Faith In The City

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity. Proverbs 17:17.The first time I really read that verse, I got stuck on it. If a friend is truly a friend, wouldn't they already show up in adversity? Why does it sound like a friend and a brother are two different people, one for the easy seasons and one for the hard ones.Reading it again made me think it's saying something different. A friend isn't disqualified from becoming a brother. A real friend becomes a brother, or a sister, the moment adversity shows up. It's not a friend versus a brother. It's a friend who turns out to be a brother when it counts.One of the teachers on First15 told a story that made the point land for me. He and a friend went for a hike, got off the trail, and ended up in a scramble as the light started fading. He said he couldn't have made it through that afternoon alone. That's what this proverb is describing. A friend loves you through the good times. A brother is who that friend becomes when you're scrambling to find your way back before dark. Adversity doesn't create the friendship. It reveals it. And the friends who stay through the test are usually the ones you keep for life. He said something else that made me want to dig deeper: we were never designed to find our way out of the dark by ourselves. We were built to ask for help and to lean on people when we're struggling.I needed to hear that, because I hate asking for help. Not too long ago my best friend called me out for it. She told me I never ask for help and reminded me it's okay to. I'm getting emotional writing this, because asking makes me feel vulnerable. It makes me feel like I've failed, like I could have managed something better and wouldn't be in the spot I'm in if I had. So for most of my life I've avoided asking at almost any cost.I've gotten better at two things. Asking once I've genuinely done everything I can on my own. And being okay with resting before I push into the next task, even when it has nothing to do with needing anyone else.I don't think I'm the only one who struggles with this. A lot of us can do things, spend money, and show up when it's time for fun. But when it's time for something real, something that actually keeps us going, we get quiet about needing help. Feeling vulnerable, feeling like a failure, feeling like if we'd managed our time or money differently we wouldn't need anyone. And here's the piece I hadn't thought about before: some of us won't lean into God either, for the same reason. We think needing Him means we've already failed.One of my other devotionals put language to this I hadn't heard before. The world pushes us toward self-dependency, but God built us for each other. For community. For a life that was never meant to be lived alone. It's the same thing people mean when they say it takes a village, except I've actually watched it play out.A couple of years ago I had hip replacement surgery and couldn't take my son Jordan to his championship game. That broke my heart. But his teammate Jeremiah's parent, who lives close by, offered to take Jordan along with the rest of the kids. The moment we made that connection, it stopped being a favor. It became family. That's the village. That's what it looks like to have people who show up for your adversity, not just your good days.A friend's genuine care. A sibling's unconditional love. A neighbor's practical help. None of it can be replaced, and none of it is small.So here's the call to action, the same one this scripture put on me. If there's someone you've unintentionally neglected because life got busy, reach out. If there's an unresolved conflict sitting between you and someone you love, this is the moment to set the pride down, or the bitterness, or the unforgiveness, and stop struggling through it alone. It doesn't have to be a big gesture. A call, a text, an email, checking in, asking how you can help, or actually asking for help yourself.We were never meant to isolate. We were built to grow, to flourish, and to get through the dark together.Peace, Love and Joy always. Infinite Faith and Favor | kharisco.com

I read something this morning that changed how I think about forgiveness completely.Ephesians 4:32 says to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.Today, listening to Scott Savage break down the reading in the Bible Recap, something clicked that never had before.He talked about a time in his own life when someone betrayed him and he genuinely did not feel like he had the capacity to forgive them. What he came to understand is that we are not called to forgive based on how much forgiveness we personally have in us. We are called to forgive based on how much God has already forgiven us, and then pass that forward. His forgiveness was never meant to stop with us. It is a reservoir. We are supposed to keep giving it away.As a Cancer, I am the type to hold onto hurt and bitterness longer than I should. That has always been true for me. I have really struggled in the past to let things go when people hurt me.What has changed is not that I finally figured out some perfect formula. It is that I understand something now I did not understand before. Holding onto hurt only hurts me. The peace I have now, the peace that goes beyond understanding, does not leave room for me to keep replaying what someone did to me. I don't want anything in my spirit that would keep me from God, His love, and eternal life.I am not saying this is easy. I am saying I have learned to forgive quicker and release faster, mostly because I keep turning my focus back to the joy and the peace I already have. When you spend your day saying thank you God, thank you for life, thank you for another chance, there just is not a lot of room left over for bitterness.I think this is true for grace and mercy too, not just forgiveness. It is really about how we treat people in general. Scripture is not quiet on this. It talks again and again about how we treat the undervalued, the oppressed, the widows, the orphans. I think the grace and mercy God gives me every single day is something I am supposed to take and hand to the next person. Wanting God to keep extending that to me is part of what has made me quicker to extend it to others.A devotional called Love in Action reinforced this same idea today, pointing to 1 John 4:11, 1 Peter 3:8, and Luke 6:36. All three talk about being sympathetic, compassionate, and humble with each other because of how God first loved us. The devotional made a point that stuck with me. If we fail to love people well, we also fail to show them God's love. Compassion is not a nice extra. It is one of the main ways we communicate who God is to somebody else.If you want a picture of what this actually looks like in real life, read through the story of Jesus in Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John. That is the blueprint for compassion, kindness, and forgiveness.Here is where I want to leave you. Think about the people in your life right now. Who could use some compassion from you? Who do you need to forgive? Who needs your encouragement or your kindness today? Then go do it. Show them. Let them see God through how you treat them, how you love them, how you encourage them, and how you make them believe they can do it too.To me, that is the whole foundation of discipleship. It is the road to eternal life.Peace, Love and Joy always. Infinite Faith and Favor | kharisco.com

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." Mark 12:30. I have heard this verse repeated more times than I can count, and I would guess a lot of you have too. It gets quoted so often it almost becomes background noise. But repetition was never really my issue with it. My question was always the same one. What does that actually mean? What does it look like in a person's everyday life? Considering how much God brings up love throughout scripture, I started thinking through what loving Him with everything actually requires. It means reading His word. It means being in conversation with Him through prayer. It means worshiping Him. It means cultivating an actual relationship with Him, the same way I would with anyone else I love. The very next verse, Mark 12:31, gives the second half of what Jesus called the greatest commandment. Love your neighbor as yourself. Those two were never meant to live apart from each other. Loving God with everything you have was always connected to how you treat the people around you. So loving God also means loving His people the way He loves us. That means being generous with them. Giving them grace and mercy. Extending forgiveness. Being selfless, even when it costs you something. What it doesn't mean is being perfect or completing a checklist. Our grace, our mercy, our forgiveness were never meant to be based on our own performance. He is not giving us an annual performance review. I still have not figured out why those even work the way they do in the first place. Someone shows up right behind you, watches for a little while, and it basically comes down to whatever they decide to say. That is not how His grace works. Praise be to God for that. If you have spent any time waiting to earn what He already freely gave you, this is your reminder. His love does not run on a scorecard. It renews every single day, whether you had a good day or a hard one. Peace, Love and Joy always. Infinite Faith and Favor | kharisco.com

I told my best friend the other day that God is the plan, not the backup plan. I said it kind of joking, like He is Batman and I am just Robin. But the more I think about it, the more I realize how much I actually needed to hear that myself.Today's verse of the day is Matthew 19:26. Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." It is one of those verses that gets pulled out and used as a blank check. People quote it to mean God can do anything I ask, so I can ask for anything I want.But that is not what Jesus was talking about.The devotional I read this morning, Jesus Does the Impossible, walked through the verses right before this one. A young man came to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to get eternal life. Jesus told him to sell everything he owned and follow Him. The young man walked away sad because he had a lot of stuff and he was not willing to let go of it.That is the context for "with man this is impossible." Jesus was not talking about wish fulfillment. He was talking about salvation. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot work hard enough, be good enough, or hustle hard enough to earn eternal life. Salvation only happens because God made a way through Jesus. It was never something we could achieve on our own strength.That makes me think about myself, because I know exactly what it feels like to try to do something in my own strength that was never meant to be carried alone.The devotional asked me to reflect on what is keeping me from loving Jesus with my whole heart. Is it a relationship. Is it possessions. Is it a mindset. Is it even something as small as a TV show. Is there unforgiveness or bitterness sitting in my heart that I have not dealt with. I read that question and it made me want to dig deeper into my own life more than I expected it to.So I prayed and asked God to keep searching my heart. I asked Him to reveal anything in me that is keeping me from loving Him fully, from surrendering completely to Him. And I am believing that once those things are revealed, I will actually let them go.Here is where the Batman and Robin thing comes back in. I told my friend that God is like Batman and I am the sidekick, Robin. I said it as a joke but it is actually true. We treat God like the backup plan. We grind, we strive, we strategize, and then if none of that works we ask God to step in and fix it. But He was never supposed to be the backup. He is supposed to be the one we go to first.I have people close to me who feel like they have to strive so hard for everything. They grind and plan and force things to happen because they do not feel safe letting God do His part. I understand it because I have done it too. But grace is not grind. Abide is not strive. Somewhere along the way we forgot that we get to let Him cook.So today I am not asking God for something impossible in the way people usually mean it. I am asking Him to search my heart, to show me what I am still holding onto in my own strength, and to help me actually hand it over instead of just saying I did.Peace, Love and Joy always. Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

Peace is not found in control, but in God.Nicole Salmon said that on a devotional I listened to recently, and it has stayed with me.In peace, I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety. Psalm 4:8 NIVDavid wrote that verse during one of the hardest stretches of his life, with real threats coming at him from every direction. And he could still sleep, because his peace was not tied to his circumstances. It was tied to God.Peter is another example of this. The night before he was scheduled to be executed, chained between two guards in a prison cell, he was sleeping so deeply that an angel had to physically strike him to wake him up. That is what real surrender looks like. Not the absence of danger, but peace that holds steady inside of it.David and Peter both had every reason to lie awake. Neither of them did, because their trust was not in their circumstances changing. It was in God.The devotional walked through something I had never thought about this clearly before. Most of what we worry about is completely outside of our control. And worry does not add a single day to your life. It only takes away from the one you are living right now. When you worry over something you cannot control, you do not gain control. You just gain more worry, more anxiety, and less peace.That is why we are told to surrender our troubles to God instead of carrying them ourselves. He fills the gap between where we are and where we want to be. He is the one with control over everything, especially the things we cannot see coming.The devotional said something else that stopped me: the quality of your sleep is often a reflection of how much you actually trust God. If you are anxious and restless at night, it might mean there is something you have not fully handed over to Him.That one made me think harder than I expected to. I have not felt anxious lately, at least not in any way I could name. But these past couple of nights I have had a hard time falling asleep, even when my body felt tired. So I started asking myself the real question. Was this just my body, or was there something underneath it I had not turned over to God yet.I do not have a tidy answer to that yet. What I do know is I took it straight to Him instead of trying to figure it out on my own first. I am praying that He reveals whatever anxiety might be there, known or unknown to me, and that He removes it. I am trusting that He will fill me with His peace and the assurance that He already has complete control over my future. I am holding onto the promises He has already given me in scripture, trusting Him as my Creator, my Father, and the One who sustains me.In Jesus name. Amen.Peace, Love and Joy always,TanyaInfiniteFaithandFavor.com

Matthew 6:33 says to seek His kingdom and His righteousness first, and everything else will be taken care of. It doesn’t mention money, success, power, or even love. Just His kingdom and His righteousness. So what does that actually mean? I was reading this through YouVersion guided scripture, and the narrator, AXIS, asked a question I hadn’t thought about. He asked what “all these things” actually refers to. I assumed it meant His kingdom and righteousness, which led to the real question: what is His kingdom, and what is His righteousness? The answer given was that it means prioritizing the way of being in the world that Jesus modeled. Trusting the Father to generously care for us as we generously care for others. That wasn’t what I would have guessed. This is also why context matters so much when reading scripture. Understanding what was happening before a verse was written changes what it actually means, and sometimes the meaning people assume isn’t the correct one at all. The devotional Seek This First breaks it down further. Instead of worrying about our basic needs, we’re called to seek His kingdom and righteousness first. Worldly things will always fight for our attention. Our schedules fill up, our responsibilities pile on with different levels of urgency, and what we should be seeking instead is the work of the kingdom, which is telling others about the hope of Jesus and teaching what He commanded. Seeking His righteousness means desiring to live the way God intended, according to His word, and making decisions that align with it. That part still feels like a puzzle to me. It’s one thing to say live according to His word. It’s another to actually live it out. And only when we put Him first do the other areas of life make sense. I’ll say this plainly. I don’t fully know if I understand what it means for every area of my life to make sense. Losing my brother still doesn’t make sense to me. But I do believe that once someone fulfills their purpose, their time on earth ends. I think about that a lot when I think about him. I’m in a season of uncertainty and struggle that’s gone on for a long time. I don’t like it. But deep down I know there’s a reason for it, an end to it, and that it’s growing me into something greater. The call to action from the devotional is to think about how you spend your time, and whether you’re worrying about things outside your control. I’m learning this gradually. When I hit a red light while I’m in a rush, my first reaction is still frustration, and then I remind myself I’ll get there when I get there. When my computer is slow and I’m trying to get something done, I get frustrated first, then I ask myself if maybe I’m not supposed to be working on this right now, or what I’m supposed to learn from the delay. I can’t make the computer move faster. I can only decide how I respond to the wait. This isn’t a lesson you learn overnight. It’s one I’m still learning, one red light and one slow loading screen at a time. The devotional also points out that when seeking God becomes your top priority, a desire to tell others about Him naturally overflows. I can testify to that. I’m not out here preaching at people, but I am quicker to talk about what He’s doing, because I genuinely believe everything that happens is for me, not to me. So when something good happens, it’s praise be to God. When someone needs something to go right, it’s let’s pray about this in Jesus’ name. That’s how I share my faith. Not by forcing it, but by living grateful, knowing life isn’t guaranteed, and that I get to live the life I’m living. Peace, Love and Joy always,Tanya / InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him.Psalm 103:13 NLTToday is Father's Day, and for the first time I said happy Father's Day to my Heavenly Father. There's a scripture that says He's a father to the fatherless, and that's what makes Him different. If you don't know your earthly father, if the relationship was never what it should have been, if he's passed, or if he just wasn't available to you for whatever reason, you still have a Father. The best Father you could ever have. He does for you everything you'd expect an earthly father to do, but elevated. On a different level.I read a devotional that walked through what fathers do for their kids at every stage. Baby, child, teenager. They provide. They clothe. They feed. They discipline. They comfort. They play, teach, listen, guide, forgive, empower. It pointed to Matthew 7:9-11, where Jesus asks what father would give his child a stone when they ask for bread, or a snake when they ask for fish. If we, as flawed as we are, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will our Father in heaven give good gifts to us.Here's where it got me. The devotional said a parent's love for their child can only be compared to God's love for us, and even then, it's a mere shadow. I think about that next to the parable of the mustard seed, where Jesus says even a faith that small can move mountains. As much as I love my son, I believe what I feel for him is the mustard seed next to what God feels for him. My love is the seed. His love is the whole tree.I also want to clear something up while I'm here. Scripture tells us to fear the Lord, and I think that word trips people up. When I read fear, I used to picture being scared, the way you're scared of the dark or scared of getting hurt. That's not it. Fear of the Lord is reverence. It's respect. It's standing in front of something so much bigger than you and finally understanding the size of the room you're in.The devotional closed with something I needed. If you're feeling loss, if you feel like you've messed up, if you're heartbroken or defeated, God wants to meet you exactly where you are. Sometimes that looks like Him leading you toward life. Sometimes it's mercy. Sometimes it's just the reminder that you are still His child, and He is still available to you.It also asked us to pray that God would reveal any untruths or half-truths that have kept us from Him, to help us break down the walls we've built, and to restore the kind of trust we had as children. Simple trust. The kind that doesn't ask questions before it reaches for the hand that's holding it.Peace, Love and Joy always,TanyaInfiniteFaithandFavor.com

Matthew 22:36-40. Someone asked Jesus which commandment in the entire law was the greatest, and He did not make them wait for the answer. Love God with everything you are. And love the people around you the same way you love yourself. That is it. That is the whole thing.The Bible keeps coming back to this. John 13:35 says people will know we belong to Jesus by how we love one another. 1 Peter 4:8 says love covers a multitude of sins. Over and over, scripture points us back to the same place.Love is the center of what it means to follow Jesus.And one of the hardest ways to live that out is forgiving people who hurt you. I want to be clear that I am not talking about easy forgiveness, the kind that does not cost you anything. I am talking about the kind where you genuinely feel the weight of what someone did and you choose love anyway. That is where the rubber meets the road.I have struggled with that. I will not pretend I have not. Forgiving people who I feel hurt me has been a real challenge. It is less of a challenge than it used to be, and I give God credit for that, but I am not going to stand here and tell you it has been simple.Here is what I think though. If you nail loving people the way God loves you, I think you are golden.Not because you have perfect church attendance. Not because you can recite chapter and verse. Not because your career is impressive or your family looks right from the outside. God is not keeping score on any of that. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is generous. Love does not judge. And if that is not what is coming out of us, none of the other stuff is going to matter the way we think it does.So today, ask God to show you how He wants you to love the people in your life. Ask Him to fill your heart with a deep love for others. Not a love you manufacture on your own, because that runs out. A love He grows in you.That is the assignment.Peace, Love and Joy always, TanyaInfiniteFaithandFavor.com

I have been quoting Psalm 23 my whole life. This week I finally looked up what the rod, staff, anointing with oil, and the table in front of your enemies actually mean. It changed everything.