Christmas

Of course I have to post something about Christmas. As you exchange gifts and spend time with one another take time to reflect upon God's gifts to you. What has he given to you this year? You are insanely blessed by God. I hear stories from time to time about kids in Africa who praise God dancing and clapping, but what is even crazier to think about is that most of these people have lost their families, don't have a penny to their name, and yet they praise God because they have life and more importantly salvation in Christ. I don't know about you but when I hear about this I really start to see how incredibly self absorbed I am. If my day goes badly I don't feel like praising God. That's why I am doing this 100 hearts of hope thing, because the way I see it God gave me a talent in crochet and if I don't invest it what am I doing here? I encourage you to look at what you are good at and use it to glorify God. I did not think there was any way that I could possibly glorify God with crochet but there is always a way. Some interesting things about these hearts I'm making are that they each have 3 equal parts (triune God) and each part has 12 major stiches which if you know the Bible at all, 12 is all over it (12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples, 12 apostles, 12 churches in Asia which is mentioned in Revelation).

100 Hearts of Hope

I have been thinking about for awhile how to take my hobby, crochet, and use it to glorify God. I can make crosses and all but that really did not seem to be it. Today I was struck with an idea that could have only come from God. What if I make 100 crocheted hearts (I can make one in about 20 minutes) and give them to people around me and took that opportunity to also share with them the good news of Jesus Christ? Hmmm..... that sounds like a mighty fine idea. Tell me what you think?

Year end calculations

Look back over the past year... Where were you this time last year? Have you grown spiritually since then? Have you made positive improvements on your life? Or has everything remained the same? Have you kept the resolutions you made last year or did they evaporate?

One year ago I was not exactly the same person I am right now. A year ago I was not very open with anyone (except for one person up in Canada) about my life. I pasted the happy face on and prayed I would make it to the end of the day. I know I have a lot of growing up left to do, but I have to say that there were some improvements over the past year, most of which happened during the summer. It was summertime that I finally got up the guts and told a few teachers my testimony, was baptized, and learned a lot about God from the kids at the camp I served at. I am still of the opinion that the teachers met and planned what they were going to write out in my year book. If you don't know my testimony and would like to know just come and talk to me sometime.

This may come as a shocker but after Christmas I plan on not crocheting or knitting anymore.

An indescribable God

Ok, I babysat (if you could call it that) tonight and wow the kids were a nightmare. I got pretty mad at a bunch of middle schoolers. Anyways after listening to Indescribable by Chris Tomlin a couple of times I started thinking about how amazing God is, then how much beyond my imagination He is. And it sort of donned on me that God loves me a pretty much insignificant speck of life (in comparison to the universe) and hears my prayers and forgives. Then of course I start to realize that this kid who is being a pain in the you-know-what is loved just as much by God, and that from time to time I can be that irksome. Slowly but surely I started to see this annoying child in a whole different way. Instead of seeing this kid as a jerk, I saw him as a child, probably hurting a lot, in desperate need of a loving Savior. Then the unthinkable happens... I actually pray for him, not a forced insincere thats what I'm supposed to do prayer, but an actual legit prayer.

There were also these to girls, sisters, who went to my school a couple years back. Gave me loads of grief then and were again a pain-in-the-you-know-where tonight. After what happened with the previous kid I started to see the same thing in this girl. She appeared to be a girl caught up in the pressure of being popular, used to putting people down to build herself up (obviously I may still struggle a little with judging), but slowly I started to note that she too was probably hurting and struggling with allowing God to be her everything. I'm not sure if this is God working inside me or what, but there is definitely something. If that carries over to school and maybe just maybe a few others start experiencing the same things, then maybe just maybe school will be different. To quote a cheesy musical, "this may be the start of something new..."

How are you defined?

Even though people hate to be judged they often judge. The phrase "actions speak louder than words" is true in many respects. I'm defined as weird because of some of the things I do (this is more of an asset then you might think, but Ill get to that later), people are always defined by what they do and as soon as a person screws up they may completely lose their reputation. I remember this kid a couple years back who graduated 2008 at my school. He was considered next to Jesus basically because of the things he did, he was the first to pray for someone who asked, he read his Bible so much, etc... How are you defined? Do people know you are a Christian by what you say or by what you do? If you any normal person, you probably hated it if your parents used the old "do as i say not as i do". Role models are people who do what they say. Hypocrites are people who say one thing and do another. Which are you? This is another thing that irritates me with my school. So many kids (and the occasional teacher) claim to be role models but are hypocrites. The same can be said of some churches. Is your church Christian because thats what it says on the sign, or is your church Christian because your church acts as Christ acted? I hate to say this but I am beginning to think that my church is Christian because the sign out front says it is. Oh sure we do some good stuff now and then, but people have to come to my church to hear about Christ, we are not going out and telling people about him.

I have to also mention how it is most people judge. We generally judge first on appearance, then we judge by what people do. It is cool that we have a God who judges not by appearance but by the heart.

I said earlier that I would tell you why being weird and generally at the bottom of the social ladder is an asset. Basically if you don't have any amount of social standing, you don't have any amount of social standing to lose and can basically do as you feel led. It is incredibly freeing (once you get past the initial shock and stop crying) to not feel like you have to be a certain person to maintain where you stand in relation to your peers. God takes you as you are.

Religious

After talking with a youth pastor today I am utterly convinced that the American body of Christ is failing miserably, or at least the ones Ive seen. My church is in the process of rebuilding and I understand that right now it is struggling and that could be a reason that we do not have a good outreach ministry, but I started thinking about it and when we did have decent leadership we still did not have much of an outreach ministry. Sure we had our missionary in Africa and that seemed far away and most people gave a couple of dollars here and there (not that that is bad). My church recently did a study on James and what kills me is that we lightly touched on the parts dealing with outreach. James 1:27 tells us that pure religion that God favors is going out to the orphans and widows and serving. Why have most american churches become more focused on making their own church bigger and not making the Church bigger? How are we supposed to change that? get out there and serve.

Just one last little rant... Imagine for a moment it's your birthday and you have a ton of family and friends, but this year every single person who is close to you has forgotten that it is your birthday. Even worse they are wrapped up in their own lives they pretty much ignore you. Ok maybe you understand what I'm getting at, but if not let me explain. Every year millions of Americans go into debt because of Christmas, but so many do not think about Christ even once (I'm as guilty as the next). It is His birthday have we forgotten that? He asks us not to give him gifts wrapped in pretty paper, he asks that we give ourselves to further His kindom. Not just on his birthday, but every single day of the year. Christians are here to glorify God and to lead people to Him. Please people let's not make the Great commission into the great commercial endeavor. Have we lost our first love?

Once again on serving

Matthew 25:37-40 says, "Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." You get what that is saying? Basically even when you do different things to others, maybe as small as a cup of water, you are giving it to Jesus. That is pretty flippin awesome!!!

Missions

Just gotta say that I am amazed by God.

A saved life.

I went and saw To Save a Life in a prescreening at my school. It was probably one of the best movies I have ever seen. Of course I did relate to most of it with the cutting and the suicide (clearly I have never commit suicide). During the movie I just got a strong feeling about starting a revolution at my already Christian school. On the way home I was praying and asking God, why me? I'm not exactly popular at my school actually I'm not popular at all and my school is already Christian. So, God, why would you pick an unpopular senior to start a revolution at a place that is already Christian? Then my thoughts started drifting over to Christ and the apostles, etc.... Christ was not exactly the most popular guy in Jerusalem, the apostles not exactly the most educated influential people you had ever met, the letters in the New Testament went out to impact communities that were already Christian, Christ came to earth in a place and time where the majority of people were Jewish, starting to see something? Why were the people God worked through in the New Testaments such huge impacts despite their circumstances? I laugh at myself sometimes because some of the things I question God on are so incredibly easy to see. So obviously I have some stuff I need to get started on because I have 6 months (give or take) in which to accomplish this.

I also thought the movie was awesome because what the main character did in befriending a loner although not exact reminded me of two things, first what Christ did for us, and second a year and a half ago I was suicidal and it was one of my closest friends who (through Christ) helped me back to Him.

Bubbled

I go to a Christian school, church, church activities throughout the week, etc.... When my choir director told us to give invitations to our nonchristian friends I honestly could not think of a single nonchristian friend who was even remotely close to my age and i have talked to in the past 6 months. the only nonchristians i thought about were these old people who live next door and across the street from me and this other old guy who lives up the street from me. It got me thinking... How can I be a light to the world if i live in a Christian bubble? I am almost to the point of thinking that the kids who are christians who go to public schools are far more privileged than i am. i spend 4 hours (give or take) in church sunday, monday night is Bible study, tuesday is youth, wednesday is choir, thursday is a different bible study, friday and saturday im exhausted and attempting to catch up on everything i missed. i am by no means bashing church or saying its wrong to spend so much time there, but seriously there is something wrong. i get fed 6 days a week, but what am i doing to feed the christians who live around me, furthermore do i know of any nonchristians in my neighborhood. i think for the time being my prayer will be for God to send me some nonchristian friends because its a little ridiculous. matthew 5 tells us to be a light to the world, but the problem is that i am a light in room that is already lit up (if that makes any sense at all) how do you minister to nonbelievers if you dont even come in contact with them? how many nonchristian friends do you have that know without a doubt that you are a christian. i believe we have a lot of potential in the church, but we need to get it out there.

Ok I think I am starting to get it

Back in September God called me back to my parents church (I have to start calling it MY church) and I had no idea why. Well thanks to a few people God chose to speak through I think I might understand now. I went with my old church to the rescue mission to serve for a little more than an hour. It was an awesome reminder of what serving God is like (since it has been more than two years since the last time I went). However as I was fighting traffic to get to choir relatively close to on time I started thinking why doesn't my church have as many opportunities to serve as this church. Ok first of all incredibly stupid thing to think because isn't that like judging my church. If a person cannot another person then surely a person cannot judge a church. I asked one of my friends (also in my prayer group there) what her take on it was. She reminded me that our church is still recovering after losing our senior pastor and they are in the process of rebuilding. Well that is true, but I thought about it a little more and realized that long before we started having all these issues with pastors and such when our church was large and had a strong foundation there was still little in the means of outreach, it seemed (and seems) like the church has been focusing a lot on making itself bigger and better. Now don't take any of this wrong and think that I hate my church because I assure you I do not. However after thinking it through and listening, it started to click.... I have a heart for missions and outreach (even if I forget it from time to time) and I am not satisfied with my church or rather their opinion of it. What is the best way to change something? The answer is simple, get involved. That is exactly what I intend to do. After choir is finished at the end of December I will take the membership class and officially become a member of that church. Then I will find some way of getting involved in the outreach department or the missions department, whichever.

Christmas season

Of course it is the Christmas season, does not take rocket science to understand this. However, today in Bible class we were talking about the advent conspiracy, which is basically about spending less on ourselves for Christmas or on gifts others simply don't want and spending the money you would have spent on the gifts to do something meaningful for the less fortunate in other countries. The first thing I thought of was that instead of buying even one gift I am going to crochet or knit each gift for friends and family. I intend to use any money I receive for Christmas to go toward the rest of the amount I owe for my upcoming mission trip to Vancouver in February, the remaining money will be discussed later. If anyone asks me what I want for Christmas I will answer them in such a way where they either spend a minimum amount on me or nothing at all and spend the money on someone who actually needs it. Today as I was driving home from school I heard something on the radio about this kid who is only 15 now and has for the past 7 years been raising money for kids orphaned by AIDS in Zambia because the Bible says in James that true religion is visiting orphans and widows. What if I managed to get my school to do something similar to that? What if 800 people (give or take a few) teamed up and sent money, that might have been spent on a useless gift, to people who may never get a gift or else may just be waiting to die? What about you? How much money do you spend on average on gifts? If I make everyone's gifts this year I will spend approximately $25 total and a few hours doing what I love to do. I challenge you to open your heart not to those who can return the favor but to those who cannot return the favor. Maybe even do it anonymously so that no one but you and God knows about it. Change the world around you by going against what culture says.