Holiness – Breathe. Pray. Repeat.

A Tale of Four Teens: How Committed to Christ Are You?

The youth respond in an altar call at a youth rally at the Apostolic New Testament Church in Mount Vernon, MO. (Photo courtesy of the Apostolic New Testament Church Facebook page.)

How much do you want to live for the Lord, really?

There’s a group of 4 teens. We’ll call them Jane, Mary, Mark, and Joe.

Jane and Mary come into the church as young women. Jane goes all in. She studies the Word. She’s engaged in every church service, but Jane doesn’t just keep it to herself. She takes the Word with her and starts reaching her friends. She connects with the people at church, and the longer Jane attends, the more she seeks after God at home. Jane gives God her all, and she reaches her full potential in Christ, living for Him and making an impact on those around her to grow the Kingdom. Mary chooses to keep a door open to the influence of the world. She doesn’t close every door to her past. And because Mary keeps that door open, she doesn’t receive a full understanding of what it means to live for Jesus. After a few months, she leaves church altogether and goes back to the world.

Mark and Joe were both raised in church. As Mark grows up in church, he falls in love with the Word, developing a walk with God from a young age. He seeks after God every day. He dives deeper in Bible studying and fasting. He tells others about Christ. He gets involved in ministry. Because Mark stays connected to the body and grows closer to God as he grows older, he remains steadfast in the faith and in living for God. But Joe takes it all for granted. Sure, he goes to church every week, and sure, he seems to walk the walk and talk the talk, but he opens a door to worldly influences. It’s all in good fun, he thinks. Church becomes just a social club to Joe. He falls in love with the world rather than the Word. And soon, Joe leaves God and church behind, thinking he doesn’t need God anymore.

You might think this is a rather generic, simplified tale of four teens, but I’ve seen each of these scenarios play out with young people in the church. Too many young people or new people in Christ take living for God for granted. Too many take His mercy for granted.

Oh, God loves me anyway, they think, so I can just do whatever I want.

They seek instant gratification over self-sanctification. They seek worldliness over holiness.

But we must seek God while we can, especially when we are young, be it young in age or young in Christ. Don’t wait until you are older to take God seriously.

I wish I had read the Word more fervently when I was a teenager. I wish I had prayed more earnestly then.

Young person, study the Word every day. And I mean, study it. Don’t just read a few verses of Psalms at the beginning or end of the day, mark it off your Bible reading chart, and call it good. Invest your time in the Word. Read a chapter and then write down what it means. What is God saying to you through His Word? How can you apply it to your life? Likewise, don’t just say a few words of prayer and then be done with it for the day. Seek Him in the morning. Set time aside later in the day as well to spend more time with Him. Don’t rush through your prayer time. It takes time to develop a relationship with Him.

Get involved in your church. Use your social media page to promote church and living for God. Tell your friends about the Gospel. Vest yourself to the Kingdom of God. Make Jesus and the Kingdom your priority in life now while you are young.

I’ve seen too many teenagers come into church and leave the door open to past influences or get offended and return to the world. They go back to the world more devoted to sinful lifestyles than before. I’ve seen too many young people who were raised in church never really take it that seriously or become personally involved in a relationship with Christ and with the church, and at the first real struggle in life, they abandon God and the body of Christ. And they turn to the world, allowing drugs, bitterness, and impurity to consume them.

Don’t take living for God for granted. God didn’t put you on this planet to waste your life away on frivolous pursuits. God comes first. Reaching the lost should be your top priority. Getting closer to Him should be your daily focus.

Every so often, we all need to do a heart alignment check. What am I focusing on most? How often am I spending time with God? Have I been applying His Word to my life? Have I been invested in every service or distracted? Am I vested to the cause of Christ?

Being vested means to have a right of ownership that is not conditional. We must not be just invested in living for God and reaching the lost, but we must take ownership of our part in His Kingdom. We must fully commit to and take responsibility for the role we have, living wholeheartedly for Jesus and giving up ourselves to bring more souls to salvation.

There’s a song by Gas Street Music (linked here) that goes, “Every idol, hit the ground/Cause there’s only space for Jesus/When He clears the temple out/So turn the tables upside down/This is my surrender/Only one King to be crowned.” Make God the center of your daily life.

How much do you want to live for the Lord, really?

Jesus is calling you to a closer, deeper walk with Him. Will you answer?

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
Revelation 3:20 KJV

The Do’s and Don’ts of Sin: A Brief Guide

Committing sin is no laughing matter.

I saw an ad for a graphic tee the other day that read, “I feel a sin coming on,” and the shop’s caption said, “Good thing it’s a Sunday.”

The comments were filled with people tagging their friends with laughing emojis and saying, “This is so us,” or, “I need this shirt!” And others were talking about their experiences with such a flippant attitude about sin.

Sin is serious.

“For the wages of sin is death….”
Romans 6:23a (KJV)

It’s not something about which you should speak carelessly or be wishy-washy, arguing with yourself and wondering, “Is this a sin? I don’t think that’s a sin. It isn’t that bad. It’ll be fine. I’m going to church tomorrow anyway! I’ll just repent then. LOL.”

There’s a group of Christians within society who perhaps go to church and worship on Sundays but then go clubbing on Fridays. They perhaps sing with the choir about living like Jesus but curse like a sailor with their friends or coworkers on Mondays. They listen to sermons that warn them about being too close to the world but dismiss that it’s meant for them. They post Scriptures on social media but never read their Bible. They say they love Jesus but never spend time talking to Him. They engage in immorality and spew profanity, ignoring the seed of conviction in their spirit that tells them what they’re doing is wrong. They think if no one from church knows what they’re doing, then it’s okay.

They fail to realize that God is watching and sees all things, and even if they do know that, they fail to understand how much He cares about sin. But Jesus cares so much about sin that He taught the following during the Sermon on the Mount:

“And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”
Matthew 5:29 (KJV)

There are many do’s and don’ts when it comes to sin, but I’ll share a brief few here.

Don’t be wishy-washy about living for God or flip-floppy about sin.

The only thing Jesus flip-flopped was the tables of the moneychangers who were selling things in and defiling the Temple!

“And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”
Matthew 21:12-13 (KJV)

When one takes on a careless attitude about sin or about something that’s meant to be serious and tries to make it seem mundane, ordinary, or “not that big a deal,” do you think God’s pleased?

When you repent of your sins, are water-baptized in Jesus’ Name, and receive the Holy Ghost by the evidence of speaking in tongues, your body becomes a temple of the Holy Ghost, of God’s Spirit dwelling within you.

“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (KJV)

Don’t defile that temple with sin or a callous attitude about sin.

If you do, Jesus just might call you out on it. He might flip-flop some tables in your life to get your attention and make you realize the seriousness of what you’re doing.

Matthew 7:14 says, “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

Don’t think you can do x or y or z and get by with it.
Don’t think, “How can I do this thing and still make it to Heaven?”

Do flee from sin.

The Bible says that we must flee from fornication, idolatry, and youthful lusts (see 1 Corinthians 6:18, 10:14, and 2 Timothy 2:22).

Do chase after righteousness.

After fleeing from sin, we must pursue righteousness, faith, charity, peace, godliness, patience, and meekness (see 1 Timothy 6:11 and 2 Timothy 2:22).

And when you sin, repent. Be sincere. Turn from your wicked ways and live right.

God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins (see 1 John 1:9).

If you turn away from sin and back to Jesus in sincerity, then He will fill you with Godly desires that glorify Him and lead you down the path of righteousness.

I pray this post has blessed you and helped remind you to live for Jesus alone and obey His Word.

I also wanted to give you an update about some changes to BPR’s post schedule. I’m having some issues with WordPress’ algorithim and with BPR subscribers seeing all of my posts. That combined with my fall schedule has made me decide to change the BPR post schedule to every other week.

So, starting today, BPR posts will come out every other Friday for the months of September and October or until further notice. This means that the next post will be on Friday, September 3rd.

Thank you all for being patient and for sticking with Breathe Pray Repeat. It means a lot to me that y’all still keep up with the little blog that could! God bless, and I’ll “see” you in two weeks!

Free Indeed: 3 Freedoms We Have in Christ

A Bible lies open under an American flag.

Freedom.

It’s something we Americans are so privileged to experience while living in this blessed country, and this coming Sunday, we’ll be celebrating America’s 245th birthday. As a proud American, I’m excited to celebrate my beautiful home country, but I’m also excited to share with you today and remind you what freedom means for us as children of God.

In Christ, we are free indeed, but what does it mean to be “free in Christ?”

There are many different explanations of this concept. Below are three particular freedoms we have as children of the Most High King that I wanted to remind you of this weekend.

1. Freedom from Sin

As the Timothy Reddick song says, “I’m free indeed, in Christ, I’m free indeed, no chains are holding me, it’s who I choose to be.”

In Christ, we have freedom from sin. This means that no matter what you’ve done, the sins of your past cannot hold you back once you’ve truly repented and given your life to Jesus.

Once the blood of the Lamb has covered you, you are no longer a slave to sin!

“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
John 8:36 (KJV)

We are free from sin and have become the “servants of righteousness” and servants to God (see Romans 6:18 and Romans 6:22). Remember—there is no condemnation to those who are born again and believe in Christ (see Romans 8:1).

When Christ died for us and shed His blood at Calvary, He covered all our sins, and when we are baptized in Jesus’ Name, our sins are completely washed away. The chains of a sinful lifestyle that once kept us bound are broken, and we are free to move forward in righteousness and serve our King!

2. Freedom from the Result of Sin

Freedom in Christ also means that we no longer have to live in fear of the result of sin or of death. We no longer have to fear going to Hell over a sinful lifestyle because Jesus has given us a way out through complete surrender to Him, repentance, baptism, the infilling of the Holy Ghost, and a lifestyle of holiness, separation, and righteousness.

In Christ, we are free from what sin inevitably leads to. In Christ, we are free from fear.

Freedom in Christ allows us to completely put our trust in Him, knowing that He has covered us with His blood and paved the way for us to spend eternity with Him in glory.

3. Freedom from Ignorance

In Christ, we are also free from ignorance.

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
John 8:32 (KJV)

No, I don’t mean ignorance in general. (As you might be aware, because we’re still fleshly beings, there are many ways people can still be quite ignorant even while serving God!)

Through Christ, we have freedom from spiritual blindness. Paul wrote about this to the Corinthians.

“And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.”
2 Corinthians 3:13-16 (KJV)

Here, Paul spoke about the Jews’ inability to understand Jesus’ identity as God and to understand God’s divine plan. Jesus revealed Himself to Paul as the Lord when He spoke to Paul as Paul was on the road to Damascus, and Paul was able to understand Christ’s identity (see Acts 9:1-6). When people turn to Christ and seek after Him, He gives them the ability to understand who He is.

Freedom in Christ means that we have spiritual awareness of who He is, what He has done for us, and how His plan for us is that we live for Him so that we can someday be with our God forever.

“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
2 Corinthians 3:17 (KJV)

Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. In His presence, we find liberty, peace, understanding, and everything we need. We are free from our past, free from the weight of our sins, free from bondage, free from death, free from fear, and free from spiritual blindness.

And not only are we free in Christ, but He has also given us the freedom to choose to serve Him or not. That makes our decision to live for Jesus so much more meaningful.

He didn’t make us live for Him. He died for us all but gave us the freedom to choose to live for Him, and so our choice to serve Him comes from a genuine desire to live for Him, from genuine love for Him, and from a heart of thanks and gratitude for who He is and for all He’s done for us.

We choose to be free when we choose to live for Jesus!

“No more shackles, no more chains, no more bondage, I am free!”
“Freedom” by Eddie James

I hope all of my readers in America have a wonderful weekend celebration as we celebrate the foundation of our great nation, and I hope all of you can take a moment to thank God especially for the freedoms we have because of all He’s done for us.

God bless you all, and God bless America!

How to Live for Jesus in a Sin-Sick World

How can you be in the world and not of the world?

How do you live in the world and not love the world?

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed more and more young people I’ve seen grow up in the church or come into church as teenagers proceed to turn away from church once they reach the young adult years. As Christ’s return quickly approaches, it is disheartening to see these young people leave their love for the Lord and righteousness and give into worldly lusts. Yes, the world has many temptations, and it can be hard to resist the things our friends or society tell us are popular or fun. But if one loves God and attends church, how it is possible that he or she might end up choosing the world instead? How does one manage to live right in a sin-sick world and not fall into darkness?

After all, there are temptations and spirits of darkness everywhere, trying to pull us away from the Lord.

Well, it all boils down to one thing: your personal commitment to and relationship with Jesus Christ.

In order to stand firm in your beliefs and live for Jesus rather than the world, you must develop within yourself a love of righteousness, holiness, and the Lord and His Word.

Here are 3 ways you can resist the world and live for Jesus:

1. Don’t let yourself develop an appetite for worldly things.

The things we consume will influence our appetite and priorities.

Is that show or movie you’re watching coming between you and your relationship with God? Is the music you’re listening to causing you to speak or think more about worldly appetites than wholesome thoughts? Are you more enthusiastic about a tv show than talking with your friends about Jesus? Are you more exuberant in your praise at a football stadium than at the altar in a worship service? If you don’t let yourself love the things of the world more than the things of God, you’ll be able to be in the world and still stand for righteousness and holiness. Understand where those worldly things & behaviors lead you.

2. Develop an appetite for the things of God.

In order to do this, you can begin by replacing unhealthy habits with righteous ones. For example, instead of listening to worldly music on the way to church, listen to music that brings you closer to God. Instead of looking at Bible studying as a chore, find ways to make it more enjoyable by using study guides, Bible journals, and other interactive Bible study tools. As you read the Word more and apply it to your life, you’ll begin to see how His Word & Spirit will change you, and you’ll find yourself no longer wanting the things of the world but the things of God.

3. Surround yourself with God-first people.

One of my lifelong spiritual leaders has always said this phrase:

“If you can’t change your friends, change your friends.”

This doesn’t mean we can’t associate with and witness to people of the world. Of course, we absolutely should! But if those people with whom we’re spending most of our time are beginning to have a negative influence on us and are taking us further from the Lord, then it’s time to step away from those relationships. This doesn’t mean that we’re shutting them out and turning up our nose at them in a self-righteous attitude. It does mean recognizing that for our own salvation, we may need to distance ourselves from negative influences while still praying for those friends and their salvation.

You will become like the people with whom you surround yourself.

If you surround yourself with people who mock righteousness and holiness and resist the things of God, then you’ll drift further away from Him. If you surround yourself with Godly, God-first, and God-only people, then you’ll be able to grow in your relationship with God, loving and longing only for the things that please Him.

The world is intoxicated and diseased with sin. It’s dying, and it’s pulling so many lost souls into eternal suffering.

But when we live for Jesus and resist the world, we tell people that there is so much more to life than worldly pleasures and living for ourselves.

Temporal pleasures are, of course, fleeting. They don’t last. But the love of Jesus within us gives us lasting joy, contagious joy that spreads and overcomes the allure of this world.

When we live boldly for Jesus in this world and love Him more than the things of the world, we’re sending His message of hope to the lost that sin and death no longer have power over us when we surrender to Jesus Christ.