Have you thought about a goal for your faith?
Here are six things that you can do to start improving your faith journey. Think of these as basic Christian habits that you can adopt. These habits will change your life and potentially change the life of people around you.
One important disclaimer, for any new Christians out there These are not checkmarks. These are not ways to earn your salvation. This is not a fast pass to get to heaven. You already have that if you sincerely accepted Jesus as your savior. So this isn’t a magical list of things to do to earn anything. Or to prove anything to anyone. These are things that you can do to grow your belief and to become more connected to Jesus in your heart, your mind, your daily living. These are personal and it’s between you and Jesus, but they’re also things that other Christians are doing So there’s plenty of support out there and there’s going to be people cheering you on to succeed. So let’s get started.
- Reading the Bible. This is the way this is the only way we know what God’s plan is for us, to know Jesus and to get instructions on living a Christian life.
The events in scripture tell us about God. They tell us who he is. They tell us who Jesus is. How Jesus lived and how he loved others. It is our source for instructions on being human, the power of God and how to avoid the enemy’s tactics.
So in order to live well, it tells us about the intentional plan for us to live forever in heaven. It’s a big deal. Every Christian needs to be reading their Bible. So let’s figure out how to get started every day by renewing your mind daily with God’s word.
Romans 12:2 says, “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God. What is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Make reading the Bible your life multivitamin. Once you start reading the Bible, you’re going to realize pretty quick it’s complicated. At times it can be hard to understand and sometimes hard to remember.
- Learning – The next big thing you could do is start learning how to understand it so you can start applying it to your life. Learning comes in a lot of forms including going to church and having a pastor teach you. There are some references that can help you understand the context.
References can explain more about the author, the culture, some of the fancy words or some of the ways that the stories are more meaningful because of the context or the culture at the time. Every Christian has to take the initiative to make the Bible, a living, breathing resource that they can rely on. We don’t become closer to Jesus just by sitting on the couch at home. It actually requires intentional acts to move in that direction. There’s plenty of help available for you if you’re willing to go for it.
Check out these videos:
Understanding the Bible Better
3. Serving. There’s no particular order to these goal ideas, but I do recommend picking a few to get started. Once you start reading the Bible, and then you start to understand the Bible, you will see that it encourages us to serve one another. We’re all given gifts and talents from God and he wants us to use them as part of the church body.
So each person has something that they bring to the group that God can use for his purpose. Gifts help us to contribute and help each other.
“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” 1 Peter 4:10.
Mark 10:45 ” ...for even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve.”
Even Jesus said he came here to serve and that should be our role model. Every Christian should be serving others in some capacity. You can learn what your spiritual gifts are by using several free online tests.
4. Praying. One of the best ways to have a great relationship with anyone is to have great communication with them. Praying is essentially us communicating with Jesus.
The more you talk to him, the better, the relationship, the better the relationship, the better you’ll be able to function in the world. We all need prayer and Jesus tells us to do it a lot in the Bible.
Philippians 4:6 “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.”
Praying gives us an opportunity to talk to our creator. He knows about our situation. He knows the desires of our hearts. He knows what we’re struggling with. He has the power to change our situation, but often his power and love change us in a given situation. Prayer allows us to be connected to Jesus and there’s peace and comfort in that. All Christians need to be praying.
5. Community. Get involved in your church community! Attending services every Sunday is just the tip of the iceberg. Developing deeper relationships with people that are like-minded can be powerful.
Not only are church communities known for having wonderful food opportunities in their social gatherings, but they also produce lifelong friends and a network of people that all love Jesus. This community helps you to learn and understand the Bible, they can pray for you and they become part of your support system when challenges come your way. Every Christian needs a Christian community,
Hebrews 10:25. “...not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”
6. Sharing. As you grow and learn during your faith journey, your belief will increase. Your relationship with Jesus will grow stronger and you’ll want to start telling other people about your experience.
It can happen in many ways, but Jesus made it very clear that he wants us to do this. We are called to make disciples.
Matthew 28:19 “...go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, son and holy spirit.”
All Christians should be demonstrating Jesus or talking about him.
This may not represent all the things that you can do to grow in your faith, but it’s certainly a great place to start. Talk to your Christian friends about what ideas they have or how they take intentional actions to grow their faith. You have to figure out what works best for you.
