I want to begin this post with an apology.
If my previous blog posts have in any way caused you to think I am a “know it all” or “holier than thou” Christian who is always excited in the faith…I am genuinely sorry.
There were several moments in my faith journey when I felt envious of believers telling me things like:
“Yo fam, the Book of Genesis just spoke LIFE to me, God’s good for real”
Whiles I’ll be struggling to read through half a page of Genesis without falling asleep.
On the other hand….
There have been moments where I read short scriptures like
“In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth….” and literally freeze in awe looking like:
Truth is I am a Christian.
I have my highs and I have my lows.
This blog post is not meant for me to convince you how “humble” I am for stating the obvious (i.e, me not being perfect).
I rather want to give some handy tips to individuals who feel their faith has grown “dry” (for lack of better words) or have been away from the faith for a long time despite believing in God’s existence.
Hopefully you find these helpful:
1.Convince Yourself that God is not Boring
Weird I know, but really though.
I remember the days when I regretted and even feared coming to basketball practices due to all the yelling, running and sometimes embarrassment I would have to endure from coaches.
But the beauty and excitement of playing games and competing in tournaments for a championship kept me motivated.
In the same way, we’re talking about the Creator of the Universe here.
THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE
^^ repeating it for emphasis because He is ridiculously glorious (hence why “Boring” is in quotations in the blog title)
See my previous blog post for some examples on how incredible God really is.
The point is,
God is never the issue, but rather our perspective of Him that is.
Having a great expectation of God is never a wasted effort, he wants us to obsess over Him (Exodus 34:14).
2.Have Faith in God’s Promises, not your efforts
26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules
Ezekiel 36:26-27 ESV
One of the biggest mistakes in Christianity is when we begin to trust ourselves for our own righteousness and transformation.
God is the one responsible for our transformation to be Christ-like. Rather than having a
“I need to do good for God to approve of me” attitude, develop a
“God will transform me and cause me to increase in righteousness” attitude.
Your desires might not currently align with His desires at the moment.
But the good thing is, you can at least notice them similar to Paul (Romans 7:15-25)
Don’t convince yourself that “this is just who you are”. Continue to believe God for the heart transformation He has promised for all those who put their faith in Jesus Christ.
3. Walk in Faith
Having said that, if we think God is just going to come down in a shining ball of light and force you to read 5 chapters of the Bible every morning, we’re deceiving ourselves.
Faith has ALWAYS been associated with action, without which faith is not faith at all (James 2:14-26).
So what should be our intention?
We work, whiles trusting God to fulfill His promise.
Ok, so practically what does that mean?
Let’s, say you wake up one morning and decide to read the Bible but end up dozing off after 5 minutes.
You’re obviously disappointed, but you trust God to fulfill His promise in renewing your heart and giving you a new spirit.
You attempt it again the next morning, maybe you doze off after 10 minutes…maybe you doze off after 1 minute.
Regardless,
You still trust God to transform you.
Be stubborn in working out your faith, believing God to hold his end of the promise. The faith you have in God will cause you to be stubborn until He fulfills His promise…and He will.
A great example of this is when Abraham displayed his faith in God when He was asked to offer Issac (his son as a sacrifice). What’s crazy is that God told Abraham that He will fulfill his promise through Issac (Genesis 17:21).
In other words, Abraham had so much faith in God that He believed God would raise Issac from the dead in order to fulfill his promise if He had to! –> Hebrews 11:17-19
Continue working out your faith.
Read Hebrews 11:8-40 for more examples of faith.
4. Don’t Neglect Fellowship
Very early in my Christian faith, I was very arrogant in that I felt no necessity to surround myself with other believers. Little did I know I was doing myself a great disservice.
24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near
Hebrews 10:25 ESV
God never created us with the intention of being alone. As a matter of fact, the very first thing which he proclaimed to be bad was the fact that man was alone (Genesis 2:18).
The Bible is filled with instructions and promises concerning believers working together. Here are a few:
Have a family church? Don’t stray away from it.
Find a believer or two in your church who are trustworthy and can hold you accountable.
Looking for a fellowship in Ottawa? Click here!
5. Nike
Just do it
I’m not going to say much about this point, simply because we pretty much know what to do.
This is basically a reiteration of point #3 just for emphasis ;).
There’s only so much encouraging sermons, powerful church services and blog posts we can take in.
At some point, we have to actually move (Exodus 14:13-16).
I’ve been there and I can almost guarantee you it’ll take a lot of time, but God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).
Keep seeking.
Soli Deo Gloria
Soli Deo Gloria 