Now that you have received faith, you are now a Christian and will now walk with God for the rest of your life!  The term walking with God is a biblical phrase which refers to living the Christian life.  To walk with God is to grow in relationship with God in all areas of your life.  When we become a Christian, we receive a fundamental change in our identity!  We are now Christians, believers, children of God, salt, light, Ambassadors, vessels of mercy, and many other terms that point to our eternal identity as adopted into the family of God!

Christianity is a faith that we practice, so in Christian living there are things that you will need to do in order to grow your faith, grow spiritually, and grow to become more like Jesus.  Below, I have listed out several practices that should be integrated into your daily life.  A good way to think about spiritual growth is to look at how we grow physically.

What I am about to share might seem basic, but what I am about to share will be the lifeblood of your faith!  The Christian faith is not spectacular, it is not extraordinary, it is not a constant emotional high, in short, genuine faith is not based on feeling, it has little to do with how you feel, and entirely based on how you live!  The Christian life may have a wow! factor at the beginning, but rather is shown over time by our words and actions!  We do not live a certain way to make us Christian, but because we are Christian.

This is important to understand because life will get harder, not easier!  We will have times of sorrow, we will have times when we sin, we will have times when we doubt our salvation, we will have times when we cannot understand how God can love us, we will have times when we will not understand why God allowed something bad to happen to us our loved ones, but through it all, you MUST BE AWARE that everything written above would never occur to a person without genuine Christian faith!

By way of analogy, this is how to think of the foundations of our the practice of our Christian faith!  I coached baseball for many years, little league and Pony league, and one year I had a kid on my team who had a father who played professional baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies.  At the start of the season, he asked me if he could speak to the team before one of our practices!  What he shared still resonates with me in many parts of my life.

He told the team, “today you are going to field 20 groundballs and throw them to first base.  Then you are going to be hit 20 flyballs and you will throw them to the cut-off man.  After that you will have batting practice and you will each receive 30 pitches to swing at and work on your stance, eye to hand coordination, shifting your weight, and driving the ball somewhere in the field.”  You will go through the season, and each game you play how you practice, so practice well!  Know the basics so well that you can teach them to others.  “How many of you want to play professional baseball?”  Every hand went up.  He continued, “you know what I do at work!  I field 100 groundballs, I field 100 fly balls, and I hit 100 balls in the batting cage, I do this every single day!”  Is it fun to turn a double play… yes!  It is fun to hit a homerun… yes it is!  Is it fun to make errors… no, it is not!  Is it fun to stikeout… no, it is not!  Gentlemen, you play how you practice, so practice well everyday, do the fundamentals over and over again, and over time you will become a better, stronger, intelligent player!”

I share this story because the Christian faith also takes practice!  We practice to grow our faith, to make our faith stronger, to trust God more than we trust ourselves, to trust God more than we trust the conventional wisdom of our culture, and to grow strong so that we can guide, teach, counsel, love, and help others!  If you do these things, you will grow up in the faith!  We all begin in toddlers in the faith, but God is calling all of us to grow from milk to solid food, to grow from students to teachers, to make disciples, to become Ambassadors for Jesus Christ, and to love God will all of our heart, soul, mind and strength so that we can love people well!  So practice the following:

1. Read the Bible everyday!  If you do not have a Bible, I suggest that you purchase a New Living Translation (NLT), a New American Standard Bible (NASB), a New English Translation (NET) or an English Standard Version (ESV).  If you cannot afford a Bible, message us on this site and we will send you one.
2. Pray everyday!  Pray to God, talk to Him about what is on your heart!  Give thanks for everything in your life!  It is good to have a dedicated prayer time each morning and before bed, but it is also good to talk to God throughout the day!  We have been adopted into the family of God, so you can talk to God as your Dad!
3. Go to Church!  Find a church in your neighborhood and commit to going every week. When selecting a church, the first thing to do is check out the Statement of Faith.  Read our Statement of Faith page to understand what to look for in a church.  Get involved in a mid-week Bible study if they offer it.  Please note that there is no perfect church! The church is made up of people and people are sinners, we place our faith in God!

There is much more to know, but this is our starting point!  These 3 practices are the groundballs, flyballs and batting practice of our faith!  May God bless you on your faith journey!