Faith

You Were Never Meant to Just Get By

/ Terrence Burton / Leave a comment

Before there was sin, before there was a fall, there was a decision inside the heart of God. Genesis 1:26 records it plainly. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. That was not a passing comment. It was the blueprint for why you exist.

Made To Resemble Him, Not Just Serve Him

The Hebrew word for image, tselem, points to a real resemblance, while likeness, demuth, points to character and action. Together they mean humanity was never designed to be merely useful to God. You were designed to reflect Him, the way a child carries a parent’s features and mannerisms. Leviticus repeats the charge, ye shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. That standard was never about a list of rules. It was about identity.

Jesus Is The Example, Not Just The Savior

Matthew 5:48 records Jesus saying something that should stop us in our tracks. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. That word perfect, teleios in the Greek, does not mean flawless performance. It means full grown, mature, complete in purpose. God is not asking you to never fail. He is inviting you into wholehearted love. And because none of us reach that standard alone, God gave us a living example. First Peter 2:21 says Christ left us an example, that we should follow His steps. The Greek word there, hypogrammon, described a writing pattern placed under paper so a student could trace the letters. Jesus is not a rulebook. He is a pattern you trace with your life.

You Are Being Changed, Not Just Forgiven

Second Corinthians 3:18 says believers are changed into the same image from glory to glory. Salvation was never only about escaping judgment. It is about becoming who you were always meant to be, a living reflection of the God who made you on purpose.

You were not created to simply survive your days. You were created to look like your Father. Let that truth reshape how you see tomorrow.

-Terrence Burton

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The Secret Bartimaeus Knew Before He Could See

/ Terrence Burton / Leave a comment

A blind man sits on the roadside outside Jericho. He hears a crowd, learns Jesus is passing by, and starts shouting. People tell him to be quiet. He shouts louder. When Jesus finally stops and asks him a simple question, that question becomes one of the clearest pictures of faith in the whole Gospel of Mark.

What Do You Want Me To Do For You

Jesus asks Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46 to 52, what wilt thou that I should do unto thee. It is a strange question to ask a blind man. Isn’t it obvious what he wants? But Jesus places the responsibility on Bartimaeus to name it. He answers plainly, that I might receive my sight. Notice the word he chooses. Not give me sight, but receive my sight. He already claims it as his before it shows up. That is not presumption. That is faith defining its target.

Receiving Is Not The Same As Striving

Scripture is full of people who positioned themselves to receive rather than strain to earn. The man at the gate called Beautiful in Acts 3 stretched out his hand expecting to receive something, and his feet and ankle bones received strength the moment he stopped waiting and started expecting. James 1:5 to 8 warns that a wavering, double minded person is like a wave tossed by the wind. Faith is single minded. It knows what it is asking for and it does not keep changing its mind about whether God is willing to give it.

Define The What And Trust God With The How

You are responsible for naming what you desire and bringing it to God with honesty. You are not responsible for engineering how it happens. Romans 12:1 and 2 calls this being transformed by the renewing of your mind so you can prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Fear, doubt, and indecision are the real obstacles, not God’s willingness.

Bartimaeus did not receive his sight because he understood theology. He received it because he asked clearly and believed simply. That is still available to anyone willing to shout past the crowd.

-Terrence Burton

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Why You Still Swerve Around a Pole That Isn’t There

/ Terrence Burton / Leave a comment

Picture a driveway that once had a basketball goal in it. The pole gets removed, but months later the driver still eases around the empty spot out of habit. Nothing is there anymore, yet the body keeps reacting to what used to be true. That small picture explains more about our emotional and spiritual lives than we often admit.

You May Be Responding To A Memory, Not A Moment

Painful experiences leave lingering expectations. A past betrayal can make a person brace for betrayal that has not happened yet. A past disappointment can make someone flinch before anyone has done anything wrong. The mind is powerful enough to keep seeing what used to exist long after circumstances have changed, and it will even fill in details that were never actually there, the way confident eyewitnesses sometimes recall events that video footage later disproves. Credibility is not the same as accuracy.

Emotions Are Indicators, Not Enemies

Some believers are taught to simply ignore their feelings, as though emotions were spiritually suspect. Scripture points somewhere better. Think of emotions like the rumble strips on the edge of a highway, grooves that alert a driver the moment they drift off course. A negative emotion functions like a check engine light. It rarely tells you the whole story, but it always tells you something deserves your attention.

Real Time Sensitivity Over Rigid Formula

Jesus never healed two people the exact same way. He stayed sensitive to the Father moment by moment rather than repeating a formula. Romans 8 calls believers toward that same conformity, learning to think like Jesus and respond like Jesus by staying tuned to the Spirit right now, not merely to what God said in the past.

So the next time an old feeling rises for no clear reason, do not just push through it. Ask what it is pointing you toward. God is often using it to invite you back into His presence and His peace.

-Terrence Burton

Speak It Like Jesus Did

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When Jesus stood outside the tomb of a man who had been dead four days, He did not organize a prayer meeting or ask the crowd to agree with Him in faith. He simply said, Lazarus, come forth. That moment holds a lesson many of us have missed about how prayer actually works.

A Prayer That Sounds Like a Command

James chapter 5 instructs believers to call for the elders when someone is sick, to pray over them and anoint them with oil. But just a few verses later, James points to the prophet Elijah as an example of effective, fervent prayer, and what Elijah actually said was a declaration to a king that it would not rain again until he spoke otherwise. Scripture calls that prayer. Sometimes what we call decreeing is simply a form of praying that speaks with the same confidence Jesus and Elijah modeled.

Confidence Comes From Relationship

Before Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb, He first thanked the Father, saying, I knew that thou hearest me always. That confidence did not appear out of nowhere. It was the fruit of a deep, ongoing relationship with the Father. When we know God hears us, our prayers naturally shift from anxious pleading to peaceful, confident declaration.

Healing and Forgiveness Together

James also connects healing with forgiveness, noting that the prayer of faith will save the sick, and if sins have been committed, they will be forgiven. Neither one depends on our perfection. Both flow from the same place: a Father who is willing and able to help those who belong to Him.

The next time you pray for someone who is hurting, consider whether you are only asking, or whether you are also willing to speak with the same settled confidence Jesus did. He is still teaching us today what He taught His first disciples then, one obedient step at a time.

-Terrence Burton

What Athletes Can Teach Us About Spiritual Discipline

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Whether someone is training for a marathon, learning an instrument, or growing in their walk with God, the same basic principles apply. Scripture actually uses this comparison on purpose. Paul described the Christian life as a race to be run and a body to be disciplined, and there is wisdom in taking that picture seriously.

Start With a Clear Goal

Paul wrote in Philippians 3 that he pressed toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Training without a target becomes aimless, and the same is true spiritually. A believer who has not defined what growth actually looks like will struggle to move toward it. Proverbs 29:18 reminds us that vision gives direction where there would otherwise be none.

Practice Consistently, Even in Small Ways

First Timothy 4:7 and 8 instructs us to train ourselves for godliness, noting that while physical training has some value, godliness holds value for everything, both now and in what is to come. Spiritual growth is not a onetime event. It is built through steady, repeated practice, prayer, worship, and time in the word, the same way muscles are built through consistent use rather than a single burst of effort.

Expect to Be Challenged, and Expect to Rest

James reminds us that trials produce endurance, and endurance produces maturity. Growth almost always comes through resistance, not comfort. But Scripture never asks us to run without rest. Jesus told His disciples to come away to a quiet place and rest a while, and the same God who calls us to discipline also calls us to Sabbath.

Keep Your Eyes on the Right Example

Hebrews 12 calls believers to run with endurance the race set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Motivation fades when our focus drifts. It holds steady when our eyes stay on Him.

Spiritual maturity is not an accident. It is trained. Choose one discipline this week and commit to it consistently.

-Terrence Burton