Faith

How can faith be something life giving, healing, and transformational?

What is Faith?
Faith is strong commitment to what you cannot yet see. You can have faith that you will be a great player someday and this faith provides the action and work necessary to fulfill your commitment. Faith also means your strong commitment to a religion or belief in God. At NBC Basketball, the leadership staff prefer the word “relational” to religious. Religion adheres to a set of restricted beliefs. A relationship on the other hand focuses on God as desiring to be in relationship with us.

Faith as Elevation
All of us will face significant challenges in our life. Sometimes these will be physical, sometimes the challenges will be the hope to realize our dreams and goals, or maybe in our relationships with friends, or loved ones. We will face hard times.

What gets you up and over the difficult mountains in your life?

Faith allows us to rise above difficult situations and circumstances. Faith provides hope and hope provides inner peace and joy.

Spend some silent time considering what a relationship with God would mean for your life. At NBC Basketball, we believe that God wants to have a meaningful relationship with us. Jesus offers to come and live in our hearts and by living in our hearts, to give us courage when we face challenges, to provide peace when we are afraid, to feel loved when we feel alone, to have endurance when we feel like giving up, to feel valued by who we are not what we do, to do things and accomplish good in the world that would be impossible without Divine help.

What NBC Camps Believes:

1. Beliefs are personal and should be worked out by the individual. No one should make you believe something.
2. Beliefs are the core of who you are—they are the strongest influences on your decisions. You can be religious and go to church but not believe. What you believe about life will be shown in how you live.
3. Your faith doesn’t just affect you. What you believe influences for good or bad everyone you meet.
4. Where we get our information about what we believe should stand up to hard questions and scrutiny. Your faith should make you better in all areas of your life. If your faith can’t handle serious and tough questions, it isn’t a very solid faith.
5. Your faith should make those around you better, not harm them. We may not agree with everyone and what we believe may cause someone to feel uncomfortable, but it should not harm someone. Feeling uncomfortable is a requirement for growth and improvement. We should be able to discuss and navigate faith in a respectful way that allows for healthy disagreement or deeper understanding.
6. Include God. If there is truly an omnipotent being who created the universes and stands out of time this God would be worthy of our time and attention. The Bible says the God is light and God is love. Anyone who knows God, is loving and walks in the light.
7. The Christian faith believes in resurrection both on earth (resurrection from sin into freedom and peace with God through faith in Christ) and resurrection from the dead to live with God in infinite joy for eternity.

Important questions to consider:

What does a loving relationship look like and what does an unloving one look like?
Can a person claim to believe in God yet do things against love and against light?
If God is love, what might that mean in your life and the life of your family?
What do you think it takes to listen to what the mind, heart and soul might need to learn about God?

We hope that you find ways to grow and expand your faith with your family, friends and community. Find programs and organizations that help you grow in your love for God and for others.

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY ALL ABOUT

Christianity is about loving God and loving others. When God first created the world He wanted to create a place where there was a perfect love between God and people. When He created the first man and woman, God had a close friendship with them. But man and woman decided they didn’t want to love God but be gods themselves. Because of this, sin entered their hearts forever changing their relationship with God (Romans 5:12). They could no longer be in a close friendship with God because God is holy and can’t be around sin. Sin is being disobedient to what is right.

Everyone does things that are wrong, everyone sins, so everyone is separated from God (Romans 3:23). However, God still wants to have a close friendship with people. The problem is no matter how good a person is, he or she can’t get rid of sin (Proverbs 16:25). That’s why God paid the price for us. God sent His son Jesus who lived a perfect life to die a painful death on the cross (Romans 5:8).

Every bad thing we have ever done was paid for when Jesus died. Anyone who trusts in Jesus is forgiven for the things they do wrong. People anywhere at anytime can have a close relationship with God again. Jesus also set us free from the curse of death. Three days after He died, He rose from the dead to show death no longer is the final chapter (Revelation 1:18). When we die believing in Jesus, we can have the hope of eternal life. Jesus said, “Anyone who believes in Me, shall not die but have the gift of eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Learning about Jesus, the things He said and did, is an important step toward knowing God. A great place to read about Jesus is the Bible Gospels. (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John).

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAVING A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD AND HAVING RELIGION?

Religion is a set of rules or an ideal standard people try to live up to in order to earn their way to God. A relationship with God is not about doing a certain
amount of good things or going to a certain church. A relationship is about finding meaning in knowing and loving God. Being in a relationship with God means finding out more about God. It means doing the things He likes and not doing the things He hates. It means doing what is right, not because you want to impress Him or earn a spot in heaven, but because you love Him. Having a relationship with God means finding out what God thinks about you and your life, what His hopes and plans are for you and for the world. This relationship is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Here are a few ways to build your faith:

*Find a church or a youth group.

*Share with a friend what you are learning.

*Read books about Christianity that can answer your questions.

*Explore Christian programs like Young Life, SEEL, FCA or Youth For Christ.

*Get a Bible and start reading. Begin with the Gospel of John.

*Pray and talk to God. Thank Him and ask Him to guide you.

*Embrace the close relationships in your life.

*Find a quality mentor to meet with weekly.

* Memorize scripture and use it for wisdom and guidance.

* Seek forgiveness from those you have wronged and make reparations if possible.

*Forgive those who have harmed you and seek mentoring if that should also include reconcilation.

*Start a journal and write about what you are learning, what you are thankful for, and prayers that God answers.

A person's faith journey is very personal. You should not feel pressure, co-erced, dominated or forced to believe something. You should also not be ridiculed, disliked, hated, mistreated, abused for what you believe. Faith should be a loving and sacred choice.