Adopting God's Schedule

Last night before I went to bed I was alone staring at the wall deep in thought. I was reflecting on my life and I was deeply bothered. When I first started this blog I was hungry for God, I was thirsty for Him all the time it seemed. Like a broken record, all I could think was, 'why am I not like that anymore? What has happened to me?' I felt lost and confused. I knew God was real and that I needed Him, I just wanted that hunger I once had and I didn't know how to get it back.

I was thinking about how I set aside time everyday to read the Bible and how my main goal in life was to honor Him. I felt like I still was trying to keep the shell of that life but it was empty. I went to sleep with a worried mind.

I woke up this morning and drug myself to church and heard that a teen a bit older than me would be speaking. I have always looked to to him because he is my elder and frankly he is just a cool person to be around. I am going to share the points in his sermon that inspired me:

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perserverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith."

Sin is a obviously a bad thing. We know this because it is a basic Biblical principal. Nobody can kill someone and feel good about it, even though they may talk about how great they feel. We know the sin we do is bad even though we may feel dumb sometimes.

Weights or everything that hinders aren't sins, they could be very good things like underwater basket weaving. They could start out as just a hobby but could grow into an obbsession. If underwater basket weaving is keeping me from spending time with God and my family then I need to put that aside for a while or at least this season in my life.

Being busy isn't bad, it just needs to be a healthy busy. In America we judge a person by how busy they are or what they spend their time doing. We shouldn't be so busy that we don't have time for God and our family, nor should we be so busy that we are rushing to get things done and aren't fun to be around. Bussiness can be a weight, I know it is for me.

We need to start saying no to good things so we can say yes to the best things. Yes, this could mean sacrifice but it's worth it to spend time with God and His people.

Have we as Christians forsaken our "first Love" at the alter of a busy schedule? We need to turn back to Jesus to do what we were set out to do. The power of Jesus' message is that it's never just condemnation. It's never just God saying, "Don't do that". It's always redemption, it's God saying, "Do this instead".

Let's make God's schedule our schedule. It may seem like a sacrifice but when we make the change it is something that will serve you and others for the rest of your life. Let's get back in touch with God and His people.

Finding Mercy Again

 Here is a sonnet I wrote for English class, hope you enjoy:

What if I am drifting away from You?
For my life You once completely consumed.
I cringe at the thought that it might be true,
The old life I've so easily assumed.


What a horrid thought!  Ever haunting thought:
I've come so far where you said not to go.
My pride cries, "How could I ever be bought
By the world, with all her ideals so low?"


I'm fighting hard to get back to You Lord,
Being with You has ne'er felt so crucial
But Your love, how can I ever afford?
Without Your blood, running back is futile.


I've been dying to be drowned in Your love;
Forgotten love I've ne'er been deprived of.

God Has Some Pretty Awesome Breath!

Many of my posts are written for Christian and secular audiences alike, but this post imparticuler is written for Christians.  This post is for improving your faith and knowledge of God, for those who already have faith and knowledge of God.

I have been churning this post around in my head for a while (as you can tell, do to the lack of posts for a couple months) and I thank my friend Shelby for setting the keystone of this post in my mind.

Knowledge of God is the only knowledge that ultimately matters.  Without knowledge of God, all other knowledge is in vain.  The sad thing is that some people gain knowledge of God for its own sake.  Gaining knowledge of God for its own sake is very dangerous.  It makes us prideful and decieted.  The reason we should gain knowledge of God is in hope that we might know the Lord better.

The most obvious way to start gaining knowledge of God is through reading the Bible.  Yes, that thick old book full of amazing wonders.  It may seem a bit scary to read such a book.  Many people say that it is a rule book for Christians.  We Christians know different, in Paul's 2nd letter to Timothy he states:

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16,17, NIV)

Just think about that for a minute.  All Scripture is God-breathed.  God inspired men up to thousands of years apart to write the Bible.  God spoke through sinners like us so that we would jot it down not knowing that thousands of years later we would have a book of it.  The Bible is literally God speaking to you, not some over rated rule book!  So what is the point of God speaking to us through this book and what is it useful for?  You've got it!  It's so we may use it to teach each other God's word, rebuke and correct each other as well as ourselves, against ungodliness.  Here comes the juicy part!: training each other in righteousness so we may be equipped for every good work.

The Bible is the only book that can cut our pride down and make us feel God's raw love at the same time.  The more we know about God, the more we find that God doesn't just know about us, He knows us personally.  He knows our horrible true colors and still loves us despite every disgusting shade.

When we read the Bible we usually tend to treat it like a buffet.  We take some of God's words to heart while disregarding other things He says.  Treat the Bible like your favorite bag of chips.  You take that bag of chips to your bedroom and eat all of them, you don't just take one chip and throw out the rest (I mean seriously, who does that?!)! Don't be a tater hater!  Much like eating those chips you have to read the Bible and take everything you read to heart, not just this little verse and that little verse.

A good way to begin reading the Bible is to start with Jesus: The New Testament!  After you read the New Testament you can read the Old Testament.  Always connect what you are reading to Jesus.  Without Jesus, everything in the Bible was written in vain.

There are many other ways to study God such as reading devotionals and apologetics.  Before you read either of these I would encourage you to read some of the Bible first.  Many false devotions and apologetics can take God's word out of context and if you aren't careful you will believe the lies that are being fed to you by those false teachings.

Once you are reading the Bible it is important that you encourage your Christian friends to read the Bible also.  Start them out with some verses that connect with their lives, something they can easily relate to.  Please note that I am only telling you to encourage fellow Christians to read the Bible, if someone is an atheist, most of the time they have no business reading the Bible.  Many atheists read the Bible for the sole purpose of finding dirt on the Christian faith and it is very easy for them to take a verse out of context and claim things that aren't true about Jesus, God, and the Bible itself.

In the beginning when God made Adam, He breathed the breath of life into him (Genesis 2:7) to make him come alive.  Since every word in the Bible is God breathed, every time we take God's words to heart He is breathing eternal life into our hearts.  I would say that God has some pretty awesome breath, wouldn't you?