You Lead, I'll Follow (Re-post from March 2013)

There’s those times in my life, when I’m going along and start to take my hand from my Jesus’. I try to walk on my own. This is my life, I can lead right??? WRONG! 
He knows what tomorrow holds because He holds tomorrow. He’s there already. Give it up, give it to Him. We can’t handle this world on our own. We aren't strong enough. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:9,  "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Don’t give up when you fall. Proverbs 24:16,  "For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief." 
I am constantly struggling with stumbling over my past mistakes. God tries to use me and I’m asking Him how he could ever use me after something I've done in my past. I ask in pain, how? How on earth could He use me or want to use me for anything? But, God looks at me and tells me, He knows nothing about what I’m talking about. It’s forgiven. I’m forgiven. As far as the east is from the west. I’m forgiven. 
It shouldn't be, “Will God lead?”, it’s really, “God will lead.” There’s no question to if He’ll lead or not, the real question is, “Will I follow?” Psalms 139:10-12, "Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee." It doesn’t matter how dark your corner of the world is, how far away you’ve gotten from Him, or if you think He wouldn’t want you anymore. He can see you. He wants us. He loves us. He paid the ultimate price for us.  
When I’m down, feeling like I can’t take this world anymore, I’ve taken my eyes off of my Jesus and started looking at everything around me. I start worrying about those mole hills that I see “growing”. Those mole hills force me to my knees before Christ confessing my worrying. Worrying is not the greatest thing to do. God has told us not to worry. Not to fear because He is with us. Psalms 27:1,  "A Psalm of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" He’ll lead us. We just have to follow. 

I like to sit in my comfort zone, as I’ve said before, but God has His ways of getting me out of that comfort zone. It’s one of His ways to give me a humble heart. I’ll be the first to say I have a lot of pride.  I forget how big my God is and how little I am. My pride is one of the ways my heart rebels from my Jesus. Rebellion gets you nothing worth having. 
Everyday is a second chance. A new day to walk closer to God than I did the day before. I fail, but I’ve been made new in Christ.
God will lead, I’ll follow, because His hands hold tomorrow. Just knowing that my Jesus holds tomorrow helps me through everyday.
Let God lead.

~Beautifully Created 4 Christ~
~Psalms 139:14~

Let God Move

Psalms 27:14 
“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say on the Lord.” 

He’s still wooing this heart of mine after all I’ve done wrong. He’s still using me, even though I fail Him each and everyday. He works in me even when I think I haven’t tried hard enough. I got to see God work this year.
I’ve been doing ministry this Summer and it’s been easier to walk with God because I was around other Christians who encouraged me to keep my eyes on Christ. When you go home and you get back into the “Routine” of life it’s so easy to get away from God again. God worked on me this Summer, He’s still shaping and molding me. He showed me things in my life that I needed to get right and get rid of. He worked on a lot of the young adults that were out serving this Summer. I’m praying we all keep our eyes focused on the cross. We need to cling to the cross if we hope to stay true to Him. It’s so easy to get away from God, especially when we let life overwhelm us with different things that happen. I’m still learning to how to nail it to the cross. I have a way of letting issues seem bigger than God. I forget that He’s the creator of the universe, but He still has me in His hands. I let issues weigh my heart down and I worry WAY too much.  I am weak. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10  “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” But, because I’m weak He can use me. 
My dad taught the bible study at my church a couple of weeks ago it was on fasting and prayer and a couple of verses he used really impacted me. Joel 2:12-13  “Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:   And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.”  What really stuck out to me is where it says to “rend your heart”. Rend means to tear. We’re to turn to God and tear our hearts open to Him. Get on our knees before Christ with every issue life has to offer. 
Take your spiritual bat and smash the discouragement, the worrying, everything Satan will try to use to get your eyes off the Cross. 
So, when your tempted to compromise and go back on a commitment you made to Christ, DON’T. Get on your knees and tear your heart open to Christ. 
There are those times when there’s something on my heart and I pray and it just feels like God isn’t listening, but He does something like He did today to show me that He's still listening. I was listening to music on my laptop while cleaning my room and a song came on that I’ve never heard before it’s called Stand Still. The words stopped me, literally. He was talking to me, telling me to stand still and let Him move.  

Verse 1:

The Father has a plan. Though it's hard to 

see it now 

You feel you're walking all alone. 

But He is there no doubt 

When the storm around you rages, 

And you're tossed to and fro 

When you're faced with life's decisions, 

Not sure which way to go 

Chorus:

Stand still and let God move, 

Standing still is hard to do 

When you feel you have reached the end, 

He'll make a way for you 

Stand still and let God move 

Verse 2:

When the enemy surrounds you, And the walls 

are closing in 

When the tide is swiftly rising, And you wonder

where He's been 

Friend, there never was a moment, That His arms

weren't reaching out 

You can rest assured and be secure, God is moving

right now

I know this post was probably hard to understand because I'm extremely tired, but I'm standing still and letting God move. God is in control no matter what and I forget that He can see the bigger picture. Isaiah 55:8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." 

Proverbs 3:5-6 

  "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

~Beautifully Created 4 Him~

~Philippians 1:6~

{God Will Supply}

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, and that you can see every emotion you’re feeling through them. Something I saw a lot of the past month is eyes.
The mission trip was indescribable. Each town we stopped in brought more eyes hurting, desperate, empty, and hungry for Christ. The blitz team dove into a country full of abused children, broken families, and demonic activity. A county where you can find lost souls around every corner. A place where there’s children who don’t know the song Jesus loves me, that Jesus really loves them, or that God wants to save them not destroy them. This is my mission field. God has called me to this mission field and that is where I’m going. {America.}
  We seem to over look the fact that the country right here is lost. LOST. Going straight to the pits of Hell, and yet we tend to look down on those God calls to America saying, “Well, you’re not really a missionary if you’re not called to a foreign country.” Hog wash. God is calling me to the places in America where no one wants to go. I want to charge Hell with a water gun! It’s not anything we said that saved these people, it was God convicting their hearts. We weren’t doing this for us, or the couple who were taking us to these places we were doing it for God. We weren’t getting paid, we volunteered. This is what I’m called to do and I know God will supply all I need. Phlippians 4:19  “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Matthew 6:33  “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Mat 6:34  Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”)
You know a lot of the blitz team could have been home this Summer making money, going swimming, and taking it easy after being in school. But, they didn’t. They knew God had a bigger mission for them and they yielded to God’s burden to win souls to Him. Some of them quit their jobs to spend their summer spreading the gospel of Christ. We sometimes let job security get in the road of what God wants us to do and try to make a safety net for ourselves. It’s not our job to do that. Money is not our security. God will supply.
 {God is our safety net.}
The blitz team has a mission this Summer. A mission to reach as many people as we can. We’ve been doing bible clubs for 4 weeks now and we’ve had 117 bible clubs, 3085 kids enrolled, and 963 people saved. That’s not including the bible clubs we had the week of SMITE, where we had 382 kids saved. We were also able to give away about 900 bibles. {God supplied.}
Our first week on Blitz we were in Hattiesburg Mississippi, and one of the places my team was going to do a bible club was this trailer park. This wasn’t just a trailer park. This trailer park needed to be condemned 5 times over. People were still living there though. Children were there. That’s why we go. Because even though you may be able to smell the liquor on the parents, or that there’re on drugs, the kids are hungry for God’s word.
You could see in the eyes of the children we got to know that they needed the kind of love that they never get. Christ like love. Through those eye I saw emptiness, joy, sorrow, relief, anger, and hurt. I only pray that they saw only Jesus through ours. (Matthew 5:16  “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”)

God will supply.

In Mississippi we were doing a bible club at a children’s home where we had 29 15 - 19 year old boys and girls. That was different because I’m use to having bible clubs for kids that are a lot younger. But, that was one of my favorite clubs out of the whole month. A 17 year old girl who was 5 months pregnant accepted Christ along with 4 other young adults. You could see the hurt in these kids eye, the longing for something better.
I was also told that week by a girl who had just turned 17, “You’re focusing too much on Christ. You’re only just turning 18 you have your whole life ahead of me. You can do whatever you want. You’re worshipping God and that’s great, but He wants you to have fun.” I tried to explain that serving God was the most amazing thing you could ever do. Serving Christ is seriously the most fun I ever have. (Deuteronomy 30:16  “In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.” Deuteronomy 30:20  “That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”) She didn’t understand it though. That week I was so nervous about doing a bible club for teenagers and afraid I wouldn’t have the words to say. God supplied.

{God’s work, done in God’s way, never lacks God’s supply.} 

This is my mission field. This is where God is calling me, and until He changes that, this is where I’ll serve. I’m praying God will open up the doors for me to go into full time ministry. But, until then my next stop is New Orleans with the Blitz team. I leave next Friday, my birthday. I can’t imagine a more awesome way to spend my birthday. I ask that everyone prays for us as we go out to do more bible clubs in New Orleans.

Give Jesus Your {ALL}

  I can’t see a difference between this world and the Children of God anymore. It’s like they went into hiding and we’re taking for granted that Jesus died for us.  As if the Son of God came to earth, was born in a manger, grew up perfect, had all the temptations man had and still remained perfect, was beaten, mocked, hurt, and was pierced with a spear,  like it’s just a normal thing. It’s saddening to see how cold and indifferent the American Christians have become. Is it that we’re too afraid? Or maybe just don’t want to be rejected, looked down upon, or mocked. Why is it so easy to turn our backs on the One who gave it all?
This world is NOT our home, we’re just passing through. We take this world and expect to be in it and partake of everything it tries to offer us. We can’t be a servant of two masters. It doesn’t work. Matthew 6:24  "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."  You can’t serve the world and be a servant of God. You’re either for Him or against. He gives everyone a free choice. He doesn’t force us to believe in Him. He didn’t want robots, He wants us to love Him of our own free will.
My Jesus gave His life for me, He gave His life for you, the least we can do is follow Him. Isaiah 53:5  "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."
We get sucked into this world. It tries to woo us and we fall for it’s temporary happiness. So soon we forget the immeasurable joy and the peace that passes all understanding that only comes from Jesus Christ.
Jesus didn’t ask for part of your heart, He asks for it {ALL}. He didn’t ask for part of your life, He asks for it all. He asked you to give Him your all. He gave His all. His all was on the cross. Isaiah 53:6  "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."
We owe Him everything. We owe Him our minutes, our hours, our days, our words, our actions, our thoughts. We should give Him our {ALL}. It’s not easy. A lot of times I just have to grit my teeth and hold on. Gal 6:7-9  "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
  For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."
The believers of this Nation, that’s including me and everyone else who believes on Jesus Christ, are pathetic. We act like we’re secret agents with our faith. Like it’s our secret identity and no one is suppose to know. Don’t go mission impossible on God because everything is possible with Him.
Standing for Christ may make us martyrs, but if you have received Christ as your Savior, you just get promoted to Heaven!Philippians 3:20-21  "For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." If we don’t stand for Christ {WHO WILL}?
This world should KNOW we are Christians. God calls every believer to share the gospel. No one is unreachable. There’s no lost cause. Don’t give up on anyone. Plant those seeds, water those seeds, and pray.
Sometimes it may seem like that person you’re trying to be a Christ like example for is just not getting it, not listening, and just not worth the sacrifice. You know what, just grit your teeth and give it your all. God’s word will never go void. Our labor in Christ is never in vain.
Stand and give Jesus your all.

~Beautifully Created 4 Christ~