Saturday, March 17, 2012

My Heartbeat...

9Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. 10Love each other with genuine affection,e and take delight in honoring each other.11Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically.f 12Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. 13When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality--- That's Romans 12:9-13 in the NLT.

This is what I want to be true in my life. This text is commonly referred to as the passage on "Marks of True Christianity". People go by these common denominators for evidence that they are going to heaven. Being good like this scripture is telling to you do is not what is going to get you into heaven. Trusting in Christ as your savior and believing that God sent His son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins and rose again three days later, is how you know that you can get into heaven, a personal relationship with Jesus, trusting in Him as your only way into heaven, and nothing that you can do can get you there.... The verses above would be our response to the salvation the Christ offered us on the cross. We are told to LOVE people! GET OVER OURSELVES AND JUST LOVE! Who ever they are! If they're a killer, love them. Gay? love them! Liar? Love them. Two-faced? Love them. They only put up a front, so you'll never know them? Love them. Unlovable? LOVE THEM!!! The second command( NOT SUGGESTION) is to hate their sin! Who cares what they are struggling with, we are not the ones going to save them out of whatever life style they are living in! Love them, don't recant in the faith, and let God do HIS work! Love people for real. Give them credit where credit is due. Then it gets to serving. Don't slack off and be lazy, get over yourself, and JUST SERVE! You have time to spend 2-6 hours a day on Facebook, watching TV, or other messes. Serve Him with joy, HE is using you for a part of His ministry. He loves us enough to take His time and invest into our lives. He loves us SO much and I know I so often have found myself getting caught up in my own life, and thinking about myself, when Christ should be first. in verse 12 it tells us to rejoice in our confident hope! Because of this salvation we have, because of our perfect Savior, we can be SURE of our eternal destination and our permanent residency! This life that we are living is nothing compared to what our eternity is going to look like. We will go through trials, and tribulations, but in light of eternity, count it all joy! Be patient when you're going through it and never stop praying to Him. Pray with a purpose too. Don't pray just to say you prayed. When you are praying, pray like you mean it and pray with those expectations. He offer us so much if we are just asking Him, earnestly. Be ready to help someone out. Reminds me of Matthew 7:9-11. The Lord has been showing me a ton recently, how selfish i really am, my pride, jealousy, and everything else under the sun. Lord teach me your ways,  so I can learn not only how to love you, but how I can love everyone else around me. I am done with pretending. Give me Jesus.

Friday, March 9, 2012

I'm in love...

The grace of God in my life right now is astounding. He's faithful, patient, and He's never stopped pursuing me. Even in my apathy, even in my laziness, and even in my direct disobedience. The past week here has been the hard to say the least. It all started on Tuesday night. We have devotionals in the upper library for our dorm and this week we had a guest speaker. The guy who spoke was by no means an :Incredible" speaker or the nest Piper, but what he shared got through to what I would say would be most of the dorm. But it hit home for me. He was talking about how it is so easy to be a Christian in a place where it is the normal to be one, and how often time we get so accustomed to the ritual of being here and how we grow stagnant and even begin to "Borrow Faith". It was a new concept I don't think I have heard before and it blew my mind. I do that! I borrow the faith of WOL because I just don't care sometimes! Needless to say the majority of us walked soberly back to our dorms. In our room, my roommate and I, James Delay, just began to talk. Talk about things that were going on in our lives, our convictions and it broke me. I have been SO lazy with my faith. but I had come to a stand-still in my walk. I was DOING everything right. I was reading my bible, I was praying, I was doing my quiet time, and nothing was helping me. I didn't see growth in my walk, i didn't see any fruit, and I was just hiding behind my happiness pretending that everything was dandy when I was hurting and didn't know where else to go or what to do next. It took me falling on my face and realizing that I never did any of it to begin with. Christ pulled me from the pits. HE has REDEEMED ME from everything I had done, and even today I am still forgiven. I feel the power and truth behind my prayer now. It's real, it's genuine and i'm craving His word. He's my life.  I'm falling in love with my Savior again. He's exactly what I need and He knows that. Habakkuk 3:17-19 is my life right now. Thank you LORD!!!!!