Yesterday as I was praying at Project Generation after worship for a kid I didn’t know, I received a vision of him riding on a white horse, in full armor. During his ride, he gave a valiant fight with a sword. This didn’t stop him from getting knocked off of his horse every now and again, but with his mighty sword and the armor, he was never blemished by these attacks. He was parading his horse towards a great, burning fire.
As I picked this apart and prayed about it, I realized that the armor was the armor of God. The sword was the word of God. Falling off represented spiritual attacks that happen on his journey towards the fire. The fire was once again, a vision I see so frequently lately, which is the passionate, desiring eyes of Jesus.
In our journey after His desire, we will fall down. The great thing is, that it never really hurts us due to us always being protected in the full armor of God. We have His sword or His word to further help defend us on our journey. As long as we keep this in mind and constantly strive after all of His desires for us, we can never go wrong, we can never get hurt and we will always get right back up after we fall.
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1 Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness;
According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity
And cleanse me from my sin.
3 For [b]I know my transgressions,
And my sin is ever before me.
4 Against You, You only, I have sinned
And done what is evil in Your sight,
So that You [c]are justified [d]when You speak
And [e]blameless when You judge.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me.
6 Behold, You desire truth in the [f]innermost being,
And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.
7[g]Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
[h]Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8[i]Make me to hear joy and gladness,
Let the bones which You have broken rejoice.
9 Hide Your face from my sins
And blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create [j]in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew [k]a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from Your presence
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
And sustain me with a willing spirit.
13Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
And sinners will [l]be converted to You.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation;
Then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your righteousness.
15 O Lord, [m]open my lips,
That my mouth may declare Your praise.
16 For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;
You are not pleased with burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
18 By Your favor do good to Zion;
[n]Build the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then You will delight in [o]righteous sacrifices,
In burnt offering and whole burnt offering;
Then [p]young bulls will be offered on Your altar.
Link reblogged from Kiss the Feet with 7 notes
The end of a year and beginning of another is always a very precious time for me. I like being able to look back across the months and see answered prayers, unanswered prayers, God’s faithfulness toward me, and what He’s taught me. I remember driving in the car with Karissa last New Years Day,…
Source: loganpyle
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11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
http://www.awmi.net/extra/article/christians_politics
“The Apostle Paul lived in one of the most immoral and politically corrupt societies that the world has ever known. Yet he advocated no political action. Instead he told the Christians to submit to government (Rom. 13) and pray for those in authority (1 Tim. 2:1-4). He effected change in society one heart at a time. In a short period of time, Christianity became the official religion of the empire that once threw its followers to the lions.”
http://www.gty.org/Resources/Articles/A124
“Many think this is a political problem that will not be solved without a political strategy. During the past twenty-five years, well-meaning Christians have founded a number of evangelical activist organizations and sunk millions of dollars into them in an effort to use the apparatus of politics—lobbying, legislation, demonstration, and boycott—to counteract the moral decline of American culture. They pour their energy and other resources into efforts to drum up a “Christian” political movement that will fight back against the prevailing anti-Christian culture.
But is that a proper perspective? I believe not. America’s moral decline is a spiritual problem, not a political one, and its solution is the gospel, not partisan politics.”
Personally, I do not feel that Faith in Jesus Christ and politics mix. However, if people do think they can make a change by voting certain people into office, more power to them. I just don’t want to take any glory away from God and all He does. I feel a lot of glorification goes into politics and the candidate in question. I think it’s really hard for someone in a political position to remain humble through an entire election, let alone after the election and into their term.
I think it’s great that people have enough faith in a person on this earth that they think they will be able to make a change for the positive and make a more Christ centered, Gospel centered country, but I think instead of building these people up, who inevitably will fail us, we should continue to stay focused on Jesus Christ. Whether you vote, don’t vote, or who you choose to vote for, do not let the distractions become deception. I can’t preach enough about that. Do not let the promises of a man take away from any of the glory that you give to Jesus Christ.
To be quite honest, I think Ron Paul is an excellent dude. He is a stellar Christian from what I know of him publicly and he has a good agenda. However, he is still a man and every man will always fail us. In a corrupt government, I find it hard to put faith in anyone running for a political position.
You see, I’m a firm believer of the unconditional love that God shows us. I do not see that unconditional love in politics what so ever. Politicians can make promises all day every day, but in the end, who do we serve?
This is a good articleregarding Ron Paul. It states everything he stands for that is bible based and so on and so forth. Then there is a little tidbit at the bottome that struck me:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/21/making-the-case-for-and-against-ron-pau-31412079/
“So why has Mr. Paul not been outspoken with his Christian views? Perhaps, as noted by his advisers, “Paul’s faith is far too serious and important to him to constantly risk cheapening it through politics.” Brian Doherty of Reason magazine agrees, “Paul is by all accounts a sincerely religious man, but also sincerely dedicated to not trumpeting it much.”
I respect the fact that he doesn’t go around “cheapening” the Christian faith like other politicians do. That’s very respectable on so many accounts. Especially with people like Rick Perry who absolutely cheapen it to the fullest extent. Not only does he cheapen it, he also kind of degrades it. I do not feel he represents Christ in a way that He should be represented.
Even if Ron Paul is the best Christian in the whole wide world. Even if he leads an expemplary Christian lifestyle and is the best candidate. Even if he doesn’t cheapen the Christian faith by talking about it a lot in ties with his political motives. I do feel that some of the people that do follow and support Ron Paul do a good enough job of cheapening the Christian faith for him. There’s a definite duality in this due to the fact that as Christians, we are supposed to live out our faith publicly and privately. Despite how I feel, I will continue to pray on it, and if God puts a change in my heart, then I will follow whatever He tells me to.
36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” -John 18:36
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I wish I could translate everything that’s on my heart and in my mind so everyone understood me but my heart speaks a language that only God understands and the only way I can interpret these things are with unconditional love.
12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service,13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief;14 and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.15 It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. 16 Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
-1 Timothy 1:12-17
Sometimes I despise the fact that I have to question myself as if I’m doing good deeds because I have to or is it because I’m a true Christian and because I want to be more like Christ and because I’m pure of heart. I feel as if I am pure of heart for the most part, but like anyone, I fall short of the Grace of the Almighty, powerful God. As I’ve discussed previously, I feel we all too much get caught up in the distractions of this world. As a matter of fact, I feel the wordly distractions and wordly mannerisms we pick up are the main reason why we sometimes still have the ongoing illusion that we are in fact, separate from God.
I got to thinking about it even more, and I think sometimes we are so stuck on end consequences and whether we are going to heaven or hell and that distracts us from what our real purpose is here on earth.(2 Tim 1:9-10) I haven’t really read a lot, so maybe someone has already written about this, but what if we just forget about heaven and hell. I don’t mean say they do not exist, so don’t get me wrong. I just think that we sometimes forget that we should be helping other people for the fact that they need help rather than for our own personal gain in the Kingdom. We are all guilty of this. I’m sure there are plenty of arguments to go against what I’m saying, but for people who can’t focus on who we need to help because they’re so focused on where they will end up, they could use this train of thought to help them in the end to stay better concentrated on the real purpose, which is being Christ-like and doing what God has called us to do.
God has not called us to go to heaven. There are things that we need to do, things we are called to do, and we just ignore these things all of the time. Why do we do this? Weren’t we all born into sin? Haven’t we all transgressed against our Lord? Aren’t we all former blasphemers…and even moreso, aren’t we still blasphemers? Don’t we owe it all to Him to stay concentrate on the real purpose? THE answer is YES.
In the new testament, you hear the term “bond servant” used a lot. The apostle Paul is known as a bond servant. Maybe some people do not know what a bond servant is. A bond servant is someone who is bound to labor without wages. We are ALL bond servants to Jesus Christ our great Lord Almighty. I feel we need to forget about heaven while we are here if it causes us to concentrate more on the consequences of our actions rather than concentrating on our actions. We need to labor here on earth by doing God’s work, and not expect anything. Yes, I know, we are promised something, so in the far back of our minds, we know we get something, but to keep a humble mindset, I feel it necessary sometimes to just forget about it and just do what we’re called to do. I think mostly what I’m referring to can be summed up in Matthew 5:29-30.
I know this rant might seem a bit repetitive, it might seem a bit like I have no clue what I’m talking about, but sometimes it’s really hard to type out what I mean and what I feel. I just strive so hard to walk more and more like Christ. Although we will never be Christ, we should always be reflections of Him at least. Christ had a purpose on this earth, He did what He was called to do and in turn saved us all. Let’s start saving eachother. Let’s really start loving eachother unconditionally. I really mean the word “unconditionally” when I say it. Deny yourself daily, take up your cross. Do not think about what your consequences may or may not be. That will be a distraction which in turn becomes a deception in the final choice you may make. Then due to your garbage flesh, you will make a decision based off of something the opposite of what God called you to do. In turn, you will be lying to yourself and not serving God or representing Christ here on earth.
I rant about things that God puts on my heart. These are things that convict me a immensely. I am as guilty as everyone else, and probably more so since I’m so young in my faith. I know God calls me to type these things out because He wants me to rationalize all of these things in my head and have them for me to look back on once I progress in my walk with Jesus Christ.
If we are not trying to be like Christ in everything we do. If we are not constantly loving people—ALL PEOPLE—unconditionally. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, understand the unconditional. Do not think you will get ANYTHING in return. Erase that from your mind. Do not let the consequences of your actions deceive you from what you SHOULD BE DOING. Love people, give up everything. Keep a balance. Stay ground. Remain humble.
“30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.” -2 Corinthians 11:30-31
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
1 O God, do not remain quiet;
Do not be silent and, O God, do not be still.
2 For behold, Your enemies make an uproar,
And those who hate You have exalted themselves.
3 They make shrewd plans against Your people,
And conspire together against Your treasured ones.
4 They have said, “Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation,
That the name of Israel be remembered no more.”
5 For they have conspired together with one mind;
Against You they make a covenant:
6 The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
Moab and the Hagrites;
7 Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,
Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8 Assyria also has joined with them;
They have become a help to the children of Lot. Selah.
9 Deal with them as with Midian,
As with Sisera and Jabin at the torrent of Kishon,
10 Who were destroyed at En-dor,
Who became as dung for the ground.
11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb
And all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,
12 Who said, “Let us possess for ourselves
The pastures of God.”
13 O my God, make them like the twhirling dust,
Like chaff before the wind.
14 Like fire that burns the forest
And like a flame that sets the mountains on fire,
15 So pursue them with Your tempest
And terrify them with Your storm.
16 Fill their faces with dishonor,
That they may seek Your name, O LORD.
17 Let them be ashamed and dismayed forever,
And let them be humiliated and perish,
18 That they may know that You alone, whose name is the LORD,
Are the Most High over all the earth.
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