For those of you who know someone or maybe you have recently come into the faith we rejoice with you!  We would love to encourage you along in the journey, so just drop us an e-mail at kyle@divedeepministries.org and let us know. It is truly amazing to be part of God’s big plan.  As a new Christian things can be pretty scary at the beginning of the journey.  We as Christians usually guide a person to the journey and  then say have a great day. This is something in  need of change.

As someone new to the faith you may begin to see some things you need to change but aren’t sure how.  There is not a formula or a set of steps which will work for everyone, but we do know God can help us though anything.  The biggest thing to do is to begin pressing into God.  You can do this by getting involved with your local youth group or church but even that is not enough.  Begin to read the word every day even if it is just a little piece.  A good place to start is in 1st Corinthians or the other writings of Paul.  Paul does a great job of communicating what life should look like as a Christian.

There is a tendency sometimes for believers to think they need to “renew” their salvation like they would a parking meeter.  After you have accepted Jesus as your Savior you don’t have to recommit every time you hear the message of salvation.  God has saved you and you can’t get away from Him now.  Now we aren’t saying recommitting is a bad thing but do it out of God’s spirit prompts and not out of guilt or shame for doing something wrong.  Unless you turn your back on God there is no need to recommit and even when you mess up God always loves you.

Along the journey of faith there is always a possibility to start back into your old tendencies. When this happens God has given you grace and freedom from it all. You just have to ask Him to help and restore you.  There is no amount of stuff that can get you farther along in the journey.  Even following all the rules won’t bring you closer to God. The only way to draw closer to God is to press into His love.

As a new Christian know that sometimes life will be hard like we talked about a few weeks ago, but God promises never to leave us.  He is always present and wants a deep relationship with us. In this deeper relationship with God you begin to find the true meaning of life.  To live an unhindered  life with the God of the universe on your side is an amazing experience.  Begin now to trade the things of this world for things God would have for you.

There are hundreds of thousands of people who have not yet tasted true life and freedom in Christ Jesus.  Continue to seek them out and love them where they are.  Allow them to see you as different and pray God opens the door to sharing the best thing that has ever happened to any of us.  Live with them and not above them.  Love them through everything even when they don’t want to be.  Let’s begin to remix the typical Christian and discover new things God will have for us.

I’ll be taking a few weeks off from blogging myself to transition into some new beginnings for me, but we have some great things in store. We will have some cool people doing some guest blogging for us, and we will launch our new series ‘Remix’ in September. There are some pretty cool things we believe God wants to do with us and excited we get to do this together.

In all you do always remember to Dive Deep!

KC

Living a life of prayer is one of the ways that we can begin to actually practice being living sacrifices like Paul talks about in Romans 12. In verse 12:2 it says:

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Most of the time we have a hard time figuring out what the pattern of this world is, but it becomes quite easy when we have open communication with our Father in heaven.

Last week we talked about bowing down at the feet of our Father in humility. This week we are studying  exaltation of others though prayer. Some people love to get compliments; it’s just how they are geared. Even though compliments lose their worth as time goes on, lifting someone up in prayer is not something that is easily forgotten.

To lift others up, we should strive to have a better communication with the Father ourselves. He always hears our prayers, but when we earnestly seek Him, our words have more power. Look at this as if you have a good friend who asks you to do something: you wouldn’t hesitate to do what they ask, but if a friend that you talk to once every few months ask for something, you will help them but it will be in time.

As we connect more to our Father in our prayer life, we can really discover what His heart is for us. Paul says in the passage that we should not be conforming to the pattern of this world, and heavenly communication is required to understand what that means. On the surface, it means that we must rebel against our current culture. Our world tells us to worry about things, take everything on ourselves, and that we are in control of our lives. This is not the case! Given we have free will, our God is ultimately in control of what goes on in our world.

When people begin to actually pray for something, the outcome is amazing: people are healed, lives are changed, and the Kingdom advances. During his time on earth, Jesus believed prayer was very important. Before he was taken to be crucified, he prayed his heart out. His prayer was not casual, but was very intentional. We tend to take prayer lightly and think of it as something we do to “bless” our food or end our day.

We don’t understand how to pray because we haven’t tried to pray earnestly to our God, or maybe we have tried and it hasn’t worked out the way we want to. In conjunction with bowing down, we have to humble ourselves so that we can lift up intentional acts of prayer. This doesn’t mean that we can’t pray for things that we want, but it means that we should really think if they are something that God would want for us. The stuff of this world will fade, but our true treasure is in Heaven. God loves it when we ask him for things like wisdom, faith, healing, comfort, and provision. It is through these prayers that He is able to move in our lives.

Prayer is a time that we should spend soaking in the amazing glory of our King. We should make it our intent that during that time we pray to really connect with the Father. Another thing we should strive for is to be in constant communication with Him about everything going on in our lives. Though this, we will begin to have a renewing of our mind.

This week we encourage you to be intentional in selfless acts of raising others up though prayer. There is something moving about really connecting though prayer. We hope that you find that same connection that we all strive for.

Dive Deep,

KC

It might be helpful to offer some insight on change itself and what the Bible says about change. Change is defined by Websters dictionary to be:

To make radically different

Out of all the definitions for change, this seems to be the one that captures what change means. It also means if you change- it is significant. In a world that casually talks about change, we must be committed to change and become more of what God has called us to be.

Paul addresses the issue of a God type committed change in Philippians 3:21 . Scripture says :

…by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body

This means as we grow, God will change us as we allow Him to work in our lives.

The hardest thing to do is actually make the effort to change. We like who we are, so why do we need to change? We use this argument to justify being stagnant. If we begin to stop changing ourselves we become blind to who we really are, or we become something that we are not. If we fall into resistance to change, we will never become the people that God has intended for us to be.

Lets take a minute to address the topic of positive change. We as a ministry seek to inspire positive change, and use the communication tools that we have been given to help others dive deeper into a relationship with Christ. We believe that Christ centered change is the only good change, and as the definition says, this change can be pretty radical. The Bible says in Romans 12:2:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

We are not supposed to be the normal people, we are supposed to be different. If we become normal, we risk falling out of a desire to change. When you really think about it, the only change that we as Christians should make is those that are pleasing to God.

Sometimes we end up changing in ways that break us down. They might not seem like significant changes, but the more small changes we make tend to pile up and consume us. These can be things such as hanging out with the wrong crowd or choosing a lifestyle that is not pleasing to God. A common argument among people is that Christians don’t have great lives, but if you stick with the journey God blesses those who are faithful.

It seems that we as Christians have become masters in hiding what is wrong about us and ignore the issues so we are only motivated and accountable to ourselves. We hold back and don’t share with others to avoid the encouragement and accountability that would help us be better people. Some of the issues may be addictions, selfishness, friendships, and a host of other things holding us down. In these situations we start to wonder why God isn’t helping us anymore. The answer is quite simple–we quit allowing change so He can’t move within us.

The best change is one that is initiated by us and moves in a way that is pleasing to God. We tend to get confused on what to change so we need to look back to the One who never changes.  He is the only absolute truth, and the only thing that we can fully rely on.

Change is a process that takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. We encourage and challenge you to search yourself for areas that you need to change no matter how insignificant you may think the change may be. You might be thinking, “Well its no big deal, just a small thing”, but do you really want to justify not changing just to become a lukewarm Christian? Its time to stop hiding what we don’t want to change, and just do it. Life is so much better when you are running towards the God who loves you, and changing your life to align with His principles.

Dive Deep Ministries is always looking for ways to change and reach others.  Starting next week, we are going to address relationships in a series of blogs we are calling Awkward Relationships:

Relationships can be pretty awkward at times-things like asking someone out, asking them to marry you, and all the relationship issues that go with all that. We are going to look at some of the common issues among dating relationships, and what we believe is God’s design for relationships. He, after all, is the Creator of the big idea. This is a series that will benefit everyone–dating, single, married, or engaged. We are excited about what this is going to bring-don’t miss it!!  Encourage your friends to check this out as well.

This week, we challenge you to find one thing in your life that is in need of change and begin the process. Don’t try to change everything  at once, but start with little things and work toward the bigger things. As you change, you will be amazed how freeing it will be for God to do even more in your life.

Have an amazing week and look for our first post of Awkward Relationships next Monday!

Dive Deep,

KC