If you look around at the world there are many Christians who seem to be living in this area of “dead faith”. They believe that Jesus is their Savior. The real issue is you wouldn’t be able to tell from looking at their lives that they are Christians. We as a culture are in a place where becoming practical atheists while professing to be Christians seems to be the normal way to do life. This is something we as the youth must start to change so we can get back to the original intent of what we are all about.

There are many stances on how we as Christians should live. If we really want to get down to the core of what we are about we are supposed to be different. Somewhere along our lineage we have implanted in our mind that Christians are supposed to stay contained to their Christian friends, their Christian church, their Christian t-shirts and sayings, but Jesus was never contained. We live in a society of cookie cutter Christians who all look the same as everyone else. While we should make every effort to live differently in this world most Christians look exactly the same as the rest of the world. We must stop living like this because it conveys the message that we really don’t care about God, so as Nietzsche suggested we live like “God is dead”.

When we look at the life of Jesus Christ who we know was sent as God incarnate to save us from our sins there was nothing ordinary about His life. He didn’t just go to the places everyone else went and he didn’t do the things that the typical “good Jewish person” would have done. This doesn’t mean that Jesus did anything wrong but that the culture had gotten it all wrong. The Pharisees had lead the people into a very legalistic culture and if we look at our present day culture there are not many differences. There is a problem with Christianity when we are the ones who are legislating our religion, persecuting minority groups, and living like non-believers when we should be living like Christ.

The great thing is we still have a chance to make changes that will positively effect our generation. We are stuck in a cycle we must get out from under. Superchick sums it up well in their song Hero when they say:

Now it’s our time to pick a side.
So don’t keep walking by not wanting to intervene,
Cause you just want to exist and never be seen.
So let’s wake up, change the world
Our time is now

It is time for a revolution of our generation that isn’t afraid to love those who others won’t love. It is our time to make a change instead of allowing it to continue on the current path. Instead of living in our Christian circle we need to break out. We need to flood the world with a love they have never seen before, something no one ever gives. We need to spend less time on legislating religion and more time on actually taking time to love the people around us.

Christ spent most of His time hanging out with those people who were living in sin. He was the ultimate example of what we should look like. Be willing to do life with those who are far from God and just be different. We were not called to be like everyone else, but to be the ones willing to stand for the oppressed, the persecuted, the underprivileged, and the ones who have no voice to offer. We should not sit in our houses with all of our stuff and look down on those who are not like us.

The things of this world will fade and at the end of our lives it will not matter what people here say about us. The only opinion that will matter is that of our Heavenly King. Begin to look internally and see how your life is doing. Are you living out an untamed faith that is fully on fire for God? On the flip side of that are you living like God may as well be dead because you say what you believe but never act it out? Take some time to see where you are and look for our upcoming blogs about how we can make a difference to show the world our God is alive. Let us be different for the cause of Christ!

Dive Deep,

KC

Dive Deep Ministries was founded at the beginning of 2009 by a few students who were tired of seeing a generation continue to forget their spiritual roots. We have been given numerous things at our disposal for advancing the kingdom, and we want to use those to the best of our ability.  This includes things like Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and the like to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ to more people than we can do at a local level. We don’t want to be super spiritual, but we want to go after issues that everyone has and talk about things that are relevant to our culture.

We are founded on the principles of a few key verses. 1 Timothy 4:12 gives us a look at one of the reasons that we do what we do, even though we are younger than alot of people. The verse says:

“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”

Mathew 28:19-20 also gives us direction and purpose. It says:

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

We may not belong to the same denomination or share the same political beliefs, but what we do share is a love of Our Savior and a desire to learn more about Him.

Dive Deep is not a church or affiliated with a specific denomination. We do, however, believe a few core principles about our faith. We believe that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh and lived among us, was crucified on the cross so that everyone could be redeemed though Him and live forever in eternal salvation, and that he rose again on the third day. We believe that salvation is open to anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord and commits to follow Him all the days of their life. The only absolute truth is the Word of God, and it holds no conflict with it’s text.

It is our desire to expand the ministry reach of Dive Deep. Over the summer we will be launching some new and exciting things. There will be some changes along the way, but our mission will stay the same.

Next week, we will be starting a series called Living Sacrifices. We will take some time to unpack the idea of worship. We hope that this series will help you find your pathway of worshiping the Father in your daily life.

Have a great week!

Dive Deep,

KC

Mathew 6:33-34 says

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

We have all probably heard this verse at some point in our lives, whether it was while singing a song in bible school, or in a sermon somewhere. In this chapter of Matthew, it is talking about worry. Then we are told seek first the kingdom and His righteousness. What God is trying to tell us is if we put him at the center of our lives, He will give us everything that we need.

The most common mistake among Christians is that we start off wanting to spend time with God, and that is our hearts desire, but we allow the busyness of life to get in the way. We start putting things in front of God, or just make God something we check off our list. We do this, then we wonder why God isn’t blessing us.

To solve this problem, we have to make some needed corrections and put things into perspective. Our thinking must be adjusted to view our relationship with our Creator as the most important relationship we have, because it is. He spends all day with us, but we rarely strive to spend time with Him, so no wonder when we don’t make time for Him, he doesn’t make time for us. He can no longer be a priority, but must become a lifestyle.

As a lifestyle, there is no question to who comes first. God wants us to talk to him about everything, so we always need to be in constant communication with Him. He should be our first thought in the morning, and the last before we go to bed, and occupy all those in between. We need to get to a point where we rely on God as much as we do the air we breath.

With life moving so fast, this can be hard to do, but only if you make it that way. We all have excuses why we can’t talk to God about things, but it all comes back to our priorities being messed up. So take God out of the priority checklist of your life. Make Him what your life’s priorities revolve around.

Proverbs tells us that we should put our relationship with God at the top of everything. It’s not just a good idea, it actually works. If your having problems with your priorities, relationships, work, habits, or anything, start seeking God first, and you would be amazed at how things will change.

God loves us, and nothing gets Him more excited than when we go to Him. We are His children, and as our Heavenly father, He wants to know whats going on, and lead us with advice when we need it. We need to live what we believe, not just check it off our list. God gives you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and sometimes the best we can do is 5 minutes a day. When we signed on to be a Christian, we said that we commit our lives to Him. Is this really represented by 5 minutes a day, or should we be always in contact with our Creator? If we are living as Mathew 6:33 says, we should be the second option.

So if your not being blessed by God, or feel there is a distance, God hasn’t gone anywhere. He is actually closer than ever, just waiting for you to talk to Him so that He can bless you. If we don’t make time for Him, does He really have a reason to make time for you? He wants to, but will you let him?

Challenge yourself to rise above the culture of convenient Christianity. Make God the center of your life, not a priority in your life, and watch what happens. Things will fall into place, and you will begin to see things as never before.

Lets go after this as a community, and let God do the rest.

May God bless you in all you do. To Him be the glory!

Dive Deep,

KC