by Chance Huff | Feb 24, 2022 | Life Advice, Wisdom
As we are going into this new year, I felt unity was placed on my heart. I was having a good conversation with one of my friends that attended Passion Conference and he asked me, “what do you think helped increase your faith since freshman year of college?” That question got me thinking because I’m not the best at self-reflecting, and that is a question that definitely requires some self-reflection. So, as I was thinking about it, I realized it had a lot more to do with my heart than me “being a Christian.” What I mean by this is not that I immediately decided to act like a better Christian just because I was a “Christian now.”
Rich Wilkerson said it best, “it’s about heart transformation not behavior modification.” I am currently reading a book about unity that talks about how the church and Christians need to come back together as one, just how God intended it to be. Yet, as I was reading the scriptures Francis Chan placed in the book, I got a revelation – to have unity with each other, we must first have unity within ourselves.
How can we begin to even fathom becoming a unified front as Christians if so many of us are not unified in ourselves? If we are claiming that Jesus is at the center of our lives, that he is the most important thing, yet we don’t act like it and have no good works to show for it, then is He really at the center of your life? Or are you lying to yourself? How can we be a unified person if I say, ‘Yes Jesus I give you my life!’ and act as though we do not know Him?
“If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” -1 John 1:6
Another word for fellowship is togetherness. So, if we are together with Him – who is Light, then we cannot also be in darkness.
For “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” – 1 John 1:5
Therefore, we ourselves cannot be of both light and dark because there is disunity between our spirit and our actions. This is the problem in our culture today; we think that it is possible for us to live in sin and still be walking as Children of Light. This is not to say that we will never slip up, or that if we do slip up then we are no longer in Jesus. That is what the Enemy wants you to think. The Bible straight up tells us:
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” -Romans 3:23
But there is a difference between slipping up and living in or practicing a lifestyle of sin. We know that we are going to sin, we were born sinners. There has never been anybody that has lived a perfect and blameless life besides Jesus. Because of this, He was able to be the perfect and pure sacrifice we all needed. And as a result, His perfection is the reason we don’t have to place the expectation of perfection on ourselves.
But yet, too many of us are in this comfortable Christian lifestyle – where we are living in darkness while saying we worship a God of light. Too many of us just think that believing is enough, yet we are called to have a faith consisting of zeal; great energy or enthusiasm.
Darkness cannot flow from a heart governed by the Spirit of God, similar to how fresh water and salt water cannot flow from the same stream. Do not be double minded, for this will lead to distress, anxiety, and disorder in your heart and in your life. Instead, be united with the mind of Christ, as a bride is united to her bridegroom. We are His bride and He is our bridegroom, and we are one with Him. You will be truly united within when your heart, mind and soul is attached to its true vine. Your body may be on earth, but your heart is led by the thoughts of heaven. You will find not only unity, but wellness in your soul when you stay attached to your life source, asking Him for less of yourself and more of Him. It is so much better this way.
I encourage you to start tending to the soil of your heart, because what you tend to is what you will grow. What weeds need to be pulled? What needs to be watered, or maybe exposed to the sunlight? The most productive thing you can ever do is to let your soul be nourished by the One who created you. When you do this, He will lavish His love on you and unite Himself close to you, guiding your steps. Don’t take part in lukewarm Christianity; you will miss so much of what God has in store for you. Become unified with the one who created you, not the world that is molding you.
“The one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked” -1 John 2:6
Walk in unity with Jesus and see how beautiful life truly is.
Chance Huff, a Niceville, Florida native, is a Senior at Georgia Tech University where he plays baseball. A huge fan of The Office and all things food, you can find him enjoying time with friends, family (including fiancee Maia, brother Christian and sister-in-law, Sadie), and encouraging people toward Jesus.
by Chance Huff | Sep 10, 2020 | College, Life Advice |
Discovering our strength in Christ through our weakness in flesh
The way up is down. How contradicting? How does that work? Lately I have been reading a lot on prayer, and this song lyric really hit while driving. When we bow our heads, or drop to our knees to pray, we are surrendering, and the act of surrendering is giving ourselves up. This lyric about prayer fits this post because our weakness in flesh drives us into prayer and that is what allows us to discover our strength in Christ.
A passage that used to be so confusing to me and made clear over the past few weeks is 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. If we read this verse it talks about how God’s power is “made perfect in weakness” and how “when I am weak, I am strong”. This is difficult for us to grasp in today’s society with everyone preaching independence and being strong. Yet, we don’t fully know how to be independent because we weren’t made to function that way, and our own strength will never be enough to handle the difficulties that are sure to abound our lives. We are just told.
A life of independence is actually just the opposite of what God calls us to. He calls us to an abiding life in John 15:4:
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me”.
Abiding means to continue without fading or being lost, so we are being called to this relationship with our Heavenly Father, not to act on our own, but to continue remaining in Him without being lost. This isn’t to say that we won’t have trials in our lives, He tells us we will, John 16:33 “in this world you will have trouble”. Now that part of the verse may sound disheartening, but the next part is comforting, He says “take heart for I have overcome the world”. That is why our dependency can be found in Him. He knew we couldn’t handle it on our own, and that is why He affirms us, so that we can take heart in our dependence on Him.
How are we made strong when we are weak? What does this even mean? How can something that is weak be made perfect? Our inability to be perfect is what allows God to move in us. Weakness causes us to feel helpless, and that is where God comes in.
Matthew 11:28: “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest”. We meet Jesus face to face when we are real, when we are weak, when we are helpless. This helplessness drives us to look for dependency, and who better to look towards than God? Our dependency drives us into a regular conversation with Him, in essence, we are bringing our weaknesses to God. Dependency is the Christian lifestyle and the heart of prayer.
We realize we can’t do this on our own anymore, and we turn to God for help. Many of us realize this step, but once God has intervened and helped us, we toss Him to the wayside. Maybe because we feel like we are bothering God, or maybe because we just look at Him as a life support. Like we only come to Him when we need help and once the help has come it’s over until the next time. I am here to tell you, that life is not satisfying, it is the bare minimum – a glimpse of what God wants to do in your life. God tells us that He is with us wherever we go, through the highs through the lows, He is right next to us. I had this outlook of not wanting to bring my problems unless they were urgent, other than that I figured I could handle it on my own, and that was exhausting. I realized I wasn’t treating my relationship with God like a son would his father, and eventually that is what broke me.
Now after we have realized we can’t do this on our own anymore, and God intervenes, that shouldn’t then just result in us going back to our normal lives waiting on the next time we need to call on Him. That should actually affirm that we need Him in our lives! Our relationship with Jesus shouldn’t change, how we receive Him is how we follow Him, Paul says in Colassians 2:6 “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him”. We are to continually walk in our helplessness because that is the only way God’s grace works, it is how we came to Him – weary and heavy-laden.
When you feel angry, pray. When you feel anxious, pray. When you feel excited, pray. When things are going right, pray. When things are going wrong, pray. Every aspect of our lives is meant to be included with God, He wants it all. God is not to be compartmentalized. Give up your kingdom for His kingdom, there can’t be both. Be like a little child and be dependent on God for your every need, admit your weaknesses and ask that He fill those gaps. When prayer becomes our lifestyle we lose control and independence. Allow prayer to take over your life, in this you abide in Him, and in this His power will be made perfect in your weakness.
Chance Huff, a Niceville, Florida native, is a Junior at Georgia Tech where he plays baseball. A huge fan of The Office and all things food, you can find him enjoying time with friends, family (including brother Christian and sister-in-law, Sadie), and encouraging people toward Jesus.
Follow Chance on Instagram @chance.huff
by Chance Huff | Apr 23, 2020 | College, Life Advice |
Joy. Something that seems to be hard to find in times like this, but God has been laying this thought of joy on my heart over and over again throughout this quarantine. It seems as though everywhere we look our joy starts to diminish because our fear intensifies; places that used to be packed are now vacant, everyone is keeping a distance between themselves, when we go out everyone wears gloves and masks, we can’t even go visit loved ones for the fear of transmitting this virus. All of this fear of the uncertainty is taking what we are still able to do/have for granted, and I think that God wants to use this time to show us the joy that He provides when our lives seem to be put on hold.
At the beginning of the year nobody could have foreseen this year going like this. Speaking from my perspective, I was so excited to get back up to college and see all of my friends again and get geared up for the baseball season. Then the season ended just like that, we had just finished up a midweek game against Toledo on a Wednesday night. I remember hearing after the game that all fans were suspended, then the next morning the NBA was suspended, then we had a meeting about everything going on and found out our season was suspended until March 30th, and two hours later we got called back in and got the news that our season was cancelled. When everyone received the news that our season had been cancelled it was tough, the room was upset, the coaches, the staff, the players, it almost didn’t feel real.
Amidst all of the chaos, confusion, frustration and heartache, as I reflect back on this time while everything is shut down my life has become more simplistic. I am not constantly on the go from class to training to study hall, my days have slowed down and I have gotten to spend more time in the Word which has been such a blessing and that leads me to where I am at now. Getting to spend more time with God, and experience the joy that He continually provides, even in times of uncertainty. Hear me out, everything that happens fits into a pattern for good, even though we may not be able to see the good right now our God is working.
Sickness is not of God, Revelation 21:4 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
Our God is perfect, Psalm 18:30 “Everything God does is perfect”
Our God turns destruction into blessings. That is what I believe He will use this time as, a time to call his children back home. Psalm 22:27 “The whole earth will acknowledge the Lord and return to Him. All the families of nations will bow down before Him.”
Our God is a transforming God, who turns water into wine, who turns grief into wonderful joy, who turns the sinners to believers! C’mon somebody if that doesn’t give you joy then I don’t know what will.
The best way to get through times of uncertainty, is to cling to things that are certain, and what do we have in our lives that are certain besides God? And what do we know for certain about God? We know that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Galatians 5:22. Knowing this, we know that God is good and we are to hold tightly to what is good, even through the tribulations. Finding joy in times like these are tough, but when we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus we will experience an “abundance of joy” John 16:24, “a joy that no one can you rob of” John 16:22.
During this time of isolation we need to shift our minds from what we don’t have or can’t do anymore and shift our hearts and mind towards thankfulness. When we posture our heart and mind towards a state of thankfulness, it keeps our mind on the positive, a simple way to to finding the light in dark times as such is to focus on the light. To always be grateful, no matter the situation James 1:2-3 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” Continue to praise Him, continue to trust in Him, and experience the joy that our God will deliver in times of such uncertainty.
I pray that to whoever reads this that God will bring an overwhelming blanket of joy over you and your loved ones. That in this time we don’t run from God because of our confusion or frustration, but that it actually draws us closer into Him. He makes his joy available to all who call upon him. It says in Psalm 22:26 “All who seek the Lord will praise Him. Their hearts will rejoice with everlasting joy.” I pray that many of us experience this joy, and allow it pour out of us.
TYJ☺
Chance Huff, a Niceville, Florida native, is a rising Junior at Vanderbilt University where he plays baseball. A huge fan of The Office and all things food, you can find him enjoying time with friends, family (including brother Christian and sister-in-law, Sadie), and encouraging people toward Jesus.
