What About Faith and Doubt?

But he he really did a good job. I sat in on on the group a couple times, and, basically, what he did was, he he leaned in that we can make choices that would eventually lead us to this place called hell. So not so much what god is doing, what we would do, the choices that we were making. And the way I began to think about it, think about it myself, if I was to continue to reject the invitation of Jesus, if I was to continue to reject the truth of Jesus, the call of Jesus while I'm on this Earth, why would I expect to be with him when I was in heaven? [00:47:20] (41 seconds)  #ChoicesHaveConsequences

So, ultimately, I mean, ultimately, our loyalty is to Jesus. Right? Our loyalty is to Jesus. Our unwavering faith is in Jesus. That's that's what we want to have. That's what we wanna pursue. That's what God is seeking to build in us. Our commitment is to Jesus. Our dedication is to Jesus. So when James says here, let let steadfastness have its full effect, It's the Lord is maturing us. That's that's when he's using the word complete, when he's using the word perfect. It's about maturity. [00:57:25] (33 seconds)  #LoyaltyToJesus

So the Greek word here for testing, it communicates a positive test in that it's designed to make one's faith genuine. There's a reason why God brings certain challenges in our lives. And like I said, I've never done I'm looking for the day where I can say, praise god. I can't believe this this challenging thing is coming to my life. Wonderful. I've never done it. But I can look back on certain trials now. I look back at things that god has permitted now, and there's joy in my heart because I see, wow. He used that. [00:55:55] (32 seconds)  #TrialsRefineFaith

I think many people bail on their marriages when they get hard. They don't realize that one aspect of the creator's design for marriage is to help us grow and be less selfish. Couple guys that I've talked with that bailed on their marriages. I mean, if you if you wanted to, like, listen to what they think marriage should be about, it was she was supposed to make me happy. She was just supposed to make me happy, and I'm scratching. And I used the example one time. It's kind of interesting. [00:59:28] (32 seconds)  #MarriageIsGrowth

He used that difficulty to develop our my faith. And then it doesn't make sense if we've never had our faith tested. We would be little baby baby Christians. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. You know? Just wanting to get what we wanna get when we wanna get it now. Just like a little little baby Zoe needs, you know, what she needs now. We would be that spiritually speaking. So it says here, that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness. [00:56:27] (29 seconds)  #FromTrialsToSteadfastness

All of that to say, when we're in a difficult situation, when we're going through a challenging time, we need to be very careful when we're going through such a time that we don't run from something that the Lord has designed to mature us. We need a lot of patience and discernments regardless of the situation because, listen, it's easy to book. Right? It's easy to run away. Run away from a conflict and a friendship or relationship. Well, I got examples for you. [00:58:50] (38 seconds)  #EndureAndDiscern

all of that to say, we live in a time and a culture when you can have as many ways to God as you want. I mean, you can we can create God in our own image and make him out to be whatever we want him to be. I mean, that is the times that we're living in. The only thing we can't do is say that there is only one way to God. That's the only thing that's not permitted. We could say we could wanna worship these poles up here. Why these poles here? We don't even know. Right? These we if you wanna worship those poles up there, you can do that. [00:50:01] (36 seconds)  #GodIsNotOurCreation

I didn't even want him when I was on this earth. So so if you asked me honestly about my friend Dennis and my nephew Ken, if you said to me, pastor, where do you think they are? I don't think I ever really answer that. I just feel sad when I think about these two individuals that I knew well. I just I just feel a sadness. I don't make declarations. [00:48:02] (27 seconds)  #GrievingForLostOnes