Be A Follower

 

 

"The decision to follow Jesus is never made as a group.

 It always starts with one, then a handful.

 Each disciple chose individually to answer the call of Christ."

 Jerry Ross

  Is Your Youth Group Dead or Alive?

He Leadeth Me

He leadeth me, O blessed thought!

O words with heav’nly comfort fraught!
Whate’er I do, where’er I be,
Still ’tis God’s hand that leadeth me.


Lord, I would place my hand in Thine,
Nor ever murmur nor repine;
Content, whatever lot I see,
Since ’tis my God that leadeth me.

Refrain:
He leadeth me, He leadeth me,
By His own hand He leadeth me;
His faithful foll’wer I would be,
For by His hand He leadeth me.

God Will Make a Way

I listened to a great message entitled God Will Make a Way When There is No Way by Dr. David Gibbs yesterday. What a great message! In it he gave five rules to follow if you want to see God make a way where there is no way. I thought I would list them.
Rules to follow if you want to see God make a Way where there is no way:
1. He’s put you exactly where He wants you, give thanks and praise for the trials as much as you do for the blessings in your life.
2. Strive to give God the glory more than you want relief from the trial. Make God look good.
3. Pray fervently, throw yourself into it.
4. Wait on the Lord. This is where faith develops. No hope-no faith. God is still moving and working when we are standing still waiting.
5. Take the next step of faith. Do what lies clearly ahead not just what is seen dimly at a distance.
It was a real encouragement. You can find it on sermonaudio.com, under David Gibbs.

Don't Fall Into the Rut

I was praying before I even left Germany that the Lord would help me not to fall back into the rut of life where I was. I grew and learned so much on my trip and I fell in Love with the most Special One and was reminded of how sweet His Word is to us. I knew it would be hard coming back home and how easy it would be to fall into the rut of things. So easy to spend massive amounts of time on the Internet, to be consumed with my friends (which aren't wrong), to read other books that aren't as refreshing as the Bible, to slack in my time of conversation with the One I love. All these things were things I was reminded of and learned to control while in Germany and I didn't want to go back to my old ways when I returned home. So I was praying even before I left and when I returned home I immediately began to slip. Our human nature gives us all these excuses to use, the main one I found was that I was dealing with jet lag so it was hard for me to get up early and read and talk to God. Oh, I still did it but I wasn't doing as well. Then you realize how unworthy you are and why God would use you. But He does, Praise God! I guess this is just a reminder to not fall back into the rut of something you've learned to control and if you fall into the rut ask the Father to forgive you and pick you back out.

Finding Contentment

The other night we had our Aloha dinner singles activity and Dad gave the challenge about being used of God in this stage of our life. And the Lord had been working in my life lately about something anyway. He read us the verse in I Corinthians 13:11 where Paul says:

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child:

but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

In this verse the word child doesn't refer to an actual child, it means an immature Christian. When we grow in Christ and slowly mature we become "men". This point, as singles, most of us have been raised in church and know what we are to be doing, we are the "men", and we need to not just sit back and watch all the older Christians do the work, we need to get busy. Because we are single we tend to have more time in our schedule that those that are married and have a family to care for. God's given us this time to serve Him without any strings attached. We don't have to worry about a spouse or children to take care of, just ourselves and anyone else we choose to care for.

Like I said, the past few weeks the Lord has been working in my heart, showing me His plan for me right now and slowly I was coming around to the fact that if the Lord wants me to serve Him and He wants me to do it alone, then I will. I am just like any other Christian girl, I want to find the one God has for me, settle down, get married and live happily ever after(now I know life isn't this way, but we tend to think it is). But after Dad's challenge, it hit me; I am single right now and need to be content until God says otherwise. There is no need for me to be wishing that things would just fall into place now. I realized on the way home that I wasn't doing that anymore. I didn't feel that way, I felt different...I am learning to be content in this area.

Philippians 4:11

"For I have learned, in whatsover state I am, therewith to be content."

Hebrews 13:5

Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have:"

May This Be the Prayer of My Life

I was looking in my Bible today and in the front of the one I use for church I found a quote I had written in there. It's a quote from Betty Scott Stam, missionary with her husband to China, who both were martyrs for Christ. This was the prayer of hers:
"Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt,send me where Thou wilt, work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever."
This ought to be the prayer of every Christian, but what a high calling! To tell the Lord that you want to serve Him no matter what; this could mean anything, the Lord could take my life on my flight to Germany but if that is what He wants then I'll do it. I want this to be my prayer for the rest of my life, I want the Lord to use me, I never want to get to the point where I don't want to serve Him anymore. With the Lord's help we can live for Him the rest of our lives and that is what I want. May we serve Him, no matter what.

One Step At a Time

While posting on my other blog I thought of somthing. I was reading in my devotions this morning and I found a couple verses that stuck out to me. II Samuel 22:29 says, "For thou art my lamp, O Lord: and the Lord will lighten my darkness."
I try and tell people all the time that the Lord doesn't show us His Will all at one time or else we would be overwhelmed and not want to do it. When we are walking with Him, he shows us His will a little at a time, like a lamp that shines a little in front of you till you take the next step. Well when we take the first step into following God's will the next step will become illumined. This verse reminded me of this, and I realized that if I had known that I would be going to Germany before I started college I don't know if I would have started college when I did. But the Lord always works things out. Two verses down is one of my favorite verses: "As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him." And two more verses down it says, "God is my strength and power: And he maketh my way perfect." What a wonderful verse! When I am following Him and doing His will, my way is perfect! I Love It! Alright that was what I was thinking, there are some other things I want to post about I'm not sure if I will or not.

I was reading in my devotions this morning and the Lord was showing me some things. I am working on writing in my journal about Psalm 37 I am almost done about another day or two and I should be done I'll post some of what I found then. But back to what I was saying.
In Habakkuk 3:19 it says, "The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments."
The part in bold is the part that really stuck out to me. "He will make my feet like hinds' feet"; a hind is a deer, deer are very sure-footed and swift in the time of danger. The Lord will give us feet that are swift, swift to tell others the gospel, swift to serve others, swift to go wherever the Lord leads us. And they will be made swift when we see trouble and attacks from the Devil coming.
The next part I don't know if it is out of context or not but "to walk upon high places" reminds me of being up in the mountains and on some trails there is only enough room to walk on a very small path and if you don't stay on the path you will fall. I think of the mountain goats that just literally run up the side of the mountains and they don't ever seem to fall but they can go in those places that seem impossible. But the Lord will give us sure-footing to stay on the path that He places us on and if we keep our eyes on Him (if He is before us) we don't ever have to fear staying off the path. So many times we are distracted by the things of the world that we begin to stray and don't even realize it, even to the point of straying so far we feel we are lost, never to find the path again. But the Lord is always there patiently waiting in the shadows for us to call out to Him and bring us back to the path. I just thought that the Lord brought this illustration to my mind and I thought it might make this verse come alive to someone else.