Steven Furtick's Blog, page 78

How Far Jesus Will Go For You

We’ve blown it. Big time. We wasted one too many chances. We’ve burned too many bridges. We’ve hurt too many people and there’s no turning back. These are the thoughts that echo in our heads over and over again when we look how far our lives are from God. But there is Good News. In this clip from 3D Easter, Pastor Steven shows us just how far Jesus will go to bring us back.

Who Jesus Came to Save

The guilty. The hurting. The ashamed and cast out. In scripture, when the Pharisees confronted Jesus about the company He kept, He told them who He really came to save – not the well, but the sick. In part seven of our IN•FIN•8 series, as we walked through the parable of the prodigal son, our church heard the story of Norm. It’s a story of a redemption. A prodigal restored. And as we enter the week of Easter, let his story remind you of who Jesus came to rescue – sinners like Norm. Sinners like you. Sinners like us.

Your Faith. God’s Faithfulness.

I don’t think we can ever talk enough about the faithfulness of God. It’s the starting place of any big prayer or act of faith.

In Sun Stand Still, I wrote:

Our faith may fail. But God’s faithfulness never will. Our faith is not built on the fault line of feelings or the flood plain of our performance. We build our faith on solid ground. Higher ground. We build on the faithfulness of God.

That’s as true today as when I first wrote it. Not because I wrote it, but because it’s the clear testimony of God:

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown himself.

2 Timothy 2:13

But I also believe that there’s another side to the interplay between our faith and God’s faithfulness that we can’t afford to ignore. God is faithful even if we are faithless. But God shows His faithfulness in a special way towards those who show their faith in Him.

I’m not talking out of both sides of my mouth. It’s simple, really. God is always faithful. But it’s the people who step out in faith that have the opportunity to see God come through for them and move in ways that those who are faithless don’t.

While the Bible is clear that God’s faithfulness is the solid ground of our faith, it’s also clear that our faith gives God a way to display His faithfulness.

God would have remained faithful if Moses had remained in the desert, herding sheep. But because Moses had the faith to be God’s representative before Pharaoh, he had a front row seat to the 10 plagues and the parting of the Red Sea – both huge demonstrations of God’s faithfulness.

God would have remained faithful if Daniel hadn’t had the courage to keep praying to God when he was told not to. But because Daniel had the faith to persist, he had a bird’s eye view to God’s faithfulness in the lions’ den.

God would have remained faithful if Peter hadn’t walked on water. But because Peter had the faith to step out of the boat, he got to see Jesus’ faithfulness in a way the other disciples didn’t.

Maybe we could sum it up like this:

God has demonstrated His past faithfulness to give us a foundation for our faith.

Now show God your faith. And He’ll show you His faithfulness.

Not because you would have earned it. But because you would have put yourself in a position to see it.

Pray big.

Dream big.

Take big steps of faith.

Because of how you’ve seen God’s faithfulness in the past. And because you want to see Him show His faithfulness in ways you haven’t seen yet in the future.

This entry was originally posted on October 20, 2011.

Why We Struggle With The Same Things Over and Over Again

It’s hard to change. Even after we accept Christ, many of us have a difficult time changing the patterns and habits we followed before we knew Jesus. But at it’s root, this struggle has less to do with our actions and more to do with our thought processes. In this clip from our series Christ Alone, Pastor Steven teaches us the difference between our human nature without Christ and the nature of a mind controlled by the Holy Spirit.

Elevation Creative: Peter Walking On Water

During our series IN•FIN•8, we’re looking back at eight of the greatest stories forever told. To introduce each week’s sermon, our Creative Team retells one of these stories from a different perspective, in an attempt to recapture the power and impact of hearing for the first time. For part six, we used interpretive dance to tell the story of Peter walking to Jesus on water.

You Have Everything You Need

There’s comfort and freedom knowing that we weren’t made this way by accident. We are who we are on purpose. There is a divine design to each of us with a unique set of abilities and opportunities. In this clip from our series The Prodigy In Me, Pastor Steven explains how God has fully equipped us with all we need to fulfill what He’s created us to do.

When Your Faith Isn’t Enough

We all want a strong faith. We feel like if we had better faith we’d make it through the storms of life in one piece. If we had more faith our marriage would improve, our kids would be better behaved, we’d get that promotion we want. But in part six of our series IN•FIN•8, Pastor Steven uses the story of Peter walking on water to show us that the point of the storm isn’t to prove our faith, it’s to prove God’s faithfulness.

Real Courage

So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions’ den. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!”

Daniel 6:16

Daniel is one of the most courageous and faithful men in the entire Bible. But not for the reasons we usually think.

For example, when telling the story of Daniel and the lions’ den, most people usually focus on Daniel’s courage in the lions’ den itself. But what’s curiously missing from the whole story is any description of Daniel’s experience in it. Not one word.

153 verses on his life before the lions’ den. Aside from when he tells the king that God had shut the mouths of the lions, zero describing his time in it.

And the reason is because Daniel’s courage and faith in the lions’ den isn’t the point. After all, shutting the mouths of the lions was God’s thing. Once Daniel gets thrown in the lions’ den, what is he really going to do?

Daniel’s courage and faithfulness was shown in the way he lived that got him thrown into the lions’ den. The real miracle was when his enemies were looking for a way to accuse him but they couldn’t find anything in his life. So they had to make up a law forbidding prayer to anyone but the king to get him thrown in. And yet he still prayed. That’s real courage. That’s real faith. And it was that courage and faith that became the setup for God’s display of faithfulness.

I think most people want a lions’ den experience. Maybe not the danger, but they do want to see God do huge things in their life. Come through for them in big ways. Decisively display His deliverance. Show people that our God is still a God who can accomplish the impossible.

But most people will never have the opportunity to prove God’s faithfulness in the lions’ den because they have not proved their faith in everyday life.

They’re not going to see God come through for them in a huge way financially because they haven’t learned to trust Him with 10% of what they have.

They’re not going to see increased favor at work because they segregate God from their work.

They’re not going to see God use them in powerful ways at their school because they live in such a way that no one knows they even believe in God.

Don’t try to be like Daniel in the lions’ den. Be like Daniel who prayed every day and had integrity. Be like Daniel and serve God continually in every aspect of your life. Have the courage and faith to live in such a way that God actually has a platform to show His faithfulness from.

And then God will do His thing in the lions’ den.

This entry was originally posted on January 13, 2011

The Secret to Living the Perfect Christian Life

We all have found ourselves looking at the lives of other Christians, wondering how they got their act together and how they’re able to live a holier life than us. So here’s the secret to living the perfect Christian life – there is no secret. We’re all in the same boat. Sinful and broken, but redeemed by the blood of Jesus. And in this clip from our series Treatment Pastor Steven reminds us that God sees us as that, in spite of how we see ourselves.

Late Leader, Volume 4

#LateLeader is a live Q&A session hosted periodically by Pastor Steven on Twitter. Leadership questions are submitted using the #LateLeader hashtag, and he does his best to answer as many as he can – in 140 characters or less. We collected some of the best questions and released them in volumes over the last several months. This is Volume 4. And if you missed it earlier, check out the first three too:

Volume 1 / Volume 2 / Volume 3

Follow Pastor @stevenfurtick on Twitter for your opportunity to participate in the next #LateLeader event.

Click here to read #LateLeader, Volume 4.