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wordsforthought: satisfaction

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.

Romans 14:17-20

A few verses before this one, Paul is talking about not causing each other to stumble in regards to disagreeing on food and drink. But “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking”. In fact, it’s about “righteousness and peace and joy” that can only, most certainly only, be found in the Holy Spirit. 

Satisfaction when things go right is fleeting, just momentary. True satisfaction and joy comes only through God, and if you’ve felt it before, you’d know. Trying to find satisfaction in anything else will lead to disappointment, and continuing to do it over and over again will just keep pushing you to the same end. Paul tells us not to quarrel over “food and drink,” the petty things in this life because there are things much more important. We’re talking about righteousness, peace, and joy here…things that can’t be bought, given, or earned. There are people who are dying, starving, who don’t know the Gospel, who won’t make it to the end of the finish line, and here we are, expending our energy and time on trying to satisfy every little need. 

Make the decision that will bring peace. The decision that will bring joy. Make the decision that will build up the entire body of Christ, even if it means self-sacrifice. I’m not going to get stuck on the little things when the eternal things are at risk. If this is causing your brother/sister to stumble and grieve over it, then just take the stumbling block away. Deal with it and let it go. 

The body of Christ is more than just you and me, or me and her, or you and him, or whoever. It’s us as a collective whole. Make the decision to bring peace and mutual upbuilding to the entire body, never destroying the work of God. 

“If you don’t understand that Christ is the essence of your life, that your hope, your future, your joy, your power are in Christ, you will either become arrogant trying to be a trunk, or you will become discouraged knowing that you can’t change your life, and you can’t do all that you’re supposed to do and be all that you’re supposed to be. But if you understand that your identity’s in Christ, then suddenly you understand that your hope is in Christ, and your power is in Christ, and your fruitfulness is in Christ, and that gives you great courage, and it also gives you great humility. “I can change by the grace of God.”
-Mark Driscoll

wordsforthought [jumbled thoughts version]

We can either be of this world, or be of Christ. But we can’t be both. We can either see the entire Bible as true, or not true. Whether we agree with what it says or not, it is still truth. Believing that something is true requires faith. 
  Faith: [1] confidence or trust in a person or thing. [2] belief that is not based on proof

“You can’t be a follower of Christ without actually following Him” 

There’s no half-half, 50/50, maybe, almost, sorta, a little bit, kinda, depends, questionable, or 99.99%. It’s all or nothing. Christ didn’t half, maybe, almost, sorta, a little, kinda, depending, questionably, 99.99% die for us. 

There are definite costs of being a disciple of Christ, but you gain eternity. Give your 100%. He did.  

wordsforthought: how I really feel.

The words ‘God’s Glory’ has been passed around a lot lately. I love how it was mentioned in our Large Group meeting the day before spending time on ‘God’s Glory’ in Small Group on Thursday. God’s Glory, Glory to God, Glorify God…what?

I feel like our Christian culture/bubble has emphasized Gospel-centeredness. Christ-centeredness. Yes, although this is extremely important and we must remind ourselves and each other daily, it really doesn’t stop there. And yes, there is more to this than just words, more than just saying it because saying it means nothing when you don’t understand it, when it doesn’t change your life. 

I’ve been going through the names of Christ (i.e. Jesus as the Bread of Life, Jesus as the Resurrection and the life), but when He says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” it takes more than just reading through it to understand what He means. This verse has been spoken, repeated, used countless times. But what we fail to see, hear, or know is what follows. “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. (John 14:23-24 ESV)

You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. (John 14:28 ESV)

but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here. (John 14:31 ESV)

And that’s only John 14. The Gospels are saturated with Christ love of His Father. Jesus points everything back to God. Jesus is the way to God, the barrier before God, the “man-form of God” who is more approachable, so to speak. Everything He does, leads us to God. We too often stop at “well I’ve reached Jesus and now I’m good”. “I understand the Gospel, good. Saved. Done. Spread the Gospel. Good. Done.” What is the purpose of the Gospel? The Gospel saves, but why? It’s all for God’s Glory. Amplified, magnified, superior to everything, God increases as we decrease.  

John Piper says that we glorify God by knowing His value; we glorify Him by valuing Him. In order to value God, you have to value the Gospel. In order to value the Gospel, you have to value Christ, and to value Christ you need to understand why Christ was sent here to die, and to understand that you need to understand and value God’s love for us. 

*If you want to glorify God, you have to value Him. He is the priority. If Jesus’ blood run through your veins and you are made anew in Christ, then it should be overflowing to everything else that you do. Glorifying God should change your life, your passions, your pursuits because each moment you lose sight of the glory and majesty of God, you’ll get closer to forgetting about your purpose, your eternity, and God’s love for you.  

wordsforthought: “It is finished”

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

(Matthew 27:50-54 ESV)

Jesus feared nothing but the Lord because He knew what His purpose was. He knew that if He ate with tax collectors, people would reject Him even more. He knew that there would be betrayal, temptations, and persecution. He knew that at the end of it all, He will forever be our Savior. 
Just like how Jesus knew the end of the story, so do we. We know that we’ll be with Christ, with our Creator, together in worship and praise. So why do we fear? We don’t know what we’ll get in our classes, what job we will have, who we will marry, where we will live, how long we will be alive, and how healthy we’ll be. But we do know that we will be in paradise.  
So let us not take our focus off of Christ. Let us not let these “what ifs”, broken promises, dissolving relationships, stressful tests, time-consuming work, neglected passions, insecurities, mistakes, rejection, and regrets steal the spotlight that belongs to our Savior. 

It is finished. We know the end of the story. And it is beautiful. 

wordsforthought

If I were to wake up every morning, excited, thinking about what I get to do during the day and being excited about work, what would I be doing? What truly excites me?
I’m truly excited when…
- God is glorified
- I selflessly give, out of the love in my heart
- And that’s it.  

No matter where God places me, no matter who I’m with or what I’m doing or where I’m going, as long as I am glorifying God, I’ll be happy. And that’s who I am now. Not much different than before, yet a completely different person. I still want happiness, and do things that make me happy, but what makes me happy has changed. Have I come to realize this yet? I want to build relationships with people, design things that show God’s beauty, marvel at God’s creations, live in the artwork that is His, motivate people to love, encourage the weak to find strength in God, help the hopeless find hope, and live according to HIs will. 

I don’t care where I end up working, or where my office is, or how high the money stacks are, or what car I drive, or how big my house is, or any of that. I really don’t because that leads me to nothing. I can have all that and still wake up unhappy, because my work place will still have shallow people, my office will still be a lonely place, the money will diminish, the car will get dirty, the house will break down, and all that’s left is what can never be broken, changed, damaged, taken away, lessened, or lost. Without the good news, there’s nothing.

Yes, this is what I am coming to realize. That when you are at the end of your life, and you look back to see all the wonderful things you experienced, can you look forward and see something greater? 

wordsforthought

Discipline. Submission. Conform.
Sounds terrible in this day and age, especially for women. But why is it important for us to submit, discipline, and conform? Submit to the Gospel, the center of the Bible. Christ, the center of our salvation. Discipline ourself not to be a better person, but to be better for Christ. Discipline because we want to be conformed to the image of Christ. Conform because that is who we are made to be: we are made in the image of Christ. 

wordsforthought

We are the plan of God, and there is no plan B.
- David Platt 

How true is that? 
“If this major doesn’t work out, I’ll just go for that one.” “If I can’t get a job here, I’ll move there and work.” “If I don’t get this class, I’ll take that one.” I think I have a plan B, a plan C, maybe even a plan D. But what’s God’s plan? That is the only one that matters. God doesn’t screw up; He doesn’t need a plan B. Amazing.

If, in a hundred years, we all end up in the same place, what difference does it make if you live your life with a purpose, with urgency? You’ll leave nothing here. Riches means nothing in Heaven. But what about the people you affect?

Edit: O.o this was sitting in my drafts?? Guess it never got uploaded…until now  

wordsforthought

Jesus is King. He’s not a king, He is THE King. 
If we believe in Christ, and we know that what He says is truth, then why is it so hard to listen to Him?
If, one day you get a phone call from the President’s secretary telling you he wants to meet with you to talk, and you know it was legit, you’d drop everything to go talk to him, right? Jesus is more than our president. Jesus is the King. He invites us to talk and listen to him everyday through the Bible. So why do we put it off?  What is more important than Jesus? 

And the goal is not that you would just know Jesus, and love Jesus, and enjoy Jesus, but that you would love what Jesus loves, that you would do what Jesus does, that you would go where Jesus is, that you would give for what Jesus gave his life to…
-Mark Driscoll

 Jesus isn’t our personal therapist. He can be. Jesus isn’t a close friend. But He can be. Jesus is King. He is who we know of Him to be but don’t regard Him as. He is higher than this, higher than us. 

wordsforthought

I’m just going to say it: The bad stuff that we do, God doesn’t like it. And saying “well I know God forgives me; He loves me! I will repent, and He will forgive” is not an excuse. It’s not! Do you know what that is, though? That’s us being selfish. Let me explain…
When we make the decision to accept and acknowledge Christ as our Savior, we are dying to our sins, but made anew in Christ. Dead to our sins means we can’t keep allowing ourselves to do things that go against God. We can’t have both. We can’t allow ourselves to be acceptingly sinful and recipients of God’s grace at the same time. 

It’s time to give up the temptation & desires, not give in to them. It’s time to fight them. Fight them because Christ fought for us. Does Jesus’ death mean anything to you? Don’t let it be wasted love. Don’t be selfish. Jesus didn’t die so that we can continue to do things that hurt God, He died so that God’s glory can be magnified even more. 

For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

(Romans 6:10-11 ESV) 

We have to train. We have to train ourselves to not curse, to not lie, to not be consumed by anger. We have to train ourselves so that we may be as close to Jesus as possible.
Trying doesn’t cut it anymore. Christ didn’t try to save us. He did.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

(Romans 6:12-14 ESV)

wordsforthought

Life in Christ. We hear it so much, but has the meaning of having life in Christ been muddled down?  We are justified and made righteous through Jesus Christ; we have eternal life waiting for us in the best place anyone would ever want to be. With one man’s ultimate, righteous act, He restores what was broken by another. This is God’s free gift to man. Our sins are nothing, nothing compared to what Christ has done for us on that cross. 

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Romans 5:20-21 ESV)

Eternal perspective. Don’t lose it. God won’t care what you get on your final, as long as you’re studying hard for Him. 

*Pfftt yeah I posted this verse twice. It’s because I love it so much. Done. 

wordsforthought

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
  Psalm 32:8

I really cannot express how I’ve felt these past few weeks. God is so tremendous. So magnificent. So good. 
I’m just so overwhelmed and encouraged by how God has worked in the lives of the people around me. I mean, I’m already so blown away by how He’s worked in me, but when I read and listen to things like missions, callings, obedience, patience, life-changing events where God completely flips everything upside down, I am amazed at how we cling to God, and get even closer to Him. 

Man, I’m just left here, speechless. How much more can we love our Lord? He loves us infinitely. There is absolutely no love that can compare; no love like this will ever be felt that is from another. Love in the form of blood, sweat, tears, pierced hands, slashed back. Love in the form of an empty grave. Love from our Savior. 

but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
 Romans 5:20-21

wordsforthought

God doesn’t tell us what we want, He tells us what we need. He doesn’t give us what we want, He gives us what we need.
Using people, being selfish…that is not how Jesus treats us. He’s not proud. He’s humble. He’s not selfish, He’s a servant. He comes not to take, but to give.  

Mark Driscoll

Christ was the ultimate servant. There’s no need to repeat the fact that Jesus left royalty, left riches, left singing angels to serve us. But I’m going to do it anyway because that’s how amazing He is. How selfless He is. How humble. He served, but was willing to be served. By not allowing ourselves to be served, we are being prideful. We are saying “I don’t need your help, I can do it [better] myself.” To be like Christ is to act like Him. It begins with thinking like Him. Striving to have a heart like His. I need a heart like His, a servant’s heart. 

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James 4: 6; 10

wordsforthought

God’s love is different than human love. It’s not something we can fully comprehend. Yet we know what it feels like to be loved by God. We know what it feels like to have the Gospel hit us. We don’t understand completely why Christ would die for all the sinners because we are the most undeserving people of eternal salvation. We are these wordily people that get sucked into greed, sexual desires, lies, anger, and manipulation, yet Christ STILL wanted to save us. God STILL wanted His son to die to save us. What human would give up their own life or the life of their son to save a murderer? To save cheating, lying, greedy, angry human being? Incomprehensible.
God’s love: there’s so much that will never be understood. But what we can understand is that He does love us. He does. 

 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

Romans 5:6-8

wordsforthought

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. 

Romans 2:17-23

 Do we understand who we are? We are made new in Christ. If we call ourselves followers of Christ, leaders of the young, light to the dark, then why, why do we do the exact same thing they do? Why do we steal when we tell others not to steal? Why do we lie, cheat, get angry when we preach that we shouldn’t. Why do we create this image of ourselves, this untrue facade, where everyone boldly and proudly promotes that they are followers of Christ when we are dishonoring God by our undevoted, untrue, unloving actions and thoughts? 
We fail to practice what we preach. We are hypocrites. We are sinners. All the more reason why we need Christ. All the more reason as to why we should give everything we have back to God because he firstly gave it to us, even though we are sinners. Even though we are unworthy of salvation. His love overcomes all; defeats all our sins. Christ bore it all for us. Let’s glorify Him with a true, loving, devoted, genuine, passionate, intentional heart. 

Who are we, then, in the eyes of God?

But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

-Romans 2:29

wordsforthought

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 4:9-10

How can I know but be oblivious? 
We deserve eternal suffering because we are unrighteous and sinful. We act on our desires, and when we do that, it’s dishonoring God, saying that we place our own desires before Him (Romans 1 & 2); not before His will, or His laws, but before God. What do you have that you think is so special that it should be placed before God? God is LOVING; yet His is JUST. He will judge us perfectly based on how we live our lives, and we all know how we’re living our lives. Unrighteously. Sinfully. But because God is so loving, He gave up His very own son to take the punishments in our place. That’s what the cross means. Saved. Because of His love, I love Him. His is righteous, fair, and loving. That is why I love God. That is why I live for Him. That is why my life is devoted to Him. Because He truly is so much more.