Say What You Need To Say

I'm reading a book called Starving Jesus and it is really great so far. I just finished a chapter called "Offend like Jesus." I am so confused on this subject as to how to approach people and at the same time its so clear. We walk by people on a street corner that are saying, "Repent, the Lord is coming" and we scoff at them. But we love John the Baptist in the Bible and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but the Bible says that a voice will be heard crying in the desert to repent for the Son of God is coming. So are these people wrong? I don't think so, I do think they can go over board sometimes, but REPENT is the message that needs to be heard and maybe people need to be offended by it.
Okay that had nothing to do with the book, just something I've been thinking about. But I'm sitting in the library reading this book and that song, "say what you need to say" comes on. I'm kinda struck by it because it says, "Even if you hands are shaking, and your faith is broken, even if your eyes are closing, do it with your heart wide open." listing off the nerves that we have to deal with when you have something building up that you really want to say. Why do we feel so nervous about confronting people, especially about God. I think its possibly that we don't want to offend them, but even more that we don't want them to come back an offend us. but we need to be ready as Christians to answer the questions when they are brought up. And if we can't we need to be willing to say, "you know what, I have no idea, let me look into it and let you know."
I know for myself that I have two really close girl friends that I want to scream to, "Look at what you are doing with you life!! I can show you something better, just turn away from that!!!" And even though I no longer do the things that brought me close to them in the beginning, I know that my attitude and words can still be under scrutiny. Just the other day I got angry in a class and mouthed off to a teacher and complained the whole time to one of the girls. Afterwards I wanted to kick myself for being so stupid and acting like that in front of her. How can I say, "God will provide you a life of peace and happiness" when she just watched me be an angry jerk. People are watching more than just our actions, they are watching out reactions too. So we need to be aware of that. But what I'm trying to get to is that even though I'm afraid of here being able to say, "oh yea but look at how you acted the other day" or "look at how you acted freshman year", I still need to be willing to offend her in the name of Christ. This doesn't mean to fuss and tell her all her sins and that she is going to hell, but to just bring her the truth behind her actions. She won't like it because those who are in darkness don't want their sins brought into the light, but once they are there, you can start rebuilding a life.

"My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them. from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified."
-John 17:15-19

LOVE, LOVE,LOVE!

So something I've been realizing lately is how much I am falling in love with God. I have never been so satisfied and sustained in my life. Everything is working together and I rarely feel stressed. It's like nothing else in this world really matters when you have someone so wonderful to guide you. It's a giddy love too. I get excited thinking about what God has done for me each day and just watching Him at work. I'm not concerning myself with plans, but I'm waiting for God to bring stuff to my attention. It's crazy to think that even with every person in this world, He still finds time to be in love with me. He makes me feel beautiful and perfectly fine when I look in the mirror. ahh, I love bein in love, especially with someone sooo amazing!!

"for the sake of his great name, the Lord will not reject his people, becuase the Lord was PLEASED to make you his OWN."

-1 Samuel 12:22

God Does Speak

I've been struggling a lot lately with what I am going to do for the rest of my life. I graduate in May and then I was planning to take a year off then apply to Physical Therapy schools in North Carolina...namely UNC. But being at Caswell is doing a work on me and I don't know if it is because I am in this Godly setting where everyone is always in worship or because God is really trying to turn me towards the foreign missions field. But my heart has been so torn and I have been praying continuously that God show me what to do with my future. Today, at work, I was sitting in the guard stand and just praying (while watching the children swim), asking God to show me direction in my life. Now you know how there is always this, not really voice, but I don't know "voice" in your head when you are thinking about ideas to yourself, more like just ideas that pop into your head. Well this thought popped into my head "Don't you trust me to guide you?" and I knew that it was not my own thought but God had just spoken to me. I've never ever heard God speak to me before and I didn't know what it would be like when He did, but it was just so clear. I just sat there and thought, whoa, did God really just speak to ME?? Did that really just happen because I know that wasn't my own thought. And then I had to think, DO I really trust Him to guide me? Am I willing to not know what is going to happen tomorrow? Am I willing to just trust God to show me the way every day and not worry about what will happen in the future. My answer, I think I can do that for a God that loves me so dearly. I know that I can trust and that it will be hard, but that it is the least I can do.
Sitting here in the after math of all this, I was thinking about a verse so commonly known from Matthew, but I don't think we ever really grasp how important the verse is to life:
"But seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." -Matthew 6:33-34
Don't worry about the future, it will worry about itself. How hard is that for us to do? To give up total control of what will happen tomorrow or the next day and just allow God to fulfill His purpose within us. It's a struggle, but it's what we are called to do each and every day. Trust, for God knows.

I'll Run to You

So I'm being pretty corny today and I am trying to study because I have been studying non stop for three days and I can't take any more. I decided to watch a litttle tv and I came to this channel that is showing The Gospels of John. Yes it is one of those old movies that they used to make about the books of the bible, but I was intrigued, so I decided to watch. So far, so good...I'm not sure how it's going to end though... =)
Anywho, as I was watching it and seeing how they were portraying John the baptist, I was like, man this is going to be a horribly cheesy movie. But then Jesus showed up on the scene and they portrayed him the way I always think of him. He was smiley, and happy and all together pleasant. He was passionate and wise, but not irrogant. I loved it.
Then they showed him meet his first disciple and this is the part that really got me. Now we all know the verse in John, "Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, 'We have found the Messiah'." So what did they show, Andrew high tailing it across the beach to tell his brother of Christ. And it made me think, here I have this love and this knowledge, but I know so many people that don't know Christ. What keeps me from running to them and telling them "I know what can save you, I know what can make you live!" I think it's shyness or probably insecurities that I don't know it all. I don't know but it does not really matter, it does matter that I'm not doing what I need to do. I saw how excited Andrew was, his face was lite up and his brother was reluctant to follow him, but he was so excited. Jesus says, "My father is always at work, so I too must continue to work." I'm going to take this to heart, I want my friends to know, I want them to understand. I want my family to know, I want everyone to know. So I'm going to not only show it in my life, but I'm going to speak of him non stop. Don't let me be a pharisee who says I believe and be reluctant to follow Christ as he commands me.
My prayer to Christ is to have the strength to stand for what I believe and to know that my praise does not come from men but God alone. If 12 men could impact a world, just think what we could do. So where will we get enough food to fill all these people? How about from the love of Christ.

Sex, Money and Power

I've been really busy so I'm just going to put up these services. My church is doing Sex, Money, Power: the Man series and so far it has been amazing. Our church is always a good time. but anyways, this is really, really good for guys but I think girls can get a lot from it too. so here is the link to the series, pick whichever you feel most drawn to, or if you are bored, watch them all.

http://www.newspring.cc/225499.ihtml?id=225499

Washed by the water

"Even when the rain falls
Even when the flood starts rising
Even when the storm comes
I am washed by the water
Even when the earth crumbles under my feet
Even when the ones I love turn around and crucify me
I won't ever, ever let you down
Won't fall as long as your around me"
-Needtobreathe
Washed by the Water

So this is one of those songs that I've listened to maybe twice before and it's so beautiful but for some reason it really hit home today. I guess maybe cause it's raining outside. But the beginning of the song talks about how their father is a preacher and how people started turning their backs on him and talking down on him pretty much, but that his father stuck it through and remembered who he served. But I love the line in this song that says "Even when the ones I love turn around and crucify me" because if there is one thing I've learned in life, it's that God is the only one that will never let you down. So many people you think you can count on, even your christian friends and family will eventually let you down somehow. They might turn away from you, but the only thing you can do is continue to love them with the love God has for you. But not only that but the fact that you are "washed by the water", it's obviously a metaphor for Christ life on earth, above the water you are a sinner, then you are dunked and completely surrounded by the love of Christ and you come out clean. Everything else from the world washed away and left with Christ. And it's just so amazing to think of how much he has done for us and how we no longer need to worry because he has taken it away and kept it for himself. It wasn't necessary, but he did it because he loved us.
Sorry ya'll, but if that doesn't make you want to jump up with joy for a never failing God, then I don't know what to tell you.
Oh and I think something that I really wanted to point out was that the best thing about all of this is that when we feel like everything else in the world is going to suffocate us and fall apart, there is God and his love to hold us.

Strength in God

So while reading 1 Samuel I can to the point where the future King David was being basically chased by Saul. Now get a little bit of perspective on this. Saul was a mighty warrior, the first ever king of Israel, people loved him and looked up to him. Then he screwed up, so God decided that he would no longer be the king of God's people but that someone new would be. God chose David and of course you know the David and Goliath story...same David. So the people began to brag about David and pretty much thought he was amazing. So Saul got jealous and started chasing him to kill him because he didn't like the idea that the next king would not be from his direct family. Well as much as Saul hated David, his own son Jonathan absolutely loved David. He knew that David would be the next king and he was a Godly man himself.
Well anyways, to get to what this is really about, just imagine having to live with all this, knowing that a well known and loved man is trying very hard to kill you. You would probably get down on yourself. But listen to what happened:

"And Saul's son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and HELPED HIM FIND STRENGTH IN GOD." (1 Samuel 23:16)

The whole time I was reading all this stuff before thinking David is really a man consumed by God. He just seems like the perfect Christian. But then I read this and think, whoa, he wasn't perfect, he was losing strength in God. But hey, duh!! Only Jesus was perfect and had that kind of faith. It's crazy that we think of these "heros" in the Bible as being the perfect people, but you see that they all mess up some how. David loses faith and Moses did too. So if we think how easy it is for those who have had such close relationships with God to lose faith, think how much easier it is for those of us to lose faith. Scary huh? I think so. But what is awesome about it is that God placed someone in David's life to help him find that strength when he was losing it. This shows the importance of our christian relationships. We have to be accountable for one another and watch out for one another.

"Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds."
-Hebrews 10:24

So what I took away from this passage is that we all screw up. It's what we do, but by having those friends and that support to help lift us up, we can make it through the hard times. We just have to encourage one another in our faith.

Call me sin, I'll say loved

I'm reading this book right now called Out of the Salt Shaker and Into the World by Rebecca Pippert and if you get the chance I would encourage reading it. It talks about how to be evangelical as a way of life, not just as something you do once a year on a mission trip or twice a week when you run into a poor victim. Anyways, so I'm reading about how we need to clarify the meaning of words that can easily be construed by non-christians and Becky (as we call her) gave an example of how she explained sin to a friend. Read:

"You Christians say we are all sinners"
"Do you know why? The Bible says it's because something very, very precious has been broken. If we wern't so significant, if we didn't have so much meaning, then it wouldn't be so sad. It's only when somehting precious has been broken that we can say, 'How tragic!' That brokenness is what the Bible calls sin. That's why God hates it so much. Sin caused something extremely precious to become dehumanized."..."[Sin is] anything that makes us less than we were created to be."

Okay so hold up, wait...what?? I always thought God was just jealous because we were worshipping other gods. I mean I knew he loved us, but I thought it was mostly just out of jealousy and wanting those he created to praise him so he could love them. I know, now that I think about it, that's pretty naive. But here she says that the reason God is angry about sin is because he cares so much and the fact that sin is pulling us away and making us less than we were created to be, it just infuriates God.
I don't know about you, but I think I have a totally new perspective on sin.

Here I Am

So if you have ever read the story about Samuel you know the part where the Lord called him 3 times and he kept going to Eli saying "here I am, you called me." Finally Eli realized that it was God calling Samuel and he told Samuel to answer "Speak, for your servant is listening."
Anyways, I've been seeing a lot of this passage in the last few months. I've seen it in a few different lights and I think it's a pretty interesting passage. First, how often before we became Christians did we feel God calling us, but we just didn't know it was him? I know I had that, all my life I kept answering to other people and other things "Here I am", not knowing that God was the one pulling at my heart trying to get my attention. I think sometimes we still do that even as Christians. God is wanting us to do something for him, but we think it's something completely different. We feel it necessary to run for president of a club because we think we can lead people, isn't God the one that gave you that ability? And how do you know he isn't giving you an opportunity to witness by showing strength to this group of people? Just an example.
Secondly, Samuel says, "Speak for your servant is listening." Man I wish I could say that is what I say to God all the time. But dang, I know I don't. But when I do listen to God, life is so much better. And you always know when you aren't listening to God, because you can feel it in your heart and hear that little voice inside your head telling you different, but you try to convince yourself that this is what God wants. It's so silly, but we all do it, at least I think, I know I do. But working on it.
So here we see what we need to improve on in our daily walks of life. We need to realize that God is calling us to do certain things and that in everything we do we serve him. Not only that, but we need to listen to what he tells us. And here's the kicker, by listening to what he says we might just end up doing what he wants.

Can you hear me now??

Okay so I finished reading Judges the other day and I realized something about God's choosen people. We suck! Oh my gosh, every few years the people would fall back into their disgusting ways and then beg God to send someone to save them when things weren't working out. Didn't they know that this is what he had promised if they didn't follow him?? He told them blantantly, I will ruin you if you turn away from me. But they kept following after other gods trying to find something better and then in the end always running back to God.
It made me look at my own life and wonder, how often do I do the same thing? How often do I try to find peace in the world and then come running back to Christ when everything else falls through. I've found that the thing I go after most is love, for some reason I just need love. And that's okay, God gave me that desire to love, he gave it to me so that I would desire to love him. But I always find myself looking to friends and family and boys trying to find that support and in the last year it has really hit me that I don't need any of that to find true love, because the love that I have been granted is so much better than that. God gave his son, he doesn't leave me when I suffer, and he never uses me for his on pleasure.
So I challenge you to think what it is in your life that pulls you away from Christ time and time again. I encourage you not to be like the Israelites of that age, stick with God, he will make you prosper when the time comes. Remember, "Condsider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith develops perserverence. Perserverence must finish it's work so that you will be mature and complete. Not lacking anything." -James 1: 2-4