Unspeakable Joy.

Recently Christ has given me a whole new perspective on life.


He has given me so much pure joy in life, joy I have never experienced before. I have learned how important spending time with my God really is. My time with God is absolutely vital in my life, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Everything in life has so much more meaning, so much more color, when I am infatuated with the Spirit. I will do my best to explain what I have been experiencing, but please understand, this kind of joy is completely unspeakable, only truly understood through experience. How exciting.


Take worship for example. Going to church week to week, thinking I can just show up and "get something" out of worship is a complete lie from Hell. If everyday we spend time in God's love letter, pour ourselves into His hand, and learn about how worthy, holy, and just completely indescribable He is, then by the time Sunday comes around, we are so filled with awe and wonder and reverence that we can't help but completely lose our composure in worship. 


Worship means so so much more to me when I constantly point my thoughts and passion into Scripture and prayer during every hour of the day. My feelings toward God are so overwhelming that I am immediately thrust into a state of passionate life changing worship each week. 


Please do not take my word on this. I am begging you. Being saturated by the Spirit of God is an experience that no one should miss out on. I am in tears as I write to you because of how badly I want you to experience the joy that comes from being saturated in the Spirit. 


I am going to attempt the impossible task of trying to explain this joy to you. 


There are many different people that attend weddings. First, there are the acquaintance relatives and friend-of-a-friend's. These people probably have spent very little time with the couple getting married, they probably will go to the wedding only because they don't have any other plans that day. They will probably sit in the back, watch the ceremony, and then leave. They have no real emotional ties to the couple, the wedding might make them smile or feel a slight, short feeling of happiness, but it soon will disappear and they will go on with normal life like nothing ever happened. 


Then there is the wedding party and the parents of the couple. These people have invested time into this wedding and into the couples lives. They have prepared some, and made sacrifices, they have given some of their lives to make this day sweet. They look forward to the ceremony and will enjoy it and maybe their lives will be slightly affected after. 


Then. Then there is the bride and groom. This is the day they have waited for their entire lives. They have put everything into this relationship and everything into preparing themselves for this day. They have sacrificed everything they possibly could for this one day. When the moment finally comes to exchange vows, there is no hiding the joy and absolute passion the bride and groom have for each other. They both have completely abandoned life as they have always known it, to spend eternity with each other because they know that all their sacrifices are completely worth it. This day and moment will change them for the rest of their lives.


I think it is no accident that God chose to call us His bride. He wants that passion, sacrifice, and pure joy from us. Everyday when we sacrifice time to spend with Him, prepare our hearts to delve into His word, and tune our ears to His whisper, we are preparing ourselves to experience a reunion with God like no other. 


Every single time we come before the Lord in worship, it should be a reminder of that day that we first exchanged our vows with Christ. When we first decided to live with Christ instead of being alone. Every time we go to worship, we shouldn't come out the same person. 


I can't even express to you the excitement that this mental picture gives me. 


The Lord wants us to experience His joy like never before, every time we worship Him. It is so much more than singing, so much more than "gathering our thoughts" or saying hi to people we haven't seen in a whole week before the message comes. Worship is our time to remember our wedding day. 


Let us never be deceived into thinking that worship doesn't really matter, or that it is only for some people but not for me, or that we don't need to prepare for worship, it just "happens". No. Satan knows how life changing sacrificial worship is. He wants with his whole being to distract us and make us believe that we don't need to be saturated in the Spirit to experience true worship. This is a lie straight from Hell. I could not use stronger words. 


God is waiting on you to be completely intertwined with Him on a daily bases. He is waiting for you to lay your composure aside and give Him your everything in worship. He has called you by name and He wants you to remember your wedding day. 


"Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready." -Revelation 19:7

Don't Settle

In a previous blog I addressed the lie of thinking that being single is a negative thing.

There is one more myth I would like to address.

"You will never find someone if you stick to those standards. You need to settle. Everyone else does it. It's the only way you will ever find true love."

False. False. False.

I wanted to write a blog on this subject now mostly because I recently had a conversation with a friend about Christians dating non-Christians and a few things caught my attention.

First of all, dating is for marriage. Completely and solely to find the person you are to spend the rest of your life with.

If you disagree, honestly that is a whole other blog topic, but I'll leave you with this.
If you're not ready to get married (age wise or financially) you shouldn't be dating. (Trust me on this one. Don't factor in time. Things go faster than you would think.)
And secondly, if you don't date for marriage, you WILL get your heart broken or break someone else's heart. At that point dating goes from fulfilling God's plan for your life into a selfish form of temporary pleasure. If you still have questions over that one facebook me I'd be happy to talk with you. :)

With that out of the way, I think we need to realize the importance of this topic. This is the second BIGGEST decision of your life. (First being when you accepted Christ's forgiveness and became an adopted Son or Daughter - again, if you have any questions, facebook me. :) I honestly believe that Satan is slowly deceiving us into blending in with the world.

Flirting is no big deal. Dating is no big deal. Marriage is no big deal. Adultery is no big deal. Divorce is no big deal.

It. Is. A. Big. Deal. Don't be deceived. Satan is slowly winning this battle and we can't let it happen. We as believers are not of this world and we need to start acting like it! It is not okay to blend in because we don't belong here!

Before I get too excited, I need to address a statement I heard earlier. "The bible says to minister the Spiritually blind, and if you had a close enough relationship with a non-Believer that you would date them, then you'd be able to minister to them even better." Now, I absolutely love the person that sent this to me and I consider them a great friend, but I respectfully disagree.

By saying that we need to act like we don't belong here I am in no way saying that we need to hide our lights under bowls. (Matt. 5:14-16) We are specifically called to be a light to the non-Believers several times throughout the Bible, but we need to be on guard. Yes, we need to build friendships with the sons and daughters of the world so that we can shine in their lives and be Jesus to them, but dating them is completely crossing the line.

If dating is solely for marriage, which I believe it is, and when you are married, the two become one, which I believe is true, how can it be possible to be one with an unbeliever??

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 says it best. I can't imagine being in a union with a person who didn't share my foundation of life, passion behind my every move and breathe, purpose of my life, hope for the future, and faith in the unseen.

I honestly believe that if you are a sold-out, in love, desperate, Christ follower, than this would be repulsive to you. You would have absolutely nothing in common with a non-Believer, your entire world would be completely different. Even if it wasn't completely against the word of God, marriage, or dating, an unbeliever would be discouraging and just miserable to both parts.

Now I realize that may have been harsh and if you don't agree, again, talk to me. :) Also, I know I only addressed part of that statement, the other referring to the benefit of ministering to an unbelieving partner.

In short, God gives us specific instructions and examples of leading people to Christ and showing them Jesus love, and oddly enough, none of those stories including the yoking of a believer to a non-believer.

In closing, don't settle. God has everything already planned out for your life (Jer. 29:11), including your spouse. So be still, know that He is God (Psalm 46:10) and don't worry about what your Heavenly Father already has completely under control. (Matt. 6:34)

"I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." -John 6:33

Don't miss out on the amazing joys God has for you in marriage. Don't forfeit God's plan and settle for your own, because honestly? Our plans for our lives are laughable compared to His. How exciting. :)

We Declare War

Shrieks of terror fill the air. The clash of armor and weapons ring out. Blood covers sweat filled pores. One by one, men fall.


We are in a war.

A young man in a dirty uniform stood, rifle loosely held in his bandaged hands. The enemy was approaching fast. 

We can not afford to be distracted.

The boy  failed to be alert to his surroundings, he was completely unaware. He turned and met his foe face to face. But only for a moment. 

Putting our guard down is fatal. 

A shot fired. The boy fell to the ground.

We can not take this lightly any longer. The Devil and his demons are upon us and they are blood thirsty. We can not stand back and pretend this isn't real. No one would dare going into a war empty handed, why do we think that we can go about life without armor? Things are happening, God is on the move and Satan doesn't like it one bit.


We are children of the Living and Active God. Our Father gives us everything we need to completely abolish Satan in his tacks, yet we constantly forget that the same power that conquered the grave LIVES IN US. This is huge. We have the power to move mountains, scatter fears, and evaporate lies. 


"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." -2 Corinthians 10:3


"If our God is for us, then who could ever stop us? And if our God is for us, what could stand against?"


Answer: Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING. :)


I wish, with all my heart, that I could wrap my mind around that thought. That nothing can stand between us and God. Not. One. Thing. 


Twisted and bloody, lifeless bodies lie motionless on the dark, smoke covered ground. Night falls. The enemy retreats, their stomachs full of satisfaction, their teeth and claws dripping with blood.


Nothing can come between us and God.


Silently, a heavy and heavenly breath consumes the battle field like a relieving mist. What once were lifeless lungs, take in breath. Slowly the field starts to move. Bodies arise with the sunlight. Eyes are opened, ears are restored, wounds are healed. The dead have come to life. 


Through Christ, we are given a second chance to fight.

A young man in a newly clean uniform stood, rifle tightly held in his strong hands. The enemy was approaching fast. 

The boy was completely alert to his surroundings, entirely aware. He turned and met his foe face to face. But only for a moment. 

A shot fired. The enemy fell to the ground.

Let's fight.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." -Ephesians 6:12

Two Isn't Always Better Than One...

"Look at you. You are such a failure. You've been single for almost a year now. No one wants to date you and no one ever will, especially if you keep your standards so high. What are you expecting, Mr. (or Mrs.) Perfect? Get real. You're going to have to settle. Everyone else does. And you better settle fast because you are the only one who isn't dating right now. Such a failure..."


Lies. Lies. Lies. 


Yet we are so quick to believe every word. We live in a culture that says you are a reject if you aren't in a relationship. Every movie, song, commercial is about "love" and being with the opposite sex. But is this really what life is all about?


Obviously not. But it's easy to get sucked into isn't it?


We treat dating like a game of Duck, Duck, Goose. Everyone sits in a circle and if your desperate enough, and loud enough, or popular enough, then you just might get tagged and chased. The same people get tagged and chased and tagged and chased and you just sit on the side lines wishing someone would tag you. Finally, someone touches your head. You don't think twice about whether or not your going to marry the person or whether their standards match up with yours, they tagged you! That's what you've been waiting for and it finally happened to you! So you run full speed ahead with very little thought and you're in the game. 


Being single is not the "mush pot" that we get stuck in every once and a while and we just have to wait it out until we can get back into the real game of boy chases girl. This is a lie from Hell. 


But why in the world would Satan lie about that? Because he knows how valuable our single years are. He knows that God has a special plan and special tasks for us to do in our single years that we can't accomplish at any other time in our life. Once those years are gone, they're gone. And Satan wants with all his heart to distract us and brainwash us into thinking those years are a curse. Because in reality? The thought of us actually believing that our single years are a gift, and following God's plan for us in our single lives scares the Devil to death. 


This is a time in our lives that we can't afford to lose. God has a list of things we need to do for Him at this point in our lives that we just can't do when we are married. It's a big deal how we choose to spend this time. This is a God given opportunity. 


You have the whole rest of your life to be with the person of your dreams. Why rush it now and impose on the few precious single years God's given you? 


We've all heard the expression, "This is your life, you only get one, spend it wisely." Or something to that extent. Well I want to change it up a bit.


This is your single life. You only get one. Spend it wisely.


"What can I say? And what can I do? But offer this heart, oh God. Completely to You."

Send Me

Tomorrow I leave for Belize. I am honestly so excited I can't even tell you. I can already feel God working through this trip. As I was thinking and preparing for this trip I was going over some of the things I would usually pray for on this trip and realized that I honestly had the wrong perspective all together. 

"Send us home safe, let everything go smoothly..." This is the first thing we usually pray for when we leave home to do God's work, but as I thought about what I was really saying I realized that safety is not what I want at all. God isn't always safe. He compares His love for us like an ocean and if you've ever been swallowed up in a wave you know that it's not the safest most comfortable experience. Bottom line is that God is not a comfortable God, so that shouldn't be my prayer. 

Instead my prayer is this. That I would be so bold that nothing could stop me from spewing Jesus everywhere! I WANT God to change my plans. I want everything to fall apart because I do NOT want to be comfortable. When do we fall asleep? When we are most comfortable. That's great when we go to bed, but spiritually, what a nightmare! I want to be anything but comfortable because I don't want to miss out on anything.

Another thing we pray for is that God would show up or that God would work. Hellloooo. God ALWAYS shows up! He has NEVER once failed in that area and I doubt that He would all the sudden decide not to show up one day. The real problem is that we are so distracted by our pride and apathy that we can't hear or see God even though He shows up every time! So let's stop praying that God would work or that God would show up and start praying that we would set aside ourselves and lay everything on the line to hear His voice! Let's be sensitive to His calling and let Him work in us! Let's make ourselves nothing so that God can be our everything. 

Thirdly, we need to take it seriously. I feel like so much of the time we go through the motions of the trips or camps and we rely on God to bring everything to the table for us. We expect Him to change us just because we are simply getting on a bus or plane. And don't get me wrong! He does change us and He does use us, but how much more could He use us if we prepared our hearts to meet Him, if we eagerly and constantly sought Him out every second, can you even imagine?? We need to take these opportunities seriously. Not everyone gets the chance to go on these trips, how tragic would it be to just go through the motions and not soak up everything God had to offer! 

Lastly, our mission does not start or end because we went on a trip somewhere. This world is FULL of people that we come into contact with every day that are walking DEAD. We talk to and interact with people everyday that are going to Hell if we don't set aside our pride and the risk of an awkward situation to save souls! Someday we are all going to see Jesus face to face and He is going to point out every situation and opportunity we had to change someones eternity and He is going to tell us the heartbreaking story of how we sold that opportunity because we were blinded by our selfishness and our pride. I don't want to be the person who sold that amazing gift of sharing Jesus because I was scared of an awkward situation or of my own safety. 

So God, I pray for boldness. I am begging you to crush my pride. I thank you for the opportunities I know you will give me and for the hearts I know you have already prepared. I pray that you would make me so small that all anyone can see is you. I pray that I would carry Jesus name where ever I go. I pray that I would never underestimate your power and your plan. Destroy my expectations. God, send me.

Walk by Faith

Okay. So I was doing my Beth Moore study and she was talking about walking by faith and not sight. How many times have we heard the passage "Walk by faith, not by sight." Like a million right? But this time I read it and something clicked. 

In the back of my mind I had always viewed this verse like, oh I can't use my eyes because God said not to so I guess I'll kinda sorta stumble through life and see if I can make it on just faith, like when a blind person has to use their other senses to make up for the lost one, my faith will eventually get strong because I can't use my eyes. This is so back words! 

I read that same verse again that I have been reading like my whole life and I now finally understand what it means. Our faith should be so out front, so bold, so much stronger than any other sense that we have that we automatically don't need our eyes at all! In fact, our faith should be such a vital part of our lives that any other sense, including sight, would dumb down our faith and put it in a box. 

In reality, our eyes are not a tool that God says we "can't use", they are hindrances that put our faith in a box. 

It's like when you are reading a book with no pictures, as you read you let your mind imagine what things and places and people look like and sound like, you have very little rules of what to imagine and your brain just runs with it. But as soon as we see that book played out in a movie, or see the pictures in the back of the book, our versions of what we perceived in our minds are immediately confined to a box and "rules" are placed on what the things, people, and places, look like, smell like, sound like, etc. 

It's the same with our faith. Spiritual sight is not something we are deprived of, it is something that God knows we as humans couldn't handle, we would use it to put God and faith in a box. 

I don't know if that made sense or if it's just me, but I had never seen that verse in that way before and it blew my mind. :)

I don't have time...

I'm so busy now and days"..."I can't seem to find time"..."I will try again when my life calms down"...

A lot of people have used this excuse, including myself when it comes to God. It's true, life comes fast, and time runs out, but I honestly believe that this is not our problem. 

Not having enough time for God is not the reason why we don't spend time with Him.

I honestly believe with all my heart that the reason we skip quiet time, forget to pray, or read the bible is not because we ran out of time, it's because we forget who God is. We as believers forget the need we have for our God. We forget how huge, how massive, how exciting, and how active our God is. We don't believe that God is who He says He is, or that God can do what He says He can do.

I have so so much to say on this topic so I will try to keep it short and not tear up but that's how much this topic means to me. 

If we truly realized and understood who our God is then we would never need the excuse of "I don't have time" or "I'm not motivated." The truth is that we have priorities and God, most of the time, just isn't one of them. We have completely forgotten the state we are in. We need God. Let me say that again. We need God. I still don't think you got it completely. We NEED God. NEED. As in we are desperate for God to work and live and be active in our lives. Desperate! Yet for some reason we are trapped into thinking that God is a God who is "in the background, there to listen when we need Him, but doesn't really matter when it comes to every day" kind of God. This is a lie from the pit of HELL.

We have a God who gave us LIFE when we were DYING. Who SAVED our SOULS from condemnation. This is not a small thing, yet it has been so watered down for us. Jesus is no longer the powerful sacred name of our Savior. Jesus is a name the preschoolers in Sunday school say so they can have an extra cracker.

Once I was talking with a few of my friends about what God was doing in the church and I was about to say the name "Jesus" and I stopped myself and said, out loud, "I don't like saying Jesus, it's really powerless to me." I couldn't believe the words that came out of my mouth! Jesus. The name above any other, was powerless?? Yet we as a generation believe it. The name Jesus is more often than not used as "the Sunday school answer" than a name that moves mountains, heals the sick, and brings life to the dead. I can not tell you how much this saddens my soul. We no longer have the reverence or the awe of the name,Jesus. Yet we expect to automatically have the drive to proclaim His name to the world?? How can we preach when we don't have the passion?? We need to fix the root issue, our perspective.

Brothers and sisters, when I say we, I am including myself. I am constantly blinded to the massiveness of God. We can NOT let this happen! How are we supposed to have passion in the church when we worship a watered down God?? We need. Need. NEED. NEED. To wake up and throw ourselves down before the God of the universe, the God who, at a thought, created the WORLD. He is no small God. We are desperate for Him, DESPERATE. We NEED Him to use us for His will and for His glory. He has got to be everything to us. Everything. 

Believers, we have the privilege to spend time with our Savior. Let us never take that for granted. Let's fix our perspective. If we truly believed that God was who He says He is, and that He does what He says He can do, then God would be our everything, we would never have to fit Him into our schedule again, because He is what we live for. If that isn't completely and terrifyingly exciting then I don't know what is.

So next time you think you don't have time, think again.