Life as a Man-Fish

Oops...I almost forgot...

2006-03-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

"Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart's desires. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and he will act, making your righteousness like the noonday. Be silent before the Lord, and wait expectantly for Him..."

I love this passage. It lists a few things: He wil give me my heart's desires, He will act, and He will make my righteousness like the noonday. Isn't that awesome, or am I forgetting something? Oh yeah, before God can do anything, I gotta do a few things too. I must:

1.Delight in the Lord
2.Commit my way to the Lord
3.Trust in Him
4. Be silent before the Lord
5.Wait expectantly for Him

God's got the easy part. We have more work to do. How's my heart? My state of mind, my state of heart? What do I want? I may desire certain things, but in the end, it's up to God.

Look at this:
If I want something I need to delight in the Lord, and commit myself to Him. I need to trust that He will grant those desires. Do you see what is wrong here? It's all about ME! I want, I want, I want! Suddenly God is like "Be QUIET! Be silent and do not speak!" We shut our mouths and all we can do now is wait. After waiting for a while we suddenly realize, "Hey, wait a minute! What I wanted is not what God wants!"
What do we do then? We start all over from the beggining, but this time with a more humble and contrite heart. Ok, Lord, I want to delight in you, so you can show me my heart's, my soul's, my spirit's true desires. That's when God rubs His hands together and says, "Now we can do buissness." He presses hard into us, molding us shaping us. It doesn't feel nice, but the more He does it, the more we realize that we need Him to do it.
I need that right now. I need that brokeness. My heart's desire right now is to serve the Lord, let Him be my only love. Idols get in the way, and I need to cast those away, and focus on Him alone.

So what does God want for you today?

Confusion...

2006-03-18T21:26:00.000-07:00

My mind is just reeling right now. Emotions have taken over, and I am confused.

What should I do? Is this the right thing? I feel this way about this, but I also feel this way about this, but I feel more about the first thing than the other thing. Oh wait, I think I messed up, maybe I was wrong, perhaps I shouldn't have done that, or wait, maybe I am right and nothing bad is going to happen...

Are you confused now? Well now you know how I am feeling. Decisions, decisions...

Well I know what my problem is. I am luke-warm. Sure, I lead worship at church and I teach the kids about God, but at times my walk is not as strong as it should be. I am not in tune with God, and because of that I cannot hear His voice.

Reading Romans 3, I saw that I am not alright. I think "Oh yeah, I am a Christian, I'm doing fine!"

But I am just as bad as the heathen, who obey their hearts and emotions. You see I have had idols in my life, and those idols have caused my walk to become idle. They have distracted me from doing God's will, from hearing His voice, from hearing what His will is exactly.

So I need to seek God in this situation, this is something EVERYONE (except for very special cases) goes through. I need to ask God for His help, for His Grace, for His Mercy, for His Love...

...cause that's something no one else can EVER give....

LOVE...

2006-03-01T16:25:00.000-07:00

I need love...
I'm not saying that people don't love me enough, that's not my problem. My problem is loving others. Lately I have been loving others conditionally, this is wrong.

I realized this today in class. My very liberal New Testament class where my teacher believes that there isn't enough evidence to prove that Jesus existed. I spoke out, but I spoke out in my flesh. I was angry, frustrated that someone could be so stupid.

God's not gonna use that.

I'm looking back now and realizing that I'm not as strong as I think I am. I love God and want to defend Him, but I tend to knock others down as I do it. That's not the right way. I care more about changing people's minds, rather than letting God change their hearts.

I want to love others, but only if they LOVE God like I do. But GOD is AGAPE. And I am not.

So pray for me, but also think to yourselves, are you loving others?
Is your love based on the fact that you want other people to love you back, or do things for you? Do you LOVE God enough to want to LOVE others like He LOVES them?

As you can see I have not been updating much. I'm struggling right now with some things, I need God's LOVE more than ever. I am strong, I am not the kind of person that can just walk away from something. I am the kind of person that gets pulled into things slowly as things go wrong, and I DON'T want to go that way...

In Christ,
Man-Fish

Struggles...

2006-02-10T19:24:00.000-07:00

Man, life is so hard. It's so hard to be a Christian. Why? Because we have to live AGAINST the flesh and its desires. Life is easy for non Christians because they are taugh to just give in. Nothing is easier than giving in to the flesh. It takes a real man or woman to resist what we want.

Let me give you an example:

We all eat, its something we all have to do. Now, I dare you to try going without food for a week, and lets see how easy it is.

I don't think many of us could do that. And if you did, you couldn't say that doing it was a breeze.

What I need in my life is a total overflow of the Holy Spirit. On my own, I am weak and I cannot resist the flesh. I need help. God's help...

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me...

It was HIM that whole time? (Psalms 66)

2006-01-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine told me to read this passage. It opened up my eyes a little bit to something new. What really caught my eyes was verses 8-12. David begins it by giving thanks and blessings to God. Why? Because God had afflicted Him, had tested Him, had put Him through FIRE and water. Wait a minute! God is the one who puts affliction on us? I thought God loved us.

Well, He does. Part of His loving us is shaping us and molding us to be and to do what He has created us to do. He makes us go through trials and tribulations because He knows it is good for us. Yes, I understand that at times Satan does attack us and wants us to stumble, but who lets him do that?
We tend to complain. I’m a complainer. There have been certain afflictions I have asked God to take away, and for some reason or other, He hasn’t. I’ll find out later I suppose. But look at Jesus. He suffered immense pain on the cross for us. Remember what He said in the garden of Gethsemene? He wanted this "cup to pass before [Him.]" He knew that He was going to suffer. If God had spared Jesus from all that pain, we would be lost.

God has a plan and purpose and all this. You may be going through trials (I do EVERYDAY) but God wants to bless you in those things. Take time to thank Him. Look at a Job for a moment. After all those things he went through, don’t you think that perhaps his walk with the Lord was stronger than it already was? Our attitute with life usually reflects our walk with the Lord. Take 5 minutes today to spend time with the Lord.
He really does care.

Hurt, Pain...Blessings, Mercy (Psalms 13)

2006-01-19T13:54:00.000-07:00

Read It

Have there been times when we feel like God isn’t answering our prayers? Times that no matter how much we cry to Him, it seems as though He doesn’t help us? I know I do. Other times I feel like Satan is attacking me, and all I can do is curl up into a pathetic little ball while he kicks me time and time again. Why does God do these things? First off, God has an awesome plan for our life. There are 2 choices. One, we aren’t walking right with Him. If we don’t hear His voice, or even know Him that well, then why do we expect Him to help us? Choice 2 is, we are walking but this whole thing is part of God molding us and teaching us to trust in Him.

Yes, I am a human. And I have been struggling with a few things. Time and time again, I have asked God to take these things away from me, but he has not. God has not told me why He hasn’t taken it away from me. But I know He has told me to trust Him. Despite everything, despite the pain and the hurt, I know God is going to make it all come to good one way or another. And yes, despite the pain and hurt in this situation, God has been blessing me.

Verses 5 and 6:

5 But I have trusted in Your mercy;

My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.

6 I will sing to the Lord,

Because He has dealt bountifully with me.

God has dealt bountifully! Look around you, what has He blessed you with. For me, God has been giving me wonderful opportunities to serve in ministry, and I totally love it! I know for sure that God has called me to ministry, and to be able to do it at a young age like this is an honor. I look at God’s mercy. I deserve to die! But yet He saved me from my sin, from going to eternal death in hell. I need to trust in His mercies today…

You need to trust in His mercies today.

P.S. For those of you who don't have your Bible handy, I included a link to the passage (that's what the "Read It" link is)

Paul's Testimony (Acts 22:1-21)

2006-01-15T23:48:00.000-07:00

Paul’s testimony is awesome. I’m not talking about how he met Jesus, although it would be awesome to be knocked over by Jesus and then have Him talking to you. No, I’m talking about the change and how awesome it was. Paul was one of the most religious men in the synagogue of his day. He knew the law forwards and backwards. He also hated Christians the most; he went around everywhere with special permission from the Jewish leaders that authorized him to kill Christians as he wished.
But God had different plans for him. In just one moment, a change took place. Paul realized that what he was doing was wrong, but that wrong wasn’t against Christians, but that the wrong was against God himself. And God had a special plan for him. He was appointed to "know His will, to see the righteous one, and to hear the sound of his voice." He was also to be a "witness for Him to all people what [he] had seen and heard." Paul was so excited that he wanted dot march out to the Jewish leaders and tell them what he had heard! But God was like "Hey wait a minute, not yet! They’ll kill you if you go out there, and you’re not supposed to die yet!" Paul obediently obeyed.
Look at what God appointed Paul to do. Is that not also our calling? We are called to Live for Jesus, to walk close to Him, to know his voice, to know His will. And He gave us a great commission: to tell everyone about the good news of Jesus! That’s what God wants us to do. Sure maybe, that doesn’t tell us what we’re going to be when we grow up, or who we are going to marry, but if we walk close God and know His voice, then we’ll know exactly what He wants! We’ll be able to hear him better. Isn’t that cool? God wants to talk to us, and He wants to tell us His will! God is our friend, He knows whats best for us, and He wants us to do it. It’s our responsibility to walk with Him and talk with Him. Who wouldn’t talk to their best friend?
‘Cause that’s what Jesus is.

I am a human...

2006-01-08T18:15:00.000-07:00

I'm a Christian. And you know what? Life isn't perfect. A Christian's life shouldn't be. You know why? It's because we are human.

Most people fall away from Christianity because a) they think that Christianity is going to make all their problems go away, or b) they would rather live for their flesh than for Jesus Christ.

Lately I have been struggling. This is a personal battle and if I told you, you would begin shouting "TMI! TMI!" (For those of you who don't know, that stands for "too much information.") I am a Human. If I make a promise, I will most likely break it. Not because I want to, but because as a human, things in life come up, and I may forget.

I fail God half the time. I tell Him that I'm going to live for him, but I end up failing. I feel guilty and sad that I fail, but God understands my condition. He looks at my heart and says, "I see that although you fail, you are willing to get back on your feet and start over again." God forgives me each time I falter. He always does.

My run with God was starting to become a walk. I was lagging, but yet He has stood by me the whole time. He is a God that love you and me and wants the best for us. He wants us to admit that we have a problem of being putrid sinful people, and that we need His help.

I am willing to admit that...

...are you?

Peace of God...

2005-12-08T12:46:00.000-07:00

Have you known God's peace?

I'll let you know, my life is not easy. There have been people who see me as naive about life, about being an adult just because I am a mere 19 year old.

I have school, I have work, I have my ministry as a worship at leader church. I struggle with many things such as the areas of resposibility, and (recently) relationships. These are new things in my life. My life can be a mess at times. I don't manage my money well, I'd rather be out with friends than do homework. My parents want me to do things at home. I don't want to go to school. Emotions pain me at times.

But in all that, I have learned to trust in God, to let Him take care of all my problems. Sometimes I forget that He's there, but He's always ready to recieve me back. I'm at peace right now.

How many of you can say that? You may not believe half the things I am saying. You may not believe that there is a God that loves you. You can argue about that all you want, but you can not refute the fact that I have peace. And so I ask you again:

Have you known God's PEACE?

Perfection...

2005-11-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

I'll never reach perfection. Even if I was to practice my guitar forever, I would never be able to play a song perfectly. Even the masters mess up. In life I will never be able to balance my budget, get straight A's in college. I will never go through a relationship without getting hurt. I will never be able to be good to everyone.

So why does God love me? Why does He love us?

It's because He created us. Think of yourself as a mother or father. A parent loves their child, even if their child is rebellious or is a bad person. I'm sure Hitler's mother loved him. I mean, who could ever love Hitler?

Jesus loved us so much, that He gave His life for us. We tend to forget that fact. We throw it in His face as an insult. But yet, He has open arms waiting for us.

Don't run away from God.

He loves you...

Now, to go fishing...

Life in the carpool lane...

2005-11-16T23:41:00.000-07:00

So joining me in this blog is my good friend, "A Thorn." We'll be writing and collaborating together . Should be fun.

I just want to take a moment now just to tell you what we're about:

The goal of this blog is to tell others about Jesus Christ, and to defend our faith. Everyday, thousands of people are dying and going to hell. It's a very sad reality, I wish it wasn't true. But it is, and I want to do as much as I can to influence people. To tell them that yes, there is life after death, there is a way to cope with the problems of this life, yes, there is HOPE for every one of us.

If you haven't recieved Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you need to do it now, or face an eternity in hell when you die. I'm not saying this because I hate you, I'm saying this because I love you and God loves you. He doesn't want to see that happen to you. But He has also given you free will, and you decide whether to accept Him or not.

It's your choice.

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man can come to the Father except by me."
-Jesus Christ

I'm Sanctified

2005-11-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

Sanctified: To be made pure.

How can I be perfect and pure? I sin everyday, everyday I do the things God does not want me to do. I am pitiful, I am a weakling, a fool. So then if I am to follow Christ, what can I do about my fleshly condition?

Jesus Christ died for me. I can do nothing, for I am already sanctified.

That right. Everything I have done wrong, Jesus Christ has taken care of it. On my own, there is no way I can be perfect. I will utterly fail, and fail guilty and condemned each and every time.

As a Christian it is my respsonsibility to live as Jesus did. To love others, be kind. Yeah, there are days when I feel like bumping into the guy that just gave me the bird in traffic, or punching a customer at work who is being rude. There are days when I fail. But guess what?

Jesus is there for me.

Just think about it

Thank You for the Cross,
Thank You for tthe Cross,
Thank You for the Cross,
My Friend.

2005-11-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

Today I honor our fellow veterans, by working today as hard as I can. To keep the economy running so that we may still be able to fight not only for our freedom, but for the freedom of others. Jesus Christ died to free us from the bondage of sin, so it is also my responsibility to tell others about the name of Jesus. It is also my responsibility, and not just mine, but all Christians, to help others be free. That's why this coutry was founded.

That is what we must fight for.

2005-11-10T21:58:00.000-07:00

First post... I'm not sure what to say. Well how about this:

God loves you and has a plan for you.

That's what I'm all about. I'm about sharing what Jesus Christ has done for me, and for others, and what He can do for you. I don't garuntee that life will be perfect, it never will be. But I can garuntee you a hope and a peace that surpasses all understanding.