Year Reflection

I just want you to take the time and reflect on what this year has been like for you. Think about the person you were at the beginning of 1017 and the person you are now. How have you changed? How have you grown, in your faith and as a person? What has this year been like for you? The ins and outs the ups and downs . What's new? Now what do you want for this coming year, how do you plan to dive deeper into your relationship with Christ? Just take the time to reflect on your year, whatever that means to you.

Now I just want to take the time to thank everyone who has been consistent throughout the year, everyone who has read the devotional and kept it going. This has been such a humbling experience for me and I have grown so much. I cannot believe it's coming to an end. Thank you so much, it means so much to me. Thank you so much. I love you and go have an amazing 2018! Be the person God made you to be and don't apologize for it! Thank you! I love you so much! Thank you!

Day 353: That's Life: Series (Part 1)

Ecclesiastes 3:12-13

So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

Ecclesiastes 8:15

So I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life. That way they will experience some happiness along with all the hard work God gives them under the sun.

This is the start of another series leading to the end of the year. This series we are going to talk about life and uno the teachings that we have been taught for so long, that allows us or makes us see life one way and one way only. We often talk about how pain and suffering is a part of life. But as much as they are so is joy, peace, love, happiness, life is good too. We need to talk about that a bit more than we talk about all the bad things that can come out of life. Life can be rough but that is not all there is to it.

As humans we have become so overtaken with this idea of struggling through life. Fighting against something our entire lives to get to where we are. Proving that we are strong because we’ve been through something. People actually say that until you’ve experienced hardship you haven’t experienced life. We have become what seems like obsessed with the ideas of struggle. The more we’ve gone through the better the testimony. We have misconstrued what life really is. We have taught our children and we have been taught that life is a struggle. Life is hard. Prepare ourselves. Have tough skin. But what if I told you that that was wrong. What if I told you that struggling is only a small part of life compared to good. Pain is only a moment compared to the joy and happiness.

There is just as much peace as there is violence and evil. It’s in us. We have to change our perspective. Not of what we see but how we see things. We have to choose to hang on to that glimmer of hope. Life isn’t all struggle and pain. Trust me it’s not. For the moments when the pain and struggles ceases, why can’t life be butterflies and unicorns? Why can’t we enjoy life to fullest. There’s no one telling us we can’t .Life is beautiful. Life is a gift. Life is a blessing. Witnessing life is a privilege. 

There’s so much more to this life than that we overlook, because when we think about real life we only think about how hard it is. How brutal it can be. How it can chew us up and spit us out. Real life is actually beautiful and full of joy and love when we think about it. Real life is laughing with your friends until the break of dawn. Real life is taking a chance and going on that date with that person. Real life is the thrill of throwing your hands up on a roller coaster. Real life is watching your friends and family succeed and being just as happy for them as you would for yourself. It’s being able to travel across the world to climb a mountain or taste real Italian food. Real life is building up the courage to ask that girl to marry you. It’s being overwhelmed with emotion because you are so happy. Life is sharing moments, the beautiful moments the joyful moments. Life is seeing the smile on the face of someone you love because they've just accomplished something they've been going after for a while. It's seeing you prayers for people come to fruition. Life is all the little moments strung together to make up what we get to describe as living. Life is being vulnerable enough not to just cry when you’re in pain, but to cry because you are happy. Life is not being ashamed to walk down the street holding hands with your best friend because you are grateful God has blessed you with them. Life is telling your family and friends you love them. Life is hugging your family or friends. Or hugging the stranger with the free hugs sign. This may sound crazy to many of you.It sounds crazy to me as I write it. Because we have been conditioned and taught that life is hard. We’ve been trained to be tough so life doesn’t knock us down. We’ve been told since we were young kids in school that life is hard and it can get the best of us. But I want to undo all of that and tell you that you will get the best of life. It will not get the best of you.  

All this to say, we weren't prepared for the beauty of life, or the joys of life, because we've only been conditioned to be tough so that life can't knock us done. With that being said we don't really know how to enjoy life, we don't know how to relax or take a break because we want to be ahead of the game. I want to encourage your day to take a chance and see that there si more to life that being in a constant battle. God did not intend for us to struggle every moment of our lives. Believe or not He actually wants us to enjoy life. He gave us the pleasures of life to enjoy, give yourself permission to enjoy it. 

Reflection 

1. What is your perspective on life?

2. Do you find yourself constantly in the pattern of thinking of life as only a struggle?

3. What are some things you can do to change that perspective?

4. Are you rally living life to the fullest?

Prayer Time 

Allow you answer to the above questions guide your prayer today. Take the time to talk to God about life and thank Him for blessing us with a beautiful life. 

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 354!

Day 315: Recap!

Day 309: Don't Anticipate, Live!

Today we talked about how we sometimes focus so much on anticipating how life is going to go or what's going to happen that we forget to live. We forget to live the life God has given us. We have to focus on living life while we still have it because it's not permanent. We focused on 2 Kings 20:1-6.

"God reveals the plan as we go, so that way we cannot pick and choose and anticipate what is to come. Live life like we don't know what is going to happen because we don't and that's the beauty of it."

Day 310: Proving Your Faithfulness

We talked a lot this week about where our focus is. Today we discussed how sometimes we are too focused on proving to God how faithful we are and forgetting the being faithful part. We talked about how no matter how God is less concerned with sacrifice and more concerned with our hearts. We focused on James 5:12, 1 Samuel 15:22, and Proverbs 21:3.

"Having a relationship with God is so much better than having on a mask of Christianity."

Day 311: Guard Your Heart, Don't Block It

Today we talked about how sometimes we confuse guarding our heart with blocking it. Meaning we build walls to protect ourselves making our hearts unreachable. We build walls not letting anyone in or not letting anything out. We talked about how God want to love us and send people who love us but always teach us how to love, and we cannot do that if we are too guarded. We focused on Proverbs 4:23 and Ezekiel 36:26.

"We cannot allow what has happened to us in the past influence how we love people in the present and the future."

Day 312: What Controls You?

Today we talked about how we are slaves to whatever controls us, and we proposed the question what is controlling us or what are we allowing to control us. We talked about how we should not be controlled by worldly desires but our desire live like and be with Christ. We focused on 2 Peter 2:19. 

"God is not here to constantly feed our desires, yes He will give us the desires of our hearts but first He wants a relationship with us."

Day 313: Don't Pressure Yourself 

Today we talked about how we as Christians and just people in general put too much pressure on ourselves. We put too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect, or to always get it right. We talked about the beauty of being a follower of Christ is that even though we are imperfect Christ completes us with His perfection.  We focused on Romans 8:1 and 1 John 3:20.

" If God, who created us and knows everything there is to know about us and knows what we are going to do before we do it, if He finds no reason to condemn us, let’s not do it to ourselves."

Day 314: The Pursuer of Hearts

Today we talked about how God is in constant pursuit of our hearts. We talked about how God want to be in a relationship with us, that He wants to be in communion with His people. We talked about how He took drastic measures to have a relationship with is. We focused on Luke 19:10, Genesis 3:8-9, and Psalms 23:6a.

"God is always loving on us, the way He loves us is unfathomable to the human mind we can never completely wrap our minds around it. And He wants us. He wants our hearts He wants us to love Him, and He wants to live in unity with us."

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for day 316!

Day 290: It's Possible

Hebrews 4:15

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

That last statement makes the point I want to make today. Today we are going to continue on the subject of living and take it a bit in a different direction. Have you ever been under the impression that living a Christian lifestyle is hard? Have you ever felt like living a sinless life was impossible? Because we are human and we are going to mess up. However the above scripture is proof that it is possible. We sometimes forget that Jesus was fully human as much as He was fully God. We forget that He was born like the rest of us, He was given free will like the rest of us, He had to grow up from a child like the rest of us. He experienced the same things we did growing up. He had to listen to His mother, it didn’t matter if He was the Messiah or not. He experienced pain, loss, grief, and anger. He cried when Lazarus died, it hurt Him. I say all of this to be reminded that Jesus is human, just like we are. With that being said, He knows what’s it’s like to be tempted. To live in a world full of sin. We read about how satan tempted him in the gospels. We are not serving a God who does not know what we are going through. We are not following someone who sat on a throne and just told us how to live. No we know how to live because He came here to Earth and showed us, He gave us an example not just verbal instructions.

Going through all of this to get to the point of today, He was without sin. He went through all of this, He went through so much, He was tempted and yet He is without sin. That’s someone that we can look up to. That’s someone we can look to as an example on how to live a sinless life. Jesus did it, so can we.

Sometime we lean too much into the idea that we are human and making mistakes is inevitable. We kind of use that as a crutch or something to fall back on when we decide to sin. I cannot tell you how many times I have used that as an excuse to do what I wanted. Countless times I have blamed my sin on my humanity as if I never knew right from wrong. Yes it is very true that we are human and we are going to make mistakes, but that does not mean that we plan those mistakes. It does not mean that we intentionally go against what we know is right just because “we’re human” and “things happen”. Things don’t just keep “happening” especially sin, when we know better we do better. At some point we have to give up the desires of the flesh if we want to live and please God. We cannot keep using the sames excuses to keep doing the same things. God gives us strength in those moments of weakness to escape, He always gives us a way out. There is always another choice, another door to go through, we do not have to fall every time. God is standing right there with us in those moments but He will not make the decision for us. Sometimes we have chosen to be weak because it is easier. We blame it on how weak our flesh is, when we’ve been in a relationship with Christ, at some point our desire to feed and please our flesh will be drowned out by our desire to please God and do His will. We may start off weak, but we most definitely do not stay that way.

All this to say, living a sinless life is possible, but here’s the catch, we cannot do it without Christ. We cannot stand against temptation on our own, every time we’ve tried we’ve failed.  We cannot live a life free of sin away from Christ, it will not work. That was the whole purpose of Him coming to save us in the first place. We obviously cannot live on our own, we need Him.

Reflection

1. Have you ever felt like being a Christian was too hard?
2. If so, what did you find hard about it?
3. Have you ever used, “I’m human” as an excuse to sin when you knew it was wrong?
4. Have you ever found yourself trying to beat temptation without Christ?

Prayer Time

Allow you answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Whatever stood out to you today talk to God about it. Maybe He’s leading you to repent or even give you heart to Him if you haven’t.

If that’s you, if you’ve never given your life to Christ, now is the time to make that decision. If you want to walk with Christ and be set free from the bondage of sin and shame say this prayer with me.

“Jesus I declare that you are my Lord and Saviour who died for my sins and was raised three days later. I repent of my sins and I give my life to you. I believe in my heart that you are the true living God. I pray that you shine  light on me and bring me out of the darkness and into your light. I love you Lord. Thank you for saving me. In Jesus name, Amen.”

If you made the choice to follow Christ, rededicate, or to submit your life to Him fully, Go to Romans 10:9-10

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

I love you so much and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! If you made the decision to follow Christ, congratulations! It’s the best decision you will ever make. Don’t be afraid to reach out and get plugged into a church! Make sure you share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 291!

Day 269: Exposing Darkness

Ephesians 5:11-14

For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.  It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret.  But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, for the light makes everything visible…

This statement might be familiar to some of us, but I remember when I was younger, a way my mom scared the truth out of us or stopped us from doing things we knew we weren’t supposed to do was by saying, “What’s done in the dark will come to light.” Every time she said this to us I would freak out, like I would have a few mini heart attacks. Thinking about all the things she would find out, I started freaking out about things I hadn’t even done, but I was convinced that I would get in trouble no matter what. This was a life lesson, it kept me an honest person, and someone who was willing to clean my closet before all the skeletons fell out. God knows what we are doing when no one else is looking. He sees the things we do in the dark that we try to hide from everyone else. The difference between God and my mom is that I could hide things from her, there’s nothing i can hide from God because He is all knowing. He. Sees. Everything.  

God is calling us to live an honest life before Him. He’s calling us out of darkness and telling us to take no part in it, as a matter of fact shine a light on it and expose it. Here’s the  thing about darkness is, it is only the absence of light. That’s literally the definition. So simple yet so profound. Seeing that Jesus is the light, He is telling us to only take part in things that are of Him. Taking part in darkness or living in darkness means we are living outside of the will of God. We are trying to navigate through life without our Savior. When we shine a light on the darkness that was once our lives, we begin to see clearly. Christ can now clean up the mess that was our lives. There’s no use of trying to walk through darkness because we will never get to where we are trying to go. In darkness we have no direction, no vision, nothing. There’s too much in front of us that we cannot see causing us to fall and stumble. Christ wants us to expose that, all of it. Now I know when we think about our sin being exposed our minds go to humiliation, but Christ is not in the business of humiliating us, in fact He would rather be humiliated so we wouldn’t have to. He was humiliated for us. He wants us to bring our sin to Him so He can clean us off.

The scripture says, once we were filled with darkness but now we have light from the Lord. What that means is God gave us direction. He gave us salvation, He sent His son so that we would no longer have to navigate in the dark. When Jesus came He did not come pointing at people and embarrassing them for their sin, but He offered forgiveness, He gave us a way out. He turned us away from a life that was leading to death and gave us an eternity. But here’s the catch, the people had to be willing to accept Him, the had to be willing to accept His forgiveness and walk in this light that He has given us.

Sometimes we are so consumed by our sin that it seems nearly impossible to give up. We tend to hold on to the very things that are killing us as if they could save us. We have been walking in darkness so long that the sight of light doesn’t give us hope, instead it irritates our eyes so we turn away from it. What I’m saying is that sometimes darkness feel too good to us to give up. Everything that feels good isn’t good, I think we can all agree on that. We know this, we know that the things we are doing is not okay because we are trying to hide them from God, so why do we continue to live in darkness as if it can be overlooked? It poses the question, would we rather God expose us for our sin or would we rather come to Him and confess? Lay it down at the cross and accept salvation. I don’t know about you, but the latter seems to be the easier road to take. Jesus doesn’t judge us, He died so that we wouldn’t have to live in darkness. He gave us His life to do away with darkness, why would we go back to it after we’ve been set free?

There are some things in our lives that are so hard to let go of. We all that one thing that stays creeping up on us. As I’ve stated before, that thing for me was pornography, I could go to church, read my bible everyday, pray all day, and still be struggling with pornography. Even when I thought it was gone, it came creeping up again. Sometimes us Christians are walk 95% in the light. What I mean is we sometimes have a closet with a few skeletons lying around, making appearances every now and then. We just tend to overlook them as if they’re not there. What I’m saying is, there’s corners in our lives that could use some light.

All this to say, walk in light and when I say walk in light I mean walk in Christ. Do not be consumed by sin. When we invite Christ into our lives we must allow Him into every part of our lives, so that He can drive out darkness in every corner and crevice of our lives.  There is nothing we can hide from Him no matter how hard we try, so there’s no use in trying. There is always room at the cross to lay down our sins and expose the darkness in our lives. Sin was defeated by Christ, darkness was defeated by light. So if we want to defeat the darkness in our lives we must shine a light on it. If we want to get rid of the sin in our lives we must accept Christ into our hearts and give Him every part of us. Letting go of anything and everything that is unlike Him.

Reflection

1. Are there things in your life you are overlooking because you can’t seem to let them go?
2. If so, what are they?
3. Take the time to respond to what we discussed today, in whatever way you feel led.  

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Talk to God about whatever is on your heart, if you want to confess to Him take the time and do it. This is between you and God, whatever is on your heart release it. If you want a way out, here is it. If you want God to shine a light on you so that you are no longer walking in darkness take the time to tell Him. If you want to make that decision to accept the Lord as your Savior or rededicate your life to Him, now is the time to do it.  

If you want to make that decision today, pray this prayer with me.

Jesus I declare that you are my Lord and Saviour who died for my sin and was raised three days later. I repent of my sins and I give my life to you. I believe in my heart that you are the true living God. I pray that you shine  light on me and bring me out of the dark. I love you Lord. Thank you for saving me. In Jesus name, Amen.

If you made the choice to follow Christ, rededicate, or to submit your life to Him fully, Go to Romans 10:9-10

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! If you made a decision to follow Christ, congratulations! Get plugged into a church and don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or prayer requests. Im praying for you on your journey. I love you, be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for day 270!

Day 268: Recap

Day 260: What You Need Me to Be

Today we talked about the lengths that Paul went to brag the message of Christ to all people. To make sure the everyone heard the gospel. We talked about how we as people often overlook people who are in need of help, and we must be willing to go to the places no one is willing to go, just to bring the message of Christ to someone. We focused on 1 Corinthians 9:19-23.

" We are so concerned with containing our Christian composure and making sure that our spirits are not 'tainted' that we are not really doing all we can to make sure someone’s soul is set free."

 Day 261: A Way Out

Today we talked about how God always provides us with a way out. We talked about how He will not allow us to be tempted pass what we can stand. We talked about how we sometimes decide to sin and then blame everything but ourselves. We focused on 1 Corinthians 10:12-13.

"Who you are in Christ is much stronger than your flesh and it’s worldly desires."

Day 262: Our Way

Today we talked about a classic biblical story, we discussed Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. We discussed how sometimes we think or act like we know more than God. We act as if He does not know what He is doing therefore we must take matters into our own hands. We also talked about how we decide to move on our own when we get impatient with God. We focused on Genesis 15:2-5, 16:1-5: 18:10-15, and 21:1-5.

"We do not know more than God. It’s easy to take matters into our own hands because we think we know what we’re doing, but when we compare our knowledge to God’s we literally have no idea what He has in store for us."

Day 263: The Split Personalities of Christianity

Today we talked about how we often put our life as a Christian separate from our everyday living. We treat our lifestyle as a follower of Christ as something that can be turned on and off at will. We discussed how we are a Christian at all times, in front of all people, and our lives should not be separated into two categories. We also touched on how we often act as if our humanity is stripped from us because we are Christ followers. We focused on Galatians 2:11-13.

"We are so concerned with how people will see us and what they will think or say that we allow ourselves to put up a facade. It’s like putting on a mask that we remove from time to time to reveal and cover who we really are. We allow ourselves to create a separate identity that is only unleashed when “we don’t have to be Christian”. Once again, there is never a moment when we are not Christian."

Day 264: Our Set Time

Today we talked about how God has set a time for each and every one of us. We talked about how sometimes God is allowing us to grow and mature, he is moulding us into the people He needs us to be before He pours out His blessings upon us. We talked about how we must be patient and trust His timing because we will always to come the realization of how perfect His timing actually is. We focused on Galatians 4:1-2.

" I feel like sometimes God is telling us to wait a little longer so we can mature a little more. He’s teaching us as we go, He’s making us into the people He wants to be so that whenever we receive what God has for us, we will be ready."

Day 265: All the Time #WasteTheirTime2017

Today we touched on relationships a bit and talked about how sometimes people only want our attention so it's not given to someone else. We talked about how sometimes someone who doesn't really want us in their lives will do everything they can to keep us, just so we won't be a part of someone else's. You gotta read it. We focused on Galatians 4:17-18.

"Like Paul says, it’s alright if people want to do good things for you, but let them do it all the time. Let them be the same all the time. Let them do it in private just as in public."

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone, go back over what we discussed this week, and come back tomorrow for Day 269!

Day 256: People's Opinions

Proverbs 29:25

It is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you, but if you trust the Lord, you are safe. (GNT)

One of the greatest lessons God has taught me is to be confident in who I am and who He has made me to be. He has allowed me or taught me to see myself the way He sees me. To love myself. He has taught me not to view myself through the filter of my peers. He has made me who I am and I am not subject to succumb to the opinions of others. We are not made to live in the shadow of someone’s opinions. Opinions didn’t make us, so they most definitely do not have the power to break us. I have found freedom in not caring about what others think. That was something that held me back for a very long time in every area of my. The grave fear of, “What will people think?” “What will people say?” The more I thought about that, the more it destroyed me, because one thing my mom always taught us is, no matter what, people will always have an opinion. People will always have something to say. Then she would follow it up by saying something like, “it’s a good thing you aren’t living for their acceptance. Ever since I was a little girl my parents have taught me that the only person I have to please is God, that I am not here to please anyone, not even them. Those statements would not resonate with me until later in my life but I have grasped the concept of it.

I believe that God wants us to be confident people, and He does not want us to be held captive by what people think of us. Honestly speaking, we are often concerned with how people view us, especially as Christians. We act a certain way around certain people so they don’t think we are bad people or bad Christians. However when we are more concerned with how God views us, we are much happier with ourselves and our lives. There’s so much joy in living our lives solely for God. There’s a certain type of joy that cannot be tainted when we truly grasp the meaning of being free in christ. When we just accept ourselves the way God made us and love every part of who we are, we tend to love others more. When we treat ourselves well we tend to treat others well. When we are confident in who we are we want to build up others. It’s like a domino effect. When we all learn to be ourselves, and fully devote ourselves to God, the world will be a much happier place. People will love each other because they love themselves.

I have found, very recently that all the confidence, all the strength and belief in myself I will ever need I can and have found in God. It was only when I drew closer to the Lord that I figured out how to focus on Him and not others. What I mean is that for so long I cared about how people viewed me, and when I fully immersed myself into the word of God, and fully devoted myself and my life to Christ, that is when all of my insecurities and cares for what others thought of me disappeared. Basically what I’m saying is I live a carefree life because I live a Christ-like life. It’s crazy how that works. Living in the world could not give me the type of freedom that I have now. And it feels good, not caring feels so good. I’m just going through life happy and free, it’s great!

All this to say, live the life god has given you and not care about what others think of you. The only person you have to please is God. Don’t allow the opinions of others dictate who you are and how you view yourself. God made you who you are for a reason. People’s opinions either elevate you or tear you down, you have to choose which ones are meant for your life.

Reflection

1. Are you often caught up in the opinions of others?
2. Are you viewing yourself through God’s eyes or the eyes of your peers or neighbors?
3. Do you believe that there is freedom from that in Christ?
4. Can you agree that all this confidence and freedom is found in the Lord?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer. Talk to God about what we discussed today, as Him to help you see you, the way He sees you.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 257!