A Holy Nation, A Chosen People

I Peter 2:9-12

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

Christian, what separates you from the world? Do we seek approval from the world, to fit in, to be popular, to be famous, or are we willing to be despised by the world? Though many followed Christ during His time on earth, many people despised Him, death plots ran amuck, people hated Him, He did not fulfill their Messianic expectations, they expected a conqueror over Rome, not over sin. People spat, punched, mocked, beat, Him while He was carrying the cross to Golgotha. Yet we expect the world to love us and receive our message of Jesus’ forgiveness with open and warm arms. Why? Jesus, Himself, told us that people would hate us. 

As John 15: 18-21 says, 

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.

Does the world love you? Or are you despised by the world because you do not dwell in darkness. I John says that darkness can have no fellowship with light. Are you attempting to combine the two? It will never be done. There is either light or dark, never both. The two cannot dwell with each other. God is light, He pierces the darkness, exposing the flaws, the deceit, the brokeness, the sorrow, the wandering nature, the desires that are so often drunk away such as a desire for perfect love, not sex, not an emotional attachment, but agape, unconditional love in the perfect form. Such as a desire for meaning, one found not on this world, given by others around us, but a definition that comes from an authoritative source, one outside of all human comprehension, God. Do we live in the light or in the dark? Which do we seek? Which do we love? You must choose. You can only have one, you can’t have both. 

Do we understand that we are chosen by God? That God has personally called us to Him. That He, in all of His glory and honor, desires to know you personally and intimately. He chose you to be His masterpiece. The question is, will you stop fighting, and though it may hurt, will you allow Him to form you how He wants to form you? WIll you give up and just let Him take control? A sculpture does not form itself, rather the sculptor forms it, exactly how He wants, chiseling away where he desires, until the sculpture is complete, a beautiful masterpiece. Will you just give yourself to Him so that He can form you into His masterpiece, into His sculpture? 

We have meaning and purpose and family in God. We were once not a people, but now we are people of the King. That is so amazing! That God, the perfect and just God who can have no part in sin and hates sin, loved us regardless of our sin, provided a way for our redemption and has adopted us as His children though we did absolutely nothing to deserve it. We spat in His face, rebelled against Him, betrayed Him, and yet He loves us more than we will ever know. “For God SO LOVED THE WORLD.” If you don’t strive to understand God’s love, you will never understand what it means to be His child. If you have never experienced His love, ask yourself why not? What is keeping you from finding true and perfect love? A love that will never fade, that will never leave you, a love that will never disappoint, a love that seeks your betterment, a love that will blow your mind, yet we treat it as second rate to our whimsical, self absorbed concept of love? Why? Are we truly content with the “love” that we know, or do we want more? Christian, after much time thinking about this question I must ask, if you are satisfied in your current knowledge of God’s love and don’t desire to experience it more than you are, what or who has your heart? If you don’t have a passion to seek the love of God out, to experience it more and more each and every day, to learn more about it, to live out a life, mirroring that very same love, I must ask if God truly has your heart or if it lies elsewhere?

Lastly, where do our passions lie? Do we desire God and God alone? Or do we constantly tell God that He is not enough for us? That we need to experience a sensual love, a materialistic love, an emotional love, that we need to drink or smoke because we find happiness? Is God not enough for us? Was our old life really that great that we cannot completely leave it behind for love, meaning, joy, satisfaction, peace and so much more? Even more so, was our old life so great that we tell Christ that though we appreciate what He did for us, that it just isn’t enough, that His love, His sacrifice is not enough for us? That we are not content in knowing Him, that instead we must have the world and its desires and lusts in order to find any “satisfaction.” Family, when we say that it is impossible for us to live a day without sin, but yet we live weeks without spending personal, quiet time at the Lord’s throne, our passions are mixed up. We are then living for the wrong things. We are living for the world, and not God. We need to be so dependent on God that without Him, we cannot function, we cannot get through our day without spending time with Him, that we cannot help but spread His message because of the joy it has brought us. 

Family, do we live like a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation? If we are true believers, this is what/who we are. Time to start living that way.

Blessings family

May grace and peace abound with you from God our Father and may we experience this walk together, serving our King as one body

Called to Action, Called to Holiness

I Peter 1:13-16

Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

I want to encourage you guys, dig into this book. I have been reading through it and have been blown away by the depth, the instruction and exhortation found in this book. 

Before we even begin this study, we need to realize, Christianity is more than a prayer, it is fully trusting God, fully placing all of your faith in Him, becoming His masterpiece. This is not just saying that God is King over all, even the demons do that. This is fully believing that God is King, giving Him all of you, putting all of your faith in Him, placing everything on Him, from who you are, to your struggles, to your problems, to your gifts, Everything. It is not living half for God, half for you, it is being all for God. It is knowing God in a real and intimate way. Spending time with Him. Seeking Him. Following Him with all you are and all you have. Being a Christian is not a call to mediocrity and above average morals and church attendance, it is a real relationship with the King over all creation and giving Him everything. You must experience God. You will never be the same. 

Since we have established a general idea of what being a Christian is, we need to realize that the calling of a Christian is not passive. It is a call to action. We are called to be holy as our King is holy. We are to strive to be perfect, because it pleases our King, because our King is perfect and sin is rebellion against Him and separates us from Him. We are told straightly here that we are not to conform to our evil desires as we formerly did. We are now children of the King. Our lives, our actions, our desires need to be different than they were when we lived in the world. It is heartbreaking family, that we so often live lives that are no different than we used to live. We are caught up in addictions, we are caught up pursuing sin more than our King. What is wrong with this picture? How is this pleasing to our King, that we would push Him aside in order to pursue treasonous actions? Yet, we so often act like our sin is no big deal. This is a huge problem in Christianity, that sin does not have the impact that it should on us because of how horrifying sin is. Consequences aside from sin, it is rebellion against our Father, who has given us a new spirit to pursue holiness rather than sin. This alone should encourage to us to forsake our lusts and turn to the King. If that is not enough, sin’s consequences paint a picture that we should desire to have no part of. It separates us from God, it puts up a wall between us and God, that keeps us from experiencing Him in ways that we can’t even being to imagine. Sin destroys us. It destroys our relationships, our gifts that God has given us are abused, it causes problems that are unnecessary. Lastly, your sin caused the need for a Savior, caused a need to be redeemed, and the only thing that could pay that price was the blood of God Himself, the One that warned us not to give into our passions, and He paid that price. He paid a debt that we could not pay. He did it so that you and I could know Him without sin’s destruction of the relationship. He did it to bring the Father glory in that you can be forgiven. Why would we ever want to deny that? Why would we not give Him our all? Why would we intentionally live lifestyles that are rebellious against Him? Why do we find pleasure in the things that break His heart? 

Family, we know what our calling is. Let’s not brush it aside anymore. Let’s not be content Christians. Let today mark the beginning, or the continuation (depending on your walks), of your complete commitment to Christ, because only in Him will you ever find meaning. Only in Him will you ever find peace, satisfaction, purpose, love, restoration. You have a calling, what are you going to do with it? Will we pursue Him, allowing nothing, including ourselves, to hold us back? Will we live lives seeking our King, so that one day we can stand before Him and just thank Him, and we can sit at His feet, in tears of joy because of His great awe and glory,  and just talk to Him like we did every other day we lived? Will we be a people unashamed of the God we serve and know that though we will make mistakes, we are giving god our all, we are seeking Him with all we are, and are never looking back.

Give God your all, even the core of who you are (the thoughts, regrets, struggles, burdens, depressions, brokeness, gifts, success, your everything), because only through Him can you become the masterpiece you were made to be. 

Blessings family

May grace and peace abound with you from God our Father and may we experience this walk together, serving our King as one body.

Patience

James 5:8

You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 

Are we patient? If you said yes and you live in So Cal, I can prove you wrong.... The 91 freeway.. Sit on that freeway during traffic and even the most patient people I know will crack. With terrible drivers, cops, wasting precious money on gas that is being used to sit still instead of move, places to go, people to see, things to do, Facebook comments to check, the 91 during rush hour just sucks. It is horrible. But, this passage is referring more to patience in a trial. When things around you are falling apart, how do you respond? Are you willing to wait upon God to get you out or do you take matters into your own hands? Does anger get the best of you? Do you rush into or out of things or wait on God’s timing? I have seen from my own life how so many things that I have gone through have now been used for God and to bring Him glory. Even the bad in my life. When I felt that my life was collapsing and that I was being caught in the avalanche of everything falling down onto me, God took all of that, and has used that for His glory. God has even taken my sin, my past, my wretchedness and used it for His glory, used it to break me, used it to develop me. Had I gotten out of my problems, I would never have learned, I would never have grown, I wouldn’t have had to learn to truly trust God with my everything. I don’t want to write much about patience because we know what it is, but we need to live it. We need to be Psalms 46:10 people, “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” If we are never still, if we never depend on God, if we never go through the bad times, if we never pause to reflect on how God is God and that He controls all and has everything under control no matter what storm may be around us, He just wants us to walk out to Him in faith, like Peter did in Matthew 14. We need to be patient with our situations and instead of seeking a way out, seek God. We need to be patient with others and instead of getting mad, we give them Jesus. Family, can we do this? Yes, we really can if we believe and depend on God (Phil 4:13). This verse (Phil 4:13) truly means that ANYTHING is possible through God, no matter how insurmountable it may appear, but it must be through God.

Patience involves being patient to the core, our thoughts and emotions are involved in this 100%

Blessings family.

Adulterous People

James 4:4

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 

Adultery.. Not being faithful to the one that you have committed yourself to. Usually used in a marriage situation as having any kind of connection with another person that would be considered unfaithful in a relationship. Any kind of emotional or sexual relationship outside of the sacred covenant of marriage... Also used as putting something before the one that you commit yourself to.... Are we adulterous people? Christian, are you adulterous? Though this word usually means in a marriage, I am referring to you and God. Does anything ever come before God in your life? Have you violated the sacred covenant between you and God and allowed something or someone else to come into the picture? Have you altogether replaced Him with another passion? Or even further, have you ever truly had a passion for God? Last question, do you love the world and your sin and yourself or ANYTHING ELSE more than God? 

We are told throughout scripture that God is a jealous God, He loves His children, that He desires to have an intimate relationship with us, where we are, so that we can become the masterpiece that He designed us to be. Are we seeking Him like we ought to or are we content with just being half in the world and half with God? Well first of all, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BEING HALF FOR GOD AND HALF FOR THE WORLD!!!! God, Himself, says that “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” (Matthew 6:24a)... Who is it that you serve? What is it that has been stealing ANY of your heart away from God? What is it that is DRIVING you? Is it success, your friends, a relationship, a job, laziness, a sport, school, Facebook, Hollywood’s productions, your sin, an image, a position, or anything else? What is the thing that gets you up in the morning and gets you through the day? Do you feel that sin is impossible to beat and that you can’t get through a day without it? First of all, with GOD anything is possible (Philippians 4:13), but that involves that you put in effort to get out of it also, not that you halfheartedly say you want to escape. Secondly, if you can’t get through a day without sin, but can go weeks without the Bible, what does that say about who you serve? ANYTHING THAT IS STEALING YOUR HEART AWAY FROM GOD NEEDS TO HAVE LESS OR NO PRIORITY.  Even ministry can steal our hearts away from God. So often we can find ourselves serving, not because we want to serve our King and please Him and bring Him glory, but because it is the “Christian thing to do” or because we have to. When this attitude occurs, how can we expect God to use us, when we have lost sight of Him? How can we expect Him to work in us, if we have replaced Him? Family, are we an adulterous people? 

If we find that we are an adulterous person, how do we escape? First of all, you must identify what is replacing God in your life. Secondly, if you don’t have a desire to reduce its role in your life, cry out to God that He would give you that passion. Third, do whatever it takes to get right with God and back on track with your walk. Family, this is a tough process, I find myself needing to do this all the time. This is a personal struggle of mine all the time. It is so easy to become content in your walk, to become unwilling to grow, to become too busy for God. We allow things and other people to gain more time in our schedules and more prominent roles in our life without allowing our God and Father any more time, and usually take the time that we did have with Him away. We go to church, willing to develop a passion for Him, we worship at His feet, then wake up the next morning and forget about our Creator. We don’t cherish time that we can spend with Him. We constantly tell God that our agendas, our relationships, our sin is more important to us then He is. Family, this is sin. This is a place that we should desire to leave and never return to. We separate ourselves from our Father and become melancholy about our relationship with Him. Family, this is going to be a life long struggle, but how we respond to it now, shapes how we respond to it the rest of our life. Today is the day to restore ourselves with our Lover, our Creator, our Master. Let’s not be an enemy of the most High God. Let’s be the people He loves and that love Him back and are ambassadors of Him to this world...

Even our core should be fully devoted to this relationship with God, not just our actions... No more adultery, no more contentment. Just devotion to Him. 

Blessings

Words

James 3:8-10

but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

2- For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.

Words. As kids we used to say “sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words will never hurt me.” How much of a lie is this?? Words can have such an impact on our lives. They can build us up or they can tear us down. We can be told we are worth something and have purpose and that we can succeed and we will more likely feel that we can do these things. However, if someone tells us that we are stupid, not worth anything, that we are in the way, losers, and so much more, we begin to believe it and these thoughts take hold in our minds so easily. WORDS HOLD POWER BEHIND THEM. How do we use this tool? Do we bridle this tool and use it with great discretion? Do we allow ourselves to say things without thinking? The tongue, just like anything else, can be used for good or evil. But, how do we use it? Do we use it for God’s glory at church or chapel, singing praises, but we leave and cuss as someone cuts us off or we complain about how terrible our life is, or we complain about our family or friends or not getting what we want? How often do we interrupt someone as they are pouring themselves out to us? How often do we say something like “I will pray for you” then walk away and forget? How often do we make promises then never intend to fulfill them? How often are we completely fine with deceiving our parents so that we won’t get in trouble? Or how often do we lie to our friends about what we have done, so that they won’t look at us differently? With the same mouth that sings praises to God, we do all these things daily at times. 

Complaints. Life can be so difficult. So many problems can rise up at once. Everything can fall from around us. We feel like God has abandoned us. So, at these times we have a few choices; cry out, hitting our knees, knowing that if we seek God we will find Him, and begging for Him to restore us, to develop us; to rebel, we can just say that God is not there for us and we will no longer follow Him because He does not care; we can deal with it on our own, this won’t always work out, many times we get out of it by God’s grace, but believe that we got out by ourselves; or we can complain, telling God how bad everything is, complaining to friends about our problems, letting our problems take our eyes off of God because they are so huge, unlike God is in our minds. What do we do? What should we do? Family, we need to be people that hit our knees seeking our King. When times get tough, where do we turn? 

Cussing. What comes out of our mouth can de a huge descriptor of who we are. If we talk about sports, we are likely athletic. If we speak about music, we are involved in music or really enjoy it. But how often do our words reflect our God? How often do we talk about Him, about His Word, about how great He is, like Him? But how often are we found using words like cuss words or words of complaint or words of gossip? Does this reflect our God? If we are children of God, our actions and words reflect Him, do these cuss, complaints, criticisms, and gossip bring Him glory?

Gossip. We are ONE body. We are children of God. Yet, so often we are quick to bash on fellow believers, to share their private news, to talk about someone. We need to listen to I Thessalonians 4:11 stating, “that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you.” We need to not desire to hear or speak about others, rather to focus on developing ourselves and not spreading news of others that is none of our business.

Words of belittlement. How can we walk around and bash on people for what they do and be ok with it? WHY are we able to do this might be the better question. This is a direct reflection of our heart and attitude. We need to encourage and love on people, REGARDLESS of what they have done, what they look like, or who they are. Jesus LOVED. We need to follow His example. 

Our words are a direct reflection of our core self, do they glorify the One we claim to follow? If not, time to change that or decide who we really serve...

Blessings

Guilty Like Others

James 2

1-My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.

10-For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 

How often do we build up stereotypes about who needs the gospel, who will get it, who won’t get it from me, and who is too far out from it to have it ever mean anything? We see the guy with all the tattoos on him, including his face, with piercings everywhere, that has his girlfriend all over him, and he looks like he can kill you and might if you talk to him, or we see the homeless person that smells and has nothing, but we assume its a scam because we have seen and heard of so many scammers that we no longer trust any of them. How often do we act as if these people don’t need the gospel, or aren’t worthy of it? Well the fact is, they aren’t worthy of it. BUT NEITHER ARE YOU!!! You are a sinner. You have fallen short of the glory of God- Romans 3:23. Guess what, if you break one part of the Law, you have broken it all, that includes intentions and thoughts also. God demands HOLINESS, not for you to be better than another Christian or some other sinner. He does not grade as a class, just off your individual performance. But you failed, you needed a Savior because you were going to end up in hell, eternal punishment, because of what you did. You failed time and time again, God provided an offer of forgiveness and it would mean that no matter what you did, you were saved. YOU STILL MESSED UP TIME AND TIME AGAIN! Yet, God forgave you instead of just being just and sending you to hell after one mistake, He has such a great compassion and mercy on us, we don’t even comprehend it, we take it for granted every day. Family, we must appreciate what God has done for us. We were unworthy, we did not deserve his sacrifice, but He provided it for us. So next time we see that person caught up in drugs, or sexual sin, or that smells or talks funny, instead of feeling like you are better than them, realize that you have been forgiven of so much, you were in their position, empty, lost, needing a Savior, and you received it, why shouldn’t they? Why should you not be the vessel used to pour out God’s love and tell of His forgiveness, bringing Him glory? We are all in need of a Savior and have been forgiven of a debt that we could not pay, we were completely undeserving of being forgiven. Let’s not act like we are better than anyone else because they have a similar debt and need the same Savior we did.

We all have the same core needs

Blessings

Active Listeners

James 1:22-25

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

This is such a rich chapter, if you have a chance family, check it out. 

James, the half brother of Jesus Christ. James, the man who refers to himself as a slave of Jesus Christ in the opening verse. James, a man who had refused to believe that his brother was the Messiah, only to fall to his knees later in realization. James throws out some hefty challenges to believers. James seriously drops some heavy stuff on anyone who calls themselves a disciple of God, a Christian. The verses listed above were some of the most impacting verses I know of in this book. “Be doers of the Word, not just hearers.” Do we just take in, never to apply or share? The Bible does us no good if it is not believed and applied in our life. If we hear all the verses on Christ’s forgiveness and sacrifice and on how we need to be like God and be holy and how we Christians just have to love everyone and trust God, but yet we never are willing to actually to apply these principles, these commands, in our lives, what good does it do? If we hear/read verses on purity (any type of purity, not just sexual purity), but we are excited about sin, or even just not willing to give it up, what good does that do to us? What type of faith are we living out? What does that say about our God? That we are too good for His commands but just live off His grace? That we take advantage of the King of Kings who holds the Universe in His hands? Christian, let it not be so in your life. Whether it be Jesus restating the commandments of loving God first with our everything and loving our neighbors as ourselves in Matthew 22, or whether it be a verse speaking on unity of the church and not abandoning fellowship as a body of believers, we must have every part of the Bible be applied, we must seek to do it. Not because works save us, but because works are a sign of our faith. Faith without works is dead, works without faith are well intentioned but pointless. Faith and works go hand in hand. Jesus did not just say that He is God and leave it at that with nothing to prove it, no, He demonstrated that He was God through the life He lived, the words He spoke, and the example He led. Paul did not just say he was a Christian, he lived it out! He applied the fact that he was unworthy to be allowed to know such a perfect and holy God, but yet God had grace on Him and gave him a purpose and meaning. Paul lived that purpose out. Family, what do we do with the words of God? When the Bible is being read, at church, by a friend, or personally, do we just skim over it, only half paying attention, willing to forget what we learned. We will not remember it unless we put forth the effort to remember it. James tells us that if we apply the Word to our lives, it won’t be easy, we must persevere. God will get us through it though if we focus on Him and not the storm. 

Be doers, not just hearers

Blessings

Unchangeable

Hebrews 13:8

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

I change all the time. My likes and dislikes. My passions. My priorities. My promises. My maturity. So many things are not permanent. Thankfully there is always room to improve because that is what I need to do. I am never where I need to be or even where I want to be. I have so much going on in life that so often I feel that I can’t even keep track of it. I make promises I don’t keep. I mess up time after time. I have lived for pleasure one day and God the next. The fact that I change though is not a bad thing though. What I do with the change is what can be bad. If I live in a manner that rebels against the King, then I am utilizing the ability to change for evil. But, thanks to God and His amazing sacrifice for me, I can change for the better. I always have potential to do better in life. To be the person that I want to be, but most importantly the man that God desires me to be. That is such a sweet opportunity. To be able to change from a criminal (because sin is committing treason against God and the punishment is death), and become a new person, adopted by that King, given the chance to be a completely different person, the way I was designed to be. The reason I bring this up, is 1-to say that it is never too late to turn from your sin and start fresh. God would love it. and 2- because GOD NEVER CHANGES HIS MIND ABOUT ALLOWING THIS CHANGE TO HAPPEN IN US! That is so amazing that God, the Creator, the Savior, the KING, allows us to change and be a new creation in Him, and He doesn’t change His mind about it. He doesn’t just decide one day that the people that followed Him are no longer His children, that they are no longer saved. He means it when you are saved. God, who is merciful, loving, perfect, holy, almighty, all knowing, always there, He can perfectly relate to anything you are going through, and He does not change His mind about you and how much He loves you as His child. This does not mean to take advantage of His grace, because that is a demonstration of a lack of love towards Him. It shows that you truly don’t care about what He has done for you. You are not disgusted with your sin, instead, you love it when you have this attitude.

Our God never changes. He will never let you down, He will NEVER leave you. He is always there for you and always loves you. Give yourself to Him.

Blessings 

Seek and You Will Find

Jeremiah 33:3

Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

Matthew 7:7

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Jeremiah 29:13

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

These verses are some of the greatest promises in the Bible. The opportunity to be able to know the King in a real way, an intimate way is so great. That if we look for the King of the Universe, we will find Him. Do we understand what this means? Really? We have the ability and privilege to know the One who created us, who is above everything, who holds the universe in His hands, who came and lived a perfect life, died a horrific death to redeem us, rose again, and He will reign for all eternity. WE CAN KNOW THIS GOD. We boast that as Christians, we can know our Creator in a real relationship, but how many of us really take advantage of this? How many of us actually seek God with all of our heart, soul, mind, strength, energy, OUR LIFE? Christian, as a follower of God should you not passionately seek the one you follow? Should you not know the King of your life? Should you not love your redeemer who saved you from an eternity of punishment? I pray that we all look at this and feel conviction, because none of us are where we need to be. We are perfect, we make mistakes, but we all need to grow, we all need to seek Him more. Family, are we seeking God with all of our heart? Are we hitting our knees in prayer, crying out to Him, seeking His face? We can talk with Him at any time, but so often we never truly take Him up on this offer? He desires to talk to you, HE WANTS TO REVEAL HIMSELF TO YOU. Family, maybe the reason why life is so tough, it has such a tiring effect on us, why it never makes sense, never has certainty, why it destroys us, why sin has such a power over us, all this can be because we don’t seek God with our everything, we hold onto that sin, we put that passion above God. Why do we not just simply seek Him with our everything? We discussed faith earlier and how it is a full commitment to give Him everything in our life, to fully trust that He is God and has control over our lives. Do we have faith like this? Why not? What is holding us back from that faith? What is it that controls our life? What has power over us? Think about this and pray about it family. This is so important to do. WE MUST BE A PEOPLE THAT SEEKS THE KING WITH ALL WE ARE.

Think about this family, what do you seek more, God or sin/ yourself? We go days without God, but can’t go a day without sin. This NEEDS TO CHANGE!

I pray that God completely impacts the core of our life today on from this passionate seeking of Him.

Blessings family

Broken Chains

We all serve something.. We are slaves to something.. What we serve is what matters.. We can only serve one master as I pointed out in “Sin” and “One Master.” I truly believe that we are held by our desires and our lusts more than we will admit. I think that we don’t believe that we can be free from our addiction, so we don’t try to escape. We have let our past reign over us and tell us that we can never be better than that sin. It echoes in our head, never letting us forget what we did. It begins to separate us from God, because we don’t believe that He can save us from it. We don’t believe that we are worth it. Though we do not deserve His sacrifice, He sees us as worth it. He values you and me so greatly that He wanted to die for us. He wanted to be able to have an intimate relationship with us. I have found myself caught up in my sin.. Not wanting an escape from it. Growing further and further away from God. Disgusted with myself but unwilling to change. Unhappy with everything about my life, but not feeling that change would be worth it. I felt as if I would never be able to escape from my sin, my addiction, my master. I looked at verses like Philippians 4:13 and didn’t believe them. “Through God I can do all things” is what the verse says, but I felt that escaping from addiction was the exception. I felt as if that verse only meant something along the lines of healings, angels appearing, old testament miracles, I never believed that it meant that I could escape from my sin. The thing that clung onto me so tightly. I was so wrong. God took me when I was broken beyond belief, I was beaten down, rejected, and felt so alone. He took me then and knew that I was done trying to fight. I began to see the way that God views sin to an extent. I began to understand His will for my life and only that He satisfies. Though I knew these things, I never believed them. It was never real to me. It never changed my life. I pray family, that you are not where I was. That you are not feeling like you have no escape from sin, that you are alone, that you will never be any better than what you were, that you are not worth Christ’s sacrifice. Family, I hope and pray that regardless of where you are in your walk, how big or how little amounts of sin you have, that you just completely give it to God. We are not meant to only give Him parts of our lives, He wants all of it. The verse “my grace is perfected in your weakness” rings true in my life. I have seen it. I know that God has used my brokeness and weakness and inability to do much well on my own for His glory. But family, I want to challenge you that you realize that you are not held captive by your sins anymore, you are not held to those thoughts that race through your mind, you are not a slave of sin anymore, you are a servant of the King, bought with a high price. Why then is it we so easily forget this and so willingly run back to our chains in sin? 

This week I received a question from someone asking why they loved their sin and what would happen to them if they died right now, loving their sin instead of God? They felt great not having that authority over them, only seeking their own pleasure. This is the mentality of our world right now. That they don’t care whether it is right or wrong, but that there is pleasure involved. Many of us are even caught in this mindset. Many Christians have been taken captive by this type of thinking. They think that they can sin and then repent and then sin again and go back and repeat this cycle till they are sick of that sin. Family, is this Christianity? Seeking pleasure, abusing the forgiveness of God to willingly return to that sin... NO! This is not Christianity, this is hypocrisy. This is where I was many times. Though we are all hypocrites, this is a lukewarm person. The type that Revelations 3:16 speaks of. God is repulsed by these people. If God is repulsed with an attitude, should we not run to that attitude? Family, we must be careful of this mindset. Sin is not ok! Sin is not fine with God. He knows our troubles, He knows our weakness, but this does not give us permission to abuse His grace! Though I do not judge one’s soul, only God can, I feel that “Christians” that find themselves loving sin more than God must seriously check their lives. No more spiritual splits. Time to take a side. I pray you choose forgiveness and direction and love and purpose. I pray that we no longer allow sin to have any reign in our lives. Family, can we begin this today? Working towards the goal set before us, not letting sin hold us back, not allowing addiction to keep puling us in, instead realizing that we are forgiven and God has broken our chains of addiction and freed us IF we follow Him. 

Family, let’s be a generation that lives 100% for our King, every single day.

Blessings