Prepared

2 Timothy 2:15

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

We know our movies, our actors, relationship gossip, sports news, gossip in general, latest fads, styles, etc... We know so much about everything going on in the world that matters to us, but how much do we know about God? How much time do we spend seeing Him? Crying out to Him? Reading His true and flawless Word? Not enough, I’m afraid. We love to know everything about our friends, but not enough about our God and Creator. We become contempt with what we do know and settle for it and learning more at church a couple times a week or month. We don’t seek to know what we can about Him. We have been given the Bible, a book that has been proven true time and time again, a book directly inspired by God Himself, a book that holds so many answers to the big questions in life, that points us to ways to resolve issues, and so much more, yet we often prefer it collecting dust than being used and learned from. We have to remember, the Bible itself is a huge gift that we don’t deserve, and did nothing to earn it. We have been given it by the grace of God and so often we ignore it. We receive this amazing love letter from our Savior, who saved us from eternity in hell with suffering beyond imagination, which we brought that punishment upon ourselves because we have blatantly rebelled against Him and spat in His face time after time again, yet He loved us and died for us, providing a way to be forgiven and spend eternity with Him and has given us His word to grow with Him and better know Him. But so often, I find myself going day after day without reading it, without studying it fervently, without even touching it besides for church sometimes. How can I call myself a Servant of The King if I don’t even read His Word or cry out to Him in prayer? I have come across times that I need to know the Bible right then and there, in times of trial, times of temptation, times of witnessing, times of prosperity even. We need to know what our King says in every situation of our lives. We will come across so much in life and we can be prepared, if only we sought Him and read His word and learned it and studied it. Be a worker that knows what you are doing. Be a light in the dark world. Be a follower of God that truly follows. It will get you through so much in life. I don’t know what I would have done without the Word in my life at times. It constantly points me back to God no matter what I am going through. I have gone through a lot in my life at a young age, not as much as other people, but I have had a rough road, and have gone through life with the word and without it, so believe me when I say that though this life is hard, our situation is nothing compared to God and sometimes the only way we will ever get through it is if we truly depend on Him, the only way we can do this is if we know Him and seek Him. Be prepared for whatever might be thrown at you in life. Be one who is unashamed of their King and loves Him above all else.

Seek Him with everything, even the core of who you are

Blessings

Pursuit of Discipleship

I Timothy 6:11-12

But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 

What is it that we pursue? Love ( in the world’s eyes), money, fame, highs, absence of pain, regrets to be taken away, doing good deeds, sex, etc??? We are chase something.. Even if that something is nothing. I have chased fame, pleasure, good deeds, love, definition, knowledge... But it got me nowhere. Paul talks about what we should pursue in this verse. Righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness... Do we wake up and say that we want to be righteous today? Do we strive to be godly in all we do, even though we lie constantly like a second nature or pursue lusts and its pleasures? Do we pursue the love of God? A perfect, holy, unconditional love? Every lover we have on earth will fail us at sometime, but God will NEVER fail you. He will never break up with you, stab you in the back, leave you, let you down, nothing like that. Do we seek steadfastness? Are we steady, stable people that don’t let people down? Are we trustworthy? Does our yes mean yes and our no mean no? Do we lie to people, even about little things? Do we pursue gentleness? Along with this goes patience and self control and compassion? Do we seek all these things??? When we are betrayed by a friend and everything is going wrong because of it, do we treat them with love? Are we patient with people that seek to make us mad? Do we pursue our faith? Do we seek to grow our faith like its the most important thing to us? If we did, I truly feel our lives would be radically different. And it wouldn’t stop at our lives, it would branch out into the world. We would be people that sought their King with such a fervor that nothing could contain it. We would be so much like Christ that people would see a difference in us. Its so easy to be happy with blending into society. But as lights in a dark world, there is no blending in unless you become dark. You are either for Christ or against Him. There is no in between. Family, we have to choose that we serve God and pursue Him. We have to seek Him in order to know what He is like. I have seen it a few times, when someone spends so much time with another person, that they talk like them (tone, pauses, everything), they act like them (similar mannerisms), they are reflections of the person that they have spent so much time with. Are we this way with God? Do we spend so much time with Him that we talk like Jesus talked? That we act like He would act, with love instead of anger, with patience, compassion, honesty, purity... Do we know what He says in His word? Can we say verses off hand? Family, I truly feel that we do not pursue our relationship with our King as much as we like to think. So often, we read a few verses to a chapter of the bible, if even that much, forget what we read, pray for meals, sing a worship song at church, raise our hands to it, say “praise the Lord,” but not really truly seek Him. We need to be warriors, seeking direction from our King. This world is a battlefield, yet so often we don’t have our weapon, the Bible, ready, on our hearts. We don’t have guidance from the King, because we never sit at His feet and ask. We don’t have armor (Ephesians 6) because we don’t train ourselves in order to grow. So when we look at this, we are warriors going into battle without a weapon, without direction or a plan, and without armor. That makes for one sucky warrior if you ask me. We need to be prepared to fight the good fight by pursuing our King above all else. In order to seek Him though, we must count the costs. What are the costs? The costs are all of our regrets, addictions, sins, evil memories, guilty pleasures, sorrow, pain, burdens, planning for our own life (which even if we get what we wanted, it might be the worst thing for us, sometimes it works out great, others can be disastrous), and in exchange we get forgiveness, peace, strength, love, purpose, hope, comfort, and so much more. Why are we so unwilling to make that trade many times? Honestly, we look at our lives of sin, and cling to them instead of the cross. I have done it time after time again. Whenever I have done it, I feel that God has not been enough for me. This is the farthest thing from the truth because God is more than I could ever want and hope for. He is everything I need and all I could ask for and then more. 

As Christians, we are called to this fight, and to fight it well as this passage speaks of. We so often ignore the fact that God calls us to this. Every time we refuse to enter that battlefield, we are ignoring His call. Instead of having an attitude like Isaiah who said, “Here I am LORD, send me.” We say, “Lord don’t send me, I’m busy, I’m not good enough, I’m not ready, I want to hold on to my sin more though.” Why do we make excuses with God? We need to be people that listen to and answers God’s calling on our lives. Let’s be a generation that seeks His face and serves Him above all else. 

We need to let God penetrate our core selves and change us into people like Him.

Blessings

A United People

After last night’s accident involving the CBU cross country team all the emotions set in. Fear, sadness, confusion. some anger. I had 6 friends that were up there with the team, 1 of which is my close friend and brother who encouraged me to start this blog. My deepest condolences to go out to all the families that have suffered loss due to this accident, I pray for them and for everyone that is injured. I also pray for all the people that were there that are now extremely shaken up. This memory will stick with them for years, if not the rest of their lives. This is a demonstration to show that we never know what will happen tomorrow, or even in 5 minutes from now. No plan is absolutely concrete. God says that Today is the day of salvation ( Corinthians 6:2). We need to live every day as if it was our last. The song by Kris Allen exemplifies this the best, “We only got 86,400 seconds in a day to Turn it all around or to throw it all away We gotta tell them that we love them While we got the chance to say Gotta live like we're dying.” So often I feel that death won’t get me, not yet, I am too young, I have too much ahead of me, but reality is that I can die at any time just like anyone else. Even in the midst of all this though, I had such a great joy. I saw people everywhere, all over facebook posting about the accident, praying and asking for prayer. It is sad that it takes something like this to unite us all, but it did. I saw people with 1 mind, 1 purpose, 1 prayer. It honestly blessed my soul to see. I saw what Paul spoke of in I Corinthians 1:10b “be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.” Let’s remain united family. We serve an amazing God! Keep all these people in prayer..

Blessings

A Pleasure Driven Destruction

I Timothy 5


Pleasure... 
One word that has such much behind it. Currently an entire generation is founded upon this one word. Sooo many people have given in to this word and its implications. Even as I see the word in front of me, multiple things come to mind. Things from food, to hanging out with friends, to drugs, alcohol, sex, fame, fortune, etc... all are pleasures to people.. Maybe not so appealing to you, but something in your life is pleasurable to you. But many people seek pleasure with everything they are, they seek to find meaning, joy, a good time.. Pleasure becomes what they serve. Their number 1. It defines them. But pleasure, just like anything on this earth, comes and goes. It never stays. You never get the high that stays, the drunkenness that never goes away, the problems all return the next day, and will usually be worse. Fame won't last forever, bands, actors, athletes, writers, etc all come and go.. Not remembered very long.. Money is just money, it can buy you whatever you want, but there is still a gap that it can't fill. Friends will hurt you, relationships will crumble out from under you.. None of it lasts. Satisfaction is the opposite though. Satisfaction, in its truest sense, never fades. It never diminishes. It is perfect. The only that will ever satisfy us is God and nothing else. That void in our lives can be filled by Him and only Him. In Him we can find perfect peace (Isaiah 26:3-4), in Him we can find perfect strength (Philippians 4:13), in Him we find perfect love (I Corinthians 13), in Him we find definition (Jeremiah 18), in Him we find hope. Yet so often we turn to sin to give us pleasure in belief that it will satisfy us. Reality is that sin's pleasures will not satisfy, but will pull us from our King and put us in chains, creating a hunger for the next step in pursuit of satisfaction and we go deeper and deeper into it in search of that satisfaction, but never find it. Then we find ourselves realizing that we are lost in misery, hopeless, feeling like there is no way out, like there is no possible way we could ever go back to where we used to be. So we do what we think is best, go deeper and deeper into sin.. The phrase, "The best way to get out of a hole is to stop digging" applies here. Instead of seeking pleasure at all costs, we need to seek satisfaction. Why waste our time when we could find everything we ever wanted and more? Problems and hardships will still come, but that does not mean that God is failing you, but rather that you must depend on Him more to get through it! We must cry out to Him to hold us in His hands through thick and thin and have us grow into the man or woman He desires us to be. Pastor Greg Laurie says, "Big God, small problem; small god, big problem." he is saying that your view of God influences how you see your problems.. The bigger and more powerful you see God (as He is really is), the problems become less of a big deal.. I have seen this in my own life countless times.. The past 2 years have been 2 of the hardest years of my life, but God worked through them to show me that He is a big God and a powerful God and He loves me more than I will ever know. If we see Him as a small god, unable to do much, not caring about us, our problems will seem insurmountable and we have no where to turn and very quickly become devoured by the problem and become entangled in sin. 


If you are living a pleasure driven life think about this, why are you doing it and where has it gotten you? Are you really happy?? Not on the outside, where you can fool anyone, but on the inside, the core of you, are you truly happy? The Bible says that "she (or he) who lives in pleasure is dead while she (or he) lives." (I Timothy 5:6) (Yes, I know this is taken out of context to an extent, but the message rings just as true to anyone)... I know that I was miserable, I felt like I had no escape, like God could never take me back. Many of my friends wouldn't... But yet, He did, and He gave me purpose and hope and defined me. I saw love in a way I had never seen. I saw life from a new perspective. I saw people as God's creation that He loves... But I learned that sin does catch up to you and there are consequences for what we do.. I Timothy 5:24 says that "The sins of some men are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later." This means that no matter what, you will have consequences for what you have done.. Whether in this life or on judgement day.. I would much rather be forgiven though than face the Creator of the universe and say that I spent my life rebelling against Him, which is what sin is in its truest sense.. 


This is a heavy post family, but we are called to holiness by God (Lev 20:26).. We need to be a pure generation, untainted by the pleasures this world has to offer, leaving our chains in the past and running to our King, not our bondage. Jesus has paid our debt, let's not forget that and take it for granted. He humbled Himself, became like His creation, lived a perfect life, was betrayed by one of His closest friends with a kiss, beaten, whipped to the point His internal organs were showing through His back, then got up and carried a cross that was about 110 pounds down a stretch of about 650 yards, while being spit at, probably hit by citizens, mocked, beat by the guards, He collapsed at a point and Simon was told to carry it the rest of the way, He was then nailed to the cross, died of suffocation, in sheer agony, and yet utters phrases from the cross, including "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This statement has left me to wonder, was Jesus speaking of the people that killed Him that day, or the ones that He came to forgive because we do not understand the EXTREME Levity of sin any longer, that Christ would ask God to forgive us for that. He did that for us, to save us from our bondage to sin, that pit of despair, the life of misery, the addiction, meaningless life... He changed all of that on the cross of Calvary. Yet, we treat sin as if it was no big deal. That white lie, experiment smoke, drunken night, belittling comment, that addiction that is being held in the darkness, etc.. he died because you did that. That is love family...


Pleasure through sin destroys the core of who you are and breaks God's heart, seek Him


Blessings

Core Example

I Timothy 4:12

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

As a young guy, just starting college in less than a month, who feels God’s call upon his life to be a pastor, this verse is such an encouragement.. So often, I feel discouraged because people choose to ignore what I have to say because of my age.. It’s difficult to not get frustrated with it.. But I need to stop being frustrated, seek the King and pursue Him to have a life that reflects Him in every aspect of my life. We need to be examples...  That is the only way we can change stereotypes about what our generation is all about..   We must be totally sold out for God from the very innermost of our beings outward. The examples Paul lists here are Speach, the way we talk, cussing, dirty jokes, hateful language, misguiding words, blatant lies, all of these things don’t bring God glory and are not a good example or witness.. Next is Conduct, how do we behave ourselves??? Are we given to impulsive decisions that are not edifying to God? Do we live a double life, praising God at church only to party the next day?? Can we execute self-control? Do we act in a manner of holiness that is not just an act but is real?? Are we people that would act like Christ Himself would act?? So often this answer is a solid no... But why??? Really think about this.. In all honesty so often we thank God for his sacrifice and saving us from our sins, but we ignore the fact that we have been FREED from that sin.. Sin does not rule in  our lives any longer as Christians.. Rather God has taken the throne.. Christ broke our chains and freed us, but sooo often we look at Him, then back at our chains, and we run away from Him and back to the bondage that sin holds us in.. And we do this all the time!!! How can we honestly expect to grow with God when we WILLINGLY RUN back to sin that Christ died to free us from??? Let’s be Luke 14:28-33 disciples, that WILLINGLY die to themselves everyday, replacing their lusts for God’s love and purpose... Our faulty plans for His PERFECT plan... This is hard, and I am by no means expecting anybody to be perfect in this life, but what I do hope and pray for is that everybody that calls themselves a follower of God, would truly strive to be as much like Him as possible and would leave the sins and addictions in hindsight and walk focused on Christ and Christ alone. 

I John 2:15-17 speaks on our love of the world and sin...

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Paul next speaks of Love... Family, do we love like God loved us?? That we would lay down our lives for people that despise us?? This is a completely unheard of thing!!! I wouldn’t.. Honestly, I don’t know if I could do that. Maybe for my friends, but not someone that would love to kill me anyways. But family, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (I John 4:10)...  Guys, God loved people that have rebelled against Him since the Garden of Eden, people that spit in His face, called Him fake, people that have witnessed all He has done in their lives, but choose that He is not enough for them and pursue other gods (ie, drugs, alcohol, sex, fame, fortune, power, pain, suicide, other gods, etc...)... But yet, HE DIED TO REDEEM US!! No matter how badly we have messed up, slapped Him in the face, whipped Him brutally, nailed Him to the cross... He did so for you and me.. We take this for granted so easily, but if we truly truly appreciated this, sin would devastate us because of the pain and sorrow it causes our Dad and King.. If we had a small portion of this love in our life, I truly believe that the world would be radically changed.. Family, we as God’s people need to be examples of God, I think we all can agree on that.. If this is true, we need to be examples of God’s love.. His love is what we have to cling to.. His love is all we need.. Because of the cross my debt was paid as Phil Wickham sings with the line “Now all of my life I freely give” Family, can we give God all of our hearts today and everyday??? We love our emptiness and pain soo much, but why??? Because we get a quick glimpse of pleasure from it??? IT WILL FADE AWAY!!! 1 Timothy 5:24 says this, “The sins of some men are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later.” Meaning no matter what sin you have committed, your consequences may come today, tomorrow, next week, next year, maybe not even in this life, but God is a just God! Repent and truly turn from your sins and run from your chains into the arms of your loving Savior...

Do we have true faith in God?? Do we depend on Him for EVERYTHING??? Do we believe in Him with every part of ourselves from our core outward?? Do our lives reflect this???

Lastly, be examples in purity.. Obviously sexual purity is key here.. We are to remain devoted to one man/woman (man-woman bond is biblical not man-man, woman-woman, scripture is very clear on this.. Not trying to be a hater but it is God’s rules we are speaking of and it is either right or wrong, there is no in between...) in the bond of marriage.. But we are to take purity to an extreme basically, cussing, drugs, alcohol, etc.. anything that taints us makes us impure.. Purity is being totally clean, unspotted, unblemished.. We will never achieve this in this life, but we need to strive for this.. We are called to be Not of this World.. Purity is definitely of God and not this world...

Serve God with all of you, your core self, outward, everyday..

Blessings

A Hope Misplaced

I Timothy 4:10

For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

Where do we place our hope? It is so easy to have misplaced hope. We put it in things of this world so ofter. I find myself hoping for a good grade, hoping a relationship works out, hoping that I play a good game, hoping college works out, hoping I get a good job, etc... None of these are bad things, what is wrong though is that I am more eager and willing to place my hope in these things instead of things above (Colossians 3:2), where it should be. I love immediate results. Even though they are temporary. But this verse states that we toil and strive, we work so hard for this hope. We work so hard for our purpose. We strive to please our Savior, bringing glory to Him through our lives. But how often do we work for this hope and purpose? I have to say, not often enough. I don’t get in the Word like I know I should. I don’t get on my knees enough as I ought to. I don’t have my mind FULLY set on God like Isaiah 36:3-4 speaks of.. We must work hard at this walk we have with the King. No one ever said that it would be easy. We have to work hard in order to make progress. Just like working out, you get back what you put in. You will grow according to the effort you put into your walk. This is hard. I am so lazy at times, but I need to overcome that daily and nail it to my cross daily (Luke 14: 25-33). I so frequently find myself putting more trust in a chair than the God of the universe. I throw all of my weight onto that chair without thought, but am ever so reluctant to give God my problems, my addictions, my shame, which He desires to replace with peace, innocence  purity, and meaning. This is what our hope should be, that we will be with our Father for eternity, forgiven as if we never rebelled against Him, that everything will run according to plan, that no matter what, if God is on our side, no one can be against us! But so often, we decide that this hope isn’t enough. That we need to put hope in something uncertain. Something which is not guaranteed. Why??? I would much rather place my time and energy into something which is our hope for eternity than something that may last a few years. Family, let’s set our hope on the eternal God who loves us and saved us from an eternity terrible beyond comprehension and has taken the broken, empty, bitter people we were and changed us into people with a purpose, who are loved beyond imagination. If we can’t place our hope in God, who 100% guarantees that we will find meaning, love, peace and joy if we truly seek Him, regardless of the storms that hit us, what will we give Him?? 

Let’s place our hope in God from the core of who we are outward. 


Blessings

Glorifying God In Our Lives

II Thessalonians 1:12

So that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Upon reading this verse, I had to examine my life.. When I went through everything, my actions, intentions, thoughts, attitude, etc, and discover if Jesus is truly glorified in my life, day in, day out, in public and in private.. I won’t lie, it is tough to give God the glory for so much in my life. Sports, speaking, grades, music, etc are all gifts He has given me, but so often I will find myself taking credit for it. I feel that I deserve the praise at least every now and then.. But I must realize that without God, I would not be able to do any of these things, that without Him, I could not function, I would not be alive, physically nor spiritually. But how can I glorify God more in my life??? Firstly, by giving Him all the praise, not taking the credit for things.. Everything I do, this blog included, would not be possible without Him and His inspiration. These are his words flowing through me, not my own. Secondly, I can praise Him for who He is and what he does. So often I take things for granted. I take God’s Word for granted so much! We don’t deserve to be allowed to know a God like Him, one that is so perfect, so wonderful, so holy, so powerful, omniscient, omnipresent, never changing, loving, merciful, gracious, etc. We rebelled against this God so much, yet He loves us enough to forgive us, not just say He will forgive us, but He went through with it, He humbled Himself, went through life as an average man, then was betrayed by one of His closest friends, the innocent lamb gave up His life in the worst way imaginable for us, conquered sin and death, then rose again. This is a love greater than all others. But how often do I go about my days like this all never happened? How often do I truly live as if God did all this for me? So that my life can bring Him glory. So that I can have life everlasting. In all honesty, not often enough. I find myself going through my days, making the seemingly unconquerable foe we call sin, seem like it is no big deal. I write it off, this not only encourages me to sin more, by belittling it and its consequences, but it makes the sacrifice of my Savior mean so much less. Family, what God did means so much more than we could ever imagine, but my deepest sorrow right now is that we live like it doesn’t matter as much as it does, or that we deserved His sacrifice because we are good people, or that we believe that it happened, we put our trust in God, but just in words and not in action 24-7, all day everyday. Why don’t we live like God’s sacrifice impacted us for all eternity? If we do, I truly believe our lives would see drastic change in them and a passion for YHWH would be seen like never before. This generation has become so contempt with being stagnant in their walks. This is so wrong, there is no stagnant in this race. I compare it to being on an escalator, but going the wrong way on it. If you stop moving, you will go the opposite direction that you say you desire, but when you say you desire to move forwards, you must put it to action in order to see results. Family, let’s move forward as one, with the same mind and same purpose, being bind together with the same love, serving the same LORD. This would bring glory to the King. 

Blessings family,

Serve Him from the core of yourself outward, 

Ryan

Holiness rather Than Impurity

Read 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8 


For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

We were lovers of darkness. Lovers of rebellion. Lovers of sin and impurity. Purity is being free from any imperfection. Impurity is having just one blemish. Though we will not be perfect during this life, simply because we will fail, we must strive to be holy and pure. We are called by God to be holy as He is holy (lev. 20:26). But we know this: Whether we have seen these verses or not we have a sense of desiring t be a good person. But so often I find myself blowing this call off. I say "I will make mistakes, why not now?". This is not only blatant rebellion against my creator, but it is me saying that He and HIS sacrifice is not good enough for me. That His purpose for me is just not enough nor what I want. I blow off what He wants for me for the temporary happiness that just destroys me. I love the darkness more than the light at times. Family, lets change this tonight and seek His will for our lives, NOT OUR OWN. Lets not be dead in pleasure (1st timothy 5:6). Lets seek purity and purpose, not rebellion and emptiness. Blessings

The Great Commission

With the Harvest Crusade going on tonight, I really felt it appropriate to dwell upon our mission on this earth... 

We are called by Christ in Matthew 28 to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” But if we are honest with ourselves, do we even strive for this??? Do we even talk to the people in our schools? Do we have compassion on them and truly care about them, demonstrating Christ’s love to them, caring about who and how they are??? The people that we say we love the most can be the ones we avoid speaking with about our faith. Do we talk to the “loners” at school? Do we try to befriend them? Do we reach out to them? Only God knows what they are going through and so often we ignore them and leave them to their own problems. Do we talk to our own groups? Do we share what God has been doing in our lives with them? So often I heard chatter about the latest professional sports teams, dating gossip, music reviews, video game achievements, fashion trends, and most commonly, the latest comments of “I hate school” coming from students everywhere.. But only rarely did I ever hear students speaking of their King... This was at a Christian school! It truly saddens my heart to not hear His name being spoken of more at a school  that boasts about being centered on Him.. What a great testimony it would be if we would not be able to stop talking about our King, that whenever we approached, people knew what we were about.. That people would feel uncomfortable around us because we reflected Christ so greatly. And definitely not as an act, but the real genuine deal.. I have seen it all, people in church talking, cussing, texting, sleeping, checking out girls or guys across the room, daydreaming, etc... Worship has become about us instead of about Him.. Starting today, lets be the friend to he friendless, a loved one to the unloved, a follower of Christ in a world that does not know Him. Lets be sold of for Christ and not look back on our lives, wishing we had tried to make an impact on someone’s life after they are gone.. Lets start today.. But before we can do this, we have make sure we do what Luke 14 speaks of, carrying our cross DAILY and counting the cost of discipleship.. Do we kill our desires and replace them with the will of God.. Lay aside our plans for His? Do we allow Him to take control? Do we remain lovers of darkness? I John 1 says we can’t have darkness in us if we are of the light??? We have to choose.. We can’t serve two masters.. So who will it be, who will run your life? Will you have void and despair, regardless of success, or will you seek purpose and peace, regardless of the storm that hits your life??? 

Blessings family...
Now go and bless...