Do I live in the Past, Present or Future?

Although The past two weeks have been absolutely incredible, witnessing and experiencing the true divine Peace God intended for me, He constantly continues working on my heart each day! Now I'm sure we all know that God can work and refine are hearts day by day, week by week. But many times in life, instead of believing this and living this out, we end up just agreeing with it and making it no more than a meaningless concept. So if your not experiencing His everlasting Joy, it's probably because you don't believe God can refine you right where your at! Know and Understand that He chose you before the foundation of this world. That His plan for you is Life, Peace, Joy and Love. That His Mercy and Goodness shall follow you each day, on this earth and in heaven. Know my friends that your worst day with Christ is far better than your best day without Him!

Now that are hearts understand we must strive for change, I want to move on to this lesson Christ has revealed to me and given me the privilege to share with you. This message is pretty deep so if you'd like to pray before you move into this post that'd be great!

So onto the question! Where is My Focus, is it in the Past, Present or Future? Your probably gonna say Present and some of you might truly be there! But I'm betting that a majority of us are not! This all came about Sunday morning at church when a dear friend of mine spoke to me about living in the present. I didn't think much of it until that message appeared three more times throughout the day. And as I thought more and more about this deep, heart bearing question, I had to admit I had been dwelling on my past and future events far to long. You see in the act of doing this each day I continued to build up a great big wall of fear and self pity. If you've ever gone on a Summer Project I'm sure you've felt the temptations of dwelling on the past in a negative unloving manner. Or possibly looking at your present situation and comparing it to the time when you had a great big community of Jesus Loving Friends around you 24/7 and you sit there murmuring and complaining about not having that anymore. Or maybe it's dwelling on an argument you had with a friend earlier, that you can't seem to let go and your continually reciting the things you wish you'd have said to their face when the arugment was taking place. There could be alot of other scenarios but the matter of the fact is that Christ does not want us going down that path at all! That's exactly what the enemy wants us to do. Because when we dwell on our current emotions for an extended period of time, we end up in a bowl of self pity and a heart full of envy and jealousy! Those feelings and emotions which started out as OK became unrighteous and we end up bowing down to our new Idol titled "EMOTIONS". No longer are we focused on serving Christ in the present moment, we are focused on ourselves and our pain. Love is pretty much out of the question at this point, it's all about us! We do the easy thing and dwell on our situation, instead of dwelling on God's Ultimate Ministry! Think about the story in the Gospel of Matthew 26:36-46 the night Jesus knelt down and prayed in The Garden of Gethsemane. Christ said " My Heart is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" Although Christ is the perfect Son of God, He too feels sorrow and anguish! It's OK to feel that way, we learn most when we go through trials of suffering. But instead of dwelling in self pity Christ fell to the ground and said "My Father, may this cup be taken from me, Yet not as I will but as you Will." Although His heart hurt dearly and although He was overwhelmed with sorrow, Christ pressed on! He didn't let His emotions defeat His purpose to fulfill God's Will. This same message applies to you and me, whether we are living in the future or the past overwhelmed with the way life is going, we must carry on His Will even though we hurt! He will give us the strength to carry on, because He is our ROCK! The Father has equipped us with everything we need to live abundantly this day! Do not worry about the past and do not worry about the future, He has NOT guaranteed us tomorrow! So don't waste your time worrying about a day you may never see! Lets all dwell in the present and rejoice because we have so much to look forward to this beautiful day the Lord hath made! :)

Love Your Enemies!

I was reading through the book of Matthew this week and I came across the excerpt when Christ spoke about God's true earnest Love. Now the few verses I'm going to share with you will not sound new, I guarantee you've heard them before. But I feel like so often in our lives we forget the important message Christ delivered to us. OK so here are the four verses I want you all to meditate on for a little while and ask yourself if you have truly been abiding to the commandment of Love. Matthew 5: verse 43 "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbor And Hate Thine Enemy," verse 44 " But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully Use you and Persecute you" verse 55 "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven:" verse 46 "For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans do the same?" When I read over this, I instantly remembered the harships I went through last year! For the longest time my heart didn't quite intertwine with God's true Love. I just held grudges against people who didn't respect me, or treat me fairly. So to tell you more about this I'd like to share some of my testimony with you. I believe it will encourage you and maybe even help you with your situation. Last year at school I hung out with the wrong crowd, these guys were not exactly Jesus lovers! They were quite worldly, living in malice, strife, envy and lust. And for so long I allowed them to bring me down. You see I had Christ and these guys didn't, But if you were to put us side by side you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them and me. Thankfully over time God drew me back to Him and now this time I'm with Him to stay. Anyways, a few of the guys I hung out with last year started doing some pretty brutal and hateful things to me once I decided to turn my life around and seek Christ. My so called friends began to show their true colors and feeling towards me. These men knew exactly who I chose to live for and they didn't respect my heavenly father or me at all. And whenever they got the chance to persecute me and judge me, they took hold of that opportunity consistently. The last 4 months I lived with them I continued to hold in all my anger and hate towards them! So often when I had be in the same room as them , the Anger would conquer my heart and emotions and deep down all I wanted to do was to bash their faces in because of the humiliation and hurt they had been putting me through. Overtime God molded my heart and set me free from anger and taught me about His Love and Mercy! How to forgive those who curse me and to pray for those who hate me. Now your situation may not be quite like mine was but if your struggling with loving those around you, or if you haven't yet forgiven someone who may have hurt you, remember what He did for you! All throughout our lives we will have people judging us, persecuting us, cursing us and using us. But guess what! We have a Savior who died for us, who loves us, who desires us and most of all who forgave us. While we were murdering Him in cold blood, Christ said "Father forgive them they know not what they do". So let us strive to be like Him each day, to forgive and love those who hate us and persecute us. Let us Love our ENEMIES together as we journey throughout this world. My brothers and sisters let the Peace of Christ dwell in your heart each day, so that He may use you to accomplish His commandment of Love! Seek Him diligently so that The Love of Christ may pour abundantly throughout your Heart. Stick out and be the Light!

What Have I Done With The Gift of Peace?

Although I'm not going to Pretoria this summer, I know that one day in God's timing I will walk upon that land again. But before God sends me back there, He must refine my heart so I am capable of carrying His word throughout this world we live in. How long will that take? I don't know the answer to that question, but I will wait patiently for His call. While I'm waiting on His signal, He continues to break down my barriers that I have put up before Him. I look back on this year at Barton and ask myself an important question. "How often do I feel the peace of God?" I was a little afraid to meditate on this because deep down I knew my answer did not correspond with God's written word. It seriously took me about four months to sit down, humble myself before the Lord and answer this question honestly. About six days ago while I was sitting in my room alone crying out to God I finally spit up my answer! Here was my reply "I don't know your Peace God, It seems as if I haven't felt her presence for ages, I have forsaken her, I have not loved her, therefore she is no longer with me." Writing this message to you is forming many tears in my eyes right now. To think that I believed a LIE like that, and confessed it and lived it daily for nearly six months straight disgusts me! If this is you right now, Listen to your creators voice " My peace I leave with you My peace I give unto you not as this world giveth I give unto you, let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid." Read Psalm 23 one of the most beautiful chapters in God's written word "The Lord is my Shepard I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul, and leadeth me in the path of righteousness. Yea, though I walk through the shadows of the valley of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the lord forever." That is Peace, that is goodness, that is mercy and that is what I want to feel every single day of my life on this earth and in heaven! Eternal life started when you and I accepted Christ as our savior, so let us live in His Peace RIGHT NOW! We must discard the lies Satan fills our minds and our hearts with, keep them not for but a second! I know how easy it is to fall into that trap and sit in the burdens and sorrows of this world felling down about the way life has been, but God is telling us that doing things like that will get you NO WHERE! My brothers and sisters in Christ I love you all so dearly and God wants the best for you aswell as I, If this message is speaking to your heart right now don't do what I did and put this important topic off any longer face it NOW!

If you've read this blog please continue to pray for me! I'm still dealing with this matter daily and my heart is very tender right now, I'm going through a lot I need all the encouragement and prayer you have to offer! thank you so much for taking the time to read this!