Love Christ

Sometimes it can feel like the world is just knocking you down, that everything you have known over the past couple of years has suddenly gone away. But what if that can lead to growth? Flowers are something that I picture when I think about growth. The cool thing about flowers is that they can’t grow unless another flower falls apart and drops its seeds. Only then, can the flower take root and grow. It may seem like God is taking away certain things in our lives.  Sometimes God forces us to let go of the things that we wouldn't part with ourselves. But what if they were being taken away so that we could take our root, so that we could grow?           Flowers can’t grow unless they have the nutrients they need. Just the same, we cannot grow if we do not spend time with the Lord. Just like a flower needs nutrients for food, we need to feed ourselves with the Word. And just like a flower needs to be in the right environment, we need to surround ourselves...

God has been putting words on my heart recently. At first I was confused because they were words that are common. I was like okay God, I know what these mean. But, He really challenged me to go further into what it could mean in our relationship. There are several words that He has put on my heart so this is the first part of a new series all about words! I woke up a couple of nights ago with the word love on my mind. I said, “Yes God, I know You love me.” But, that’s not what He was trying to tell me. The next day when I was doing my quiet time, I came across Psalm 5:4-5 which says,   “You are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.” Then I questioned God, how could you love the sinner if you hate sin?  He pushed me to go deeper into how this could show His love. When I think about God and I think of love, I think about His ultimate sacrifice. It makes sense that He hates sin because it is the opposite of who He is. Even though He hates s...

The world just doesn’t happen the way that we want it to. We can picture what our day is going to look like, and it may be pretty close, but there’s always something that we didn’t plan for, maybe even that we didn’t ask for.      It’s really easy to give up on God without realizing it. We slowly stop praying for something because we stop believing that it’s going to happen. We slowly stop putting our trust in God, and then we lose trust in his plan. Hearing this challenge was profound for me because I know that I have "given up" in the past.          We begin to tell ourselves that something just wasn't meant to be. That it was never going to happen. That it was never possible. We believe the lies of the devil that God just can’t do it or won't do.  We can buy into the lie that we aren't good enough or that God doesn't love us enough.                     Maybe we...

     Thinking back on times in our life, it’s always easy to appreciate how good it was after the fact, instead of right when we were in it. Sometimes I’ll look at a situation in my life and not see how good it really is, until I pass it. I don’t realize how good something is until it gets hard, until it goes away. I don’t know about you, but I am not too good at keeping New Year's Resolutions. If we’re being completely honest, it’s about a week into the new year that I’m like, “Why did I make this resolution?”  Something that I am going to do this new year is focus on one word. I don’t always acknowledge God, I’m not always grateful for the things that He does in my life. It’s hard for me to see Him working unless I sit down and think about all of my prayers, and the ones that He has answered. I want to live in the moment. It’s so easy to live life waiting for the weekend. It’s so easy to live life waiting for a vacation. It’s so easy to live life waiting.  ...

  Picture this… Going to the living room, coffee (or hot chocolate) ready, the Christmas tree turned on, music playing,  presents under the tree, everyone in matching pj’s, feeling chilly outside.  It can be hard when we break into reality. It can feel like we’ve been let down because things aren’t the way we pictured in our minds. This Christmas season looks a lot different from what I pictured. This has been something that has been weighing on me recently as Christmas gets closer because it just doesn’t feel like Christmas to me.  I’ve said so many times, “It doesn’t feel like Christmas, it doesn’t feel like Christmas.” that now, it really doesn’t. I have convinced myself that it just doesn’t feel like Christmas. It’s hard to convince ourselves out of something after we have already made our minds up that it was going to be a certain way. I found myself saying to God, “Everything is different this year, I just can’t get into the Christmas spirit. It doesn’t...

In life, there are a lot of storms. Sometimes it feels that we have been through and are going through so many storms, that it is unimaginable to face another one. While other times, we live without storms, but we’re just waiting for the next to arise. It’s really easy to fall into the idea that because we are Christians our storms will disappear. We tend to go through the motions of life and turn to God on Sundays, when we go to church. It’s not until things get tough in life that we turn to God for a relationship. Matthew 8:23-27: “Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds a...

     I tend to place the role of perfection on myself. I tend to think that I have to live perfectly to be loved by Jesus. Perfection is just not attainable no matter how hard we try. Jesu is and will continue to be the only one to live a perfect life. If we aren’t careful we can make the role of perfection into an idol. We can make this the center of our focus instead of God. I was talking to my youth leader and he said, “When we place perfection n on ourselves it is out of pride. We are saying that the cross isn’t enough.”      The cross is enough, Jesus is enough. He lived a perfect life so that we don’t have to. We don’t have to worry about placing this role of perfection on ourselves because He doesn’t ask us to. He knows that it isn’t achievable. I find that when I am really stressed or I feel alone, I turn to this idea and concept. When I turn to things that could become voids in life, it's because I have expected God to understand my without m...