Day 17:: The Crucible of Choice

Not my will, but Your will be done.

I'm just saying, "Let's be gut-level honest here. If it doesn't cost you anything, it's not worth anything." Need more clarity? Do whatever you want. But if it pleases you, all the while contradicting the word of God, you are pleasing your own god--but you are your own god.

• Thoughts of Jesus in the garden? Scared. Tired. Desperate. 
• Collision of Wills:  What I want for my life vs. what God wants in my life.
• Big collision of wills: I was called to be a missionary right after I was saved when I was 13. It's not that I didn't want to do that. I would love to be more involved in all sorts of mission trips. I just picked different things and walked different paths that led me in the opposite directions. 
• I was so completely convicted after I realized what I had done. There's only one thing left to do. I should probably find every way possible to get back to where I could be had I not ventured away from the will of God.
• I make excuses. I make them often. "its not in my nature." "i can't just go and talk to them." "I don't do things like that by myself." "I don't want people to think I'm a goody goody." 

• Matthew 26:36-46 (New International Version)

  
  

  Gethsemane

   ³⁶Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." ³⁷He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. ³⁸Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." ³⁹Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
   ⁴⁰Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. ⁴¹"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."
   ⁴²He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."
   ⁴³When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. ⁴⁴So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
   ⁴⁵Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. ⁴⁶Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!"

Matthew 26:39, 42
2Samuel 24:24
Psalm 63

Day 16:: God's Curriculum

God's Curriculum includes:

1. Enough joy to encourage us.
2. Enough love to strengthen us.
3. Enough success to build our confidence.
4. Enough suffering to force us to depend on Him.
5. Enough confusion to make us seek His Face.

He Does Puts Us Through "School" to Build Our Faith!

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9)

God's method of Instruction:

1. Impart truth.
2. Affirmation; like an answered prayer.
3. Test...to see if we really believe Him.

 There are 2 kinds of Darkness:

1. to young Christians, darkness is through their sins. The solution is confession, repentance, and obedience.
2. to mature Christians, the darkness is very different. If you are in that darkness and you try to 'light your own flame' and produce your own emotion, you will "lie down in torment" (Isaiah 50:10-11)

"Many times the tests God gives us are not only for us. God uses them to get the attention of those around us too."
"Each of us faced a test to see if we would trust Him, to see if we would cry out to Him when no one else could come through for us."

• God gave me:
• Enough joy to encourage me: Joy isn't the same thing as happiness. I get absolutely giddy with joy when I think about what's waiting for me, of all people, on the other side of this life. :)
• Enough love to strengthen me: I'll tell you one thing. If Jesus loved me enough to die the death he suffered on that cross, I know that through Him I have the strength to do anything. :)
• Enough success to build my confidence: When I feel like there's nothing else I can learn, or no way I can advance...He throws a little 'success' my way and lets me know that I'm capable of so much more than I give myself credit for. 
• Enough suffering to force me to depend on him: I suffered so much when my parents passed away. I didn't know, until recently, how much of me that took and how big of a deal that was. Without Christ, there is no doubt in my mind that I would not be who I am today.
• Enough confusion to make me seek his face: Lately, I've been so confused with death. I don't know what happens when you die. I don't know how things happen. No better time than to really investigate. :)
• "Dark Night of the Soul" :: Sometimes, even recently, I have felt like there's nothing I can do to make certain things be heard by Christ. I suppose He has a plan for me and those things don't have a place in my life. Its really hard when it seems like I can't overcome a sin, especially when I don't even know its a sin. 
• As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than our ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)  This is very encouraging to me. And very incomprehensible at the same time. All I can understand is what I know. It's amazing that Christ knows so much more about the direction I'm heading.
• Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:3-5)  He leads us the right way through obstacles that we see as being 'in our way' of coming through that test, when, in reality, the journey is the test. 

Day 15:: The Risk Of Grace

"His [Moses'] comfortable existence quickly became an amazing adventure."
The path of obedience and deliverance was through the valley of suffering.

Pain produces character in our lives like no amount of pleasure possibly can. Failure and rejection force us to seek God's face just as Moses did. When we go to him in desperation, our ears and our hearts are more open to him than ever before. In that face-to-face encounter, God can expose and purge away impurities in our behavior and our motivations. ... Suffering and repetition of trusting God in those painful times makes our faith grow in him. 

• Suffer from following Christ? Yep. You don't indulge in the worldly pleasures. You don't get to have a million friends, especially when they aren't true. Suffer from not following Christ? More. You don't have the riches of heaven. You don't have peace. Or joy. You don't feel the real kind of love. 
• How do most Christians respond to suffering? I can't speak for 'most' of us, but I can speak for myself. I don't think I deal with suffering very well honestly. I don't even know if I deal with it at all. That's my problem. When something is going wrong with any part of my life, I mostly just ignore it. :/ Not good, I know. But its like, if I can't see it happening, I won't have to do anything about it.
• I don't feel like anything that could happen to me to be considered true 'suffering'. Suffering is dying with AIDS in Africa or running for your life in Ghana or Iraq or living in absolute poverty like so many people here are. 
• Suffered for my faith lately? Sure I have.  I know that in order for me to be able to follow closer to Christ, I just can't participate in things. And by staying away from it, I have suffered in my flesh and felt lonely or sad. I want so bad to just say yes sometimes. I've lost a few friends. I wish that the answer to 'why' would just come without wait. But you know what.... What I have waiting for me out weighs every single thing my flesh suffers against while I'm on this earth. :)
• They were commended for their faith, yet none of them had received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. Heb 11:39-40 yeah. that's some powerful words.

Day 14:: Too Full To Eat?

We have settled for garbage instead of feasting on the nourishment God richly provides.

• Reading this story of Chris Heurtz and the mission work he did in Calcutta at the House of the Dying, my heart was completely broken. He witnessed these dying, 4-5 year old girls with AIDS rummaging through trash discarded by the lepers and diseased. They were hungry. But they didn't have anything good to feast on. What an eye-opener. Wow! 
• Things that promise to satisfy, but really poison:: Movies, music, conversations with friends, the language of the guys at work, sexual insinuations. I've experienced these. All these. Movies are fun to laugh at, but the contents sometimes leave me with that desire to go drink or have sex or go get in a fight. Same goes for music. And for things guys have said/promised to me. Its all empty.
• Better Choices: I don't listen to certain music because of the contents and words of the artists. I found that it really was degrading. Matter of fact, what goes into your heart also comes out of it. Nothing good can come of something bad. Period. 

This story really broke my heart. Its amazing how true it is. We fill ourselves with garbage hoping it will sustain us. In reality, all it does is leave us emptier than before we indulged in it. 

Matthew 5:6
Jeremiah 15:16

Day 13:: Grace: Cheap or Costly?

"God's grace is an incredible thing. We sing about it. We hear sermons about it. We can never get enough of it. Yet too many of us misunderstand it."  -Nassar

Mercy is Not getting what we deserve. 

Grace is Getting what we don't deserve.

Grace is like an unlimited credit card with Jesus paying the bill.

Cheap grace is the sterile doctrine of forgiveness divorced from Jesus himself. It is the teaching of Christian freedom that is neat and clean, separated from the blood and agony of the cross. Cheap grace is grace without obedience, right doctrine without passion, the shell without the substance. In this teaching of the free gift of grace, forgiveness is taken for granted so we don't need to face Jesus with our sin. We feel no deep sorrow over our moral failures, and the deep desire to be delivered from sin is missing. You see, it's already paid for, so it's no big deal!

If we only signed on for a pleasure cruise, being a disciple of Jesus Christ will be a big disappointment.

The opposite of cheap grace is costly grace. ... It cost Jesus the anguish of Gethsemane and the agony of Calvary. The nails were not symbolic; they were made of iron. The whip and the crown of thorns were not theoretical. They cut his flesh and his blood flowed. His death was not just an example to us. It caused a tectonic earthquake in the history of the Universe and in the lives of every person who has ever lived. The grace of God is centered in, and cannot possibly be divorced from, a person. He is the treasure more worthy than anything we have. He is the one we worship and obey because he is worthy. He is the one whose love so overwhelmed the apostle John that it changed his identity. ... It changed his life.

GRACE IS NOT THE REAL THING UNLESS IT MAKES A REAL DIFFERENCE IN OUR LIVES. 

• What's the difference??
• CheapGrace: 
• Jesus died for my sins so I'm sure He'll forgive me for this...
• CostlyGrace:
• I don't want to hurt Jesus. He gave Himself so that I can be free from this sin.
• A while back, I used to go out at least twice a week...if not 3 times. I wouldn't always drink, but I sure did my fair share. Its like, I put Christ on the back burner. I knew I had a problem with the way I was spending my time when I would have this gut-wrenching knot in my heart every time I would even consider going out. I would say, "ok. this is what I'm gonna do. He'll forgive me." But that wasn't the case anymore. I wondered why I wasn't 'happy' anymore. I didn't really understand why I couldn't do things and then just expect Christ to forgive me. I would go and go and go and just expect Him to use his 'unlimited forgiveness' every single time for me.
• The one time I can remember being in shock over what Christ actually did for us was when I saw Passion of The Christ for the first time. The complete and utter pain and hurt in his eyes. Me seeing Him depicted as a good-for-nothing piece was all it took for me to comprehend, to the best of my human capability, that He really did die for me. My sin cost him his life. That's Grace.
• I think that costly grace is the grace that makes you thirsty. You're thirsty to know more. Thirsty to want Him.
• Which one is more attractive? Cheap grace is. It's easy. It's pretty. No blood, no sacrifice. Do what feels good, get forgiven later.

Romans 6:23
Titus 3:3-7
2 Corinthians 5:14-15
Titus 2:11-12

Day 12:: Death...and Your Good Clothes

Be Ruthless. Show No Mercy. Kill It.

• Put a sin to death= choke it, kill it, do what ever you have to do to not make that sin rear its head, stay out of those tempting situations. 
• I need to kill:: lust, deception, lying, judging, being unkind.  I keep these sins hidden. They are committed inside... most people can't see any of them. I know that I can kill them. Its hard. I know that once they are choked, my commitment will then be able to grow. 
• In order to be "full" you have to gain something for everything you give up. You give up drinking, you gain control. You give up satan, you gain Christ. You give up lying, you gain truth. You give up lust, you gain true love. If you get rid of your sin, there's nothing better to fill that than the love and strength of Christ. He's gonna help you. He'll hold you up when you feel that weakness. 
• What clothes have you found and put on from God's closet in the past week? What were the situations? How did putting on those characteristics help you? Well...
• We had a dinner yesterday and pretty much my entire family came to my house. About 10 or so kids running around and the adults who had a lot to catch up on. It was absolutely chaotic. I put on "patience" in order to breathe and just take it minute by minute. 
• I put on "wisdom" to know that I should go with my family and help them out instead of attending a good friend's birthday celebration. I really wanted to be with her... and I probably would have been if it were any other weekend, but I knew that my family really needed me. I'm sure that my friend's night went great, as planned, without me.
• How can I seek greater knowledge of God?  
• the number one way that you will grow in spiritual knowledge on this earth is by reading and studying the Bible for yourself. There is simply no other way.
• God has arranged to have all of the spiritual knowledge that we will ever need about Him, His Son and His Spirit to all be contained in this one Book. You also grow in the knowledge of God through your own personal adventures that you have with Him in your own daily walk, along with learning from other Christians, especially those who are anointed and gifted to be able to teach from His Word.
• I do long for that depth. Even though I know I could very well lose everything I have or could have on this earth, there's nothing I would rather have.
• Clothes of Christ::: Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, love, unity, peace, thankfulness, wisdom. (Col 3:12-17)
  
  
  
  

Rom 8:13

Col 3:5, 9-10

Heb 11:6

Day 11: Bought and Paid For

1. You have been bought with a price
2. Release your grip on sin.
3. Realize that all you have is a gift from God.

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or toobedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life (Rom. 6:16-22).

• You are a slave to what you serve. If you sin, you are a slave to that master. I learned not too long ago that if i wanted to have any sort of success in my attitude, relationships, anything like that, I have to put Christ first in my life. Period. I, then, can live as a slave of Christ. Pure obedience. 
• I know that my spirit was incredibly convicted once I figured out that I'm not my own person. He bled for me. That's a big deal. Bigger than anything I would ever do. I used to treat my body like it was separate from Christ. I was my own person...He wants me to feel good and be happy. No. I wasn't put here to have those sinful pleasures. Yeah...its true that He died for me and that all my sins are forgiven, past, present, and future. But when I said a curse word, it was as if Christ said it. When I drank that alcohol, He was drinking it. You get the picture. My body or mind doesn't belong to me. Its HIS. All His. 
• In other words: Don't let the power of my hand and what I want overtake the power of Him and what He wants for me in my life. Things I can touch mean nothing. Crucify my hand like Christ. 
• This prayer is what I need honestly. I get caught up in all of what the world has to offer, when, in reality, none of it can compare to what Christ did for me and what I gain by fully walking with Him.
• Everything that I have, is a gift. I know that. Sometimes its completely overwhelming to try to understand the sacrifice Christ made for me.
• " I belong to you, Lord, and I know you are going to work this out for good in some way. I trust You."
• As soon as I understand the way Christ works, I understand that situations and circumstances and happenings are 100% out of my hands. I can't make someone accept me. I can't make something happen when and how I think it should. He's gonna take those things and bend and make it into something I can't even imagine right now. I can't help how He works.  :) What a blessing.

1 Cor 6:19-20

Rom 6:16

1 Cor 1:4-7