Walking Straight into Darkness

I have realized over the past few weeks that you cannot let Satan in even a little bit because He will continue to get a bigger stronghold in your life, and pretty soon if you are not careful enough He could have total control of your life! Thankfully I have a savior who cares enough about me to reach out and tell me He is here and that He loves me in the midst of my Sin. I am turning away from my old self and coming back with a clean heart and with a bigger love for Jesus! This earthly life means nothing, it is truly a vapor! There may be moments where pleasure exists for seconds, minutes, hours, and maybe even days, but my joy and hope is in the Lord! Not partying or people, Jesus is my redeemer and the thing that I place value in! I have pulled away from my Christian friends over the past few weeks and not gone to church or Bible studies and my relationship with God has been suffering a whole lot. I know from firsthand experience that if you let Satan in even a little bit, he will keep working until you set boundaries or until he has complete control of your life! Dont even let him in a little. For we have a redeemer and a hope in Christ

Walking with God

Walking with Christ is not an easy task; anyone who claims it is must know something I and many other followers of Christ do not. Christ himself said it would be hard to follow Him, He said it would be harder to follow Him than to not follow Him. I find that when I do not spend time with Christ daily, following Him gets that much harder because if I get farther away from Him I do not seek after what He wants, I seek after what I want and I become more selfish and all about me. This life is just a vapor, it will end, but Christ will endure forever. That is what I need to cling to; everything in this world does not matter. Jesus is what matters and if I do not cling to Him and His righteousness, then I will seek after things that are going to end up hurting me in the long run. Also, when I am not in communication with God daily, I am more susceptible to the enemy’s attacks, and he can hit me when I least expect it. Even when we don’t feel like meeting with God, that is most likely when we need to do it, when those excuses start popping into our head that is most likely the enemy trying to keep us further away from God.

I was reading a passage from “The Screwtape Letters,” by CS Lewis this weekend and it really illustrated how real the spiritual battle is, and we never really give it enough credit. While there is a good side working for us, (God), there is also a bad side working against us to keep us from God and His promises (Satan), and Satan wont just work on us when we are happy and living a “good life” but when we are depressed or things start going wrong, Satan sees that as his opportunity to go after us. That is why it is so important to fight back by being strong in the Lord and being in communication with Him daily. If not, that’s when we give the enemy room, and if you give the enemy an inch, do you really think he will take an inch or will he take a mile? We need to prepare for battle and really know the Word of God and the heart of the Lord. That way whenever the enemy feeds us lies, we can battle right back with truths.

Men, Relationships and Marriage Part I

This is the first of many, because God has convicted me to start preparing for being a Godly wife and mother.

Marriage is something not to be taken lightly, it is a Holy and sacred institution designed by God! I’m so excited to see the heart of my future husband unfold, it will be such a huge blessing for both of us as our hearts begin to intertwine and connect throughout the process of our relationship. My future husband is going to have his faults, as I will have my faults and I will accept him in spite of his faults because I don’t expect him to be perfect because I am far from it. It is only through Christ that I am worthy of anything. I have done nothing worthy of attaining a husband, and shall I get one it will be a huge blessing! I will be so thankful that I have someone to share this life with! A friend put it wisely, “Life is not worth anything if you don't have someone to share it with.” The role of a woman in marriage is to serve and respect her husband, not as an animal or a lower being but out of love and a desire to do so. As the role of a man is to love his wife as Christ loved the church, not because he has to but out of sheer desire to. Girls we have a responsibility to respect our husbands whether we are married now or not. If we are single, we should keep our minds focused on Christ first, and then on our future husband in every relationship we have. When we are in a relationship with someone we need to have the mindset, am I treating him in a way that is honoring my future husband, whether he is going to be my future husband or not? We may end up marrying the person we have a relationship with, or we may not, so we need to conduct ourselves accordingly. This may seem a little different to some people, but we need to remember that if we don’t have respect for our future husband now, how can we expect to truly have it in marriage? Because aren’t we already married to our future spouse in soul? Since God has already predestined us to meet our future spouse our behavior should be that which is honoring to him/her.

Now, some people may view me as an oddity for already preparing for marriage even though I am not in a relationship, but I have looked at the way this world views relationships and this world views things so casually and so ME ME ME, I don’t want my life to be anything like this world’s! My life is Christ’s, and I live to serve Him! If I am called to marriage, and will be blessed with a husband and children, it is only by God’s grace, and not anything I have done, solely by God. I have tried to do relationships the way the world does them and that left me with a fractured heart that only Christ could fix, and He has done a mighty work! So now, I am learning how to be a Godly wife and mother, in preparation for the day that I may become both. Whether or not I become a wife and mother, the virtues that I am learning will help me to serve my brothers in Christ all the more, and to serve Christ and His gospel!

Jesus

This world will fail us over and over again, the one thing that will always be there is Jesus. He will never leave or forsake us. People need to really show unconditional love, because without that we will always be disappointed by the people in our lives. A good friend just told me that if we truly love people with an unconditional Christ-like love, than no matter how much they hurt us our love for them will not change. I want to love like that. Show me how to live right for You Lord. I want to be a light for you in this world. Help me to lead people in the way Everlasting. My Savior is so amazing, He can move some mountains, and He can and has changed my life so much, its impossible to put into words!

Update

God has really been working in my life, and opening my eyes! He is so perfect, and His love is so amazing! My walk is getting stronger now, it was a trying week last week. I started to find myself seeking fulfillment through alcohol, and that is a path that just leads to destruction for me. I do not know why I struggle so much with alcohol consumption. I know for a fact there is no good in it for me, but I continue to go after it. This world truly has nothing for me. I come to realize that more and more each day. The only person I can truly depend on is Jesus. I am so thankful for Him. Please be enough for me Lord.
Friendships in this world mean nothing if Jesus is not at the center of them. If He is not, someone is bound to get hurt, and sometimes they can get hurt deeply. God, heal this pain in my heart, and let me solely lean on you! I cannot take the pain that people keep inflicting on me. It is so difficult. Living for you is not easy, but I will not stand down because a relationship with You is worth fighting for and worth fighting hard for you.
Jesus died on the cross so I would be able to lean on Him in times of need! Lord I need you now. You are the only strong friend I have. Thank You so much for being there for me!

Update on ME

It has been a few months since my last post, so I figured it was due time. Since November, I have been pulling a 3.25 GPA at Boise State. God has been doing amazing things in my life and in my heart. It has been a huge blessing to see all of my brothers and sisters in the Lord reaching out to me more. My best friend Nyssa and her husband of almost one year, Chuck invited me over for pizza on Friday night, and then we went to a game night at a mutual friend's house. It was so awesome getting to spend time with them. I love being able to be around people all the time. One of the hardest things for me, is that I do have a lot of friends but not too many close friends. Do not get me wrong, I love all of my friends, but it would make things so much better if I had another best friend. Nevertheless, I am thankful for where God has me now. My grades are better nwo, than they have ever been. God has really placed it on my heart to move out, but I do not have money or a job to do that. I cannot quit school, because I need my degree to teach. But, I want to be independent, because I hate always depending on my parents. I am thankful for all that they have done for me, but I need to be on my own. I hope that God will provide me with a good job for the summer so I can save up some money to move somewhere. Don't get me wrong, I am thankful my parents let me live at home rent free, but it feels like they hold it over my head. When it comes to my curfew and the ridiculous rules at my house, I am 22 years old, most of my friends live on their own and do not have ridiculous things to do at home. It would be a huge blessing to be able to be on my own to prove to myself and to my parents that I am able to handle that responsibility. Well that's all I have for today.
God bless!

Discipline

As a believer, I find it hard to pick up the Bible every day and read it. Yes, it is hard for everyone to read but a book that only has good news for the people that believe it. How hard should it be? The enemy is so ready to throw distractions at me from every direction. My friends that are believers seem to be so disciplined when it comes to spending time daily with the Lord. I aspire to get into the Word every single day if even for 5 minutes. Please pray for me that I get the discipline to spend time daily with God. I need to do it so badly. Remember the closer you draw to God the more you want to be like Him. So draw near to Him every day! Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you!