Hooked on Jesus!

Oh the good ol' Hooked on Phonics! What can be better than learning to read, do math, and spell all for a great affordable price of 200$ ha. I honestly can't think of much! The essential tools for success in school, which eventually leads to success in a job and life; is all conveniently in the confines of one box! Without basic reading, writing, and math skills school will just be a hassle. However, with these skills school may not be made easier but the process of understanding may be made easier.

What if a relationship with Jesus was sold in a box? Would you buy it?

So often people want to take the easy road but still want all the benefits of choosing a different path. A relationship is a 2-way street and will always be that way. Jesus wants a relationship with you and just like any other relationship for it to flourish you must spend time with one another. Get Hooked on Jesus!

Learn the skills that Christ wants to teach you. Take the time to read about the love he has for you. Make it a habit to talk to Him learn from him! A relationship with Christ is one that will never fail and it is all free. It has been paid for you in full by a one time self-sacrificing gift of the cross!

This might hurt a bit!

Today's church(myself included)sadly seems to have been filled with 3rd party passion,automatons,and safety. We as churchgoers hear the stories of the missionaries, the radical life changes, and what a relationship with Jesus Christ is like and we take that and live through it never once experiencing a first hand experience of who Jesus truly is.

Our lives are consumed by safety and as a result we are put on the sidelines, yet we still expect to be used for Gods purpose. When we live safe our lives immediately become about us and not Him. We pray as a church that God would make our lives more about Him but we get real uncomfortable when He makes our lives unlivable without Him. How literal do you take what Jesus said?What if Jesus meant every word that He said?(which I'm about 100% sure He did).Would it mean you have to change the way you live your life, the people you hang out with, the way you interact with others?

I have been stuck in this mindset of safety but safety is not something Jesus Christ called us too. Throughout the gospels Jesus proclaims self sacrifice He says, "Ok you want this life to be about me, you want to see miracles, you want people to recognize that I am apart of your life? It might cost you a little bit". Matthew 10:38-39 expresses this very statement, "And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it".

Mark Batterson says, "Passionate Christians are strange creatures because they thrive in the toughest circumstances because they know the impossible odds set the stage for amazing miracles". Are you ready for this life? In order for you to live a life that takes risk you have to know the risk taker. You can't live this life without knowing Jesus, the great thing is He wants to know you! Christ is calling you out of the 3rd person passion and into a first hand experience with Him. Lets start the process together! Be Different.

Why me?

How many times in a day, a week, a month does the phrase, "why me" come up in your life? If your anything like me I 'm sure the answer can be summed up quite easily. Alot. One thing after another was my mentality for quite sometime and if it wasn't one thing going wrong it was another. I want you to know that if you are in that stage right now I have been there!

Rock Bottom is a real place, down and out is a true feeling, and brokenness is nothing a doctor will ever be able to fix. But more real than the destinations,emotions, and heartache is the love that God has for you!

Hearing that God loved me was something I simply didn't want to hear. For the skeptics who don't believe there is a God, I was there. For the one who believes God is not all loving, I was there. For the one who walked away from God because you couldn't trust him. I was there. And For the one who believed there was no way out. I was there!

Jesus Christ is the one and only source of Love.He is the defintion of what love is. The fact that we even face trials proves there is something very precious to our Lord in us, or else He would not spend so much time and energy on us. 2 Corinthians 4:8, says "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed". From one skeptic to another: He is Real! His love does prove true, his promises won't be taken back, and he really does want to have a relationship.

Trust Him! He who sends the clouds can just as easily clear the skies. Lets us be encouraged-things are better down the road!

Be Different.

Imagine yourself in New York City in the middle of a crazy rush hour mob and you just realized that your going the wrong way. The current has taken you many blocks past your destination and now you have a choice! Do you continue to go down this road because your afraid to turn around and face the crowd or do you make the choice to turn around and fight the current to find your way back?

Be Different!Fight the current, turn upstream, dont be afraid to hit the brakes and bust a U-Turn.

Jesus Christ came and showed us the way to encounter the rush hour mob with confidence. Jesus was not ashamed of being different he wasn't worried about fitting in, being rejected, or mocked in fact he promised it for all his followers (2 Timothy 3:12). However, with that promise he also adds the promise of a future, a hope, and an abundant joyful life(Jeremiah 29:11; John 10:10) something far beyond anything the world can manufacture.

Begin to fight the current, turn from the ways of the world and experience the life you were always intended for. While the world struggles to fit in begin to standout! John 13:34, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love another: just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this people will know that you are my disciples".

Super Storage

The whole moving process is such a pain! You have to go through all your belongings and decide what to keep, what to sell, what to throw away, it can be a bit of overwhelming chaos. When you take the time to actually sift through all your belongings you begin to realize that you have accumulated alot of unnecessary junk over the years. However, we keep this junk with the mindset of, "You never know when your going to need this" (Or maybe that's just me ha).

What about our lives do we accumulate alot of the "unnecessary junk", fears, failures, anxieties, etc; and never take the time to clear it out? We as humans hold grudges, keep our past failures at the forefront of our minds and allow it to control how we act, hold to the wrong that has been done to us and consequently it effects how we interact with others.

Moving may mean just moving your "unnecessary junk" to a storage unit or even the attic. However, despite the extra space around that is not going to get rid of the problem because somewhere down the road that storage unit and attic must be cleaned out. But what if you had someone to help with the whole process, someone who will rummage through your life and find the positive most beneficial attributes of you and throw away everything else.

Jesus Christ came to set us free of the "junk" that encompasses and binds us to the world and our sin. John 8:31," If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Our lives do not have to be defined by past failures, regrets, grudges, addictions, or anything else keeping us suppressed.

We have a God who has been through our struggles and has conquered them all. Hebrews 4:15, "he was tempted as we are, yet without sin", bring your struggles, failures,addictions whatever it is that is holding you back from experienceing the life of Christ has for you and walk with him today.

He wont Leave!

For someone like me, who suffers from the issue of abandonment; hearing that God loves me and wants to have a relationship with me was just something that I could never take serious or believe. My issue rooted from individuals who always said the words, "I love you", "I'll always be here for you", "We'll get through this together", etc yet whether intentional or not they walked out of my life leaving me with the empty feeling of abandonment. This issue has impaired my relationship with the one true person who would never leave me and truly does mean the words I Love You but through my interactions with others trusting God just seemed like a big risk.

For two years I have struggled and wrestled with the idea of trusting the words that "God will not abandon me and that He loves me". Through painful trials and constant reassurance over the past few months I can finally say that the words in Isaiah 49:15, " I will not forget you"; are in fact true.

To feel abandoned is a lonely place and to feel that the god you believe in is so far off and can't hear you is an even worse feeling. For so long I felt I wasn't good enough to talk to God because of all my problems but one thing has become very evident when reading the Word and that is He hears our cries no matter what state we are in. Psalm 18 so beautifully express', "In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears". Love has no bounds. Love doesn't care what you've done. Love endures all things. Love is a refuge. Love is perfect. God is Love.

God's love for us is enough for him to engrave our names on the palms of his hands(Isaiah 49:16), God's love for us is enough for him to desire us to be with him(John 17:24), God's love for us is enough that he would send his only Son to die for the transgressions of all mankind(John 3:16). Without a doubt I can now stand confident and proclaim that the love of Jesus Christ is real and is never ending. Abandonment is never something you have to worry about when your walking with the King!