A Quick Thank You, and a Prayer Request

I've been thinking about the last nine months I've been blogging, and how it has been so beneficial to my soul in many ways. The main reason being the way you guys have encouraged, exhorted and even once or twice corrected me. I thank God for you, it's been a blessing having you pray for me when I ask, and taking the time to spur me on to good works.

Now I'd like to ask you to pray for me and my family, my dad is about to leave for Iraq for a job he got there. He'll be gone for about a year, maybe getting to visit us once. I realize this is going to be hard, and I am asking God to help us through this time.
I regret I cannot give any further info on what my dad will be doing there for his job.

Merry Christmas!
-cj

Tagged: Six Things I Have Learned This Year

I've been tagged by Penn Tomossatti from the blog "All of Grace," to tell you six things I've learned this year(outside of school). Well, here they are!


1. The art of fence building, I've been building a lot of fence in the past few months.

2. How to use a number of different saws(skill saw, chain saw, etc.)

3. I have learned so much of God's love and greatness.

4. Some HTML and a little CSS code.

5. Over the past year my dad has been looking for a job, and with such a bad economy, I've had to do without a few things. So I guess what I have learned from that is to be content with very little(my dad has a pretty good job now, and were going to need a lot of prayer, I'll explain that in a later post).

6. Lately I've gotten very interested in politics, so I've learned a lot about that too.

I won't be tagging anyone but if you would like to do this, you are completely welcome:)

-cj

Anger, Part 1

Is it ever OK to be angry?

Someone who is angry only because they have been wronged or think they have been wronged is not righteously angry, that is a sinful anger.

"And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, it is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you make it a den of robbers." - Matthew 21:12-13

Here, Jesus is angry that God's house has been defiled, he is angry because God has been wronged, not because his comfort has been disturbed or he has been inconvenienced but because the God of the universe has been greatly sinned against.

More on Serving

"And if anyone forces you to go one mile , go with him two miles." -Matthew 5:41

What does going the extra mile mean? It means that we shouldn't just do what is expected of us, we should willingly do it to our fullest potentiel, we should seek to do more. Notice I said "Seek" and "Willingly," we should "Willingly" "Seek" for the oppurtunity to serve more, and then "Willingly" do it.

"Do all things without Grumbling or questioning." -Philippians 2:14


Here, God is telling us not only to serve and go the extra mile, but to do so without "Grumbling or Questioning." A true servant serves without complaining, he does not question and does not grumble. Jesus was the ultimate servant, never did he complain to God about anything. The Bible calls us to imitate this, to strive to serve like Jesus did. As you probably already know, serving like he did is so hard it is impossible, we will never be perfect, so therefore we will never be able to serve just as Jesus did. But does this mean we give up? No! God never told us it was going to be easy. But he did tell us to serve as much as we possibly can, he has told us to "Do Hard Things!"

"The servant of Christ finds his honour in the service itself." -C.H. Spurgeon

Hurricanes

Also, please be in prayer for victims of hurricanes this year.

Serving

Jesus came to serve us, and we must follow his example

Matthew 20:28- "Even as the son of man came not to be served but to serve, and give his life as a ransom to many."What an amazing example he set, that even "The King of Kings" would serve sinners. We must follow his example and serve others, by serving others we are serving God,

Matthew 25:40- "And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." (Galations 5:13, Chronicles 28:9, John 12:26, Deuteronomy 10:12, Romans 12:11).

We should be excited to serve

Romans 12:11- "Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord."

~"There must be no hesitation or sloth in Christian living. The Christian should be "fervent," living for Christ with enthusiasm and energy." -Note from the "Reformation Study Bible"



I know that I have a hard time getting excited to serve, I pray that God will make me strong in this area.



Serving in the small areas of life is just as important as serving in the large areas.



Serving is a way of humbling oneself, which God has commanded us to do, James 4:10- "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you." If we humble ourselves and serve God, he will exalt us. Serving in the small areas where our work will probably not be noticed is a very important form of service. When God sees our devotion in the those areas he will exalt us to a higher form of service(Small areas being, daily chores, serving our siblings ect. Large areas being, missionary work, a ministry ect.).

Prayer

Being a Christian means having a relationship with God; so how do we develop our relationship with him? By Praying and reading his word. When we pray we are fellowshiping with God and therefore growing spiritually stronger and developing a better relationship with God.

By praying to God we are declaring our dependence on him. Whether we are asking him for help, interceding for others or thanking him, by doing these things we are telling him that we are weak and that we need his help. This is what God desires, that we humble ourselves and admit that without him we are nothing and are capable of doing nothing. James 4:10, "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you." God desires that we pray to him, because it is admitting that he is God and we are not.

We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in His Word, He intended to be conspicuous in our lives. If He has said much about prayer, it is because He knows we have much need of it. -C.H. Spurgeon

Besides prayer being a declaration of dependence on God, It is also a great privilege and honor. Why is it such a privilege? We(wretched sinners) are allowed to talk to and fellowship with the most high. That is truly an honor.

The reason I haven't been posting at all lately is because we have been in the process of moving. But we just got Internet in our house today so I'll be posting more often from now on.

"Do Hard Things" Conference

Tomorrow, we(some of my family and I)will be leaving to go to the "Do Hard Things" conference in Colorado. If you already know we live in Texas, then your probably wondering why we don't just go to the Dallas conference. Well, we're also going to see our friends who live up there(we knew each other when we lived in California). We haven't seen each other in a long time, so we will be staying there a few extra days.

Please pray that we have a safe flight there and back.

Due to our leaving, I will not be able to post until Monday.

-cj

"You need to read"

"You need to read...the best way for you to spend your leisure is to be either reading or praying." -C.H.Spurgeon. If we want to grow in our faith we need to pray, fellowship with other Christians, read God's word and read other Christian books by Christian authors. When you read a good Christian book, you receive information from other Christians that you might not have considered before, things are explained to you that you didn't understand before and your mind is filled with godly thoughts. When you read ungodly books your mind is filled with ungodly thoughts. It's the same thing with blogging, reading good blogs helps you grow in your faith. God created good books and blogs so that we may become more godly, so lets use these tools that God has so graciously given us to expand our minds for him.

National day of prayer!

Happy national day of prayer! I'm so glad God gave us the gift of prayer and that he let's us have an intimate relationship with him!

Do you have any prayer requests?

Praise him for everything!

God is not a genie in a lamp that we can use for our purposes, he is a divine God who should be treated with all respect. I tend to pray only when I'm in trouble or when I want something and I ask myself do I thank God enough for what he has given me, or am I so distracted with what I need or want. God doesn't just want us to come to him with our needs he also wants our praise. But don't give him praise just for something you wanted, praise him for everything!

Do you have any praises to bring to God?