Days 162-167: "Fear Not, Little Flock"

Hi friends! Both L. and I are going to be gone at different camps serving this week, so we're posting a set of verses ahead of time for y'all to read and be encouraged with. This passage from Luke 12 is so heavy with encouragements from Jesus not to worry because the one who holds us knows what will happen and promises to take care of us! I pray it encourages you; I challenge you to meditate on it daily with me this week, trusting Jesus for our needs.
Love you guys! -M.

Luke 12:1-34 (ESV)

"In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first,"Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. "I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. "And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say." And he said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But he said to him,"Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?" And he said to them,"Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them a parable, saying,"The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Day 146: "With You to Save You"

Jeremiah 30:10-11

Jeremiah 30:10-11 ESV "Then fear not, O Jacob my servant, declares the Lord, nor be dismayed, O Israel; for behold, I will save you from far away, and your offspring from the land of their captivity. Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease, and none shall make him afraid. For I am with you to save you, declares the Lord; I will make a full end of all the nations among whom I scattered you, but of you I will not make a full end. I will discipline you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished."

Day 142: "In Holiness and Righteousness"

Luke 1:74-75

Luke 1:74-75 ESV "That we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days."

Day 141: "Like A Flock"

Psalm 78:52-53

Psalm 78:52-53 ESV "Then he led out his people like sheep and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies."

When I Read "The Shack" 3 Years Ago...

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." - Colossians 3:3

"And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure." - 1 John 3:3

Hi friends!

I have a story for you! It might sound like a bad one or a scary one, but it's actually one of the greatest stories of God's victory in my own life. The movie adaptation of "The Shack" came out this year, but three years ago today I read the book for the first time and it was a tool God used to bring freedom and redemption into my life. I've had a desire to tell this story for a few months, but I realized last night that God's timing lined up for today to be the day I needed to post this.

I am a victor over an addiction to pornography, by the grace of Jesus Christ. It's high time I tell the story of God's goodness and power in my life because I don't deserve to hide it all inside away from prying eyes; I can't help but shout from the rooftops just how powerful and amazing my Savior Jesus is.

Here's how "The Shack" plays into this story. Let's rewind to January of 2014. I'd been hiding an addiction to pornography for a year and a half at this point and desperately wanted out, however, I also wanted no one to ever know. I challenged myself to go 100 days without reading or looking at explicit content. I was hoping for freedom, but I didn't know if I could ever have it - after all, other Christian homeschooled girls definitely didn't struggle with this kind of sin. No one ever talked about it, so obviously it wasn't present... right?

Fast forward to March 7th, 2014. I'd gone back to the internet a few times during this 100 day "clean" challenge and I felt like I had failed, but I was still fighting hard. A week or two prior, a good friend had lent me a book called "The Shack" and I decided I should read it so I could return it to her. I had no clue what lay in those pages, but as I read through the book in a single afternoon, God used the story of grace more powerful than any sin someone could commit to break these chains of addiction in my own life. 

And I felt free. Free to love Jesus more than myself and my desires. Free to say that I am forgiven and redeemed. and free to choose to walk away from the lie of goodness and escape from the world that pornography tried to offer.

I can tell you from experience - you will never, ever, ever find lasting joy in anything other than Jesus Christ. I tried.

I was free from the bonds of this addiction, and it has been a hard battle to continually say no to temptation - because it's always there. I had to and have to choose to love Jesus more. After this exploration of freedom began, so also a new fight began in my heart: The fight for honesty. This fight would be much harder because it was a battle of my own will. God was teaching me in this time that I was not going to be "found out" because it would not help me learn the lesson that He needed me to learn - I had a choice to obey what God called me to, and I needed to take it.

Through the next year and a half, I still struggled sometimes with going back to read explicit content but the constant feeling that haunted me was that I'd have to tell someone what I'd done; what I'd hidden behind a happy persona for years.

Fast forward again to October of 2015. I went to a worship night at school and God was really convicting me that I needed to open up. That night a girl I didn't even know prayed over my for healing of jaw pain and TMJ issues that I'd been having for over two years. God chose to heal my pain, even though I tried to use it to make a deal with God that I'd open up only if He gave me what I asked for. Yet His love knew no barriers and that night I was able to share with my mom that God had healed my pain and that I'd struggled with lust for several years. I was so close to telling the whole truth, but something in my feared still that I was too dirty, too unworthy to be known and loved.

The breaking point came a month later as I sat frozen to the floor in a friend's basement where two of the people closest to my heart tried to get me to even speak. I couldn't feel anything but how cold it was and that this fear would eat me alive. It was not easy to say out loud the thing I thought was the worst of my humanity. But finally I said the words, "I'm a recovering porn addict" and my friends rejoiced at my confession. The healing had begun.

Over the last year as I grew further and further from the shame of my past and the temptation to let it own me yet again, I've opened up to a few people close to me and told them at least parts of this story. Even in the last several months, I've been attempting to bring it up in less "super-spiritual" or intense conversation because I know the Lord has called me to make known that He's freed me. And putting this now in writing is one of the keys to that calling.

God laid in on my heart about three months ago to write this story out as a testimony to what He's done in my life. Since confessing with my mouth the sin I've committed, I've become able to see that I also can confess with my mouth the grace and love the Father has lavished on me, that I should be adopted as a child of God. I'm loved no matter what I've done and no matter what I will do.

Today it's been three years since I first read "The Shack" and though I haven't seen the movie yet, I plan to and I'm sure it will be an emotional moment for me to remember the work God began in my heart as I read that story for the first time. Whatever you take away from reading this, I hope you see clearly that these words do not convey defeat. My story is not one to be hidden away and not one to be discussed with hushed words any longer. It is a story that there is a God with a love so deep, so far-reaching, that he could reach even me, a prodigal who ran as far as she could and a broken girl who thought she would never be lovable again.

I know and believe I am loved, I am forgiven, and I am free. My story is that Jesus loves me.

Thank you all for reading! You all have a special place in my heart, even if I don't know you very well or haven't seen you in a long time. If you need prayer or a listening ear, let me know, I'd love to be there for you!
-M.

Day 51: "He Who Goes With You"

Deuteronomy 20:3-4

Deuteronomy 20:3-4 (ESV) and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.’

Day 44: "Steady"

Psalm 112:8

Psalm 112:8 (ESV) "His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries."

Day 42: "He Was Looking to the Reward"

Hebrews 11:26-27

Hebrews 11: 26-27 (ESV) "He [Moses] considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible."

Day 3: "In Whom We Have Boldness"

Ephesians 3:11-12 

Ephesians 3:11-12 ESV "This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him"

"That's Life"

Hey all! M. here again! Happy November to all of you!! How is your Thanksgiving week going? Tell me in the comments below!!

Today I want to talk about a saying that really really annoys me. (I know, it's brilliant to be complaining the week where we are supposed to be thankful!) I use this saying all the time, but I hate using it and I hate the idea behind it.

"That's life," we say.
When we lose a job or our microwave breaks, we sigh and say, "that's life."
When we're super busy or we don't get along with other people, we shrug it off and say, "that's life."
When we find flaws in our work or we have to start a project over, we grumble and say, "that's life."
When we have an impossible dream and lose our motivation, we quit and say, "that's life."
When wars and crises arise and we think our world's just gone down the drain, we say "that's life."
When it feels like God is distant and we're stuck on our own, we just say, "that's life."
And we move on.

Why do we have to say that? Why are we obligated to a mysterious fate called life? Yes, there are about two things we have guaranteed in this life, first, death; second, taxes! Yes, we can generally look at lives from the past to learn from their mistakes, predict possible outcomes, and maybe make better plans for the future.

But we aren't tied to that. We never have to be controlled by the outcome of a unknown lottery machine of future events. Isn't God the one who created life? Doesn't He have control over our future and over us? Jesus told us that He came to earth so that we might have life, and have it "to the full!" So why do we settle?

Because we're comfortable. We American Christians are so comfortable in our little Jesus boxes that we don't bother to dream the impossible. We don't care enough to look and see if this is really all there is to life. We rarely ask the Holy Spirit to be present in our lives every day. We don't expect God to move in miraculous ways for us. We don't hope for things like what happened in the apostles' stories in Acts to happen today. Because we're comfortable.

How comfortable are you? How okay are you with your life? When was the last time the Holy Spirit pointed out an attitude to change, a relationship to mend, an opportunity to give Him glory? Did you follow that call? Have you even heard His voice?

Living life to the full is like skydiving - you have to jump out of a plane that has a seat for you, a nice buckle to keep you in that seat, protection from the sun and the wind and the rain and the pull of gravity. You have no need to jump out. You have no need to use the dangerous route to get back to the ground. You can just ride the nice plane down to safety.

But you're not going to have much of a story when you get back to the ground if you never jumped out of that window. You're not going to have the thrill of falling, flying, hurtling down towards the planet unrestrained until at the last second you release the parachute.

It's the same way in our walk with Jesus. We could stay in our comfy churches with the seats we've picked out with protection from the elements of our broken world and the gravity of life's messes. We don't have to go do things to earn our salvation. We aren't obligated to take the dangerous route because "His grace abounds in our weakness." We can just ride the nice Christian life to heaven.

But you can't live life the way God designed you to when you're still inside the airplane! It's time to let go of following the status quo of "that's life." Because there really is more than the nice busy Christian life full of church services with plastic perfect people and life groups full of plastic perfect discussion and the rest of your life as the quiet, unoffensive office worker with a "Jesus loves you" sticker in your cubicle. There really is more to life than the loads of dishes and laundry and kids' noses and faces to clean and meals to prepare and arguments to interrupt. Oh, yes, that mundane still exists. Oh, yes, the trials and the failures and the car breakdowns and feeling distant from God won't go away. That's because we're human and our world is broken.

(But we're not just human beings. Our soul is eternal and will live forever in Christ's presence if we've accepted His salvation. I'm learning, too, that that soul isn't the only things that will live on. We will have eternal bodies in continuity with the old, but those bodies won't decay or become useless. What an exciting prospect! I can't wait for heaven. And seeing Jesus.)

When we are in eternity, I think I'd rather tell the story of how I went skydiving.

What about you?

There's no going back once you jump. But when it come to living God's life for you, you won't regret jumping.
You'll get the opportunity to truly be God's hands and feet for this broken world.
You might get to see God's presence tangibly changing lives and changing whole cultures.
Your heart attitude towards God might be personally transformed from the inside out.
You might be hated for your radical ideas. Jesus practically guarantees it.
You won't be comfortable. But you probably won't miss that comfortable life once you leave it.
You might live that impossible dream in spite of every voice that says it can't happen.
You'll have the chance to redefine what you call truly living.

You will be changed. And that's life. God's way.