Stopping by to say hi.. :)

I figured I should write something for the sake of my “I promise to write more post” I wrote not so long ago. I could give a list of excuses for why I haven’t posted more, but I really don’t have any. The truth is in the last couple of posts I have made. I just haven’t been  there spiritually, and in my journey to getting to that good place I haven’t really had any good or positive things to say. I really don’t want to be the one throwing negativity and darkness online because we have enough of that already, plus I’ve lived that life and I prefer to stay away from “that” person I once was. So I’m getting back to the okay place,  and I pray that God gives me the strength to move, and grow in my spiritual and physical life. Until then, I can’t promise regular, daily posts, once a week is more likely. So again, I’m really sorry for my diminished presence online, but I assure you it’s all going to work for my good. And I’m getting there for sure!!!

Hope everyone is doing okay.

I’m adding this video of a song I really love and blesses me. Jesus Culture are really fantastic, if you haven’t listened to their stuff you should check them out.

 

Oh Lord, You’re beautiful by Jesus Culture

and the verse for today is,

    But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
(1 Corinthians 15:10 ESV)

Midweek confessions

What’s the one thing that you have learned this year?

I’ve been trying to be open minded and humble enough to try new things and it’s been quite a challenge. Every time I think I got the humility thing down, something happens and my pride shows itself, loud and proud. Being humble is hard. I am irked by a lot of things too nowadays, but the one one thing I’m disappointed about is my reactions to situations after my pride reveals itself. My lack of patience and compassion(in some cases) has been really shocking to me. It’s hard being nice. Just when I thought I had it all together, when I thought I was on that good path,  I let it all just fall apart for the sake of my pride.

The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil.
Pride and arrogance and the way of evil
and perverted speech I hate.
(Proverbs 8:13 ESV)

I’ve prayed about humility for a long time, and I will admit I’ve made progress but I find myself in situations that really make me wonder who on earth I think I am. Pride, is a sign of self importance. A form of selfishness, and conceitedness. So here I am, thinking that I deserve more because of bluh, bluh, bluh, when in reality I deserve absolutely nothing. Being impatient towards someone when they mess up, when I mess up all the time. It’s insane, it makes me really sad that I still have to struggle with that today, but I have learnt that I can either chose to be impatient and curse under my breath or, I can count to 10 and not react until my head is on straight. It’s not easy, but I am trying. Praying for humilty in all I do, it’s hard like I said but I know eventually I will overcome.

For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

(1 John 2:16 ESV)

My  lesson is, I am still very far from where I should be. I need my heart to be pure, and sincere. To love and give grace without questioning or seeking validation. I want to be joyful in my heart, I want be like Christ from the inside out. I am learning to be humble each day, in each moment because that’s the only way I learn. That’s the only way I grow.

 

And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
(Mark 7:20-22 ESV)

What’s your lesson for the year? What have you been struggling with?

The burden of love.

It has been a very emotionally intense couple of days for me. Love comes at a great price and we never really realize how big until something happens and you evaluate how far you would actually go for those you claim you love.

It’s been one of those journeys for me. I had never really understood what the burden of love was before now. Knowing that people you love are on the road to destruction, and you can do nothing but love them and show the affection. It’s very difficult and heart breaking. Now more than ever I understand why it is so important to lift each other up in prayer. Life can drag anyone down, even those we assume have it all under control. It’s a wild ride this life. The more I get into the word, the more drama in my life. I am so grateful to God that He feels I can handle so much, although personally if I were to choose I really wouldn’t let half the things going on happen. But, I am not God and I have no idea what His grand plan is, all I can do is pray and love and repeat.

Remembering those I love in prayer and believing that God is in control. I choose to believe that my coming to God, my faith, is for a purpose. That I may stand in the gap for the ones I love that are oblivious of the path they are on. Now more that ever, I commit to God.  For the sake of those lost and wandering.

Life is short, I pray they find the way before it’s too late. For God has been gracious enough to give us freedom, what we do with it is up to us. All we can do for others is love them, be gracious towards them and pray for them, the rest is up to them(and God).

Midweek inspiration

This weeks inspiration will be a little bit different. I decided instead of sharing a sermon, I share a book I recently(last night) started reading that has really inspired me. Rid of my disgrace by Justin s. Holcomb and Lindsey A. Holcomb, I’m not sure how many of you have read it, if you haven’t I would really recommend it. It’s a really well researched moving book about sexual assault victims.

It has really opened my eyes, and helped me understand so much about the emotions and basically the life of an assaulted person. We take a lot for granted and most of the time we don’t even know how to react to someone in their state of trauma. This book, puts you in their shoes, and let’s you see and feel what they feel and will definitely improve how we reach out to them and hasten their healing.

You can get the book here.

It’s not about me.

It’s not about me.

It’s not about me!

It’s not about me!

I forget.

I forgot.

I let myself get caught up again. In all the drama and the nonesense of the world.

I am human. Stupidly human. Completely imperfect.

Yet in my imperfection is perfection, His perfection.

I lost sight of it, for a little while.

I forgot.

But like He does always, He reminded me.

It’s not about me!

It’s not about me..

It really is NOT about me.

I love God so much, and I choose the world sometimes.

But He loves me so much more, so He leads me back to Him.

It is so unbelievable how much mercy and grace He has for me.

He takes me in my lowest. He finds me in the darkness, when no one even knows i’m lost.

He knows me and shows me love.

I am so humbled. In awe of His love.

So tonight, for the umpteenth time I am reminded that it’s about God.

My life and everything is about His will.

So my prayer, the one I seem to have forgotten to pray for a while.

“Lord, may your will be done in my life. Amen”

Where did grace go?

I’ve been reading blogs and just observing the world around me and it honestly is driving me nuts. See i’m the type of person that really feels stuff, empathy on steroids type of person. I love God and I take His word very seriously,(every word).

See my problem is, everything seems to be going down hill. I don’t get it at all. I get really mad when I go on websites and read harsh criticism from Christians to other Christians. What happened to loving our neighbours? What happened to being our brothers keepers? What happened to grace?

It’s really exhausting reading a blog by a christian who’s harshly breaking a fellow christian down for whatever sin. Even more painful is cursing someone out when they have openly confessed and repented for said the sin. The bible clearly says to forgive. So when exactly did it become okay to be self righteous and act like we don’t sin? When did we take God’s place in terms of judging others? We make it seem normal to make people jump through hoops to earn forgiveness when forgiveness is freely given by God to anyone who repents.

It really breaks my heart that we find it so hard to be gracious. there’s a very big difference between correcting someone and making them feel worthless. It’s very easy to miss the mark (clearly) and we need to be cautious when going to someone who has wronged us, the church or whatever else the sin is. Be careful not to make ourselves gods, for there can only be one God and He is not us. 

The bible says in Matthew 18:15-17 “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

It’s important to give people a chance, an opportunity to change. Correct each other with love and not with the intention of embarrassing each other or making ourselves look purer or better. None of is good, if it wasn’t for Jesus dying we would all have perished. Yet we seem to forget and put our own selfish pride and needs before building each other. We are the church, the body of Christ. If we break each other in the end we actually are breaking ourselves. Very stupid if you ask me, like punching yourself in the face because your nose snorted on someone. Where does that get you? Everything works together. So either build or break.(i figure a dumb thing, deserves a dumb example)

Romans 14:1-12

¹ Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. ² One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. ³ The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. ⁴ Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

 ⁵ One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. ⁶ Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. ⁷ For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. ⁸ If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. ⁹ For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

 ¹⁰ You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. ¹¹ It is written:

   “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, 
‘every knee will bow before me; 
   every tongue will acknowledge God.’”

 ¹² So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

In the end, we are all accountable to God. His free grace is not to be earned. Neither is His love.

He is!

God is. That is one concept a lot of us don’t seem to get. God IS.

Our GOd does NOT dwell in the past, present, or future. He is outside time. A lot of times people think that God has seen it all and is sitting in heaven just watching what he knew would happen happen. That’s not our God, our God is.  Whatever you’re going through now, God is,  whatever you go through tomorrow, God is. He is not in a certain time or space, He is time and space.
Which means that for those of you who are sinners, God doesn’t have your judgment written up and waiting for you, NO! God is right there with you crying for your soul waiting for you to choose Him. Our God, the God of second, third and hundrendth chances.
He is. Right now, just for you.  

Faith

I was told you were not there

It was all a figment of my imagination

That I believe in the unperceivable

Yet I still held on, kept believing.

A lot of times my faith has faltered

It seemed to me that I was all alone

Struggling to cradle my belief

Trying to press on

Fighting against all those who attempted to make me stop believing

But now I grow weak

Is it still worth it to keep believing?

Is still worth it to make so many enemies for something I have no proof of?

I try

I’ve held on for so long I need something

A sign

Anything because my strength, my faith is feeble.

I found this poem in some of my old documents, I wrote it a couple of years ago. Some of it still expresses some of the things I sometimes feel to this day. I am so grateful to God though, that I am not as low as I was then. I have seen the hand of God in my life. I know God exists. There’s no longer doubt. I cried out, and He heard my cry. My past is a testament to the existance of God, my joy and peace a testament to his wonderful unfailing love and grace. Praise be to God!

“Psalm 18:6 In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears”

Grace

What is grace?

The Merriam-webster dictionary describes it as an “unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification”.

Titus 2:11 – 14 (NIV)

 ¹¹ For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. ¹² It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, ¹³ while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, ¹⁴ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

According to the bible, grace is a gift from God, an undeserved gift for ALL humanity. Grace is not something to be earned God’s grace is there for the salvation of all of us. With our weaknesses and flaws. I don’t know about you, but it gives me peace knowing that I don’t need to earn His grace. That no matter how low I go, His grace will always be sufficient. It is also a challenge to me, to us, to pass that grace along. As Jesus did when he conversed with that Samaritan woman, who no one wanted to be associated with, or as God did when selecting Saul the murderer. We were not forgiven so we could judge others and turn away from the sinners, but so we could lead those gone astray back to Christ.

No one is EVER too far from grace, so if you haven’t already been living as such. Loving all and giving people a second chance, it’s about time you started. God did after all give YOU a second chance.

(check out the video below by People of the Second Chance, it’s summarizes grace.)