Putting God first.

Sometimes in my Christian life I feel like I'm playing dress up. We all remember opening up that big trunk full of dress up clothes of every kind and pick and choosing the one we wanted. And then changing half a million times throughout the day. Having just one outfit was never enough. We would have to have multiple choices, never content with just wearing one. And with each outfit came a different personality, a different game…a different me. Of course, our own personalities would show but wear the cowboy outfit, be the cowboy. In a way, playing dress up was like trying to figure out what you truly wanted to be, and pretending to be that person.

God is a jealous God. He doesn't play second fiddle. He wants our best, deserves our best, but He also demands our best. He wants to be number one; He doesn't want a halfhearted love. Sometimes, in our Christian walk we will pick and choose whether God is number one or just somewhere else down the list. God should be the first outfit we pull out, and we shouldn't let the others overtake Him. If everything in our lives goes before God, God wouldn't be able to fit into our lives. God should own our hearts, not just be shoved into a corner of our hearts to pull out when we need it. It says in Isaiah 44:6, "Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god." If God goes first, then everything else in our lives that we love will fit. The only way to have a comfortable life is if we give God a comfortable and worthy place in our hearts. If we get into the mindset that one God is not enough, our lives won't truly be filled with joy and peace. God should be and is enough. Francis Chan said in his book Crazy Love, that "while God doesn't need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don't really want him most of the time." We desperately need God to guide us and love us only as He could. But we often choose to just pick "another outfit". Do we ever stop and think about how that makes God feel? He is the creator of the universe, He created us and we often to choose to willingly put him aside for something more "exciting".

 God didn't have to fill the world with sinners. God would be quite content all by himself, alone in His glory but he chose to create us and live among us. He also chose to save us his only son as the sacrifice that we ourselves actually deserved. God is patient, He is kind. He always trusts, always protects, always hopes, and always perseveres. He never fails. God is love! Even when we fail Him daily, He is always full of grace and forgiveness. We all make mistakes, we're humans but god has grace for those mistakes. He knows we will fail, but He will be right there to catch us. God needs nothing from us but we need so much from Him. However, he gave us life. God doesn't take away life; He gives life to those who want it. Even if our lives don't look exactly how we want them to look, God is in charge. He knows our yesterdays, our todays and our tomorrows. We can trust him and if we give Him number one place in our hearts and hand over the reins, He will work wonders. Our lives are the way God planned them; He knows what will happen. Give God control today; let Him do what He wants in our lives. I can guarantee we will be amazed by the miracles and wonders that will come from it. Don't give up on God, because He will never give up on you. He wants the best for us; lets try to give the best to Him. Don't play dress up with your life; don't pretend to be someone you're not. Let God be your number one.

God Bless

True love isn't easy, but its safe.

We fail God everyday. A day doesn't go by where we don't sin in some way. Why does God continue to love and care for us. Why does he stick around? He sticks around because even with all our failures and shortcomings, we are his children. We are sons and daughters of God, and he will never let us go. He cares too much; he's put so much into us. We could never in our wildest dreams, ever come close to loving and caring as only he does. Jesus died on that cross, he was beaten and bruised for US, because he loves us, because he wants to be with us. Jesus came to the Earth as a man. He knows the struggles and temptations out there. But he never sinned, he never gave in, he kept his eyes on his Father, kept his heart pure. That's the key, to keep our eyes and hearts on our father in Heaven. That will help us focus not on our sinful nature but on Gods ever-present love and forgiveness. We are meant to be with God in Heaven, that's his plan but we have to keep our eyes on him and him alone.

If we ever tried to love like God does, I have a feeling our hearts would pop. We aren't physically able to love to that amount. But spiritually, through God with the help of the Holy Spirit we are able to love as He does. We are able to show Jesus to other people, to be a light. Jesus didn’t say it would be easy, actually he said it would be difficult, it says in Luke 9:23,”Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Taking up our cross isn’t easy, that isn’t something that Jesus would tell us just to make our lives easier. But it isn’t about making our lives easier; it’s about living for God to the fullest that we can. God hasn’t promised us an easy journey in life but he did promise to provide us with a safe journey. Having struggles are part of the package, we gain character by them and turn into true sons and daughters of God. God doesn’t want to leave us, but I think he also doesn’t want to baby us. That’s why he gave Adam and Eve a choice in the Garden of Eden, he wants us to choose to love him, choose to live life with him. He’s still with us every step of the way, but he also gives us the choice. And if we choose to love him, and love him completely the struggles in our lives won’t seem as hard as they did before.

“God never promises to remove us from our struggles. He does promise, however, to change the way we look at them.” -Max Lucado

God Bless <3 <3

Live your Life.

Waiting for something to start or begin can be one of the most annoying things. Especially when you're excited. However, in almost every aspect of life there is waiting involved. Waiting to grow up, waiting to drive, waiting to be done school, waiting to be married, waiting to have children, waiting, waiting...waiting. Sometimes we concentrate so much on the waiting, on the looking forward to what's ahead that we can often forget what is right in front of us, in that moment. We forget that every day we have a life to live, when more often then not, we're looking ahead to what's next. I am especially guilty of this with wanting to get married and have kids and get on with my life. But my mum always told me that I'm wasting my life away, that I should just enjoying being where I am. Most of the time I ignored that, but looking back I should have heeded it more because life would have been so much better if i had just looked to the next day rather then the next year or next 5 years. :P

Sometimes I get to wondering if Jesus ever thought about waiting. If he ever thought about what would begin to happen when he turned 30. His ministry didn't start until he was 30, and until then he just lived his life. Did he ever want to do just hurry it up and get to it?? Probably, but not in the way we would. He might have been waiting to begin telling people about his Father and how they could be saved. The bible doesn't tell us much on what Jesus did before he turned 30 but it does say that he lived for his Father. He obeyed and had a relationship with his heavenly father even here on earth. Jesus was perfect, he had no flaws. So we know that he didn't just sit around and mope waiting for his ministry to start. Now, we can't ever be perfect but we can live our lives the way God made for us to live them. God doesn't want us to just sit around and wish our lives away, he wants us to live our lives to the fullest, day by day. And to live for Him! Even though sometimes, speeding it up seems so much better, but it isn't. Cause then we miss things, we miss moments in our lives that might have been great moments. Life was made for us to LIVE it, to take every moment and treasure it. Not fast forward through it, and pause and play it when we want to. So next time you want to just want to skip ahead to the next chapter, slow down and live the life that has been set for you. God is with us every step of the way, and when we sometimes need to wait for the next chapter to begin, he is waiting right there with us. Cause its not what we DO in life that defines us... it's how we LIVE.

"Turn up the music
Turn it up loud
Take a few chances
Let it all out
You won't regret it
Lookin' back from where you have been
Cuz it's not who you knew
And it's not what you did
It's how you live"
How you live - Point of Grace

Never Alone

I have always thought that walking with someone is so much better then walking alone. You have someone to talk to, someone to laugh with, and someone to just share the silence with. It’s one of those things that just changes the way you see a walk. Have you ever walked alone? The silence seems so much louder; all you can hear is the crunch of your shoes against the pavement. Have you ever looked up to the sky in those moments, seen the birds flying, clouds moving, and sun making patterns across the blue sky. The other day I was walking and yes, I was alone. But then I thought, I choose to be alone. God is right beside me, it’s my choice to let the silence take over, to let my selfish thoughts consume me. God is always there, why don’t we always let him in?

God wants a relationship with us. He yearns to get near us. However, it seems more often than not, we’d rather figure things out by ourselves. We want to show that we can be strong. Walking with God, talking with him is essential with our journey with him. Without having that relationship, we’ll not get anywhere. We’ll just move around and around, instead of moving towards him. And if we keep moving around and around, we’ll lose sight of God and begin to backslide. Max Lucado said, “Your walk with God is essential. His heart is not seen in an occasional chat or weekly visit. We learn his will as we take up residence in his house every single day.” Talking to God, spending time with him, just when you feel like it just isn’t enough. That’s not going to give a good base for your relationship with him. He wants us to devout our time to him, talk with him all the time. What’s amazing is that he’ll talk back, because he wants to spend time with us. He wants to give us wisdom and knowledge and he wants to help us in our everyday life.

Sometime, I think we don’t get the importance of relationships. Because of our world today, relationships are taken so lightly, the amounts of separations, divorces, and break ups are huge. However, God will never separate himself from us, he will never “break up” with us; God is forever. Hebrews 13:5 says, “(…) God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” You know the saying, “never say never”, well God says never. And he promises us that that he will never leave us. So next time you’re out walking and you’re alone, think about this, God is walking right beside you. He wants you to spend time with him, to talk with him. So next time you’re out walking, you’ll never be alone. Yes, I said it…I said never. :)

God Bless <3 <3

Father, I am clay in your hands.

"Father God, I am clay in your hands,
Help me to stay that way through all life's demands,
Cause they chip and they nag and they pull at me,
And every little thing I make up my mind to be."

We are Gods creation, created in his image. He molds us and shows us the way to go. He wants people to see Jesus through us, for us to be an image of him! And we need to stay like that throughout all life’s demands, no matter what. He is taking care of us, no matter what. He has got us in his arms. People will come and they will try to pull us away, pull us to things that seem better, or more "fun". They will try to change us, and try to show us things and yes, might look better but in reality are death. They will pull at everything we are, everything we want to be. Try to change us, try to change Jesus in us.

"I don't want to gain the whole world, and lose my soul"

If we gain the whole world and everything in it, riches, fame, good looks, all the materialistic things in life, they still won’t satisfy. They won’t give you what we are looking for, they won’t satisfy the hunger. Why does it seem so tempting to us, when we lose our soul through it? Taking a bite from the worlds feast, isn’t going to help with our walk, it will make it worse. God wants us to be different, to step out, and to be him in this world. It’s a hard thing to do, but you see when we've got Jesus on our side and in us, it’s easier to portray him. Gods not there to hold us back, not there to not let us have fun. It says in John 1:10, "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him." We are not supposed to be OF this world, yes we are IN it, but we are set apart. We are Gods children; we are the outsiders, showing Jesus through us. We are clay in our Fathers hands, and we rely on him to give us strength to close our eyes to the evil in this world, for we are supposed to be IN this world, not OF it. God loves us, he won’t let us fail.

" Lord forgive us when we get consumed by the things of this world,
That fight for our love, and our passion."
God should be the only one consumed by our love and passion. He's worth it!

God Bless ♥♥
Toby Mac "Lose My Soul"