Love and Obedience

Not sure if anyone still reads my blog anymore...it's been awhile. Just wanted to say that so much has happened in my life this year, can't believe it's already December. I wanted to write about how much I love Jesus, yet again. I remember lying in my bed one night and praying (with fear and trembling) for God to sift me and refine me in any way He chooses in order for me to become more like His Son. This was a scary prayer to say the LEAST. Well, He has and He is. What I do know is that God allows things in our life to occur in order to let us be aware of our NEED for Him, our NEED to rely fully on Him for our needs to be met. He has been working this area out in my life through a blind faith and trust in Him-on a DAY to DAY basis, sometimes even an HOUR to HOUR basis. I would have it no other way as tough as it is at times. I know that God HAS to be of GREAT importance in our lives at all times, by this I mean thinking about Him, praying to Him, talking about Him, OBEYING Him-constantly. He is a jealous lover. He has helped me to realize that loving someone or something equals ACTION. Loving someone is not merely through words, I know someone loves me without them even having to say anything. Showing God love is through our ACTIVE obedience to Him, there is no other way. He says in His Word to love Him with ALL our heart, mind, and soul and THEN to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves (which for most of us is A LOT). It is the highest form of worship to Him, not just raising your hands, screaming and crying, and attending services (although all these things are good to do!), more so it is SHOWING our Creator that we comprehend what He has done for us through His death by obeying His commands and proving this with our lifestyles. Love truly equals action. I know and understand more and more each day how filthy and disgusting I am, I also know at the same time that I am forgiven and loved beyond my comprehension, I can't wait for the day that I get to see my beautiful Savior's Face and Eyes and Hands, there will be nothing better. Many days I see how fallen our world is and I simply do not want to be here, but I know that as long as the Lord has provided life to each individual on this earth, in this era, in the day in age, then we are ALL meant to be here for a specific purpose, and that is always to glorify His Son. I don't do everything right, I make mistakes each day, I hurt people, but I am trying to reach the goal my Savior has set before me, run this race the BEST way I can through His strength alone. I cannot tell you how PEACEFUL it is to OBEY Him even if you completely DON'T understand it, I have found that His peace that passes understanding is without a doubt the answer for TODAY-I aim to maintain it above all else, and know that when I don't have it, there is a reason. I am LOVING the adventure He has me on right now, I have never experienced so much peace and happiness amidst any storm I face than I have lately. I know that I am on the right path and I also know that if I start to go off (which I am guaranteed to do), I have a Daddy that will reach down and take me by the hand and lead me, what more could I ask for?

When You are not enough...

When You are not enough
I seek the pleasures of this world
When you are not enough
My hope is lost
When You are not enough
Joy cannot be found
When You are not enough
Please Lord, break my heart

When You are not enough
I carry all my guilt and shame
When You are not enough
I can not bear it
When You are not enough
I'd like to think I've learned by now
When You are not enough
Please Lord, Break my Heart
Please Lord, Change my heart

When You are not enough
We trade Your beauty for a lie
When You are not enough
Nothing satisfies
When You are not enough
Your joy is always out of reach
When You are not enough
Please Lord, Break My Heart
Please Lord, Change my heart

grant us mercy
grant us grace
grant wisdom
grant us faith

~Thad Cockrell, Matt Stevens
Vintage21 Church

At Your disposal...

So…let’s chat shall we (or more like I will “speak”), it’s been quite some time…Relentless, that’s what God is, I am so very thankful for that. I have learned over the past several months the magnitude to which He desires me and the way that He refuses to let me go. Hallelujah. Just when I need the reassurance that He is actually aware of my circumstances and the daily “happenings” in my life, He shows up and lets me know that Yes He IS here WITH me and Yes He does see every detail of my life and Yes He is CONCERNED to say the least. I remember praying awhile back and asking God to SIFT me, to weed out anything in my heart and in my life that didn’t bring Him glory, maybe I was just half serious, but I have now determined that He is FULLY serious about doing this. I heard in church this morning that as a Christian if your life is not encountering any opposition, then you should question if you are truly a follower of Jesus Christ, I really liked that bold statement b/c I believe we serve a very bold God. When Jesus walked the earth He encountered LOTS of opposition, so basically if you go through “hell” once in awhile or frequently, get on your knees and thank God that He is using you to glorify Himself and bring His kingdom to earth! I also went to church last night and my pastor said, “Your life is not about fulfilling your calling to glorify yourself, to make yourself known, to gain happiness, or to be successful according to the world, it is to bring the Lord Jesus Christ GLORY and Him ALONE”, loved church this weekend!!! I think one of the main things I have been learning lately is to seek God and His Face and to know Him truly and His character and who I am Him in Him :o)
http://encouragingbiblequotes.com/verses2a.html

Rasberry Morning.

I think the title is also the name of a cereal :o) So, sometimes I find it hard to actually STUDY my Bible and I find that writing blogs actually helps me to do this if they are a particular theme that I can relate to my Bible. I think it's sad that so many people miss the beautiful mornings God creates (the sky was raspberry colored at 5:45, the beautiful colors of the morning that you can take in (only) EARLY in the morning. I know it's hard to get up early, esp on days where you really have time to sleep in, or you went to bed at 3am, but God says throughout the Bible to not only seek Him w/your whole heart, but seek Him early. This morning I wanted to sleep real bad, but God wouldn't have it :o) This may sound bad, but I almost want to put God on a kind of "trial" run-He PROMISES in the Bible that if we seek Him, we WILL find Him. (Det 4:29, 1 Chron 15:2, Ps 9:10, Prov 3:6, Prov 8:17, Jer 29:13, Lam 3:25, Matt 7:7, Acts 17:27, Heb 11:6) I guess sometime I get scared that somehow I will lose my focus of Him, that I will be distracted by the things of this world and not fulfill what He has planned for me, I know He will never let me stray too far, but I don't want to spend 40 years on a mountain if I can just obey Him and trust Him and have faith. The trial run is to actually put forth serious time every single day, tyring my BEST to seek Him and find Him, giving up things that may be more appealing to my flesh-it is so hard in this world, but as much as I love God and as much as I have seen how faithful He has remained in my life, why then would I not believe in what He has promised about seeking Him, what could possibly be more imortant than Him?

http://www.learntopray.org/print_materials/messages/d2/d2-7.htm

That's my King!

Truth.

The truth is that Jesus Christ loves us more than we can EVER fathom. Beauty is God, God is beauty. There is no substitute for Jesus Christ, there never will be. We are all broken in some way-all of us, ALL of us. Jesus Christ is the ONLY One who can TRULY heal us, Jesus not only wants to us to receive His salvation, but He wants to restore us from the Destroyer of this earth-Lucifer-did you know his name means “Son of the morning”? Satan was breathtakingly beautiful, but his beauty consumed him to the point where he wanted ALL of the attention on himself, not God, and so he was cast down. Thus Satan has a special hatred for beauty, for all things beautiful. This has a special relation when it comes to girls, we who were made to be exceptionally beautiful (how many paintings do you see of naked men?), we who are able to give life-Satan has forever haunted us w/a continuous stream of lies consisting of things like-you aren’t good enough, you aren’t worthy of that, you will never be that beautiful, no one will love you for who you really are, you have no special purpose-lies. I have to tell you, I have a personal relationship w/Jesus Christ, that may sound crazy to some-“you have a PERSONAL relationship w/the God of the universe?” Yes I do, it is the most important thing in my life-it consumes me almost constantly and most of the time I have to control the fact that He makes me so incredibly happy I could scream :o) This relationship is open to ALL, all you have to do is TRUST Him, take the “risk”, accept His perfect Love, why wouldn’t you? I’m a topic jumper, so now I want to talk about how RICH God’s Word is-this is an awesome verse:

“For the Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
~Hebrews 4:12-13

Wow, I don’t know about you but I know that I definitely need the thoughts and attitudes of my heart judged, sometimes I don’t even know the awful things I have hidden in there. And how DEEP His Word goes-to DIVIDE the soul and spirit (body is the first layer, soul is something that can feel emotion and change and be “moved”, but the Spirit of someone-God’s Spirit living inside someone-when you accept Him as your savior-that is the deepest part of man-of me), and to divide joint and marrow? well if you know your anatomy-that is deep and tough! Jesus is my creator, He gives me my next breath and allows my heart to beat, He is the only thing that truly makes me feel like I am living, how awesome that I get to talk to Him, that He teaches me through His Word, that I get to share Him w/others, that I get to worship Him, that I can see this world in an entirely different light thanks to Him. Last night I asked Him to help me to see myself as He sees me, help me to see the beauty He sees in me so that I don’t have the need to hear that I’m beautiful from anyone else, and let me tell you today…

Oh, Jesus how I Love YOU!

“Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the Vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.” ~John 15:4

Receive His salvation-take the “risk”, the BEST decision you will ever make:

Admit to God that you believe you are a sinner (we all are), tell Him that you believe Jesus died on the cross to drink all of these sins, that He came back to life (Happy Easter!) and that He is alive today (Hallelujah!), invite Him into your life to be your savior and friend, receive His precious Spirit inside yourself (how awesome!), pray something like this: “Dear Jesus thank You for making ME, there was no one on earth like me, so you created me because You love me-exactly for who I am, You accept me despite everything I have become-good and bad, I realize I have this deep NEED for You, I ask You to forgive me, thank You for dying for ME-for seeing ME personally as You did and taking my sins upon Yourself-I will never know how that felt-to take all of the worlds sins-past, present, and future on Yourself at one time, please help me to understand it more, as much as I know how, I want to follow You from now on, please come into my life and make me a new person, I accept Your gift of salvation, help me grow as a Christian, in Your name Jesus-AMEN!!!

I am not trying to sound like some CRAZED Christian, I just know that I am not the same as I used to be after getting serious about Jesus, to all my friends, I hope you know that I love you, and to me it would be a dishonor not to tell you about this insane Love I’ve accepted and live in (I hope most of you already know that I love Jesus), I am by NO means saying I am perfect and have it all together, but what I am saying is that I am going to heaven one day, I have this Man Jesus to fall back on every night when it seems all others have failed me, and want desperately for all of my friends to have this too! Wooooo, ok so here is my churches website if you ever want to visit www.gethope.net , and if you are just looking to explore what it means to be a Christian, there is an AMAZING class on the website called “Starting Point” (which I think starts next weekend) that you can go to-I went to it awhile back and LOVED it :o) Ok……I’m done, for now :o)

Watch this.