Following

I feel like there are times where my Father just smiles at me and says, “I so love when you sing for Me, My daughter.”
This was one of those times.
:)

in the middle of my chest, is the King of Kings.

while the world was waiting on a change to come along

light broke in, coming like a song.

we’ll be a light to the world, shining Your glory!

we’re not ashamed!!

letting them know all the amazingness that’s happened over the past few days and the incredible things God has in store for me :)

The brilliant, amazing details tomorrow morning when I get back to PA :)))) :DDD

i’ve been thinking of what i’m going to go through at the conference.

i have been told so much about it, but am still anxious to see what it’s really like to be emotionally and spiritually challenged, ruined, and rebuilt.

i have the greatest feeling that God will move in me, and reveal Himself and His plan for my life soon.

and i feel as though this conference will be the strike of the match that starts a faith more powerful than wildfire.

12 days!

growing up, my parents raised me in a household that acknowledged that there was a God, and that He was our Savior. i attended catholic school from kindergarten to eighth grade, complete with nuns and weekly church services, “mass” as used in catholicism. and i attended on the weekends with my family.

i grew up believing in God. i also grew up believing that because i believed in God that i was a Christian, and that i had a one-way ticket to Heaven when i died because of it.

it wasn’t until i began chasing after my own faith that i realized how wrong i was for all those years.

you see, if you are a Christian, obviously you believe in God. BUT, you aren’t necessarily a Christian simply because you believe in God.

let me explain.

throughout high school, i became a very different person. i got involved in some pretty nasty things. i often partied, drank heavily, smoked, and did drugs. i also began to cut myself, and became involved in an abusive relationship. all while doing this, i still claimed to be a Christian to anyone who asked.

i’ve since become clean and sober (going on 3 years), and removed that negativity from my life. i have healed greatly with God’s help. but at that time, my ill and distorted mentality kept me from seeing that my actions most definitely DID NOT mirror that of a Christ follower.

after all, that is what a Christian is: a Christ-follower. a Christian declared that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior. they accept Him as the Father, their Teacher, Healer, King. they believe that they are a beautiful creation of His image, and act in their everyday humanity as Christ would. they recognize that they are not perfect, that they are a sinner, but that because God gave His Son on the cross that our sins are already atoned for. they are passionate for Christ.

they are thirsty for Christ, a thirst so immense that only the presence of the Lord at the end of their human life will quench them.

they practice a growing and personal relationship with God.

i didn’t know that before. i do now.

a good book to mull over after this is james. he’s very blunt. he knows that some of the things he’s saying may be unpleasant, but knows that it’s necessary to say.

this summer i was reading james when i came across a verse that punched me in the face with complete truth that just believing isn’t enough.

“show me your faith without deeds, and i will show you my faith by what i do. YOU BELIEVE THAT THERE IS ONE GOD. GOOD! EVEN THE DEMONS BELIEVE THAT…” james 2:18-19 (NIV)

i was KO’d by that. i still am. jeez, such gravity.

your actions have got to show your faith, or else your faith is meaningless. even worse, it’s disgraceful to God.

a very wise worship leader once told me that “the greatest compliment that a Christian could receive is for someone to say they see Christ in them and their actions.”

so ask yourself today: do your deeds reflect your faith? can others look at your actions and see Christ working through them? why or why not?

our God is an amazing, caring, loving God. He will never forsake you no matter how you’ve done Him wrong. it the prior words have startled you, know that God forgives. He separates us from our sins as far as the east is from the west.

you’re His masterpiece and He loves you with a mighty love.

break my heart, and renew in me a heart of passion for Your Word. i will give You all the praise.