From the time we were babies we were taught and learned to depend on ourselves, even while we depended on parents and others. Coming into a relationship with God we often have to “UNLEARN” our self-dependency and learn to “LEAN INTO” God’s presence for guidance and values. Becoming a child of God happens when we surrender to Christ’s saving grace.However, learning to walk as a child of God is normally a huge learning curve, especially if you were not raised in a Christian home.

A few days ago I wrote on my Facebook page the idea that sometimes we need to forget in order to move forward into the things God has prepared for us. The example I used was how my wife, Susan, had to forget her natural family in order to walk in the new relationship God had prepared for her. This idea of forgetting should cover many other things in our lives, but unfortunately we keep repeating them and get stuck in our past.

I wonder how many believers even realize that this world is not our permanent home if we truly have given our hearts to Jesus? Let me unpack what I mean by this and what I don’t want to convey.

You would think sharing the love of God with others and telling how God sent his only Son into the world as a baby would be an easy thing to do, yet many believers never share Christ, even during the Christmas Season. I want to look at just a few of the reasons why so many Christians struggle with expressing their love for God even when the Holy Spirit sets the stage for communicating our own salvation experience.

When we find ourselves in a struggle that seems we must have a miracle to overcome, I think we often jump to conclusions about what that miracle is meant to look like. All to often God works miracles in tandem with natural means and thus we often don’t think they are miracles at all.

I started the topic of Jesus coming back like a thief a few weeks ago because I think the topic is both important to believers and is often overlooked because of certain concepts being taught in the greater body of Christ.

I came to faith from a non-Christian, non-religious family that was very dysfunctional. In some ways that was an advantage to my development in Christ after being born again. Why? Because I didn’t have the lack of reasoning that seems to hinder so many believers today. Reason is the God given tool that we all are born with as human beings, but it can be easily compromised by false or misleading tradition or training. These influences put blinders on people’s ability to reason out what works and what doesn’t.

It is so easy to become insecure in life because of all the turmoil in the world, let alone because of weaknesses in our character or abilities. Fears about the economy, our health and even about our own personal value in other peoples’ eyes can, and often do, hinder us.

Many believers refuse to speak to a person who is causing division in the body of Christ because they are friends with this type of person or they just don’t like confrontation, so they stay silent. I’m not talking about correcting a person for every little word, or rebuking people because they understand a certain scripture verse differently than you. I’m talking about people who move with an angry spirit, who disrupts the body of Christ wherever they go.

When you see someone who is brilliant at any type of sports and beating everyone they compete against, people often say “They Are On Fire.” The word fire depicts intense passion and ability, and the same could be said about believers who are baptized in the Holy Spirit.