Increasing Faith

Question:



Greetings fellow sibling in Christ,
I've been recently been searching and chasing after the faith of a mustard seed that is talked about in Matthew 17:20-21. Every great Christian I know has this type of faith, and I have been searching for it, yearning to find it.

My question is: How do I develop this type of faith? It's gotta start somewhere right? So where do I start and how can I start to develop it?

Thanks for your time, and thanks for this wonderful ministry you have going!




Answer:



That’s a very good question. I have often struggled with the same thing. To see others who are experiencing the joy of the Lord in their lives and walking in His fullness, and then looking at your own walk and feeling inadequate is very easy to do. What we have to first remember is that the faith that we do have is not something that we conjured up in ourselves. A very well known verse (Ephesians 2:8) says that we receive grace through faith. That faith doesn’t come from ourselves, and that even this is a gift from God. At the beginning of our walks when we are spiritually born, Christ receives us when we respond to His reaching out to us. He then gives us the ability to believe based on our response. We then are called to live by faith and not our feelings as 2 Corinthians 5:7 shows us.

Hebrews 10:23 says that we need to hold fast to our profession of faith because HE is Faithful. We are not walking based on our own faith. We are called to live based on the faithfulness of Christ in us. That takes the pressure of performance off of us and enables us to rest in His presence becuase He has promised never to leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). In resting in His faithfulness, we will see Him work mightily thorugh our lives and that increases our faith.

Don't forget, if you have a question you can send it to me at asktheyouthpastor@xtrlive.com plus you can talk to us tonight at www.studenthopeline.com.

About Love

Question:



I'm in love with someone who doesn't feel the same way about me anymore. I pray for God to take these feelings away, but every single day I'm hurt and disappointed. Its an endless cycle. If God loves me so much, why does He allow me to suffer through all of this?



Answer:



I can definitely understand the feeling of frustration and the confusion in putting these two together. What’s important to understand is that there is a difference between the love that people give to others and the love that our Father gives to us. The thing about people is that even those with the best intentions let us down. This person probably had strong feelings for you at one point and then decided going a different way. The reason people do this is because we honestly don’t know what we want. Because of that we tend to go on our feelings very easily. On a good day the world is bright and chipper and bad days it seems really gray and almost hopeless.



What we need to remember is that God does not love us like this. Isaiah 55:9 says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways.” His love for us is not a love that tells you “I love you” one day and then lets you down. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This is where it starts. He proved His love by sending Jesus to save us from separation from Him, and so that we could know Him to the fullest and enjoy Him. John 17:3 says that eternal life is knowing the Lord and Jesus, the One the Father sent, and if you look at 1 John 4:8, you’ll see that God IS Love. To experience the Father is to experience His love.



It’s not His desire that you think and feel that any human love you feel in a relationship is how He loves you. As a matter of fact, He wants you to experience His Love so much that it pours out into every area of your life. The way that He does that is not by taking away desires that we have. He made you to want to be loved and to respond. He pours out His love and works in our hearts by our responding to Him and turning to Him. We have to accept what He says as true and confidently trust Him to give freely to us because He is our Father and He made us His children because of Jesus (Luke 11:9-11). When we submit ourselves to Him, He sets us free from the power of whatever it was that was holding us apart from Him. (2Corinthians 3:17)

Don't forget, if you have a question you can send it to me at asktheyouthpastor@xtrlive.com plus you can talk to us tonight at www.studenthopeline.com.

Abour Relationships

Question:



I was in a relationship with my ex-boyfriend for over a year. Throughout the relationship I treated terribly but he was in love with me. Now it's vice versa. I apologized to him but he now treats me terribly. Recently, he told me he didn't want anything to do with me. He is now in a relationship with my friend. At first in our relationship he was VERY close to God. I feel like I pulled him away. Now I'm trying to get close to God. Do you have any advice on how to rely on God to lead us back together, with us both loving each other? Or any advice on broken hearts?



Answer:



The thing about following God that you have to understand is that God doesn’t want us to draw closer to Him with an expected result. When we do that, we are telling Him that we want His hand on our lives but we still hold onto our own desires. If you desire to draw closer to the Lord, it will have to be only for the purpose of knowing Him better and walking in the life He has given you. When we come to Him, we have to come to Him on His terms. Jesus said that before we could even be His disciple, we had to deny ourselves. Now understand that I am not saying this to discourage you from seeking the Lord. He wants us to seek Him far more than we desire to know Him. He created us for this relationship. But know that His terms are the only terms for walking this way.


The best thing you can do now is accept the situation you are currently in right now. We always receive the fruit of the actions that we sow. Now the Lord will give you the grace to walk through this as you look to Him. But understand that in the beginning, you took a course of actions that came to this result, even though now you would rather it not be this way. Give this time and focus on your walk with the Lord. Friendships and relationships work both ways. He has to be ready to respond. Respect his stand and give him space. It may turn in time, but don’t put your hope in that. Your hope is meant to be placed in the Lord.

Don't forget, if you have a question you can send it to me at asktheyouthpastor@xtrlive.com plus you can talk to us tonight at www.studenthopeline.com.

I Want to Serve the Lord

Question:



I'm tired of waisting my life. I want to start serving the Lord. It's only been a couple of days since I've decided this but I'm sure of it. I have already recieved the Lord as my Savior a few years back. I just never served him like I know I should. I want to start serving Him now because tomorrow might be too late. I have been putting this off for a while but God says that it's time. I really need help. I already took the first step but I don't know what's next.



Answer:



I understand what you are saying and I see that you want your life to be used for a purpose beyond yourself. I want you to carefully weigh my words and think over what it is that you are desiring. I'm speaking to you about this out of my own personal experience and what I am coming to learn in my own walk with the Lord. I was saved at a young age. I knew that the Lord was True and outside of Him there was nothing of any true value. So I told Him the same thing. I told Him that I would do anything that He wanted me to do and I would serve Him. Part of me wanted to do this because inside I felt inadequate. I thought that if I did things for Him, I could come to a place where He would be pleased with me. Another thing that I knew was that I didn't know Him very well, and I wasn't sure how to get to know Him. My times in His Word had a lot of confusion and my prayers to Him all sounded the same. No matter how hard I tried on my own I couldn’t ever seem to get anywhere.

I am telling you all this because the work that He has for you is something that HE wishes to do through you. The emphasis is on Him doing the work. There is nothing that you can do for Him that would make Him more pleased with you. He is already pleased with you because of Christ and Him making you right with the Father.

He desires that you would get to know Him. I would encourage you to stop trying to do things to please Him and rest in what Christ did to make you right with the Father. Learn to be still before Him. He is the One who saved you. All you did was respond to His salvation by saying yes. He wants you to walk with Him in the same manner. After saying yes to Him and whatever He has planned for you, go forward in your day expecting Him to reveal Himself to you. This is a lifelong journey. Take it one day at a time and trust Him one moment at a time.

Don't forget, if you have a question you can send it to me at asktheyouthpastor@xtrlive.com plus you can talk to us tonight at www.studenthopeline.com.

I Need Help

Question:



I don't know who else to turn to. I use to be a devil worshipper. I feel like their is nothing left for me. What should I do? I feel like I'm stuck in a corner.



Answer:



It's easy to look at yourself and think that you don't have much worth. While in ourselves there isn't anything. Our worth comes from what Christ has made us based on our relationship which He has brought us into. Our worth is based on our identity in Christ. When we are saved, we are not called to live for ourselves, because there is nothing in ourselves that is really worth living for. I don't say this to discourage you. I say this that you would look to the Father and see what you are and what you have been called to from Him. What I would do if I were you, I would ask you to open your Bible to the book of John, and ask God to help you see what God wants you to know about Him and what He's done for you. Just read a chapter or two a day and ask God to show you how much you mean to Him and be open to what He tells you. What you have to do is stop looking at yourself. You'll only get depressed. You'll find the rest you long for in Christ.

Don't forget, if you have a question you can send it to me at asktheyouthpastor@xtrlive.com plus you can talk to us tonight at www.studenthopeline.com.

Giving

Question:



I am now 21 and have been faithfully walking with God since April, 2010. It has been a struggle and I have been spiritually attacked. However, I refuse to go back to my old ways. I have faith in God and will continue forward with my walk. Each day try harder to break an old habit. When I am giving, since I am in a very bad financial situation and I use to be very selfish, I feel like I can't give anymore. I probably could but it might hurt this situation more. These ideas have been running through my head. Is this normal? Should I listen to them? Should I ignore them and give anyway trusting in God that this is what I'm suppose to do? Could you please help me out? Thank you so much for your time.



Answer:



I can definitely see where this would make you want to go crazy. But in order to walk through this you have to have His perspective on what it means to give. The confusion comes in when we mix what He asks of us with our heart in what we choose to give Him. The nature of giving is very simple. It is much like the way He intends for His children to walk with Him. We become His children when we receive Jesus and what He did to save us from our sins as the only way to Heaven and not to trust anything we can do on our own. We walk with Him on a daily basis when we let go of our own attempts to follow Him and let Him teach us what it means to walk with Him, and then respond in obedience.

The way that He desires that we give is not by giving all that we have in hopes of "attaining" selflessness. He desires that we hold up to Him all that we have and keep in close communion with Him. When He prompts us to give is when we should respond. Trying to manufacture it on your own will only bring confusion.


Don't forget, if you have a question you can send it to me at asktheyouthpastor@xtrlive.com plus you can talk to us tonight at www.studenthopeline.com.

Personal Struggle

Quesiton:



I am having a difficult time overcoming sort of an awkward subject, masturbation. God has saved and delivered me from so many thing such as drugs and alcohol and many other things but this is just one obsticle I'm having a hard time getting over... Could you give me some advice?



Answer:



I would like to first refresh you on the perspective that Christ wants His children to take. Our being and our life flows from Him. We are the reflection of the image of Christ and because of Him we are alive. Outside of Him, we cannot do anything. I say that to help you realize that it's only through the redemptive work that Christ has done in you that you will walk in victory. The victory does not come through your own will or strength to resist. It starts when you submit your desires and your passions to Him. Jeremiah 17:9 says that the heart is deceitful. Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart, man speaks, and James 4 says that no man can tame the tongue. So in essence, masturbation is an outflow the desires of the heart which you cannot tame. It starts when you let go of all the desires surrounding this outflow and surrender to Christ and allow Him to steer the desires of your heart and seek to walk in His obedience.

I would encourage you to become a student of the Word. Out of reading His Word and committing yourself to letting Him teach you through His Holy Spirit, you will see for yourself how to walk in His Will and stay pure in Him (Psalm 119:9-11). Then next I would encourage you to walk in accountability. You cannot fight this alone, you need to be open and honest with yourself about this struggle, with the Lord, and with other believers who are fighting the same fight of purity. When you walk in the light, bear each other's burdens, and pray for one another, you walk in the light, and grace of Christ, He will help you walk in His grace, embrace His forgiveness which is already yours, and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

Now I want you to know that this is a journey, that there will be times of struggle. But slipping and falling is not the judge of failing. It's if you will get back up and keep moving forward. Christ is not interested in perfection as much as He is persistence.

Don't forget, if you have a question you can send it to me at asktheyouthpastor@xtrlive.com plus you can talk to us tonight at www.studenthopeline.com.