For those of you that don't know, the past couple of weeks have been hard on the Lee County area. Four young people have passed away in the past two weeks. A young man by the name of Andy from Beulah was about to start his senior year in high school. A young woman from Opelika that was 17 years old. A young man from Auburn that I went to high school with. A girl by the name of Caroline that was about to start first grade. I feel like deaths of young people are very hard to deal with because they were so young. It seemed like they had their whole life ahead of them, but James 4:14 says, "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes."
It is in these times that people begin to question God, which is what they need to do. Ask Him questions. He'll answer. I learned this while I was in Uganda. I met a young man that was 16 years old. I never got his name, but I hung out with him for a few hours on one day very early in my time there. We were walking and I began to ask him questions. I had been asking him questions for a little while then I asked him about his family. He then told me that his mother, father, and sister were all killed by the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA. That is when I started asking God questions. Why did that happen? What made God put him in that situation and not me? Why am I so blessed to have a loving family, but his was taken away from him?
When the Sandy Hook shooting happened I went through the same thing. I was angry because all of these young kids were killed in a place that was supposed to be safe. So I started asking questions. Why those kids? Why so many? At the time that I was asking these questions I was spending some time alone in a hotel room in Arkansas reading the book of Isaiah and I read this:
"Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake His way, and the unrighteous man His thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts."- Isaiah 55:6-9 ESV
God's ways are higher than ours, and we will never understand how He operates until we see Him face to face. He has a plan, and it is perfect. His plan is flawless. His plan includes things like these that I have talked about. He has a reason for doing everything. We might not know what it is, but there is always a reason behind these things that God does. It may sting a little, but God knows what He is doing and it is for our good that He does them.
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."- James 1:2-4 NIV
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Monday, June 3, 2013
Where is your faith?
“Where is your faith?” Jesus asked his disciples.- Luke 8:25
For those of you that don't know, I am very involved with something that a few people started this year called community gardening. We are doing this to build relationships with people that are working along side of us and to do the same with the people we will be giving the produce to. Anyways, we have four gardens. Two of which have a consistent water source and two of which that do not. The two that have that water source are looking great; I can't say the same about the other two. When we first planted these gardens we were getting great amounts of rain and everything was looking fantastic. Then for about two weeks we didn't get a drop of rain. The sun was shining bright, the temperature was rising, and the plants that weren't getting watered weren't looking too hot.
After I saw how bad it was, I started praying a lot for rain because we needed it bad. Day after day I would pray for rain, and it looked like it was going to but then the clouds cleared and it was sunny for the rest of the day. I started getting more and more frustrated at the fact that we were relying on God for rain and He wasn't sending any our way. Throughout this whole process I have been reading through the book of Luke, and Luke 8:25 stuck out to me. Where is your faith? My faith was dwindling because God wasn't working the way that I wanted Him to. Thankfully He sent us some rain yesterday afternoon, and I'm sure that it helped out all of our gardens a lot. But I've been thinking about how I was handling this whole situation, and I've really been thinking, "Is my faith really that circumstantial?" Am I so selfish that if God doesn't do what I want Him to, that I'll start doubting His ability to do something?
There are two things that I have learned from all of this:
1. My faithfulness is NOTHING compared to God's faithfulness. If you look throughout Scripture, every promise that God makes He keeps. And I am so thankful for that because if He didn't who knows where I would be right now.
2. God knows what He is doing. One of my all time favorite verses is Proverbs 3:5-6: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight." God is teaching me to trust Him with everything. I am 100% sure that He knows we need rain for these plants to survive and hopefully for this ministry to be successful, but we have to trust Him. Everything that happens is for His glory: whether this attempt to grow food and give it away succeeds or fails, it is all part of His plan.
If you want to know more about these community gardens and are willing to help out shoot me an email at camp_hand@yahoo.com and I'll let you know when we are going to do some work.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Grace is an Ocean
"If His grace is an ocean we're all sinking."- David Crowder Band
These words from David Crowder Band's song "How He Loves" have really been running through my mind a lot lately. God gives us so much grace, that if it were an ocean we would all sink in it. Lately though, I have been thinking about this in another way.
My family and I go to Orange Beach every summer and a couple of summers ago the beach had some of the biggest waves I have ever seen. So of course my dad and I go out there. At one point my dad had gotten a little farther out than me, and then a wave took him under. He was under for a really long time and I almost started freaking out, but then he came back up and we decided to take a little break.
Imagine trying to learn to swim in an ocean like that. It isn't possible. No matter how hard you try, you will drown. Then you start yelling for the lifeguard if you have any sense. Enter Jesus. Jesus is our lifeguard and He is right there to save us from the power of the ocean and He teaches us to swim, or accept God's grace.
God's grace is like the ocean that day at Orange Beach. It is too much for us to handle. We will never be able to comprehend why or how He gives us grace. Right now, we are all about ankle deep in God's grace because our minds can't comprehend the immense measure of His grace and we will never be able to completely understand it until the day that He calls us home. It is just one of those things that we won't grasp while we're on Earth, but with the help of Jesus we will see glimpses of it here and there. God's grace is an ocean, and we're all sinking in it.
These words from David Crowder Band's song "How He Loves" have really been running through my mind a lot lately. God gives us so much grace, that if it were an ocean we would all sink in it. Lately though, I have been thinking about this in another way.
My family and I go to Orange Beach every summer and a couple of summers ago the beach had some of the biggest waves I have ever seen. So of course my dad and I go out there. At one point my dad had gotten a little farther out than me, and then a wave took him under. He was under for a really long time and I almost started freaking out, but then he came back up and we decided to take a little break.
Imagine trying to learn to swim in an ocean like that. It isn't possible. No matter how hard you try, you will drown. Then you start yelling for the lifeguard if you have any sense. Enter Jesus. Jesus is our lifeguard and He is right there to save us from the power of the ocean and He teaches us to swim, or accept God's grace.
God's grace is like the ocean that day at Orange Beach. It is too much for us to handle. We will never be able to comprehend why or how He gives us grace. Right now, we are all about ankle deep in God's grace because our minds can't comprehend the immense measure of His grace and we will never be able to completely understand it until the day that He calls us home. It is just one of those things that we won't grasp while we're on Earth, but with the help of Jesus we will see glimpses of it here and there. God's grace is an ocean, and we're all sinking in it.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Press On
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
- Philippians 3:12-14
For those of you that didn't know, last week I spent my spring break with a team of Young Life leaders (and some hopefully soon to be YL leaders) in the Dominican Republic. It was an absolutely amazing experience. We all learned so much about being thankful and finding joy in the Lord.
The most amazing thing I experienced on the trip was the last day we were with our Dominican friends in Baranca. Right before we left we had a little devotion and worshipped with the Dominicans. The last song we sang was "You Never Let Go." They knew it in Spanish and we knew it in English, so we just figured it would be fun for them to join us on a song. Little did we know that it would bring most of us to tears because of how beautiful it was. Then right after we got done singing one of our team members shared what the Lord had been speaking to her about, and she read Revelation 7:9-10 which says, "After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: 'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.'" It was so cool that she read that right after we got done singing because we had just experienced a small glimpse of that, and it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever heard! That was only two languages, so I can't imagine how awesome it will be to worship our God along with every other language in the world.
One of my favorite verses recently has been Philippians 3:13, and I have always focused on the part about straining toward what is ahead. Even though it has recently become one of my favorites I never read what was around it until I was getting ready to write this. On our last day in the Dominican another one of our team members asked me what I was excited about in the future. I told her that I wasn't real sure because I didn't have much planned. Maybe one or two days later I started to think about Philippians 3:13 in light of that question. I began to ask myself what Paul was straining toward. Then it finally clicked- Paul was straining towards heaven! He even says in Philippians 1:23, "I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far..." Paul was sitting in jail wishing that he could go to heaven and see Jesus face to face and join in on the worship that goes on day and night with people from every nation, tribe, and language! For those of us that are in Christ, we get to do that same thing one day.
Our futures may not always be certain, but this I'm sure of. One day Jesus will call us home, and we will experience the Father's Glory and worship Him forever and ever! That is what we should be pressing on towards. Press on. Fight the good fight. Finish the race. Keep the faith. Don't give up. We have heaven to look forward to, and that should be our motivation to do all of those things.
"Day and night they never stop saying: 'Holy, holy , holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.' Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who live for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns down before the throne and say: 'You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.'"- Revelation 4:8-11
"Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: 'Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!' Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: 'To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!'"- Revelation 5:11-13
"After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.' All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures they fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: 'Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!'"- Revelation 7:9-12
- Philippians 3:12-14
For those of you that didn't know, last week I spent my spring break with a team of Young Life leaders (and some hopefully soon to be YL leaders) in the Dominican Republic. It was an absolutely amazing experience. We all learned so much about being thankful and finding joy in the Lord.
The most amazing thing I experienced on the trip was the last day we were with our Dominican friends in Baranca. Right before we left we had a little devotion and worshipped with the Dominicans. The last song we sang was "You Never Let Go." They knew it in Spanish and we knew it in English, so we just figured it would be fun for them to join us on a song. Little did we know that it would bring most of us to tears because of how beautiful it was. Then right after we got done singing one of our team members shared what the Lord had been speaking to her about, and she read Revelation 7:9-10 which says, "After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: 'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.'" It was so cool that she read that right after we got done singing because we had just experienced a small glimpse of that, and it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever heard! That was only two languages, so I can't imagine how awesome it will be to worship our God along with every other language in the world.
One of my favorite verses recently has been Philippians 3:13, and I have always focused on the part about straining toward what is ahead. Even though it has recently become one of my favorites I never read what was around it until I was getting ready to write this. On our last day in the Dominican another one of our team members asked me what I was excited about in the future. I told her that I wasn't real sure because I didn't have much planned. Maybe one or two days later I started to think about Philippians 3:13 in light of that question. I began to ask myself what Paul was straining toward. Then it finally clicked- Paul was straining towards heaven! He even says in Philippians 1:23, "I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far..." Paul was sitting in jail wishing that he could go to heaven and see Jesus face to face and join in on the worship that goes on day and night with people from every nation, tribe, and language! For those of us that are in Christ, we get to do that same thing one day.
Our futures may not always be certain, but this I'm sure of. One day Jesus will call us home, and we will experience the Father's Glory and worship Him forever and ever! That is what we should be pressing on towards. Press on. Fight the good fight. Finish the race. Keep the faith. Don't give up. We have heaven to look forward to, and that should be our motivation to do all of those things.
"Day and night they never stop saying: 'Holy, holy , holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.' Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who live for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns down before the throne and say: 'You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.'"- Revelation 4:8-11
"Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: 'Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!' Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: 'To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!'"- Revelation 5:11-13
"After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.' All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures they fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: 'Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!'"- Revelation 7:9-12
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Extraordinary
My church started a new series today called Extraordinary. It is a series that will be centered around God using ordinary people to do extraordinary things. I am super excited about this series because we will be talking about a few of my favorite stories of ordinary people being called by God to do extraordinary things such as Peter, Moses, and David.
Today we talked about Peter. Before Jesus called Peter, he was a fisherman. A FISHERMAN. Aka, in this day and time, a nobody. Fishermen were close to the bottom of the totem pole when Jesus was on Earth. But Jesus called him anyways. In Matthew 16, Jesus asks His disciples who people say He is. They give Him answers like Elijah, a prophet, or John the Baptist. Jesus then asks them who they say that He is. Peter was the first one to say anything and in verse 16 he says, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God." Jesus then tells Peter in verse 18, "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it." Wow. That is pretty powerful. Now, imagine being Peter and hearing that from Jesus. The first thing I would say to Him is "What the heck? You can't possibly think that I can do that!" And that statement is very true. Jesus knew that Peter couldn't do it alone. That is why He sent His Holy Spirit to do the work through the followers of Jesus.
What is so cool to me about this interaction between Peter and Jesus is that a few verses later they get in a fight! Jesus is telling the disciples about how He is going to die and Peter said, "Not on my watch!" Matthew 16:23 says Jesus turned to Peter and said, "Get behind me Satan!" You remember what Jesus just said about Peter being a rock? Yeah, Peter messed up. But that just shows that he was an ordinary guy! Peter was an ordinary guy that God chose to do extraordinary things through.
In Exodus 3, God speaks to Moses through a burning bush. He tells Moses in verse 10, "So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." Now if God tells you this through a bush that is on fire, are you going to ask any questions? Most of us will never know what we would do in that situation, but if you ever do find out what it's like to hear from God through a burning bush and your reaction to that, I would love to talk to you about it when you have time. Anyways, Moses then asks God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" Basically Moses is telling God that he is a nobody, as if God didn't know. God told Moses "I will be with you." Then Moses starts asking a million questions trying to get out of this. Oh well, what if they ask me Your Name? What do I say then? What if they don't believe me? One of my favorite parts of this interaction is Exodus 4:10-12: "Moses said to the Lord, 'O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.' The Lord said to him, ' Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.'" God just answered all of Moses' questions and came up with answers for all of his lame excuses. So Moses makes a last ditch effort to get out of it. In verse 13 Moses says, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it." Moses was scared of the task ahead of him! Freeing the Israelites from the oppression of Pharaoh? Shouldn't someone with a little pull in the government do that? Certainly not an ordinary guy! Yes, an ordinary guy. Once again, God chooses ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
In 1 Samuel, the people of Israel ask for a king. Well the first king (Saul) didn't turn out too well, so in chapter 16 God tells Samuel to take some oil, go to Bethlehem, find Jesse, and anoint the son that God chooses. Well Samuel gets there and he sees Jesse's eldest son Eliab. Eliab must have looked like Cam Newton or something because as soon as Samuel saw him he said, "Surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord." And verse 7 says, "But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'" I absolutely love that verse. When God chooses someone, He chooses them based on where their heart is, not what they look like or how they act. So pretty much Samuel looks at Jesse's first seven sons and God says no to all of them. Now Samuel is starting to worry a little and asks, "Are theses all the sons you have?" Jesse tells him that there is one more tending the sheep, so he sent for him. As soon as David walked in, God told Samuel, "Rise and anoint him; he is the one." David, the youngest son, a shepherd, so ordinary that his own dad left him out until the last resort, was chosen by God. And David did extraordinary things with the help of God.
Through the stories of these people in the Bible, it has been made obvious to me that God wants to use ordinary people like you and me to do extraordinary things throughout this world. The question is, will we let Him?
I am an ordinary guy trying to live my life for an Extraordinary God.
Today we talked about Peter. Before Jesus called Peter, he was a fisherman. A FISHERMAN. Aka, in this day and time, a nobody. Fishermen were close to the bottom of the totem pole when Jesus was on Earth. But Jesus called him anyways. In Matthew 16, Jesus asks His disciples who people say He is. They give Him answers like Elijah, a prophet, or John the Baptist. Jesus then asks them who they say that He is. Peter was the first one to say anything and in verse 16 he says, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God." Jesus then tells Peter in verse 18, "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it." Wow. That is pretty powerful. Now, imagine being Peter and hearing that from Jesus. The first thing I would say to Him is "What the heck? You can't possibly think that I can do that!" And that statement is very true. Jesus knew that Peter couldn't do it alone. That is why He sent His Holy Spirit to do the work through the followers of Jesus.
What is so cool to me about this interaction between Peter and Jesus is that a few verses later they get in a fight! Jesus is telling the disciples about how He is going to die and Peter said, "Not on my watch!" Matthew 16:23 says Jesus turned to Peter and said, "Get behind me Satan!" You remember what Jesus just said about Peter being a rock? Yeah, Peter messed up. But that just shows that he was an ordinary guy! Peter was an ordinary guy that God chose to do extraordinary things through.
In Exodus 3, God speaks to Moses through a burning bush. He tells Moses in verse 10, "So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." Now if God tells you this through a bush that is on fire, are you going to ask any questions? Most of us will never know what we would do in that situation, but if you ever do find out what it's like to hear from God through a burning bush and your reaction to that, I would love to talk to you about it when you have time. Anyways, Moses then asks God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" Basically Moses is telling God that he is a nobody, as if God didn't know. God told Moses "I will be with you." Then Moses starts asking a million questions trying to get out of this. Oh well, what if they ask me Your Name? What do I say then? What if they don't believe me? One of my favorite parts of this interaction is Exodus 4:10-12: "Moses said to the Lord, 'O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.' The Lord said to him, ' Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.'" God just answered all of Moses' questions and came up with answers for all of his lame excuses. So Moses makes a last ditch effort to get out of it. In verse 13 Moses says, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it." Moses was scared of the task ahead of him! Freeing the Israelites from the oppression of Pharaoh? Shouldn't someone with a little pull in the government do that? Certainly not an ordinary guy! Yes, an ordinary guy. Once again, God chooses ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
In 1 Samuel, the people of Israel ask for a king. Well the first king (Saul) didn't turn out too well, so in chapter 16 God tells Samuel to take some oil, go to Bethlehem, find Jesse, and anoint the son that God chooses. Well Samuel gets there and he sees Jesse's eldest son Eliab. Eliab must have looked like Cam Newton or something because as soon as Samuel saw him he said, "Surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord." And verse 7 says, "But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'" I absolutely love that verse. When God chooses someone, He chooses them based on where their heart is, not what they look like or how they act. So pretty much Samuel looks at Jesse's first seven sons and God says no to all of them. Now Samuel is starting to worry a little and asks, "Are theses all the sons you have?" Jesse tells him that there is one more tending the sheep, so he sent for him. As soon as David walked in, God told Samuel, "Rise and anoint him; he is the one." David, the youngest son, a shepherd, so ordinary that his own dad left him out until the last resort, was chosen by God. And David did extraordinary things with the help of God.
Through the stories of these people in the Bible, it has been made obvious to me that God wants to use ordinary people like you and me to do extraordinary things throughout this world. The question is, will we let Him?
I am an ordinary guy trying to live my life for an Extraordinary God.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
We Aren't Alone
Last night was our first night of Young Life leader training with Auburn-Opelika Young Life. I got lost and showed up twenty minutes late, so the majority of what I heard was Eric telling stories about his kids spending loads of money on in-app purchases and his kids' pets dying from awful diseases. Anyways, after we got done I was talking with a great friend of mine named Joey. He is so wise and such an amazing friend. He reminded me of something that I think we all need to be reminded of pretty often: We are not alone.
There are many times when I struggle with something and satan gets in my head trying to tell me that I'm the only one that struggles with that. What's crazy is that I actually believe him and beat myself up for it! How can I love my neighbors as myself if all I do is beat myself up over things like this?
All of the things that we struggle with boil down to one thing: living the Christian life in a secular world. I know that seems simple (one of my friends over in Uganda named Patrick says to keep it simple, so I try to do that as much as possible), but just think about it. God has called us to be holy as He is Holy, but the world says to conform to its ways.
I'm sitting here thinking about things that the world wants us to give in to, and my list just seems so insignificant in comparison to what others go through. There are people around the world that face death because of their faith in Jesus. Those are two completely different things, but like I said earlier, they both center around the same thing.
Not only are we not alone in our struggles, in our sufferings, and in our trials. We are not alone when we worship God! We are not alone when we praise Him, when we pray to Him, when we read His Word! We are not the only ones trying to live out the Christian life in this secular world. There are people around the world that we may not see or know that are trying to live this life along side of us. They join us in the suffering. They join us in the praise.
Do not let satan tell you that you are alone and do not conform to this world.
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” -John 16:33
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." -Romans 12:2
There are many times when I struggle with something and satan gets in my head trying to tell me that I'm the only one that struggles with that. What's crazy is that I actually believe him and beat myself up for it! How can I love my neighbors as myself if all I do is beat myself up over things like this?
All of the things that we struggle with boil down to one thing: living the Christian life in a secular world. I know that seems simple (one of my friends over in Uganda named Patrick says to keep it simple, so I try to do that as much as possible), but just think about it. God has called us to be holy as He is Holy, but the world says to conform to its ways.
I'm sitting here thinking about things that the world wants us to give in to, and my list just seems so insignificant in comparison to what others go through. There are people around the world that face death because of their faith in Jesus. Those are two completely different things, but like I said earlier, they both center around the same thing.
Not only are we not alone in our struggles, in our sufferings, and in our trials. We are not alone when we worship God! We are not alone when we praise Him, when we pray to Him, when we read His Word! We are not the only ones trying to live out the Christian life in this secular world. There are people around the world that we may not see or know that are trying to live this life along side of us. They join us in the suffering. They join us in the praise.
Do not let satan tell you that you are alone and do not conform to this world.
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” -John 16:33
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." -Romans 12:2
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