Are you new here? Wednesday Word is where I post a short sermon and then give my commentary.
Okay, so living by faith.
She started off with an excellent point. By faith, we become Christians. We look at this story of a virgin giving birth to a baby that would save the world. We didn’t see this. Yet, we believe it.
So, why do we stop believing? After saying yes to Jesus, we tend to go on our own. Essentially the entire relationship with God and Jesus is built on faith. The concept of heaven is built on faith. There are people who have died, claimed they’ve seen heaven, and then are back on earth. But, for the most part, none of us have seen anything and we can only go by faith.
Such a difficult thing because our physical form tells us that if our five senses can’t embrace something…confirm…register…then it can’t be real. We use science. But, faith doesn’t give a hoot about science. Miracles don’t care about the laws of nature. Miracles laugh at those laws. Good for them. Good for us.
So, live by faith today. It won’t always be easy; but it’s worth it. God won’t let you down. Even when it seems like God dropped the ball, His ways and understanding are better and higher than ours.
My life was radically transformed when God encountered me while I was in college. Growing up, I never really believed in God although I was raised in a Christian home. Being preoccupied with life and not being able to ‘see’ our God during church service made me doubt his existence. I continued to live life and as I got older, I felt the need to prove my worth to others by falling into so many temptations around me. When I went to college I started drinking and hooking up with guys, although it truly wasn’t things I enjoyed doing.
I fell into many sexual addictions while having plenty of boy drama to deal with. At that particular time, I was already overwhelmed with all of the stress that I had from the problems I created and out of nowhere, my health started to deteriorate with another illness that came upon me around the time of my finals. I quickly went to my mom to ask for help and because she was a believer, she said that we’ll see the doctors but also have people pray for you.
As the week went on, I woke up one morning not feeling any of the symptoms of this illness and began to wonder what just happened? I’ve been sick and even my friends knew about it and all of a sudden, everything was gone and I felt normal. After getting checked out by the doctors, they said nothing was wrong with me. I began to wonder if this was a work of God or if science just proved to be the answer. Still carrying the weight of my problems and thinking that I have nothing to lose, I thought about praying to Him myself to see if he really did exist and if he could lift all of the burdens I was carrying. I cried out to Him and after I was done praying and pouring my heart out, I felt the weight being lifted off. I felt so light and experienced a burst of joy coming from the inside, and not knowing what to make of it, I simply embraced it.
So right after I was done praying, I decided to listen to this song that I really liked. It was a secular song that had hip-hop artists on there. I have been listening to this track for about 3 years but I lost the song on my computer so I asked the DJ if he could send it to me. When I got the track and began listening to it, I heard a man interrupt the rapper in this hip-hop song and begin to sing about Jesus. I immediately freaked out, not understanding what was going on! I never listened to christian music because I never enjoyed it so I didn’t understand how it showed up on my phone! I also realized that the DJ who made the hip-hop track was Hindu so it didn’t come from him either.
And I was listening to the same song for 3 years before that I never heard this man who sang about Jesus. The only connection I could make was to the prayer I prayed to some ‘God’. I kept hearing this man sing about Jesus and when I looked at my phone it said that I was listening to ‘DJ Kash: Money to blow overnight’ and I knew that wasn’t right. After staying in the middle of the song for about 3 weeks, the christian man just completely disappeared one day and I heard the original hip-hop track with all of the rappers. Everything that happened went beyond my mind’s comprehension and deep-down inside, I knew God just showed up. I still listen to the hip-hop track to see if the man who sang about Jesus would come back but it’s been a year and a half since that incident and there has been no sign of him! Right after that incident, I gave my life to Jesus and have been on a journey knowing more about Him and who I am in Him!
I encourage all of you guys to talk God, no matter where you are in life or how deep you are in sin. His love is more powerful than anything on this earth and He can show up if we ask Him to! I hope this testimony provides hope to all of you and stay blessed peeps!:)
I want to push you to forgive those that have wronged you. Understand that forgiving is not the same as accepting.
Forgiveness is for the victim more than the offender, especially if the offender doesn’t even realize what he’s done. For instance, you are walking down the street, somebody innocently bumps into you. He says sorry. He didn’t mean it, and he’s sleeping tonight.
You, on the other hand, are pissed off. This bump has now taken over your thoughts for the day and you can somehow connect that bump to all other negative moments of the day.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
Let it go. Forgive.
What about the harder things? She stabbed you in the back. You thought you were friends. Yet, she went and did that. She hasn’t apologized, so I guess you don’t have to forgive her, right? Well, this isn’t going to be a sermon, so I’ll leave the Bible out of it…for now.
Don’t be afraid to forgive someone. This doesn’t mean you approve of what the person did. For instance, someone may get shot by some guy who decided to shoot up a school. Now, forgiving him means that you’re no longer holding this against him. It is what it is, and you’re attempting to move on. Give yourself peace. However, you don’t accept or approve of this. Why is that? Well, most likely, you wouldn’t go have a cup of coffee with this person. You’ve moved on, but you’re also done with that person.
So, I had been saying for what has been months that I was thinking about doing a featured post for Thursday. But, what would it be?
After some serious consideration, I came down to two options: Thoughtful Thursday and Thankful Thursday. The biggest issue was that I needed to make sure there was content. I always try to make sure there’s enough content that I can use immediately but also, can this survive months and months and still have original content.
Problem is, I couldn’t figure out what type of content to put in this post.
Thankful Thursday would’ve been something with maybe thankful/gratitude quotes and maybe stories or something. I don’t know. It looked like it was going to be a very specific Monday Motivation because the ultimate idea was to encourage or motivate people to be more thankful and grateful in life. That’s still important, but I felt that and Monday Motivation were calling on the same thing.
Thoughtful Thursday is going to essentially be a continuation of my old featured post “Daily Word”. As you may remember, Daily Word was when I posted a quote and scripture verse. Thoughtful Thursday will include a few quotes aimed to make us think.
Of course, I’m not the first to do this, so in no way am I claiming this is a DALANEL original. Also, I may or may not add my own thoughts to the quotes/posts.
Anyway, Thoughtful Thursday will fill out the week. I have an odd obsession with having the day of the week in the title of the feature. Next up is Saturday. I don’t know if that’ll happen, but if it does, of course it’ll follow in line with the blog’s ultimate goal.
Remember?
Bringing a positive spin to the world.
I think Thoughtful Thursday stays true to that.
This is gonna be so corny: Let me know what you think about Thoughtful Thursday? Should I have gone with Thankful Thursday?
Sometimes, when I listen to a short sermon, I feel like there’s not too much of an impact. But, there are some videos that I hear that just blow me away.
This was one of them.
It’s a simple message, yet it’s something we can have trouble with.
The gist of this, in case you didn’t get it, was that through Jesus, we are saved. That’s clear.
But, sometimes we don’t understand why that is, and that’s the point of this video. The biggest part was how he explained that we as Christians tend to think that by what we do or don’t do is what determines how God deals with us. Instead, God deals with Jesus.
And, because we are with Jesus, and in Him are of His likeness, God loves us.
It goes back to a point I made in an earlier post I had about how the Holy Spirit in us is what God looks for. God can only be with Himself. We are made in God’s image, but in a spiritual way. Adam and Eve dropped the ball and we died. Jesus came back and gave us life.
When we accept Him, we accept His spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. So, with God in us, we become like God. We exhibit the fruits and gifts of this spirit.
Like I said, God looks for His own because He is simply too perfect for anything less. Since we have God in us, it’s easy for God to say “come on in”. That’s the whole point of Jesus. Jesus came to fix the wrong of Adam and Eve. They were saved. They lost it. Jesus got it back for us.
So, again, it is through Jesus that we have eternal life. We need to understand this. It’s like the law of association. When we associate ourselves with Jesus, we put our stake on Him. We essentially are saying that “whatever Jesus is doing, we’re doing or endorse this”. Jesus treats us the same way. Consider this hypothetical scenario:
Jesus: I love these people.
God: Well, I trust you, Son. If you love them; I’ll love them just the same.
That’s about it. That’s why there’s grace and mercy. Jesus stood up for us. Don’t get it twisted; it’s not like God needed convincing to save us. It’s just the principle. Besides, Jesus and God are the same so who cares who did what? I’m not gonna dive into the trinity. Chill.
So, let’s not worry about our performance. I mean, yeah we need to follow God’s commandments and stuff. But, ultimately, our destiny lies in Jesus.
Now, in the NOT GOING TO HAPPEN scenario that Jesus and God have a falling out, then we’re screwed. Again, we’re hinging on Jesus. If Jesus is no longer the apple of God’s eye, you know we don’t have a chance.
Get it? Luckily for us, Jesus is God, so we’re fine.
I had been smoking for 13 years. I attempted to quit 2 times. Each time was full of headaches, iraitability moments, and strong temptations. When I quit 2 months ago, it was so easy. I really wanted to quit for him. I prayed for help. I had about 5 cravings. Each one only lasted seconds. Every time I started to have a craving I asked Jesus to take it from me, and it was instantly gone. Glory to God! Thank you Jesus!
