An Upgraded Faith: Recent Episodes
Santa Maria Foursquare Church
It's in 2 Peter 1:5 that Peter tells us there are essential things to add to our faith. In fact, he goes on to say in 1:8 that if we don't add to (or upgrade) our faith, we'll end up with a faith that's totally ineffective. One of the upgrades Peter says that's needed is knowledge. But what kind of knowledge is he talking about, and how can we get it? Dive in today and let's discover together.
Yesterday's good decisions were helpful — but they have little value today if we don't persevere. If we give up now, all may be lost. Perseverance is more than patience. It always has three elements: waiting, pressure, and promise. Today we explore those three things to find how we can upgrade our faith with perseverance.
The Apostle Peter tells us one of the "essential upgrades" to our faith is self-control. And we're not talking about human willpower on steroids. This kind of self-control is part of a spiritual (and even supernatural) lifestyle, empowered by God himself. It's where our decisions come into agreement with our discernment, and we say 'NO' to useless things so we can say 'YES' to those things that are useful and fruitful in our lives.
Did you know you can build confidence in your faith? The Bible tells us we can do this by serving well. The reverse is also true: people who never serve run the risk of being filled with doubt. Today we explore what serving well looks like (and what it doesn't look like!), and how the perfect example is found in the life of Jesus.
We are continuing in our series of Upgrading our Faith and today our missionary and Pastor, Joel, teaches us about another way we can upgrade our faith – and that is by praying. While ALL prayer is communication with God, there are MANY different kinds of prayers that we discover in God’s Word.
We know that God reveals Himself to us, so it’s our responsibility to keep our eyes open and watch for what God would reveal to us. We have to take responsibility to be reading the Bible and to quiet ourselves to listen to the Holy Spirit. And after we receive His revelation, it’s our responsibility to respond with action. We can’t just receive the revelation and leave it at that. We must respond with action. Our active response to God’s revelation can look different depending on what God is revealing to you. So, you might be wondering if we can respond to God in so many different ways, why would worshipping in song ever be necessary? Why would God ever want you to respond that way? Pastor Kaelyn shares with us several reasons why responding to God by worshiping in song is very important for us to be able to upgrade our faith.
Today, Pastor Lisa shares about the HOW – How do we take what we hear from scripture about goodness, godliness, perseverance and love and add to our faith so that we can be people who are effective and productive? We will be learning together over the next few weeks on How to upgrade our faith so that we will be people who posses these qualities in great measure, increasing every day!
If faith is the operating system of Christian belief, and God's promises are the code, then love is absolutely the language in which it's written. Love is central to how our faith in Jesus is to be lived out. Without it, no matter how smart or spiritually powerful we are, we are useless! But when love is added to our faith, we become God's transforming agents of grace.
Forgiveness is one of the most challenging upgrades to our faith — but it's essential if we want to live free from the brokenness others have splashed onto our lives. And it's essential if we're to have a faith that's useful and effective. But it's hard! So what actually is forgiveness and how do we do it? Hint: it's NOT forgetting what's happened OR giving someone a pass to continue causing pain!
Faith that doesn't grow will just stop working. It becomes useless. So God's word tells us to add to our faith — or upgrade it. And the first upgrade that's needed is goodness, because faith alone doesn't make us good. And to upgrade to a faith that's good requires us to walk in repentance.
Did you know your faith needs upgrading? Just like your smartphone will stop working if you never update it — or worse yet it'll be hacked — Peter says your faith will become ineffective and unproductive. Dive into this new series about faith upgrades, and discover how they can cause us to thrive. Click this link for message notes: https://bit.ly/upgradedfaith-1