Do We Really Believe It?

  There are a lot of thoughts that are running through my head tonight. It has been a busy day, more than that a busy last few weeks! Today was our first day of Teen Music Camp. This is an annual event in our community where teens come for a weekend and learn skits and music that they perform in a worship service at the end of the weekend. I say perform, but perform isn't the right word. They use these songs and skits to lead the community in worship at the end of the weekend. It was amazing to see 40+ teens singing together and enjoying fellowship with one another all day today.
  The whole focus of today was worship. The thought that worship is all about God and it is a lifestyle, not just something we participate in for an hour a week. This is such a foundational truth that we all need to be reminded of, almost daily! It is so easy for us to make things about ourselves, and we do it without even realizing!
  While thinking about this, God brought this thought to my mind, do we really believe God's Word? I mean more than do we know His word, but do we really believe His Word? Because this flows out into every area of our lives. What we believe about God reaches into every area of our lives. Matthew 12:34 says, "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." If we say we believe in God's Word and we truly trust it, then our lives will reflect that! No question about it! What is in our hearts will come out in our lives! We can't trick people by trying to live a life that looks good like we believe a Christian's life should, when in reality our hearts are dead to Him. Unless he gives us a new heart, all that will flow out of us will be death because our heart is dead! But when He gives us a new heart, life will flow out of us! It will be evident! I love the illustration David Platt uses for this. He compares the change that Christ brings in our life to being hit by a Mack truck - there is going to be a difference! You don't get hit by a Mack truck and walk away looking the same as you did beforehand. You walk away looking drastically different!
  We cannot say that Christ has changed our lives if our lives look exactly the same as they did before! it simply isn't Biblical! What is in our hearts will come out! So if what is coming out looks nothing like Christ, the issue lies in the heart! Proverbs 4:23 says "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life." Another version says 'for from it flow the issues of life." Everything about our lives begins in our heart. If we have issues with anything in life, we must move past simply treating the symptoms and realize it is a heart issue!
   I am not however saying that as believers we do not sin. We absolutely sin! We struggle daily with the flesh. However, the difference is in the lifestyle. If the pattern of my life is sinful, that doesn't look like Christ! Remember, if you get hit by a Mack truck, you will look like it! As believers we do sin, but the Holy Spirit of God that dwells within us opens our eyes to the fact that we have sinned and just like Romans 2:4 says "God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance." This does not happen in the life of the non-believer. It happens in the lives of those who have been hit head on by the extravagant grace of an awesome, holy God, and they are never the same because of it! This same God, Takes away our dead heart of stone and gives us a new heart! "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 32:26.
   If this awesome, holy God has hit us head on with His extravagant grace, we can no longer live like we lived before. We cannot make excuses! If this has taken place in our lives, the result will be the life of Christ flowing out of the new heart He has given us!

Above all else...

So my dad posted a question on facebook today and it got quite a few comments and some of them started me thinking about different scriptures and God just laid this on my heart. I did not want to post it as a response to my dad's status because it began to veer off the topic. So I figured I would just post it on here. Here goes...

Above all else our call is to know God and this occurs as we daily spend time with Him. As we spend time with Him and come to know Him more, what is on His heart will be on our hearts. And His heart is for the nations. "Go therefore and Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit..." Matt 28:19 This is something that we can do only as we daily lay ourselves down before Christ and surrender to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our lives. "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.." Romans 12:1 As we surrender to the guidance of the Holy Spirit He empowers us to share the love of Christ with those around us. "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth..." Acts 1:8 As witnesses to those around us we are called to share the hope that we have in Christ with gentleness and respect. Understanding that God is the one who brings about conviction and reveals Himself to those we share with. "But in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame." 1Peter 3:15
I think that the problem is not necessarily ignorance of God's Word, but ignorance of the God of the word. There are many people who have a great knowledge of God's Word, but do not truly know God through and intimate personal relationship. As you grow in that relationship, through spending time with Him, you come to know Him more. The more you know Him, the more you love Him. The more you love Him the more you want to know Him. The more you want to know Him, the more you spend time with Him.

Some Verses to Think On!

"You have given me greater joy than those who have abundant harvests of grain and new wine."
Psalm 4:7

"In peace I will lie down and sleep, for You alone, O Lord will keep me safe."
Psalm 4:8

"Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord.

Each morning I bring my requests to You and wait expectantly."
Psalm 5:3

A good friend shared these verses with me the other night! I am so glad she did! She shared them because they are verses that God has been using to encourage her and set her focus on him during a time of uncertainty for her and her family. I think that these verses are encouraging no matter what our situation!
I have to go a little more in depth on that last verse! How many times to we pray for God to help or provide for us in certain situations and then leave that time of prayer thinking of all the ways we can make things work and take care of that need in our lives! In this verse David says that he waits expectantly for God to deal with the requests he lays out each morning!
As I read that verse, knowing that tomorrow is Easter, this thought comes to mind:
If David, on the opposite side of the resurrection, waited expectantly for God to handle the issues of his life, how much more should we wait expectantly as we lay our lives before Christ each day?
David had experienced God's victory in battles and knew that God could be trusted. We too have experienced God's faithfulness! We know how He has been faithful in our lives, we see His faithfulness throughout scripture, and we see His faithful work in the lives of other believers around us! Lord help us to always remember that you are the One who created our lives, and because of that You alone know best how to handle each situation that arises in our lives!

"I found Him faithful yesterday.

He will not be unfaithful today!"

Living Free by Beth Moore

We know this to be true from our own experiences in our relationship with God! Look toward Easter remembering that God who was faithful then, has not changed in any way! He is as faithful today as He was 2,000 years ago!

Happy Easter!

Graffiti Clean-up

So yesterday I was able to go with the Student Ministry @ Hope to do graffiti clean-up. The students had already done some graffiti clean-up in the area the previous day and the goal was to go back and get the rest done.

As we were painting, I kept thinking about the whole situation and how great an analogy could be drawn to our lives as Christians and graffiti clean-up. So here goes...

When we first come to Christ confessing that our way is wrong and that His way is the only way and we trust Him as our Savior He forgives us and chooses to remember our sin no more! The picture in my mind now is the wall that we painted ( I wish I had pictures to show you - didn't have my camera). Before it was covered in graffiti, for this analogy - sin, but then after we painted it it was clean you could not even see the old graffiti underneath. Now please understand this is not a perfect analogy. God has the power to completely get rid of our sin. It is GONE, unlike the graffiti, which is still there just covered by a layer of paint. However, the picture is the same. The wall is clean of imperfections.

As we were painting the point was brought up that this would probably have graffiti on it again within a short amount of time. This is true, and this also parallels our lives so perfectly! After we become a Christian, there will still be times, many times that we mess up and sin. That is just like us painting graffiti all over a wall that God has cleaned for us.

Our God is patient and loving and just and if we confess the sin in our life to Him, He will clean the graffiti off again. In NO WAY does this give us the right to simply do whatever we want because we have this promise of forgiveness! For the believer, this is never the desire! The desire is to become more and more like Christ.

"So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace...But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them so not belong to him at all.)" Romans 8:6, 9

Psalm 105:19

So the other night I was at the House of Blues - because you all know that I frequent the House of Blues @ Mandalay Bay, especially @ 10pm! Anyway, I was there to watch MP&Co. play (their second time playing there and they did an amazing job!) It was one of those times when I really wasn't sure if I should go because it was so late at night and I had to get up early for school the next morning, so I knew I needed to go but was not looking forward to being up late and getting up early.
So I ended up going, of course, and ate dinner there with some friends because I had been to Bible Study right before and had not eaten dinner yet. So we get our food eat and get the bill and we are absolutely floored by the price! For 5 meals out bill was $111.00! INSANE!! So as we are sitting and trying to figure out all of the craziness with our bill, a friend of mine came over to day hi! It was Brea Gotthardt. She had come this time because Paul, her husband, had come to hear the guys the last time they were at House of Blues and told her that she had to come this time. And she was so excited! We were talking and I began sharing with her about all that God was doing in mine and Zeke's life with our big move coming up and then all that God was doing in my family because of my dad's diagnoses of cancer. She stood there and listened to my story and then she said that she was so excited for Zeke and I and all that God was doing and going to do in our lives. She shared with me that she thought it was so great because there will be others watching me and my family as we handle each and every part of this situation that God has blessed us with. And who knows who will grow closer to God or come to know God through watching us handle this situation. She then proceeded to give me homework! :) She wrote down Psalm 105 on a napkin (that by the way totally had someone's gum in it!) and told me to read through this chapter and that I was looking for a verse that told about the life of Joseph. So I took the napkin and put it in my purse (after I tore off the part with the gum in it!) and when I got home I pulled it out and read through Psalm 105. As I read through, the chapter I came to verse 19, and it says "Until the time came to fulfill Joseph's dream, the Lord tested his character." God spoke so clearly to me through that verse and the conversation with Brea that first of all God has brought this into the life of my family. He knows exactly what is going on and it never surprised Him in the least! And secondly that God has a purpose for this situation. There is something that He desires to accomplish in me and/or through me by using this. I remember talking about trials in our James Bible Study this past Fall and one of the things that was brought up was that it is much easier to handle trials that come into our lives when we realize that there is a purpose for them! I guess that is where I am right now! I realize that there is a reason for all of this and I just need to keep seeking after God with all my heart. When we seek Him, He will most certainly be found! :)