Lessons

2011 has been a very lesson-filled year. A lot of nuggets have been given to me.

To recap a few highlighted nuggets:

Flee idolatry--fly away from idolatry. God doesn't want us to simply run away from placing things above Him, but He wants us to run so fast it's like we are flying. He's that serious. He doesn't want us flirting with other lovers, lovers who won't satisfy and who bind us in a never-ending cycle of desiring love only to find artificial love. He wants to be number one in our lives, to be all we think about, to be all we love, to be all the reason we do things.

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God wants us to grow. And growth is rooted in love for God. And abiding in Christ bears us fruit(growth).
Lessons are given by God in variety of methods. But lessons don't make us grow. It is by applying the lessons we learn that we grow.

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Don't be anxious. And cast those worries and anxieties on Christ. It does us absolutely no good to get worked up over a situation. God knows all and sees all and can work things out accordingly to perfection--not us.

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Smile before you go crazy. I learned that scientifically, smiling releases endorphin or something into your brain, which causes you to be happy(ier). So the study went to show that if you make a habit of smiling, even if the situations are less that happy, you will become happy. So, before you become crazy from anxieties or sadness or whatever, SMILE!

There were so many lessons, so if you want, you can just go through this year's entries. The four things here are a few things that are still fresh in my mind, or that are stronger pressing. May God grant me the strength and determination to apply what I learn.

And may you also apply whatever God has taught you this year. Don't simply learn--apply; and grow.

Dams

In life we have rivers for different things. Love and hate, peace and worry, sin and righteousness. And they each flow to and fro our hearts; and it is somewhat of a cycle.

If love is unobstructed and flows in (and there is no dam against outflow), then there is a constant outflow of love. And the more love you channel into your heart, the more love can ebb outward.

Same applies with hate. If we don't dam the inflow of hate(nor dam the outflow of it), we have a constant stream of hatred. And if we channel more hate in, more hate comes out. But, if we try to dam the outflow without trying to dam the inflow, we have only one obstruction. As the inflow persists, the hate-level rises and the pressure on the outflow increases. However, if we dam both inflow and outflow, then the streaming of hatred shrinks and eventually dries up.

On the same note, we can dam up sin. By saying no to the flesh and desires we can dam the outflow of sin, of committing sin. There are two ways to do it, and both ways I think provide an obstruction. Damming the sin-channel flowing outward with your own strength and resources, and damming it with God's strength and resources. When we dam it by ourselves, it is thin, unfortified, and weak. As the inflow continues, our dam breaks frequently and quickly.

However, when we use God's resources in His strength then we can construct a dam that is stronger that the old one.

But, as stated in the case of hatred's channels, if we dam only one side, then the inflow will swell and create enormous pressure on the dam.

So, say we dam the outflow of sin(the committing of sin) with God's resources and God's strength; but we don't dam the inflow(thoughts, entertainment, friends, etc.). The current of sin will swell against the dam against the committing of sin and the pressure will be great and eventually the dam will break and burst forth with unyielding power. However, if we dam both sides, using God's power and equipment, then we have a greater chance of lasting longer without committing sin.

And on side note with that: Dams have cracks and because of that they need constant surveillance and repair. We may dam up the inflow and outflow of sin, but if we aren't mindful of the cracks(small leakage of sin) then eventually sin will work its way through the dam and destroy it. And when that happens, a fast-moving current will be unleashed.

So, build the dam against sin, both the inflow and outflow. Build it in God's power, with His resources. And keep watch over the dam. Don't ever think that because it is constructed you know longer have to worry about sinning. No, watch out for those cracks, those little instances of sin. Be quick to address it and repair it lest it become destruction for the rest of the dam.

Complacency

How have you grown this week? Have you applied anything you learned 2 weeks ago during the past week? Or have you been complacent? Are you apathetic? Is godliness a "it would be nice to have" thing to you, or is it vital, your lifeline? Do you live just to get through the day? Or do you live to live? Do you strive each day to grow closer to God? to know God more? to know your true self more? to stand in awe of God more?
Does God matter to you? Or is being saved enough? is knowing that you won't go to hell enough? ...Could one even call that redemption? We aren't saved to live however we want. God didn't send Jesus to live a life a rejection, of an outcast, He wasn't labeled an illegitimate child, spat upon, hated, despised, mocked so we can live how we want. He wasn't slapped, beaten, whipped, clubbed, pierced, crucified, put to open shame so we can live free to our own carelessness.

This isn't redemption. We are not free to live a careless, apathetic, complacent life. Salvation is freedom from sin, not freedom from God.

It's a punch in God's face...

Can we really live our day to day lives like the following:
Wake up
Facebook
School
Friends
Homework
TV
Video Games
Books

(Or for those of you who are living a more grown up life:
Wake up
Facebook/email
Chores
Friends
TV
Book
Work)
**Nothing in any particular order, though it could be in chronological**

Day in. Day out. A constant neglect of God. A constant complacency. A constant apathy.

Do you think God is pleased? Do you think he doesn't care? Do you think it's all right?

Galatians 4:18 But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you.

Titus 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Jude 1:3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

The last first talks about the Laodicean church, how they were lukewarm in their spirit. It was detestable to God. In this verse he tells them he loves them(hence his rebuke and chastening) and then commands them to be zealous. But, as an end tag, he instructs them to repent. From what? Apathy, complacency, living their lives under the cloak of "salvation" but not living salvation.

Reading the Bible to soothe your conscience is not living salvation. Praying for your meals, claiming that as your prayer time, is not living salvation. Going to church, singing the songs, ministering in the church is not living salvation.

Living salvation is diving into God's word. Reading until He speaks, and then continue that thought until you are drawn to change. (Note: The Bible is a mirror revealing your faults. Don't read the Bible with the faults of others in mind, hoping to shove a verse down their throat). Living salvation is taking that tugging, that drawing, and following it; it's applying what you learn. Living the rest of the day in light of that truth. Living the next day in that light. And the next day. And the next...

Living salvation is praying to know God. To express your devotion, your love, your praise, your admiration, your inferiority before His supremacy.

Living salvation is walking in the Spirit, bearing the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

It takes work. It takes thought. It takes action.

You can't go through your day and "just happen" to live salvation. No, you must make a conscious effort each moment. An purposeful action of walking in the Spirit, of delving into God's word.

It's easy to live with salvation's cloak. Just sit back, think about yourself, be conceited and envy others, provoke others. It's real easy. Just go through the motions. Don't think about the Bible when you read it. Think about what's for lunch tomorrow, or what your friends need, or who you miss, or...well, anything. Just not what's being said to you. That's how you become complacent. And then you become apathetic, lukewarm...detestable.

So, it's up to you. It's up to me.

God's calling us(again) to tear off the cloak of salvation and actually live it. He is calling us to be zealous--and to repent. He's calling us to live in the Spirit. He's calling us to abide in Christ. He's calling us to bear(not produce) the fruit of the Spirit.

But Satan also is calling us.

He's calling us to forget everything that was said in this entry. To forget about God when we wake up. To forget about God at noon. To forget about God after work or school. To forget about God as we're going to bed. He wants us to do as we wish. He wants us to bear foolishly the name of "redeemed," but not to bear the cross.


Your option. Your decision. God, or Satan.

Atheism

Have you found yourself realizing a failing in your Christian life regularly? What are you doing about it? Christianity is not a game; it is not fictitious. It's real. We are not saved to sit on our rears idly passing the time. We are not redeemed to forsake God. We are not forgiven to continue in our sin.

It's insanity to weekly, daily, hourly be reminded of a fault in us(not praying, not reading the Bible, not loving, not serving, not praising, not worshiping) and yet do nothing about it.

If we sit in our pews thinking "I know I have this problem, and I'm 'working on it'" we are fooling ourselves. Would God really convict us so much on the same matter if we are actually working to mend it?

Conviction is the moment decisions are made on how we will change. If we don't say yes to God and obey Him, we won't later un-convicted. It is so much easier to go through the day without prayer, without reading the Bible, without praising God, without loving. It's almost natural. It goes against the grain to do those things. That's why we won't if we aren't convicted.

We must act at the moment of conviction. We must cry out to God to impart His strength on us to resist the urge of being lazy in our Christian walk.

We hold up a defiant hand when we choose to deal with conviction later.

I don't know...maybe it's just me that has this dialog.
God: Get this right. You know you aren't doing your best--if any.
Me: I don't need to. I mean, I know it's a problem. I'm trying.


But am I really? Am I pushing past the laziness, the apathy, the whatever to actually live the Christian life?


To be saved and to deny the presence of God in our lives by living how we want(Not reading the Bible, not praying, not loving God and others, not praising God, not worshiping Him, etc) we are only living the Atheist life, not the Christian life. The atheist denies the existence of God. They see him as a mere man-made theology, a feel-good philosophical system.

We are living the atheist life if we live how we want to live. We deny the lordship of God if we don't love him (for he has commanded us to love him). We deny the lordship of God is we live for ourselves.

What has God been placing on your heart lately over and over again? Are you choosing not to pray to Him? Are you choosing to neglect reading the Bible? Are you rejecting the thought of loving others, of loving God? Are you resistant to His call in an area of service?

Think about it.

Everyone can improve how they live their Christian life, but do you even have one? I'm not asking if you are saved--that's another issue entirely. I'm asking if you have taken that step from simply being saved to living out your salvation? You can't improve something that isn't there.

So, answer your conscience. Do you have a Christian life? and are you living it?

Or have you abandoned God after being saved? Are you now living the Atheist life after taking the sonship of God?


This is something you can no longer ignore. You need to deal with it right now.

Just because you are a teenager, if you are, doesn't mean you are incapable of becoming so deaf and blind to God that he can no longer use you. Satan seeks to destroy and devour you. That's his goal; that's his ambition. He doesn't have to only resort to tempting you to committing murder, immorality, or bank-sized theft. He can simply sit back while you do the work of ignoring God, and then slowly(so you won't notice) begin hardening your heart, making you a little more deaf, a little more blind.

The longer you remain atheistic, the more he can harden your heart. And the more he can harder, the closer he is to totally destroying you(though God can always break the hardened heart, mend the broken heart, and bind you up in forgiveness and love.).

So stop, stop, stop thinking you can live however you want. You can't and get away with it. God is not interested or pleased in His children living the in the flesh. He is only pleased when they live in faith and in the Spirit.


Take a look at your life right now, ignore the friends around you, ignore the laundry that's buzzing at their finish, ignore the TV show that is starting. Are you living the Spirit-filled, Christian life? Are you praying? Are you reading the Bible? Are you loving?

Or are you living the Satan-filled, Atheist life? Are you praying to your idols(of self, of friends, of money, of entertainment, of boredom relief)? Are you opening the Bible maybe once a day out of a guilt-erasing act? Are you secretly, or not so secretly, hating those are you or even hating God?


Just as the Spirit is convicting me now, I'm sure He is convicting you now. So now is your chance to act. Now you can put behind you the past of born-again atheism. Now is the time you can pursue the true Christian life. Now you can put a pause to every idle distraction and pull out your Bible. Now is the time you can thank God for his love and enter into a praise session with Him.

I'll leave you with the repeated question. You do with it as you wish, God won't force your hand.
Are you living the Christian life? or are you living the Atheist life?
God's conviction is now if you are living the Atheist life. So take this moment to pursue Him. Live the Christian life now.

Adultery

I wonder…do we excite ourselves when we get the opportunity to talk to God? Do we feel lonely throughout the day if we go without talking to him? Do we ache with every moment we are away from Him? Do we smile broadly when we get a chance to talk to Him? Do we get giddy inside knowing He loves us, when we enter His presence, when we see Him through His word, his songs, his people?

Or, is he an acquaintance we met along the pathway of life that we couldn’t care less, really, if we never met again?

When we talk to a single person extensively for a long time and then suddenly we are without communication, we feel empty, pained. We miss their fellowship, we miss their laugh or their mannerisms or simply just them.

But…can we say we miss God if we go a day without talking to Him? Can we say we agonize over the neglect we might have in a day to spend time with Him? Is he the only thing on your mind when you are not talking to him? Do you anticipate greatly that moment when you can open up the Bible to hear His voice, or turn on the radio to hear his harmonies, or open your lips to speak to him?

Or are we adulterers and adulteresses? Have we found another lover? One that we foolishly think can satisfy whatever God cannot(But, alas! There is nothing pure that God cannot satisfy. He satisfies love, peace, hope, forgiveness, happiness).

Read Hosea sometime. I read it once, maybe twice, and am thinking of re-reading it again starting today. God tells Hosea to love and marry a prostitute. To love her despite her affections for various other men, despite having given herself to other men. All to demonstrate his love for us, the adulterers and adulteresses. He loves us despite our unfaithfulness. He loves us despite the fact we give ourselves to every other thing in hopes of gratifying our desires and love-void. We are made to love, and I believe we will seek different avenues to feel loved and demonstrate our love. But God doesn’t want us to find love in glittering things of our lives, or give our love to someone or something else other than Him.
He wants supremacy. He wants priority.

Stop living an adulterous life.

An Afterthought on Idolatry

God is a jealous God. He wants your focus, your love, your devotion, your worship. It isn't too much to ask, he made you and bought you with the price of His son's blood.
When we do not make him our God, and instead make someone/something/someplace our god, He is grieved.

God throughout the course of the Bible has sent his servants to destroy the idols of His people, to destroy their groves, their temples. God doesn't want to share a throne, he wants exclusivity. Either he's on it, or he isn't.

But He doesn't wait idly for you to allow him on the throne. He will speak to you, convict you. Then he will remove the god little by little. In Jeremiah 4 it speaks of God giving an ultimatum. Return to Him, or be burned in an unquenchable fire of his fury. And it goes without saying that in that flame the idols will be devoured, common life will be devoured, and potentially lives devoured.

We are sheep. We need a shepherd, a guide, a god. We don't know the future, we barely grasp the present. We have very little strength, if any, in the grand scheme of things. We have little wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.

When we place our trust in gods and let them govern our lives, we will stumble through the paths of darkness and destruction. When we replace God with a person, or a thing, or even a place, then we have no guidance. The underlying goal is to remain in its presence for however long possible. To maintain a grasp of it.

And then God's judgment strikes.

We lose whatever thing we idolized(a talent, a car or house or any other materialistic possession, an ability of the mind--that is, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of any topic).

We lose whomever we idolized(a family member, a friend, a spouse, a girlfriend/boyfriend).

We lose wherever we idolized(a job).

And when those things are chiseled out of enthronement, we are empty, without guide, devastated.


God doesn't want to hurt you. He doesn't want to take away those things you love(so long as what you love is not what God hates). He simply wants to be your God, for you to be His servant, His child, His bride. Several times when dealing with Israel in the Major and Minor Prophets of the Bible, God cries out for them to return to Him.

Read Joel 2. In verse 12 he begins the ultimatum. God wants us to turn to Him with all our hearts. To rend our hearts(the picture being of biblical mourning and the rending of clothes showing outward repentance. God is interested in the inward repentance--the heart, the throne. God wants us to tear apart the throne we have in our hearts, removing the former god).
The passage goes on to say that God is gracious and merciful; and that He will supply full satisfaction (Remember, when we no longer have a god on the throne of our hearts a dark void overcomes us. God fills that void completely. God satisfies. (Note also that even when we have a god enthroned in our hearts, if it isn't God Almighty, then the void is still there, though we can deceived ourselves into dulling the hunger, to ignore the void.) )

Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn [yourselves] from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.
Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn [yourselves], and live ye.
--Ezekiel 18:30-32

God doesn't want to put us to ruin. God wants us to live, to have a new heart(throne) and a new spirit. God isn't delighted when we are punished and put to ruin because of our sin and idolatry. It grieves Him.

God continually cries out to the nation of Israel to repent, to remove the strange gods from among them, and to cling to Him and Him alone.

And He is crying out to you and me. He doesn't want a single god in our heart that isn't Him. He doesn't want friends to be elevated above Him. He doesn't want family to be elevated above Him. He doesn't want you to be elevated above Him.

God wants priority, exclusivity.

God made you and He bought you. He deserves our worship, our devotion, our love, our consecration, our focus. He deserves to be the God of our lives. To be our Guide and Shepherd. To be our Lover.

But he will punish you if you ignore Him. He will bring his fury upon you like an unquenchable flame if you regard idols in your heart, if you don't return to Him. He will destroy the groves, He will destroy the temples. God will remove our friends, our family, our jobs, our possessions.


So, right now, get the crowbar out and pry the gods off the throne of your heart. And then get a hammer and destroy that throne. God brings with Him His throne. Don't allow other gods to take enthronement in your heart.

Do you have a family member that you are elevating above God? Commit to yourself, if not to God(But take heed to Eccl. 5:4-5), to spend time with God before spending time with them. Pray, read the Bible, focus on Him.

Do you have a friend(or friends) that consume your thoughts, your goals, your reasoning? Do you fear the loss of their friendship so much that you live on broken glass, making sure you don't do something to ruin the relationship, or making sure they don't all of a sudden hate you?
Spend time focusing on God. Write things down in a notebook if you desire. Think of His love, His mercy, His grace. Think of His pursuit of you. Think of His forgiveness, His power, His ever-presence.

Do you have a job that you would do anything for(giving up time with God and your family)? Do you constantly think about your job, wondering about your security, or wondering about how to get elevated in the commerce ladder? Do you spend endless hours in your job, even if you're away from your job-place?
Devote a day, or an hour, to thinking of God. Thinking how you can improve your walk with Him, how to grow. Think of ways you can enliven your Bible reading. Think of ways to begin your Bible reading.

There is no excuse for not reading your Bible, there is no excuse for not praying. God has given us EVERYTHING we need for life and godliness.


Cast away the idols in your life. Place God as God in your life. Focus on Him.

Right now, go and spend time with Him. Ignore your friends, ignore your family, ignore yourself. God is more important than all of them. Your true friends will not hate you for spending time with God, your family will understand. (Now, don't be extreme and isolate yourself from them for a long time, but don't let them distract you from spending time with God after reading this, or tomorrow, or the next day. Take a part of your day and isolate yourself, think only of God, read only of God, speak only to God.)

Friendships and family are far more prone to destruction and loss by placing them as top priority than they are by placing them underneath God's place of top priority.


The ball is in your(and my) court now. What will you(I) do? God has given warnings in His word, and has spoken to us through this nugget(For me, it is more or less life than it is reading an internet blog).

Will you make God your God right now, removing all other gods?
...Will I?

Growth will not happen by mere knowledge. It takes application. And application won't happen until you choose. And a choice will be made in a few moments. You will either make that first step to removing idols from your life and enthroning God in your heart, or you will neglect God and continue worshiping idols. No middle ground. No "I'll do it later"s. The first step is at your doorstep, will we answer God's call and return to Him, break up our fallow ground, seek Him, and worship Him?

The time to choose is now.

Idolatry

Dictionary.com defines idolatry as "excessive or blind adoration, reverence, devotion, etc." (As well as a religious worship of idols)

To limit our understanding of idolatry to the latter--religious worship of idols--will limit our understanding of what God commands.

In Exodus God commands us to "have no other gods before [him]." God says in Deuteronomy that it is an abomination to him.

The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold [that is] on them, nor take [it] unto thee, lest thou be snared therein: for it [is] an abomination to the LORD thy God. --Deut. 7:25

Another part of Deuteronomy testifies to God's hatred of idols. "Neither shalt thou set thee up [any] image; which the LORD thy God hateth."


Those who practice it forget God. (And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. --Deut 8:19)


It is a virtual forsaking of God to pursue idolatry. Jeremiah 2, starting in verse 9, talks about God's people turning away from Him to that which is unprofitable. God tells the heavens to be appalled, to be shocked at this fact:

for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Jeremiah 2:13 ESV

That is an interesting, and true, picture painted. Two evils have been committed. The first one was the forsaking of God, the fountain of living waters. The other one was trying to fill the void. They created cisterns to collect water, but the cisterns were broken and hold no water, thus leaving them constantly empty, despite them pouring water into the cistern from varying sources.

Is that not so with us? Isn't it that we have forsaken God and created replacement to contain our joy and happiness and comfort and love? With God out of the picture, we then flock to different mediums for those things: friends, family, money, popularity, pursuing talents, even work. We spend long hours with whatever medium we find to fill our cisterns. We have found different springs for the same thing: memories of friends, thoughts about friends, or hanging out with friends; fantasies about money, gaining money; enhancing out talents, boasting our talents, dramatizing our talents.

The moment we find something we think is filling our cisterns, we try to drown ourselves in it. But our cistern is broken. All the joy, all the comfort, all the happiness we have been accumulating only seep out the cracks and holes. Nothing stays for very long and we feel empty; no, we are empty.


This is obsession. This is idolatry.

My youth pastor, in the devotions writes for our youth group, ended yesterday's Bible Study with this:

What is your delight? (What makes you happy? Or what is your passion?)
What/who consumes your thoughts?
For what or whom would you do anything?
This is your god!

That stuck out to me. That was the biggest thing that I've been struck with in my devotions in a while. Because every answer was the same. What made me happy, what consumed my thoughts, what I would do anything for was all the same thing. And it is my god.

And that was convicting. I don't know why it is as much as it was, but it is. I know idolatry isn't simply worshiping idols. And I know I've had other gods in my life (namely facebook as of late), but it feels different. A sharper sword, a deeper wound. Perhaps because facebook is a byproduct of my "new" god. Perhaps because this "new" god is the root of other gods in my life.


Having a god that is not God Almighty is an abomination to God. God hates it.

Having a god that is not God almighty is drawing my away from God. And when God is out of the picture, I no longer have a cistern in my heart, so I must resort to making my own. But I am finite and weak and I construct one that is broken. Regardless, I seek my "new" god and worship it, spend time with it, reverence it, all the while hoping it fills my cistern. I realize it is still empty, so I spend more and more time. I entertain imaginations(paranoia) that somehow is another form of trying to fill the cistern.

God says to flee idolatry, to have NO other gods.

I just looked up the word "flee" as far as the meaning the Greek text had. It was interesting. Apart from the obvious of quick departure, it said to seek safety by flight or to be saved by flight. So, it appears to have an even more urgent message than just running for your life, but to run as if you are flying.

Think about that. God hates idolatry so much he tells us to fly away from it.

Matthew 6:24 states that:
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

I looked up the Greek word for "mammon" as well as the dictionary definition of it. The Greek word has an Aramaic origin, evidently a confidence as exemplified as the personification of wealth. The dictionary defined it as riches personified as an evil or a deity.

I think it might be referring to a security, a confidence. We are capable of personifying things to the level of a deity--a god--for the sake of security. Some choose wealth, others choose other things. While the confidence could be attributed to only the deification of wealth, let us not limit it to wealth itself. Our deified confidence can be placed in non-monetary possessions, in relationships, in personal strength, etc.

When we serve our deified confidence, we love it above God, and we cling to it while despising God.
On the other hand, when we serve God, we love him above our Mammon, and we cling to Him while despising it.


God demands our entire being. "I beseech your brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service." (Rom 12:1)

God seeks to be number one in our lives. Not 2, not 3, but one. Whatever is number 1 in our lives is our god. When it isn't God Almighty, it is an idol. And when we serve and worship idols, God is displeased. God is appalled.

When we love idols over God, we--by the word of Matthew 6:24--hate God. When we hold fast to our idols, we despise God. We are not serving God when we are serving our idols. God wants supreme devotion, not left-over crumbs of our worship.


Has something come to the forefront of your mind while reading this? Has God highlighted a god(or more) that you have placed above Him?

This is a new moment in life, a new beginning. Put off the old man. Flee,run, fly away from your god. Renew your thinking, or love, your desires. Immerse yourself in God's word, in God's love, in God's grace. And put on the love of God. Put God as the first in your life.

Nothing in life can be better accomplished, gained, controlled by having it first in your life. It is only when God is first that those other things can blossom appropriately, grow rightly. Serve God and you will have your needs met.
Serve God and you will have the void in your heart filled.
Serve and love God and you will drown in God's love.


Put God first. Seek safety from idols by flight. Focus on God. Pursue God. Worship God. Obsess over God. Love God.

Submit

Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the Devil and he will flee from you.
Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Satan's ultimate goal is to discredit God. And the "easiest" way he found to do that was to attack His servants. Satan will continuously attack us so we can wallow in self-doubt,pity,etc. He will attack us so we dwell on the things we've done. He will attack us so we will break the laws of the land. And the moment he can get us to turn our focus off of Jesus and onto ourselves; the moment we lose faith; when we stop trusting God; when we stop pursuing God's love because we're too caught up pursuing the love of others(Even if the love of those we are pursuing already exists)...that is the moment Satan has victory.

We can get so wrapped up in trying to make sure good things happen to us, to make sure we are loved, to make sure we have friends, to make sure we are accepted. Or we get so wrapped up in our sin, so wrapped up in regret, depression, despair, hatred of our past, disappointment in our perceived future, and discouragement in our present.

This thinking, this wallowing, this self-inflicted pain we immerse ourselves in is our giving Satan the victory. We are throwing our freedom out the door, letting Satan guide us with every wind of self-doubt or self-judgment.

God has given us victory over sin. God has given us the strength to live godly lives. God has given us the power to resist Satan. God has given us the love we desperately seek. God has the comfort we desire. God has the forgiveness we need. God has the wisdom we long for. God has the satisfaction. God has EVERYTHING we need to live the lives He wants us to live. Everything. The home, the Bible(whether fraying or brand new), the friends, the intelligence, the whatever. If we -needed- it to live godly lives, we have it already. Might we need something in the future? Sure. But right now, this very moment we have -EVERYTHING- we need to be the Christians God wants us to be. Freedom, forgiveness, power...all rests in God's outstretched hands. All we have to do is claim it. All we have to do is lean upon God's everlasting arms. All we have to do is trust the Lord with all our hearts, and lean not unto our own understands. And in all our ways acknowledge HIM, and He shall direct our paths. We need to commit our ways unto the Lord, and trust also in Him, and He will direct our paths. We need to commit our ways to God, and He will give us the desires of our heart.

Just submit to God. Resist the devil, and He will flee from you. Don't let Satan give you thoughts that turn you away from God. Turn TO God at those times. Don't let Satan dig up your past, reminding you of things you did. You are FORGIVEN if you asked God to forgive you. God has forgotten them, so why don't you?
Don't let Satan dictate who you are, what you do, what you desire, what you seek, what you pursue. Don't let Satan skew your vision of friendships you have, relationships you have with family or adults. Don't let Satan trick you into thinking someone doesn't love you over petty things. Don't let Satan distract you from living for God. Don't let Satan have dominion over you. As a child of God you are not his puppet that He can do whatever he wishes with. The only string he has tethered to you is the one you attach to yourself. He has no authority over you. Jesus Christ lives in you.

Submit. Pursue God. Resist Satan.

When I was typing this on another medium, my focus completely changed from me and my problems to God and His goodness. I mean, I still am/was struggling with different things, but it wasn't on the forefront of my mind.

And I think that is an example of this entire post. Satan wants our focus off of God and onto ourselves. God wants our focus off of ourselves and onto Him.

Sometimes we do take the focus off of our problems and place them on different things: music, video games, writing, taking pointless quizzes on facebook, doing projects. Some of those things aren't necessarily wrong to take our attention off of our problems, but what happens when we stop doing those things? Satan attacks again and we begin to wallow in our problems.

But, if we had chosen to instead, or primarily, change our focus onto God, then by the time we "stop focusing" (Say we were praying or reading our Bibles) and Satan attacks us, we have the built up power of God to resist Him. And when we resist and resist Satan, it begins to be futile for him to attack. He will either eventually stop attacking at the point(since it no longer is a weak point) and find a new place, or just stop and wait until you take your focus off of God and test to see if it is still weak. If it is, he will continue to drive his teeth into our wounds. But, if we have a resistance, then he will recoil and reconsider.

So, focus on God. Focus on His love, His power, His forgiveness, His freedom, His mercy, His friendship, His pursuit of your love, His pursuit of your friendship, His pursuit of fellowship with you. Focus on God. He wants to speak to you. He wants you to speak to Him. He wants to guide you, help you, comfort you. He wants to sing over you with joy. He wants to bless you. He wants to be your Father, your friend--best friend, your counselor, your rock, your shield, your fortress, your strong tower that you run to for safety. He wants to be the power burning in you. He wants to be the desire of your heart. He wants you.

He died for you, sacrificed for you, bled for you. We needed light, and he gave us light. We needed love, he gave us love. We needed shelter, he gave us shelter. We needed life, he gave us HIS life.

Why do we let Satan take our thoughts from God's excellent majesty to our petty problems. Does God care about our problems? I don't know, but not as much as he cares for us. The Bible says to cast our cares, our problems, our anxieties, our troubles, the things that keep us up at night, the things that make us cry or want to cry, the things that GNAW at our hearts. He wants us to cast those upon himself because he cares for us. He loves us. O! how he loves us!

Can you honestly remain in self pity, self fear, self anxiety when you think about God's love? Can you really worry about friendships that may or may not be shattering all around you? Can you really think thought after thought about what you've done. Can you really listen to what Satan says you are? Can you really let yourself believe Satan's accusations?

You are not what Satan says you are if you have asked God to be forgiven.

You are not a liar. You are not a thief. You are not a murderer. You are not a bigot. You are not hateful. You are not a terrible friend. You are not a failure. You are not an idiot. You are not anything that Satan makes you believe. Why would he make you think you are something you are: forgiven?

So lift up your face. Wipe those tears away. Remove your hands from your broken heart and let God bandage it up. Let God embrace you with his love and majesty. Let God saturate himself in your thoughts. When you let God fill your mind and thoughts there will be no room for Satan's thoughts. You won't have to be paranoid about relationships with anyone, you won't have to worry about a job, or that you aren't qualified to serve God. You can resist Satan. You can submit to God. You can draw nigh to God. And guess what! When you draw close to God...God will draw close to you. It's not a one-sided action. Every step you take closer to him, he takes a step closer to you. God wants to be with you. God wants to fill your life, you heart, your mind with his love, his power...with Him. He loves you.

Dont. Let. Satan. Have. His. Way. You are forgiven. You are free. You are no longer under the dominion and bondage of sin and Satan. You can resist him.

Focus on God.

O how He loves us!

Have you immersed yourself in the love of God today? Have you allowed the wonder of his love wash over you, to drench you in the awe of it all?

Sometimes I let paranoia, instead, wash over me. I question my friendships, I question my relationships, I question everything. And it really tears at me. I hate it, but I seem to find myself allowing paranoia to question my friendships.

But, today has been a good day, despite disappointing circumstances. I was able to do a Bible study, pray, and even read a portion of Psalm 119. I was able to set up time-management applications with my friend, and kind of began an accountability system to make sure we are doing what needs to be done with the time we have.

But even at that, paranoia crept in.

However, I turned on music and the first song I began to listen to was about God's love for us. I began to feel the love of God.

Nothing can separate us from God's love. And nothing compares to it. Even in the midst of sorrow, disappointment, discouragement, paranoia, feelings of having no one who loves you--even in all of that, God's love is so great for us. And if we let his love rain down on us we can experience it. If we do not obstruct it, we will get drenched, soaked, in his love.

His love is incredible. It is his love that drives our love for him. It is his love for us that drives us to live for him. It is his love for us that drives us to live holy lives.

Embrace it. Immerse yourself in it. Let it wash over.

Insult(random thoughts in this entry)

I wonder if one of the bigger(est?) insults is someone lying to your face and you know for a fact they are lying(and perhaps even they know you know they're lying).

Perhaps rather injury as a better word? It definitely is a painful blow for someone to lie to your face and you see right through it. Especially if they know you know, and yet they continue lying.

--Break of thought--

I wonder how God feels when we tell him we love him, even though we don't really. I mean, Jesus said for those who love Him to keep his commandments. That's how we show our love.

In other words, if we aren't showing our love...is there really any love at all?

"I love you, God" could be the most grieving words for God to hear when he can see straight through your wall of insincerity and falsehood; when he knows you are lying and in fact don't love him.

Who are we fooling. God is truth. God is all-knowing. When we lie to God, it's not like he is getting the wool pulled over his eyes.

Freedom

Freedom starts with a choice, continues with a choice, and ends with a choice. Freedom from sin is possible to have, but until you choose it, you won't be free. Once you choose freedom over slavery to sin, you won't retain it unconditionally; you must choose to continue to live in freedom. Each and every moment you live is lived in decision to this. Freedom or slavery--your choice.

But freedom can end as quickly as it started all with a single choice.

Freedom from sin is always present and offered. It's always within grasp. It is your choice to live in it, or to live out of it.

32 thought provoking questions

Here is a pick-and-choose listing of an original 18 thought provoking questions I found off of a website. I would credit them, but there are some stuff on the website(not nec. in the post) that I wouldn't necessarily endorse/condone.

1. What do you regret most so far in life?
2. How can you apply the lesson you learned from that regret to your life TODAY?
3. If you lost everything tomorrow, whose arms would you want to run into? Does that person know how much they mean to you?
4. What would people say about you at your funeral?
5. What small thing could you do to make someone’s day better?
6. What do you believe stands between you and complete happiness?
7. (This begins a list from a new site) If you had a friend who spoke to you in the same way that you sometimes speak to yourself, how long would you allow this person to be your friend?
8. Are you holding onto something that you need to let go of?
9. When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?
10. Which is worse, failing or never trying?
11. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?
12. In the haste of your daily life, what are you not seeing?
13. Do you own your things or do your things own you?
14. What personal prisons have you built out of fears?
15. If you left this life tomorrow, how would you be remembered?
16. Beyond the titles that others have given you, who are you?
17. When does silence convey more meaning than words?
18. How have you helped someone else recently?
19. How are you pursuing your dreams right now?
20. What’s the next big step you need to take?
21. Are you taking it(or preparing for that step)?
22. If today was the last day of your life, would you want to do what you are about to do today?
23. What did you learn recently that changed the way you live?
24. Excluding romantic relationships, who do you love?
25. What’s been on your mind most lately?
26. What did life teach you yesterday?
27. Who makes you feel good about yourself?
28. If not now, then when?
29. Are you holding on to something that you need to let go of?
30. Are you a slave to dress, friends, work, or habits?
31. Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend?
32. Is it possible to break a habit without changing our underlying thinking? Is it possible to break a habit without establishing a new habit to replace it with?
    
    
    

Shield of Faith

Ephesians 6:16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

Have you ever wondered why faith was associated with the shield in this "parable" of armor in the Christian life?

Upon meditation, I think it is because when you decide to first take the step of preventing your heart from being stained with sin, you have to choose the right defenses.

Will power alone is not adequate. Because eventually our strength will wane.

But when we let God empower us, the defenses hold.

That's when faith comes into play. Human nature pushes us to believe we are capable of doings things on our own(until proven otherwise, but even then sometimes we want to believe we still can do things alone).

To have a shield that will quench the fiery darts of Satan, we need faith. Faith in God that He will give us victory. (Deut 20:4; Psalm 44:6-8; Luke 10:19; 1 Cor. 10:13; 1 Cor. 15:57; 2 Cor. 2:14; 2 Thess 3:3; Heb. 2:18; James 4:7-8; 1 John 4:4; 1 John 5:3-5) [Please take the time to read those verses.]

You cannot have victory in your own strength because there is no faith. And without faith, we have no shield. And no shield means everything that Satan throws at us will hit us.

When we give up the foolishness of self-sustaining victory, we are able to trust in God and have faith in Him to give us the victory, to withstand the fiery darts of the devil, and to resist the devil.

Healing Begins

This is a journal entry based on a song written by Michael Donehay. I'll copy and paste it here. There really isn't anything to add to it, but I'll put some stuff at the bottom of my thoughts about it.

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed…” James 5.16

What?
God can’t be serious can He?
Doesn’t He already forgive me?
Doesn’t He already know every thought before I think it?
Can’t He just heal me Himself?
Seriously God, what’s the point?
Do we really need to drag other people into this?

Well…yes.

I don’t know when you’ll be reading this little journal entry of mine, but as I’m writing it, it’s just a few days after the new year. And I, along with many others have already begun my list of new year’s resolutions. Because it’s a new year, and that’s what you do, right? And in case you’re wondering, this year I’m going to do a work out called p90x. I’m going to learn French, and I’m going to commit much more time to reading, writing, and listening.
I want to know God, and enjoy Him more than ever. These are my resolutions.

Now, today I was driving home and I got to catch some other people’s pledges for the new year. A few resolutions were being played on the local radio station, and I couldn’t help but take note. Dieting, exercising, reading, one kid said he was going to watch more Nascar…. It was a terribly enlightening time I assure you. But you know, in all the resolutions I heard, not one person among them said, “I’m committing to confession. This year, I want to confess more of my sin than ever.” Yeah, crazy huh? Not one person.

Now, of course I’m joking, but I think there’s something to it. I mean, why is it that in all our promises, it’s all about doing better? Why do we base all our commitments on getting stronger, smarter, and more athletic? Why don’t we ever hear someone resolve to display more of their weaknesses?

Well, I’m sure there’s a lot of factors like ego and self and sin that go into it, but I can’t help but wonder if primarily, it’s because we have forgotten, or have never believed in the first place, the gospel. And by that I mean, the beautiful news that we are all more hopeless and wretched than we ever thought possible, and in the exact same moment, we are more loved than we ever dared to dream. You see, God calls us to confess, because unlike us, He isn’t expecting us to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps. He isn’t asking us to try harder, do better, or make stronger commitments. No. Instead, in James 5 He asks us to commit to admitting the opposite. He’s asking us to admit that we aren’t strong enough, good enough, or pure enough. He asks us to lay down our self-saving, pride-enhancing promises and pick up his robe of salvation. He asks us to be honest about how truly awful we are, so that we might actually despair of ourselves altogether. And yeah, I know that doesn’t sound like a glimmering, hope-filled, this year will be better than the last, kind of message. In fact, it probably sounds down right depressing, but believe me, that’s the only place where healing really can start. When we finally own up to what’s really going on in our hearts and minds, only then can we begin to come to terms with how impossible it is to save ourselves. And that’s when resolution ends and salvation begins.

You see, most of us adhere to the theological truth that we are depraved, but certainly not enough to admit it to other people. And what’s startling is that we have to confess to others to really believe the gospel….because then we have to. As long as people think we’re better than we are, then there’s really no need to cling to Jesus. Who needs a Saviour when we can cling to our reputation, our friendly demeanor, or our disposition, etc, etc, etc. It’s funny, because as long as we don’t have to confess, we can usually fool people into thinking that we’re much better than we actually are. In fact, I think we fool ourselves a lot of the time. And it’s mostly because we think things and do things that never get brought out into the light, so we just sort of push them out of our mind, forget about them, and try to do better next time. And what’s sad is as the church forgets how messed up she really is, then slowly but surely she also begins to forget the good news altogether. We forget we are sinners saved by grace, and pretty soon, we forget about grace altogether. And it’s not long before we replace the good news of God’s mercy with the burden laying news of trying harder and being better.

We begin to look down on people who aren’t as good at being a Christian, and we actually begin to think that we don’t really need a Saviour. Or maybe I should say, we become our own Saviour. And what’s funny is that we think we have the world fooled. We think we’re actually convincing people that we’re changing and aspiring, and accomplishing all sorts of fantastic spiritual feats. Problem is, we can’t change our hearts, and everyone can see it. We may pay lip service to Jesus, and His saving work, but the way we fly off the handle when criticized, the way we can’t say we’re sorry, and the way we keep things locked away and hidden from others gives us away.

And this is probably why James tells us to be honest about our failures to people. Because healing doesn’t begin when we start fighting our vices and become better people, true healing starts when we become better people for the right reasons. And by that I mean grateful responsive love. Now, the more we’re aware of our hang ups and failures, the more we see our need for a Saviour. And the more we see our need for Him, the more we love Him. And the more we love and treasure Him, the more we want to live for Him. And then, not necessarily for Him at all, but because of Him, and because of His great love for us.

I mean, think about it. What is God thinking loving people like us? What is He doing wasting grace on a bunch of screw ups? Well, He’s showing us that there’s another way to create a new heart in someone other than human guilt and greater effort. He does it without pride, without fear, and without self-willed resolutions. Instead, he employs the humble grateful reaction of a sinner who’s been forgiven, and who is so in awe of that forgiveness, that they want to live in response to it.

That’s the goal. That’s what we’re aiming for. And if you have sin in your life, if you have secrets you don’t think anyone should ever know, trust yourself to the God who became sin for you, so that you might become the righteousness of God. I John says, that if we say we’re without sin, we make God a liar. So believe Him when He says He died for you while you were still a sinner, and believe that you’re so messed up He had to die for you, but at the same time, you were so loved, that He was glad to die for you. And if that’s true, then it no longer matters what you did, and in fact, the more sinful you are, the greater your Saviour is. Don’t try to cover it up and rob Him of all that glory. I know it’s scary. I know it’s terrifying, and I know that sometimes, people won’t be able to show you the grace that God can, but just do it. Even if it’s inconvenient, unsettling, or downright horrific. Unveil your sin, and let God be seen as the great and glorious redeemer that He is.

“So let them fall down
there’s freedom waiting in the sound
when you let your walls fall to the ground
we’re here now.”

--

The second to last paragraph stuck out to me above the rest, not to say the rest wasn't jumping in my face. (You can reread it if you like, that way I won't re-copy it here.)

When sin enters our lives by our admittance, it begins to alter our heart(Not positionally as far as salvation goes). We begin to lose a love for God, we begin to be numb to sin's effects and numb to God.

Obviously as Christians we want to change that. We want our hearts pure before God.

But the next step is usually the wrong stop. We then decide to "do better." But our hearts were altered before salvation by sin, too, but even more so. However, we couldn't "do better" to remove the sin from our lives.

To devote ourselves to "doing better" replaces God's role.

It begins with love.

Love prompted Calvary. Love prompted the empty grave. Love is what enabled our salvation.

It is our love for God that will change our hearts. David doesn't say in Psalm 51 that he would create in him a clean heart. He asked God to create a clean heart in him(David). (Psalm 51:10
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.)

So it is God who creates in us a clean heart. (This was David's prayer after his committing adultery with Bathsheba and killing Uriah.) But it began with David realizing his sin (Ps. 51:3), continued to his asking of forgiveness(Ps. 51:7, 9), then goes to the purification of the heart(done so by God).

That is how it is with us, too. We must acknowledge our sin, understand it is against God. Then seek forgiveness, then seek renewal.

And then to take James 5:16 into consideration, tear down the walls around our hearts. Seek accountability, get right with those you've wronged, be honest with those who will pray for you to overcome this sin and to maintain the love for God that will drive your desire and resolve for renewal.

Seven times seventy-Forgiveness

I've been living in this house here
Since the day that I was born
These walls have seen me happy
But most of all they've seen me torn
They have heard the screaming matches
That made a family fall apart
They've had a front row seat for the breaking of my heart

Seven times seventy times
I'll do what it takes to make it right
I thought the pain was here to stay
But forgiveness made a way
Seven times seventy times

There's healing in the air tonight
I'm reaching up to pull it down
Gonna wrap it all around
I remember running down the hallway playing hide and seek
I didn't know that I was searching for someone to notice me
I felt alone and undiscovered
And old enough to understand
Just when I'm supposed to be learning to love

You let me down again
I lost count of the ways you let me down
But no matter how many times you weren't around
I'm alright now...cause
God picked up my heart and helped me through
And shined light on the one thing left to do
And that's forgive you, I forgive you
Seven times seventy times if that's the cost I'll pay the price

Matthew 18:21-22
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

Luke 17:3-4
Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.


Forgiveness is important. Jesus says if we don't forgive others for their trespasses against us, God won't forgive our trespasses against him.

It's also rather hypocritical not to forgive. You were forgiven of your sins, yet, you can't forgive others of theirs?

Refusing to forgive hinders your relationship to God and your spirituality.

Are you refusing to forgive?

Are you falling from your relationship to God because you aren't forgiving?

In God's love.

I have looked you in the eyes
I have seen the tears you cried
I have heard you question why
You are here

There is a reason, there's a plan
There is a God Who understands
He's got your life inside His hands
Have no fear, 'cause He says

In all your hurt, in all your pain
I'll never leave, I won't forsake
You're my child and I'm your God
Come and rest in my love

I know this road is steep
And I know you're tired and weak
But the God of perfect peace
Is right here

He is the shelter from the storm
He is a rock, firm and secure
He is hope forever more
Have no fear, 'cause He says

In all your hurt, in all your pain
I'll never leave, I won't forsake
You're my child and I'm your God
Come and rest in my love

When everything seems out of control
I'm holding on, I won't let go
You're my child and I'm your God
Come and rest in my love

There is hope tonight
There is everlasting life
Dry away your tears
'Cause the morning sun will rise

Love will never fail
He will never fail, he says

In all your hurt, in all your pain
I'll never leave, I won't forsake
You're my child and I'm your God
Come and rest in my love

When everything seems out of control
I'm holding on, I won't let go
You're my child and I'm your God
Come and rest in my love
-Phil Wickham

I heard this one and wanted to share it. Are you going through something painful, something uncertain? Just rest in God's love.

Forgiveness and Healing

Just an under-developed thought. I was thinking about how several times Jesus healed someone sick, crippled, blind, etc. and as they departed he would say something to the affect of "Your faith has made you whole. Depart and sin no more."

I began to connect that to our spiritual lives. Sometime sin hinders us in our ministry or life in general.

Sometimes we are crippled in our spiritual lives because of sin. Sometimes we are deaf and mute(unable to listen to or to speak the things of God). Sometimes we are sick, momentarily unable to do what needs to be done. (And sometimes that sickness manifests itself to physical symptoms like nausea or loss of appetite.)

And for those unsaved, sometimes they are blind or they have leprosy where they are nearing death.

We may come to points in our life where we feel sick spiritually. Unable to appreciate God's goodness like we normally do; unable to minister and help others without the nauseating feeling of guilt and sin in our lives.

We may come to points where we are crippled. No longer able to serve in a particular ministry due to our sin, or unable to minister to that one person, or finding yourself "unable" to go to church without being reminded of your sin, therefore you do not go.

We may come to points where we are deaf or mute. Unable to hear God's voice clearly, or unable to speak of God's goodness without sin covering your mouth, reminding you of the sin you've committed.

But Christ brings healing. By his stripes we are healed.

Every time someone in the Bible was healed by Jesus, there was a prerequisite of faith. The woman with a problem with her blood, the cripple lowered through the roof, the man whose child was sick.

We are healed by Jesus through faith. Regardless of the illness. If you are alive and are looking for healing, you will obtain it through faith.

When we are forgiven, we are healed. Scars may remain, but we are healed. Trust may be broken, but we are healed.

When we seek in faith God's forgiveness our ears and mouths are opened; our legs are made whole; our health is renewed from being sick.

Don't think you can't be forgiven. You can be made whole again by Jesus through faith.


Verses:

John 5:4-9, 14 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.

When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time [in that case], he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?

The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.

Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.

And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath. (14) Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.

Mark 10:51-52
And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight.

And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.

Matthew 9: 20-22 And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind [him], and touched the hem of his garment: For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.

Growth.

I did a mini-series of sorts on this, and I was almost certain I had posted on this, but I guess I didn't.

This January my church had a retreat for its youth group. Well, the topic of teachings was on Growth and we focused on 1 Peter chapter 1. I posted a blurb about it earlier (Am I Willing?)

I didn't, however, finish the thought of how God has promised to give us everything we need to be the Christians he wants us to be.

2Pe 1:3-4 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that [pertain] unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

So, God, according to his divine power, has given us everything we need for life and godliness. And in addition to the power, we are given promises--mega and precious ones-- that by the things we are given for our need to live as God would have us live we are able to partake of His divine nature. We are able to be holy like God!

When I posted that, I went on to how we should be willing to claim that promise. But I didn't really go on to talk about how God's promise of having everything we need should affect our lives.

In the last entry, I talked about how we may be waiting for something(A Bible, or our own privacy or something else) that we think will give us a better avenue of growth.

But that thinking would make God a liar. that thinking says that we can -not- grow and be the Christians God wants us to be right now because we are not sufficiently prepared and supplied. But, God said he has given us everything that pertains to life and godliness. So, if we say we can't be the Christians God wants us to be because we don't have that privacy or that room, we make God a liar. Either that, or we are wrong. And "Let God be true and every man a liar."


So, why aren't you becoming the Christian god wants you to be? Why are you living for yourself and not for God? Are you lying to yourself thinking that you cannot possibly be what you ought to be because you are in short supply of the needed things for growth?

Don't let Satan fool you into believing such lies. You can be the Christian God wants you to be. You can live victoriously. You can grow. You can be close to God. You don't have to wait for this or that, you can start right now. Regardless of the time. 12a,? 1am? 2am? so what? You can still begin to grow. Stop right now and pray to God. Confess whatever sins are breaking your relationship[ with Him. Seek his strength and power to follow. Claim his promise of victory. Claim his promise of having everything you need to live right.

Future Vs. Present.

A simple nugget. Something that has been nagging at me constantly.

You will not be a month from now what you are not becoming now.

So, you will not suddenly be Christ-like, Spirit-filled, God-serving whenever a deadline comes. Perhaps graduation, a new item like a Bible, finally getting your own room, whatever might be your "If I had that, I could actually grow close to God."

And that statement brings up something else, but read the entry above this for that. (I thought I already posted about it, but I guess I didn't.)

Back to subject, obtaining something won't give us more ability to grow than what we already have.

If you are not becoming today what you want to be a week or a month from now, then you will not achieve that desire. Growth is not a spontaneous thing. It takes time, effort(As far as making sure we are attached to the vine), and willpower(beyond mere desire).

It's a quite simple thought. You don't wake up one morning a murderer, you become one over time. Thoughts creep in, hatred brews, plans formulate, etc.

Being Christ-like is not an overnight ordeal. It starts with a decision of resistance to Satan. Then another, then another. Then submission to God, resisting Satan's distractions. Continues with submitting to God your prayer time, Bible reading time, etc. If you are not spending time with God, you are not growing. Simple(and tragic) as that.

Perhaps we all should pause at this point and think about this. It's not my truth; it's God's. John 15 says to abide in Christ. If we don't abide, we won't bear fruit and grow. 1 Peter testifies to the fact that the Bible is a key to growth. ...Selah...Think on this. Really. I mean it. Stop right now and think. If you're saved, I can probably bet you desire to be close to God. To live victoriously.

But. It will not happen if you don't start right now. Don't overload yourself by reading 100 verses every hour, praying 30 minutes straight, etc. Don't lolly gag, but still don't speed through it. Begin with the speed and amount that will enable you to get truths of God, think about it, apply it, and manifest it into your life.

Read a chapter in the Bible or less. Find a truth that will change your life. And then apply it. Then pray. Prayer--talking to God. Just seek his face, and turn from your (wicked) ways.

Embracing darkness to grasp the light?

So the question was presented tonight. King of a musing question. And yet rhetorical, too.

I mean, obviously you can't huddle in a dark corner, embracing the darkness, yet reach and grasp for the light. You can only pursue one while the other vanishes during pursuit. And you "risk" being engulfed by that which you pursue until you change your mind.

For more specific examples:
Can/Should one become a druggie to be able to reach the druggies for Christ?
Can/should one become a drunkard to be able to reach the drunkards for Christ?
Can/should one become a thief or murderer to reach thieves and murderers for Christ?
Can/should one become a liar to reach liars;
or gossipers to reach gossipers?

Obviously, not. But, can one reach a druggie having already been a druggie and released from the darkness of addiction to the light of Christ? Yes. Should one embrace the darkness to share the light of Christ?

Before you say yes, whether you thought it briefly or not, think about it.
Can you really embrace the darkness, let it be a part of your thinking, your actions, your "love" and yet maintain a grasp of the light of God to be able to show others Jesus?
Can you put on a cloak of darkness (which, by the way, doesn't simply rest on your body, but sinks into your skin and integrates into you.) onto your shoulders, bottle the light of Christ, and then once you connect to the darkness of others you pull out are bottle of light?

It doesn't work like that. Light and darkness do not coexist. Darkness is the absence of the light. So, when you are embracing the darkness, you are forsaking the light.

Sure you can theoretically say the light is just a few steps behind, and you can announce it to others that it is there, but why would they follow you to the light you don't even cherish enough to keep with you?

It is possible to carry the light into the darkness, but not when you are embracing the darkness.

Embrace the darkness, and the light disappears.

Embrace the light, and the darkness disappears.

You can't cover yourself in darkness to lure the darkness to the light.


As the sermon tonight illustrated how one can witness using his own testimony and background, being freed from the darkness and embracing the light can be used as background and testimony to those who are in the same darkness you were.
But you can't be presently in the darkness and expect others to follow you to the light that you claim to be waiting for them.

Rom 13:12-14 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.
But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to [fulfil] the lusts [thereof].


Gal. 6:1
Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.



~Written in godly love~
-Kevin

Draw nigh to God

I know I've recently written an entry on James 1:14-15 which talks about resisting the devil and drawing nigh to God, but last night God reminded me of a truth.

When we do not submit ourselves to God, we don't resist Satan. When we don't resist Satan, we soon follow his ways. His ways are contrary to God's ways, therefore when you don't resist him, you will walk away from God.

God, in His holiness, remains "where you left him." He doesn't drift further away, it is you who drifts further away.

However, God doesn't require us to walk all the way back to Him to reunite and walk with him. Once we turn away from Satan's pathway and turn to God's pathway and take the first step to returning to God, God will take a step toward us. As we come closer to God, God will come closer to us until we are in communion with God.

And from that point God will walk with us to the point we were before backsliding, and then continue walking with us to the conformation of us into the image of His son.

If you have found yourself far from God after a time of walking away from Him, don't be discouraged thinking you have a long way to go to reach God again in your repentance. It only takes a few steps until you are in His arms again.

-Kevin

Friends.

Wow. This topic is one that God has been burdening me with. Not quite for me, though it is a truth I need to keep fresh in my life, but for other people. It's not out of pointing fingers, but a concern and care for them.

I was recalling an individual and his choice of a friend. I can't remember how this thought came about, but it was sometime today or yesterday. I'll share how I remember, and then add some.


We are living "trees" that eat fruit off of others. The fruit we eat are the fruits of those we hang around with. Every person bears fruit. When we consume the fruits of the "trees" around us, one of two things will happen.
1. The fruit "ingested" will create a desire to grow similar fruit.
2. The fruit will enter our trunk and plaque will build up, blocking the "xylem."

Now, to break from the symbolism, I'll be more blatant.

There are two types of fruits we can bear in life. The fruits of the Spirit, and the fruits of the flesh.

The concept of eating the fruit of others remains "symbolic." Everyone bears fruit. And when we hang around with people, we "eat of their fruit." And when we eat the fruit of our friends, we will either ingest rotten fruit that will block the life-water of Jesus Christ that enables our spiritual growth; or we will ingest ripe fruit that will create in us a desire to continue letting the life-water of Jesus to flow into us, enabling our growth.

That's the thought that has been filling my mind this whole day. We will eat the fruit of the people we hang around; the fruit of our friends.

If our friends bear the fruit of the flesh--rotten fruit--then our abidance in Christ will be hindered. The power that would otherwise flow through our lives to grow and produce good fruit will be blocked by the plaque of the fruit of the flesh.

On the other hand, if our friends bear the fruit of the Spirit, then a desire will sprout in our hearts to have similar fruits of the Spirit and to grow.

Please meditate on this truth. Please don't let your spiritual condition go down the drain because of friends. Please take a look at your friends. Don't necessarily gage what they have caused you recently to sin, or compromise spiritually, or things like that. Take a look at their fruits--the fruits you are eating. Inspect them. Are they love, kindness, gentleness--or are they hatred, idolatry, wrath?

Now, take another thought. What fruits are your friends ingesting because of you? Are you blocking their lives of the life-water of Jesus Christ? Or are you causing a desire in their hearts to grow, to bear the same fruits you bear?

If you are the former, please repent.

If you are the latter, then please continue. And if you have a friend that hinders your spirituality, then confront that friend. Explain that God is more important to them than they are(assuming that is true). Explain that you don't want to ingest rotten fruit, blocking your growth.

Understand that it is easier for someone to bring you down into the life of not growing in Christ than for you to bring someone up into the life of growth in Christ.

Please take a look at the following verses.

(Prov. 27:17) Iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friends.


(Gal. 5:19-23) Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told [you] in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

(John 15:4-5)
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Process of being tempted

James 1:14-15 says:
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

Here it lays out a pattern, or process, of being tempted. It all starts with being drawn away of our own lust. That is, letting a single(or a number of) desire have priority where you will "follow" after it.

Once you are in that position, of letting your desire lead you, you will become enticed. That desire will become more tantalizing, more desirable.

And then when that desire is conceived in us it brings forth sin, and sin brings forth death.

To break that last part up a bit: When we are let our desires lead us to the point where we are enticed to act upon it("conception"), it will bring forth sin. That is, the "embryo" of said conception is sin. That sin is then in our "womb" and grows. Then the fateful day comes of birth. When that "embryonic" sin finally develops enough to be "birthed," death will be a consequence.

So, Letting our desires drive us will produce a chance of enticement. When enticement occurs, conception happens. Conception produces the sin, and when the sin is finished(developed) it produces death.


To prevent the conception of sin in our lives we must not let our desires lead our lives around with reins. We must not focus on our desires and long after them, crave them.

There is only one way to satisfy our desires(healthy, righteous desires) and that is through God's word. When we decide to not control our desires with what God's word says, then we will be led to enticement by them--led to death by them.


-Kevin Barrick

The Library

I hope you don't mind the brief interruption of the usual "lecture" (lack of better words). This time I'd like to write more of a narrative story.

---
The darkness swallowed her. She leaned against one of the many bookcases in the room. She shivered slightly, bothered by the darkness.

The sun had long since been replaced by the moon, but as the evening pressed on darkened clouds blotted out the celestial light. It truly was dark, but that was not the darkness that bothered her. In fact, she would rather spend a thousand years in that darkness than the darkness she felt encroaching on her heart.

With a shaking hand, she rubbed the match against its box and began lighting candles around the room. She had removed all the light fixtures in this room, she knew if anyone stumbled upon it with enough light to read from the books on the shelves the consequences would be...bad.

The darkness in her heart drove her to this room. For months she had nearly forgotten this room even existed...until today. Those few months of ignorance to the room leading up to this day were months filled with ecstasy. God had come alive to her. His love, his power, his kindness.

She had started to read His word everyday, started to pray, started to love. Her focus was so much on God, her memory of this room dissolved.

Until today.

It was strange. She had reached for her Bible, like she usually did before supper. But suddenly a wave of memories crashed on top of her. She dropped the Bible that she was bringing to herself. It fell awkwardly, pages bent underneath.

She looked around the library. The same thoughts that penetrated her mind earlier that day came back, hammering into her mind.

“Look at all these books! They are filled cover to cover with what you did!” The darkness prompted her thinking. Her eyes scanned the entire room. Every wall was covered from floor to ceiling with bookcases, and books filled each shelf—some even had to be placed on top of the other books just to fit in the shelves.

“You're fooling yourself if you think God loves you. Can you not understand what you've done? You think someone—even God—would love you with all this in mind? You think he cared about you when you decided to give your life over to him months ago? He was detested.”

She walked to a bookshelf and stared at the binders of each book. Etched on them were years, days, people's names—all reminding her of what she did. “You're hypocrisy. You think you can be a good Christian with everything you've done? I wonder what would happen if someone read that book...”

Her eyes were locked on one book. She could have sworn she buried that book in the the corner of the room in a locked box. How did this get up there? She thought to herself, her mind reeling with every word she knew was written in it.

“You remember, do you? Yes...what if someone found out about all those things?” The darkness tightened around her heart even more. “You can't possibly be a Christian because, look. There are so many books of all the things you did. God couldn't possibly love you. You're too...evil.”

She choked back tears for a brief moment before they flowed steadily down her cheeks. “God doesn't love me.” She said out loud.

She reached for the book and pulled it off the shelf. She held it in her hand for a moment before launching it against the bookshelf across the room. It broke the shelf, causing the load to collapse to the floor. Instead of being buried under the books, the book she had thrown managed to land a few inches away from the others.
A wind rushed into the room, ruffling the pages of all the books on the floor, and snuffing out the candles, save one. The near-darkness took hold of her. She now was immersed in it—her heart and around her. She fell to her knees, clutching her head in her hands, sobbing.

She opened her eyes and crawled over to the book she had thrown. The single remaining lit candle rested on the ground next to it. She picked it up and opened it up by the flame. She furrowed her eyebrows and lifted the candle closer to the book.
In that moment a light filled the room. She looked up to the light fixtures, but no light bulb was in them. She lowered her head and looked at the book. The candle light hadn't been skewing her vision, what she had seen was real.

Empty pages.

She knew every page had been covered with what she had done, but the pages she had turned to were empty. She turned the page and discovered it too was empty. She quickly thumbed through the book, each page empty, until she found words.
She flipped back to the page with words and found a single word written in red ink over the space of two pages: Forgiven.

She stood up and grabbed another book of the shelf and thumbed through it. Every page was blank except for two that had “Forgiven” written on it. She tore through the books, discovering every book was now empty except for the single word in each book: Forgiven.

She couldn't believe it. She walked backwards out the door and stumbled to the living room where her Bible was. She picked it up and looked at where it had fallen open. A strange glowing illuminated a single verse. “If ye confess your sins, He is faithful and just to FORGIVE us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

A wind blew through the living room as well and turned the pages of her Bible. Her eyes locked onto another verse: “We love Him, because he first LOVED us.”
The wind blew yet again. She watched as another verse was made apparent to her. “For the Father himself LOVETH you.”



(C) Kevin Barrick, 2011

(The concept of this entry was inspired by an Christian artist via a short film set to their music)

To Tie Everything Together

Recently I've written on focuses and growth and the like. It really stemmed from a personal "battle," if you will, that I have been struggling with. Both internally with myself, and externally with others to myself.

In a church program(and perhaps in life general), I think there are three focuses. Rewards(points for those in my youth group), growth, and doing our best(or simple obedience).

A point system is a motivation and/or a tool a "higher-up" or even yourself can use to get people to doing the right things(Devotions, bible memory, helping out missionaries, etc). Depending on the person, this type of motivation perhaps can be done away with, or is vital for the process of maturity. It, however, shouldn't be what you have your eyes fixed on the longer you use it.

Growth and doing our best are two things we are commanded to do in the Bible. In 2 Peter at least, we are commanded to grow in grace(2 Pet. 3:18). In Col. 3:23 and other places we are commanded to do our best, to be diligent with our duties, to do everything to the best of our abilities.
Therefore, one cannot place one above the other to the exclusion of the other. One cannot claim doing our best as our single most focus, while neglecting, or belittling the necessity and command of growth. Nor can one claim growth as a sole priority to the neglecting of doing our best.

Obedience is the process by which we grow, and growth is the reason for obedience.
One can "obey" and not grow, but one cannot grow and not obey.

By this we know we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. --For this is the love of God to keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous.-- (1 John 5:2-3)

Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might(Deut 6:5 and several other passages referring to this love.)

However, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15) We can say we love God all we want, but our love for him won't be more than mere speech until we begin to keep his commandments.

Hereby perceive we the love [of God], because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down [our] lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels [of compassion] from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:16-18)


My team division of my youth group had our own Sunday school lesson this past Sunday, and the title of the sermon was "Great Expectations." The main text was Micah 6:6-8
(Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, [and] bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, [or] with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn [for] my transgression, the fruit of my body [for] the sin of my soul?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what [is] good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? )

I'll share with you some of the main thoughts, and then I'll share with you the Bible study we did on certain phrases in verse 8.

"Is God satisfied when we simply fulfill our required duties?"
"Is God satisfied if we do more than our required duties?"
"Is God satisfied if I do what those around me are doing?"

These questions stem off of the first two verses. (The first to verse 6, the second to the first part of verse 7, and the third to the latter part of verse 7.)


Our team then split up into 3-4 person groups, studying different phrases. I didn't get as much information from the other two study groups, but I did get a overall thought for each.

"And what doth the Lord require of thee, but..."
[*]"...to do justly..."
We must do right before God.
[*] "...and to love mercy..."
We must be kind toward others.
[*] "...and to walk humbly with thy God."
We must *be* right with God.

My study group was the second one. "Ant to love mercy." I'll post some cross-reference passages for you to look up on your own. (Matt 5:7; Luke 6:36; Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:12; 1 pet 3:8; 1 John 3:16-18; Ez. 33:31)

We went into definitions of words and for "love" we concluded upon the given definitions that it was a love from an individual to another. (As opposed to individual to God, or God to individual). And the "mercy" was kindness.

So, we are to love each other with kindness. This was perfectly exemplified by Christ on the cross nearing the end of his immense suffering. Instead of bearing hatred or disgust at them for their actions, he had compassion on them. He pleaded with God to forgive them.

His word of love then could have carried with it meaning by itself, but adding to it the actions of opening his heart and sacrificing himself brought about perfect love, agape love.



These are very scattered thoughts. But to summarize, our priority in life is to love and glorify God. (Deut 6:5; 1 Cor 10:31). And from that obedience comes into play(Growth, doing our best, etc). And to motivate obedience, a point system, or reward system, brings about motivation. However, as one matures the motivation matures and shifts as well. Our end motivation should be knowing that God will be pleased with us--satisfied with us.


Don't prioritize obeying God in one area to the exclusion of another. We are to obey God in everything He commands of us.


If anything in this or other similar matters are confusing to you(by my misrepresentation or otherwise) simply leave a comment and I will try to clarify.

-Kevin