Believe right and you will live right.  The opposite is also true:  Believe wrong and you will live wrong.

This ends our 100 day journey and we have had so much fun and learned so much along the way.  We have enjoyed sharing these incredibly important messages with you and we hope that you have enjoyed and learned as much as us.  So let's get into this final day.

So the question arises, "Don't you think our performance is important at all?"  Of course it is!  Our performance as husbands, wives, parents, students, employees, employers and children of God is a result of believe that we are righteous by faith.  True long lasting performance is a result of right believing.  Right believing always leads to right living.  It is easy to focus and preach right living and honestly our society is littered with how to live right.  Things like; be more holy, fear God more, doing more, praying more, reading the Bible more, serving in church more, giving more, looking better, being better, ect., but honestly if you are focusing on the action then you are only dealing with the superficial elements.

The preaching of doing right and right living only is temporal.  If you cut off weeds in your garden but do not cut off the roots the weeds will grow back.  That is what preaching alone does, it makes a short impact but it has no long lasting results.  The same wrong behavior, the same wrong habits will surface because the belief has not been dealt with.  The church in general likes to preach about how to live right because it is always easier to deal with the weed than the root.  The root of the issue is believing right to live right.  When the root of the problem is dealt with then you will the most significant changes.  When you deal with the root issue of believing right and get ahold of good teachings that are full of Jesus and righteousness by faith in Him.  Christianity is not about behavior modification, it is about heart transformation.

Sin is bad and I hate it, sin destroys people, families, creates disease and death and is the ruin of countries and this entire world.  I am completely on the side of those who preach against sin and teach the need to live right, however I believe the solution to stopping sin is not found in focusing on right living, it is found in right believing.  I truly believe with all my heart that Christians do not want to sin or live bad, I believe that children of God want to live right but it is important for them to believe right first (that they are righteous by faith and not by their works) so they can live right.

The new testament is full of how to live right and it is important the picture of how right living looks, but 2 Peter 1:9 says, "For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins."  For those are not living right, it is because they have forgotten that they already have been cleansed from their sins and these sins are nailed on the cross.  This 100 day journey is filled with correct thinking and spiritual truths.

Your job in this last day is to remember that if you lack right living the key is not to be preached at how to live better, the key is how to believe better.  Is there an area that you lack or struggle with?  A secret addiction that you cannot shake?  Check what you believe in that area!  Somewhere along the way you have believed a lie.  But here's the good news:  When you start seeing and believing that you are righteous in Christ, when you start confessing your righteousness through Jesus in that area, your breakthrough is just around the corner.  Just remember and believe every day:  Jesus wants to free you, prosper you and give you good success.

I want to close this by saying that doing things out of obligation has never worked.  You cannot keep the laws because you are told to.  Grace is not a license to sin, living grace radically opens a tremendous love for God and all that has been done for you.  That same grace and love makes you not want to live badly.  If you want to live right then believe right and fall in love with God, that love will burn in your heart and give you the desire to live right.  You never ever can do right hoping then you can be loved by God.  You are first loved by God and that love carries you to right living (you just have to believe that).  In this way it is never about us, it is only about Him.  It is never about what we did right, it is all about what He did right.  (this is true humility, this is true liberation).  

What about fitness?
Fitness is filled with what you need to do.  How much you have to workout, how well you have to eat and everything that you have to do to be more fit and healthy.  Yes in order to be fit you have to do the right things but long lasting fitness habits come from believing right first.

If you feel like you are a failure, if you feel that you are worthless, if you feel unworthy then all the preaching on how to be fit will not matter.  You will end up sabotaging yourself and fall short of your goal or get off the bandwagon.  The only and I mean ONLY key to long term success in fitness (the ability to be in shape your whole life) is to believe differently about the identity of who you are.  Those who believe wrong about themselves may start off with the right intentions and habits will stop based on beliefs about themselves and their identity.  Long-term fitness success comes from first believing correctly about yourself so when you come at a crossroads your habits become unshakable because your foundation is on a unshakeable truths.

When you know you are righteous by faith you will not feel like a failure or worthless.  You will know that you are accepted and righteous by faith.  When you believe that the pressure is taken away because you feel accepted and know your identity is wrapped up in the person of Jesus.  Health and fitness become easy because you end up getting in shape because you love being healthy and not because you are doing so out of any obligation.  

All the preaching in the world about being fit and changing your life will never work unless you first deal with the beliefs about your Lord, yourself and who you are in Him.  Fitness and health are beautiful things but they are not identity.  Your identity is your righteousness by faith in His finished work and fitness is simply a beautiful gift that we get to enjoy.  Enjoy the gift of health and fitness today!

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he...   --   Proverbs 23:7


Believe right and you will live right.  The opposite is also true:  Believe wrong and you will live wrong.

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