faith and work

Tonight I was reading James chapter 2 and it was all about faith and works. This is something that I feel is really hard to share with people because it is something that really convicts people, myself included. Almost everyone knows that salvation can be found by faith alone-but there is a depth to this I think. Yeah, we just need to have faith in order to be saved, but we need to have a true faith. True faith, in my opinion, is genuine belief in who God is, what Jesus did for us, and what the bible says. God calls us to be Christ-like. We have been given a life on earth in order to glorify God. Even though we will fall short, we can still do everything in our power to please the Lord and give back what he deserves.

"You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that-and shudder." James 2:19

This verse makes a good point. We can believe in God all day. We can believe in what he can do and how amazing he is, but what good is believing if we don't do anything about it? It's honestly no good. It's a dead faith. Here is an excerpt from a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan...

Lukewarm people don ot live by faith; their lives are structured so they never have to. They don't have to trust God if something unexpected happens-they have their savings accoun. They don't need God to help them out-they have their retirement plan in place. They don't genuinely seek out what life God would have them live-they have life figured out and mapped out. They don't depend on God on a daily basis-their refrigerators are full, and for the most part, they are in good health. The truth is, their lives wouldn't look much different if they suddenly stopped believing in God...
Jesus asks for everything. But we try to give Him less. Jesus said, "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for hte manure pile; it is thrown out." Luke 14:34-35
Jesus isn't making a cute little analogy here. He is addressing those who aren't willing to give everything, who won't follow hHim all the way. He is saying that lukewarm, halfhearted following is USELESS, that it sickens our souls.

Wow. This is so powerful! It's so blatanly obvious that it is pointless to have a faith and not do anything about it. Our Lord not only deserves our best, but he demands it. It sounds weird to say, but I don't think he wants a faith unless it is genuine. Genuine is the operative word here. From true faith, works flow. We don't have to do things for God to love us; Jesus came and died so that we didn't have to, but if we have true faith and if we truly desire to be Christ-like, we will do things that God would want from us. We will live out our faiths and not just sit in one place simply believing in God. The demons believe in God too, they just don't obey him. I know I'm better than that, and I will do something about it.

it's all about love.

This past week has been an interesting week. There have been a LOT of ups and downs. I've been very close to God and I have really been reflecting on what his will is for me, and I've been trying to figure out the best way to follow that. I can't decide what I should change in my life, I'm not sure what things I need to work on the most, and I haven't figured out what would be best for me right now. Last night as I was praying, however, I realized that it doesn't matter and that we don't need to know exactly what to do in our lives. The only thing we need to do is love and the rest will fall into place. When I say we need to love, I don't mean we need to love our friends, our family, other people, etc.-at least not first. I mean that we need to truly and honestly love the Lord, our creator.

Since becoming a Christian, I always knew that we have to love God. Heck, even non christians know that, but last night I came to realize that it's not just about knowing that we need to love our God, but we need to do it. I feel like so many people say that they're christians and so many people say they love God, but do they really? I don't even know if I can truthfully say that I loved God before, at least not in the way that he deserves.

Imagine this.
Let's say you're dating someone and it's pretty serious. You love your significant other, and they love you back. You care about this person so much, and almost nothing could change that. Now think about the idea of them loving someone else more than they love you. You still care about them and are showing them the love like before, but they aren't returning the love anymore and they've began to show it to someone else. I'm not sure if I wrote that in a way to understand, but hopefully I did, but regardless, think about how much that would hurt you. Imagine the feeling you would get if someone you loved showed someone else the love that you deserve from them. THAT'S HOW GOD FEELS ABOUT US!! We break his heart so many times, it's honestly so embarrassing and pathetic. I'm ashamed of the fact that I have shown more love to people and things in this world than I have to God. He deserves ALL of our love, not just the leftovers that we continually give him.

So I challenge you to make that your goal. Love God above all else. If you love him and give him everything he deserves, the rest will fall into place. He will bless your life in ways that you can't even imagine. Who wouldn't want that?

Anything and Everything

Well, hopefully after this post I don't continue my 3 in the morning habit.. haha.

So today was quite the day to say the least. This past month as I read my bible and prayed one of the biggest things that has come up is the idea of "all or nothing" with regards to our faiths. I've realized that in order to truly seek God, to truly experience a 'real' faith, I have to give Him my all or give him nothing at all. It seems simple, and I thought I understood it before but I didn't. It's something that, in my opinion, is the only way to feel God in the way that we are created to feel him and be with him. I've been praying and journaling a ton recently. I keep saying/writing "God, I'm yours. Do what you want with me, use me in any way you want, let me do your will while I'm here on earth." I just want to follow God's plans. I want to do anything and everything he calls me to do.

I think God has a sense of humor. Well.. I know he does. Ask and you shall receive. Today I was faced with one of the toughest decisions in my life so far. I could go with choice A and do what I wanted, I could be selfish and hang on to what I wanted for myself or else I could choose choice B and do what God has put on my heart today. I took a huge leap of faith and went with choice B. I stuck to what I've been praying and asking for. It's funny how when we truly give everything up to God and when we finally realize what life is all about, change happens almost immediately. I thought that now that I've finally gone to the next level with my faith it would take a while to feel different, it would be a while before I started noticing significant changes in my life. Nope. I asked, and I received. Choosing the choice opposite my selfish desires sucks to be completely honest. And I'll admit...I've cried a lot today. But I'm oddly calm and at peace right now, and I would even go as far as to say I'm excited. God has so much in store for my life, and everyone else's for that matter, and the things he has planned for us are far better than anything we could ever think up ourselves.

So today I will be reminding myself of how amazing God is, how perfect he is.

"Everything I once held dear, I count it all as lost... Rid me of myself, I belong to you." I feel like these lines from the song Lead Me to the Cross really hit it on the spot. Nothing matters in this world. Not one thing except for the Lord. He is our creator, our sustainer, our everything. Nothing else matters. I will praise him and do anything and everything.

the first one.

I have tried starting this first post about 7 times already, no joke. I've typed a good 2 paragraphs each time and just deleted it. I honestly have no idea what to write on here or how much to write. Do I give an introduction or summary of who I am and my life or should I just start writing about stuff? Hmmm.... I'm gonna go with a little background to who I am.

Welp, I'm 18 years old (19 in one month and two days) and I go to the University of Minnesota. I'm one of those nerdy students who actually likes school. I love to read books and have intelligent conversations. I am in love with our Lord, Jesus Christ. Every day I am honestly in awe of who he is, what he can do, and what he has done in my life and in the lives of those around me. Despite what many people think college does to a person's faith, college has helped me grow more in my faith during this past semester than I have my whole life leading up to this fall. Weird, I know.. but really cool.

I wasn't raised in a Christian home and I think I can remember going to church maybe twice before junior high/high school, but my family was very loving and they raised me to have good morals and such. In junior high I made friends that were all christians and that's when I started learning about christianity. High school was good for me, I had the same great friends and I played sports, got good grades, dated people. I was pretty much your typical high school girl, but I never really devoted much of my time or my life to God. I honestly didn't even know very much about who God was or even how he felt about me. I fell into a lot of the temptations that most kids fall into, and senior year I started to get even more into the whole party scene.

God placed someone in my life after winter break, and ever since then my life has never been the same. I've finally given my life over to the Lord and made the decision to live for Him, and not for this world. It's been the most freeing experience ever, and it has brought me SOOO much joy. Words honestly can't describe it. =) So right now, I have a new passion for Christ and everyday I learn more about Him and get even more excited about who he is. I love it!

I started up this blog because I'm learning so much and I just want to share it. I journal a lot, but my hand gets pretty tired writing everything I have to say, so I figured it might just be easier to type it out, haha. So that's pretty much about me. Wow, I think I might actually post this and not delete it. Success!