Day 281: God's Grace and Forgiveness

Ephesians 1:7

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace

Daniel 9:9

The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him;

Hebrews 10:17

Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”

Acts 3:19

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,

1 John 1:19

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

You can obviously see a pattern in the scriptures we are talking about today. We are going to discuss God’s grace and forgiveness and how sometime we abuse this. Have you ever continued to do something that you knew was wrong but you kept doing it because you wouldn’t be held accountable for it? Or have you ever kept doing something to someone because you knew they would forgive you over and over again? We may not have done it to the people in our everyday lives but how many times have we done this to God. How many times have we interpreted God’s grace and forgiveness to mean that we can sin and live however we want because God will forgive us anyway? Grace is not a sin for all gift card. We do not get to live any kind of way just because we know God will forgive and that His love will cover our sin. The thing about having a relationship with God is that once we give our hearts to Him, we will do away with all the things that kept us separated from Him in the past. That is when we grow in our faith, and in our relationship with Him. If we are constantly sinning just because we know He will forgive us, it’s like constantly cheating on a spouse because we know they will not leave us. What I’m saying is, just because we know we will be forgiven doesn’t mean we have to hurt the people we say we love. We do this to God too often, we take a chance and disobey Him, because we know that at the end of the day all we have to do is pray for forgiveness and we will have it, because God loves us that much. But can we love Him enough to not sin? Can we love Him enough not to just use Him as a grace card that we can swipe when we need our conscious cleared?

When we think about it, when we live like this are we really committed to God. When we are willing to give up a relationship just for pleasure that will only last a minute, are we really in a relationship with Him? Did we ever really love Him? Last time I checked leaving or hurting someone you love isn’t easy. When we have a relationship with someone that we truly love, we will fight for it. We’re not going to give it up that easy, we won’t cheat on someone we truly love because we take everything into consideration. How bad we will hurt this person, what it may mean for the relationship. Why do we not do the same thing for God, why are we only in a relationship with Him to secure our spots in heaven, go to church on Sundays, and live however we please the rest of the week?

All this to say, if we are going to commit ourselves and our lives to God we have to really commit. We have to be devoted in this relationship to Him. God is loving and graceful, and will love us forever no matter what we don. However, let’s value our relationship with Him enough so that we will want to live our lives with Him, and devote our hearts to Him. Not take it back whenever we decide that we want to sin and give it back when we want our conscious cleared. When we know better we do better. Not knowing or being ignorant is no longer an excuse when we encounter God and give our lives to Him.

Response/Prayer Time

Respond in whatever way you feel led. Allow that response to guide your prayer. Examine yourself and see if you have been taking God’s love and grace for granted. Then talk to Him, confess, ask for forgiveness, and allow Him to change your heart and influence your 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 282!

Day 135: Recap!

First off Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers out there.  Happy Mother's day to all the Mothers that read this blog.

Dear Moms,
Thank you for bringing us into this world and threatening to take us out from time to time. We love you, even though sometimes we get on your nerves, make you mad, and have even made you cry. Despite all of that we love you and thank you for all you do for us. We love you, mom!

Day 128: If It Had Not Been for the Lord

Today we talked about what we really mean when we say, "If it had not been for the Lord..." We focused on Psalms 94:16-19, 22, and Psalms 94:22.

"When we look back over our lives and when we see where we came from we will see that God has had His hand on us all along."

Day 129: God is Not a Feeling

Today we talked about feelings and how we sometimes let our feelings dictate our faith. We focused on Jeremiah 17:9, 1 John 3:20, and Romans 10:9.
"Sometimes when it comes to our faith we have to ignore our feelings and not allow them to dictate what we believe to be true about God."

Day 130: No Picking and Choosing

Today we talked about how we sometimes pick and choose which parts of the bible we will live by, and what we agree with when it does not work that way. It's all or nothing. We focused on James 2:10-11, 2 Peter 2:21, and James 4:17.

"We have this ‘good enough’ attitude, that we aren’t doing everything we should or could be doing but what we are doing is ‘good enough’."

Day 131: The Idea of God

Today we talked about how we can be in love with the idea of something or someone rather than the thing itself. We often do this to God. We focused on Matthew 6:21, 1 John 4:19, and Isaiah 40:28.

"We find comfort in knowing of God, but it’s just enough so we do not have to entertain the actuality of having a relationship with Him."

Day 132: A Dose of Humility

Today we talked about humility and how our generation could use a huge dose of it. We talked about the need to be selfless in this day and age. We focused on quite a few scriptures today, Proverbs 11:2, Matthew 23:11-12, Matthew 18:4, James 4:10, Philippians 2:3, and 2 Chronicles 7:14.

"Sometimes we are so focused on ourselves that we don’t really see what’s right in front of us, we don’t see the world because we are too consumed with self."

Day 133: The Golden Rule

Today we talked about respect and how we treat others in comparison to how we not only treat ourselves but expect to be treated by others. We focused on Matthew 6:31 today.

"We all have standards of what we will allow and what we won’t. We all have lines that we draw that people are not allowed to cross. We have a basic understanding of how we should be treated, about how we expect to be treated by our peers. What if we take all those standards, those lines that are not to be crossed, that basic understanding of how we are to be treated; what if we take that and apply to how we treat others? "

I love you, I hope you have an amazing Day and even better Mother's Day. Enjoy your day and/ or evening, be sure to go over what we talked about this week and come back tomorrow for Day 136!

Day 134: The Golden Rule

Matthew 6:31

And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

Many of us grew up hearing statements like, “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” “Give respect to get respect.” “You give what you get.” The very morals that we grew up on, the rules we were raised by are found in the scriptures that we live by. We grew up with a common knowledge on how to treat people, and it’s simply to treat them as we want to be treated. Do to others what you wish for them to do to you. My mom would always tell us to give respect if we want respect. We were to respect everyone, even our peers. That was an issue I had when I was younger because I grew up with strict parents and my mom was all about us being respectful children and having good manners. So when we came against an adult who felt they did not need to respect us because we were children problems would arise. In their eyes, I was not worthy of respect because I was a kid that they did not have to respect but I was required to give them respect. I did not agree with or like that theory. I began to say, ‘If you don’t respect me, I don’t have to respect you’ which brings me to my next point.  

You get what you give, this statement is true when it comes to relationships between humanity, however, it’s not so true when it comes to our relationship with God, He’s done way more for us than we could ever do for Him or ourselves. But that’s another topic for another day. Back on track now.

As we progress throughout our lives we will quickly learn that you get out of life what you give. You put in an application, you get a job, you work hard, you receive the benefits, you seek you receive, you give respect you get respect. When we treat people unkind and unloving there’s a chance that we will be treated the exact same way. We cannot walk around demanding respect from others but we do not give it. That is not how it works, we treat people the way we want to be treated, we do not get to pick and choose who gets treated with respect and who doesn’t. It is everyone’s human right to be respected and loved. How we treat others sets the bar on how we will be treated ourselves, but also creates a chain reaction as to how others will be treated.

We must lead by example. What I mean by that is taking the first step by being nice to someone. Not everyone we meet is going to like us, not everyone we come across will know what respect or love is. It is our job and Christ followers to show them what is to love and treat others with respect. We cannot wait for people to treat us well we have to start. If Jesus waited until everyone respected and loved Him to come and save humanity, we wouldn’t be saved. We have to make the first move, whether people treat us with respect or not we still have to treat them the way we want to be treated. We have to handle people as if we were handling ourselves. We all love ourselves enough to respect ourselves. If you don’t drop me an email so we can talk. How we treat, view, and love others is a reflection of how we treat, view, and love ourselves. We all have standards of what we will allow and what we won’t. We all have lines that we draw that people are not allowed to cross. We have a basic understanding of how we should be treated, about how we expect to be treated by our peers. What if we take all those standards, those lines that are not to be crossed, that basic understanding of how we are to be treated; what if we take that and apply to how we treat others? What if we did that? How would it change the way we treated people? I do not think the goal is to treat others with respect just to get it in return. The goal is just to treat people well. Put them in our shoes and treat them the way we expect to be treated. It’s not about what we get out of it but more about how we radiate the love of Christ.

Reflection

1. Take a look at all the standards you have set for yourself and how you expect others to treat you. Write them down if you will.
2. Compared to your answer above, do you treat others in the same respect by the same standards?
3. If you truly treated others how you expect or want to be treated, How would it change the way you treat others?

Prayer Time

Talk to God about treating others well, ask Him to help you live more like Him and treat others with the same standards and respects to want to be treated with.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Share this with someone and be sure to come back tomorrow for Day 135!

Day 118: Walking Through the Desert

Today we are going to continue with yesterday’s theme of, this idea of stepping into the desert out of bondage.

Deuteronomy 8:2, Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

We are all aware that the Israelites wandered through the desert for forty years. A journey that should have taken a few weeks ended up taking forty years because of the Israelites disobedience, complaining, and grumbling. They held themselves up. Today we aren’t going to go into too deep of detail about that (not yet), but we are going to talk about the journey. Yesterday we talked about stepping into the desert, today it’s about walking or journeying through the desert.

The only way to the promised land was through the desert.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned in my life is that the journey is more important, than the destination. Getting there is what is important, it’s what counts most. We cannot skip over what it takes to get to where we are or where we are going, there’s always going to be a journey and it is in these desert places that we grow the most. Which is why we often hear people talking about the journey more than the destination, there's some hills and valleys to go through first. We have to walk through those hard places, and learn some lessons in the desert. Now, one thing I must say is that our generation is the generation of immediacy. We want everything immediately, and with technology, online shopping, and social media we don’t have to travel far to get it.  We want God to do things for us, but we don’t want to go through the desert with Him. We want Him to take us places but we only want to be there for the final destination, not the journey. Life doesn’t work that way, if we want something we have to walk through the desert to get it, the same way the israelites had to walk through the desert to get to the promised land. The promised land wasn’t coming to them, they had to go to it. God has prepared a promised land for us, but we have to go to it. He opens doors for us, but we have to walk through them. We have to take the journey to get to the places we need and want to go. The journey is so important because there are some things we have to drop along the way. There are some things we have to leave in the desert.

There were some things they brought out of Egypt that couldn’t go into the promised land, they had to drop it in the desert.

A lot of times God takes us through the journey to teach us, and help us grow. In the desert we are completely stripped of all things that will lead us away from God. We cannot take the attitude of bondage into a land of freedom. I believe that, that was one of the reasons it took them forty years to get to the promised land. God had to make sure that they were not entering the promised land with the same things they left Egypt with. There is always a purpose to the journey, there is always a testimony in the desert.

Reflection/ Prayer time

Talk to God about the passages today, allow His love to serenade your heart. Thank Him for the journey you are one, even the valleys and deserts we have to go through.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Thank you for reading, share this with someone and make sure you come back tomorrow for Day 119! For those of you entering finals week or the last stressful parts of the school year, or college, you are in my prayers.

Day 88: Dare to Live!

Today we’re going to continue this little series, talking about daring to live.

As young people we are on this constant search to live the best life we can, but many times we are reaching for that life we are not living it. But why not, why not live our best lives now, we have an idea of what a good life looks likes and anything short of that is not what we would consider a good life.  But I think living our best life means living knowing that we will spend eternity with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We don’t have to reach for that life, we can live it right now, it was freely given to us 2500 years ago when Jesus died on the cross.  Truly living is living with the Lord everyday, that’s a good life.

Proverbs 21:21

Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness, and honor.

John 10:10

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

We have to ask ourselves what it means to actually live and what a good life looks like? When we are living with and for Christ that is when we are truly living.  When we pursue righteousness and kindness we will find life, that’s what the scripture tells us. Too many times I have had conversations with young people who have said they are going to wait until they are older to give their life to Christ. When asked why they had this mindset, their response would always be, “I just want to live.” I was always astounded by that response because Christ is life, we are not truly living until we are living in Him. It confuses me that so many people look at this lifestyle as an end to something, my friends it is the very beginning to an eternity, When we think that giving our lives to Christ will result in us not being able to live we must re-evaluate what it is that we view as truly living.

The scripture tells us that Christ came to give life and give it more abundantly. I think we are afraid to live for Christ because we don’t want to let go of our attachments to this world. We think that we can’t have fun living with Christ. But that is not true, if anything we have more fun, we are more free to live. We have no worries, we are stress free, guilt free, drama free, we are just free.  

I want to challenge everyone today to dare to live. Dare to give our lives to Christ, dare to give up what we think is living for what is truly living. Dare to pursue righteousness and live. What we don’t understand is that Christ is the key to the beginning of life and the end to eternal damnation. When we make the choice to live with and for Christ, we make the choice to live. Not only are we living for the moment but we are committed to an eternity. Living for Christ is living our best life. It is the best life we could ask for. It was given to us by Christ laying down His life. When someone lays down their life for us, it is only natural to want to live for them. He came to give us life, why do we act like it’s not real. Why do we push it aside until we decide it’s time to get right. We tend to push Christ to the side and only pick Him up when we need Him. We bargain with Him, “IF you do this, then I will live right.” I wonder what would have happened if Jesus had that same attitude toward us, what if he decided that he wasn’t going to lay down His until we all decided to believe in Him. Oh, we would not be saved. But Christ dared to lay down His life for a people full of sin. He dared to give His life for people He knew would never give their life to Him, because His love for us is just that great. So why can’t we live for Him. Why can’t we accept the life He has given us. Why are we obsessed with the idea of living outside of Christ, and when we’re done, then we’ll decide to settle down with the Lord. We must understand that life outside of Christ is not truly life at all, it is damnation. The only life worth living is one that is subject to the will of the Lord, one that is committed to Him and his Kingdom. That’s living.

Reflection

1. What is your definition of living?
2. Are you trying to live your life outside of Christ?
3. How different would your life look if you dared to live for Him?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Ask God to help you understand that the only life worth living is one that is dedicated to Him.

I love you, I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Make sure you come back tomorrow for Day 89!

Day 48: Parent Appreciation Day

Proverbs 23:22-25

Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old. Buy truth, and do not sell it;buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding. The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him.Let your father and mother be glad;let her who bore you rejoice.

If you grew up with strict parents, respect was taught to us at a young age, it was ingrained in us. We were told to respect our parents, our elders, and our peers.

If you grew up with parents who knew anything about scripture, you heard at one point or another, Exodus 20:12, “Honor your father and mother so that your days may be longer on earth.” and if you had a smart mouth like my sister, at one point your response to this statement was the beginning of Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers provoke your child not to wrath.” every time the pastor talked about disobedient and rude kids your mother broke her neck to look at you. We love our parents, but sometimes we don’t always like our parents. I’m just being honest. Sometimes we aren’t as respectful as we should be. Sometimes we forget that no matter how old we are, we will always be our parents’ child. Sometimes we just forget to appreciate our parents.

Countless times throughout the entire bible we are told to honor our parents, to listen to their wise counsel, not to disgrace our father's house, but to listen honor, and obey.

Colossians 3:20

Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord.

Proverbs 1:8-9

Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.

God personally chose our parents, he did not just pick two random people to take care of us, God gave us the people in our lives that would raise us right, that would teach us and show us how to live an abundant life. These are not always the people who created and gave birth to us. No, our parents aren’t perfect but neither are we, they are doing the job God has given them, being our parent.

At some point we lost that innocent unconditional love we had for our parents. Not that we don’t love them, but we’ve lost that shine we had when we were kids. When they were our heroes, and we leaned on them for everything. When all we wanted was to make our parents proud. There was a time when we wanted nothing more than to spend time with our parents. As we got a little older that dependency started to fade, and we started to need them less. Sometimes as our dependency fades our respect fades. We started going through changes, and our minds started to mature and we got to a point where we ‘no longer needed’ our parents. They raised us and brought us up right, yet when we got older we went against it. We have all gone through a time of declaring our independence and feeling like we don’t need to listen to our parents anymore.  Yes, we love our parents but how often do we tell them? We appreciate them but do they know it? Our parents love us so much, more than we could ever imagine, no matter how upset they are with us, or how much we fight with them, their love doesn’t fade. It is important that we understand how much our parents just want what is best for us. Sometimes we don’t listen because we think we know it all, and sometimes our parents are wrong. But for the many times they’re not, we have to learn to accept their wisdom, learn from them, because one day we’re going to wake up and and all of sudden we’re a parent and we will understand all of the things our parents told us when we were younger.

I don’t think we understand how happy it makes our parents when we just call to say, “i love you, or i appreciate you.” They want nothing more than for us to be happy, and as we get older we will start to recall the teachings of our parents. We will start to appreciate all the things we didn’t like when we were younger I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in conversations and caught myself saying; ‘Well my mom always said…” or “My dad taught me this..” And it is a great feeling to just sit a realize, my parents were right. To realize that even at my worst moments my parents had my best interest at heart. That even when I didn't want to listen their consistency, and strict parenting made me the person I am. It was always so that I could be a better person. Parents are the most selfless people in the world. They put their children ahead of them everyday. I thank God for my parents, even though my father is no longer with us.

Some of us don’t have our parents with us anymore, and I understand that. I lost my dad when I was eighteen, but everything he taught me up until the day he died is ingrained in me. I can find comfort in knowing that even though I didn’t have him as long as I would have liked, God allowed him to raise me and show me a way that was right. He gave me a father who would teach me how to love, and be loved, how would teach me about life, and the little things that matter the most. So when God called Him home, yes it shattered me but His wisdom and what he taught me while he was here will forever be ingrained on my heart.

-Dyamond

Proverbs 22:6

Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Many times when we get older we break our parents hearts by straying away from their teachings. We go against the grain, and act as if we forget what they taught us,  But it is the prayers of our parents and our grandparents and our forefathers that keep us going. We might stray but we will never depart, we will always find a way back home. That wise counsel, and those morals that have been taught to us will bring us back every time. It is because god gave us parents who would pray for us and love us even when we screw up, even when we break their hearts. They are always waiting with open arms to forgive and accept us. Just like When the prodigal son returned home.

Reflection/Prayer Time

Take the time to just think about all the things your parents, guardians, and/or parental figures has done for you. Thank God for them, thank God for putting them in your life. And pray for your parents, or the people you consider or call your parents. When all is done, call you parents today and tell them you love them, send a card, write a letter. Do something to show your parents that you appreciate them. We don't have to wait until Mother's or Father's Day for our parents to know how much we love and appreciate them.

This might be hard for those of us who have lost parents, but thank God for the time you had with them. Remember the good things about them, and how they helped mold and shape you into the person you are today. I love you.

Have an awesome day or evening. I love you so much. MAke sure you come back tomorrow for day 49!