Exposed

Hebrews 4:13-16

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Chapter 4 of Hebrews is a rich chapter, especially in the closing verses. Here, we are reminded of God’s omnipresence and omniscience. He knows EVERYTHING about us, from our mannerisms, random facts about us, all the good we have done, the terrible pick up lines we have used and so much more, including all of our sin. We cannot hide anything from God. He knows what we have done and what we will do. He knows our intentions even. Family, I have to be honest, this verse straight up scares me. The fact that God knows everything about me, all of my fears that I won’t let go, all of my ugly and parasitic sin, my willing captivity by addictions at times, my lack of trust in Him, my refusal to seek Him with everything, ignoring His calling for me, my motives, the memories that I don’t release.. He knows all of it. This scares me. It makes me realize how badly I need a Savior because when I compare my nasty and gross and repulsive life and then examine how glorious and perfect God is, how untainted He is, His love, His might, His knowledge, Wisdom, and so much more, I realize that though I may seem good in man’s eyes or even in my own, I will never ever come near how great God is. I am no where near what He desires me to be. I believe that we measure our lives so frequently against the lives of other believers, whether pastors, mentors or just random people at church, we measure our personal relationships with God against the relationships that others have with Him. Why? Does this make us better in God’s sight if we are “better” Christians than someone else? NO!!! I actually believe that this distracts us from our own walks while setting standards and goals that are imperfect because they are based upon imperfect people. We figure that as long as we are “better Christians” than some people that we are set for heaven... Truth is, that means nothing besides immaturity in our walks. Instead of looking for direction with our walks from flawed humans, let’s just go to God. Let’s go to Him and truly walk with Him instead of frequently settling for where we are in our walks..

Jesus can relate to you! God knows exactly what you are going through and cares about you and desires to help you no matter how big or small the problem may be. Also, we are reminded that it is not impossible to not sin. Jesus did it. We are to strive to be like Jesus. We are to let GOD control our lives in EVERY aspect, not just one or two. He desires to help us out. Why then do we so often reject His help? Why do reject His mercy and grace and love and purpose and satisfaction and so much more when we are up to our necks in pain, misery, sorrow, mistrust, addiction, just to name a few??? Is it because we do not want to surrender or lives over to God? That we believe that if we give God our lives, He will take advantage of us? That if we trust Him things will not go as planned and we will fall hard? That if we seek His desire for our lives, He will may discard all of our hopes and dreams? That we will turn into some Jesus freak that everyone makes fun of? That we may actually have to give up our sin if we give Him our lives? Let’s let go and give our lives to the only one who is trustworthy, the Perfect and Holy One, God Almighty. He will give us everything we need. He has mercy and grace and love more abundant than ever known. What do we have to lose? Nothing... It may feel like everything, but in retrospect, it is nothing. He gave up so much for us, yet so often we are not willing to give Him anything. Let’s go to the One who understands. The One who seeks our betterment. The One who loves us, regardless of our faults and failures, and forgives us still. 

How great is our God, I will sing His praise with my core being outward everyday.

Trusting For A Purpose Greater Than Ourselves

God’s plan for our lives... A phrase we hear all the time. We always here Jeremiah 29:11 to go with it. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” We hear Romans 8:28 all the time also, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” But how real is God’s plan for us? I mean, how often do we live as if we have guidance and purpose according to something or someone bigger than ourselves? Honestly, do we have reason to live as if life is all about us? I can’t think of any solid reasons besides the pursuit of pleasure, which has been discussed in prior posts.. But we so often live a life seeking for our own pleasure. Where does this get us? Pleasure fades. I heard it put that “there is no high that remains, your cares don’t stay away after your drunk, you don’t maintain that sexual experience, money comes and goes, fame fades away, at some point you will die, whether today or 70+ years from now, death will come knocking (except in the rapture). What’s the point?” Truthfully, without God, there is no point. You can do good things for others, you can live for yourself, but none of it gives you the purpose that you desire. I have seen in my life, time after time again, God’s plan being played out, step by step. College, for instance, has been a huge trial in itself. I have been registered at 3 schools now, before I have even attended one. I learned so much in this year that it blows my mind away. I had to replace other passions with God, not because they were wrong, but because they were in the way of me growing with Him. I learned trust this year, in God and people. I had to have trust that God would work everything out for college and sure enough, He did and it is great so far. I have been blessed like crazy. I have grown in ways that I can’t even begin to describe. Trust is a huge thing. Trust God with EVERYTHING in your life. If you can’t do this Christian, you must begin to question your faith. We say we give God our all, that we seek Him, that we trust Him, that He is in control, yet we can’t trust Him with things like jobs, school, friendships, relationships, marriages, finances, and even our sins and memories. This is hard family, I by no means have this mastered, but I am trying. We cannot be complacent in our walks, never seeking to grow, never desiring to make God our everything. THIS IS BACKSLIDING!! Our walk with God is like going on an escalator, going the opposite way. If you stop or slow down, you lose any progress you made and immediately begin going backwards. You may not notice it, but little by little you are getting further and further from the goal. Its the same thing with our walks. The less and less we strive to grow, the further and further we distance ourselves with God. He has a plan, you need to trust Him. Give  it to Him. He may be waiting for you to seek Him first until He just pours out blessings on your life. You never know! At the very least, the peace that He can give you will be beyond comprehension! Isaiah 26:3-4 is my life verse “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” Philippians 4:7 says, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” But verse 6 says you must diligently seek Him in prayer, asking HIm for peace! Let’s do this family. Let’s be in the will of God, let’s seek to have His will be done on earth as it is in heaven, that includes in our lives 100%, without any gaps.

Give God the core of who you are, and you will have purpose for your life. Give God the troubles of your heart, and you will have peace that is incomprehensible. 

Blessings family

PS- I apologize about not writing for the last couple days, orientation has been so time consuming and tiring. I will write when i return from retreat this weekend, but until then, grace and peace be with you from God our Father

A Beautiful Reminder That We Need Everyday

Amazing Grace, My Chains Are Gone

Hebrews 2:14-15

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

How sick is this? God, Himself, partook in what we go through, the pain, the temptation, the hunger, the thirst, and so much more, so that He could free us. He went through betrayal, death, suffering, He took our punishment for us, so that we would not be held in out bondage to sin. But, we did nothing to deserve this. NOTHING. Yet, God came down, humbling Himself down so much that we can’t even comprehend it, He lived a perfect life, faced temptations that are beyond our imagination, was betrayed by those He came to save, including one of His closest friends, He was mocked, beaten, spat upon, whipped, He was beaten beyond recognition, He then carried a cross (probably upwards of 125 pounds) up a long road, while losing large amounts of blood, while being hit and beaten by guards getting Him to keep moving, He got to Golgotha, had nails forcefully driven through His wrists and ankles. He forgave those that were nailing Him to the cross, asking God to pardon them “for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). I have to wonder if maybe Christ was mediating for all of mankind at that second, asking God to have mercy upon us because we do not understand the levity of sin and because of us, Jesus went to the cross. He did it to bring the Father glory by our redemption and forgiveness. He spent hours hanging on that rough wood, with splinters digging into His revealed back and internal organs, in extreme agony, slowly dying of suffocation, while taking upon our sins, our punishment. He faced separation from the Father for us. Jesus experienced a lapse in His perfect relationship with the Father because that is the price of sin, separation from the Father, yet Jesus took that on for us. He conquered death. He paid a debt that he did not owe because we had a debt that we could not pay. “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you (John 15:13-14).” He went through all of this (the pain, the separation from the Father, humbling Himself from King to peasant, dying for people that betray HIm time and time again, dying for people even though He knows what we will do) to glorify the Father by freeing us from our slavery to sin. How amazing is this? We are free from our chains, we are free from our bondage to addiction, sin has no power over us, death has no sting, we are new creations, we are handed purpose and direction while He takes our aimlessness, we are handed peace when He takes our anxiety and lack of understanding, we are handed love if when give Him our hate, we are handed joy when He takes our misery, we are given meaning and fulness when we hand Him our emptiness, we are given freedom when we hand Him our chains. How could we possibly refuse to live for this? It is so sweet just thinking about the Father’s love for us. How deep, how wide, how overwhelming is His great love. It is never-ending! Even when we mess up, time and time again, He still loves us. No matter what we do! This does not justify sin by any means, but should rather discourage it! Why live for pleasure when you can have satisfaction? Why search for definition from fickle sources that don’t care when we can have definition from our Maker who does not change? But this love, this perfect, pure, incomprehensible love, is what we yearn for so badly, we seek to find it in romance, in relationships, self gratification, friendships, family, movies, novels, we imagine it, but we never find it in any of those places. We can only find pure love at the source of all love. As badly as I want to have this pure love, I honestly could not willingly love someone that I knew was going to willingly betray me time and time again for something that I hate, and no matter how much I forgave them, they would go back to that rebellion. This is the love that God has for us. It is not a stupid love, it is an unconditional love. Nothing you can ever do can break you from the Father’s love! But this love has freed us from our bondage, the slavery that we desire to break free of so badly, but yet are torn and  cling so tightly to. Jesus offers us forgiveness if we give Him our pain and remorse. When He says that He will forgive us, He means it. God forgives and forgets. You are perfect and holy in His sight because He sees His Son in you. Satan will get in your mind, attempting his tricks to persuade you that you are not forgiven and that you will be no better than your past or even your present. He tells you that you won’t be forgiven by God, that you can’t break free of your chains, that you are too far away to ever be able to come back to God. I think we have all heard these thoughts echo in our minds before. We need to know that satan has no power over us any longer. God protects His children, you will face times of trial and temptation though, but you have the Rock to lean on, you don’t have to sink in the storm, instead you can walk on water if you stay focused on the King, if you have utmost faith and trust in Him, if you stay connected with the Father, not drifting to your situation, but bringing your situation to Him. Satan’s hope for a Christian is that they believe that they have no hope and cannot be free of their bondage and that they will only amount to those chains, but God says “get up and walk away, your chains are gone, I have freed you. I have defined you. You are not sin’s but you are mine.” As the song Amazing Grace My Chains Are Gone echos in my head the lyric “my chains are gone, I’ve been set free, my God my Savior has ransomed me and like a flood His mercy reigns, unending love, amazing grace.” How true is this? We have been set free from our bondage, we have been hit with an unending flood of mercy, grace and love. To God be the glory! This wretch is saved through Him. He brought me from my sin, my addiction, my emptiness, my pain, my regrets and so much more and brought me to mercy, peace, purpose, love, joy and so many more things. May our lives truly reflect this saving grace we have been given. May we commit ourselves into the Father’s hands as Jesus did with His final breath on the cross. May God work in and through us. May our lives not be about us, but about Him. May we break free of our oppression to sin. Flee to the One who has saved you. Run to Him who gave His life for you. 

Family, let chains fall off, run to Jesus and let Him work in your very core to make you the man or woman that He desires you to be. You won’t be sorry.

Blessings

Legacy

Genesis 5:22-24

Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

Our legacy.... How will we be remembered? What will our friends and family say about us when we have left this earth? Will we stay in people’s minds or just vanish as a distant memory? I think we have all wondered these things at one point.. Whether it be actual death, moving away, graduating high school or college with thoughts about if you made an impact, or anything else. We have wondered how people will remember us. Death is not something that people usually like to think about, for Christians, death has no sting because we have eternal life to look forward to, our life does not end here, it is just beginning when our physical bodies die. We have God’s promise of resurrection, whether you believe in soul sleep or instantaneous resurrection with the Father, the ending place is all the same. But going back to our legacy,  I have found myself wondering this. I have wondered what impression I have had on people. I wonder if I am not just another face, but a friend that made an impact. So often, I find myself having regrets based on not doing what I know I could have. For not being the friend that I ought to be, not being the example I should, not doing all I could have done for every person I came in contact with, because at any second, it could be over. Most of these questions I asked at times with selfish intentions behind them, but the past year, I have, for the most part, pondered these questions through God’s perspective. Not wondering about the impression I have made on them, in wondering if they thought I was nice, or cool, or whatever it may be, but wondering if they saw Jesus in me. Wondering if they had seen God’s love through me. Wondering if I had been an example of Jesus to them. I don’t know these answers, but I know that I can only live more and more for Christ and the legacy no longer is of importance to me, just Christ. Chances are that if you seek Christ with all of your life and bless people like He would, praying for people all the time, talking and caring for people like no one else does today, that a legacy will follow. But this life is not about a legacy, it is about God. I don’t really care what people think of me, I care about what my God and King thinks about me. Though reputation is important, we get too caught up in maintaining it and lose sight of our God. I want to have people know that I truly walk with God, if they think I am funny or nice or whatever else, then that is fine, but I want them to know my Jesus. If they don’t know Jesus, then, as tough as it is to say and think about, but hell is in their eternity. That is just reality. I don’t want my life to be lived for maintaining reputation, making friends, setting records, dating, getting good grades, being a good person, pleasure, comfort, fame, or anything else that will fade away with this world. I want to live for eternity, not for vanity. Enoch only has a handful of verses about him in the whole Bible, but we know instantly that Enoch walked with God. He walked with God for 300 years on this earth and will walk with Him for all eternity. I want my legacy to be one that is like Enoch’s. I want to know that people know that I walk with God. Everyone that we come in contact with either needs to know Jesus or needs to grow with Him. But this starts in us, we must live all for God, completely dedicating our life to Him. Having God live through us instead of us just living to do what God says. We are mixed up so often, we believe that because we are living a good life and have said a halfhearted prayer that we are ok in life. I did this. I thought that I was good with God because I had prayed a prayer, went to church and was a good kid that knew his Bible well. But it was never real, God was not my EVERYTHING. I did not cling to Him in the good and bad. I did not resist temptation because God hates sin, but because I didn’t want to do it and thought that it would harm my image. We need to make God our everything and grow with Him and seek Him, legacy may or may not come, but God will be pleased. If God is pleased with us, do man’s thoughts really matter? We can misjudge, condemn, hold grudges, and make assumptions about people that establish their legacy in our minds, we can be fickle with our thoughts. God’s opinion is all that matters if we are His child. Should we not seek to please our Father rather than others? 

Legacies don’t last, God does. We have eternity to spend with Him, let’s spend  our time here seeking Him above all else with even the innermost, the core, of us.

Blessings

Created With Intent

Genesis 1:1,3

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.... And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

While there no nothing formed, God was there. He is eternal, He created even the concept of time. Time must have a start and a beginning, thus it must have come from somewhere. YHWH made it.  There are debates on how the world was formed, a big boom, creation, an eternal universe, aliens, and many many more. But only creation makes sense. Simply put, all other theories require something to cause whatever formed the universe. An eternal universe is impossible according to laws of physics and studies of the universe. But yet, an eternal God cannot be disproved. God is so powerful that He spoke the entire universe into existence. The very universe was formed at His word. He created everything with just the word. He also called it all good (Genesis 1:31). God was happy with what He had created. He formed man in His image (Genesis 1:26) giving us a soul, and thoughts, and the ability to make decisions. He formed us to glorify Him in all things (I Peter 4:11). He breathed into the dirt and formed us. His breath, the breath that uttered the words of all creation, that inspired the Bible, the breath of the One who is ruler over everything, breathed into the dirt and formed us in His image. Yet, though the all mighty God has formed us and has the power to create with just a simple word and He is the only reason we even have the ability to live, for without Him or hearts would stop beating, our bodies would go limp, our brains would shut off, without Him we cannot live, we still say no to Him. We think that we are too dirty to be used of a perfect God. We feel that we are too banged up to be of any good for Him. We feel that we are too busy to do what he asks. We are embarrassed to listen to His calling in our lives because of our neighbor’s thoughts about us. Family, our neighbors do not determine our eternal location, the King over all creation does. Matthew 10:28 states “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” God is who we should fear. Not man. All that man can do is affect our lives on earth. We only live in this fallen earth for so long. It is nothing in the grand scope of eternity and yet we fear and refuse to follow Christ because this 100 year span (maximum) of time, that we know as life, is hard pressed by embarrassment or hypocrisy or whatever else if we decide to live for God. But a life with the hardest trials and worst temptations and most gruesome torture and the worst living conditions imaginable with God is a million times better than the best life on earth with the most friends and famous beyond imagination and all the pleasure that could ever be wished for without God. 100 years is nothing compared to eternity. Yet we act as if we have everything to live for here on this earth. We don’t want to see the King return because we aren’t married yet, or things are beginning to go well, or we are dating the person of our dreams, or if He returns we will never live out our dreams. Family, I tell myself these things all the time and I need to check myself because this attitude is ridiculous and downright stupid. Being with God and missing out on this life is not a punishment! It is a blessing! We don’t deserve to be with God for eternity. We did nothing to deserve it, yet He gives life to those who respond to His call. How much longer will we push aside the call of the omnipotent Creator in order to live our life? Family, in our lives let John 3:30 ring true that we “must decrease and He increase.” Let our lives be Him living through us. This life is not about us! It is about Him. Our very purpose for existence is to bring Him glory. This God that created everything, loves us. He loves us more than we could ever begin to comprehend. He hates seeing us in pain. He hates when we are broken. He hates that we suffer. He loves us. He wants the best for us, but sometimes the pain, the suffering are the best for us even though we may hate it. God created everything with His words and calls it good, yet we willingly rebel against Him? We say that we can’t go a day without sinning, but Christian, we go days without the Bible, without prayer, without church, without spreading the gospel, without serving others. Why is this? We need to submit to the King. Submit is not a negative thing, its the same way a wife is to submit to her husband, to serve him and love him and respect him and just seek to please him. We need to be a bride that seeks to please the Lord. Let us turn from our prodigal ways, let us turn from being prostitutes to sin and let us run to our King and just cry at His feet seeking redemption (which He will give, and with it will pour out His grace also) and live lives seeking to please Him. We must allow God to move in us and through us. He does not call or reject us according to the amount of  flaws we have, but He calls us and wants to see if we are available and willing. That is what He seeks just as in Isaiah 6:8, lets cry out “Here I am LORD, send ME!” Let’s desire to be used by the King for His glorification. “He must increase and I must decrease” in our lives every single day. We must nail ourselves to the cross (Luke 14:27) DAILY and allow His desire to become ours. He must take the wheel of our life. 

He must work in every part of our lives, He must be at the core of who we are






Blessings family

Grace To You and Peace From God

Philemon 3

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

So often, when reading the letters Paul writes, we overlook this line. We figure that to whom he is addressing or his way of saying hello or his repetitious blessing is not as important as the message that he delivers. This could not be further from the truth family. This blessing is a constant reminder of what God offers us. That God offers us grace, just constant blessings upon us, He wants to bless us. He has redeemed us and how much of a blessing is that!??! It is more than we could ever fully imagine. We have been blessed beyond comprehension. “Every good and perfect gift comes from above” (James 1:17) and we have been given so much, regardless of if you are in a time of financial difficulty, or if things are rough right now, or if you are in a spiritual drought, you have been blessed even in that. God is keeping you in His hand and keeping things from getting worse to the point that you can’t bear it. God is still holding you. So often, I will forget this. I don’t think that God always has me in His hands and even when it hurts I am still blessed beyond belief because I have God who loves and cares for me. I am blessed because I have hope. I am blessed because I am not alone. I am blessed because He loved me enough to die for you and I family. He blesses me by holding back more than I can bear. He blesses me by allowing me to go through hard times, even if it is not what I desire. He blesses me by making me strong in Him. He blesses me by calling me His child when all I have done in my past was spit in His face and act in hatred and rebellion towards Him. He blesses me because I have the promise of eternity in my future even though I did nothing to deserve it. I am blessed because no matter what the circumstance, I can have peace from Him that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). Who needs knowledge and understanding when you can have peace beyond what you can ever understand? When things are falling apart, though I commonly ask “why” I need to be asking for His peace and to draw towards Him because all things will work out for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). It might not get better on earth, but it will get much much better in heaven with the King. That is my hope. Not that I prosper and have a good life here, but that I can spend eternity with my King in paradise! Now that is hope! That is the hope of the redeemed that WILL become reality someday. Life is short. It will end. But eternity will never stop. This life will be like a blink in the grand scope of eternity. I can’t even begin to fathom eternity, but it is real and it will come and heaven and hell do exist and we will be in one of those two place and this life is the crossroads of where we must make a choice. God and truth and peace and grace and mercy and love or death and lies and misery and emptiness and fleeting pleasure that never will stay. I choose Life and life more abundant. What about you family? 

Blessings

Impacted By Crucifixion

Titus 3:4-5

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit

What impact does our salvation carry upon our lives? Does the Resurrection influence how we live? Do we live as if we have been pardoned of a judgement worse than the most horrific imagination can ever think of? Do we realize that we committed heinous crimes and betrayed and blatantly REBELLED against the King of all creation? Do we live every single day being impacted by the death of Jesus Christ on Golgotha, in realization that He hung to that cross to bring the Father glory through our redemption, regardless that time after time again we would reject His mercy and grace and forgiveness and blessing and would rebel against Him continuously without second thought? Honestly family, I feel that the Cross does not impact my life as it ought to. My life would be radical beyond belief because I would live every single day seeking to please my Redeemer in every single way possible. I would give Him all the glory. I would abstain from so much sin that plagues my life daily. I would not be able to stop talking about my King. I would seek to live a life that pleases Him, not for works sake but to bring Him glory with my actions and motives. I would have a heart for the unloved so much more than I do now. I would see every person as God’s child, precious and wonderfully made. I would have overwhelming compassion. I would have no problem forgiving people because I have been forgiven so greatly. I would give my all in all that I do. I would seek Him. I would never want to hurt Him. I would look to be a blessing rather than being blessed. I would look to be a friend. I would know my purpose and seek to fulfill it. I would know my destination and would not fear for my earthly life and how “comfortable” I am. I would give everything for the Lord because he gave everything for me plus it is not mine to begin with! But I have to look at all these things and examine my life and see where I am lacking. I have to seek Him and let His Spirit guide my life and let God live through me. As Galatians 2:20 states “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” I don’t see this in my own life as I ought to. I know I will never be perfect, but family I can try so much more. My life can be consumed with laziness, lusts, lies and deceit, fear and anxiety, greed, resistance towards God, idolatry with television, or facebook, or sports, or school, or even friends or family, and so much more. I could put in so much more effort into seeking the King, but often find that I don’t. I know I should, but I simply do not do what I know I should. We have been renewed, given so many more chances than we should, we have been given gifts beyond what we deserve, we are given an opportunity to live life on this Earth with the purpose to bring God the glory. We have goal, know God and glorify Him. Yet, even with just having this goal, we constantly are distracted with money, fame, drugs, sex, alcohol, laziness, stagnant faith, anger, hatred, impulsiveness, and so much more. We need to seriously rediscover our goals in life. We look at them, commonly finding that they revolve around us more than they do God, they may be excellent goals such as being a great parent or helping people, but how often do our life goals sound like this “I want to seek God with ALL I AM, and then bring Him glory with every breath of my life?” I must say, not enough... If ever. This is truly heartbreaking as we realize that we write God off so often. We treat God as our emergency manual or magic genie. We need to truly make God our EVERYTHING, only then will we ever experience any satisfaction with life, any true joy, any true peace. Only then will we see how badly we need a savior and how much God really loves us. Our relationship with Him must be more than just requests and guidance in hard times. It has to be a total commitment to seeking and serving Him. We have been redeemed, now let’s live like it!! We are going to heaven family! Regardless of our past, we are going to heaven to be with our Father for all eternity!!!!

Let’s realize that we need to make God the core of ALL of our lives.  

Freed From Bondage

Titus 2:12

training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,

Are we trained to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions as this verse states? Have we disciplined ourselves to be able to resist temptation? This can only be done through the power of Christ.. He is the only One who can break our bondage to sin, He can free us from our place of misery. I know that any time that I have succumbed to a sin, especially an addiction, I feel miserable, yeah the pleasure was there, but it was brief, I had to satisfy it again in order to keep that pleasurable feeling. But each time, I knew that I was giving over a piece of myself to becoming a slave of sin. Each time, I felt miserable because I knew it was wrong, but so often I didn’t care. My pleasure was about me. I knew that it was wrong, regardless of if I would admit that it was. But yet, I basically ran back to my misery. I felt like since I was hopeless that I may as well continue. That since I had rebelled against God so many times, that one more time wouldn’t matter. I felt powerless to my addictions. I was chained to it with shackles I could not break. No matter what, I could not get myself free from my misery. Sometimes, I gave up even trying to get free.. Others, I would seek to break free, but would give up after a few successes. I would say prayers, asking God to help me get free from my addictions and sins, but would not truly seek to be freed. Anytime that I was released, I would run back to my shackles and begin to reattach them. In other words, I was a stupid prisoner. I was beaten time after time by my sin, I was left empty, broken, miserable, lonely, bitter, and so much more by my addictions, but yet I could not leave them. I was constantly reminded of what I had done and figured that what I had done would define me in everyone’s eyes, so why try to change it any longer? I finally realized how stupid I had been, being freed from miserable captivity, but yet never wanting to leave my misery. Christians, I know I am not alone in this thinking and these actions. I know that I am not the only one who has run back to their addictions time and time again, never truly seeking to escape. Feeling empty, seeking to fill voids that won’t be filled, trying to find the pleasure I once had, but finding nothing. But family, it doesn’t end there. Because finally, after so many years of hearing the crucifixion story, it became reality. I finally realized that my sin was nailed to that Cross. That I have been freed from that bondage. That through Christ, ALL things are possible. That compared to Him, sin has NO POWER of me. My past is in the past, I must live today for today. I can’t live life based upon the mistakes I made, I have to take each day on its own and fight to live a life pleasing to God. But there are some things we have to realize in order to do this, 1) in order to succeed, we must truly seek the LORD with all we are. If we don’t, this is all pointless. What is the point of breaking free from bondage if we have no where to go? Walking aimlessly won’t get you anywhere. This is not meant to keep anyone from seeking freedom, but rather to help them find guidance. I don’t want anyone to not give up their addictions, but I know that with God is going to be much more purposeful than without Him. He is the only One who can fill those voids that addictions couldn’t. He is the only One that can mend the broken heart. So instead of seeking to break free and go no where, break free and run to Love, God, who saved you from your addictions and has empowered you to break away from them. 2) As warriors, getting ready to fight to break our bondage, we must be trained. We have to be trained in order to be successful. I am saying that we have to be able to our way up to our addictions. Most people have to quit one step at a time, decreasing their fulfilling of the addiction continually until it is gone. Some people completely lose their passion for that addiction ad no longer do it. It brings them no satisfaction and no pleasure anymore and they have no desire to do it, coupled with the fact that God hates sin and any addition that is not literally necessary for life (bare essentials not luxuries) is considered sin. Addictions include but are not limited to gluttony (VERY common in America), sexual addictions (sex itself to pornography to self pleasure to lust and everything in between), violence, drinking and drugs, lack of self control, poor stewardship (incorrect or irresponsible use of money, gifts from God, and other things), laziness (HUGE struggle for many people, including myself to an extent), suicidal thoughts, addictions to memories of the past that remind us of our sinful nature and loom over us (seemingly haunting us), addictions to our ego and receiving glory, addictions to money, we can even build up addictions to ignoring God’s call in our life, and soo much more could be included in this. But how often do we train ourselves to fight these addictions and whatever else may be in our lives? How often do we train ourselves to be righteous and holy? How often do we train ourselves to fully and completely give it to God? I fear, not enough... 3) Lastly, how can we expect to win if we are never in the word or on our knees? Simply put, as warriors going to fight this addiction, how can we win if we don’t have a sword or guidance? The Word is our sword and prayer is our access to the infinite and almighty God. Yet how often do we sit in prayer? Ask yourself, what would our lives be like if we took the time we spend on facebook or watching television or spending time with friends or texting instead used it in prayer and reading the Bible? We are willing to spend hours and hours on ourselves and social networking and television and our friends, but we won’t even give God 5 minutes of our day many times? This is a real problem family. How is it that we can say that God is ruler of our lives and that we love Him more than anything, when we refuse to give Him any of our time. We refuse to speak to Him in prayer and we refuse to seek His direction and commands in His word. We honestly should be ashamed of ourselves. I truly am. I mean, how selfish am I, that I tell the Creator of the universe and the one who died to redeem me that I and my friends and television and the latest gossip is more important to me than Him? Who am I to do that? Family, again this is not to discourage but instead to encourage change and exhort you to seek the King above all else. Only through Him will we overcome addiction and sin and experience meaning and definition and peace ad joy. Let’s give Him all of our problems and all of our blessings. To Him be the praise in the bad and the good. Not by our power but by His may our chains be broken and our lives be healed.

Seek Him and change with even the core of who you are and your deepest darkest secrets and regrets, trust Him. 

One Master

Titus 1:15-16

To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

These passages really sum it all up well. If you are pure, you think in a way that is pure, above reproach, a way that is innocent, a way that glorifies God and displays that you are not of this world. So often, I have heard people being made fun of because they may not understand a dirty joke one of their friends would tell them, but family, that is truly a sign of innocence. It is abstaining from the ways of society. Commonly, people will hear something said, and will take it in a disgusting manner, regardless of how it was meant. The most popular saying right now for this is all the “that’s what she said” jokes made famous by the office. This line can be used in clean funny ways, but often is used in gross manners through minds that are defiled and thoughts that would not bring God any glory. Yet, so often, we laugh it off and nearly never say anything to rebuke this attitude, many times we encourage it. How does this tell the world that we are any different from them? I honestly believe that many Christians today spend so much time attempting to relate to the world that they become a part of it and slowly begin to become more and more like it. In all honesty, we so often seek to not be known as the “Jesus freak” that we become just like the people that we sought to influence. The last verse is extremely blunt about this behavior, “They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.” You can’t live half in the world and half in God. Jesus Himself said that you can’t choose two masters. You either love one and hate the other or visa versa (Matt 6:24). You CAN’T DO BOTH!!!! We so often do not comprehend this teaching and live for pleasure, for money, for vanity and yet, raise our hands at church in praise and are the “ideal Christian” while there. I know. I lived this life for too long. You can only keep up an act for so long before you are found a fraud. Even if you are not found to be a fraud here on earth, your Creator God knows you and your heart and every action you have ever committed and He despises a lukewarm person (Rev 3:16). Choose. God is offering forgiveness, fullness, satisfaction, peace, love, and so much more for those who truly seek Him and live according to what He has called them to be. But for those who don’t, you will live a life with emptiness, chasing the wind, never finding satisfaction, a life in bondage to addictions, a life with no self control, a life seeking only for your good, a life that is pointless. WE MUST CHOOSE TODAY.... I pray we all choose life, and life more abundant. 

This choice is the core of our beliefs. It shapes all we do and all we are. There is no ifs, ands, or buts about it.. We need to realize that. You can’t serve two masters........

Refocused Purpose

2 Timothy 4:17-18

But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

No matter how bad life gets, the immeasurable despair, loneliness, doubt, anxiety, fear, pain, emptiness, no matter how much addiction we have, no matter what the memories of our past may be, none of this separates us from the love of God. Life is filled with all of these things. We need to realize that God is by the side of those who truly believe in Him and seek Him. Paul was beaten, mocked, thrown in jail countless times, stoned to the point of death, yet he had joy in it all. He had peace. He had God by his side, and he embraced the King. That is how Paul got through it all, not because he was some super human or anything, but because he knew how badly he needed his Savior by his side. So often, I have let circumstances engulf God in my mind, where He is tiny compared to my problems or is too busy to help me, but this is satan telling me not to go to God. I became like Peter, walking on water in the midst of a storm, only to find myself realizing that I am in a storm and I begin to focus on that storm, while Jesus is blurred out of my vision because I am looking elsewhere. He is not blurred because he moved, but because I didn’t stay focused on Him. The problems would seem so huge and insurmountable, something I could never conquer and never would. Only to find God reaching out His hand to save me from it, but I still had to grab His hand in order to be saved. This is not just a matter of when we go through trials family, but this is EXACTLY what we did when we came to salvation. We were drowning in the world, plummeting to our deaths, only for Christ to reach out His hand to an undeserving soul, and I had to cling to Him to be brought to a place of peace. I may have still been in the storm, but I had peace in the storm, knowing that no matter how bad the situation, I have my King and Rock. He is ALL I need. Yet, I still so often attempt to take these matters into my own hands. Why? I have seen God save me time after time and bless me beyond imagination, yet I still attempt to seek my own agendas. This life is not to bring us glory, as we so commonly act, but it is our sole purpose to bring HIM glory. He has truly saved us from death, He has given of Himself for us, He blesses us when we deserve nothing, He offers us peace that surpasses understanding, yet we seek just understanding in times of trial or, even worse, we seek to find our own way out. Instead of asking god “why?” let’s ask for His peace that surpasses understanding. We don’t need to know why, just that it will be ok. God is in control. Who are we to ask why He does something in our lives? Is He not God? Is He not fully sovereign? Is He not eternal? Is He not all powerful? Did He not create us? Did not we rebel against Him? Did He not offer us forgiveness? Philippians says that God offers us this peace that transcends all understanding, but we must ask for it! God has saved us time after time again, just as this verse says that “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom.” Seek Him, no matter how bad things are. Be thankful for the good in your life, no matter how “little” it may be, remember that you were undeserving even of that! God could easily just obliterate us, but He instead loves us and allows us to find forgiveness in Him. It is grace and mercy, not necessarily punishment. You are placed in whatever position you may be in for a purpose. It is your mission field. It is to bring Him praise and glory no matter how dire the circumstance or how extravagantly and happily you may live. Your life needs to bring Him glory. As the verse ends “To him be the glory forever and ever.” Do our lives echo this? Do we understand that this life is NOT about us? This life, our purpose in this world, our part to play in the grand scheme of things, our mere existence in the grand scope of eternity, we are created to bring God the glory! If this life was about us, would not existence on this planet begin and end with us also? It is only logical. No, that is a ridiculous concept! Rather we need to spend our time serving and glorifying God with all we are and all we do.

Let God give peace to you, even when you are in the core of the storm. Don’t deny Him that. Furthermore, give Him the glory from the core of your being.

Blessings

Prayer Life and Daily Life Thoughts..

Earlier this last year, Trent Shirk asked Woodcrest Christian School in a chapel "Can you go a day without sinning?"


Charlie Moulton, the Lakeshore pastor, asked his congregation last night the question, "Is our prayer life so important to us, that we would rather die instead of giving it up?" 


We were in Daniel 6 for a moment and God led Pastor Charlie to ask this question. I thought I would echo it here. Sadly, we go days without talking to God or reading His word, but we feel that we cannot go a day without sinning like Trent asked? Why is this? This is between you and God, talk to Him, see what needs to be changed in your life, because I can promise that you are not doing all that you can to grow with Him, no matter how "good of a Christian you are." You can always improve. 


Read Daniel 6 and I John. Let these two chapters be chapters that influence you beyond belief. Study them, apply it. Let God work through you and change even the core of who you are.

A People Unprepared

2 Timothy 3:16-17

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Do we believe EVERY word of the Bible? Every story? Every command? Every prophecy? I honestly have trouble even wrapping my mind around all of it. I don’t know all of what the Bible says. In all honesty, I haven’t even read all the way through it once. How can I claim to follow God’s commandments, when I hardly know them? How can I claim to believe His promises if I barely read of them? The Bible is one of our best ways to see the heart of God and who He is and what He desires of us, yet we very seldom actually sit and read it. We spend hours on facebook, watching TV, hanging out with friends, texting, and so much more, yet we can’t spend 15 minutes on our Creator who died for us? How selfish is that? If we began to truly read His Word and live by it, our lives would be so much more focused, we would have direction, though we will still have problems, we will have hope and someone to lean on through it because of our Lord. We have to realize that every word of the Bible, is directly inspired by God Himself. Not man. But God. Yet we shrug it off and say we don’t have time for it, or we will do it later. We are told to use the Word to teach and instruct each other. We are to use it for encouragement. We are to use it to grow in wisdom. We are to take it as fact. We are to use it for reproof, Paul says.. We are to be able to defend our faith. For setting one straight when they go astray.. We are to use it for correction. For showing ourselves our faults and how we will never come near to what God commands of us, but only by His grace are we seen as holy and acceptable. We are to train each other in righteousness. We are to act according to God’s law. Striving to live as He desires us to live. A life without compromise, a light in this dark world.. That’s who we are to be. He desires us, lastly, to be prepared. We are to be ready for whatever may come our way. The more prepared you are, the less difficult huge trials seem. If you know where to go when difficulty strikes, then you have nothing to fear.

Let’s stop trying to deny God the ability of working in us and through us by reaching the core of us through His word...

Blessings Family

Truly Freed

2 Timothy 2:21

Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.

Are we ready to be used of God? Do we seek to be used by Him? Are we like Isaiah who says “Here I am LORD, send ME??” Are we like Noah, found acceptable by seeking the LORD in a world that seeks pleasure? Or are we like Jonah, running from God’s request? Or like Moses, fumbling through excuses to say no to God? Why are we not more like Isaiah and Noah? We need to seek His call.. Time after time again I have heard His voice, and said “not now” or made up an excuse... Do I really think I can fool God with dumb excuses? I can’t! So instead of hearing Him, and running away, let’s hear Him and like Samuel, dwell in His presence listening to His call, then go and do it!

This passage is heavy and describes what I know is true in my life. I lived a life in seeking pleasure, seeking knowledge, seeking satisfaction, but coming out empty handed. So often, I felt as if God would never want to take me back. Like I was beyond hope. Yeah, I had heard the verses about Love always forgiving, God telling us to forgive countless times, and heard story after story about how God has forgiven people, but I felt like I never would be accepted by God. Almost as if, because I was raised in the church, I was without excuse and would not be forgiven. Sometimes I felt like I was too far away for God to bring back.. And that if I did come back, I would just slap Him in the face again, so why would it matter? Wouldn’t it be better if I just never came back so I could never disappoint? Always asking myself, “why don’t I love God like them?” What held me back, why couldn’t I be like that, even though I deeply wanted to??? There is a difference though, between wanting to change, and seeking change. I never sought change until recently. I lived wanting change, but never truly did anything about it. I wanted the quick step directions to a life filled with love for God.. But I didn’t want the work.. This kept me away for so long. I finally gave it all to God. My sins, my anxiety, my fears, my emptiness, my lusts, my gifts He gave me, my trust, my LIFE. I finally knew what the song “From the Inside Out” meant. Instead of looking at the storms and drowning, like Peter did, I finally looked at God, and once I did, the storms were still there, but it didn’t compare to my God. I finally realized that He had it under control and that I just had to trust Him. That He knew that I would slap Him in the face all the time, but He still loved me enough to die for me and would continue to show me His love no matter what I have done or will do. This sparked something. I realized that I am a new creation in Him and that I have been freed from the bondage of sin through the death of Christ, but I must leave those chains in order to be freed from them. Its power of me is in the past, not the future, the same goes for any Christian, but so often we feel powerless compared to the temptation and like we will never escape from it. This is such a lie. We are told in His word that “through Christ all things are possible” (Phil 4:13). This literally means ALL THINGS. We can escape the things that seem inescapable through Him. We ARE FREED from our bondage. We just have to get up and run away from it. Further than that even, Christ came and died and rose again to forgive all our sins, not just the ones that are lesser in our eyes. We are forgiven of everything in our pasts. Even the things that other people can’t forgive us for. God forgives us for those too.. Family, we are vessels that are holy in the sight of God if we are in Him. We have been cleansed by Him and are cleansed from all we will do if we seek forgiveness and repent from our sins. But we must turn from it. It is like the story of Lot and his family as Sodom was destroyed, we cannot look back with longing eyes or else it will be the death of us.

Even the core of us is cleansed by God

Blessings