Day 269: All Loss for One Gain

Philippians 3:7-8

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Paul was on to something in these scriptures, he saying something along the lines of, ‘nothing compares to having Christ in my life’. Everything I had, everything I have gained, I would count it all lost just to have Christ in my life. I would lose it all, if it meant I would gain you. I would rather lose everything before I lose you. This almost seems like our response to God leaving the ninety-nine to find the one that wandered away. Christ gave up everything, His throne, His life, so that we may live. This concludes that life is so much greater than what we gain or lose here on earth. There is a greater purpose, a mystery to it all. That mystery is Christ. How great it is to gain everything through Christ, even when we’ve lost everything in the world.

How many of us can say that we are willing to lose everything for the sake of Christ? If we had too or if we were given the choice. I’m not telling you to go and give up everything you have, what I’m saying is that if we had to, if we lost everything it will have been worth it, just to gain Christ. Just so we can have a relationship with Him, and experience the love and freedom He has given us. I believe that this is what Paul was saying. He’s saying none of it matters if I don’t have Christ. I will rip up my credentials, and give up all my earthly possessions because truly if I do not have Christ, what do I have? I have nothing.

I remember when my sister and I were sixteen, it seemed like our world came crashing down. My mom, my sister, my brother, and I fell on very hard times. We lost everything. From our house to our car. We put everything we owned into storage and then we lost that. Everything we owned, thousands of dollars worth of stuff, heirlooms, everything! All we had were the bags of clothes we needed and the clothes on our backs. We were living in a motel at the time. As someone who grew up very sheltered and spoiled, I found myself at the lowest point of my life. I thought we couldn’t get any worse. But it was in these moments that Christ found me. I would love to say, I found Him but I wasn’t looking for Him, if I’m being honest. It was when I had nothing that Christ gave me everything and I don’t mean materialistic stuff. I mean He showed me that there was a reason to live beyond what was tangible. He showed me that I had a greater purpose, He gave me life when I was dying. Everything I could need or ask for He gave it to me. I found it all in Him, all the answers I needed, all the healing, all the grace, everything was and is in Him. Going through all of this sucked, it was very hard, but if Christ didn’t find me, if He didn’t meet me where I was I would not have made it through. Going through much more than just losing everything I was dealing with some dark emotional, and mental issues at the time, and battled with suicide. Even went as far as planning my suicide, multiple times, but He never allowed me to carry out the plan. If He hadn’t found me, where would I be? I would have died at my own hands. So yes, I lost everything but it was all worth it just to gain Christ. I would not go back and change anything because through it all I receive my salvation and an eternal relationship with my heavenly Father. I might have lost everything, but in reality I truly gained everything.

-Dyamond

All this to say, sometimes we have to lose everything to gain Christ. Maybe not on that grand of a scale but we must come to realization that all of this can vanish at any moment. We must not put our faith in what is disposable. This doesn’t mean that we dismiss everything that is tangible, or things that are disposable, but our faith, our lives, our devotion belongs to Christ. When we put Him first, everything else will fall into place. The biggest lesson I learned from that experience is, I can live without these worldly possessions, tangible, and even sometimes intangible things that make up my life here on Earth, but I cannot live without Christ. I cannot do it.  At the end of the day, none of this can save us, whatever ‘this’ is. It cannot save us and it cannot give us peace or life. We have to get to a point where we hold tightly to God, so that when other things fall away we will still be standing because of our firm grasp on God. We will not be shaken or moved. Even when we have everything we ever wanted we will still have a solid foundation in Christ. Because like I said before if we are not living in Christ, are we really living?

Response/ Prayer Time

How do you respond to what we discussed today? Are you truly living? Maybe you’ve had a similar experience, maybe not, but respond however you feel led today and let that guide your prayer. Have a conversation with God, just you and Him.

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 270!

Day 262: What You Need Me to Be

1 Corinthians 9:19-23

Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ.  When I was with the Jews, I lived like a Jew to bring the Jews to Christ. When I was with those who follow the Jewish law, I too lived under that law. Even though I am not subject to the law, I did this so I could bring to Christ those who are under the law.  When I am with the Gentiles who do not follow the Jewish law, I too live apart from that law so I can bring them to Christ. But I do not ignore the law of God; I obey the law of Christ. When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. I do everything to spread the Good News and share in its blessings.

This is one of my favorite passages in the bible, because Paul is explaining the lengths he goes to, just to share the message of Christ with someone. To make sure they have the same opportunity as everyone else, so that no one will be excluded from or not hear the word of God. It’s very clever, and so selfless. Paul could easily look past and walk over the people who seem unreachable, but he didn’t he became like them in order to reach them. He found common ground just to save souls and have the opportunity to share the gospel. He starts by declaring his freedom but then immediately saying that he has become a servant to all. To all people he has become a servant, in order to share the message of Jesus Christ with them. Paul is putting himself aside for the sake of God’s people. He was willing to do something that not many people were. He was willing to be looked at as less so that Jesus could be more. Meaning, he was willing to go places no one else would go, he was willing to associate with the people who had written off and given up on. Paul was willing to get his hands dirty. he was willing to put his pride aside for the sake of someone’s soul. He became who they needed him to be. He got on their level, whatever that was, and did whatever he could to make sure that everyone  had access to Christ. He made sure that everyone would be given a chance to experience the love of god and the truth of the Gospel. Even if that meant he had to become like the Jews, the servants, the Gentiles, whatever he had to do he did it. He did all of this and never lost who he was in Christ.

If someone was weak, he got down there with them and said, let's be weak together, you don’t have to do this alone, He took on the burdens of his brothers and sisters. He found ways to relate to the people. I think this is where we miss the mark sometimes. 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. The Scriptures say that when we find our brothers overtake in a fault, he that is spiritual restores him (Galatians 6:1) Sometimes we have to put ourselves of the line for someone else, We have to make sure they know that they are not alone. We cannot forget that at one point in our lives before we were high and mighty in our faith and too spiritual for the world we were right there where someone else is, and someone came and picked us up.

I think Paul knew this, I love the passages when Paul shares his testimony of how God brought Him to salvation and made him a man after God’s own heart. For those of you who don’t know Paul was one of the people who sought out and persecuted Christians. He was totally against the message of Christ, but on his way to persecute more Christians Jesus came to Paul and set him straight. Paul was saved by Jesus himself and turned away from the life of sin and brought into eternity. Now every chance Paul gets he shares what God has done for him. He does not stand ashamed of who he was yet he boasts in what God has done for him. Paul remembers the life he led before Christ and shares how God turned that around.

I share this because, too often we forget where we come from. No, we do not dwell on the past, that’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is at one point in our lives we were all leading a life that was not pleasing God. We were living a life that was against God and His word, so how dare we forget that once we decide we are too holy to associate with anyone who is not a believer. That’s why this passage is so important, because sometimes we have to sit our pride aside and whoever we think we are and become servants of God’s people. We are here to serve one another, that means that whatever people need us to be, God willing we will be it to make sure they are set free.

All this to say, don’t allow your pride to make you overlook someone. We must allow ourselves to be transparent, letting go of who we think we are in order to bring people to Christ. Let’s find a common ground with those who are suffering and find ways to bring the message of Christ to them, not wait for them to walk up to us.

Response

How do you respond to what we discussed today, can you relate? Maybe you know what it’s like to be overlooked because of who people perceive you as, or maybe you’ve overlooked someone. Whatever it may be, take the time to respond. Open your heart to God and pray about it. Whatever is on your heart talk to God about it. Have an honest conversation with Him.

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 263!

Day 249: When We Make Life Hard

1 Peter 4:8

...They stumble because they do not obey God’s word, and so they meet the fate that was planned for them.

Sometimes we make our own lives hard. We choose to learn the hard way when we really don’t have to. Sometimes we go through things and it’s our own fault because we didn’t want to listen. We have to touch fire to see that it burns, we have to bump our heads to see that it hurts. That’s what my mom used to tell us growing up, after us not listening time and time again she would say, “okay, I see you like to learn the hard way. Go ahead and touch the fire, you’ll see that it burns.”  I’m not sure why it is, but we often think that the hard way is the right way, when it’s not. We think that life isn’t worth loving if it’s not hard. No, that’s not true, why would we want to live a life that is a struggle every moment? Stop telling yourself that. The hard way means that we’ve chosen to be disobedient and not listen and made it hard on ourselves. I’m not overlooking the fact that sometimes our path is going to get hard, but often times we do not choose the hard times in our lives, they just happen. It’s part of life. But what about the times when we opt to take every path but the right one, when we choose to make life hard. Sometimes we do it because it make for a better story, we’ll have a longer and more captivating testimony when we talk about how we had to bump our head fifty times before we actually go it. However the most captivating stories are the ones like Paul, a man who decided to obey the word of God and at that moment his life changed. God didn’t have to call him ten times before he listened, God got his attention and he went. When Jesus called the disciples, they dropped everything and went. Moses even though he was afraid that he wasn’t good enough, he went. We have a great example of what happens when we try to disobey God from Jonah. He tried to run but at the end of the day ended up doing exactly what God wanted, he just made his life hard when it didn’t have to be.

In the scripture above it’s telling us plainly, we stumble because we don’t obey God’s word, We are falling because we refuse to obey, therefore we will have accept the fate of that. We get what we give, If we want to continue to live a disobedient life then we will have to deal with the consequences of that.  However there is something called grace and we can thank God for that. We are so blessed to serve a gracious God, that even in the midst of us not doing what we are supposed to do, He still loves and delivers us.

All this to say, life isn’t as hard as it seems. It shouldn’t be as hard as we make it out to be, there are hard times, but not every moment of our lives is hard. We make our lives hard, when we decide to live our own way and disobey God. There are some things we do not have to experience to know that it’s wrong, because the word of God tells us so. This ties into knowing and trusting the word of God. When we trust in the word of God, we believe every word in that sixty six book love letter. God isn’t telling us to abstain from a certain way of living because he doesn’t want us to “live” or be happy. In fact it is quite the opposite, meaning He loves us enough to warn us against a certain way of living and even try to protect us from it because He knows the outcome. He is showing us a way of life that is free from bondage. He knows what true living is, and He is showing us what it is through His word and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Savior. He won’t guide us down a road that is dark. He will not tell us to live a depressed and unfruitful life. We have to learn to trust that the way He has shown us is the way to truly fruitful living. It is the way to true happiness.

It all falls back on His word; knowing and trusting in Him and his word.

Reflection

1. Can you agree that we make our lives hard sometimes?
2. Are you the type that has to take the hard way to learn?
3. If answered yes to the above question, explain why.
4. Do you trust in God and His word?
5. How’s your day going?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Have a conversation with God about what we discussed today. Talk to him about whatever is on your heart.

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 250!

Day 198: Recap! (Testimony)

What a week it has been. This has been a very emotional week for me, both mentally and emotionally. I've had a hard time this week, but it payed off in the end. I am grateful God has given me a platform such as this to encourage me when I need. This week god used my own words to speak to me. Many of this weeks posts came out of what I was experiencing and having faith in Him. So today I'd like to share a testimony with you all.

I have been struggling with my tuition for the past two years at school and it was even more of a struggle this year. With the financial aid office telling me there was nothing they could do to help me. I've been denied for every loan there is, from private loans, to payday loans. I am still paying off last semester and I go back to school in a month. I had no idea how I was going to come up with the eight thousand dollar needed to pay for school. I have been on the phones, the school has been so rude to me, no one was willing to help me. No one. So I prayed and I got to a point where I started to freak out, I was getting tired of fighting, and tired of trying and just ready to walk away from it all. However, deep down inside I knew that everything was going to be okay. When I was done freaking out, I found an ounce of hope. During this time I decided to email the president of my school, explaining the situation to him and asking for help. I was very honest in the email and I laid it all out on the table. Not knowing if he would respond or even help I sent the email because why not.  While I was expecting something from God, I was not expecting what He did. It reminds me of Ephesians 3:20,

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,"

It amazes me how God can take good faith and make it great. He shows us what He can do when we have faith in Him. This testimony is a testament of both God's faithfulness, and what it looks like when you trust God. 

So yesterday, I checked my email yesterday to see if there would be a response from him and there was. Not only did they increase one of my grants by 1,000 dollars but they also gave me another grant to cover the remainder of my tuition for the entire year. I read the email and I broke down crying because I knew that that was God. He worked it out for me once again in a way I never expected. I don't have to worry about making payments or stressing about the people in financial aid sending me passive aggressive emails. My God is awesome. I cannot thank Him enough, I am still amazed by it. When God shows up, He truly shows out. 

Day 129: If It Had Not Been for the Lord

Where would we be if it was not for the Lord on our side? Where would we be if it was not for Him? Who would we be?

Psalms 94:16-19, 22

Who rises up for me against the wicked?  Who stands up for me against evildoers? If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence. When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.

Psalms 94:22

But the Lord has become my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge.

Today is more about response and reflection than anything.

I’m pretty sure we have all testified to the words, “If it had not been for the Lord…”

We each have a different testimony but there is no doubt that each and every one of us can say that we would not be where we are if it had not been for the Lord. God is the one person that has always been there for us no matter where we go or where we have been God is always there to make sure that we are okay. He always pulls us out of our mess, and makes sure that we are in His will. Even when we slip God is there to pull us back from our valleys. God gives us everything we need even when we do not realize it. He has been there for us from the very beginning. God has been working in our lives from the very start. Our lives would not look as they do if God had not molded and shaped us into the people He created us to be.

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.

When I look at the person I was and who I could have been as opposed to who I am, I can do nothing but praise God. He lifted me out of the hands of death, He saved me from myself and my enemies. God has been there for me, fighting on my behalf. If it was not for Him I would not be here. God made me into a person I never thought I'd be, taken me places I never thought I'd go, and that is because I submitted my life to Him, and allowed Him to change me according to His will. Had I not done that I probably would be dead. If I never gave my life to God, if I never turned my life and heart over to Him, my own troubles, problems, and issues would have killed me. So I thank God every chance I get because He saved my life, and continues to save me every day. He continues to work on me and mold me and shape me to look more and more like Him every day. I would not be here without Him, I would not be writing these words without Him. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus,, for who you are. You are a mighty conqueror who conquered all my demons and made me into a woman of God. thank you, Lord.

-Dyamond

We can never over exaggerate when we say this because God has done more for us that we know and more that we realize. God is our refuge in time of trouble, our shoulder when we cry, our healing when we are sick and hurt. God is everything to us, where would we be without Him?

Reflection/Prayer Time

Think about where you would be without the Lord? Take the time to reflect on your life and where you would be without God. Think about how far He has brought you. Take the time to thank Him and honor Him for all He has done.

Day 53: It's That Simple

We as young people like to complicate things. We make life a lot harder than it has to be. We live in a world that tells us, if something is easy, or if something is handed to us it’s not worth having. I beg to to differ, God handed us a life of redemption, and freedom, and we did nothing to receive it. Yet we are still worthy of the gift in His eyes. We live in a world where if it’s not complicated it’s not real. So we end up taking all types of unnecessary turns to get to or reach something that is right in front of us. God is handing us the answer to our prayer, He is handing us a life free of complications and full of love, and instead of just reaching and grabbing it we create an obstacle course to get to it; so that we can have a story to tell. We are trying to build our testimony. The thing is, a testimony isn’t always about struggle it is testifying to what God has done for us and our lives.

Matthew 11:30

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Psalms 55:22

Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

1 John 3:23

And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He has commanded us.

1 John 5:3
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome.

When we are living for Christ life is a lot easier, than what when we were in the world. Everything becomes tameable, and feels more like freedom; things seem simple, and if I'm being honest they are. We don’t worry about anything because we know that God has it taken care of. This is not to say that every moment of our life will be a breeze but with Christ it is a lot easier. God sends us through tests we go through hard times, we have moments when we are unhappy. But that is just a section of our entire life, our feelings, our bad days, our frustrations do not dictate our entire life. When you think about it, life isn’t as hard as we think or as we make it. Jesus tells us that His yoke is easy, His burden is light. We do not have to bear the troubles, or the stress that come with this life. We cast all our cares, all of our anxieties, frustration, stress, disappointments, pain, and worries we cast it on Him because He can handle it. Or at least we’re supposed to. But instead of doing that we chose to harbor it, we choose to bear it, we choose sometimes to make our own lives hard. God is right there waiting to take all of our troubles, why are we still holding on to them? We know we can't do anything with it or about it yet we still hold on as if we alone can change something. A lot of times we give the excuse, “it’s easier said than done.” and that works for some things, but sometimes we just have to trust God and let go. We have to give God a simple yes. We make our own lives hard by choosing not to trust Him. We complicate things when we start to get in our heads and thinking too much. We must get out of our own minds and give Him a chance. We as people of faith know well that God can handle anything, and that with Him even the impossible becomes possible, it is not our job to fix ourselves, that is why we have Christ. We can try to make a testimony by taking on life on our own, but at the end of the day, who is really being glorified?

Matthew 22: 36-40

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Everything falls back to love. It’s that simple, if there is one thing we know how to do, it is love.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that being a Christian is too hard, there are too many rules. Uhmmm, no! Jesus did away with the rules when He came and died for our sins, He fulfilled the law and told us to love. We are to love Him and love our neighbors. Jesus then goes on to say that if we love Him we will keep His commands (John 14:15). When we love someone we want to honor them, we want to make them happy. If we truly love God, keeping His commands, and following His word isn’t that hard. Honestly, it takes a lot more to sin, we have to go out of our way to do wrong. No one is born a bad person, we are made in the image of God, we are made by love, we were created in the image of perfection. We are wired with love, evil and hate is not fabricated within us, but love is. Love has been ingrained in us from the moment we were created by God. Love has been given to us, from the moment we breathed our first breath on earth, and the moment our heart pulsed for the first time. Love is not complicated, hate is. Forgiveness is not complicated, holding a grudge is. Living a righteous life is not complicated, going against the word of God is.

Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was and his answer was love. How hard is that? God says give me your burdens, cast it all on me. He wants it so that we do have to bear it ourselves, why do we keep it? We tend to allow all the clutter in our lives complicate things. We clutter our lives with stress, worry, frustrations, unforgiveness, insecurities, self-pity, pride, holding on too tight, being self-centered, etc. If we keep all of that in our lives things can get a bit complicated, but the great thing about it all is that it doesn’t have to be. God can take it, in fact He wants it. God is not some complex, and complicated being. He doesn't not limit or burden us with rules and commands, He is not burdensome at all. He is accessible to us, He reaches out to us, and He wants to take care of His children, why don’t we let Him? All we have to do is follow Him, trust Him, and love. It’s so simple it seems complex.

Reflection

1. Why do you think we tend to make life and being a Christian more complicated than it has to be?
2. Why do you think serving God is hard or simple?

Prayer Time

Talk to God about the simplicity of following HIm. Allow HIm to take away the clutter in your life that makes living seem complicated. Talk to God about trust and what it means to simply live with Christ.

Have an awesome day, afternoon, or evening! I love you!!!!! Share this with a friend. Make sure you come back tomorrow for Day 54!