God is a pretty smart Dude

I have been meeting with the college pastor at my church, Mark.  That link will take you to his blog…check it out.  He is basically a big-time stud.  Anyways, we have been going over stuff like Psalm 1 and Joshua 1:8lately, and a pretty cool thing happened the other day.  Those two passages pretty much parallel each other in the fact that they say that you will have success if you meditate on the Word day and night and never let it depart from your mouth.  If that is not cool enough in itself, I just started a new book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, the day before I got home for Christmas break.  Well, the first discipline the book talks about is your intake of the Word.  From studying, to hearing, to meditating on the Word, this book talks about it all and much more.  BUT, the coolest thing that happened was when I was reading in the second chapter of the book…Donald Whitney, the author, used two main passages from the Bible to back up his point.  Any guesses on those two passages?  Yeah, Psalm 1 and Joshua 1: 8!  Now, that may seem not that cool to some people, but over the past six months of my life, I have become increasingly more aware of the sovereignty of God.  This is no small coincidence in my opinion.  God knows what He is doing when He brings certain scripture into our lives.  It blew my mind when this happened the other day. 

 

P.S.-  Just a little side-note- When those passages say meditate on the Word they do not mean to just read or to even think about it after you read them…part of meditation according to Whitney is the application we gain and put into use as a part of our meditation…just a thought…think about it…

HOME

I have been home for five days now, and I love it!  It is so good to see my family and just hang out and rest.  Seeing friends is good too.  I enjoy seeing how friends change…I mean that in no bad way at all, but over time people do change.  I enjoy seeing it.

Feelin’ led to write right now…

I don’t know why, but I feel like I need to just start typing right now!  I usually feel led to write about certain things going on in my lifeor events that are upcoming, but right now I just feel led to type.  I have no clue where this post is going, but if God is telling me to type then I am not worried; He will guide my fingers…of this I am sure.  Over the course of my life, looking back on it now, I see that God has used every circumstance, every event, every “earth shattering” dilemma I have ever been in to bring me to the point where I am at now, and I know that it is only going to get  crazier and better as I go.  When I think about my life as a middle school-er, I realize how much of a punk I was.  Heck, I was even a big-time punk in high school.  Yet, God saw it fit to protect me and surround me with unbelievable people who did nothing but point me to God.  Even though I was not yet a Christian, God was working in my life in ways that I would not see for some time.  I love this aspect of Christianity.  There is stuff going on in our lives that we do not even notice until months, or even years, down the road.  Is that just some coincidence?  No it is not my friends; that is a little thing called Sovereignty.  The events in my life do nothing but affirm the fact that God is sovereign.  From keeping me safe in two pretty serious car accidents in which I could have been hurt badly, or even died in one of them, to the way He allowed me to work and progress in baseball after my freshman year when I got cut from the team.  Throughout all of this, I had a ridiculous core-group of friends who were great influences on my life and stuck around me for some reason.  I was not exactly the best friends; I was very sarcastic and cutting to say the least.  After I got saved on June 13th of this past summer, I began to look back on my life and saw how God had been working on me and in me to bring me to the point where He could truly and completely reveal Himself to me.  After He did that I could not deny that I was in desperate need of His complete and saving grace.  I had been fooling myself for the past five years of my life.  I thought I was saved, but my life did not reflect Jesus Christ at all.  I sinned and it was not even a struggle for me not to do it…I just sinned.  Now, I see what it is like to truly live in the Spirit and struggle against the flesh day in and day out.  It is the most awesome thing ever because we become dependant on the Holy Spirit to guide us every step of every day.  There is no pressure on me at all to perform up to God’s standards.  He has never been a God who has kept score.  All I have to do is to not allow the book of the law to depart from my mouth, as it says in the book of Joshua in the Old Testament.  So, I think I will stop now.  I guess…

Update on the college situation

Now that I am done with my first semester at DMACC, it is getting down to that time again…time to choose where I will be going to school next year.  Now, with that being said, God has given me a few options at this point.  I have already taken a visit to The Masters College in California, and I will be taking a visit to Colorado Christian  University in Denver, in late January.  So, now all I can do is trust in the Lord, meditate on His Word day and night, and know that He will guide me to a decision in His time.  I pray that I do not get impatient and start to push towards making a decision until He leads me to one!  Just a small update on my life.  HAHA!  Maybe someone will call me who is east of the Mississippi one day!  WHO KNOWS!!!??!?!?

Keep Poundin’

Lately God has seen it fit to absolutely blitz my mind with scriptures that are about what His Word is useful for.  From Psalm 1, Joshua 1: 8, and Proverbs 1: 1-7 to anything else I have read, or been talking about lately, it all seems to point to one elemental truth; to know God(who He is, what His character is, His plan/will for our lives as Christians as a whole) and to grow in Him, we must be in His Word constantly.  That has been a true joy to learn over the past week or two because it has deepened my love for the Word and made me want to stay grounded in it and “meditate in His law day and night,” as Psalm 1 says.  This is most definitely an answered prayer.  For the past little while I have been trying to pray and figure out where and what I am supposed to do with my life and wondering how to get guidance from God.  So, God has given me a clear answer, love His Word and learn to apply it and I will know exactly what, where, and when God wants for my life.

…Kind of like a Piper quote that says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”  I find that to be more true every day!

Maybe we should use our Bible???

Ever since this summer, I have continually learned one thing.  If we ever have anything that we need an answer to, we can always hear god speak through His Word.  This pretty much sums it up.  I know that if I have a question I want an answer to, I will sometimes go to someone I know and trust instead of going straight to the best source ever pinned by any author…why?????  I feel that I do this because I do not want to take the time to actually look up what the Bible has to say, or maybe that I will get offended by what the Bible says.  That is the beauty in the Bible and the Gospel though; the fact that it could be the most offensive book ever pinned as well.  I mean that in the best way possible.  Believe me, I do!  I say that because I believe that we must be offended enough to the point that we admit what true sinners we are and let God reign in our lives.  I just want to start going directly to the Bible when I want answers instead of seeing what others have to say.  Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with talking with other believers about your life, but I think I must go straight to the source more often!

Just a thought

Romans 12: 1 says that we are to offer our bodies to God as our spiritual act of worship…

Hmmm….just something to think about.  It does not say a certain part of our body, it says the whole thing…Think about it

College Basketball

So…it is, yet again, time for another season of college sport.  This time it is basketball.  Although, I am a bigger fan of my favorite college sport baseball and a huge fan of college football, college basketball is not far behind.  Last night was the first time all year I have really watched this season, and it was a great night to pick because we are right in the middle of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge(this is just an opportunity for the ACCto show how dominant it is).  Last night had some huge games and some games that were not between big time schools but were still great games.  Duke hammered Purdue in a match-up of top ten teams; which just shows that the ACC is the real deal.  Anyways, it just got me pumped for college basketball.  It also helped that the Clemson Tigers just happened to go into Illinois and take them down!  GO TIGERS!!!!!

Super Heroes

So, I was talking to a friend the other day, and we were discussing heroes. You know; Batman, Spiderman, Iron Man, etc. We were talking about these superheroes in particular because they are all “normal guys.” Unlike Superman, they were not born with “powers.” I was thinking after me and this friend were talking, and I came to the conclusion that we, as Christians, are exactly like these guys; Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker, and Tony Stark. We are born completely helpless, with no hope of making anything out of our lives unless something awakens our souls. Look at Iron Man for example; he did not become a Super Hero until after he saw what/who his state-of-the-art weapons business was truly supplying(Middle Eastern Terrorists). When I look at my own life, I feel like there are huge similarities. I did not have any desire to become a Christian or live righteously, therefore I was completely lost, until God revealed Himself to me and began to work in my heart and called me out of the darkness that was my life before He saved me. When Jesus awakens our souls, we cannot help but drop everything and run after Him and follow Him.  Much like Tony Stark, who felt so strongly about his corrupt business after he found out what it truly was that he basically shut it down, I feel that we are in the dark as far as what our lives truly are, what our purpose is, and who we are to live for, unless we somehow see God and all his glory.  We cannot do this unless we become so weak that His power and might may make us strong!

Just a few thoughts…check this out!