The idea that you are going to start something new requires two things to happen.

(1) Realize where your heading
(2) Understand how to make momentum work for you.

Your first challenge is to accept that you aren’t standing still. You are in motion. You are either moving toward a more faithful life or you are moving away from a more faithful life.

For those of you who are moving toward a more faithful life, you’ll find the idea of Living Bold to be attainable and somewhat within reach. You’ve built momentum in your life that can help move you closer to God and a more meaningful faith.

For those of you who are moving away from a more faithful life, you’ll find the idea of Living Bold to be somewhat radical, unattainable, and perhaps too difficult to achieve. The momentum you’ve built in your life is pulling you away.

The second challenge to Living Bold is to realize that building a consistent foundation of faithful living is tied to : Inertia.

A common definition of the word inertia tells us this: It is the force applied against a body in motion to reduce its momentum and eventually change direction. The longer you live, the more momentum you’re building. Every day that you breathe, you are gaining steam. Our habits, our modes of living, and our relationships are all contributors to our momentum. God’s desire for our lives is to be in constant connection and movement toward His ways. The apostle Paul writes that he is constantly pressing forward to reach for the prize.

Sounds simple… right? Well there is a factor involved that must be added into the equation of your life. If living was simply dedicated to being more in tune with the heart of God… then all we would have to do is make up our mind and go for it.

Remember, that inertia requires a force applied to a body in motion that is equal or greater than the force that keeps it moving in the direction it’s in. In layman’s terms… your life will continue to go in the direction it’s in until a great power takes it into another direction.

There are two powers at play in your life. Good (God) and Evil (Satan).

In order for you to carry out a Bold Faith, you must realize that God must be bigger than what you can muster in your own life. You are not big enough to stop the momentum of evil. God is not only big enough to stop your downward spiral, but He is big enough to change your direction and keep you from going backwards again.

I don’t spend much time dwelling on evil… as I don’t want it to recieve any air time or notoriety. Guys, you must realize that evil is real and it doesn’t play clean. If you believe in God… that’s great. You do well… but you’ve got to realize that even evil believes in God and shudders in fear at His name. So to say you believe and that’s all you do… is really nothing special. Go read the book of James in the Bible (Chapter 1) and see what He has to say about this. My question is… Do you shudder in fearful respect of God’s name? I hope so. If you don’t… no need to panic. We’ll get there.

Living Bold comes from the strength you gain out of your momentum. When God is first in your life, you will continue to roll forward and gain strength and passion for the direction of your life. When you are rolling forward (toward a stronger faith), you must remember that evil will now have to work twice as hard to stop your momentum to turn you back around. This is why you hear people confess that the closer they live to God’s heart… the more temptations and evil seems to come around.

Don’t give in to the temptation to stop moving forward. You must put your hands on the ball and continue to roll the way God shows us to roll.

It never ceases to amaze me that so many men have walked toward faith, looked at it, and accepted the challenge only to let it toss them around and back out the front door. You must realize that Faith is a living, breathing act of commitment that requires effort. Faith isn’t something you just get and keep. You’ve got to fight for it. I don’t know many men who shy away from a good challenge.

Each day our culture is teaching us and our children that faith is something for wimps, our church teachers have convinced us that Christ Jesus was a pushover, and the news media has painted faithful people as intolerant bad person. If you disagree with this… take a long look at the pictures of Jesus Christ that we’ve painted and hung up. (By the way… when was Jesus Christ ever a long blond haired, white, Italian looking man in a long flowing white robe and blue sash? C’mon men… really? Jesus was a jewish man of the Middle East.) The physical representation of Christ really isn’t the issue… but I think it’s symptomatic that what we believe may not always be accurate. You’ve got to ask questions… it’s ok.

It’s time to stand up. The momentum of faith is going the wrong direction… and we must act against it to turn the other direction. You need to know that God is not mysterious… He’s very straight forward. It’s the church and the religious thinkers that have made God unreachable by making it seemingly impossible to be in connection with Him. Would you, as a father, blur your intentions and make it impossible for your children to find you and understand how you wanted them to live? I doubt it.

The bottom line to Living Bold is this: Let inertia work for you not against you. The only way to get started is to tune in to God’s heart.

God has revealed His heart and it’s as simple as counting to 10. Can you count to 10? Join me next post and I’ll show you the first step and changing your momentum.

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(You are reading the blog series by Live Bold. This is a living, unedited book being written in the wide open. Follow along. If you’re getting here late, go back to the archives under the LB NOW category and start reading. Each entry is numbered in sequence. Comments are welcome and some will end up in the final published book. May God’s hand be in all we do here at Live Bold.)
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