spiritual and mystical, but also practical. Our conduce verifies his presence. 

Living in Christ is ultimately what we are after. Living in Christ is how we truly know whether we belong to the truth or not and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence. 

When thinking about those three essential commands, some are a little easier to follow and obey than others. To me, believing in Christ is the most important and the easiest. Believing that Christ Jesus died on the cross for our sins is a belief that changes your life forever. Loving others is also extremely important, it's nearly impossible to live in an obedient life without loving others. Thirdly, we must live a morally upright life. We must do, say, and live in the right way. 

My one thing for you going in to the week is to live in Christ. Think about the mutual relationship that must be there. We must live in Christ as he lives in us, every single day. 

intentional results

Do you ever complete a task, and after completing it you feel like you could've given more? Have you ever worked out, and realized you still had more to give? Did you ever sit in a class and wish you would've paid better attention?

I know I can say yes to all of those. I say yes, because I believe that we really have no limits. Especially physical ones. What I mean by that, is that we are way more capable than we think we are because we let our negative-internal thoughts control the effort that we put into something. 

Everything is a metal game.

When I wake up and run 4 miles every morning, I don't get out of bed because I am a healthy dude who likes to workout. I get out of bed because I know how working out in the morning impacts my day in an extremely positive way. I know that I need to workout, and that I want to as well. But it's hard, it's been cold and dark in the mornings and who wants to do that? When it comes to my morning routine, every aspect of it requires intentionally. 

Every evening when I stop working for the day, I write down everything that I am going to do the following day. I have a list of things I need to get done, I have a list of meetings that I have on my calendar, and I also write down what I am going to accomplish. I look at that list all throughout the day. I cross things out, I add things if I have to, etc. But right in the center of the list is what I need to accomplish to get to where I want to be at. The middle list is always activity driven. I know that for my career, to build the business that I strive for, it's going to take an extreme amount of activity. 

What I have found is that by writing what I am going to do down, it helps hold me accountable. I don't want to get to Friday afternoon and realize that I didn't achieve what I set out to do throughout the week. Physically writing it down allows me to commit to what I am trying to do. 

Sure, there are weeks where I don't accomplish what I set out to do, it's life! I can't control other people's actions, but I can control what I commit to, and it's going to be the same commitment week after week after week.

Another area of my life I have done this is when I lift weights. I am not a body builder by any means, I want to make that clear. After finishing my basketball career in college I didn't work out everyday like I was used to. 2019 was a weird year because I felt like I lost a lot of the strength that I have worked so hard for. In the Spring of this year, I started getting into working out again and it was awesome. Although, everything was an at home workout, I was really starting to feel good again. At the beginning of November, I texted my future cousin and asked him to put me together a weight training program for me because there is a nice weight room where I live and we are just over a month away from our wedding day. I haven't had a workout routine created for me in a very long time and the first week it was really rough. I quickly realized that the only way I was going to get the gains that I wanted to was to push myself every set of every workout. I committed to making my last set the set where I used the most weight. This was hard the first couple days because I was weak, and I knew that I needed to do something that was going to fire me up. I have the workout in an excel document and I started typing in the weight that I was going to do before I did the set, with increasing weight each time. This pushed me like crazy because I didn't want to go back into the document and change a number to something lower than what I was capable of doing. 

All of those might have been pretty long winded examples, but I did that for a reason. I want you to believe that you will get the results that you want when you are intentional about what you commit to. I would encourage you to start writing down what you're going to accomplish. Even if there is just one thing in particular that you are after, just do it. 

I promise it will be worth it. 

Teach me your ways

Too often I believe that it’s difficult to ask for things and think in such a way that is God - centered. Everywhere around us we have the world trying to fill us with nearly everything that is the opposite of God - centered. 

This past week, I didn’t spend any time in the word because I was focused on an exam I took on Friday and to be completely honest, the only time I really thought about things that were God-centered I had to do something about it. It just didn’t happen, I had to be intentional about getting on my bible app. 

So how do we start doing things that are more God - centered? First, we need to be intentional, and secondly, we have to ask God.

“Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” (Psalm 86:11)

This prayer captures a glimpse of spiritual vitality. Two requests are made: “teach me your way” and “give me an undivided heart.” Each request has a God - centered purpose: that the person praying would “rely on your faithfulness” and “fear your name.” 

No matter how well we know and follow God, we can always ask him to increase our awareness and improve our obedience.

As we approach a week leading up to Thanksgiving, I would like to encourage you to be intentional. Commit to God’s ways, and ask for an undivided heart. 

Wholesome thinking

To live a healthier, happier, and more fulfilling life, I believe a huge part of that is wholesome and intentional thinking. Life moves too quickly, and things of this world distract us with thoughts that often we can’t control, simply because of how quickly life moves on.

Think about it, what was the first thing you did this morning? Did you get out of bed, wake up and start being productive right away? Or did you decided that the first thing you were going to do was look through your phone?

I know I did the second thing, I laid their for awhile then got on my phone and I was immediately having thoughts and thinking about things that don’t even concern me. That honestly happens about every time I look at it. The emotions I sometimes feel are just unnecessary and often not positive. 

Don’t get me wrong though, there are a lot of awesome purposes for social media.

Let’s push social media to the side thought, life still moves extremely quickly. We all work, have families, have friends, and things we enjoy doing. I have found that if I want to slow down and shut my brain off, I have to be intentional, and put in effort to do that. For me, it just doesn’t happen. 

So where does wholesome thinking come into play? I believe that we need reminders in our lives to stimulate that. When Peter wrote 2 Peter, he started it off by saying: “I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate wholesome thinking.” (2 Peter 3:1)

Writing 1 Peter simply wasn’t enough, so he wrote another book to remind us and encourage us. We need those reminders in our lives. We need to think in a wholesome way to live happier, healthier, and more fulfilling lives. 

These reminders can be the smallest things. For me, it’s sitting my Bible and journal somewhere that I see it all day. I also have a reminder in my phone that goes off every hour and says: “Have I moved closer to my goals?” To be completely honest, that has been the most effective for me. There have been times where that reminder pops up when I have gotten distracted, and it makes me realize that I need to continue to be productive and do what I can do accomplish the goals I have set for myself.

Yes, I was encouraged to write this post solely based off the fact that Peter wrote two books, just so that we could be reminded to think in a wholesome way. My encouragement for you is to start setting little reminders for yourself. I can guarantee that the more you think in a wholesome way, the happier, healthier, and more fulfilling your life will be. 

freedom to serve

I believe that there is a common misconception to the freedom that we as believers have through Christ. Freedom is a difficult word oftentimes...I think we treat as us being able to do whatever we want all of the time. 

Yes, with free will we do have the ability to make our own decisions and do what we want but that isn't technically the freedom that we have through Christ. 

They promise them freedom, while they themselves are salves of depravity - for "people are salves to whatever has mastered them." (2 Peter 2:19)

We become salves to whatever controls us. Like I mentioned above...to most people, freedom means doing anything that we want. But no one is ever completely free in that sense. If we refuse to follow God, we will follow our own sinful desires and become enslaved to what our bodies want. If we submit our lives to Christ, he will free us from slavery to sin. 

Christ frees us to serve him, a freedom that results in our ultimate good. 

My hope is that you will understand the significance of the freedom that God gives us. Nobody else can give us the freedom that results in our ultimate good. Don't take for granted the freedom we are given to serve God. 

keep it moving

As a believer, I always feel like there is one thing I try to focus on. Whether it's praying more, trusting God more, preserving, etc. It's almost like I go through a cycle of things that I am always trying to get better at when it comes to my relationship with Christ.

I am sure you might have felt this way before, especially on Sundays after church when your pastor preaches a message that really resinates with you. I always felt that when I was growing up. Especially when I was very inconsistent with reading my Bible, the only day I spent time learning more about God was on Sundays. Every Sunday it was like a new challenge for the week ahead. 

"For this reason, make very effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 1:5-8) 

Peter lists several of faith's actions; learning to know God better, developing perseverance, doing God's will, and loving others. These actions do not come automatically; they require hard work. They are not optional, and must be a continual part of the Christian life. We don't finish one and start the next, but we work on them all together. 

When we do these things with increasing measure, we will become effective and productive in our knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am usually ineffective and unproductive because I too often focus on one at a time. My encouragement to you is to do continuously work on these things together and you will be amazed at what will happen. I know that I am all in and I hope you are too.

My encouragement for you is to also be in the word more than just on Sundays. The more you read your Bible the more you learn about what you can do to be obedient to God and increase your knowledge of Christ Jesus.

your gifts aren't about you

Have you ever realized that Got gave each and every one of you a special gift? Did you know it's up to us how we use it?

During this pandemic, for me it's been easier for me to realize how I can utilize my gifts to benefit me and not others. There has been more time at home, more virtual meetings, everything has changed to this new thing we call normal.

Sure things have gone well for me, but I've really been focused on myself. On the outside, sure it might not look like it. I am also probably just being hard on myself, but that's because I always know that I can do better. 

Do you feel that way too? Do you specifically utilize the gifts that God has given you for your own good? I believe it's a common misconception. If God gives us this special gifts and talents, why not use them for ourselves? 

What I am quickly beginning to realize is that you can only make it so far in life serving yourself. If you want to achieve more than you could ever have imagined for yourself, you must start to use your gifts to serve other people. 

"Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful, stewards of God's grace in its various forms." (1 Peter 4:10)

I would encourage you all to remember this: our abilities should be faithfully used in serving others; none are for our own exclusive enjoyment. 

As we all continue to evolve into the new normal, I encourage you to serve. Use your gifts to impact the lives of others. It's what we were created to do. The number one goal in my life is that when my time on earth is finished, I hope I hear God tell me: "Well done, good and faithful servant." I know for a fact that I will not hear that if I don't use my gifts to serve and love on other people.