SOULCON ChallengeSample

"REMEMBERING OUR SALVATION, DAILY" I want you to think back to your moment of salvation. The first time you met Jesus as your personal Savior. I want you to think of the emotions you felt, the weight that was lifted off of your life, and the unconditional love you experienced. That moment wasn’t based on your personal performance as a good Christian, or a good person. That moment was a time when your faith was enough. Your faith in Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross was stronger than your failures. We can never leave that sweet place. The people around us need to hear about that time, that moment when we accepted by faith, the sacrifice Jesus made for us. It’s when we share the truth that the God of everything loves us at our worst, and helps us become our best that people start to hear the hope of Jesus. If we feed our brain the message of the cross every morning, we are more aware of other’s need for that message every day. If we feed our brain with pride, vanity or idols then we miss out on the opportunity to share the hope of the cross with hurting people around us. Trust me, I have lost focus so many times. I fail with this constantly, but I don’t allow myself to become defined by those failures, and please, don’t allow yourself to be identified by them either. As humans to fail is normal, experiencing distraction is normal, having terrible days is normal. We have to remember the cross is a symbol reminding us we could never be perfect. We have to remember this daily, and focus on Christ’s performance being stronger than our own. When we do this we will have the strength to bounce back faster after we fall, and we will learn our focus on Christ and His love for us is the most powerful thing in our lives. Picking up our cross and carrying it daily is our constant reminder that Jesus paid it all, He alone is our strength and life and our reminder that no matter what, we are willing to give Him every part of our lives. The following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a select few, but the divine commandment to all Christians without distinction. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer