God, you always get me!

Okay so you all know how stubborn I am by now and its so funny how God knows exactly how to show me that I'm wrong. Lately, my life has been extremely stressful and it's been so easy for me to just complain about every little thing that goes wrong during my day. At first, I just thought that it was a good thing to vent and let it all out, but now I've realized that I'm just making my life seem worse when I'm truly blessed.

1Thessalonians 5:18 says, "Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus." I have so much to be thankful for why should I complain about such temporary things? 2 Corinthians 4:19 says, "So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever." This verse just reminds me of how little these things matter in the big picture.

I've never really looked at complaining as sin before, but now I know its one of the unconfessed sins in my life which God had to bring to my attention the hard way. I called my mom after I had a lot of mishaps during one day and instead of saying, "poor emily" she said to me that I should stop and count my blessings. I was furious. How could she say something like that when everything was going wrong? Later on in the evening after bible study, I was complaining once again and two of my good friends both pointed out the fact that my complaining was only making things worse. It took three people and one terrible day for God to finally convince me that I'm sooo stupid for complaining when I'm sooo blessed.

He has showed me that He blesses me with enough. In  2Corinthians 12:9 Paul says, 'But he said to me, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.' It's amazing to know that its only by God's grace that he works through us because we are weak and we need Him. So we know its truly Jesus' power that rests on us when we are weak and instead of complaining we should embrace his infinite power!

Guarding your heart

Okay so I've become really upset with a woman's blog I happened to stumble upon. It suggests that the power lies within yourself to guard your heart. This is FALSE!!! The power lies within JESUS! uuhhhhh!!! really????  To quote a paragraph from her blog:   
"Maybe it is second emotional virginity that you are looking for, and you want to take steps in guarding your heart for Mr. Right? No matter what it is you are seeking in regards to chastity, it all starts within YOU. You control your heart, soul, and mind. It is yours to protect, and, one day, it will be yours to give."
YOU DO NOT CONTROL YOUR HEART, SOUL, AND MIND!!! WE are sinful and cannot do this on our own the only way our hearts can be guarded is if we completely surrender them to the power of Jesus Christ!!! HE is PERFECT and HOLY!!! HE knows our heart better than we do. In Jeremiah it says our hearts are deceitful. How can we be in control of our own heart, soul, and mind when we can deceive ourselves!! He created us so he obviously knows our hearts better than we do! The truth is, we cannot guard our hearts, HE has to. AND if your heart is after God's own heart, then it's not yours to give away anyway. And he will guard our heart,  IF we are seeking him and allowing him to have the control of our every need and desire. He will not lead us to sacrifice our precious emotions to just anyone. He knows the plans he has for us and they are good. Trust Him, not yourself ladies.

Don't Be in A Hurry: A devotional from Leslie Ludy

So many young women I talk to feel that the moment a guy shows interest in them, they are in an “urgent” situation and need to make a quick decision.  This exposes their desperation; their fear that if they don’t jump on a good opportunity, they’ll miss their only chance for true love.  It shows a lack of faith in the Author of romance.  Remember that if His plan for you is marriage, He is more than capable of keeping a guy’s interest, even if it takes months or years for you to finally give him the go-ahead.  A man who is truly worth his salt knows that you are worth the wait, and won’t put pressure on you to make a quick decision.  Jacob worked for Rachel for fourteen years and they seemed “but a few days for the love that he had for her.” (Gen. 29:20-28)  If God truly desires a relationship to happen, you don’t need to rush or feel pressure to open the door to a guy.  When a guy shows interest, the first thing to do is spend an ample amount of time in prayer and seeking Godly counsel.  I don’t just mean praying for a day or two.  I mean diligent, persistent seeking of God’s wisdom and heart for the situation.  Ask His Spirit to show you whether this is truly His highest and best for your life.  Remember that, other than your decision to come to Christ, the decision of who you marry is the most important one you will ever make.  It will affect you for the rest of your life.  It’s not something to take lightly.

It is extremely dangerous to just “experiment” with relationships to see if you really like a guy or not, giving your heart to one person after the next in an attempt to find the right one.  When God builds a relationship, He brings one man and one woman together for the rest of their lives.  He is able and willing to guide you into His perfect plan for this area of your life without taking you through a handful of failed relationships and broken hearts.  He is able and willing to write your love story in such a way where you give your heart to only one man – the man you will spend the rest of your life with.  But most of us don’t trust Him enough to allow Him to do that for us.  We feel the need to rush into a relationship so that we don’t lose a guy’s interest, and all too often we end up broken-hearted and damaged as a result.  If there is a potential relationship in your life, the best first course of action is this:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. (Prov. 3:6 NKJV)

If you slow down and take the time to really seek Him, you can be sure that He will direct and guide you.  There is no reason to ever take a step forward in a relationship unless you have complete peace and certainty in your heart – a certainty not based on your own emotions, but on hours of spending time in God’s presence and seeking His heart and wisdom.

In awe of God....

There are no words for the feeling I get inside when I realize the magnitude of Christ's love. I just finished listening to this sermon and I don't think I could put it any better then to say; wow God. In the Old Testament, uncleanliness couldn't be in the presence of God. Family members with diseases were cast out of their camps because it was the law that no one unclean could dwell among them. And God's people had to say goodbye to best friends, moms, dads, brothers, etc. because God spoke it and it must be done. I think it's so true when Ligon Duncan says,"There are a lot of people who say, 'Yes I believe this word. I'm going to live by the Bible.' But when this book says things that are hard to them, they are very tempted to say, 'Well I want to do it a different way.'" We'll say we believe the Bible and we want to follow God, but when the things get hard we don't want to do it His way anymore, we want to do it our own way. I know personally, I'm so guilty of this. I couldn't imagine giving up my mom or dad if they had a disease and couldn't live in my community, I would be so upset that I would never get to see them again. But if we truly follow God, if He speaks, we'll follow. Jesus touches our uncleanliness. In the Old Testament, He can't even dwell in the same camp as uncleanliness, but Jesus in the New Testament reaches out and heals the leper and takes the dead girl by the hand and says "get up, my child." He can't touch us without taking our uncleanliness because he is soooooo HOLY, yet he reaches out for our hand and says, "get up my child!" This blows my mind. I can't even express my unworthiness. Jesus touches our uncleanliness. He knows the depths of our hearts, and he still loves us and reaches out to us. I can't even say anything else about this video just that God is so awesome. 


http://vimeo.com/19830403

My Valentine :)

So with Valentines Day coming up, it can be a rough day for those of us who are living the single life. As a girl who is usually single on this particular day, I always say "I hate Valentines Day." Well this year I was thinking... I have the greatest Valentine of all time: JESUS! And because of Him I know what LOVE is! He defines true love because he died on the cross to save me from the death that I deserve to die! He lived a perfect life and I do bad things every day, yet He was the one who was punished for my failures. And His own Father gave him up. God turned his back on Jesus because my mistakes were laid on him and God is so holy and perfect he couldn't even look at Jesus when he took on all the world's sin for eternity! That is love. Agape love. Agape love means unconditional, self-sacrificing love. It is a.) unconditional because we didn't do anything to deserve it and we can't do anything to have it taken away! There is no condition or rule that we must follow, just to accept the gift of what Jesus did on the cross! And it is b.) self-sacrificing love because God sacrificed his Son and Jesus sacrificed his life! This year, I wanted to be able to share His love with others, instead of throwing my little pity party like I usually do because I'm single. So I was thinking, Valentines Day is just not a day to make single people feel bad or to just tell your significant other that you love them. It's a day that you can tell all the people in your life how much you love them and how much they are loved by the King! Jesus came so that we would know love, without him there isn't any love. And he loves us so much that he has a plan for each of our lives. As women we're always worried about when God is going to bring us our husband. Well, God says, "Love me first, then you can love someone else." And he wants us to be completely fulfilled by him. He doesn't want us to feel like we need to dress a certain way to get a guys attention, or that we have to sacrifice our purity just to be in a relationship. God wants the best for us. And he knows us better than we know ourselves. So this valentines day let everyone know the joy inside of you. Tell them about the love of Christ. And single ladies, if you're feeling lonely, Christ is all you need and is the only one who can completely fulfill our needs so tell Him how much you love him this Valentines Day!

A devotional from Leslie Ludy: Healthy Guy/Girl Friendships!

Quite a few young women have expressed frustration to me about the “politics of guy friendships”, wishing that they could simply shrug off all concern and enjoy the same closeness with their guy-friends that they share with their female friends.  But even though you might feel a close connection with a guy friend, it’s important to stay guarded in both your thoughts and your actions toward him.  It is all too easy, especially for girls, to begin giving away the kind of intimacy and affection that is meant to be saved for your future spouse.  It’s more than possible to enjoy close guy friendships without violating the sacredness of your future marriage relationship – but it doesn’t happen by accident.  It takes prayer, focus, and help from the Spirit of God.  

Ask the Spirit of God to be your guide – if you submit your every thought, action, and conversation to Him, He will guide and direct you; offering caution when it is needed and giving you freedom when it is needed. 

Before my relationship with Eric ever began, I developed close friendships with several godly young men.  Up until then, most of my interaction with the opposite sex had been flirtatious, teasing, based on physical attraction, the challenge of getting a guy’s attention, or the hope of a romantic fling developing.  But once I gave God the “pen” of my love story, I made a decision not to pursue guys in that way and to put a stop to the flirtatious relationships I had become so used to.  I wasn’t sure how to have a healthy, Christ-focused friendship with a guy.  I prayed that God would show me His pattern.  I found that the first step was entering into friendships with like-minded young men; young men who were not primarily focused on the opposite sex, but on Jesus Christ.  I hadn’t met many young men that fell into that category, but as I prayed about it, God began to bring a small handful of them into my life.  Instead of teasing, joking, and flirting when we were together, we spent time encouraging each other spiritually and discoursing about God’s Word.  They truly became like brothers to me, pointing me continually toward Christ and not toward themselves. 

In reality, a guy/girl friendship – especially one that is not headed toward marriage – is not meant to become as intimate and close as other friendships, no matter what kind of “connection” you may feel.  Once God brings your future spouse into your life, your one-on-one friendships with the opposite sex will need to diminish, being replaced by “couple friendships” instead.  And it is far less painful to make that transition when deep, personal, intimate friendship bonds have not been forged.

If there is a possibility in your mind that a friendship with a member of the opposite sex might end up as something more, it is still wise to be careful until you know for sure.  God is perfectly capable of nudging a relationship forward in His own time and way.  But in the meantime, the best thing you can do is to live as if your heart, mind, and body still belong to someone else.

Eric and Leslie Ludy's love story spurred out of a healthy friendship after they gave the pen of their relationship to God! Enjoy their video of what a beautiful story God wrote for them! <3 <3 <3

Don't you know who you are???

Today God taught me a much needed lesson. I was asked to change my appearance for a class and at first I was really upset, but now I know that God made me go through this trial because he was trying to tell me that I am beautiful. I have just recently come to be content with how I looked and my identity in Christ. I think as women image is a major issue in many of our lives (I would love to meet a woman who doesn't struggle with this) I have been obsessing over my image because of one person's opinion. I have based my personality and the way I carry myself from the way I look. Well God knows me better than I know myself. He knows how stubborn I am and that he was going to have to lead my through a trial for me to realize how stupid I am. We shouldn't build our identity from whether we have blonde, brown, or blue hair; the color of our complexion; the clothes we wear; or our personality. He wants us to find who we are in HIM. He is beautiful, pure, loving, compassionate, gracious, lovely; EVERY GOOD THING COMES FROM GOD!! I was obsessing over one measly person's opinion of me and I never thought to stop and think for a second what does God think of me? God tells us that we are "precious and honored" in his sight in Isiah chapter 43 (my favorite passage <3 ) If you look around at the wonders of this world, he has made everything and everyone beautiful because we are made in HIS IMAGE and HE IS BEAUTIFUL!! It's such a good thing to meditate on. He is beautiful. He made us in His image. Therefore, WE ARE BEAUTIFUL!! AND we find ourselves in His character! It doesn't matter where we have been, what we've done, what we look like, He loves us the same yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever. I think Tenth Avenue North really captures how I'm feeling right now with this song and I couldn't say it better.

He is jealous for me.

So today I was thinking, you know when you get jealous when a friend spends more time with another friend than they do with you? Or your parents may give your sibling more attention than they give to you? I know sometimes I get very jealous. During bible study tonight we read a verse from Exodus 20: 4-6 "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a JEALOUS God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing STEADFAST LOVE to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." God's jealousy is sooooooo much more greater for us than the stupid things that we can get jealous over. He is jealous of how we spend our time. He is jealous when we give more attention to other things in our lives, over him; THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE!! He gave us his law because he loves us. Not to fence us in, but because he loves us and he knows us better than we know ourselves. He wants to meet all of our needs and desires. When we want to be heard, he is there to listen. When we need someone to love us, only he can give us the pure, perfect, unfailing love we need. When we feel like we don't amount to anything in this life, he sees us a treasure! God loves us so much and all he asks is that we love him too.

The Cost of Intimacy: A Devotional from Leslie Ludy

We cannot expect an intimate, passionate daily relationship with Christ if we are not willing to seek Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  When we are preoccupied with pop-culture and the pursuit of our own selfish pleasure, we cannot truly know Him or hear His voice.  But when we, like Mary of Bethany, are willing to pour out everything we hold dear upon the precious head of our beloved without reserve, we will experience firsthand that “in His presence is fullness of joy and in His right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Whenever God pinpoints something in our life that is standing in the way of intimacy with Himself, our flesh (that selfish, sinful side of our being) immediately starts kicking and screaming in protest, telling you how unnecessary all of this is.  “You can have a close walk with God and enjoy the pleasures of this world!” or “If you lay down all these things, you’ll look like a ‘holier-than-thou’ bigot!” or “All the other Christians I know do all of these things!  What’s the big deal?”

    

But what is the Spirit of Christ whispering to your soul?

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. (John 14:21 NKJV)

If you want to personally experience the fullness of all that Christ is then it’s time to tune out the voice of your flesh and follow the example of Paul:  

But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death… (Phil 3:7-10 NKJV)

Yes, there will be protests when we embrace Christ’s call – both from our flesh and from the outside world.  But instead of complaining about His narrow path or giving into self-pity, let us delight in the jealous love that He has for us.  Let us remember the staggering sacrifice He made on our behalf.  And let us revel in the privilege of laying our all at His feet in gratitude. Let us yield to the supernatural, transforming, purifying work of Christ’s Spirit as He makes us into His holy temple.  Let us allow Him to change us from the selfish, cowering closet-Christians we are into the valiant, valorous, virtuous example of set-apart femininity that God has called us to be.  And let the world stand back in wonder.

He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor. (John 12:25-26 NKJV)