Are you Scared?

ohkayyyy so i think this is probably something we all have dealt with in our faith and walk with God. we need God to help us go about our day and everything we do, but a lot of the time, we try to do it by ourselves. why? we are scared and that's Satan checking on us.
yeah we get scared of taking that leap of faith and giving everything we've got up to God. perhaps it is because we don't understand what God has in mind for us, but he does have a plan. Jeremiah 29:11. perhaps its because we like to think so highly of ourselves and think we can do anything and everything, and deep down we know that's not true, but we are scared to admit it. perhaps its because we think if we give God our life and ask for his help, that he wont and we will be stranded and we will be left feeling vulnerable. the list could go on why we are scared but ultimately its because you are not fully trusting God. go read the book of job. its all about how he has all these hardships, yet he is still praising God, knows he needs Gods guidance and trusts that this is Gods will. read Isaiah 31:1-3 God is basically saying here that whatever your putting your trust in that is not Him will fall and your life will fall apart if you do not trust Him above all else. But, according to that verse God wants us to trust Him, and beyond that we need to trust Him.
when we finally get to the point and we realize our need for God in all areas of our life, we begin to realize that God is God; we are not and we never will be. God didn't create us to run our own lives and when we try we fail every time. every single time. and that is from personal experience. i need God's help and guidance and encouragement, in everything i do. God knows we will struggle with trusting Him and being accountable to Him. that's why He gave us the bible, the "how to live your life for dummies" book. he also tells us to have our friends hold us accountable. Galatians 6:2. and for them to be accountable to us.Hebrews 10:24-25. sometimes we need that extra little push in a godly direction. also check out Ecclesiastes 4:10.
sometimes life gets rough. and perhaps God makes it that way so He will make it clear to us, that we cant do it alone. so we will realize our need for God and tell God "hey i cant do this alone" and thats when he tells us "Daughter, Son, you dont have too"
love
always and forever
gracie :)

how beautiful.

ohkay so your probably wondering what is up with all the flowers. well first the go nicely with the background. second i just really like flowers. and third, i think they are alot like us. we are fragile, just like flowers. we need God, just like flowers need rain and nutrients and sunshine. God is my sunshine :) and its God that makes me beautiful. he makes you beautiful too :) just like flowers. flowers love sunshine but they also need the rain. we will have to endure storms in our lives and rains but God placed those in our paths for a purpose, perhaps one that is bigger than ourselves. the list could go on but i think you get the idea
but there is one more thing

God created us, just as He created everything else including flowers :)

i was on the way home from the youth retreat, and i was looking out my passenger side window. we were coming home over the parkway. it was beautiful. yes, it was raining, but it was still beautiful. think about that for a moment and apply it to your life. even when we get rained on, we are still beautiful.

then i got to thinking about how beautiful the world was. its gorgeous isn't it? even when its raining, it still has this pretty glow about it and then the grass gets super green:) unless, of course, its covered up by snow :(

and then. i had a thought. one that had never crossed my mind before. imagine how beautiful the world must have been right after god created it. before sin and destruction had entered it. seeing as its god that makes us beautiful, wouldn't that be what makes the world beautiful? and id like to think that when the world was first created that it reflected all of Gods glory because he said that it was good. read Genesis 1:1-31. i never thought of it before but the world was probably so beautiful it was hard to look at. maybe. i wish i could have seen it.

but then in Genesis 3:6 sin entered the world, and since then we have continued to sin and i believe destroying the beauty of the world.

and tonight when i was doing my devotion tying to figure out what God wanted me to say tonight, i had a new thought, that once again i had never thought of. now this is something i knew like subconsciously or whatever, but never really thought about. God created everything. time is something, and therefor God created time. Before God created light and darkness and called them day and night there was no time. time didn't exist. i think this is one of those things that humans cant fully understand, but just get the gist of. no time. it didn't pass by, it didn't ebb and flow. it didn't exist. i think its kinda cool. and people that don't believe in creation by God are always like well what created God? well before time there couldn't have been any creating at least i don't think there could be, because it makes time to actually create something. so God simply is, has been and will be. that's it God just us.

that's a lot to think about so i will leave you on that note.

love
always and forever
gracie:)

why am i here?

well, to put it bluntly im here because God created me in my mother's womb. psalms 139 :13. but i mean so why am i here as in why am i writing this blog? i didn't really explain why but i feel as if i need to. Spencer Saunders, one of my best friends, started a bible study during lunch and named it elevation. with the new semester many of us that were in Spencer's bible study were no longer going to have lunch with her. so i felt that God was saying to me "gracie pick up your bible and do something for your God." so i have and im loving leading the bible study, its like i get this certain feeling of satisfaction that i actually did something for God today. and then a few days ago i discovered that Michael slaughter's (another best friend, one who happens to be my boyfriend too :)) mommy has a blog and it is about her life and her walk with God. i think its just awesome. the more i thought about it the more i liked the idea of doing a blog. so i asked the kids that come to elevation if they would be interested in having an online bible study, and obviously, they liked the idea. i do too because now when God speaks to me i can get the word out right here and now. also i can write and write and write. there is no time limit like there is during lunch. another thing, the possibilities are endless. i, or through God rather, have the potential to reach 100's of teens and even adults, 1000's even. that right there just blows my mind. im really excited about this because once again im DOING something for my Savior and i really enjoy it too :) and another cool thing is i can get feed back from you guys reading this (and u will have to encourage me to write often cause im sure i will want to be lazy so don't let me :P) and maybe even one of my favorite parts of this is its not gonna just be me writing! if you wanna be a part of this blog and has some things you wanna blog about i can add you as an author.
and even if you not a Christan i think this is cool for you too because by reading this you will hopefully get to know God and understand who he is. i know alot of people who are not Christan's simply because they don't know what Christianity is. i feel confident saying that many non-believers think God created the bible just as a giant book of pointless stories and rules. like that's all being a christian is, believing stories and following orders, and in a way it is. Christan's do believe in the stories, but they are truthful stories and they are here to help us with similar situations in our own lives. and as for the rules, its not like they are here just because God doesn't want us to have any fun or anything like that. they are here to help us live our life to the full and get the most out of it. hey that's even why Jesus came, was to give us a better life than we have ever dreamed of. check out John 10:10
love
always and forever
gracie :)

the next step...

so, as the days go by, well, that's it. sometimes they just go by. they are gone forever. I've heard countless times "life is too short to be unhappy" or "its to short to waste away on meaningless things." and i agree life is too short to just sit around and let the day just go by, but if you think about it life on earth is the longest thing we are given, for now anyways. but i think about this often, almost daily. what in the world am i going to do with this life?? God has clearly blessed it in countless ways, but not only what am i going to do, but what does God want me to do. i think that's the real question.
i recently got back from the annual youth retreat i go on with my youth group. for the past three years we have gone to the same cabin and kinda fell, for me anyways, into the same routine once we got back home. you know the routine of not doing anything...just letting the days go by. but this year we had a guest speaker, Tim Owens, also commonly know as Big O, and he had a message that really spoke to me. it was based off the verse of John 10:10 A thief comes to steal,kill and destroy; i came so they can have real and eternal life, a better life than you've ever dreamed of. the whole weekend revolved around this verse and the idea of living an extraordinary life. i learned something very important, well a great deal of things actually, but mostly i learned that in order to fight the enemy (Satan), that i have to know the enemy. its not just important to learn about God, because Satan will always try to bring us down when we begin to grow spiritually. think about it, like the army, they are constantly doing background checks and finding out as much as they can about their enemy. this is something super important that i was basically oblivious to before.
when you are a sold out Christan, doing/living it up for your God and Savior, Satan wants to steal your joy. lately that has been happening to me so much. the past week or so, I've just been in a horrible mood and mad at myself and getting up set over trivial things, and i can literally feel Satan trying to pull me apart and feeling vulnerable and lost and confused. i know that their is a difference between being happy and being joyful, and i think the biggest difference is that just because you are a joyful person doesn't mean your gonna be happy 100% of the time. I'm hoping this makes sense to you because i don't really know how else to explain it.
the next thing is if you are a stumbler, you know, sitting on the fence, not one but not the other, lukewarm, Satan wants to kill your witness. if that's you, that's a scary thought.
and if you are the seeker, looking for God but not sure where He is, or what to believe, Satan wants to destroy your life. Satan tries to do all of this because he hates me, he hates my friends, he hates you. he hates every one. also i think its because he knows the power that is inside a godly person and Gods people. he knows the holy spirit is moving in me and he hates it, absolutely hates it. Satan tries to get at us everyday, and for some of us he does that by making it easier for us to compromise our faith and walk with God. check out Matthew 7:13-14 you can enter God's Kingdom only through the narrow gate. the highway to Hell is broad, and the gate is wide for the many who chose the easy way. but the gate way to life is small, and the road narrow, and only a few ever find it.
the whole purpose of Jesus coming was to save us from being ordinary. He wants something bigger than ordinary for His children. He wants to rescue us from this world and an ordinary life. and that begins when you realized your need for a Savior, Romans 10:9. then when you know and acknowledge Satan's temptation. it is all around us, its so bad that sometimes we get into a sinful habit and the temptation is to strong to quit. that's why we have Jesus, to help us through that. Hebrews 2:18 and finally you depend on gods strength, not your own. Psalms 118:13, Nehemiah 8:10

Jesus wants us to get past this rut of being ordinary and here is what i learned on how to do that
1 identify what Satan is doing in your life, where is he trying to pick you apart?
2 take it personally, Satan wants to kill you
3 fight with all you've got, fight with your life and everything that's within you
when your sold out for God, live it up. when your a stumbler, beat temptation. and when your a seeker, pursue God's way.

being extraordinary isn't gonna be easy and its not gonna just happen over night, in fact i think it is something i will work on until the day i go to heaven. trying everyday to pick up my cross and follow Jesus, losing my life for Him and finding it, losing my soul for God before i come to His kingdom. Matthew 16:24-28.

also one thing i absolutely love about reading Gods word everyday and listening to Christan music, i love it when i hear lyrics to a song and knowing exactly where in the bible that came from, like the song b y tobymac-lose your soul, it comes from Matthew 16:25-28, and i think its just awesome whenever i realize something like that :)

so for now thats what im going to try and do wiht this life, not let the days just go by, but doing someting and be extrodianry, im gonna pick up my cross and follow jesus, will you?
love always and forever
gracie :)

when it comes to compromise...

generally, as humans, we always want to take the easy road out, or do what we want, even when we know its exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. such as, compromising our beliefs in God, sacrificing our faith, giving up and doing what the world is doing, what we want to be doing. i think we all do that, but we should try harder not too. i was reading in my bible and i found three key passages all about compromising our relationship with God.

-judges 2:7-13
The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel. Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten. And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.

the Israelites in this story not only went against the ten commandments, and the first one at that. they did what they wanted to do at the price of their relationship with God. don't get me wrong, sometimes its okay to compromise, like when your having a disagreement with somebody. But it is never okay to compromise what you know is wrong for your own desires. Try to walk with God instead of pushing him away because that first step away from God will take you farther then you ever wanted to be.

the next story- 1 Samuel 8:1-22

This is a story of how the nation of Israel wanted a king to rule over them, a king just like all the other nations had. Simply put, they wanted to fit in. However God made it perfectly clear to them that this so called "king" that they wanted, was not all it was cracked up to be. he wouldn't satisfy their needs. but, of course, they didn't care. God also warned the nation of Israel that they would one day cry out to Him, but He would not answer. God wanted to teach them or discipline them, they had broken the 1st commandment also. Why would God let them go against His will? its because the God i know, always gives us the freedom to choose. besides God knows that He will rule over everyone, every single person. (Matthew 6:9-10 basically it says that GODS kingdom will come, not any other "god" or deity. and not only will HIS kingdom come but His will, His plan, will be carried out. He will rule just as He does in Heaven. that's pretty powerful stuff!)
how often do we do whatever to fit in? like drinking or cussing, smoking and doing drugs, even things so superficial as our clothes, have an affect on our relationship with God, and most of the time its negative. did you ever think that trying to fit in with the rest of the world could compromise your faith? it certainly did in Israels case. one thing to note, when it comes to fitting it with the world and its ungodly trends, check out john 7:7 and john 15:18-19.

and now the third story about Solomon and his wives, 1 kings 11:1-8
this is a story about how king Solomon did what we wanted as well, and as with the other stories going against the 1st commandment. Even though God specifically told Solomon that he was not to marry women from here, there and the other, he still did. and exactly as God warned, all of Solomon's new wives turned his heart toward their gods and way from the Lord. He compromised what he knew and did what he wanted anyways. many times when we compromise our relationship with God we don't just hurt our relationship with Him, but also with those around us. imagine how all of Solomon's wives felt, what his first godly wive felt. Solomon fell into temptation, and i think that's because often when we are told no we go after it. its human nature to want what you cant have.

seeing as we are all humans, and therefor imperfect we will mess up our relationship with God and make bad decisions and compromise our faith, but i think its most important what we learn from those experiences, and how we can turn them around. i think that God wants us to look for that when we mess up, how we can find the good when all we see is bad. i think He wants us to try and learn and do something productive from those compromising situations. that's the first challenge i present to you. turn your compromising situation around for the Glory of God

the second is when you do compromise, admit it to God. tell Him how you are feeling every little detail, spill your heart out to Him. God loves to hear from his children even though He already knows :) and then once you have done that ask God for guidance in the future. mainly the key thing is to talk to God, cause this will re-build your relationship if you will, and help you to start growing in Him again

love
always and forever
gracie