10 Steps for New and Growing Christians

Faith – Elevators Can Let You Down

The second out of the ten steps from Living Waters regarding new or growing Christians is “Faith.” The online dictionary defines faith as: (confidence or trust in a person or thing.) It is true we have faith everyday in everything we do. Sitting here right now on vacation, I have faith my 19 month old son, who is dancing and playing on the couch will not fall off on his head. I also have faith that my wife who is still sleeping, much needed sleep I might add (she is a wonderful wife who works so hard at being a stay at home mom) will be getting up soon to help poor daddy :)

We cannot grow in God without faith, we cannot find salvation in God without faith, and the truth is we can never experience what God truly wants from us without faith in Him. I hope you enjoy the second out of ten steps of “New and Growing Christians.”



Faith

When a young man once looked at me and said, "I find it hard to believe some of the things in the Bible," I smiled and asked, "What's your name?" When he said, "Paul," I casually answered, "I don't believe you." He looked at me questioningly. I repeated, "What's your name?" Again he said, "Paul," and again I answered, "I don't believe you." Then I asked, "Where do you live?" When he told me, I said, "I don't believe that either." You should have seen his reaction. He was angry. I said, "You look a little upset. Do you know why? You're upset because I didn't believe what you told me. If you tell me that your name is Paul, and I say, 'I don't believe you,' it means that I think you are a liar. You are trying to deceive me by telling me your name is Paul, when it's not." Then I told him that if he, a mere man, felt insulted by my lack of faith in his word, how much more does he insult Almighty God by refusing to believe His Word. In doing so, he was saying that God isn't worth trusting -- that He is a liar and a deceiver. The Bible says, "He who does not believe God has made Him a liar," (1 John 5:10). It also says, "Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief. . ." (Hebrews 3:12). Martin Luther said, "What greater insult . . . can there be to God, than not to believe His promises."

I have heard people say, "But I just find it hard to have faith in God," not realizing the implications of their words. These are the same people who often believe the weather forecast, believe the newspapers, and trust their lives to a pilot they have never seen whenever they fly in a plane. We exercise faith every day. We trust our car's brakes. We trust our history books, our medical books, and we trust elevators. Yet elevators can let us down. History books can be wrong. Planes can crash. How much more then should we trust the sure and true promises of Almighty God. He will never let us down . . . if we trust Him.

I have often heard cynics say, "The Bible is full of mistakes." It is. The first mistake was when man rejected God, and the Scriptures show men and women making the same tragic mistake again and again. It's also full of what seem to be contradictions. For example, the Scriptures tell us "with God, nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37). We are told that there is nothing Almighty God can't do. Yet we are also told that it is "impossible for God to lie" (Hebrews 6:18). So there is something God cannot do! There's an obvious "mistake" in the Bible. The answer to this dilemma is to be found in the lowly worm.

Do you know that it would be impossible for me to eat worms, although I have seen it done. I once saw a man on TV butter his toast, then pour on a can of live, fat, wriggling, blood-filled worms. He carefully took a knife and fork, cut into his moving meal, and ate it. It made me feel sick. It was disgusting. The thought of chewing cold, live worms is so repulsive, so distasteful, I can candidly say it would be impossible for me to eat them, even though I have seen it done. It is so abhorrent, I draw on the strength of the word "impossible" to substantiate my claim.

Lying, deception, bearing false witness, etc., is so repulsive to God, so disgusting to Him, so against His holy character, that the Scriptures draw on the strength of the word "impossible" to substantiate the claim. He cannot, could not, and would not lie.

That means that in a world where we are continually let down, we can totally rely on, trust in, and count on His promises. They are sure, certain, indisputable, true, trustworthy, reliable, faithful, unfailing, dependable, steadfast, and an anchor for the soul. In other words, you can truly believe them, and because of that, you can throw yourself blindfolded and without reserve, into His mighty hands. He will never, ever, let you down. Do you believe that?

10 Steps for New and Growing Christians

Over the next couple of days I will be posting 10 steps for new and growing christians from the living waters website. My prayer is that as I examine my walk with Christ using these 10 steps you will do the same.

The first step is "Daily Bible Reading." This is something that the Lord has weighed heavy on my heart over the last few weeks about feeding on His word daily. A couple of steps I recommend about reading God's word daily are - First make sure to have a couple of different Bibles, so you can have one where you do quiet time and maybe another next to your bed. Second buy a small New Testament Bible to keep in your car. Make sure to keep the Bible out in the open so you can see it in plain view. The reason I recommend these two steps is that Satan will attack you for trying to commit to reading God's word daily, so having multiple Bibles around will help remind us to read it. The time invested or amount of scripture reading is not really that important. The important thing is being faithful to feed on His word ever day without fail, seeking God and truth.

One last thing before I post the article. Pray. Pray that God would put a desire in your heart to want to feed on His word daily without fail. We should seek God with mind, heart, soul and strength, and I believe a great place to start is in His Word.

Daily Bible Reading

A healthy baby has a healthy appetite. If you have truly been "born" of the Spirit of God, you will have a healthy appetite. The Bible says, "As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby," (1 Peter 2:2). Feed yourself every day without fail. Job said, "I have treasured the words of His mouth More than my necessary food," (Job 23:12). The more you eat, the quicker you will grow, and the less bruising you will have. Speed up the process and save yourself some pain -- vow to read God's Word every day, without fail. Say to yourself, "No Bible, no breakfast. No read, no feed." Be like Job, and put your Bible before your belly. If you do that, God promises that you will be like a fruitful, strong and healthy tree (see Psalm 1). Each day, find somewhere quiet, and thoroughly soak your soul in the Word of God.

There may be times when you read through its pages with great enthusiasm, and there may be other times when it seems dry and even boring. But food profits your body whether you enjoy it or not. As a child, you no doubt ate desserts with great enthusiasm. Perhaps vegetables weren't so exciting. If you were a normal child, you probably had to be encouraged to eat them at first. Then, as you matured in life you were taught to discipline yourself to eat vegetables. This is because they would physically benefit you, even though they may not have at the time, brought pleasure to your taste buds.

If God is so powerful and so good, why do bad things happen?

I found this over at the Lawman's blog. It's only about 5 minutes and well worth the watch. Enjoy!

Obey

This was posted on Ray Comfort's blog earlier and I thought it was interesting.

" . . . when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power . . . " (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9).

Note the word in the middle "obey" and underline it in your Bible. If you are not reading your Bible how do you know if you’re obeying what it says? Please do not take anyone’s word for it, pick it up and read it regularly, starting today!

BI-LO Center

Tuesday night Mike Styles and I headed down to the Greenville BI-LO center to do some evangelizing by handing out Gospel tracts and 1 on 1 witnessing. It proved to be a good trip with the Lord helping us right from the beginning. We were going to have to pay and park, but I saw a business associate who let us park at one of his friends place just a few blocks away for free. The Lord also allowed us to stay out front of the BI-LO center on their property and hand out tracts. The staff was very friendly.

The first encounter came right away as Mike and I turned on the sidewalk walking up to the Center. Right when we turned onto the sidewalk so did Esura. Esura was a young man in his mid 20’s who appeared to heading to a street basketball game. I gave him million dollar tract and asked him if he believed in God. He was very friendly and willing to talk, so we moved up away from the traffic and had a good discussion. He did believe in God and thought he was good enough to go to heaven, but really did not understand why he believed that. He listened intently while Mike and I took him through a few of God’s commandments and then he realized he was guilty and would go to hell. There was conviction in his eyes and he listened closely as we explained the cross to him. Although he did not repent, he definitely had a good understanding of sin, law, justice, holiness, hell, repentance and grace after we were done speaking with him. Please pray that the Lord will grow His seed in his heart.

Over at the Center Mike and I split up, each taking one side of the front entrance. We passed out almost 300 tracts between the two of us. I had an interesting conversation with Tim and Mark. Tim was kind enough to let me get a picture of him to post here, to show you don’t have to fear man when you are working for God. Tim is the one on the left...


When I approached Tim he was with his buddies Mark and John. Now John was a rough fellow who quickly got convicted once I started asking questions about God. Tim was very open with me, and said he believed in heaven and hell. When I asked where he thought he would go if he died that night, he said “hell.” This was a very difficult conversation and one I keep thinking John was going to punch me out. John finally got so convicted he just walked off mad with Mark, but his bigger friend Tim stayed and continued talking with me. Once his buddies were gone Tim seemed to open up some and take in God’s truth. Again I left him with a good understanding that he must repent to God and place his faith in Christ or he has to pay the penalty for sin which is death in hell. He seemed grateful when the conversation ended and shook my hand. Pray that the Lord will grow His seed in this heart also.

I had a couple more conversations and Mike I know had a few also. Around 300 people received a clear Gospel message. Please pray that the Lord of the Harvest will grow and mature the seeds of truth and someone from that night will come to God with genuine sorrow, repenting of their lawlessness and placing all their faith in Christ.

Who Kills More

Let’s briefly look at the killings that have been done under Christianity’s name. For the sake of space let’s just add together the Crusades, the Inquisition and witch burnings. This equals about 200,000 killings total. Adjusting for the increase in population, this would be like 1 million today. Do your research and you will find this number close to accurate.

Now let’s look at secular society (Atheism) killings just within the last 100 years. Stalin was responsible for around 20 million deaths produced through mainly mass slayings, and Mao Zedong is estimated to have murdered 70 million people. These two were done during peace times too. Hitler was responsible for about 10 million deaths. These numbers do not include dictators like Lenin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Pol Pot, Enver Hoxha, Nicolae Ceausesu, Fidel Castro and Kim Jong-il.

Atheism and Darwinism drove most of these for two reasons. First when you remove God you remove all universal morals and the idea of any ultimate accountability, which makes killing easier. Darwinism played a role in that the survival of the fittest and new better superior human race was the main goal. Just read the historian Richard Weikart and see how Hitler was a great admirer of Darwin and how Hitler thought he was just enacting a “law of nature” that guaranteed the “elimination of the unfit.” It’s safe to assume that without Darwinism there most likely would not have been Nazism.

So the next time some un-believer (Atheist) or any other skeptic says Christians are responsible for thousands of deaths, all done in the name of religion, just gently inform them of the above information and then move on to their conscience. Never stay in intellent of the mind to long because it’s a waste of time and like chasing a rabbit. You will end up going in circles and circles. No, move from the intellent (mind) to the conscience (heart). Remember God has written His law on all humans’ hearts. Gently open up God’s law the 10 commandments to show them they are guilty and then point them to the cross.

Are you ready?

"The trumpet of the Archangel shall tear you from your grave, and the eyes of God will burn into your guilty soul..." Charles Spurgeon

I was talking with a friend today and he brought up the end days or rapture, which got me thinking of the above quote from Spurgeon. What a terrible thing to be found guilty on that Day of Judgment. The bible says to examine yourself to see if you are in the faith and a good place to start is with God's law (10 commandments).

Here are just a couple of many things the bible says about God's holy law...

Psalm 1:1-3
1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

Psalm 19:7a
7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul:

Search Me

For the past year I have been trying to read a chapter in Psalms and Proverbs everyday. I have managed to read through both books several times and still see new things everyday. Today I read Psalms 139 and it really spoke to me. I have for the last 18 months been crying out to the Lord to lead me into His will and His ultimate purpose for my life, to search my heart and bring forth anything that is unpleasing to Him, so I might confess and forsake it.

I have made these verses part of my daily prayers and I pray anyone reading this will do the same.

Psalms 139:23-24 KJV

"23-Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24-And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

Books

I just finished two books that were both very good. The first book is by John Piper "The Passion of Jesus Christ - 50 Reasons Why He Came to Die". This book goes into detail about why Christ had to come and suffer for us. It is filled with scripture to support his thoughts and very biblical. Each chapter is only two pages; the writing has a nice flow which makes it an easy read. I would give it a thumbs up and recommend reading it. Just to give you a glimpse into the book let me give you the 1st, 25th and 50th chapter titles. Chapter 1 "To Absorb the Wrath of God", chapter 25 "To Become for Us the Place Where We Meet God", and chapter 50 "To Show That the Worst Evil is Meant by God for Good". If you want to grow as a Christian, pick this book up today here.

The second book was slightly different than Pipers book, but I could not put it down. 200 plus pages and I got through it in 4 days which is very fast for me. The book is titled "Out of The Comfort Zone" by Ray Comfort. This book is about Mr. Comfort’s life, how God saved him and how God called him into the ministry. The thing that kept my eyes glued to this book was the overwhelming hand of God on Mr. Comfort’s life. If you want to have a glimpse into the next possible revival from God then read this book. "Out of Your Comfort Zone" will amaze you, excite you, energize you, challenge you, bring tears to your eyes and make you laugh. I told my wife when I finished reading it that I was sad I was done. It was just that good. I strongly encourage anyone reading this blog to read this book. Get a copy here.

Well I have started two new books. The first book is by Francis Schaeffer "Escape from Reason". This book is proving to be a little more challenging than the last two, but thank the Lord it's only about 100 pages long. I'm in the 3rd chapter and it seems to be picking up some stream. See the link to the right for more information regarding Mr. Schaeffer's book.

The second book is another by Ray Comfort, "God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists". I just started this book, but it appears to be very good. You can also see the right column for a link with more information.

Why Me

During Sunday night worship at church we had a guest singer. As he was lifting up his voice praising God, this is what I jotted down in my notebook.


-Lord why have You chosen me to see Your glory, such a wretched sinner? Why Holy Father would you pour out Your divine truth upon me?

Oh Master of the Universe what do You need? Nothing because You are perfect and holy in Your righteousness, justice, wrath, goodness, compassion, mercy and grace.

Thank you Father for being slow to anger with me, a lawlessness criminal who knowingly sinned against You. Transgression of Your holy law, oh Father please forgive me.

God you have rescued me from my destination of hell thru Christ, oh how can I serve You. Lord my life is Yours and Yours alone.

Please burn into my mind and heart Your holy commandments and never allow me to forget the enormous price paid at Calvary. Please use me Lord.-

Early Day Photos

I have heard it said before, “Photos speak louder than words” so here is how our day started this morning. We only had about hour in half before the rain drove us back in. Its 11am Florida time as I’m writing this and the sun is already back out again. It should prove to be another great day…..

Zachary sat long enough to have his picture taken with Meemee and Granddaddy...

Zachary found this ball on the beach and it became his 10 minute obession...

We found this noodle to try and distract him, because the beach ball was to heavy for him to pick up...

Another toy and the surf caught Zachary's attention...

Daddy and Zachary posing for the camera...

Hey Mommy I see another toy I want...

Zachary enjoying being held like a little baby by Mommy. For about 5 seconds...

Granddaddy and MeeMee enjoying the early morning beach...

Mommy and Daddy had about 10 seconds to pose for this picture, before chasing after Zachary again...

On the way back from the beach after early morning photos; Zachary is facinated with the wash off water hose...

After changing out of our picture clothes we headed back down to the beach. Anyone up for a boat ride...

Surfs up...

The rain came and forced us from the beach. Zachary had fun playing in the puddles on the way back to the condo...

Foooooood!!!!!!