Living out the Christian life is really what the first 99 episodes have been about, so it was a fitting title for the 100th. 

Reading scripture, prayer, church, these are all great things that we need in our lives to grow closer to the Lord. But what we learn and how we grow should spill over into how we live our lives as well. If it doesn't, how much did we really grow? 

We should also remember God is the source of our growth; we certainly couldn't do it on our own. Don't forget to thank Him for that along the way.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! 

It's easy to think Jesus didn't need faith. If He was God, He knew everything and didn't have to worry right? But without faith it is impossible to please God, and God Himself said He was well pleased with Jesus. So He must have had to rely on some faith in His time here. 

When Jesus was on earth, He voluntarily surrendered some of His God-like attributes, coming down to our level in some ways. This makes His faithfulness to the Father all the more incredible! We can't use the excuse "well, yeah, but He was Jesus" when we can't find the ability to live the way He told us to live. He lived by example, struggling with temptation without surrendering to it. 

When we can't find the power to do this on our own, God reminds us that "on our own" was never His plan. 

Worshiping Jesus isn't an hour a week church service, a 15-minute daily devotion, or a nightly prayer. It is a way of life. For a Christian, it is the way of life. 

It is welcoming Jesus along for the minute by minute ride. The ride with the crazy drivers, difficult people, and less than ideal circumstances. He wants to be a part of it all. Church and quiet time are the easy times to follow Christ. It's the rest of life we struggle with. And that's where He wants to be. 

When we invite Christ into unrestricted 24/7 access to our hearts, our entire lives become about glorifying Him, and He is able to do so much with the little things along the way. 

Why are we doing what we are doing? Better yet, Who is directing us?

It's so easy to take control and do what we want or do what we know we should for the wrong reasons. But if we are being led by God, our hearts align with our motives, to serve Him in gratitude, and direct others to Jesus!

If we aren't careful, our inner legalist can twist our motivation to obey God. We either do it so appear righteous to others, make ourselves feel better about ourselves, or even to earn God's favor so He will give us what we desire. 

Not only are those the wrong reasons to obey God, they are sinful! Self-righteousness, pride, & greed square off directly in the face of what God desires in our hearts. So are we not to obey? As Paul would say, God forbid! 

We shouldn't see blessings and obedience as a divine currency exchanged between us and God. If it were, we'd be bankrupt! 

A unique characteristic of love is that it causes you to find joy in the joy of the person you love. When I do something for my kids that makes them happy, I don't do it to make myself feel like a good dad. I do it because seeing them happy brings me joy! But bringing myself joy isn't the motivation for doing it, but it goes hand in hand with bringing them joy. 

When we pursue the things that make God happy out of our love for Him, blessings follow, because our obedience to Him is the blessings itself! 

God can do anything He wants. Literally anything. We can't even comprehend His power, let alone match it.

But when it comes to the things most important to us, for some reason we try to limit His power. Yes, He can create the universe, raise the dead, multiply fish and bread, but what is that to us?!

We think this one thing in our life is the one thing God can't handle. We trust ourselves to step up and handle a problem that we think is too big for Almighty God. It really is comically stupid.

We are naturally bent towards comparing ourselves to others. How skilled are we at certain tasks? How kind are we towards others? How much have we been blessed?

Looking only at ourselves doesn't tell us much. We need to know the answers to these questions for other people to know how we measure up.

Very little can come out of this. We either find ways to be jealous of others or find ways to feel superior to them.

But when we compare ourselves to Jesus, there's no room for either. He holds all the power, all the glory, all the knowledge, and all the love. We will never "out know" Him, or be able to "out power" Him, and we most certainly will never be able to "out love" Him.

He is the only standard worth chasing.

Sometimes we give our best effort, and things don't work out. Other times they don't work out because we don't give them our best effort.

I've honestly never known which was harder to deal with. On one hand, you have to deal with regret when you know you could have tried harder. But on the other, when your best wasn't good enough, it's a downright humiliating thing to have to accept.

Both are hard to live with, but neither can outrun God's grace. God's grace far exceeds our best efforts or our failures. More than our effort, God desires our hearts, to put our faith in Him and know that His best efforts always work out.

There's a scene from an old baseball movie called Moneyball. In the scene, a player hits a ball deep into the outfield and immediately runs as fast as he can towards first base with no regard for the ball.

As he rounds first, he trips over the bag into an embarrassing 15-foot barrel roll. Crawling frantically back towards first base, he looks up to opposing players and his own coaches' playful laughter at his expense. More embarrassing than his fall, was that he hadn't even realized that he'd hit the ball 60 feet over the fence. 

It's easy to get so caught up in our search for God's will that we forget that, by accepting His salvation, His will for our life is already fulfilled, and we've received His ultimate gift. Our search should now be for how we respond to the grace He has shown us. 

Contentment isn't about being satisfied with what God has given us. It's about realizing that He has already given us the only thing that matters.

The more we wrap our hearts around this concept, the less we see value in anything but Him and Him alone, and the more we rest in Him calling the shots from here. 

What did Paul mean when he said "to live is Christ"? Charlie Kirk knew.

Very few people exemplify Christlikeness as well as Charlie did. He spoke the truth with more grace and love than most can manage these days.

He stood firm teaching the word of God courageously, never alarmed by the many opponents to his purpose. He worked fearlessly, and patiently, to try to unify a crooked and perverse generation.

He didn’t lay down his life voluntarily, but he was obedient to the point of death.  

We lost a bright light in a dark world yesterday, but his life didn’t end. Charlie’s life was eternal from the moment he surrendered it to Jesus. Our loss was his ultimate gain, and I am grateful for his faithful service to the Gospel.