Seeking Life’s Deeper Truth

Today I invite you to celebrate with me because six years ago today, I started Life with the King. My first post was called What To Do When You Struggle with Faith. The timestamp is a day late, July 25th, for some computer-y reason I couldn’t fix at the time. I remember having a blog launch party at my house with a few friends and games and food and I was so excited, but nervous. I’ve been journaling since I was seven years old, happy to have a private place to put my thoughts. The decision to be vulnerable enough to share thoughts with other people wasn’t easy, but at the time I just knew it was something I simply had to do. And I’m so glad I did. Six years later, and I still know it’s what I’m supposed to be doing.

The idea behind my website’s tagline, “Seeking Life’s Deeper Truth,” is something that I don’t know that I ever explained, or intended to explain. Those who get it will get it, I told myself. But perhaps now it’s time to go back six years and tell the story behind that tagline.

When I decided on the tagline “Seeking Life’s Deeper Truth,” I had just come from the previous six-year stretch from 2013-2019 of seeking Truth after finding myself caught in a lot of confusion and outright lies that I had sincerely thought were truths up until that point. I never believed in Santa Claus, but just imagine what it is like to find out the truth about him, only you’re an adult, then multiply it by about ten because it impacted every single area of life, and that’s roughly how it felt.

To believe that being a Christian means you’ll be happy every day, to believe that you’re doing everything you can to live well when your gods are television and weekends and looking successful in your career, to believe people need to earn their worth and find their identities in the world…the list could go on and on. I believed these and so many other outright lies and was angry that I had fallen for them. Truth became sacred to me in that period of time. That’s why I now capitalize the word Truth. And I also now believe that Truth has a name. Truth means everything to me in my life and faith journey. The interesting thing about Truth is that this world encourages us to give up on it, have a strange avoidant relationship with it, or lose sensitivity to it just to cope in the moment, while compromising long-term peace.

Confusion is a specialty of the enemy of our souls. The strange thing about Truth is that Satan, as the father of lies (John 8:44), confuses Truth and lies even though they couldn’t be more opposite. And he does this really, really well. Scripture promises that this will get progressively more intense, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Can you think of any teachers or myths with influence being spread today?

The stakes are high, so high that I started a website six years ago to remind others (and continue to myself), that Truth is the most important thing, and it must be sought out. If we are passive and not intentional to seek Truth, we will be swept into the current of lies, so subtly we’ll never even realize it’s happened. I know because that happened to me. I don’t want that even for enemies, but especially not for you, friends.

So I fight against the father of lies by sharing about the Truth when I am given the words. Particularly for me, I fight against the lie of the ego that we are immune to lies. My old post called The Truth about Philosophy and Mental Health is an example of working this out in my own life. I’ve learned the hard way that we must keep our eyes on the Truth, or we may be subject to the wrong king. What would happen if instead of shying away from Truth out of fear of the unknown, we chose to embrace it? For me, it changed everything and it was more than worth the risk.

If we don’t take the risk, we may get to a point where we are told the Truth, and even though we hear it, we don’t recognize it to be True. This happened not only to me but to king Ahab in Scripture. He fell for the trap of his own preference, and believed the lies of the false god prophets, who he chose to follow over Micaiah, who was a prophet of the Lord (2 Chronicles 18). When Truth is clearly presented to us, how do we recognize it when we see it? We must recognize the importance of Truth, seek it, and keep ourselves sensitive to it, no matter the cost. Truth is always worth it.

Seek Truth with all your heart! There is nothing more important. That’s why Life with the King exists. It’s all about Truth, and seeking it for yourselves in the deepest way possible. May you find what you are seeking. Amen.

“They bend their tongue like a bow; falsehood and not truth has grown strong in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, declares the Lord. Let everyone beware of his neighbor, and put no trust in any brother, for every brother is a deceiver, and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer. Everyone deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves committing iniquity.Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit, they refuse to know me, declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 9:3-6).

“And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray” (Matthew 24:11).

“...they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Romans 1:25).

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to Life with the King, and like & follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing this blog. Grace and peace.

July 3, 2025July 3, 2025

Endure Until the End

It is a heroic characteristic to endure. If we are able to have the blessing of sticking it out in this life, we endure its hardships and suffering. But movies send the misleading message that right after hardship, things immediately get better and stay that way. Reality, however, doesn’t pan out that way. Yet, because Jesus gives us hope beyond this world, we can endure, and if we have the faith, we can also trust that Jesus will make it all worth it in His Kingdom.

Jesus said of the end times, “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:12-12). We aren’t promised better times; in fact, we are assured that the wickedness we must endure will get progressively worse.

Love must not grow cold in us, but must be kept warm in our hearts in order to endure, and we are warned that most people will fail at this. It is love that indicates our ability to stand firm to the very end.

Love is first on the list of fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22. In my own experience, love is not possible without the help of the Holy Spirit. I am keenly aware how much my flesh opposes love, a tension I’ve wrestled hard with; the world tells us we “love” each other just fine thank you very much, but the world’s love is not God’s unselfish, uninhibited, deeply caring, unconditional, eternity-enduring LOVE. The flesh, or the desire for self-preservation and avoidance of pain, gets annoyingly in the way of that kind of love.

To die to self is the only way to let the God-given, miraculous kind of love flow through us, and to choose to live by the Spirit instead of the flesh. As far as I’ve been able to learn in my journey, to deny the flesh and live by the Spirit is what we must do to be able to endure in love until the end of this age.

On days like today, my flesh wants to enter into the world’s system and way, and fight on my own strength from a place of fear disguised as anger and a sense of rightful injustice. Today I need to work extra hard to remember the Truth–that “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still” (Exodus 14:14). And that we are not of this world, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,” (Philippians 3:20). We are to seek first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33), (because isn’t that hard enough for us?), and trust that God will provide, no matter how bad things look.

A necessary disclaimer I must add here is that of course I know that there are those whom God has given the strength to work for justice in this world, even among the increase of wickedness, and they are doing good and necessary work that I admire and applaud. But anyone who works against the tide of wickedness and endure in love must be given a God-given purpose in their work, not of fear. It’s the fear-driven anger I feel that tells me that work is not mine to do. And that is the perspective I’m coming from it all with today.

Things are getting harder. But God has not let us be blindsided by this fact; He warned us long ago. And He calls us to endure. Endure in faith. Endure in love. Endure in hope. “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (Hebrews 12:3). To endure, we must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Amen.

Remember that out of great tribulation comes a promise, “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:16-17).

“Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord‘” (Romans 12:17-19).

“Therefore as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3: 12-14).

June 26, 2025November 6, 2025

Connection to Jesus

Life is full of distractions, and our 2025 technology seems to have accelerated them to the point of using our own brains against us, to keep us feeding on the unending stream of things being sold, joked about, discussed with reverence or respect, whatever package you prefer them to be in. The algorithms can pinpoint your preferences with all the research behind gambling psychology. We all have so much to contend with to get a quiet moment away from technology. But what happens when we finally find that quiet moment to connect with God?

What about when reading the Bible doesn’t feel dynamic and alive, but instead feels like a chore to check off the list? This is the point I recently reached, and realized my connection with Jesus had dropped out of the interaction entirely when I tried to read the Bible. I knew something was wrong, and needed to get honest about it. I discovered that when reading the Bible became stale to my overstimulated brain, so did my relational connection to Jesus. I needed to repent over the condition of my heart, which had become too cluttered to connect in the ways I’d come to expect or take for granted.

I’m reminded of the parable of the seed found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, specifically when the seed falls among thorns, but the thorns choke the plants. In Luke, Jesus explains the meaning of the parable to His curious apostles, “The seed [the word of God] that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature” (Luke 8:14). I believe we have, are, or will all be in the position of experiencing the thorns in our soil in some season of life. We all have to contend with how we live in the world around us that constantly distracts for gains, fear, and has no problem using lies to spread that fear. It can be easy to fall into worry or numbing with the pleasures available to us in this world just to avoid the feeling or responsibility for a moment.

But here in this same parable, Jesus tells us there is another way. Being good soil is possible for us through Him. Connecting with Him is available to us. To not be distracted from Jesus by the worries, riches, and pleasures of this world actually IS possible. Jesus tells us we will know we are in Him by the crop [of the Fruits of the Spirit] we produce (Luke 8:15). Are we walking in the love, peace, and joy that this world may see as foolish and naive but that comes from Jesus, who sees and acknowledges every tear shed on this earth and has promised to wipe every tear from our eyes? (Revelation 7:17). Are we acting in self control towards our vices by surrendering our weaknesses to Jesus or are we trying to control the vices on our own and giving in to them every time?

Many, many people are distracted in many different ways from connecting with Jesus, and they may even act happy about the way it’s going in their lives. I’ve witnessed many people that have convinced themselves they are content with the way things are. They like the game the world plays and get a thrill in playing along. But I’m not convinced, not for a moment. Deep down in their souls, they know it’s not fulfilling, lasting, or life-giving. It’s merely surviving, not thriving. We were all created to thrive, abiding deeply in connection to Jesus our Savior and King. Nothing else will satisfy. There is no other way.

So today, if you’ve been choked by life’s worries, riches, and pleasures to the point of aiming to please the world or men and not God, I invite you to surrender it all to Jesus. Surrender your life and you will gain it (Matthew 16:25). Friends, there is no other way.

The only way I’ve found to be okay with losing my life, is to take the time in the Bible, His Living Word, to know and trust Jesus. I couldn’t trust Him without knowing Him, and don’t know of anybody who could. To do that takes curiosity, sometimes desperation, to find that there has to be more to life available to us than what the algorithms deliver to our dopamine receptors. Connecting not only with our minds but in our hearts to who Jesus really is, is sacred. Not relying on who pastors or podcasters or friends say Jesus is to them, or who He should be to us, but who He is to us and us alone when we seek Him with all of our hearts–that is special and unique and where real relationship with Him is found. There, in His immeasurable grace and kindness, may we find life and find it abundantly. Amen.

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25).

February 5, 2021February 5, 2021

Freedom to Love

In my previous post, I wrote in depth about the pervasive force of fear, but ended on the idea that truth brings freedom, “… the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). My post 5 Ways to Step into Freedom in Christ goes into some of the practical details. Now I want to go into more depth about the idea of freedom, and why it’s so important.

Freedom is all about Love.

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5:13).

Freedom in Christ points to freedom from the power of sin and death over us. But that’s not all; freedom was intended to give way to a culture of love.

Somehow, the longer we are in the world, the more we seem to fall asleep to the fact that we are free. It becomes all too easy to only love those who love us back, and only love that which benefits us personally. As Jesus said, “what reward is there for that?” (Matthew 5:46 (NLT)). When we feel obligated to love, it is not love of our own free will. It is not love freely given, the kind of love God longs for us to have towards Him and toward others. Once we understand that in His great love Jesus has already set us free, everything can change.

Freedom is why I gave up everything to choose faith in Him—it’s the best thing I ever did.

I used to constantly chase love, happiness, success, and contentment. The longer I was striving for my desires, the more I felt that somehow, I was under their power—and I was! In a way, we are enslaved to whatever it is that our heart desires. That’s why it is so important to guard your heart.

God understood this fully when He created us. As humans, we were designed to be subservient to something beyond ourselves. God made us this way with the intention to only be subservient to Him, who never exploits this delicate feature of who we are. This is my opinion friends, but I believe this is the reason the first commandment prohibits idolatry (Exodus 20:3). God knew how He designed us better than anyone or anything, and wanted to protect us from the harm that serving anything other than Him would do to us.

From the Beginning, God wanted us to dwell in His presence and have intimate relationship with Him—and He designed us accordingly!

How beautiful is the vision of a life where we could withstand the holiness of God and experience the unimaginable glory of His full physical presence! This is what Jesus’ restoration of all things looks like—God, restored to His rightful, original place as our ruler and friend, the literal and only “owner” of us and everything in the universe. No more being “owned” by the world’s consumerism, alcoholism, pornography, money, drugs, alcohol, relationships, fame, influence, status, lies, most types of societal expectations, the list goes on, for the exploitation of our thoughts and feelings. Until He comes again, we are susceptible to these traps; “They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for ‘people are slaves to whatever has mastered them’” (2 Peter 2:19).

So many of us settle for being “free” to pick our own poison, fooling ourselves with this “good enough” freedom, convincing ourselves, “This isn’t so bad.” Friends, this is false freedom, and is not what we were made for. We can only deny our bondage for so long before our souls cry out. Being truly free comes when we yield our hearts, minds, and souls to God, the only One trustworthy enough to be our owner. The One whose judgment is impartial, who never exploits us by His power, and will never overstep our free will. He patiently gives us space to respond to Him in our own way in our own time. In Him, and Him alone, we are free—free indeed.

Trust God to set you free from your idols today.

He is able. He is bigger than even that thing that scares you more than anything else in the world. Ask Him to end your bondage today and for help to stop luring others into bondage with you. God expresses His love to us by giving us freedom from sin and death, and free will to make our own decisions in life. He will help you if you ask Him with a sincere heart. It’s no wonder we struggle at times to feel His love, His gift of freedom is constantly being threatened by the world we live in! This is by no means new.

God first promises freedom to the Israelites via Moses in Exodus 6:6, “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.” God wants to free and redeem us just as much as He wanted to free and redeem the Israelites in bondage. He is faithful, and will show mercy. The question for them, and for us, then becomes,

“Okay, so you’ve been liberated from your Egypt, but are you going to continue living in a mentality of bondage?”

We can become so accustomed to being manipulated by a partner, family member, or friend, being loyal to a particular party or denomination, being unwilling to learn the Bible for ourselves, listening only to other people talk about what Jesus is like instead of talking to Him directly, that our minds struggle to break free of those old patterns. Our minds can come to expect bondage and subservience and reinforce it, even when we are actively trying not to.

But, there is good news, friends! Jesus’s truth makes it possible to transform any bondage mentality; Scripture commands it: “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). We now know that even the physical fissures formed in our brains that reinforce routine patterns can be changed. Thankfully, God made our brains with neuroplasticity so those pathways can be transformed! For many, freedom comes slowly through hard work, not all at once. It takes time and intention to change our thinking to align with the truth of God’s love and freedom, but it is possible. Take heart and do not give up hope, friends! Through Christ we no longer have to feel stuck in our minds believing we’re free when our hearts and spirits know we’re not. He frees us fully and completely.

“***What does Jesus have to do with freedom? Everything! because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death*” (Romans 8:2).**

If you don’t know who Jesus is, I encourage you to seek Him. God promises that when you “seek the Lord your God … you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29). Luke 4:18 describes Jesus as proclaimer of good news to the poor, sight for the blind, and freedom for prisoners and those who are oppressed. Revelation 1:5 describes Jesus as the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler. But even as powerful and glorious as He is, He makes it clear in Scripture that He is a personal God who wants you and me to know Him on a deep and intimate level so we can experience the depth of His love and the gift of the true freedom that only He can give.

When we devote our lives to seeking and following Jesus, we are given the Holy Spirit. He awakens us and empowers us to be our authentic selves, truly free of anything that might hold us back in our lives. In the freedom that Christ has generously given, we are free to be the people that we already are fully and as God designed us to be, without being subject to the rule of anything but God, as He intended.

The vision of freedom looks like each one of us being all of our true selves.

Maybe you’re thinking, that sounds great and all, but it sounds too good to be true, or, I don’t feel victorious or free, even though I believe in Jesus already! Friends, as Jesus Himself said, “all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27). Our faith is what counts as righteousness. God did not promise a life of feeling good, He promised His presence and faithful love for us. He is with us, even when we don’t feel it. “In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence” (Ephesians 3:12).

Jesus allows us to live a life even now of continual restoration and blessing! In Him, we are no longer subject to spiritual death (Hebrews 2:14). All we must do is have faith in Him, and the full gifts of righteousness Jesus bought by His blood shed on the cross become ours, not that we deserve it, but thanks to His grace and love.

God’s plan will come about.

His plan involves full freedom, from a physical body prone to decay, heartbreak, and anything contrary to love; a plan with nothing more to separate us from Him. God wants all barriers between us and Him to be broken, as He has desired from the very beginning, and is working even now to complete this work. Nothing we’ve done, or the enemy has done, can stop God’s plan from unfolding, or His promises from being fulfilled.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:3-5a).

God carries you, as a Father carries His child, into a future of His glory.

I love to imagine what the fullness of God’s glory will look like, but nothing we imagine could ever come close! His glory is total and complete love and acceptance, boundless freedom and creativity, incomprehensible grace, and profound truth. His glory is endless worship and praise of His real and true name, intimacy and closeness to His amazing presence, and wonderful loyalty and faithfulness. He wants nothing more than to tuck you into His arms and carry you in His love and provision until the day when you take your place in the room He has prepared for you. To be fully loved gives us the freedom to love in the same way, and create the culture of love that exists today between Father, Son, and Spirit. God’s will and all of time are pushing toward this reality, no matter how distant it may seem.

The freedom to be in the presence of God is the most wonderful freedom there is. It costs everything the world offers, but it is worth everything and more. “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life” (Romans 6:22). We must not forget that there is freedom here and now in God’s gifts, not just in eternal life. Here and now, Jesus allows us to experience a healthy and truth-honoring transformation of our minds, to choose to walk with the Holy Spirit moment by moment, to love with a selfless and free love, and to have hope of the glory to come in life eternal.

May we be people who choose the freedom to love without limits.

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).

“Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves” (1 Peter 2:16).

“For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with victory“ (Psalm 149:4).

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).

Further reading: Garden City by John Mark Comer

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, and like & follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace.

November 11, 2020November 11, 2020

Guard Your Heart

I recently found the piece of paper that I was given at the last campus ministry large group service I attended before college graduation. On it is a single verse, a verse that I was told at the time was particularly for me:

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)).

At the time, at 22, I was a bit thrown off by this verse. What did that mean? What was I doing to make it seem like my heart was too exposed? Ten years later I can say,

I didn’t know what I was supposed to be guarding.

But, I wasn’t aware of how to read the Bible for that information at the time. The Bible seemed very removed from my everyday experience. Though I found parts of it interesting, I simply could not see how the Bible could speak much to my present day life.

Over the next six years, my life gradually falling apart, I tried everything else I could think of to guide me instead. The Bible eventually came back into my purview as almost a last resort, when I was exhausted from running into dead ends. Gradually, I had unwittingly done the opposite of “my verse” and let my heart be influenced by almost anything and everything else besides the Truth of the Bible.

The heart can be manipulated when you don’t know its worth.

The worth of anything can seem different depending on who you ask. But God, the Creator of all things that have worth, determines the true value of our hearts. To uncover why it is so important to guard our hearts, I first needed to understand, from God our Creator’s perspective, what the heart really is and what it is worth.

In looking at the heart closer by how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus and how Jesus quoted Isaiah 29 in Matthew 15, we can discover that in the Bible, the heart of a person is referring to the sum of their intellect, will, and emotions. It is like our steering wheel; wherever our heart goes, we will follow. The human will and emotions will surely wander into dangerous territory if they are not rooted. Jesus quoted Isaiah 29:13 which says, “their hearts are far from me. …” in describing the Pharisees, who had staked their lives on being the opposite! We must guard our hearts from getting far away from God, because where the heart goes, we will go with it.

The heart is so significant that it is what the Lord judges us by.

Every individual’s heart is precious and valuable. God made us this way. As our Creator, He knows where to look to see our true selves.

“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart’” (1 Samuel 16:7).

When our hearts are aligned with the Lord’s character–His love, peace, and grace, we are no longer so prone to having our hearts manipulated. Knowing God’s character is knowing the Truth, which sets us free (John 8:32).

If your heart is not planted in Truth, you will believe lies.

We see this in Matthew 25:24-30 in the parable of the talents (sum of money). While this is a familiar and oft-taught passage, I had never caught the fatal error of the heart that the servant made before:

“He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground …’ . ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? … . …cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness….’”

Did you catch it too? The error of the servant was not so much what he did with the talent as it was his misperception of his Master’s true character! In this parable, the Master represents the Lord. It was the servant’s false assumption about who his Master was that determined both his fear and his resulting behavior. His heart had come up with a lie about the character of his Master, and he had believed it without testing whether it was true.

Your heart is not the source of truth, but it can feel good in the moment to believe it is.

That our hearts will always lead us correctly in life is perhaps the most dangerous lie that pervades today.

We all need a guiding principle to live by, but if it does not align with the Truth of who God is and what He is really like, we will be misguided. Believing our hearts are our guiding principle, or that simply “following your truth” will lead us correctly is simply false. We are not guarding our hearts wisely when we place it in a station in our lives higher than it was intended for.

It is not popular to say that God’s Truth is the only truth. But, following a different principle only keeps us slaves to whatever lie we fancy most.

Our false beliefs keep us in bondage, but only the Truth sets us free.

The thing is that deep down in a really honest place, our hearts know that they are not to be trusted to the level of a guiding principle. Over time, hearts fail us. They misguide us. They lie to us when we ask too much of them by treating them as the source of truth. But, when we surrender our hearts to the will of God, putting them in their rightful place under God’s authority, there they are properly guarded. There they will thrive. There our hearts can align with life itself and be the wellsprings that God intended.

Friends, if you struggle with guarding your heart, I encourage you to ask for God’s help to test your own heart and see where you’re believing things that aren’t true, and where your will is coming against His. Trust that God knows what He is doing and that He knows what is best for your heart because He made it in the first place. No one knows your heart better than the Lord. Surrender your heart to Him today; you will never regret it.

“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

August 22, 2020August 22, 2020

Characteristics of God: Restorer of Wholeness

We might hear the message that we are whole and good enough just as we are. There is of course an important level of truth to that idea. It appeals to the best parts of who we are as uniquely crafted, individually beautiful humans; there are certainly times when it feels true. But we must be careful not deceive ourselves, either.

This is the first post in the new blog series, Characteristics of God, unpacking the questions, Who is God and What is He like?

On the level of our souls, there is a constant need in our brokenness that only Jesus’ work on the cross can fill to wholeness again. Who we are IS good enough, but only in Jesus. Inherited and committed sin leaves us in a state of brokenness which we simply cannot restore without Jesus. We were made for relationship with Him, to walk alongside Him in the Garden (Genesis 3:8-9).

God never intended us to be broken people in the first place.

The world has tried to make us forget about the consequences of sin. It distracts us in some surprisingly predictable ways. Worldly glory is not sustainable and does not satisfy. Only what we were made for, right relationship with God, can truly satisfy us. Who we truly are and who we were made to be by God is not understood by the world, which tells us only partial truths about ourselves. Pride and fear become traps that some cannot escape. But the whole truth is available in Christ, who sets us free:

“the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23, NIV).

The Garden of Eden was the ideal place that God carefully created for us to dwell in with Him. He made it perfect and holy. We do not have many details about the Garden in the Bible, but we do know that trees grew there and bore fruit (Genesis 2:9) and two very important ones were placed in the center; there was a river flowing from it (2:10), animals were allowed into it, and it was set up with an East-facing entrance (3:24). I like to imagine that perhaps God particularly enjoyed watching the sunrise.

When sin entered in, we couldn’t dwell with God’s presence and still live. We were banished from this most holy place. We couldn’t walk next to God anymore, as we had been intended for. We couldn’t talk with Him while watching how His facial expressions or His posture communicated to us as we now do with friends.

There was a time when God literally walked beside us.

After we were forced to leave the Garden, God’s actual presence (as opposed to a burning bush, a pillar of fire, etc.) was much more scarce, and His face was hidden from us.

But thankfully, we weren’t the only ones unhappy about it. Sin and all, God didn’t intend for us to stay away from Him. For one example, in Exodus, Moses and the Israelite leaders are allowed to eat in God’s presence on Mount Sinai, to celebrate the covenant made between them and God, “Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank” (Exodus 24:10-11).

God longs to enjoy us and give us a way to enjoy Him, despite the consequences of our sin!

Since we left the Garden, God has been working on the steps of restoration to bring us back to wholeness, culminating in the Person of Jesus. This celebration of the covenant, the Israelites eating and drinking in the presence of God, was a huge step in that journey of restoring humanity to wholeness.

Just a few chapters later in Exodus, God gives Moses the details for constructing the tabernacle. The tabernacle, though a movable tent, was precisely described, and it even was made to face the same direction as Eden. Like Eden, it was intended to be a place where God’s presence would be with His people. The tabernacle, designed by God Himself but made with human hands, was symbolic of the completeness and wholeness of the Garden (Ex. 26:6).

We lack nothing in Him; in Him, we are whole.

Because God’s goodness was enough to make up for our lack, His infinite goodness can even reach beyond all our brokenness and beyond every tear.

Even though we inherited sin through our human family as descendants of of Adam and Eve, through Jesus we are grafted into His family. In the lineage of Jesus, He allows us the Way to take part in His inheritance of life instead.

Opposite to the world’s system of give and take, in God’s Kingdom it is not about what we can do to get favor from Him, it is what He did for us in adopting us into His eternal family.

Eternal life is inherited, not earned.

We are no longer orphans in our brokenness, but instead we are restored to wholeness in our relationship with our loving, good, and gracious Father. There is nothing we could ever do that could earn life. We are fully dependent on God for our life and inheritance in eternal life.

He is generous to give us more than we could ever deserve, restoring us to wholeness.

It’s not about what we deserve but about who God is.

None of us who are in Christ get what we deserve, and that’s a good thing! He is generous to us even though we don’t deserve it because He loves us.

Take heart, friends; there is a special place for those who are desperate for the wholeness found in Him–a place that He put ahead of His own life! He died to make us whole and complete, not lacking anything. Jesus restores us and renews us not just once, but continually, every day, every hour, every moment. He prays to the Father for us, even now (Romans 8:34).

The symbols of wholeness in the Bible of the Garden and the tabernacle remind me of how Jesus desires us to be unified as one (John 17:11 & 21-32), as He prays to the Father,

“that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21).

As close as Jesus is with the Father, that’s how close God wants to be with us. He wants this for us and our good so much that He was willing to die for it; for you, and for me.

God went to every last measure to restore us to Him. There was, is, and will be nothing that could separate us from His love (Romans 8:39). May we take great hope in this amazing picture of God’s restoration of our wholeness.

“because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (James 1:3-5).

July 19, 2020July 19, 2020

A Closer Look at God’s Forgiveness

Do we really need to forgive ourselves?

I’ve been seriously wrestling with this question for five years. I’ve fervently tried, but I was never able to feel settled with the statement that I had “forgiven myself.”

The thing is, I knew I hadn’t fully. I wasn’t even sure I could. But I couldn’t ignore the fact that I am dust and just couldn’t shake the truth that without God’s grace through Jesus I am unforgivable, flawed, and hopelessly sinful. That is what makes God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice for us so incredibly difficult to comprehend. Offering grace to ourselves is not always an easy task, even on our best days.

Lately I’ve been working very hard on accepting the truth, even if it’s not pretty or what I or others would want to hear. Jesus had to come and forgive me; I can’t forgive myself on my own. Without His grace (upon grace…) I am not gracious enough toward myself to forgive fully. I can’t pardon myself from the sins I’ve committed or fix my fallen nature. I can’t absolve myself of guilt. Only Jesus can do that.

Forgiving ourselves is not done on our own strength, it’s about leaning on the forgiveness Jesus already offers to us.

I can’t shake the truth that I desperately need Jesus’ forgiveness. It is His forgiveness that allows me to forgive others, and myself. We are not meant to live under the weight of heavy guilt; instead, we are meant to live freely and lightly (Matthew 11:30). As He calls us to follow Him, He invites us to come to Him and accept the forgiveness He has for us.

In accepting His forgiveness, we believe the unbelievable, that what God says really is true, and that Jesus’ work on the cross really was enough. We are made in His image, so we all have the capacity to forgive, but Jesus teaches us how to do this. Jesus enables us to forgive, wholly and truly, through and through.

Through His amazing grace, we may extend complete grace to ourselves and others.

We can start to see ourselves through His eyes when we accept His forgiveness. And we might need to choose to accept it several times every day! Just as we have to choose to take up our cross daily, we must also choose to accept His forgiveness as we continue to make mistakes, doubt our own faith, or struggle to show grace to ourselves and others.

Forgiveness is a choice God made in relation to us. We do not have to do anything to earn it, a strange feeling in our world where so much must be earned. Accepting God’s choice to forgive us despite what we may feel about ourselves at any given moment isn’t always so easy. (I mean, did He see what I did? If I’m disgusted in me, then surely He is, right?) Wrong. He loves and forgives us unconditionally. And He knew that you were going to do whatever it is you did, but that doesn’t change a thing.

Jesus already paid the full price for our forgiveness. As we believe this, the Holy Spirit lives in us and loves us as part of His own family. This is the fact; feelings that keep us from believing we can be forgiven are not fact.

It’s okay to give your feelings time to catch up with facts.

It is not okay, however, to let feelings blind you to facts. The facts are that God loves you, Jesus paid the price for you, and that you are forgiven and free in Him. How amazing that we do not have to do anything more than believe to receive His forgiveness! And even more than this, His forgiveness empowers us to forgive to greater depths than we ever could on our own strength.

Yet, we are ever-tempted to give in to the false feelings that are not of God, of guilt and shame. For some of us, these feelings might be a comfortable place to be. But these feelings were never meant to linger and we were never meant to dwell among them. Jesus said, “...it is necessary that temptations come…” (Matthew 18:7). Temptations and disobedience will happen, but it doesn’t erase what God has done or who we are in Him at all. Guilt and shame must be dealt with yet moved through, for we are meant to dwell in Jesus’ freedom.

When God leads us through temptations to the other side, He shows us who He is, for He walks with us the whole way.

Not only am I aware that I am dust, but God is aware too (Psalm 103:14), and He has mercy for that. He knows we will be tempted to choose not to believe the facts and go with our feelings.

In fact, God uses even these temptations for His glory, “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all” (Romans 11:32). He gives us no reason to fear. He knows we need Him, and He forgives us for being human.

It’s okay to accept God’s forgiveness.

In reference to Romans 8:33, the ESV Study Bible notes, “Satan, their enemies, or even their own consciences may bring charges against God’s elect, but those who have come to faith in Christ will never be found guilty, for God declares them to be right before all the world at the divine tribunal.”

This means we will face charges in our own thoughts and consciences, and it’s not a question of if but when–this will happen. It does not change the fact that Jesus Christ cleared us of our charges and forgave us.

Asking God to forgive us, and believing He does, is enough.

Paul wrote, “For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law (Romans 3:28). We do not have to work and do extra to earn forgiveness. Forgiveness is not earned, it is given. He asks us to have faith in Him; His forgiveness for us doesn’t depend on our striving or achieving.

We don’t have to strive to earn freedom from guilt, instead, we are invited to have faith that we are forgiven.

In Matthew, it says, “with God all things are possible” (19:26). As we struggle with forgiving ourselves, let us take heart in knowing that we can rest because of who Jesus is, what He has done, and what He, even now, is doing on our behalf; “Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Romans 8:34).

Not only has he paid the price for our forgiveness, but He continually works on our behalf; we have no need to strive because of Him.

May we let it all rest in Jesus.

“God is for us, so who can be against us” (Romans 8:31)?

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, it helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace.

May 16, 2020May 16, 2020

The Family of God

There was a time when I didn’t understand what the family of God meant, or why it was important. I believed that you could follow God in isolation from other believers. But this was a pride-comes-before-the-fall kind of belief.

We were never created to live in isolation from our family, from other believers in Jesus. We need each others’ help on our life journey. While solitude with God is a beautiful thing, and some people can enjoy it for years at a time, living in Western culture and in a capitalist society, we need a network of people to keep us accountable, help us when we can’t sustain our own connection with God, and pray for us (Hebrews 10:25).

Finding a family of believers to belong to is difficult.

It takes some serious consideration, prayer, and discernment. And it often takes quite a long time. It can be a frustrating and discouraging process to find people we can trust to walk alongside us. But we mustn’t give up. God provides for His children. Also, do you find it as amazing as I do that we are called children of God, and called part of God’s family?

We are counted as offspring (Romans 9:8).

“He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:11-13).

When we are new to following Jesus, we don’t always know what to look for. We might be attracted to churches who do a lot of outreach projects, host a lot of events, or offer a lot of resources. But primarily, we must look for people who love God and obey His commandments (1 John 5:2). That also means we must be willing to be and do the same.

No one is perfect at this except Jesus Himself, so we must have grace for ourselves and others in this area. But our hearts must be oriented and surrendered to our love for God. Finding a family like that is worth the wait.

Is a Church Home Necessary?

We aren’t meant to carry our crosses in isolation. We are meant to be part of the family of God, the body of Christ, to strengthen, encourage, and inspire us as we all strive to obey God’s commands. Our family is a blessing from God, and something to respect.

Whether you attend church or not, it is important that we have a community to be in dialogue with about God, and what He’s speaking and teaching us. It is also important to support and be supported in order to grow in our walk. If you don’t have one already, I’d encourage you to start a Bible study with others who are just as interested in learning about God as you are. Make it a regular part of your life. Churches can offer and arrange these, but in some seasons of life, it may be more useful to start your own with people you know. Always pray and seek God’s direction with this, the same as everything in your walk.

Obedience

Jesus chose obedience to God’s will, which meant ultimately surrendering everything for His love of God and us. Obedience is not something to be taken lightly. Obedience brings blessing; it actually unlocks the promises of God in our lives, because in obedience we are actively demonstrating our love for God.

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (James 2:14).

Obedience can be at its most difficult when we are experiencing some type of suffering. As the Israelites in Exodus 5, we can be subjected to more suffering than we ever expected, even when our intentions are good and in service to God. What if, in those times of suffering, God is actually showing patience towards us as He did with the Israelites? What if as in that story He is actually allowing us more time to learn to trust Him with a lasting trust?

No matter how troubling the circumstances, the identity God has given us as His children does not change. No matter how evil the days, deliverance both has come and is coming! Take heart, our times of suffering teach us and form our character to be able to withstand every doubt to the very end. That is, after all, what we really need.

Remember that God is a good Father who loves us enough to give us what we need! It is exactly in these times that our family of believers becomes vital; we can lean on our family to keep us headed in the right direction when our faith is tested or when our suffering becomes overwhelming.

What it Means to Take Up Our Cross

Some days, the only reason we will take up our cross is because we want to obey God. We probably won’t feel like obeying God on most days. But it is a command. Thankfully, taking up our cross means more than just endurance of suffering. It means taking an active role in bringing life itself.

“And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:23-25).

God commands us to first deny ourselves, then to take up our cross, and finally, to follow Him. It must go in that order. The first step of denying the self, or the ego, is where we often get tripped up. We must die to ourselves. Okay, well that sounds pretty serious, right? Here’s the thing:

We cannot let our ego have its way while also following Jesus.

Later on in Luke’s gospel, he records Jesus saying it another way which I’ve found helpful regarding the act of denying oneself: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money” (Luke 16:13).

The motivation for our actions must be to either please God or chase money. In my reading, I also see “money” as power, status, and reputation. We cannot devote ourselves to both, according to Jesus.

“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” (Proverbs 29:25).

Chasing power, or fearing men more than God, comes at the expense of our very selves. It “masters” us. It becomes an idol. And it is something that the “ego self” wants all the time.

There is a reason why the first commandment addresses idolatry.

It is a pervasive, hidden in plain sight sin. This is why taking up our cross has to be a daily practice. We are called to resist the temptations of our ego every single day. Jesus is saying in Luke 9:23-25 that we need to let the part of ourselves that wants power for our own gain die and choose to fear God. These are two paths that will always oppose each other.

Again, it takes effort on our part every day; it’s not just a one-time decision. Taking up our cross is a daily act of obedience that God asks of us. We show love for Him by obeying His command to pick up our cross daily and follow.

As we humble ourselves daily, we can take great hope in remembering the words of Peter, that “at the proper time he may exalt you . . . because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7).

Taking up our cross daily won’t happen unless we trust that God cares for us.

God’s care for us spurred Him to make a promise to us. He asks only that we trust that He fulfilled His promise in Jesus Christ. Taking up our cross is trusting God in action: loving God with all that we are, loving our neighbor as ourselves, following the Way of Jesus, and relying on His righteousness as our own. We have reason to rely and trust Him, but it also requires faith.

Our family of believers can serve as a wonderful reminder of God’s care and concern for us, and also help spur us on in faith. He often works through the compassionate care of our family members who can remind us of His love.

What’s in a name?

In the Biblical account, Moses is the first one who asks God what His personal name is. He was known as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by the Israelites, but Moses asked what he should tell Pharaoh God’s personal name was. Names were important because a name communicated something essential about the character of the god or person.

I think of the instances in the Bible when God gives people a new name: Abram (meaning exalted father) to Abraham (meaning father of a multitude), Jacob (meaning he takes by the heel or he cheats) to Israel (meaning he strives with God or God strives), Saul (Hebrew) to Paul (Roman). All of these names communicated a core part of each individual’s story in relation to God and their role in His greater story for humanity.

When asked for His name, God answered Moses:

I AM WHO I AM, in Hebrew, YHWH (Exodus 3:14).

This can also be translated as I WILL BE. In the context of God’s call to Moses to go to Pharaoh for His people, the name itself assures Moses and the Israelites that God will be with them. God’s presence with us is built into the name itself.

God IDENTIFIES Himself as related to us.

What an amazing thing! God truly is all about relationship with you and me, each and every soul He created. His presence with us is part of who He is; He identified this truth as His very essence in His name, YHWH!

Our family of believers can be a powerful reminder of this truth and many other truths that help us follow Jesus. If you struggle with family, know that it’s normal. You are not alone in feeling awkward about it sometimes, even when you’re happy with where you are. But remember that you are part of the family of God, it needs you just as much as you need it, and it is a great blessing in this life that is worth seeking out.

Paul wrote that believers are to “keep [our] eyes on those who live as we do” (Philippians 3:17). May we all gather as a family around the goodness and grace of YHWH, His promises, and the hope found in His name.

“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments” (1 John 5:2).

“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27).

January 24, 2020January 24, 2020

Dealing with Pride

“what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15). Recently I found myself in a situation where I chose to sin. Of course, this was just one of the many times this has happened. Willfully sinning is really confusing, and more people need to talk about this; it messes with any feelings of pride in myself.

When I don’t feel right with myself, it’s difficult to keep hold of what’s true. My mind starts to crowd with these lies of how God is disappointed in me, is distant from me, and wants nothing to do with me anymore. How maybe my identity in Him was all just something I made up in my mind. This is really not okay.

In the midst of this pride-shattering moment, it became quite impossible for me to imagine that He could love me in spite of sin, and yet He does. In fact, He does just the same as if I had never sinned even once. Amazing grace, indeed. So amazing, in fact, that it can be difficult to accept at all.

Pride

I, like pretty much everybody, sinned against God simply because I wanted to do what I wanted to do. The sin of pride is and can be a wake-up call to look at and watch more carefully what goes on in our hearts and souls. My conscience was firing, my soul needed to get right with God again, and I had to confess my sin. I needed to repent all over again. After wrestling with the fact that I had followed sin instead of God, I realized that I was getting too comfortable. In my pride, my thought was actually that I was close to being past willful sin; but the Bible says that “no one may boast before Him” (1 Corinthians 1:29).

Even after I repented, I felt it wasn’t enough. I was still upset with myself. God had forgiven me, but I hadn’t been able to forgive myself. Friends, that is pride in a sneaky form. Instead of fully accepting God’s love and forgiveness, I was trying to shoulder the burden of sin myself. In withholding forgiveness for ourselves like I did, we actually think there’s something more we can do to make up for it. In not surrendering fully to God’s forgiveness, we try to take this sin of ours into our own hands. This is pride.

This is a complicated subject, so don’t mistake my meaning; what we do in our lives–does matter. Sin matters. One of the fruits of the Spirit is love. Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). We are certainly meant to live in a way that follows the Way of Jesus, who was sinless. In James, actions are called “works”: “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24). Faith comes first, for actions flow from faith–the fruit of our lives, but what we do and what we choose, matters. However, nothing we do can make up for our sin.

Sin

Jesus paid it all for us. It is prideful to try to make up for it in any other way besides how He calls us to–to leave our life of sin.

Willful sins torture the conscience of those committed to the Way of Jesus. They still can creep up on us, as we are still here on the fallen earth. We still are made of dust. We have one foot here and one readied for the age to come. We have been set free from sin by Jesus, but at any moment we can choose to step outside God’s will to do our own will and sin against Him.

Sometimes the only way to know what sin is, is because of what the Bible says. My own thoughts and feelings change constantly. My moral compass was shattered at the Fall. It’s hard to know the Truth about many things, and it can appear as though every person has their own version of truth. But actually this cultural catchphrase “live your truth” or “follow your truth” is saying that everyone has their own beliefs about what the truth is. Beliefs do not change the Truth.

Of course, what we believe is important; for more on that see my post How Belief is Our Most Powerful Tool. But I am saying that believing something doesn’t make it so.

Hope for self-hate

I debated whether to mention self-hate, but just like willful sin, I feel that it needs to be addressed if we’re talking about a life lived in freedom. Self hate; that point at which I mess up and I’m just disgusted with myself and how miserably I failed to fear God…yep, that was my week. Self-hate is a very real thing and I wanted to share that I experience this because I don’t think I’m the only one. I’m here to say that there is still hope, even in a place of self-hate.

Yes, we sin. But that just gives us another opportunity to talk to God. Another reason to repent, to put our faith in God all over again, and process what went wrong with Him. To let Him make something good grow in us that maybe wasn’t developed yet. Or even to weed out something that no longer needs to be there. He gives us all fresh opportunities to work through our sins with Him, confess them, and let them go thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice. Praise God that “his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning…” (Lamentations 3:22-23). Yes, you will sin, but there is always mercy available to you in Christ Jesus our King. There is hope because “a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16). Sin no longer has the last word over us, because Christ made a way.

Where our hearts lie can be seen through the fruit of our lives, but there is nothing you can do to separate you from the love of God (Romans 38:38-39). He longs to be chosen by us. He longs to be allowed into our hearts. He makes all things new (Revelation 12:5). Even sin. Even self-hate. Even the pride we struggle to let go of.

Humility

God is working on my ego in this, my latest particular experience with sin. Ironically, this is actually something I asked Him to do; I prayed that I wanted my ego to be eliminated, kaput, bye-bye. Be careful what you pray for! I believe that my failed test is helping my prayer to be answered. This experience exposed my pride and revealed beyond a doubt that I am no better than anyone else. That it’s all Him, it’s none of me. No amount of hard work, self-determination, sense of righteousness, or even how close I “felt” to God lately makes me a good person in the slightest. Only God is Good (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19). None of that stuff can save me or you from sin. Only Jesus can do that, so that no one may boast. Only Jesus.

Thanks be to God.

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness (2 Corinthians 11:30).

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Galatians 6:14).

November 13, 2019December 4, 2019

Repentance

Turning back to God didn’t happen just once for the Israelites, and it certainly didn’t happen just once for me. In my own life, I’ve turned back to Him more times than I can count, sometimes multiple times in a day. However, one time in particular was the start of a big change in my life. Admitting we are wrong isn’t easy. Yet in a sense, it is exactly what repentance, and in fact Christianity, calls for.

When I discovered this, I didn’t like it at all. It made so much more sense to me that I was fine just the way I was. That sin wasn’t a big deal to be ashamed of but something we learn to cope with. That I wouldn’t really be held responsible for sin, especially the inherited kind that I had no control over. Following this logic, it was easy to lose ground with faith, and I slipped further and further away from the truth of what God’s Word actually says about sin. After losing my faith entirely, living my own way, and believing these “comfortable” things for several years, repentance from sin as the Bible describes it finally became real to me.

One of my favorite verses in Scripture now is Romans 2:4, “...God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance.” While I was fully convinced of the merits of not believing in sin or God, He reached into my life and showed kindness so undeniable that I couldn’t ignore it or explain it away. When I realized that it really was God’s kindness, not some happy accident or coincidence, it changed something in my heart.

On the path of losing my faith, my heart had gone through a number of phases toward God; I became skeptical, then callous, then arrogant, cold, and unloving. I had been awful to God if He truly was real. I had denied Him. Yet, even still, God showed me kindness. Despite how awful I was to Him, His kindness was the only thing that finally warmed my cold heart. Only a few months later I truly wanted to repent, to turn everything in my life around and trust God instead. It all started with His kindness. His kindness led me off the path of faithlessness and onto a new path of true repentance.

God’s kindness can reach beyond all intellectual and emotional barriers.

The call to repent really intensified shortly before Jesus’ three years of ministry when John the Baptist began preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:2). After John was put into prison, Jesus moved to Capernaum and “From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’” (Matthew 4:17). These two major figures of the Bible both had the same core message! So, what is so important about repentance?

Repentance comes up quite a bit in Scripture. It is associated with baptism and life. In trying to Biblically define repentance, I found that it is to allow oneself to be corrected (Jeremiah 5:3, Revelation 2:21), to realize and turn from wickedness (Jeremiah 8:6), to turn from idols and renounce all detestable practices (Ezekiel 14:6), to turn away from all our offenses (Ezekiel 18:30), to (re)turn to God (1 Samuel 7:2b-3, Hosea 14:1, Acts 3:19, Acts 26:20), and to produce [spiritual] fruit (Matthew 3:8, Luke 3:8); it involves faith in God (Matthew 21:32, Mark 1:15, Acts 20:21), it is a command to all people everywhere (Acts 17:30), it involves Godly sorrow (2 Corinthians 7:9-10), it involves and is done in relation to sin (John 1:28, 2 Corinthians 12:21), it involves recognition of the truth (2 Timothy 2:25), it is something God wants for everyone (2 Peter 3:9), it is a sort of waking up (Revelation 3:3), and it can result from God’s love, discipline, rebuke (Revelation 3:19), and kindness (Romans 2:4).

God wants nothing more than for us all to repent. When we do, it unlocks our hearts to be open to receive His promises, His gifts of the Spirit, and His presence. He longs to be close to us. When I chose to keep Him away in my own life, I fell into the sin of idolatry, among others. God’s very first commandment to the Isrealites is to have no other gods before [Him] (Exodus 20:3). While I don’t recall having any golden statues in my house to worship, for me, idolatry came in the form of putting other things before God. The prophet Samuel spoke to the Isrealites about this;

“Then all the people of Israel turned back to the Lord. So Samuel said to all the Israelites, ‘If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines’” (1 Samuel 7:2b-3).

This Old Testament passage speaks not only of repentance but idolatry, of putting other gods in place of the one true living God. He wants nothing to come between Him and any one of us. He wants our hearts to be committed to Him.

I had gotten lost in the prevalent explanations that society offers: we all make our own truth, there is no one absolute truth, all you need to do is be a good person, you don’t need to feel ashamed of anything about yourself, there are no eternal consequences for anything, and there is nothing after we die.

These lies became idols in my life.

I had adopted them and they became louder in my mind than God’s still, small voice. I was trying to live out this new philosophy of life where I had landed, but I was still miserable. I was even more miserable than I had been when I wasn’t sure of whether or not God was real. It was all too much and I just became numb. It was a dark, confusing, and exhausting time. If you know someone going through a time like this, please check out my post, “10 Ways to Help Someone Struggling with Faith.” Friends, it is so easy to latch onto lies the world tells us; they usually sound good and fair on the surface. However, we must test everything against the truth in the Word of God. It points us back to the truth about ourselves, and to Jesus, who is our hope.

God keeps His promises. He promised salvation, and He keeps that promise through Jesus and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Repentance leads to receiving God’s promise of deliverance from sin through Jesus Christ.

God reached out to me even when my mind and heart were closed to Him, when the misery became too much to bear. It was wonderful, amazing grace. This miracle still astounds me. I finally knew without a doubt that God is real, but I couldn’t go back to all the same beliefs I had about God before. Some of those beliefs still needed to be changed, because they weren’t all true. Even though I had repented, I still had to rethink everything all over again. All I knew was that He is real; I had to just start there. I had lied to myself for so long it was hard to know the truth, but I craved it. The fact that I knew He was real meant I couldn’t trust atheist or agnostic sources anymore. He led me right back to the Bible for answers, a Book that I hadn’t trusted in a long time. But I trusted that God was real, so I gave it another chance.

It was a process to understand sin, and how it had cut me off from relationship with God, and that I had gone my own way because of it. I had repented, but then later after seeking truth I finally understood. “‘After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I beat my breast. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth’” (Jeremiah 31:19). We need both repentance and understanding to sustain us in our faith. I had to come to face the worst of it which was finally clear to me; I’d KNOWN God and STILL walked away from Him! Maybe some of you can relate to this story. Even still, all God asks is for us to trust Him enough to repent. Through repentance–turning from sin and relying on the salvation Jesus offers each one of us–He promises us restoration back to Himself.

I pray that you can learn from my mistake: you don’t have to walk away from God like I did for your faith to be renewed and strengthened! By seeking Him and the truth about Him, you can know He is real now, you can know He loves you now, you can know His intentions for you were always good. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Yes, sin crept into humanity at the start and bad things happen. Being a good person isn’t enough to conquer sin and death; only Jesus can do that for us. With repentance comes restoration. “Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them’” (Jeremiah 15:19). There is always hope.

God longs to restore us to walk with Him as He originally intended in the Garden.

Yes, true repentance will cost everything in your life. To fully trust God and walk in repentance, we must let our own logic about what is right for us die and surrender our lives to His way, “Then [Jesus] said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). The cost is great, but it’s well worth it. God’s way is better than anything we could dream up for ourselves. I’ve never met a single Christian who was sorry they made the choice to follow Jesus.

When repentance and understanding came, the nagging sense of meaninglessness and numbness in my life disappeared. I accepted the truth the Word offers about my own sin, that it is in fact a barrier to relationship with God. Jesus brought justice where I didn’t deserve justice. He loved me when I didn’t love Him. He made a way for me even after I closed the door of my heart to Him.

No one is too far from His love to be found by Him.

After I repented and accepted Jesus’ gift of life for me, I couldn’t just go on as I had been going. My life dramatically changed. I started attending church again. I made Christian friends and sought their counsel. I prayed as much as I could because prayer had been restored to me, right along with my life. I had a reason to live again, and to glorify Him in everything. I’m sure my family would tell you I cried less tears.

Change is evidence of true repentance.

I am still learning and definitely still do things that are wrong. I still need to repent of those things. However, everything changed when I repented of the way I was living and believing. At that moment, change really began. My faith in God is now growing all the time where before it was dead. God restored my ruined life and handed it back to me miraculously whole again.

Eternal life begins now when we repent, we don’t have to wait until after we die to begin living it! Jesus has truly restored all things, including a life where I can find joy despite the pain this life can bring. It all starts with repentance. May we all be quick to repent and turn to the Lord.

“‘This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…” (Isaiah 30:15a)