First,Second & Third

Well it's been a while since I've last posted.. A little thing called life got in my way, we all know how that feels. I've been sick for the past week or so, and I finally decided I would put my time that I've had to good use and write again.


What I'm going to write about is something that EVERY Christian deals with, and it just so happens it's my turn to deal with it now.. It's real and it's hard and it takes a lot of work to deal with.


Growing up you always hear the phrase "family comes first" it's something I always  heard as a kid, something I still hear a lot as a young adult. For me being a Christian, every time I hear that phrase I think to myself "that's not exactly true..".


The reason why that's not true is because God comes first. There's no way around that, you can't say "Well God's mostly first in my life so we are all good now." He can't be mostly first, He's either first or not. No gray area here.


It should seem simple to put God first, I mean He sent His Son to die for you right? So it shouldn't be a problem keeping Him first simple because among everything else He is worthy of being first.


Exodus 20:3 "You shall have no other gods before me." This verse is a part of The 10 Commandments, something we ought to live by.. Now when God says "You shall have no other gods before me." He doesn't JUST mean don't literally worship another idol like a stone statue or something like that. This applies to everything.

And I do mean literally everything.. Did you know your cell phone can be a idol? You may not worship it and call it 'master' but if you spend 24/7 texting and you can't go 10 minutes without freaking out because you don't have your cell phone.. That's a problem. Anything you put above God is a idol, computer,television,facebook,friends,anything.. And the problem is? You might be so caught up in enjoying all that, you don't even realize the fact that your putting something else above God.

We often forget how big of a deal the fact is that Jesus died for us.... I heard someone say the other day "The biggest miracle in your life will always be the fact that Jesus died for you." And we tend to forget how powerful that really is.

So let me ask, is God your first? If He's not then He gets pushed out to second.. Then He gets pushed to third and it keeps going on a downward spiral like that until He uses something to make you realize He needs to be first. And when you put & keep Him first, He blesses you for it.

So I don't know what the point of writing this was, maybe it's to make you question if God really truly is first in your life.. And if He's not first, honestly? I don't have the answer to suddenly make Him first. Oh how I wish I did, but I don't. 

All I can say is that no matter how YOU feel? Hold Fast..Keep.pushing.towards.Him. And He WILL bless that.

The Domino Affect

There's a song by Casting Crowns called "If We Are The Body".... I encourage you to listen to it.
The chorus goes -
"But if we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching?
Why aren't His hands healing?
Why aren't His words teaching?
And if we are the body
Why aren't His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?
There is a way"

For me that song really hits home... Do me a favor- think of somebody Christian who has made a huge positive impact in your life-You wouldn't be who you are without them..

That person has helped you in ways that you can never repay them for, all because they knew that being a part of the body of Christ means reaching out, helping people, doing just as Jesus would do.

What do you think Jesus would do if He was here today and walked among us? What do you think He would say about this generation?

Honestly? If we as Christians are frustrated at this generation.. How do you think Jesus would feel?

Heartbroken is a understatement- seeing that the generation He died for has come to this? Seeing that this generation is creating it's own downfall? & if you don't think this generation needs some serious saving, go read some of the news.. You'll find out pretty fast why I say the words I do..

Now please don't think I'm trying to point fingers and blame everyone else but myself.. That's not my heart.. What I'm writing is something I need to do more too. So it's not just for you, it's for me as well.

But you wanna know what else I think He would see? Hope- hope that this generation isn't to far gone.. That this generation isn't too messed up to be saved.. God is far bigger than our messed up generation..

I also think He would tell us to start acting upon what we are called to be..

Your called to be a world changer.. Act on it.

Someone I know the other day posted a quote on Facebook.. He said "Jesus is found in the loving hug." I couldn't love this statement anymore.

So many times we forget how much the small things mean.. When I say your called to be a world changer? That doesn't mean doing something radical.. It might sometimes- but the small things have the power to change so much.. As Mother Teresa said "If you can't feed 100 people, then feed just one."

Start by making it a point to each day take one small step of kindness towards somebody. And who knows? That one act of kindness- who's to say it won't start a domino effect? You never know.

So I encourage you, be bold. Take that extra step towards kindness.. Being a part of the body of Christ means among other things reaching out- Sharing the love of Christ because YOU personally know how amazing it is and you want everyone to be a part of that. BE that person that reaches out and shows love.. Do just as Jesus would do.. And when you do that? It's so rewarding.. Not only for the person who you show the love of  Christ too, but to you as well. It's a amazing rewarding feeling..Something beyond words..Something that makes you want to do that constantly..
So I encourage you to act upon your calling, as a world changer.

I leave you with this quote. You may have heard it before.. But instead of just reading it this time? Make it your prayer and act on it.
"Preach the gospel always.. Use words only when necessary."

Don't lose the plot

These lyrics come from the song Lost the plot-Newsboys.. I encourage you to check it out, good song. Even greater message:

"Once we could hear you,

Now our senses are shot.

We've forgotten our first love.

We have lost the plot."

In that song when they say they have forgotten their first love they're not talking about some highschool crush or anything like that. They're talking about Jesus, and how HE was your first love. & that He should STILL be your first love.

Please don't think of me as the person who points fingers and has no faults. Because I also do this often, I forget to love God. I lose the plot. I do it more than I like to admit, I forget that in order to do what God wants me to do, He HAS to be my first love.. But that's why I can say what I'm saying because I've been there and know how easy it is to lose our first love, so everything I say in this post is out of love.

It's sometimes easier than said to keep Jesus as your first love constantly;

Do something for me; think of someone you love dearly other than God.. It might be one of your parents,a friend,or even your spouse. Now think of a time they asked you to do something for them, simple or complicated. Let me ask; when your doing that task, do you forget to love them? Do you forget to say to them 'I love you'? Do you forget the fact that your doing that favor for them out of love? Do you forget about that person and only focus on the task and not think about why your doing it? It seems really harsh to think about someone doing that. Someone forgetting to love their parent,spouse or friend. Yet we do it all the time to God. We get so consumed by the task we forget who gives us the strength and the reason to do it.

It's a painful thought to think about, but each time we do this? We break God's heart..

In simple terms; God loves us more than we can fathom.. He loves us more than we can comprehend. He was so crazy about us that He sent His son to die for us.Romans 5:8 says "But God demonstrated His love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us."(NIV)

His thoughts towards you are as countless as the grains of sand on the beach. He wants nothing but the absolute best for His child... He wants to be that first love in our life.. He doesn't want us to lose the plot anymore.

So I urge you to take 5 minutes out of your day.. There is 86,400 seconds in a day.. I think we can spend 5 minutes, 300 seconds, just telling God that we love Him. It's something that I'm going to commit to doing.. And if your like me and stink at getting your words out the right way, it doesn't have to be fancy.. Saying the words "I love you God" and meaning it 150% can be more than enough.

These 4 words I'm going to leave you with are so simple, yet so easy to forget, but more than anything else SO crucial- Don't lose the plot.

The Motivational Half-Time Speech

I believe this is a good time to put in a quote from one of my favorite movies-The Incredibles "Well don't just stand there!! I need you to intervene!!!" To most this may seem like just another normal quote, but today I'm gonna take this and run with it.

You ever see something happening, like a person carrying something heavy and you just know you should go over and help them? That little voice inside of you says "Maybe I should go help them." and then you act on that and you actually go help them when they needed help but nobody else offered?

I feel like that's what God is saying to this generation. OUR generation. He is saying to us "YOUR generation is falling flat on it's face, the world is heading towards destruction.. What are you gonna do about it?"

Something is wrong with this world, it's majorly sick.. And it needs God to get it back on track.. If you don't believe me when I say this world is sick, go read some news articles and you'll find out pretty fast that what I just said is true.

Please don't take offense to the words I just said. I said those words because I KNOW we can change our generation, I KNOW we can have better days with God's help. All of this is coming out of a place of love.

Our generation CAN be the world changing generation, we CAN be the generation that sees revival.

Every person has the potential to change the world. I know you've heard it. I know it sounds crazy. But it's true. You can change the world. Your not to small or to weak or to messed up to change the world. God uses those things your struggling with to make you stronger, for His glory. Where we are inadequate, He is MORE than adequate. Where we are weak, He is strong.

You can change the world. You have the power that raised Christ from the dead, LIVING inside you. That very same power inside of you? defeated death. 

I can never fully wrap my head around this concept. But I know it's true. I believe it 150%. I know for a fact I'm not the only one.

I believe God is calling us to act together to make Him known and have less of this world and more of Him.

A big part of this that I learned last night is unity, we need to join together. There is strength in numbers.

I'm not saying this will be easy. There will be struggles, there will be hard times. But with God by our side we CAN'T fail. 

"And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us? And if our God is with us then what could stand against?" -Chris Tomlin.

So to my generation; I'm joining the fight. I'm ready to let God use me to change this world. I believe we are called to be set apart. We are called to be the light in the darkness. I have hope for our generation. It CAN by God's grace be saved.

God's calling us to intervene.

The question is-Will you join me? Will you accept that call to be set apart? Accept that call to be world changers? Will you rely on Him and Him alone to give you the tools you need to do what He has planned for you? Because if you do, He has stuff in store for you beyond your wildest dreams. Things you can't even begin to imagine.

To my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who have already accepted the call. Thank you for accepting the call, God will use you. I pray that you continue to rely on Him for strength and keep it up. Don't loose faith. We will have more numbers. Greater times are coming.

Your almost there; Don't look back

Cool people don't look back right? In all the action movies when there is a explosion I've noticed a continuing pattern, nobody looks back. They often show a clip of the main character walking away from the explosion with their back to the blast and they don't look back- not even a quick glance.

So I'll say it again- Cool people don't look back right? I imagine if they look back it would take away the effect/make it much less dynamic.

Well this is what we as PEOPLE should be doing. not just us Christians,but the entire human race. In fact we should take it one step further and not walk all calm like nothing ever happened- we should be running  for dear life from the explosion.

Imagine this with me for a minute- the explosion is our past sin; constantly right on our tail- attempting to make itself loud and clear.. Attempting to make it so that we never forget it.

We all have a past. We all have a past filled with joyful happy memories, we all have a past filled with anguish and sin. Everyone wants to move ahead from that past. They want to move on to something bigger and greater.

Let me make this clear: You CANNOT move forward unless you let your past go. It may work for a while to avoid it and attempt to erase it from your mind, but somewhere, somehow you are reminded of what you once did. And more often than not, the time you are reminded of your sin is terrible- you feel like the timing couldn't possibly have been any worse.

Let me put this in a better example- you know when you get a new shirt and it has the annoying tag you have to cut off? Imagine NOT cutting it off. It would drive you insane. Every time you move you can feel it causing you pain. You would get so used to that stabbing pain because there's nothing YOU can do about it, so you eventually forget what it's like to live without it and just conform to it.

This is what holding on to our sin does. It causes us pain, annoying pain. It's constantly on your mind, it's always trying to make itself known. Before long you just decided to give up or sometimes you might fight it like crazy and tire yourself out and eventually end up giving up. The theme is you almost always give up and just quit.

The bad part about giving up? Your broken and sometimes it so severe that your just trying to find a way to live one minute to the next.

The good part? In the brokenness you can find wholeness- there is someone who died for YOU. We use the term 'to die for' almost to lightly sometimes- like this "That dinner I had the other day, was amazing. You had been there, it was to die for."

Someone I know once said "Someone saw something inside of you that was good enough to die for." and he meant those words.

God saw something inside of YOU that was good enough to die for; He saw the value inside of you, so He sent his son Jesus to die for that. Jesus saw that very same value inside of you and loved you so much He went through with the unimaginable agony just for YOU. He knew you would struggle with whatever your struggling with now, but He died so that you can get through it and LIVE and embrace that value and use it to serve God.

I know that letting your sin go is easier said than done, I really do. It took me a few times of falling flat on my face to get it. But I got it, and it's never to late to change.I found strength and hope in Jesus to keep going on and giving my sins and burdens to Him. It's not just a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It's daily. Everyone sins daily, the important thing is giving them to Jesus to deal with. After all He was the one who died for you.

Sometimes there are consequences that come along with dealing with that sin. People call it 'God punishing them', That's not what it is at all. A father disciplines the one He loves. If you don't get told it's wrong how will you know to not do it again?

God wants to be there for you. But sometimes you need to realize that you are sinning by not letting your past sins stay dead, where they should be. Then you realize that you NEED to change your patterns and take my advice and change them like your life depends on it, because sometimes it does if that sin is serious enough. It's NEVER to late. No sin is to small OR to big for God. He can move mountains. It's between God and you what that sin is, but trust me. God is stronger than that sin, He's strong enough to save you. So much stronger.

Do your best and lean on God to take care of the rest and ask Him to help keep you out of that sin. Once you do that and believe it 100% then your slate is clean.

Ezekiel 36:26-2"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove you from your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."

Your sin has NO power over you anymore. It is just an attempt by Satan to take you off the path God has put you on. The power that raised Christ out of the grave lives in YOU.

I mean these words with everything I have in me- YOU are the redeemed. Live like it.

Do me a favor and listen to this song after you've read this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ0zxQ-fmfo

This is YOUR life

These are lyrics from a song called This is your life by Switchfoot:


This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be?
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose.

Do me a favor & take a minute and ask yourself, "Am I who I want to be?". It doesn't take me long to answer that question for me.. The answer is no; I am not who I want to be & I'm not who God wants me to be fully yet either. I guarantee alot of people would answer 'no' as well, not just me. 

Well now what? after I've said no, what am I suppose to do? 

Don't get me wrong, I think in every Christians life they KNOW a few things they absolutely have to do. And that feeling of just knowing what your doing is right is an amazing feeling. I want to wake up everyday and know that what I'm going to do that day, is my purpose. I want to be able to say "This right here? It's who God wants me to be. It's who I am." and I'm sure a few people can agree with me on my previous statement and my next- Living out God's purpose is one of the best things in the world.

Everything in your life, the heartaches, the victories, the failures, the stumbles, the recovery's,every moment, God is going to turn into something good. I'll say it again,- just in a different way-, every part of your life, big and small God put there for a reason-To slowly shape you into who He intended you to be. All because He knows for a fact you CAN be that person.

Jeremiah 29:11 says "For I know the plans I have for you" Declares the Lord "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future" That verse says it all right there. He has a plan for you to be that person.

Every now and then we may get little glimpses of what were suppose to do. Sometimes God might even show us something major that were gonna be/do. I know more than a few people He's told about their future some, me included (that's for some other time though). The point is that; it's there. He has a future for us, a point where we are who we want to be & who He wants us to be. It's achievable. 

Honestly? If I knew all the answers to magically be that person, I would tell you. But I don't.. But what I do know is that someday? As long as we acknowledge Him in all our ways(Proverbs 3:6); He will shape us into that person. Someday, as long as we follow Him? We WILL be at that spot where we wake up and say "This right here? It's who God wants me to be. It's who I am." It's achievable. It's not THAT far out of reach.

The situation for each and every one of us is the same, yet unique all in one:

The same part- God has a plan for us to be someone greater than we are now. We all want to get there. 

The unique part- How we go about it, and who God wants us to be is not like anyone else. We all have a different piece that makes up the body of Christ. We all contribute something unique.

So I leave you with you with one question to think of the answer too;

1. Are you going to let God make you into that person? God WILL change your life, only if you let Him.

This is YOUR life. Your life is precious; don't waste it.