My Surprise

A Friend of mine recently got engaged to this woman he had been dating for some time. We all knew they would get married it was only a matter of time. What I didn't expect was for them to get married in a few months because she was pregnant. My first reaction was like man that sucks but congrats; He's wanted a family for awhile now and he's getting it now.
He is a missionary and it setting up churches and outreaches in another country. He is a man that I respect a lot and his fire for the Lord is so contagious. So this news took me by surprise a little bit..but not to much... I was thinking about it and i thought "oh well it happens." and that was that. Later I was talking to my boyfriend about it and I kind of got upset because I realize that it wasn't a big deal to me that she was pregnant. It didn't faze me. And I was thinking about how my boyfriend and I want to do things right and not do anything before marriage but if it wasn't a big deal to me that they had past their boundaries and got pregnant then it was only a matter of time before I past my boundaries with my boyfriend. Because after all "it happens". I hadn't been placing a value on those boundaries that we had set already. I think there were times when we played with the boundaries but we didn't pass them. But if we continued on that path then we would start passing those boundaries and then we would have gone to far.
This is a subject that sooo many people talk about..purity..For me before I had my boyfriend I was like there is nooo way I would ever cross that line that is something for a married couple but as time went by it became less of a thing we hadn't done it but we were on a path leading to it. So when I found out about my friend the Lord showed me that if you don't set boundaries and abide by them then as people say "it just happened" and that will happen. And I refuse to be apart of the group that "loves Jesus" but doesn't follow His word. I want to set an example and be that example and let others know that is it possible to live a pure life. It is possible to not have sex before marriage.

Obedience/Offense

Obedience is SOO important. And being obedient is usuallly something that we don't wanna do, but it's something we do for the Lord because we love the Lord. As we obey the Lord more and more it will become easier. We will become more obedient and do it without kicking and screaming... We need to be a blessing to people and that comes through obedience two the Lord.

Something else the Lord has been showing me is we need to stop taking offense. When we get offended we are opening the door for unforgiveness and bitterness. Not getting offended goes in line with walking in love, because walking in Love, you see the best in people. You belive the best of things. Like if someone said some things that are hurtful you try to see the best. Like maybe they were just having a hard day and they took it out on me. People that are easily offended are insecure, they always wanna be told how good they are and when they aren't told things to build them up they get offended. They constantly need people holding them up with compliments. We need to seek the Lord and find out who we are in the Lord, so when someone comes to hurt us we wont get offended. Because the Lord is our defense. So I encourage you today to seek the Lord and find your confidence in Him.

Living it

Dont force yourself to live like a "christian" if you believe and read the word of God then good works and right living automatically come out. You wont force yourself to be a follower of Christ you WILL be one and you will live like Christ. So many of us try to portray ourselves as "Holy" but as WE try to do that it shows what little relationship we have with the Lord. We are trying to be "Holy" for the sake of others. To make it seem like we are doing good. This is our pride, we are trying to be someone we are not. Many people say Christians don't smoke drink or dance; well that's a personal conviction. We can't say you can't to this or that because you are a christian. It depends on your heart and what the Lord tells you to stay away from. See drinking may be a problem for one person, but it might not be a big deal for another one. It is only wrong when you put it before God, when you spend more time doing that then in the Word. Everyone is different so the Lord has to deal with each of us personally. We have no room to talk. Matthew 7:1, 2 says “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measures you use, it will be measured to you.”


If we want to "live right" that's something that we need the Lord to help us with. We need to understand the Love of the Father before we can change. We need to experience that never ending Love. In our youth group at Church I mentioned how a lot of us know about the Father's Love, but we don't know that love for ourselves. It hasn't been something that we've come to know; it's something we have heard about and think man that's SO cool, but we haven't experienced for ourselves. We need to know that Love, it will change our way of living. After you experience that Love you will never be the same.

Interest and Commitment

There is a difference between interests and commitment. When you are interested in doing something, you only do it when it is convenient. When you are committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results. This is why we have to fully commit to Christ. If you don't make a total commitment to Christ then you'll start looking to bail out the first time the boat starts to leak.
- Pastor David Rosales
- The Gathering Place Church

Crap Talk

For years now I have had to put others down to make myself feel better. I have felt that I could never measure up to other women so I had to find flaws in all of them and bring them down to my level. I think this is common amongst women. No matter how pretty or thin a woman is, leave it to another woman to find every flaw that woman has. “Let me completely tear this woman apart so I can feel a little bit better about myself.” Do you understand how stupid that is? It’s such a tragedy. Does it even make you feel better? For me it was never enough, I needed to put them down more and more. And even at that it still didn’t satisfy, because I still felt like I didn’t measure up. I think it has become an obsession for women to put others down.

When we are introduced to a woman, what are our first thoughts? “She’s pretty BUT her eyebrows are to close and she has a weird nose. She’s thinner then I am but she’s got no curves…etc.” I have been guilty of this SO many times. Even different Christian women that I met, “I don’t think she loves the Lord as much as I do because in praise and worship I was so lost in His presence and she wasn’t.” Really Sheila? If I was so lost in His presence why did I notice she wasn’t?


Matthew 7:1, 2 says “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measures you use, it will be measured to you.” Whoa! When I read this is was like a slap in the face. I always kind of knew this but it had never been revelation, where I knew it and I knew I needed to do something about it. Evil needed to stop coming from my mouth. I didn’t want to be judged like I was judging others, heck no! And then I realized how much it hurt the Lord, what I was saying about His beautiful creations. Matthew 7:3 – 5 “"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.” Well I definitely had a few planks in my eyes.


As I got so caught up in everyone else’s flaws I began to bury mine deeper and deeper. I had built so many walls and covered so many things; I didn’t even realize they were there anymore. When the Lord began to “clean out my closets” it was so hard. There have been moments of just crying out for repentance before the Lord, Ashamed of my behavior. Ashamed of the things I had thought and said about His children. AS I got to the bottom of everything, the Lord showed me His love. He began to fill all the holes of insecurity in my heart. As I began to continue my walk with the Lord, I had thought right away I wouldn’t say anything bad about anyone and that I would love everyone and say nice things. Well, I didn’t realize that I needed to train myself to not give way to those thoughts. It was still a battle, but it was a battle that I was going to give everything to fight against. And this time I had the Lord fighting with me.


As women of God we need to set the standards of how a woman should be. For too long we have let the world create an image of how a woman should be and what she should look like, and for too long we have sat back and excepted it. A woman of God needs to let the Lord reveal His love to us so we can experience His love. Then we can show that Love to others, We need to invite others to see and experience God’s love through us. Then we can draw others into the Kingdom and let them experience His unconditional Love. We owe no man nothing, but to love them. Words of love, life, kindness and encouragement need to be what leaves our mouths instead of garbage. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, I’m not saying that at all. Being a woman of God is going to be the fight of our lives. We are going to have to stand up against everything the world believes, but isn’t it worth it? Knowing that we are standing up for our King; what an honor for us.

Vulnerable

Vulnerable
Definition: Susceptible to attack
: Capable of being wounded or hurt
Last Sunday in youth we talked about being vulnerable. Most of us don’t like being vulnerable because we are risking being hurt. Being vulnerable to Christ is giving your life over to Christ – Yes, but it’s not the same. To me when I am vulnerable to someone it’s a process, it took time to build a relationship, it took time to open myself up. So in other words becoming vulnerable to Christ is the stepping stones to being sold out. And being vulnerable for Christ is so different then being vulnerable isn’t somewhere we want to be. We associate being vulnerable with getting hurt and that’s why we have such a hard time committing to the Lord. We fear we will get hurt and by the worlds standard we will get hurt because they live life saying nothing lasts forever. But God created us to be vulnerable so we can have intimacy with him. Not to fear him hurting us. That’s why we are so dysfunctional because we live our lives lined up with the world – Knowing that nothing lasts forever – no wonder we have such a hard time giving our lives to the Lord. One of the guys in youth class said that being vulnerable is Christ is finding freedom. EXACTLY! By building a relationship with the Lord and becoming vulnerable we are able to have intimacy with the Lord. It is only then that we let Him heal our hurts and pains and as He restores us we have freedom from our hurts and strongholds and as we grow in Him e will have freedom from the devil. Which is something the devil is constantly fighting, so he sues whatever he can to hurt us but as long as we are staying connected we just hand our cares over to the Lord and He will take care of them. So really when we get to that place with the Lord the devil can’t hurt us. We just have to give it to the Lord.

I was thinking even though we can’t be hurt by the devil, people have felt the heart of God. The hurt He goes through when we throw Him under the rug, the hurt He does through knowing we’re hurting. And I wonder is it even worth it to get that close to God and still hurt. Still feel the pain that we have been trying to get rid of? But this times it’s not even our pain, it’s the Lord showing us His heart, showing us what He feels, showing us his hurts, He’s right there holding us in His arms comforting us and He only shows us so we can pray we don’t’ have to live with it. And when you feel this we are able to pray and intercede for the person and then we can help them because we know what they feel and we know the answer they have been searching for. And we can help because you yourself have found freedom from that hurt and pain that they are going through. We have they answer they are longing to know. So we need to share it so then the Lord can restore them and that’s one more person in the Kingdom. And that one person is SO worth it all.

Virtuous Woman

Found this online somewhere. I thought it was pretty cool.

What is a virtuous woman?
She’s a God fearing woman, mild mannered and meek;
A woman whose children arise and call blessed;
Who welcomes all strangers and treats them as guests;

A woman who plans for her household by night;
Who trusts in the Lord with all of her might;
A woman who cares for her home and family;
Who leaves off from gossip and speaking idly;

A woman who invests her talents and time’
Who helps to promote God’s wondrous design.
He husband, well known within the city’s gate,
Lifts praises to God for his godly mate.

She’s a blessing to all and in all of her ways;
She trusts in the Lord, whose Voice she obeys
She teaches her children God’s laws and commends;
And daily entrusts them into His strong, loving hands.

What is a virtuous woman?
She’s a God fearing woman, who’s been blessed with a task

Beauty

We were created in God’s image. When you call yourself ugly or fat you are not only saying that about yourself, but you are saying that about the Lord. You are insulting His beautiful creation, you are the way you are because that's how He wanted you to be.

When you surrender to Him and you become a woman or man of God, beauty comes from within. He awakes you soul; He sparks something in you that no one else can do. He fills the holes in your heart, He completes who you are.

Beauty is who you are in Christ. Beauty is opening yourself up, being vulnerable. When we hear that word it’s scary, because no one’s likes to be in a state of vulnerability but it’s so necessary. There is a beauty in being vulnerable, but being vulnerable is so often abused. That’s why we need to guard our hearts.

We need to let the Lord be our guide; He doesn’t want us to be hurt at all. But when we choose to live our lives the way we want to, we step out of His covering. We let ourselves be open to the devil, open to his lies. And we ignore what God wants for us, and when we get hurt we blame God, because He shouldn’t have let us go through that. Really, we were the ones who turned away from Him; we stepped out of His will. He guides us so we don’t have to have our hearts broken but its’ our choice to listen.

He creates us to be vulnerable so we can have a relationship with Him. So we can love without holding back. But because we have been so hurt in this life we close ourselves up, we choose not to be vulnerable so we don’t’ have to be hurt again. That is why when someone says I love you these days it doesn’t s mean much, because so much of them is closed up. It’s a word that has been said over and over so people can “gets some” Love has been confused with lust’ few really know what love is these days. People close themselves up so they don’t have to feel pain, so they can never really love someone and give themselves to someone because they have so many walls up. They don’t open up to anyone because then that’s getting close to someone, too close. But to really love you have to put those guards down and be vulnerable. You have to let them in, so they can know the real you, not a stupid front that you put up. If you don’t let the real you come out then that relationship won’t work because you’re always gonna be someone you’re not and eventually you will get tired of not being yourself and you won’t’ want to be with that person anymore because they don’t even know the real you.

To be in love is something that we desire but don’t know how to love because of all the walls that we’ve built up. Or maybe we don’t’ think that we deserve to be loved so we shove those desires away and we put ourselves in a relationship that is something we don’t deserve, but to us we feel like that’s all we deserve. But no one deserves to be used, abused, or ignored. Love is something that everyone deserves to have. Los is something we need, we are created to love.

We need to understand that love is something that you can’t put into words it’s shown from the inside out. It’s when you’re so captivated by something or someone that is changes how you see things. It makes you want to be better then you already are. Love brings the best out of you. When you love you are truly selfless. The small things don’t matter because loving someone is seeing past their imperfections. It’s seeing them as God sees then, perfect. When you’re in love you can’t ever explain it. Love awakens something in you. It awakens that desire to feel needed and wanted.

We have to realize though, that the Lord should be the center of all relationships because He created us to love and be love. God is love; He’s the one that shows us how to love unselfishly. He wants us to find someone to love, that’s why we need to trust Him and let Him guide us because He won’t steer us wrong, and He won’t let us be with someone who will hurt us. He doesn’t want us to hurt; it hurts Him so much when we are hurting. So why would we not trust Him, He wants what’s best for us. He wants us to be happy and joyful.

My Source

Something that i have been learning is that the Lord is my source. When i need something whether its $10 to go to the movies or gas or a ride somewhere all i have to do is ask the Lord and i KNOW He will provide for me. Philppians 4:19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. That scripture is our answer. There is NOTHING that the Lord cant take care of.

The Lord has been showing me that as I am obedient to Him and I do what He asks of me, He can bless me. But if im never doing what the word tells me to do and im always complaining how can he bless me? I'm not even serving Him. I'm serving myself and putting myself before the Lord. So many times we get mad at the Lord because He's not doing what WE want, He's not blessing us even though we have been tithing. Well be obedient to Him in ever area and He can bless you. And being blessed by the Lord isn't just getting money. The Lord blesses in soo many ways, like maybe He'll bless you good health, or a friends thats there for you, or you could be blessed by a beauitful scenerey. We need to learn to be continuously thankful for the things we have. We need to thank the Lord for the small things NOW. Psalm 100:4,5 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.