Lately I've been thinking about following God's path for my life. I have had some confusing talks with friends, some that leave me feeling refreshed and relieved, others that make my mind run at 100 miles an hour (hard to believe I know). One thing I have been thinking about is, the times when we need to give something up in order to follow the plan God has for us. Giving something up didn't sound too hard to me. I've given things up before. Well, sometimes the thing we need to give up isn't easy and sometimes it's something we want to hold on to. There are times where what we want to hold on to the most are the things that are holding us back. Following God was never promised to be easy, and the life of a servant for Christ was never a walk in the park. Something I've known for a long time, but never really thought about. Sometimes we need to do something that feels impossible to follow God with everything. There are things that we love so much that we never want to let go, but God may have other plans for us.
"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 perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:1-2.
This is the verse that comes to my mind when I think of this topic. Maybe the things we are holding on to, are the very things that are interfering with us totally following God. We need to just look to God, hold on to Him and let go of the things that are blocking us from living for God with everything we are.
It is my encouragement to everyone, that we find the things holding us back, fix our eyes on God and throw off everything that hinders us.
"Enjoy life and take the Lord along for the ride!"-Alva Sample
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
How do we live?
Once again I am posting, and once again I am writing while I am feeling burdened and down from certain situations going on (Drama poo as I call it).
I am struggling once again with how I am supposed to act when I say I am living for God. I keep thinking of Titus 1:15-16 "(15)To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. (16)They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good."
When ever I think of how we are supposed to act and live our life this is these verses are the ones that come to mind. I don't know why exactly, maybe because of verse 16 when it says "They claim they know God but by their actions they deny him."
We all mess up on this so much. We say we know God and love Him but the way we act needs to line up with what we say. I know too many people(myself included) that do things they KNOW are wrong. It rips me apart to watch friends make these poor choices. It is my hope and prayer for all my friends that they will listen to the voice of God, and let it drive their life and actions. I encourage them to think about their decisions and that way I hope that by their actions they will show that they in fact know God and love Him.
I am struggling once again with how I am supposed to act when I say I am living for God. I keep thinking of Titus 1:15-16 "(15)To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. (16)They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good."
When ever I think of how we are supposed to act and live our life this is these verses are the ones that come to mind. I don't know why exactly, maybe because of verse 16 when it says "They claim they know God but by their actions they deny him."
We all mess up on this so much. We say we know God and love Him but the way we act needs to line up with what we say. I know too many people(myself included) that do things they KNOW are wrong. It rips me apart to watch friends make these poor choices. It is my hope and prayer for all my friends that they will listen to the voice of God, and let it drive their life and actions. I encourage them to think about their decisions and that way I hope that by their actions they will show that they in fact know God and love Him.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Thinkin'
So I've been thinking about prayer lately. The one story that always comes to my mind is the story of my grandma's middle of the night awakening to pray for some one she had never met, or even heard of. She awoke in the middle of the night thinking she had to pray for a man by the name of Casper Weinburger. Mr. Weinburger for those of you who don't know was the Secretary of Defense from 1981-1987 under President Ronald Reagan. Now my grandma didn't know what to pray for and why to pray for, she just prayed for Mr. Weinburger. This has got me to thinking.
God can use us for ANYTHING. It may not be as big as praying for the secretary of defense in the states, but it doesn't make it any less important. God can use us, and we will be blessed if we obey, and allow God to use us.
God puts people in our lives for us to be a witness to. He places people in our journeys for us to help. Whether it’s a small act or having to help someone through a rough patch in their life or faith. God doesn’t put these things in our lives for us to try taking on alone. If we try to take it on alone we won’t be able to do it. We need to pray and interact with God. The power of prayer is amazing. One way my family was blessed by prayer happened about 3 years ago. A friend of our family couldn’t sleep one night and so he prayed. My family came to his mind, he suddenly though that he needed to give us his car. This was a very big deal for us, see our one car had died and was no longer drivable, and our Jeep was having problems and wasn’t always starting. One summer day I was sitting at home and the phone rang, it was my mom asking me to come to Seven Eleven to help her carry some stuff home because the Jeep wasn’t starting. While we were walking up to the house I say the car. I thought “Wow that sure looks like Cody’s K-car.” When we got inside my mom checked the mail box and there was keys and a letter. The keys were for the car and the letter was describing why we were receiving the car. So after everything we purchased the car for $1. This was a huge answer to our prayers. The power of prayer is amazing. So if you feel God nudging you to pray for someone do not take it lightly. In the words of my grandma “Be a prayer warrior.” My grandma lived the life of prayer warrior and it is my goal to follow in her foot-steps and be a servant for God.
God can use us for ANYTHING. It may not be as big as praying for the secretary of defense in the states, but it doesn't make it any less important. God can use us, and we will be blessed if we obey, and allow God to use us.
God puts people in our lives for us to be a witness to. He places people in our journeys for us to help. Whether it’s a small act or having to help someone through a rough patch in their life or faith. God doesn’t put these things in our lives for us to try taking on alone. If we try to take it on alone we won’t be able to do it. We need to pray and interact with God. The power of prayer is amazing. One way my family was blessed by prayer happened about 3 years ago. A friend of our family couldn’t sleep one night and so he prayed. My family came to his mind, he suddenly though that he needed to give us his car. This was a very big deal for us, see our one car had died and was no longer drivable, and our Jeep was having problems and wasn’t always starting. One summer day I was sitting at home and the phone rang, it was my mom asking me to come to Seven Eleven to help her carry some stuff home because the Jeep wasn’t starting. While we were walking up to the house I say the car. I thought “Wow that sure looks like Cody’s K-car.” When we got inside my mom checked the mail box and there was keys and a letter. The keys were for the car and the letter was describing why we were receiving the car. So after everything we purchased the car for $1. This was a huge answer to our prayers. The power of prayer is amazing. So if you feel God nudging you to pray for someone do not take it lightly. In the words of my grandma “Be a prayer warrior.” My grandma lived the life of prayer warrior and it is my goal to follow in her foot-steps and be a servant for God.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wow.
It seems that I usually only post on here when I'm feeling burdened or something is getting me down. Hopefully it's different story this time. Today I was shown the song Fly by Jason Upton, all I can say is...WOW!
Now the story behind this song is that there was actually an angel singing along with Jason Upton during the song. The story is that there was a strange fog coming from the ceiling So the guy doing sound or whatever, just thought it might be from the air conditioning. He asked the janitor and he said there was no pipes or anything up there. Then a kid came to the sound board and said there was a 12 foot angel standing behind Jason Upton. Turns out that the angels voice was actually being recorded. The next day the guy doing sound wanted to find out if it was real so they listened to it, suddenly a perfect voice was heard, the engineer said it was just crazy feed back from the drums or guitar. They looked through every track and couldn't find this "feed back". Then they looked into Jason Uptons Vocal track and there was two vocal tracks, one small one and one really big one.
Call me crazy, but I listened to this song and I believe it. This is definitely not impossible from my point of view. I think there are things in Christianity that are not logical in anyway. I believe that angels could have been behind Jason Upton singing their praises to God. If someone chooses not to believe this, that is their call. I truly think that angels can come into our presence at anytime. At first I was a bit skeptical of this whole idea of angels singing along, but when I listened to the song, it hit me like a speeding truck. I had shivers over my whole body, and started shaking. This kind of thing does not happen on a regular basis when I hear a good song but, it certainly rocked my world. I really truly believe this is a real story. Just thought I'd share it.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=7JAMKh4pSF4
The story
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=S17No-DtETA&feature=related
The song
Now the story behind this song is that there was actually an angel singing along with Jason Upton during the song. The story is that there was a strange fog coming from the ceiling So the guy doing sound or whatever, just thought it might be from the air conditioning. He asked the janitor and he said there was no pipes or anything up there. Then a kid came to the sound board and said there was a 12 foot angel standing behind Jason Upton. Turns out that the angels voice was actually being recorded. The next day the guy doing sound wanted to find out if it was real so they listened to it, suddenly a perfect voice was heard, the engineer said it was just crazy feed back from the drums or guitar. They looked through every track and couldn't find this "feed back". Then they looked into Jason Uptons Vocal track and there was two vocal tracks, one small one and one really big one.
Call me crazy, but I listened to this song and I believe it. This is definitely not impossible from my point of view. I think there are things in Christianity that are not logical in anyway. I believe that angels could have been behind Jason Upton singing their praises to God. If someone chooses not to believe this, that is their call. I truly think that angels can come into our presence at anytime. At first I was a bit skeptical of this whole idea of angels singing along, but when I listened to the song, it hit me like a speeding truck. I had shivers over my whole body, and started shaking. This kind of thing does not happen on a regular basis when I hear a good song but, it certainly rocked my world. I really truly believe this is a real story. Just thought I'd share it.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=7JAMKh4pSF4
The story
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=S17No-DtETA&feature=related
The song
Friday, November 21, 2008
Trusting God
So here's the thing that's eating me up inside right now. We pray things like "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." But it is hard to pray and rejoice when something so devestating happens. I went to pick up my mom from the pre-school she works at today, when I walked in to the school today the atmosphere was... Well it was different. Almost gloomy. Then I was told that a little girl that used to go that school died this morning. She was only 3. This was like getting run over by a bulldozer... Even though I have never met this little girl it's still hard to think what family is feeling. This little girl should of had years upon years of life, but it was cut short. The truth is, it is extremely hard to find good in a situation like this. God works in mysterious ways, we can't fathom what He was doing with this, but we have to believe it was for the best. One thing I've learned is God knows what he's doing, so He knew what He was doing here. It's hard to accept but, this is one of the challenges that one can use to bring themselves closer to Christ.
Trust God in ALL times, that's one thing I learned the hard way. When going through a hard time I didn't trust God all that happened was the times got A LOT harder. God is the only one that will be there through everything, and can take every burden.
I guess what I'm saying is God works in mysterious ways, we can not understand how He works. Trust God in all time, no matter how hard it may be. It will save you a lot of pain and sorrow in the end if you just turn to the one who can help with anything.
Trust God in ALL times, that's one thing I learned the hard way. When going through a hard time I didn't trust God all that happened was the times got A LOT harder. God is the only one that will be there through everything, and can take every burden.
I guess what I'm saying is God works in mysterious ways, we can not understand how He works. Trust God in all time, no matter how hard it may be. It will save you a lot of pain and sorrow in the end if you just turn to the one who can help with anything.
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