Food for the soul Pt. 2

In life if you eat junk food, empty calories, all the time you get fat, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. You eat healthy food and you have a healthy body (exercise also helps).

Faith is the same. What you put into your system, and how active your faith is determine where you are at with God.

If you spend 2 hours a day looking at porn (interchange other sinful activities in for porn as well), but 10 minutes a week reading God's word are you surprised that your relationship with God is in the gutter.

Its like a person who sits on their couch all day watching TV and eating Doritos being outraged going "WHY AM I FAT??!!"

An active faith, Prayer, loving others, attending church, acting out the things God wants you to, and a rigorous studying of scripture will be very healthy toward your relationship with God. (well if that wasn't a duh statement, i don't know what is.)

Look at your life, look at your choices.

Make the changes you need to have a healthy active faith.

Act forgiven.

Food for the soul Pt. 1

Imagine a road. One way leads to God, one to Satan. One to heaven, one to hell.

Today many people follow the road away from God. But we are given forgiveness and a chance to turn around.

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." Matthew 6:24

Replace Money with any sinful thing. Lust, addiction, extramarital sex, hate, racism, prejudice, pornography, etc.

When you make the choice to follow god, you have given yourself up to him. So you should let all these worldly desires go.

When you don', yet you proclaim Christ, it gets complicated.

I imagine it that you have stopped walking in either direction, and you spend time looking one way, then another. looking both ways, but committed to neither. As if you were deciding which way to go.

Well eventually you will have to go one way, and give up the other.

I have made my mistakes in life. I wasn't always christian. And even after I accepted Christ, I still made poor choices.

But i got sick of it all. I wasn't really christian because I didn't follow with all heart, yet not really away.

Satan uses those times, when you aren't 100%. He lets you believe "well if I'm 80% then surely i can be 70% and God will forgive me just the same." And its like that all the way to 0%.

I made my decision. To walk towards God. With all my heart.

I may not like what happens along the road, but the end goal is worth it.

So the point?

Take God seriously. He will always forgive you, but you need to act forgiven.

Those who are forgiven don't wallow in the activities that they needed forgiveness from.

They rise above, committed to God. Sometimes they may screw up. But instead of spiraling out of control, it stiffens their resolve to Be changed. To follow God.

spend the time you would spend in sin, in Godly activities.

Act forgiven.

Poem to remember whose you are

Precious pearl

The lamb of God wades
Through fields of the lord
Picking his crops
Calling all to him
To go to greenest pastures
And be free forever

You with the sad eyes
And the burden on your shoulders
Come be with me
Wading and bringing crops
On to greenest pastures
That billow in peaceful winds

Say no to the weeds around you
Strangling you
Seeking to bring you to the fires with them
But their fields will wilt
And be tossed asunder

So grow on through 
All this pressure captivating you 
And you to will be Taken by Christ
And worn as a precious pearl
Around the neck of the lamb who wades through greenest pastures
Beauty for all to see 

The War Intro

I have been a follower of Jesus for over a year now, and it has had some interesting twists and turns.

The world is split. Those who follow Jesus, and those who do not.

I have been on both sides of the spectrum. I spent my life up until my senior year of high school as an agnostic. I was angry towards Christians because I felt they were all talk. I soon learned differently when my life was crashing down, and the only people there to show me love were Christians.

Now I know God better, and I understand how ignorant I was.

Not everyone has had the same "no way this could be anything but God, my life is changed forever" experience I have had.

The people who speak out of ignorance are just one of the challenges we face as Christians. This series will talk about many different things we deal within a daily basis.

Thereis a war going on for our souls. Satan will use any means necessary to win.

Be prepared.

Define Me

I am a compilation of many different things.

I love sports. I am a nerd. I am funny (thats what I tell myself at least). I am SO many different things.

I am a lot of good things, and a fair share of bad ones.

I am very self critical.

I have a very low opinion of myself. It comes from years of being told many times how I was worthless. It comes from years of rejection from everybody I knew.

Its not fun.

My point?

We have a choice everyday. I can listen to the people who are wrong and evil, and let them control my view of myself. Accept lies for truth, and be torn down.

Or

Accept that God has made me perfect the way he wanted me to, and I serve a great purpose.

This is an issue that I know many people struggle with. They allow satan and society to pull them down. To take away from their full potential.

They let satan win.

We need to take the time to see that God loves us and he has made us beauiful. We need to accept that he made us perfect the way we are.

We don't need to starve ourselves thin. We don't need to do this or that to change ourselves.

We just need to accept Gods love truly.

He loves us so greatly, that he thought of each and every one of us when he sent his son to die on the cross for our sins.

He wouldn't do that for someone who was not worth it.

So SMILE!

Because God loves you, and you are beautiful.

But He Told Me

I was scared of spiders, and my mom said "Dont be afraid"
I was scared of school, and my brother said "Don't be afraid"
I was scared of bullies, and my friends said "Don't be afraid"

I grew and I grew. And the more I saw the more I knew, That I was scared.

I was scared of women, and my buddies said "Don't be afraid"
I was scared of people, and my doctor said "Don't be afraid"
I was scared of the pain, and I told myself "Don't be afraid"

I walked out that door and walked right to a new life. I was still scared.

I was scared of illness, and my adopted family said "Don't be afraid"
I was scared of college, and my mentor said "Don't be afraid"
I was scared to stay, and my friends said "Don't be afraid"

I was scared to die, and just as scared to live

And my jesus said "Don't be afraid"

A Whole New World

Aladdin. Its a good  movie. Its the staple of any healthy Disney diet that can be handled by the pallets of young and old alike,  and when well complimented with a side of Finding Nemo can sate the appetite of any person hungry for Disney movies.

(I simply could not resist the urge to put as many references to food in there as possible. One should not write on an empty stomach.)

Aladdin is a thief, and jasmine is a princess. So if you look at the picture with a non-Disney view of the situation, hes never, ever, ever (to the 10,000 power multiplied by 1,000,000) going to get the girl. Her dad would forbid it, he would never be able to be in her presence to meet her, and he would probably be concerned with the more important things in life (like not being killed by those pointy things the guards are carrying).

In addition to all of this, she probably thinks that he is the scum beneath her feet. They come from completely different backgrounds, so its alright if they resent each other for their differences, right?

A different approach to this is a guy from the south who loves country music, and a guy from a northern city that loves hip-hop. One calls the other hick, the other calls the one a city-slicker. (alright, I realize that the term "city slicker hasn't been used in society for over a decade or by anyone under 40, just roll with it).

Another angle, a Christian and man who has never known God.

I know a lot of people who have called christian hypocrites for their judging everybody saying that they are stuck up perfectionists with double standards. While I have also known Christians to judge others as unworthy because they sin.

God calls to another standard. One that he shows us how to do.

He meets us at where we are at. Whether that is 10% or 99% God is there meeting you with open arms.

We all grow up in different situations, have different backrounds, like different things, have different opinions, dress differently, or speak different languages.

This is a lesson I have had to learn. before I knew God, I called Christians hypocrites. And then once I became Christian, I still have judged others.

When I first came, I was upset with people here at York. They were rude, openly talked about sex and drugs, and used foul language. As time went on though, I realized that I was just as bad they were for judging them.

In the bible Jesus eats and shows love to sinners.

Mark 2:15-17
Later that day, Jesus ate at Levi's house. There were many tax collectors and other bad people eating there with Jesus and his followers. There were many of these people that followed Jesus. The teachers of the law (they were Pharisees) saw Jesus eating with these tax collectors and other bad people. They asked Jesus' followers, "Why does he (Jesus) eat with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus heard this, and he said to them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor. It is the sick people that need a doctor. I did not come to invite good people. I came to invite sinners."

Fortunatly I have learned my lesson and I am growing more into the man God wants me to be.

So we can follow society, judge the book by its cover, and judge others because they are different. Or we can live to Gods standard, show them the love whether or not we want to.

No matter who they are, what they do, or where they come from, Meet them where they're at.

God Bless.