Carol J German

You have a wonderful opportunity to embrace the most simplest of love stories, God sending His Son down to earth and offering Himself as the living sacrifice that saves man from sin. Believing and receiving the death and resurrection of Christ on your behalf is the game changer in your life. God transforms your dead soul into one that is alive in Him! He prepares you for your eternal home.

Once you become a child of God, see John 1:12, Christ enters into your heart and He helps you to take on His image. He walks with you and helps you to deepen your faith. He wants you to know for certain that He loves you. He needs you to grow deep roots so you can grow strong and bear fruit for His Kingdom.

Look at Colossians 2:6-7, “Just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow Him. Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”

God changes your life in such a way that you become a world changer and a Kingdom builder.

Now look at Colossians 2:13-15 and see what takes place when Jesus enters into a believing heart. “You were dead because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for He forgave all (your) sins. He canceled the record of the charges against (you) and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, He disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by His victory over them on the cross.”

A lot takes place when Jesus enters into your heart. You are forgiven, and acquitted from any wrongdoing are two facts about your new identity that we learn from these verses. The Bible speaks of so much more. Check out 2 Corinthians 5:17, “The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” Look at Acts 1:8, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” This power has the ability to diffuse Satan. You can find this in Luke 10:19-20.

You are able to live strong and mighty, victorious over anything that this world dishes out to you.

As long as you keep your focus on Christ and His Word, your life will be what it is supposed to be, God-honoring as well as satisfied. You will be content. You will be able to respond like Paul in prison. I want to encourage you to read some of his letters, known as epistles. Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians are a few to get you started. Paul rejoiced over the hardships he faced. He could respond this way for He was sold out for Christ. The love that God showed him changed him.

Paul lived with one perspective. He was thirsty for one thing.

It is easy to lose your focus. What keeps you from going deeper with God? What things do you thirst for besides Christ? The world that you and I live in is full of distractions, and we have an adversary who is active in keeping us distracted.

• I struggle with closed hands. Unmet expectations keep me stumbling along, searching for clarity in things other than God. Anger and frustration takes over and my faith gets side-lined.

• Many become apathetic in their faith. You become unimpressed or indifferent because you have seen or heard something so often, like scripture or sermons. You live in auto-pilot mode with God. You remain neutral where one foot may be in God but the other is in the world. God calls this lukewarm living.

• Many hide from conviction. When your soul get pricked by the Holy Spirit, you run. You don’t face yourself and allow God to change what He deems necessary. This pricking happens because the Spirit is trying to get your attention. This causes your soul to become clogged and your sight gets clouded.

• Many keep themselves distracted with productivity and busyness. You are hiding from God.

• Fear, also known as False Evidence Appearing Real, is a tool that Satan uses to keep you from deepening your faith.

• Loving things in this world more than God will set you on the wrong path.

Don’t lose the thirst that God placed within you. In John 4, you see Jesus offering living water to a woman at a well, “Those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”¹⁴ Stay focused on the One who gave His life, as a ransom, for you.

Allow God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit to lead you deeper. There is nothing in this world more valuable than your faith with God. Nothing! I will close with this, “Through Christ, God reconciled everything to Himself.” (Colossians 1:20) Reconcile means to restore friendly relations between two parties. (This definition is from the New Oxford American Dictionary.)

If God restored you to Himself through Christ, He deserves your undivided attention. Ask God to deepen your thirst for Him. He wants to take you on an unbelievable journey!