You Must Always Strive To Keep Your Faith Alive

Hello, and welcome to Social Media Ministries. My name is Spencer Coffman. If this is your first time with us then feel free to check out our YouTube channel—navigate around there. We have got a lot of sermons on a lot of great topics.

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Today we have a good sermon on keeping your faith alive. A lot of times this is something that is very difficult for people to do. Life has a way of getting us down and that is biblical. Satan rules this world; this is his earth and it is not our world. We are not of this world. We are of a different kingdom as followers of Christ.

The world used to be in the control of humankind or mankind, but then when Satan tricked Eve and Eve gave the fruit to her husband and they both sinned, Satan took the power away from humans and is now ruler of this world.

So the fact that this world has a way of getting us down is biblical; Satan is always trying to pull us down. His demons are everywhere. Make no mistake they are trying to hurt you, to hunt you down, to suppress you, and to really just ruin you because you follow Christ their enemy.

So as a follower of Christ, it is very very important that you work hard to keep your faith alive. This message is going to be about some different ways and some things that you can do. It is really an encouraging and uplifting message. If there is someone in your life who seems to be down in the dumps, feel free to share this with them. Help them out a little bit.

In addition, if this is you, feel free to comment below or reach out to us on social media and we can pray with you. We can pray for you even if you don’t want to tell us anything about it or you don’t want to speak with us directly, you can feel free to put a comment below and just say, “Pray for me” and we will pray for you. Feel free to do that if you need prayer.

We would love to pray for our fellow believers in Christ and for anyone in general. If there is someone that you know that is not a believer but you are working on them, we will pray for them too. We will pray for anyone. We are always happy to do that. So let’s get started.

Keeping your faith alive. The best way to do that is to practice the things that you are learning. That is saying practice what you preach. Well, I am the one preaching to you, so if you are trying to share with other people then yes, you would be preaching it too, but you have got to practice what I preach. The things that you are learning in all of these sermons, in all of these messages, get out there and do them.

The other thing, practice what you read in the Bible. Whatever you are learning, whatever you are reading in here, the Bible is not going to steer you wrong. This is your road map to life, your atlas, your manual, read it and do it. Now of course, it is tough and everything that I am preaching or teaching in these sermons is coming directly from the Bible.

So really the bottom line, the root of the matter is that you need to be doing the things in the Bible. What is that? Well, dedicate yourself to God. You need to be fully committed to Him. If there is anything in your life that is coming before God you have to reevaluate. Restructure. God must be first.

What does that look like? That means that every morning when you wake up you are thanking Him for the day. You are thanking Him for the will to get out of bed. You are talking to Him every night.

You are talking to Him before you go to bed, thanking Him for everything that you got done, all the things that you did, your health, all of that kind of stuff throughout the day. You are praying to Him. You are asking Him.

You are saying, Father, I need this, help me with this, give me strength, give me energy, give me any of this. God—He wants you to talk to Him. He is a parent like that of the child that keeps nagging on them and the parent is like, enough already. No, God says what else? The more you talk to Him, He says what else? What else can I do for you now?

If you are just complaining to Him and grumbling and muttering about stuff that is not right, you need to be presenting your requests with joy and thanksgiving. Such as, “Lord, please, I really need this new opportunity” or “Can you please do this in my life or help us to do this?”

If you are simply asking for material things, “God I want a bigger house” or “Please get me a new car” or “Help me get money or whatever,” that is not right. It is how you are asking and what you are asking for.

We have other sermons on that, so we are not going to dive into it, but really, you need to be asking with a pure and sincere heart and know that it is according to what God wants for your life. If you say, “God give me a million dollars so I never have to work again.”

But what does that really mean? It means you want to be lazy and not work and so you want money. Well, He is not going to do that for you. He wants to build character in you just like any good parent.

He is going to say, “Sure, I will give you a million dollars if you work for it.” Start looking for opportunities, but what are you going to do with that money? If you are just going to sit around and blow it, then no.

Of course, He is not going to give it to you. But if you are going to put it into His kingdom, then yes. It has to be aligned with the will of God and with what He wants. How do you know what He wants? Read the Bible.

Continually pray, dedicate yourself to God, pray all the time, read the Bible, and finally share it with other people. You must be sharing it just like it says. What does the Bible say? You have to get out there and do that. Sharing it with other people so you can write those things down. Dedicate yourself to God, continually pray, read the Bible, and share it with other people.

A lot easier said than done, so maybe the best way for you to keep your faith alive is to sum all those up into one thing. Remain on fire for Christ. You have to be hot all the time. Be hot; we had a sermon about that a long long time ago.

You can check that out in a card up here or navigate to our YouTube channel. It is called, “Be Hot.” You can check that out, good sermon way back when that we did earlier.

So be on fire, be hot, and you do that by doing what the Bible says. I can’t tell you how many days I get up here and I just don’t feel like doing this today. I am tired. It is not in me. I don’t know what I am going to say. There is no way I am going to be able to do a 20-minute sermon on this stuff. I feel like I could say it all in five minutes.

Then all of a sudden, I take that first step and I start looking up the verses and I start planning and my mind is going like crazy and now it is like a fire was lit. I am on fire and I get up here and pretty soon 20 minutes are gone and I am like “Man I gotta wrap this up because it is a 20-minute time slot.”

So you just gotta start taking that first step. If you are not feeling called or you are not feeling led, don’t worry. Take that step of faith. That fire inside of you is like a little pilot light and all of a sudden God turns up the fuel and it starts into a fire. You gotta keep that fire going. Do what the Bible says. That is the best way to keep that fire going.

Let’s go to James Chapter 1 Verses 22-25. If you don’t have your Bibles, don’t worry, I will read them to you. Also, the references will be in the description below so you can pay attention, come back later and look them up, and read them on your own time which I encourage you to do. Here we go, James 1:22-25. Let’s get started.

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves”—Don’t simply listen and then go away from this and go about your day—“Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a person who looks at their face in the mirror and, after looking at themselves, goes away and immediately forgets what they look like.”

Now we had a sermon about this specific verse, this specific message, you can check it out in a card here. It is called, “Remember Your Face.” If you are not on YouTube and you can’t click on that card, go to our YouTube channel, search “Remember Your Face” or you could search through that in your podcast feed, however, it is.

But do what the Word says. If you are simply listening to the messages, whether it is from me or at your local church and then you are going home and going about your week and you are not practicing what you just listened to and just heard, then it is like you are forgetting what you look like. In addition, if you do these things God says you will be blessed.

How do we know that? Well let’s go to John 13:17. This is Jesus speaking and this is toward the end, this is when He is washing His disciples’ feet. He is being a servant; He is showing them that, “Hey, I didn’t come here to be the master all the time, and in order to help others, I also need to serve. I am a servant of the world, I came here to save.”

Here is the verse, He is giving His disciples kind of a recap of everything they did together and He is having just a really good connection moment with them and He says, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”

You will be blessed. What does that mean? Well go out there and do these things and see how it makes you feel. That alone is a blessing. Like I said before, there are some times when I don’t feel like doing this, and then all of a sudden I am fired up and I am ready to go for the day. It is like my day has changed because I started it off right with this.

So even if you don’t feel like it, dive in and you will notice that in your life. In addition, if you start sharing it with others, you may notice more things. You will be blessed. Have no doubt. If you listen to what the Bible says and do what it tells you to do, you will be prosperous and successful. Not only will you be blessed but how will you be blessed? Prosperity and success.

Let’s check out Joshua 1:8. All right, “Do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth.” What does that mean? It means know your Bible, understand it, have it in your head. Once when things come up, when you are listening to me talk about certain things you should be thinking like, “Oh, I know that verse in the Bible.”

Maybe you don’t know the reference, but when I say something like “You will be prosperous and successful,” or if I say “Your word is a light” or “the wages of sin is death,” you should have those verses on the tip of your tongue.

Like, “Oh yeah, I know those verses.” Maybe you don’t know exactly where they are, but you know the verse, you know that Scripture; it is on the tip of your tongue.

“Do not let the book of the law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” Know this book. Know the book of the law.

Now, of course, at the time of this, this is Yahweh commanding Joshua. And the book of the law He is referring to is the Old Testament, but for us, nowadays, under the new covenant it is everything—it is the whole Bible. Know your Bible, understand it, internalize it, and meditate on it day and night.

What does that mean? Does that simply mean that during the day you are going to cozy up with your Bible and try to absorb it? No. At night you are gonna sleep with it and try to osmosis it into your brain? No, that is not what this means. “Meditate on it day and night” means that you read it, you understand it, you think about it, you pray, and ask God “Hey, what does this verse mean?”

Well, I am just pondering it and then it also means you are talking about it with other people. Now if you don’t have other people to talk about it with, then guess what, comment below, go to our Facebook page, comment there, comment, and discuss.

Ask questions. Talk about things there even if it is semi-related. Maybe something about your faith, some verse that you found, comment—engage in discussion here. It is a great place to do that.

If you feel like you don’t have anyone else to talk to, even if you do have other people to talk to, get them on here as well and engage in discussion because you know something you post, as long as you are being polite and respectful, something you post could have a great effect on another person who is reading those comments. So keep that in mind as well.

Simply read your Bible every day and do what your Bible says. That is really simple, but it is hard. It is a simple concept, read your Bible every day, do it, but it is hard. What do I mean by that? How many days this past month or even this past week have you sat down and read your Bible? I hope you are laughing at me, saying I read my Bible every day.

But I bet a lot of you are saying “I hardly ever read my Bible” or “I only read it when I am in church” or “I only read it when I am watching Social Media Ministries.” Read your Bible and do what it says. It is simple but it is hard. If you do this though, you will find a life within you that you didn’t know existed.

Remember my story, sometimes I don’t feel like doing all this all the time. Even sometimes I might be out in public and whether it is in line at the coffee shop or I am getting help at the bank or whatever the case may be. Maybe you are at the post office or the cell phone store, wherever, and you can tell someone is having a bad day, sometimes is it appropriate for me to say, “Can I pray for you?”

I don’t want him to be mad. I don’t want to overstep any bounds. But guess what? Even though you don’t feel like saying that, I have never, never ever had a time where someone gets upset with me for asking that question.

A lot of times before I ask it, I get really nervous and I start shaking and I am sure color comes out of my face and all of a sudden I am like, “Well can I pray for you” and then—bam—they are like blown away and they say, “That would be really great.”

Then all of a sudden it comes out, “Okay, what do you need?”—Bam—they are like a moth to a flame. “I am this, I am this, I am this, I am this.” Okay, let’s pray. Boom, and then they are like, “Wow thank you so much for that.”

So you blessed them by praying for them because they realize someone in this world cares and you are blessed because I just got to pray for someone and I may never see them again ever, but the feeling that you get by taking that step of courage and by doing what the Bible says is a blessing in and of itself.

Let’s continue on. Here there is another verse. I didn’t have this in the plan but I am going to do it here. It is Joshua 1:9, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

In that instance do not be scared, even though you might feel scared. Take that step of courage, that leap of faith, and ask. Like I said, all the times I have done that, I still sometimes get nervous and I have never had a negative experience. What does that tell you? [It] Tells you do what the Bible says. God will be with you every step of the way, and He will not let you fall. He will be there.

You will find that life within you you didn’t even know existed, that flame, that little pilot light will become a bright burning fire. Put your lamp on a stand for all to see. Be the light of the world. God will instill so much power and so much life within you—you won’t even believe it. Your faith will be alive like never before.

Let’s go to Psalm 119 1 and 2, “Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD. Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.” Seek God with all your heart.

Remember it involves a few things. Dedicate yourself to God, continually pray, read the Bible, and share it with other people. All of that sums up to be on fire for Christ. Take those steps of faith. Be courageous, be bold, be brave, and put yourself out there. God will be there with you.

Sometimes you just have to take that first step even if you are not feeling it. That pilot light inside of you is burning and it is dying, make sure you stoke it up and kindle it. How can you do that? Take that step and the Holy Spirit all of a sudden just fans that flame and you truly will find a fire, find something inside of you that you didn’t know was there.

Let’s pray. Lord Jesus thank You for this inspiring and powerful message. Please inspire those people watching and listening, give them that desire, that burning desire to take those steps, to do, to act in faith, to read and internalize these words.

To meditate on them day and night. To understand them. To discuss them with others. To comment on posts and messages and ask questions and seek prayer and seek your face.

Lord, I ask that they would find that fire within them and that You would kindle that when they take those steps of faith. Even though they may be terrified of doing it, prod them along, and when they do Lord, bless them as You have promised. Now that they are doing those things, bless them and make them prosperous and successful.

Of course prosperous and successful can be different in many ways. Prosperous and successful doesn’t mean finance and job status, title, social economic status, prosperity, and success could mean they take that step in faith and that person says, “Yes please pray for me. Thank you so much for doing it.”

It is an internal reward of prosperity and success within Your kingdom. Remember we want to store up treasures for ourselves in Heaven. Lord, I ask that each and every person keeps that on their mind and that they go out there and do what the Bible says. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hey if you need any help doing what the Bible says and you have situations in your life and you are not sure what to do, feel free to comment below. In addition, if you have a testimony or an experience of some time when you were in the drive-through lane and you just told that guy, “Hey you know what? Jesus loves you. He died for you. Here is an extra tip—five bucks for you.”

Or you have something that happened and that person reacted in a certain way and it really touched you. Some type of moment where you took a step of faith, comment with that below. Put those words of encouragement for others to read and to see that it truly does happen, that when you take those steps, even though you are scared, it is well worth doing. God bless.