NOTE (1/12/18): We’re all learning and growing.  Some of the stuff I’ve written in these old posts may no longer be exactly what I believe or think, or at least may not be articulated the way I’d do it nowadays.  I preserve them in an attempt it to be transparent about my journey, and in the hopes that readers may still glean some insight from the core ideas found here.  Thanks for journeying with me!

Last month marked the two-year anniversary of this website, and I am reminded of how the purpose of liveitreal.org has always been to pass on the things I’ve seen and heard.  I have had a lot to share, but I did reach a milestone with my article “Suffering and Poverty vs. Health and Wealth”.  That article covered the last major theological stepping stone it took to get me from where I was growing up to where I am now – if you’re into denominationalism, you could perhaps call me a Menno-costal.  I’m not much into labels though, I am just a disciple of Jesus Christ.

In the past two years I have attempted to repaint the image of the ideal Christian life to how I have come to see it.  I have written separate articles to explain how I no longer envision us as spending all (or any) of our time in church buildings, as having to be poor (or rich), or just being “nice people”.  I’ve outlined how God’s actually already made us perfect in His eyes, and how our goal is to, um, take over the world, and how God’s given us the power to heal sickness and disease, and how many of us have missed this because we have had a skewed view of humility or we’ve confined God to our understanding of the Bible.  And of course I’ve shared many testimonies along the way of how I’ve seen this stuff at work.  Each article has been a stepping stone to the path of victorious living and moving forward.

So the question is, what’s next?  I have had the thought of studying new material and scrounging up fresh ideas and concepts to study and talk about.  This thought brought out some important  points.  First off, I realize that having a motive of wanting to share something new just for the sake of being new is flawed. I haven’t entirely finished learning the stuff that I’ve already written about.

And also, what if our lives are not all about us just learning stuff?

There’s an un-trendy thought.  But think about it.  A warrior trains, but then he is sent out to fight.  During the fighting, he can perhaps learn better technique as he goes, but that is not his focus.  His focus is on fulfilling his assignment – defeating the enemy.  And when one battle is over, he moves on and continues to fight.  He celebrates the wins and learns from the losses, but he doesn’t spend his entire life training.  He may rest, recuperate, and yes, learn new skills – but only what is necessary to fulfill his mission.

I feel like many Christians have been “in training” their whole lives and never get a taste of what the real battlefront is.  How much training did the guy who had a legion of demons sent out of him get before Jesus sent him to tell everyone about Him?  Jesus sent him out the day he got saved (Luke 8:39), and the whole region was evangelized as a result.  No Bible school or anything!

It’s almost like we’re those people who seem to be continually in college – not because we have a plan for what we want to do with our education, but because we’re just afraid of facing the world outside.  You don’t continually get married; you don’t keep reading the instruction manual after you’ve built the rocket ship.  See, there’s such a difference when we walk knowing that God’s already given us the victory and all we have to do is spread it, rather than treating Christianity like the ultimate self-help tool.

Here’s the key: you can choose where you put your battlefront – the battlefront being the place you spend the majority of your thought life and where you pour your energies into.  If you believe the battle is always supposed to be you learning more, that’s all you will do with life.  And unfortunately, with this mentality you will accidentally pass up opportunities to serve the world because you were trying to figure out what God was supposed to be teaching you rather than figuring out how God was simply giving you an opportunity to give to another.

This battlefront idea is a big concept; I shared a message at a church recently entitled “Where’s Your Battlefront” in which I expound upon it further.  You can find it in the media player below (dated 06/10/2012).

http://sermonplayer.com/c/livingtruth/player.swf

So in regards to the future of this site, I want to try to keep it to the point so we don’t get distracted, like that pastor who preached the same sermon on John 3:16 for weeks on end, and the congregation asked him why he kept repeating himself, and he replied “I’ll move onto something new when you start living what I’m preaching!”

Let’s just be witnesses of the truth.  And if people don’t accept it in one place, shake the dust off your feet and go somewhere else to share Jesus instead of trying to figure out what you did wrong (Matthew 10:14).  People’s hearts aren’t always ready – Jesus didn’t have a 100% conversion rate.

To be sure, if you don’t have something worth sharing, find it!  I’m not saying to stop reading the Bible or praying – a lifestyle of action will demand this.  But I’m saying, we learn as we go.  Once you’ve found something worth sharing, let’s stick with it.  If learning is all we’re supposed to do with our lives, we may as well all go to heaven now.  Sharing Jesus with the world may not be a “new concept”, but the battlefield of the world will never be dull, and if you really know God, you know that His work never gets old.

“As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more…Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.  And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia.  Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more.”

1 Thessalonians 4:1, 9-10