Sometimes I catch myself thinking I should be praying more, reading more, doing more.
It can start to feel like I’m always falling a little short.
Then I wonder if faith was ever meant to feel like a constant checklist, or if it’s more about staying connected, even in small ways.
I think it’s more who you are and who you’re becoming than what you do.
Only every day. I wish I could I could feel like I’ve arrived at my destination, but not today, lol.
One time right after a big auto accident where the Lord saved me. I knew it. So I (re) dedicated my life to Him and prayed prayed prayed, and read read read His Word. He began blessing my obedience but I still felt like I wasn’t doing enough. I wrecked my good truck and the one I had was unreliable and breaks down alot. In the accident I broke my back in two places. They said the fix it surgery was a success but you couldnt prove it by me. That accident took a lot of wind out of my sails.
So I prayed and asked the Lord if I could do something to help him. But with no truck and cant walk far, I couldnt even go knocking door to door, so Lord could you make it something that I can do from my easy chair? Within 30 seconds of my Amen, my phone rang. An old friend who I hadnt seen in 2 years. He says, Hi Ed long time no see. You know about God, right? Mind if I come over and pick your brain about God?!
The Lord answered my prayer in less than 60 seconds! From my easy chair! At one point I had thought what a ridiculous prayer that was, but Tommy was on his way over so I knew God answered my prayer. (PTL!)
So, my friend, it may just surprise you the things that God can and will do if you only ask Him…
Ephesians 2:8–10
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
Titus 2:14
“Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”
Titus 3:8
“This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works.”
Matthew 5:16
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
James 2:17
“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”
James 2:18
“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”
James 2:26
“For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
Romans 2:6–7
“Who will render to every man according to his deeds:
To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:”
Romans 2:8–9
“But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,
Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;”
2 Corinthians 5:10
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”
Revelation 20:12
“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”
Revelation 22:12
“And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.”
1 Peter 1:17
“And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:”
Ecclesiastes 12:14
“For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”
Am I advocating for a works-based salvation, of course not.
Scripture does not recognize the category of a “passive” believer.
Too many Imperatives.
J.
Hello there
The core of the faith is our relationship to Jesus Christ, and to our heavenly Father.
This relationship is totally free. You never have to “earn” being a child if God 
As far as I can tell, scripture teaches four levels of relationship. 1. Servant. 2. Friend. 3. Son, 4. Bride. When we are saved we became servants of God and have been given the power to become sons of God.
John 1:12
**12 **But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:…/KJV
It also says to whom more is given, more will be required. You see a Servant has certain privileges’ within the house, but if a Friend comes over, he will have slightly more privilege’s than the servant has. If one of the Sons are present they are family so have even more than the Friend has. But the one with the most privileges’ in the home (besides the Father) is the Bride. Mama can veto anything, kick anyone out she wants to and go into her husbands most private areas and so forth.
My (theory) is that we choose how far we want to go up until the bride, that is the Grooms choice alone. But as a servant of God, I aspire to work up to Friend of the Lord, and eventually Sonship. So I work that direction. I will not know for sure if I am a Bride until the rapture and I see was I taken or left behind?!
My experience is that, climbing the mountain of God…it gets steep and harder very quickly. The Lord gives you tests whenever He wants to. And having began ny climb up the mountain of God a while ago, I can attest to the fact that He will tell you to do things that you don’t want to do! It may cost you How many obey God when it cuts into their budget? Or an impossible situation and He says do this, and I don’t understand why and my inclination is to do something else. (always a bad move). I have passed some and failed a lot. I’m not holy or perfect yet. But it sure feels good to pass a test with the Lord! I have told the Lord No also. He was very merciful to me and did not punish me, but wherever I went to church, whatever teaching videos I watched on youtube, everytime I turned around everyone was teaching on Jonah and the Whale. I got scared so did obey him, from fear. That was no coincidence! So I finally obeyed and repented from telling Him No and…I can’t hardly put it into words the many ways that the Lord blessed me for the obedience, even if late.
So relationship is not free in a sense. We have to be there, present, and paying attention. And I guarantee you that you wont understand what He is doing when He is doing it, and likely wont like it. To whom more is given, more is required.
One time back when the last Stimulus checks came out, my plan was to spend it all fast on things I wanted but could not afford normally on my budget. So I left early and made the rounds of where I need to go and I got everything I wanted and came home broke relatively. I got home and had to go the basement to check on the last of the laundry that I had caught up on. and when I stepped into the room onto the carpet, I felt it, warm water on my feet. My water heater had breached a pinhole in the tank and needed replaced. I found the hot spot, turned off the water and checked out the serial number to see if it was in warranty, nope. 5 1/2 years old. So I have no hot water. New ones are $500 bucks or more. I had the money this morning! Why didn’t God warn me? is what I thought. I was not acking in prayer time or giving to help others or anything. I was in a good place with the Lord and felt like He could’ve warned me not to go spend all that money. In a way, I felt like He should have warned me!
I wasn’t about to drive around getting money refunded, I’m not that guy so I figured, well I’ll not have hot water for one month. I’ll live through it, then when I get my next SS check I’ll buy a water heater and install it myself because that’s my trade. Good thing I just caught the laundry up! Praise the Lord for that at least!
As I’m standing there figuring this out my plan, I admit I was feeling discouraged with the Lord. That isn’t how He is! No hot water for a month! Why is this happening to me?! I remembered the scripture about, He knows your needs so don’t worry about anything. So I thought, well then the Lord is doing something here and I just don’t get it yet. So I began laughing and I began to pray, Lord I don’t know what it is that you’re doing here but I’m going to simply leave it in your hands, and it is what it is. So Praise You Lord! Amen. and nothing happened so I went to bed still feeling mighty discouraged and so forth and the next day I decided to call the supply house that the WH came from to see how much a new one would be, and what else I might need to install it, copper fittings or whatever. That way I would already know what price for the next month so I’d be ready. I called and told the guy I wanted the same model of water heater so it would be a sip fit and I would use less materials to keep the cost down. I gave him the model and serial number so he could check to see if they still sold that model and the price. He came back to the phone pretty quick and says yep we have that exact model in stock and the price will be zero because it is a Rheem and Rhemm has always been proud of their WH’s and so give a 6 year warranty with it!
That floored me! And I understood so much then. It was the Lord and so what I believe He did was Blessing me by doing that breach on my WH so it leaked just under warrant expiring instead of just out of warranty, plus at the same time, He tested my Faith i Him and my reaction to the situation…!!! And maybe for second time? in my life, I accidently? passed it! I felt so good, Praise the Lord!