To Live As Christ

A Personal Journey With God

About Me

Subscribe Via Email

Book Recommendations

Connect

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
© 2025 To Live As Christ · Design by Steck Insights Web Design Logo
"Free Girl In Nature Outdoors Autumn Lens Flare Sun Rays Image" by Tobias under CC 2.0

Let your presence overtake my heart

December 3, 2014 by brianmichaelsteck Leave a Comment

“I want to know You,
Let Your spirit overwhelm me,
Let Your presence overtake my heart.”I want to know you by Jesus Culture

My prayer for you this week is that you encounter God’s love like never before. He is not burning with anger against you, but ravished with affection for you, desiring your presence, your whole heart and your full attention.

Like the warmth of basking in sun rays, gently close your eyes, turn your face and open your arms towards God, who is alive, pleased with you and pouring down his love for you.

Here are a few resources to stir your affections and redefine your thinking towards God:

  • After God’s own heart by Mike Bickle
  • Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship by Jack Frost
  • Crazy Love by Francis Chan

And some music that inspires me and orients me towards God in His love:

  • Come Away by Jesus Culture
  • Anything I recommend in Worship Picks for Spring 2014

Filed Under: Discipleship Tagged With: Intimacy with the Lord, love

Spring Waters

How to cure stinginess

June 24, 2014 by brianmichaelsteck Leave a Comment

Have you ever clenched your fists around the money in your pocket as you passed the beggar? Have you ever taken a bathroom break, knowing that one of your co-workers were coming office-to-office raising funds for their kid’s project or the next 5k race they were running? Do you tense up as you leave the grocery store, knowing that the girl scouts are waiting right outside? I do. And if you’re like me, you don’t want this to be true about you. I’d like to know how to cure stinginess.

What is the grip that money and time hold on us? At the root, I believe a lack of love is at work. This lack of love produces pride and fear. Protecting our time and quenching our desires is the result of living out of an insufficiently filled “love tank”. Self-preservation becomes the focus and we put ourselves before others.

Pride causes me to shake my fist at the red light while I’m running errands. Fear prompts that small internal voice to say, “No, I won’t share that last piece with you.” Stinginess is simply the outflow of a heart that is living in fear.

So what is the cure to fear, pride and stinginess?

It’s love. It always comes back here, doesn’t it.

How do we grow in love? The same way we survive dehydration in the wilderness. When you’re out of water and are at risk of dehydration, you can’t just drink out of the stream next to you. Even clean-looking mountain streams carry bacteria that can make you sick and speed up the dehydration process. So you must head to the source, where it is pure.

Carrying this analogy out, there are a few ways to find pure water. Rain water can be trusted, because it’s untouched, yet it comes in sprinkles and dashes. Creating a solar still will allow you to collect water that evaporates from living plants and the ground; but evaporation is a slow process that yields very little. The best method, though not always available, is to find the water that comes from deep in the ground: a spring or a well. This water is abundant and pure.

I’ve often said that my time with the Lord in the morning is what keeps me a nice person. My wife knows what kind of person I can become when I don’t maintain that appointment with God. This is my time to go drink from the well. A service on Sunday or a book I’m reading — those are like solar stills and rain water — they help, but they are insufficient for the long haul. But time with the Lord is my “well”.

Recognizing that God first loved and that He still loves me with abundance, despite my selfish sin nature, enables me to walk in love towards those around me.

My selfishness over my time and my money shows that I don’t trust that God is going to provide and protect. It shows that, in my mind, I have placed myself above God. I’ve begun to rely on my own abilities to get the project done on time or have enough saved for that home downpayment, instead of believing that He loves me enough to take care of me.

Curing stinginess, at it’s root, means heading to love’s source.

When is the last time you lowered the gates of your heart and let God’s love simply wash over you?

Filed Under: Stewardship Tagged With: Fear, love, Pride, Stinginess

Love and Surrender – Learning to be wrong

July 24, 2012 by brianmichaelsteck Leave a Comment

“As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” And with that, he died.” -Acts 7:59-60 NLT

This passage just grabbed me today. Stephen gave this incredible recounting of Jewish history, summarizing that they had continually rejected God and, in fact, killed the very hero of the story. So, like children, they cover their ears to avoid hearing the truth and stone him to death.

 
Why this hit me
For one, I’m like the Jews. My selfish desires are constantly crying out to defend my “right” and feed my needs. When I hear convicting truth, I turn my eyes away and cover my ears, too. No one likes to be told their wrong or that they can’t do what they want — I know that I don’t. So, the hardest part of this passage is that I’m standing among the crowd, throwing stones at a messenger of truth.

It’s easy to think I’m excused from this crowd — but then comes tax-season, a police officer asking “Do you know how fast you were going?” or the driver’s facility wanting to know your height and weight (And ladies, com’n, be honest. We all know that they weren’t asking for your “ideal weight” :)) — and you’re confronted with that moment of truth. It’s in that moment of internal conflict that we decide to either defend the lie or surrender. And unfortunately, the more often I defend the lie, the easier it becomes.

 
Who I want to be
I'm Number 1My blaming finger is big. It’s like one of those giant foam fingers at a sporting event. Only, instead of “We’re #1” it reads “You’re #2”. I mean, as long as at the end of the game, I’m right and you’re wrong, I think I’ve won. And this is only intensified when I feel I am wrongfully accused. I start thinking bad things about my accusers.

So, looking at Stephen’s response, I’m blown away. I’m utterly dumfounded and mesmerized by this type of grace.

I want so badly to be able to sit under the raining blows of accusation and be able to say, “I don’t hold it against you and nor should anyone else.” I mean, this is just unfathomable.

Of course Christ demonstrated this time and time again. He called out to the accusing mob that the blameless accuser should throw the first stone, then when they all dropped their stones, hung their heads and walked away, he lifted the guilty woman to her feet and forgave her. As His captors beat, spat, crucified and pierced Him, this man, Jesus, said, “Forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)

And in honesty, I am so far from this. (Just ask my wife about how I drive when the car in the left lane refuses to pass the car on the right. It’s as if they’ve delivered a personal attack on me and my inherent right to pass them.)

 
Learning to be wrong
So much of my life, when it comes down to it, is about surrender. Most things that God speaks to me are pointing me to give up something that I want or forgive someone that I’d rather not. And I’m not sure if there are any quick fixes for this.

My only hope is that in quiet moments like this, I can ask God to prepare my heart, and in heated moments where my selfishness starts burning up inside of me, I can see Stephen in my mind — kneeling and wishing blessings for his persecutors.

“God, I really, really, really like to be right. And it is not fun to give up my first place position in my mind. But Lord, you ultimately get the glory when I can surrender and seek to love those who are against me — and I want you to get the glory. So teach me to be second. Teach me to love and surrender. (And please go easy on me, ’cause I’m really bad at this.)”

Filed Under: Surrender Tagged With: blaming, forgiveness, Humility, Injustice, love, Selfishness, Surrender

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3

Categories

  • Church Philosophy (8)
  • Discipleship (26)
  • Family (7)
  • Government (1)
  • Lordship (14)
  • Music (4)
  • Prayer (3)
  • Scripture Studies (7)
  • Soul Care (4)
  • Stewardship (4)
  • Suffering (2)
  • Surrender (18)
  • The Kingdom Centered Mind (8)
  • Uncategorized (2)
  • Worship (10)

Quotes

Loading Quotes...

Affiliate Disclaimer

This website contains affiliate links, however we only recommend books, music and videos that we have used, benefitted from and feel will improve the lives of our readers.