How can we not?

How can we not see what God is doing?

How can we not feel God’s love?

How can we not encounter the grace of God every morning?

How can we not rejoice when we see God’s beauty around us?

How can we not realize that we are apart of something so much bigger than ourselves?

How can we not be so consumed by the Spirit of God that we only focus on Him?

How can we not worship God with everything we are when He has made us everything we are?

How can we not want a relationship with the greatest artist of all time?

How can we not be amazed that the God of all creation took the time to form us, to create us, to love us, sent His son to die for us?

How can we not realize how unworthy we are of all of that?

There are some who have never encountered the love that God freely gives. We need to realize that God is longing, He is yearning to just be with us. Christ died for us to have a direct relationship with God. So how can we not pursue that same relationship?

We consume ourselves with everything around us when we should be consumed by the Spirit of God inside of us.

Let God consume you with His never ending, never failing, never leaving love.

How can we not be so consumed with the love of God that the people around us can’t help but believe in Him?

Some Days… And Others

Some days I feel like I have a million words to write, and others I feel like i can’t get my fingers to even go near the keys on my computer. But whether I have something to say or not, I write. But spiritually, this is same place where I, and almost all others struggle. Some days we are ready to split the Red Sea and build an ark, but other days, we feel like we can’t even get out of bed. We go through wave of spiritual waves. We hit the highest of highs and sometimes go directly to the lowest of lows.

So many times we try and spiritually jump straight from being a wheel to a car. Let me explain. We try and do so much at once and so quickly, and instead of doing things in God’s timing, we try and do it in ours. We don’t like to take those baby steps. We don’t like to do it piece by piece and make sure it is right, we just throw it together and hope it is.

Instead of spiritually building our lives from the ground up, we try and start from the top down, and hope everything falls into place, then we get disappointing in God when things don’t. But truly it had nothing to do with God and it had everything to do with the way we approached our our foundation. If you do not have a foundation, how can you stay standing? (one man built his house in the sand, the other on the rock)

If we try and start from the top, it makes it so much harder on us when temptations come along. They can sweep out our feet because we did not build our foundation first, we just expected it to magically appear.

Habits get built from disciplines. Disciplines shape your life. Become disciplined in the little things so your foundation can be stronger. Search for God everywhere and not just once or twice a week at church. Many times, your foundation is not built in church. Church is usually the starting point and then the help along the way, but your everyday life, what you do, how you go throughout your day, the things you say, the things you pray, what you read, your everyday experiences, those are the things that build your foundation.

A tree doesn’t start from the top leave and work down to a seed, it starts from the seed and goes up.

How Many Times?

We live in a world full of repeated offenders. Not just criminals, but all of us are repeated offenders. We constantly fall back on the things of this world. We get uncomfortable or we loose sight of what God has in front of us, and we look back to the world for our answers.

Why? Why do we turn away from a God that tells us He loves us, tells us we are everything to Him, and tells us we are important? Why?

We walk through our lives at times without giving a second thought to the fact that God sent His only son to earth to die for us. He died thinking of you and me and every other person that has, is, or will walk this earth but we don’t even give him a second thought. We forget that the God who created everything, the God who made the sun, the stars, and the moon, thinks of us every day. The God who spoke life into us before we were ever born, that is the God we turn away from.

How many times will it take for us to realize this world has nothing for us compared to what God has for us? How many times will we turn our back to God until we finally say enough is enough? How many times will stand by and give in to the ways of this world?

It is impossible for us to be perfect. It will always be impossible. If you think you are perfect and if you think you have made it, it’s not done. We will never be sin free; however, we can do our best to be without sin. We can do our best to be like our heavenly father.

Peter denied Jesus three times knowing exactly what he was doing, after seeing all the miracles that Jesus performed, and after walking on water. If Peter can walk on water and still deny God and turn away from what he knew to be absolutely true, then it’s safe to say we will turn away from God as well.

As followers of Christ, we must do our best to turn away from the hypocrisy and lies of this world, and begin to fall into the arms of our heavenly Father. He is where we will find ourselves and where we will find our peace, our hope, our joy, and our happiness.

It’s human nature to not trust God until you have to. – Rick Warren

How many times will we turn our back on God until we truly need him?

The Broken Hearted

As I sit here writing, the one thing that I cannot get out my head is this: God does not promise that He will break you down and reshape you only once…it is a continuous process. God asks us to die unto him every day. He does not say do it just once. God will daily, if you let Him, break you down and rebuild your heart. Every time this happens you begin to get closer and closer to Him.

You have to understand what I am saying. This entire piece is about a process, a daily process. No one will ever live a life without pain. No one will ever live a life without sorrow. No one will ever live a life without problems. You have to daily give your heart to God so He can form it and shape it the way He says it should be. If you daily let Him break your heart down and reshape, and reform, and renew it, you will become closer to Him.

It’s a new day, so start with a new heart; start with a renewed, strengthened, and rejuvenated heart.

When you live everyday with a new heart, you begin to see people, situations, ideas, the way God wants you to see them. Now I am not saying you will be a brilliant mind everyday of your life, but you will be able to see God and what He is doing in your life.

Yesterday I put a quote in the beginning, so I figured I would put it in the middle today.

 

“We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes. But we live in a world  crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem. We receive  his poured-out life, and being allowed the high privilege of suffering with Him,  may then pour ourselves out for others.” ~ Elisabeth  Elliot 

We will all suffer. We will all feel pain. We will all feel heart ache. We will all experience discouragement. We will all be put in a tight spot. We all will, but these experiences are there to be used by us in the future. They are there to be used as tools to benefit the kingdom of God. We use these experiences to help others. We use these experiences to speak life into people, so they may experience the rebuilding of their heart from the true Savior.

We must call out to the Lord with everything we have, for Him to surround us with His presence so we may dwell in it…so we may search and find what He has in store for us.

For those of you who feel like God needs to break you down so He can renew your soul. For those of you who feel alone and need God to enter your life with His love. For those of you hurting and you feel like everyone has forgotten, I know a God who hasn’t forgotten, who is ready to renew your soul, who is ready to make you feel apart of something greater, who is ready to take away your pain. That’s the God I know. Search for that God, and you will find Him.

 

 

Our Own Community

I usually end with a quote, but this time I would rather start with one.

“Without community, the world will never see God.”- Judah Smith

We were not put on this earth to be alone. We were not put here by God to walk through our lives alone. God made us in his image. One thing we have to understand about our God, is that we worship a God of three entities, being the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. God made us to be drawn to relationships. God has drawn us to each other. God has made us to be community beings, for He himself, is a community being.  

We are more of a success when we are with others, than when we are alone. Proverbs says “a man who isolates himself seeks his own desires and rages against all wise judgment”. God, the creator of all things, put us here to work together. He put us here to become one for the purpose of bringing souls to Christ. The church was built after community, so why would we not do our best to include others. 

 I pray that as you read this you begin to search for those who can be of good influence to you. Those who can help you thrive in your own walk with God and can help you accomplish the things you want to accomplish. I pray that you find people that will speak life and will encourage you as you face the struggles of this world. “One can put a thousand, but two can put ten thousand.” We as Christians, must constantly feed off the other believers around us. We must ask questions and continue to grow within ourselves and within each other. To reach the lost of this world, it takes more than one man, but only one God.

New Year, Same God

First of all I would like to start by saying I hope everyone is having a great beginning of their year. I hope that whatever plans you have or goals that you have set for yourselves, that you reach them and do more than what you could imagine.

It has been a while since I started this and since I’ve posted anything. I have been writing a lot and I have quite a few drafts but nothing really stuck out to me so much to where I just had to put it out there. But yesterday I began to write this and it is something I believe will be beneficial to everyone who reads it.

I was asked a question the other day that really made me think, “What are you sacrificing?” I did not answer, but I immediately thought of my time. I sacrifice my time. I never answered the question, I just brushed it off and continued with the conversation. This question stuck with me though. As I rode home, I didn’t listen to the radio or put in a cd, I began to pray and seek God’s voice. I began to examine my life and I began to look for the things that were in the way of my own goals. I began to notice that there are actions or ideas or things that I do not really need in my life. There are things that I can do without.

I tell you all this to encourage you. I tell you this to let you know you are not the only one with baggage. You are not the only one with problems. You are not the only one with insecurities. You are not the only one. If you don’t get anything else out of this reading, I pray that you understand that one thing, you are not alone.

Sacrifice is giving up of something valued. It is not giving up something you can already do without. Throughout the bible, prophets of God and followers of Jesus were asked to sacrifice something that was valuable to them. Abraham was asked to sacrifice his some, Peter and Andrew sacrificed their livelihood at the drop of a dime, and the list goes on. We must be willing to sacrifice what God asks us too. We must be willing to give up everything, if that is what God asks of us. We, as humans want to be able to have our cake and eat it too. Jesus also asked the rich man to give everything he had to the poor and follow him and he said it was a hard thing to do and walked away. We can not conduct ourselves that way. As children of the one true God, we are called to sacrifice more than just our time. The things of this earth will all pass, but the love of God never will. Understand, I am not saying the only way to get closer to God is to get rid of everything you own. But be faithful with your giving. Not just of your money, but your talents and your time.

Once again, God doesn’t go around to everyone telling them to give away their homes and their cars. But at some point in time, you will be asked to sacrifice something.

As we walk in our daily lives with God, we are constantly put in situations where God wants to use us. But we don’t always recognize them. We have to recognize that, along with sacrifice, comes success. Everything in life, I don’t care what it is, in order to succeed in it, there is some sort of sacrifice. God doesn’t call us to sacrifice what we have for nothing. We are called to sacrifice so he can use us and the things we give to him in unimaginable ways. I hope you really understand that. We are sacrificing what we have in order to get what God has for us. I promise you, what God has for you is far better than what you could ever have.

It is hard for many Christians to understand this whole concept. They do not understand the simple fact the things God has for us is so much better than anything we could ever have. Or they think that is only applies to people like pastors or Christian leaders, and that is simply not true, at all. If anything we should celebrate our sacrifices. We should be more than willing and excited to give up the things God asks us to. It is a sign that God is going to use you to do bigger and better things for the kingdom of heaven. Do not be discouraged when you must give something to your heavenly father, rejoice and praise him for the opportunity ahead of you. Because I promise, as hard as it is to give whatever it is up, it will be completely worth it when you begin to do God’s work. God has given us everything we have, so it should be easy to give it back to him.

 Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness. -Napoleon Hill

Throughout this entire year, understand that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. Give God all of your praise, give Him all of the glory, give Him all of the honor, and watch how many opportunities you are blessed with to show the love of God. I pray that whoever reads this finds what God has for you and that you continuously seek after the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Search and you will find.