Slavery and Servitude
If you really think about it, we're all slaves or servants. I would consider myself a servant to God. And yet, I still say I'm free. A lot of people would think slavery and servitude are the same thing. But the biggest thing is in the choice. God set me free and showed me love. Because of that love, because He set me free, I chose to serve Him. I chose to give myself to Him, and He freed me from the bonds of slavery to sin. And now I have a burning desire to serve Him more and more. To give Him everything I have, everything I am. To make myself His. Sure I'll still mess up sometimes, because I am no where close to perfect and still sin. We all do, every day. But I'm not bound by it anymore. It's not who I am, it's who I was. And the closer I get to God, the less I even want to. I'm a servant, not a slave. There is a difference. And I would much rather serve someone as holy and wonderful as Jesus than be a slave to all the garbage and sin in this world. And as a servant I am free. Sin blinds and breaks us. Jesus takes off our shackles, picks us up off the ground, dusts us off and cares for our wounds. He treats us fairly and will never hurt us for something we do, though we may hurt ourselves at times. But what do you think the better choice is? God as our master and guide, or our own broken hearts and messed up minds?
Existence
Sometimes we think about God and wonder "how could He exist?" Well, here's another question. How could we exist? There's been a lot of ideas and theories, but no facts. We just do. So why should it be impossible for God to exist just because we don't know how? I mean, people used to think the world was flat and you could sail right off the edge. Is this true? Not at all. They didn't think the earth being round was possible. So why should it be impossible for God to exist? It's really not. Just because we can't see or touch it, doesn't mean it's not there. People couldn't see other galaxies before the telescope. Does that mean they didn't exist or magically appeared when a telescope was invented? Of course not! Just because we can't SEE God does not in any way mean He isn't there. But we can see the things He does through others and ourselves. People who are sick or hurt being healed. The dead being raised. That stuff goes on today. Right now. It isn't just a story. I myself have seen people's injuries healed. I've even been sick and had someone pray for me for a few minutes and I was perfectly fine afterwards. Even though we can't see God with our eyes, we should run after Him with all we have. He's always there. Always speaking to us. Always calling us. But will you listen?
Break The Chains; Break The Silence
Alright, so I'll just start this off with saying that I've had these three words running through my head for weeks and I couldn't figure out what the heck they meant, and they wouldn't stop. "Break the silence". I just keep hearing that in my head over and over and I think I've figured out what it is, so now I'll write about it.
I was talking to someone this morning about how there are always
chains trying to hold us down. Bad experiences, fear, doubt.. So many
things are trying to keep us from being who we're meant to be. And the
closer we get to that, the harder and heavier they become. I mean, lets
face it, the enemy doesn't exactly want to let go of us and just let us
be who God wants us to, right? That would be really stupid of him. The
best part is though, that it really doesn't matter. We have the
choice. No matter what influences there are, we have the final choice.
It might not be an easy one, but we do. There are so many things in all
of our lives holding us down. A lot of the people I know deal with
issues of feeling like they aren't good enough, or they can't do
anything right, or that things will just never get better. That's not
true if you don't let it be. God lives INSIDE us. Thinking things like
that about yourself is almost a form of doubt, really. If you think
you'll never be good enough, you're basically thinking that God couldn't
lead you into being good enough. That's a thought I've dealt with a
lot, and recently I've been coming to realize that it just isn't true. I
can be whoever God made me to be. He made ALL of us to be amazing. To
do incredible things for Him. And one of the most amazing things is that
we choose whether or not things hold us back. We all need help, we all
need strength, but that comes from God. He looks at the heaviest load
and takes it easily. In Him we have our freedom. Freedom from the burden
of sin. Personally, I think that is the best choice anyone could ever
make.. To follow God and get set free from everything.
Lessons In Everything
Well, it's been a while since my last post, and while I was in church tonight I got an idea for a post, so I decided to be productive and write it out. :P
Anyway, while I was standing in church during worship I had a random thought. There are lessons in everything we do, and everything we see. If you look at it the right way, so many 'worldly' things can have a Godly message. Take 'The Matrix' for example- (Warning: Will contain spoilers.)
In The Matrix, the very first movie, an ordinary guy learns who he really is, and through that, becomes extremely powerful. Now isn't this true for all of us? We're all just 'ordinary' people, and at the same time, there isn't anything ordinary about us. We have purposes, we have power. God has given each and every one of us incredible gifts. And when we learn who we are, through Him, then we become powerful people. The closer we get to God, the more powerful we become. I'm not saying this like we're all super heroes or something. Though in some ways, that's true. People have done things that are completely impossible. Things have happened that are impossible just from people being around. It's incredible what God can do through us, and yet so many people take that for granted, don't believe it even when it's right in their face, or just don't think it can happen to them...
On to the second movie. In the second movie, Neo does few things. Using his new found power, he battles the evil that dwells in the Matrix. Now, shouldn't that be what all of us are doing? Fighting against the evil and the sin in the world around us? Showing God's love and light to every person we pass on the street. Just being able to go places and walk through crowds and change the atmosphere of a place just by being there. We can make a huge difference. Just us. One person. And to the second part in this movie, Neo restarts Trinity's heart. She was dead, and he brought her back. Through God, we have the power to do things like that as well. And it happens a lot more often than people think. Someone in my youth group went on a missions trip and prayed for someone with a glass eye to have their sight restored. Well, that glass eye turned into a real, normal, working eye. Pretty crazy, right? Almost doesn't sound real, but it happened. Thousands of miracles happen all the time, and very few people it seems take much notice. It's almost sad, really.
Aaand on to the third movie. This one is pretty cool.. In the end of the movie, Neo goes into the heart of the darkness. Right smack into the middle of the robot city. From there he goes into the matrix and fights agent Smith. At the end, Smith turns Neo into a copy of himself. But just after that happens, a bright light begins to shine from his eyes. It goes through all the other Smith's as well, and destroys them all, freeing all the people under his hold. Isn't this kind of like what Jesus did for us? He died and went into the darkest place, took on all the worlds sin for us. Sacrificed himself to free its hold on us. Sacrificed himself so that we could be free of it. He took it into himself and became just like everyone else, then died and took the sin with him.
Isn't it interesting how you can get so much out of a movie that wasn't even made to show that? I think it's really cool, actually. Just goes to show that there are lessons everywhere.
Prayer
Is God really there? Is He really listening? I mean, why would He. I'm just one person out of the billions on earth. Most people have worse problems than I do, right? So why should God care.
These are thoughts that I have noticed pass through Christians minds quite frequently. They feel that praying is useless and that God doesn't care about them. But let me ask you this... If you had three kids, and one of them was lost and in pain, would you just leave that one there because you have the other two? Not if you were any kind of decent person. God cares for every person on earth, and that includes you.
Some of you may be asking "But what about my prayers? They never get answered. It doesn't ever seem like He's listening.." Well, there's a very simple answer to that. He is listening.
Something I have realized is that there isn't any way to tell when a prayer will be answered, or how it will be answered until it is. I have noticed over the last few months a few prayers I made two or three years ago being answered. But at the same time, I have seen prayers I made get answered in the same night. Sometimes we just have to wait and be patient. But don't give up! Just keep praying, keep talking with God. Build your relationship with him. As you do, you'll find that your prayers could start to be getting answered quicker. Or even prayers you made a long time ago being answered.
As I was sitting in my room in the dark, finishing up this post, a song started playing on my computer. It's called 'Here With Me' by Mikeschair. The lyrics are great and carry a pretty good message. God is always here with us, no matter what is happening or where we are in life. He will never leave.
Erasers
If you were to go and look back on what things you have done in your life up to this day, what would stand out, the good or bad? If the bad stands out, why so? Why do we find it so hard to forgive ourselves for things? There could be many different reasons for each person. But if you go look in the bible, Jesus forgave anyone who showed true repentance. And he still does to this day. He would forgive every sin imaginable for any person in the world who opens their heart and lets him in. So why can't we ever seem to forgive ourselves?
Well, I was watching a TV show not too long ago, and they talked about how an amazing gift for someone could be an eraser. Think about that for a moment.. It's not a literal eraser, but an eraser that removes the bad things we have done from our minds. A tool used to forgive ourselves for things. Why don't we all do that? Just take an eraser to something you regret having done. It is gone and in the past. Today is a new day, and what happened yesterday or three weeks ago, or five years ago doesn't matter. Those days are dead and gone, but today is here and living, and tomorrow is coming. Don't waste time and energy thinking about things regret. Learn from those mistakes instead and live your life better than you have in the past.
This is a lesson I need to learn as well, and I think many, many other people should too.
Dream Again
Do you remember when you were a little kid how you used to dream about what you wanted to be when you grew up? There was no limit to it. If you were in a classroom, all of the kids would shout out what they wanted to be without a second thought. When we are little, we're encouraged to dream as big as we possibly can and as far as our imaginations will take us. But then as we get older, we are taught just the opposite. People tell us to lower our expectations to avoid disappointment. They tell us to grow up and think practically. To stop worrying about a dream and start worrying about how we are going to make money, and what is affordable. But what's the point in life if we just go through day by day, doing the same routine over and over again? What is the point in living if we have nothing to push for... no goal to reach. No dream to put an effort towards. I myself have found that there isn't really one. But then we come to this world around us that wants to crush us down into a box of little expectation and rigid thought. The world tells us that there is no use in dreams, because they will only lead to pain. It tells us to never take chances, to avoid any chance of failing. But if you look around, the greatest things on the planet were made because someone had a dream and took a chance. The Wright brothers, for instance. Everyone told them that people couldn't fly. That their machine wouldn't work. But they had a dream to open the sky to mankind, and they took a chance... Look at the result. Because of them we can fly nearly anywhere in the world, and even into space. Without that first working flying machine, much of what we have today wouldn't have happened. So why is it people today want to crush people's dreams? I don't have an answer for that, but I do know that dreams are important. I'd like to encourage anyone who reads this post to take just a few minutes and think about what they would really like to do with their life. What some of their long term wishes would be. They may not be as impossible as you think...
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