Time to prove my trust.

I punish myself a lot for my mistakes. Always beating myself up for all the wrong things I’ve done. And I realize now, how that contradicts my claim to His grace.
I claim to believe that He forgave me, I claim to believe that His mercies are new every morning, yet here I am punishing myself for what has been wiped clean. It’s so funny how clearly I see it now. Every action I place in the name of self correction, is an action against trust in Him. How can I say I trust him when my deeds say I don’t believe I’m forgiven. When I’m constantly working to earn my redemption, like I don’t trust it was already given freely on the cross.

I refuse to fake it..

I don’t want to be an emotionalist, a sensationalist.

To rely solely on what I feel and be all excitable about things because of other peoples attitudes towards it.

Or because of their emotional reactions or sensationalization.

I want my faith and relationship with God to be real. To be consistent. Whether the environment is positive or negative, hot or cold. Whether those around me are excited or not.

I want to rely solely on God for my spiritual fulfilment, for my joy.I don’t want to rely on sweet music or pretty words to get me excited to spend time with God. I want my worship to be authentic. I want to be true to God. I want my faith to be sound. I want it to depend on God and since God is consistent and never changes, neither should my faith in Him. Neither should my worship or my reliance on Him.

I pray all this, for myself and also for you. That we may be able to be true to God, and that we may be able to discern what is real from what is just mere showmanship. I pray that we may have pure hearts that we may not be swayed or fooled. Wisdom, to enable us to see what is from God, and what is not. Hearts that are always yearning to please God so that we may be the light of the world.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
(Psalm 51:10-13 ESV)

Keeping the momentum.

I can’t really explain it by my Christian life has always been quite easy.  I prayed for change and God gave it to me. My flaws my personal battles were all so much simpler.

Then this year begun, 2012, and everything changed, now it all feels so difficult. I seem to keep falling, constantly seeking forgiveness for things I haven’t done in years. My past sins seem to be chasing me down.

It really scared me, watching this downward spiral I seemed to be on so I took a step back and looked at my life how I’ve been living it for the past month.

Its really interesting and frightening to see how easily it is to fall away from faith. I’m not saying I have, and I’m really grateful to God for giving me the ability to see my life and to be honest with myself about right and wrong because without that I would be so far gone. Anyway, I’m just saying that within a month I have been able to go so many steps back from my salvation just because of certain lifestyle choices that society deems normal and okay. Maybe it was the holidays and the whole family being around or maybe I was just looking for an excuse but I ended up listening to music I don’t listen to anymore, watching shows I  don’t watch and soon enough my mind went straight to things I haven’t thought in a while. And it was suddenly okay for those few minutes to think those things, do those things.

Media has a lot of power and if we don’t control it it controls us. When I let things in my head, through my favorite shows, through music, through my interactions (physical or otherwise), they become my thoughts. The thoughts grow and consume me and before I know it  things that I haven’t struggled with become a problem. Things that never tempted me before become addictions. It’s really crazy how it works but the fact is, it does. You watch a lot of sensual material, you won’t be thinking about vegetables all day – trust me. What we let in becomes us and it’s so important to watch out. Watch what you let yourself see, watch what you let yourself hear, they become your thoughts and your thoughts consume your heart.

Don’t tempt yourself.

James 1:13-15 NIV

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.