A Sad World

When I woke up this morning it was to my Mama asking if there was any way Jessi and my Grandma might've changed their minds and ended up going to the Aurora theater to see The Dark Knight Rises. I didn't know why she was asking, I just wanted to go back to sleep, but when she told me about the shooting my heart hurt. The one sentence that truly broke it though, was when it said the gunman "calmly" dropped his spent gun to grab his other one. Calmly. He wasn't worried, or at least he didn't show that he was. It said he "stalked" the aisles shooting at random. And the thing that truly hurt the most was thinking about WHY he did it, and I realize it's because he's a sinner, JUST. LIKE. ME. I think about how I look at this and I think "What a tragedy!"  "How sad!" and then I realize I'm in the same boat, I have sinned just as much as he has, and we both deserve Hell.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions....

Today I had a very thought provoking conversation about choice, and how God gave me my choice, and how I want to use that gift of choice to make the RIGHT choice. (Wow. That's a lot of "choice".) It got me thinking about what making a choice means to me, and I can honestly say that making my own choice means a lot, especially because I've been given the opportunity to do just that by an All-Powerful God. It's a simple choice really, but a choice that doesn't end when we make our decision, we have to continually make the decision each and every day to talk to God, to do what He has called us to do, and to see what He has to say to us. We are blessed beyond reason with just that one gift, and I don't see how when we decide to reject that gift it's helping our circumstances.
I don't know about you, but I would rather not get to Heaven and be talking to Paul, or Peter, or John, or any of the other Martyrs, and Die-Hard followers of Christ and say "Oh yeah! I did a car wash once!" No. I want to be able to say "I made the choice to 'Go unto ALL the world' and share the Gospel and the LOVE of Christ. All too often we say we are given one choice, and ultimately we have one truly remarkable choice to make, but there are so many decisions to be made every day! We don't realize how much each one should mean to us, because all too often, we don't realize we have them.
8). Think about the choices I have.


I know I already have a post about choices, but this one is a little bit different. Not the wrong ones I've made, but the ones still waiting.

We Praise Him

I've been thinking-Imagine that!-about worship, and what it does, and what it SHOULD mean to me. And of course that got me to thinking about HOW I worship, WHEN I worship, and of course the all important, WHO I worship.
For the most part ask me what worship is and I will immediately say "It's when we sing our praises to God!" but in reality, we can worship more than just God, and much too often, we are all found doing just that. It saddens me to think about the fact that all includes me. I much too often, sometimes without realizing, find myself worshiping someone or something other than God. No, I don't sit there and sing them my praises and adoration, but there are many ways we worship, especially when it comes to God. We can worship simply by smiling at someone, sharing the gospel, being kind instead of rude to the incompetent driver in front of you on the freeway, but in the end it's all about heart, and where ours is at with God, or rather NOT with God.
Our heart is a big part of worship. If you are mad at someone and they apologize, but they don't mean it with their heart, I'm pretty sure it doesn't make you happy, it makes you mad. How much moreso do you think it angers God when we use worshiping Him to "show" how sorry we are? I for one need to work on actually worshiping God with my heart, not my show. So, 7). Worship God with my whole being.

Just Five.

"Just $5?" "Two for $5" In today's society when we see something for "Just $5!" we feel as though we just found a steal! We are so caught up in the "$5!" we don't even realize how hypocritical we are acting. Think about it. Five. Just Five. Wow! What a deal, that is until it comes to spending time, not money. 5 extra minutes in traffic, 5 minutes to wait for food in the drive-thru, 5 minutes to just load the dishwasher, and get this, 5 minutes to sit down and read The Bible? The Holy, All-Powerful God's book of "Cheat-codes" for life? Heck No! That's MY five minutes! I have to(I'd rather!) load the dishwasher. I have to go sit in traffic in order to get to the store, They're having a sale, Just $5!
When you really sit down and think about it, didn't God Make, Create, DESIGN Time? He knows how much time you actually have to spend. He has the power to take that time from us, and yet, He allows us to choose how WE want to spend it. And get this, you don't have to give Him ALL of your time, but the more give Him, the more we realize what a good deal "Just 5 Minutes" really is, the more we will desire to spend "Just 5 more minutes!" With Him. 6). Give "Just 5 Minutes" Everyday.

Uniquely Like Him.

The Bible calls us to be like Christ, but the world dares us to be unique. So, How do you choose? How do you decide? How do you  get the best of both worlds? Well. That's just it. You don't get the best of both worlds. You don't conform to the world's wishes, because in the end, what they call unique, is just like everybody else. You will be "Uniquely like everybody else." So let's make an effort to be unique, to make the choice, our own choice, to be different. To choose God. And to, honestly, be more unique than everybody else, because, well, who else do you know who can be as unique as Christ? 5) Be uniquely like Christ.

God.

Is it a name? Or a person?

I was thinking about it the other day, and in today's society it's all the rave to not use the word "Love" every other word for how we feel about someone, or something. If God, which is the name of an almighty, holy, amazing, loving God, is thrown around so much more liberally, will it not then lose it's significance? I don't know about you, but I would adore to have a tingly sensations from my head to my toes, just to THINK about God's name. So I'm adding to the list. 4) Make God's name a special one.

I Look Around Me

When I look around me, I see a lot of things. But mostly I've begun to see that everyone is different, no matter how hard we try, no matter what we do, we will never, two of us, be the same. We are all given, first, the gift of Eternal life with God if WE so choose, and second, the gift of the part where WE CHOOSE. We make decisions everyday. Whether to make our bed, what to wear, what to eat, what to say, who to say it to. So many decisions that we make, but how many are the right one. I've begun to ask myself that. Why is it that I can look at others and say "You made the wrong choice." when I couldn't even tell you if I knew if half of the decisions I've made have been good or bad, and the other half I know must have been bad. I could play it off, say it's my nature, but what would that get me? Still not the knowledge to make the right decision later. So maybe I should stop looking around me, and look to God. He can show me what wrong decisions I've made, and how to not make them again. It could be the smallest "wrong decision" the equivalent of a SMALL white lie, but it's still wrong. It says in  Revelations 21:8 that "ALL liars" will have their share of Hell Fire. So maybe that wrong decision was a lie, do I then not deserve Hell Fire, right beside the "Cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral,  sorcerers, and idolators."? 

So. 3) Look for the wrong decisions on MY part. 

"...That you love one another." John 15:17

 Let's love one another, wrong decisions and all.