You may want to ask - how do we grow in faith as believers, where do I start? How do I keep the doubts and unbelief out of my life? I asked myself the same questions before. There were times when I seemed to have gotten off track in my walk with the Lord. I got distracted. I started to focus more and more on my problems instead of God's faithfulness to help me go through the challenges in my life. I knew I didn’t call myself and I know that God will never leave me alone. What did I do to get back on track?
So take that first step of faith. Christianity without faith is just another religion. Christianity is a walk of Faith institute.
1. Spend time with God. Christianity is no longer a mere religion as it were but a personal relationship with God. This is very crucial in your faith journey. Read the Bible, ponder His words in your heart. Get to know your Creator - God, who He is, His promises. Because when you get to know Him, you will trust Him and trust as I said previously is Understanding Gods Leading.
2. Remember what He has done for you as often as possible. I consciously make an effort of recalling what God has done for me in the past. This brings me back to focusing on God's ability to come through for me and reinforces my faith. I have a diary where I record my day to day experience with Him. Whenever I’m down and it seems like nothing is working, I bring up this diary and count my entire blessings one after the other. The day we have nothing to eat as a family and he supernaturally provided. This keeps me going.
3. Join a Ministry. You grow by serving others and using your God-given gifts. I joined our Church's children department ministry and committed to it. By committed I mean attending scheduled sessions of teaching the children / teens and pre teens without grudge and complain. Trust me, its not as simple as it looks teaching children but I made it a commitment. I even get them presents during the last quiz.
4. Be part of a small group of fellow believers. We grow better together. There is nothing like having that special "bond" with a few people who are in the Lord when you need someone to talk to, when you are discouraged, when you need a shoulder to cry on, when you need advice and other times when you simply need a friend. Oftentimes the Lord will communicate with you through them. They will also hold you accountable in a loving way.
5. Acknowledge God often or say short prayers. During the course of your day, talk to God. Even a simple 'Thank you Lord for the nice weather' or 'God, how beautiful those flowers are. And I know you made them. You're awesome!' You know what I mean. When you make Him part of your daily life, things go more smoothly and your faith is built up.
6. Choose carefully what you read, watch and listen to. In this day and age, there is just so much out there which can confuse someone growing in faith. Don't watch too much news, documentaries or books which go against your faith, movies with nudity, wrong information being passed by the media etc. Don't listen to radio announcers who swear on air or music containing references to violence, swearing, depressing thoughts, sex, etc. I humorously said recently that “Those who listen and watch breaking news are just a step away from having one”
No comments:
Post a Comment