Jesus time...

Time with God has become onw of my favorite things to do...even though I don't spend nearly enough time with my savior as I should!

((warning this is kind of long))




Right now I am studying the book of Ezekiel! I know it seems like such a random book of the Bible to go through, but I wanted to start studying books that I don't know very much about and well Ezekiel seemed like a good place to start! ;)

In case you were wondering Let me tell you it's a pretty awesome book! On the surface it may not seem to be I mean the whole first part is about how God is going to judge and destroy Jerusalum, but you know what? Through the 17 chapters that I have read so far God has taught me so much and it has been so neat to see! I get so excited to read more, because I just can't wait to see what God is going to reveal to me next!

Just read Ch. 16...God is talking about the Faithless Bride.

"When I passed you I saw you in your blood 'Live' I said to you in your blood, 'Live' I made you flourish like a plant of the field and you grew up and became tall." (v.6)
-God has given us everything and has saved our life

"I clothed you...I adorned you...and your beauty was perfected through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord....but you trusted in your beauty"
-we dishonor him and don't follow him like we should

As I was reading through I couldn't help but realize that that's me! I was completely dead in my trespasses, in utter despair and without hope, until God saw me and said 'Live' He saved me and gave me a new life, one full of joy and peace! He brought me from death into life! Yet how often do I forsake my savior? How often do I trust in myself and try to do things on my own instead of clinging to God and seeking His strength and help? I go my own way, I wander and I don't give God the glory and honor that he deserves! I seek man's approval above the Holy God. I don't praise him for all that he has done for me, instead I seek my own glory and honor and try to steal his throne.

It brings me to tears to realize how often I rob God of glory that rightfully belongs to him! Thankfully I serve a gracious, loving, forgiving and merciful God! No matter what I do he still loves me just the same! I mess up....and I'm going to keep making mistakes, but there is hope and forgiveness and he is always there to gently lead and guide me back to himself! So although I may not always love, serve and honor my savior, creator and father like I should....he is full of grace always ready and willing to forgive me and help me! What an amazing God!



"You may think that God is no better than you. In other words, you couldn’t imagine forgiving someone seventy times seven, so you can’t believe that God would. If this is the way you are thinking, then you are believing a lie. God is not like us. His forgiveness is not like ours. Don’t use your own weakness as the standard by which you understand God’s greatness! Just listen as He reveals Himself in His Word."


"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." Ephesians 2:4-7


Grateful...

There is so much that I take for granted and so much that I complain about. But honestly when I really take a look at my life I have SO much to be grateful for and VERY little to complain about. God has blessed me more than I can imagine! So I want to start being more appreciative and thankful for EVERYTHING!

Tonight I am freshly amazed and the friendships that God has given me! God has given me so many amazing friends who love me, encourage me, are crazy with me, make me laugh and most importantly help me grow more like my savior! I cannot express how much I love you all or how grateful I am for the blessing of your friendship. No matter if you live close by or are 400miles away, or whether I see you everyday or we haven't hung out for months, you mean so much to me and I love you and am so grateful for you! God knew exactly what he was doing when he placed each of you in my life! <3 The unity we have in christ simply amazes me!







So grateful for the gift of friendship tonight!

"Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever!"
Psalm 118:29

Christmas with Unbelievers

Awesome Excerpt from desiringgod.org on sharing the gospel with your family this Christmas:


Christmas with Family Who Don't Know Jesus

"David Mathis recently extracted some practical ideas from the book in connection to all the family gatherings accustomed to the holidays. Here are those ten points again, or in his words, "a few thoughts from a fellow bungler to help us think ahead and pray about how we might grow in being proxies for the gospel, in word and deed, among our families."

1) Pray ahead

Begin praying for your part in gospel advance among extended family several days before gathering. And let’s not just pray for changes in them, but also pray for the needed heart changes in us — whether it’s for love or courage or patience or kindness or fresh hope, or all of the above.

2) Listen and ask questions

Listen, listen, listen. Perhaps more good evangelism than we realize starts not with speaking but with good listening. Getting to know someone well, and specifically applying the gospel to them, is huge in witness. Relationship matters.

Ask questions to draw them out. People like to talk about themselves — and we should capitalize on this. And most people only enjoy talking about themselves for so long. At some point, they’ll ask us questions. And that’s our golden chance to speak, upon request.

One of the best times to tell the gospel with clarity and particularity is when someone has just asked us a question. They want to hear from us. So let’s share ourselves, and Jesus in us. Not artificially, but in genuine answer to their asking about our lives. And remember it’s a conversation. Be careful not to rabbit on for too long, but try to keep a sense of equilibrium in the dialogue.

3) Raise the gospel flag early

Let’s not wait to get to know them “well enough” to start clearly identifying with Jesus. Depending on how extended our family is, or how long it’s been since we married in, they may already plainly know that we are Christians. But if they don’t know that, or don’t know how important Jesus is to our everyday lives, we should realize now that there isn’t any good strategy in being coy about such vital information. It will backfire. Even if we don’t put on the evangelistic full-court press right away (which is not typically advised), wisdom is to identify with Jesus early and often, and articulate the gospel with clarity (and kindness) as soon as possible.

No one’s impressed to discover years into a relationship that we’ve withheld from them the most important things in our lives.

4) Take the long view and cultivate patience

With family especially, we should consider the long arc. Randy Newman is not afraid to say to Christians in general, “You need a longer-term perspective when it comes to family.” Chances are we do. And so he challenges us to think in terms of an alphabet chart, seeing our family members positioned at some point from letters A to Z. These 26 steps/letters along the way from distant unbelief (A) to great nearness to Jesus (Z) and fledgling faith help us remember that evangelism is usually a process, and often a long one.

It is helpful to recognize that not everyone is near the end of the alphabet waiting for our pointed gospel pitch to tip them into the kingdom. Frequently there is much spadework to be done. Without losing the sense of urgency, let’s consider how we can move them a letter, or two or three, at a time and not jerk them toward Z in a way that may actually make them regress.

5) Beware the self-righteous older brother in you

For those who grew up in nonbelieving or in shallow or nominal Christian families, it can be too easy to slide into playing the role of the self-righteous older brother when we return to be around our families. Let’s ask God that he would enable us to speak with humility and patience and grace. Let’s remember that we’re sinners daily in need of his grace, and not gallop through the family gathering on our high horse as if we’ve arrived or just came back from the third heaven. Newman’s advice: “use the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘us’ far more than ‘you’” (65).

6) Tell it slant

Some extended family contexts may be so far from spiritual that we need to till the soil of conversation before making many direct spiritual claims. It’s not that the statements aren’t true or desperately needed, but that our audience may not yet be ready to hear it. The gospel may seem so foreign that wisdom would have us take another approach. One strategy is to “tell it slant,” to borrow from the poem of the same name — to get at the gospel from an angle.

“If your family has a long history of negativity and sarcasm,” writes Newman, “the intermediate step of speaking positively about a good meal or a great film may pave the way for ‘blinding’ talk of God’s grace and mercy” (67). Don’t “blind” them by rushing to say loads more than they’re ready for. As Emily Dickinson says, “The truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind.”

7) Be real about the gospel

As we dialogue with family about the gospel, let’s not default to quoting Bible verses that don’t really answer the questions being asked. Let’s take up the gospel in its accompanying worldview and engage their questions as much as possible in the terms in which they asked them. Newman says, “We need to find ways to articulate the internally consistent logic of the gospel’s claims and not resort to anti-intellectual punch lines like, ‘The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it.’”

Yes, let’s do quote Bible when appropriate — we are Christians owing ultimately to revelation, not to reason. But let’s not make the Bible into an excuse for not really engaging with their queries in all their difficulty. (And let’s not be afraid to say we don’t know when we don’t!)

8) Consider the conversational context

Context matters. It doesn’t have to be face to face across the table to be significant. “Many people told me their best conversations occurred in a car — where both people faced forward, rather than toward each other,” says Newman. “Perhaps the indirect eye contact posed less of a threat” (91). Maybe even sofas and recliners during a Thanksgiving Day football game, if the volume’s not ridiculous. Be mindful of the context, and seek to make yourself available for conversation while at family gatherings, rather than retreating always into activities or situations that are not conducive to substantive talk.

9) Know your particular family situation.

In some families, the gospel has been spoken time and again in the past to hard hearts, perhaps there has been a lack of grace in the speaking, and what is most needed is some unexpected relational rebuilding. Or maybe you’ve built and built and built the relationship and have never (or only rarely) clearly spoken the message of the gospel.

Let’s think and pray ahead of time as to what the need of hour is in our family, and as the gathering approaches pray toward what little steps we might take. And then let’s trust Jesus to give us the grace our hearts need, whether it’s grace for humbling ourselves enough to connect relationally or whether it’s courage enough to speak with grace and clarity.

10) Be hopeful

God loves to convert the people we think are the least likely. Jesus is able to melt the hardest of hearts. Some who finished their lives among the greatest saints started as the worst of sinners.

Realistically, there could have been some cousin of the apostle Paul sitting around some prayer meeting centuries ago telling his fellow believers, “Hey, would you guys pray for my cousin Saul? I can’t think of anyone more lost. He hunts down followers of The Way and arrests them. Just last week, he was the guy who stood guard over the clothes of the people who killed our brother Stephen.” (53)

With God, all things are possible. Jesus has a history of conquering those most hostile to him. We have great reason to have great hope about gospel advance in our families, despite how dire and dark it may seem.

When We Fail

And when we fail — not if, but when — the place to return is Calvary’s tree. Our solace in failing to adequately share the gospel is the very gospel we seek to share. It is good to ache over our failures to love our families in gospel word and deed. But let’s not miss that as we reflect on our failures, we have all the more reason to marvel at God’s love for us.

Be astonished that his love is so lavish that he does not fail to love us, like we fail to love him and our families, and that he does so despite our recurrent flops in representing him well to our kin."


Quote of the Week....

"realize anew that, just as we must learn to obey God one choice at a time,
we must also learn to trust God one circumstance at a time.
Trusting God is not a matter of my feelings but of my will.
I never feel like trusting God when adversity strikes,
but I can choose to do so even when I don't feel like it. That act of the will, though,
must be based on belief, and belief must be based on truth."
-Jerry Bridges



Thoughts from last night....

God is so amazing! Sometimes I forget that...sometimes I am stupid and try to do things on my own. But why? Last night I was feeling really stressed out and overwhelmed by the amount of things that I needed to get done! When I get like that I usually just need to take a break, so I decided to just go to bed & spend a little time with God (Always a good idea)!

I laid in bed and just spent half an hour praying to God and giving everything over to him and I could just feel the huge burden lifting off of me! I was no longer stressed out, instead I felt relief in trusting God and knowing that he would give me the strength I needed!

Then today was amazing! Don't get me wrong it was still an absolutely CRAZY day, but I wasn't overwhelmed! Somehow I felt peace in the midst of the chaos, something that obviously was a gift from God. He is so faithful he always comes through! why don't I trust my Heavenly Father more readily? Why do I still insist on trying to do everything myself?

I need to learn to surrender to God and give ALL my burdens to Him!

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” [Matthew 11:28-30]

Psalm 103

As Christians we all pray at some time or other....whether its just when we are about to eat, or when there is a crisis, or whether we spend consistent daily prayer time with God, at some point we pray.

Now I'm not going to talk about how we should pray more, because I know we ALL could be in more constant communion with God. However, let me ask you this question. When was the last time you prayed and ONLY praised and thanked God for who he is? When I heard this question I honestly couldn't think of a time. I mean when I pray I usually thank God, but then I also will ask him for things and pray for help and strength etc. Now none of those are bad things and don't get me wrong we should certainly bring those desires and needs to God and seek his help! He wants us to do that. However I feel like often times that's all we do. We pray we want God to do something or when we need help. But our God is also great and GREATLY to be praised! He is holy and majestic and faithful and loving and forgiving! He is so amazing that when we think about God's character we should be in awe and our response should be to praise and thank him for who he his! David does this in Psalm 103


"Bless the Lord O, my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives
all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that
your youth is renewed like eagle's. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all
who are oppressed. He made known his ways to moses and his acts to the people
of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding
in steadfast love. He will not always chide , nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repays us according to our
iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above earth so great is his steadfast love
towards those who fear him. as far as the east is from the west so far does he remove
our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his child, so the
Lord shows compassion to those who fear him." (v.1-13)

As you can see the whole Psalm is dedicated to praising God for who he is. His character and nature. We shouldn't need God to do anything or give us things in order to praise him, instead God's character should simply be enough to make your heart want to praise him! I want to start praising and thanking God more for his absolutely amazing character and nature!
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