It is exciting as a new believer coming into Christianity, you are awash with new feelings and everything is exciting. You are full of energy and everything is new to you, you love praying and talking to God as an infant does when they learn to talk. You delve into the scripture, busy to know more about the God you have just given your life to. Life is pretty exciting in these days.
I would say this marries with anything new that we start, whether it is like a new hobby or project or career, at the beginning it is all interesting and fun and we gain so much from it. But what happens down the line is, we can become bored or things just seem monotonous, that we feel like we aren't getting anywhere. This is where we slip and can slide backwards in our journeys.
There are many times you hear people say they are back at square one, whether this is after a breakup, a change of job or when they have fallen out of habit with what they were doing and having to start again. Square one seems like such a negative thing and we view at such in life. We all want to progress and move through life in a straight line to reach the end happy and successful with our goals accomplished. But life is rarely like this, it often takes turns and has high and lows that we have to experience along the way, which helps us to reach our dreams and fulfil our goals.
Christianity is just the same. We often find things can become very much the same in our lives week to weeks. Bible study, prayer time, church are all built around our daily lives like a religious hobby and sometimes, we don't seem to be going anywhere. Before you know it, we stop doing certain things and start to slip backwards on the progressive scale. After all these years of being a disciple of Christ we look up and discover we are at, you guessed it, square one. How did this happen? Why did this happen?
Well there are likely to be many causes that impact our daily walks with Christ, but there are often two main reasons we fall back rather than continue to progress forward. Many people will think failure is the key in this period, they have failed to do x, y & z and this is why life is a mess. Now to an extent that can be true, but what we are really talking about here is discipline. If we are not disciplined in our walk with Christ we can let all sorts of temptations in and this will distract us from moving forward. It is important to keep your prayer times, because how else are you going to build a solid relationship style of communication with Jesus? Worship time is important because how else are we going to remind God and ourselves that He is first and foremost in our lives and our world? Bible study is also important, for how else are we going to learn more about ourselves, those around us and in the world. How can we learn to overcome problems, recognise good from evil, know God's nature and what he has done for us, from the world He created to living in, to the sacrifice of his Son to save us?
All these things must come from a place of discipline, however, disciplined action only comes from a strong foundation.
A strong square one is known as a foundation, it is what we really need to become successful in our faith. The bible shows us one day where Jesus turns to Simon and renames him Peter saying you are my rock and upon you I will build my church. Peter was a guy who constantly messed up and slipped back to square one in his discipleship period with Christ. But there is a parable Jesus told one day that I think will have resonated with Peter and it is in Matthew, 7 v 24-27 and this is what it says 24 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
Now we don't know for sure if Jesus actually singled Peter out for the main cornerstone of the Church, because we know Jesus is the cornerstone of our faith and churches. However when we look at the history of the church we see that tradition has it, that Peter was the first bishop of Rome. What we do know Is that Peter was one of the founding inspirations throughout Israel and the Mediterranean for the church. This was all possible because he had built himself a solid square one.
In today's society we often look at big business and big business leaders as the go to model for success, either for starting out businesses or personal inspiration. Something we do not often see or hear about is that entrepreneurs and the successfully rich people that we see, have often failed in their lives and gone bankrupt or lost everything they have had. But they let it shape them and in so they continue on and become successful. I am not promoting unhealthy wants for our lives, but if you look at their examples you can see the parable Jesus talked about. The winds came, the waters rose and when trouble struck, they lost everything. But what remained in them was a strong foundation of how to build. This disaster left them to start a fresh, but this time on a solid foundation and they built something monumental in their lives.
Inspiration can come from anywhere, the important thing about inspiration is that we take the lessons learnt and apply it to ourselves. Now you may think this teaching is heavily focused towards the secular rather than the scripture. But in actual fact it is focused first on the cycle we get ourselves in. Building on the sand, doing things right, but when the trouble comes it all comes crashing down around us, leaving us back at square one and we repeat this throughout our lives. Yet if we change our initial habit and find solid ground to build on. when the challenges come in the future, we will be able to stand strong, not only stand strong, but we will be able to build more on top of what is already there.
Here's the inspiration for us believers today.
Square one is amazing when we first believe, in this moment we need to build the foundation that is going to carry us through everything in life. First and foremost for our foundation to be built we need to put Jesus and the very centre and God as our cornerstone. What do I mean by this, well everything is done for God and through God, why, all for the glory of His Son Jesus. This means the first thing we establish is our connection to God, because from this we can build everything else.
Everything we build becomes us and everything we are needs to revolve around Jesus who gave His life to save us. This is why God is the cornerstone, the strong part of any building laid first and this is also why Jesus is at the centre. Once we establish these two things we will find meaning in our worship and it will centre and ground us. We will begin to talk and communicate with Jesus and find direction, peace, fun, hope and support for our lives in the good times and the bad. Also when we study the bible, it will come to life and we will find out things that will astound us and also inspire others to build successful lives like yours - saved and living for a purpose.
For those established believers, it is not too late to start and build a solid square one for yourselves. All we need to do is replace what was at the centre of our lives with Jesus, by taking the time to change what our life was built upon with God and then transferring everything else over from the soft foundation you had to the now strong foundation in God. A strong foundation is shown or reflected by living in success no matter what life or the enemy throws at you. Today, no matter whether you are a new believer or have been a Christian for years you can have a successful life through building this strong square one, all you have to do is start.
Once square one is built, feel free to carry on building other squares on top throughout your life. I pray this has spoken to you and inspired you, I hope and pray that you all have solid foundations and are strong in your life for Christ, flourishing in His favour through the Holy Spirit.
Bible study Christian Life Church Foundation Inspiration Jesus Personal Life Prayer Square One Worship← Back to Teachings