The Living Word

I find myself regularly amazed at how often God comes into my life and lets his presence be known. He truly is an amazing God!
 

I’ve been working on homework for most of the day wondering to myself what I should write about on here today. I looked through my bible and nothing really stuck out to me…so I decided to pray about it. I closed my bible and asked God to guide me to a meaningful verse that I could talk about. Then I closed my eyes, flipped through the pages and just stopped on a random page. I started reading the first section, Isaiah 63, but I didn’t understand so I kept reading. I got to the bottom of the page, entitled “Praise and Prayer”.

Isaiah 63: 7-10

⁷ I will tell of the kindnesses of the LORD,
       the deeds for which he is to be praised,
       according to all the LORD has done for us—
       yes, the many good things he has done
       for the house of Israel,
       according to his compassion and many kindnesses.

 ⁸ He said, "Surely they are my people,
       sons who will not be false to me";
       and so he became their Savior.

 ⁹ In all their distress he too was distressed,
       and the angel of his presence saved them.
       In his love and mercy he redeemed them;
       he lifted them up and carried them
       all the days of old.

 ¹⁰ Yet they rebelled
       and grieved his Holy Spirit.
       So he turned and became their enemy
       and he himself fought against them.

I could go on forever about how God has blessed my life…but for your sake, I won’t. I sin…like any other person and, at times, when life is rough and I don’t know how to keep on going, I wonder to myself if God is really out there. I am definitely not proud of these moments, but it is in these times of need that I see how blessed I truly am. I have an amazing family and an awesome group of friends who have supported me through the ups and downs in life. Both of my parents went through extreme medical problems within a year of each other. It was both the most horrendous and rewarding experience of my life. It is a miracle that my parents are here today…in the condition that they are. I definitely feel that God saved them!

My mom had a stroke New Years day 2007. She hadn’t been feeling well and had been to the hospital 3 times the day before it happened with a blood pressure of 218/100 (a normal blood pressure is 120/80), but the doctors didn’t know what was wrong with her. During her stroke she had 2 seizures. She was transferred to another hospital and when we went to see her she wasn’t even really awake. She laid there saying “Love you, Jeff” (my dad’s name is Jeff) and that was all she could say. She was like that for about 3 or 4 days before they found the blood clot in her brain and were able to go in and operate. When she finally came to it was amazing to see how fast she bounced back from it. She had to learn a lot of things over, like feeding herself, talking, writing, brushing her teeth, etc, but today she’s almost back to normal. I’ve noticed that her attitude has changed a lot, but I think that is more from the realization of how precious life is rather than being from the stroke. All together we spent around 10 days in the hospital with mom.

 

My father had a heart attack December 10, 2007 and drove from where he worked at the time to the hospital in our hometown (a 1.5 hour drive) by himself because he didn’t want to be by himself in the hospital. Anything could have happened to him during that drive. When he got to the hospital his heart stopped (the doctors kept saying that he died and they brought him back to life). My brother and I didn’t even know what happened until after dad had been transferred to another hospital, had a stent put in, and was in ICU recovering. We live in an apartment and we just have our cell phones. Of course mine wasn’t charged at the time and Josh’s didn’t have minutes on it. When we finally found out, about 5 hours after it happened, we headed to the hospital. It was a different experience with dad, but still just as scary! Dad was in the hospital for a week, mostly because they couldn’t get his blood pressure up where it needed to be.

 

These experiences definitely brought our family closer together. We’ve always been a close family, but it showed us how fragile and precious life really is. I have no doubt that God played a major role in the fact that my parents are here with us today.

Well, I wasn’t going to go so in-depth with that haha. O well.

 

Goal for the week: Find a way to reach out to someone…anyone…and talk to them about how AMAZING our God truly is. Share your experiences as a Christian and help them find God for themselves.  



"All That I Am"
I feel a burning, deep inside of me
I feel Your Spirit, It's moving around me
I hear Your voice, You're calling me closer
I know that You're here, You're calling me closer
And I will

Love you with all of my heart
Jesus I'll love You with all of my mind
Jesus I'll love You with all of my soul
Jesus I'll love You with all that I am

I know that You hear me when I say my prayers
I know that You're with me even when I'm all alone
When I close my eyes, You're calling me closer
When I pull away, You're pulling me closer
And I will

You are holy, Lord God Almighty
You are holy, Lord God Almighty
Who Was and Is and soon will come again
Lord You are and now You're coming again
Just like You said, You're coming again
And I will

Pastor Don's sermon was entitled: Life Giving Word this week. (5-10-09)
The scripture reading was: Acts 11:1-18

¹The apostles and the brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. ²So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him ³and said, "You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them."

 ⁴Peter began and explained everything to them precisely as it had happened: ⁵"I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. ⁶I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air. ⁷Then I heard a voice telling me, 'Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.'

 ⁸"I replied, 'Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.'

 ⁹"The voice spoke from heaven a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.' ¹⁰This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.

 ¹¹"Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. ¹²The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man's house. ¹³He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, 'Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. ¹⁴He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.'

 ¹⁵"As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. ¹⁶Then I remembered what the Lord had said: 'John baptized with^[a]water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' ¹⁷So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?"

 ¹⁸When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, "So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life."

My favorite quote from this sermon was, "There is no such thing as a secret service Christian"...mostly because it's so true, yet that's what many people act like. Today many people are calling Evangelism "Sharing your faith" because they feel that evangelism is too strong of a word and will scare people away. Over the years so many people have taken arms against religion and people are afraid to share their faith. I too feel this way sometimes! That is one of the main reasons I decided to start this journal. It's easier for me to write out my beliefs than to actually talk to someone to their face about it. I would feel like I'm overstepping my boundaries by talking to my peers about religion. With this journal I can reach many different people and it is out of their own free will that they read it or not.
During Pastor Don's sermon he stated that everyone is a sinner. No matter how good of a person you think you are. God knows this and he still loves us anyway! As long as you are doing all you can to be the best Christian and person you can be, your sins will be forgiven. Pastor Don explained that Jesus ate with sinners, and that we too should follow in his footsteps.
If you don't feel that you are being the best Christian you can be...pray about it. God wants to hear from you and He will listen. He'll guide you in the direction your life is supposed to go. You just need to open up your ears and your heart to Him.

Goal for the day: Spend 1 hour praying to God about becoming a better Christian...or becoming a Christian at all :-D

"Amazing Love"
I'm forgiven, because You were forsaken
I'm accepted, You were condemned
I'm alive and well, Your spirit is within me
Because you died and rose again

Amazing love, how can it be
That You my King would die for me?
Amazing love, I know it's true
and it's my joy to honor You
In all I do, I honor You

You are my King, You are my King
Jesus, You are my King, Jesus, You are my King.

I've decided my life is extremely boring...and I'm getting to the point where I don't care to have the whole world know my every thought. I made this new journal to be about my life as a Christian. My views, random thoughts, and cares. I will probably only update once a week...and it's going to either be about what my pastor talked about in church or just a random verse from the bible if I don't happen to go to church.
I'm setting the entries to "public" so anyone can read them...maybe it will spark someone's interest and lead them to God :-)

Don't comment if you're just going to argue every point I make.
Don't comment if everything you say is negative.
I will only reply to comments that I feel are acceptable and deserving of a reply.

Enjoy...and don't let my comment requirements scare you off!! This is supposed to be fun :-D