We all face difficulties in our lives when life seems to be mean, but we always have a choice on how we will handle it. If we trust God in the meantime and focus on His purpose for allowing those times, we are filled with His sustaining peace and joy and He is able to use us to reach others.

The Bible tells us that God picked us to be in relationship with and follow Him, just like Jesus picked His disciples while here on earth. Rather than seeing all the reasons why we should not be chosen, we need to accept God’s love for us and live in obedience to Him.

God can choose anyone He wants to exalt to a position of leadership, but whether He chooses us for that or not we must remember that our lives are meant to magnify Him. When others look at our lives they should see God’s greatness through the hope that we cling to in all circumstances.

The Bible is replete with verses about the words that we say, instructing us to use wisdom in everything that comes out of our mouths. Whether it’s true or not, our job is to edify and speak in love, building each other up rather than tearing each other down.

Not many people have something in their life that they would die for. In a relationship with Jesus Christ He desires a commitment from us that we give our whole lives to Him. The Bible teaches that we are to be a living sacrifice to God, living and doing all things for Him.

The idea of Fat Tuesday is to party hard and get sin out of our system before seeking forgiveness on Ash Wednesday and moving into Lent. The Christian life does not work this way because all sin has consequence. Although God forgives us, we must strive to live a life that is obedient to Him at all times, making nothing else an idol.

Anything that we build our lives on other than Jesus Christ is a sham and we will crumble when trials come. Suffering is an inevitable part of life, but when Christ is our foundation rather than any other person, material or habit, He gives us the strength to stand firm against the crushing waves of life.

The Christian life is about constant pursuit of God through Scripture and gathering together as believers. Instead of letting the change He’s made in our lives fade out and get to a point of rejecting Him, we must be intentional about not going back to our old lives and instead pressing on to learn about Him more and allow Him to continue molding and shaping us.

God says that He would rather us be hot or cold instead of lukewarm, meaning that we either jump in relationship with Him and grow or run away. The way that we live our lives impacts the world around us, and God has us hear to reach others for His Kingdom. The only way that we will reach others is when God is working in us and through us and people can see a difference in our lives.

When we become Christians, we are put on Satan’s his list. Unfortunately, it has not been difficult for him to entice people away from following Jesus by offering them what the world has to offer. We must be so committed to Christ, as He was to us to the point of death, that nothing Satan can offer us is better than the deal we get by being God’s child.