Product of God

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Romans 12:2

A recent conversation caused me think about my position on the assumption that a person's environment influences their thoughts and in turn their actions, and little by little changing the environment for the better or worse. While there is some truth to the aforementioned claim, as my father said before, “Ultimately, it is your choice.” What we decide, we decide and no one else. Therefore, we are not so much a product of our environment, as much as we are a product of our own mentalities. Furthermore, our lives become a composite reflection of our hearts.

The disciples gave accounts of Jesus speaking to the fact that “where your treasure is, therein also will be your heart” (Matthew 6:21, Luke 12:34) . Many times the world wins out in the realm of influence toward our hearts because there is physical evidence complying with the claims of the world all around us. In regards to a more spiritual influence coming from a desire to please God, we must rely on faith which requires more self-discipline. Be that as it may, it is a process that can most certainly be achieved. A mindset to make decisions based on what God will have us do is not only attainable, but to the Christian it is mandated. The very essence of what it means to be a Christian requires that we accept Jesus Christ and follow his example. Therefore, when faced with temptations that may cause us to pause, we should either “flee the temptation” or “recite Scripture” as He did. This will help us to keep our focus where it belongs-on God's way. When we are focused, we can then guide ourselves back to God, and in doing so use a spiritual discernment when faced with decisions that have heavy consequences.

Our lives are a sum total of our experiences and decisions. The situations that are out of our control are not always ideal, but it is what we do with our decisions that make a lifelong impact. Allowing the enticements outside ourselves to dictate our thoughts, and hence our actions, is a very deadly game to play. God's way will not steer us wrong and will ultimately lead us to the true intent of our lives.

We are not given a good life or a bad life. We are given a life. It's up to us to make it good or bad. Who and what we encompass around ourselves will either make life easier or harder. Life is already destined for some difficulties, but who or what we find ourselves depending on will be the deciding factor between bending and breaking or bending and moving on. God does not desire for us to go through “ unnecessary foolishness." If we simply adhere to the ways set before us, we will see that God wants to protect us, keep us, and hold us.1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” Bottom line, if we look to God, we will find what is of true value and be able to make decisions that God, through Jesus has already shown us the answers to. Then no longer will we fall to the cliche of being a product of our environment, but we will rise rise to the honor of being a product of our God! God bless! Be blessed and be a blessing!

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Christian Pillars: Prayer

Prayer, as mentioned before, is the Christians way of communicating with God. It is such a privilege to be able to come to our All-Powerful Creator and not only talk to Him, but to have Him hear us! By acknowledging and accepting what Jesus did for us by way of sacrifice, we have been given this wonderful gift- an opportunity to have a personal relationship with the Father and call Him "my God!"

"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather change the nature of the one who prays."
Soren Kierkgaard

Examine Your Heart
All we who are born-again believers have access to direct communication with God. This direct communication, or prayer, is made possible by having our sin, which denies our access, washed away. This in essence, makes us not guilty and therefore with prayer a relationship is established with God. There is no limit to life when prayer is included. And while prayer is the best and most sure coarse of action, when trying to obtain something or have a request made, it should be geared more toward what we can do for God as opposed to what God can do for us. True, He said "Ask and ye shall receive..." (Matthew 7:7), but before we make requests, perhaps we should examine our hearts and confirm that our wants coincide with what God wants for us in accordance to His will and His way. If that is not the case, then maybe we are praying the wrong prayer, with the wrong intentions, at the wrong time. Before we pray, we should make sure that our hearts are in the right place with good intentions,faith, and a correspondence with what God wants for our lives and not what we want for ourselves.

There are proper ways of coming to the Lord God in prayer. We must call Him in truth (Psalm 145:18) and He will be nigh. "Draw nigh unto God, and He will draw nigh unto you: cleanse your hands ye sinners, and purify your hearts ye double-minded." Mark 11:25-26 speaks to the thought of forgiving and in turn having God forgive you. This verse among others explain that with every action that we take to be closer to God, He will reciprocate. Einstein's famous third theory of motion as we all know says,"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."In a Heavenly context, Our Father who is perfect, and holy, and pure, and gracious, and merciful...will hear us. And from that point He can be " a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him," a healer of land and forgiver of sin for those who humble themselves, pray, and seek Him. This may require us to literally stop and take time to confer with ourselves. And after this necessary partaking, and we have have confirmed our good intentions and desire to correspond with God's will and way, it is immensely imperative that we proceed to communicate with God with a base of strong faith. We must believe that there is a God, that He hears us, and that if it be His will He will answer our requests. And while faith carries much power, "faith without works is dead."..............

The next Installment in this "Christian Pillars" Series will address faith and works. 

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Pray. Read. Do. (Christian Pillars pt.1)

Prayer is, for we who believe, a way to communicate with our Father and Creator. It gives us passage to be in the presence of God, and allows us to simply talk one-on-one with Him. Through prayer we are given the opportunity to take part in a truly intimate relationship with our God. In the name of Jesus Christ through the sacrifice that He became, we have been given access to communication with God. This in itself is important and amazing to think about! We, who are in no way worthy of anything remotely resembling favor with the All Mighty, are accepted and given solace in knowing that we can not only talk with the Creator but be loved by Him!

Prayer is communication with God, and when we communicate there is interaction two ways. Therefore, we should listen for a response. And the response will come from God through reading His Word and seeking to follow the ways of Jesus Christ. Everything that we need to know or even hear is addressed in the Bible. Many issues that we are faced with today are but replays in time with different characters. Love, deception, murder, betrayal, law, injustice, inequality, leadership- there are examples of these and many more situations in the Bible. We can learn from the best and the worst. God's Word is His response to the prayers of our lips as well as those of our hearts. The murmurs of our heart from situations that may be taxing on our souls are heard by God. In times of uncertainty and presumed inability to pray, God has already heard our heart. He wants to bless us and we have to do our part.

Even though God is as He is referred to in the Bible as being Omnipotent or All-Powerful, He will not just create a miracle to merely accommodate our whim. There is work to be done. To simply pray without offering or being willing to do anything to bring about growth, advancement, blessings and other such "requests" would be nothing more than naive. We must work for the things that we pray for with faith that God will bless it and that He will be there to catch us when we fall. Simply put, laziness is not rewarded. So faith without works is dead. Christians without an active faith are stagnant. We can not, for example, pray for someone to be blessed and not be willing to in fact become a blessing to them. Sometimes we must become the very thing that we pray for. Jesus Christ came to show the Way, and He himself was and still is the Way. What we do as Christians is not only done for others who are on earth in this physical realm, but also for God above, in the spirit realm, whom we have not seen.

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Value

You and your life have value. This holds to be true because Jesus Christ made it so. We have all equally come short of God's glory because we are sinners but Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice for us all to become valuable. And he did so because of love. An unconditional love that had no boundaries and no special circumstances. Because His love is unconditional and without boundaries we should not hold boundaries to ourselves. Because we are valuable in the sight of God already through the sacrifice of Jesus, we should not depend on what others say to us or what others consider us to be to give us worth or value.
What we possess and what actions we have taken does not determine our worth. Good deeds do not increase my worth. The use of foul language or the consumption of alcoholic beverages does not diminish my worth. Having a certain body shape or certain physical attributes does not increase or diminish value. Past life experiences, misguided decisions made- none of these things determine value. But it is Jesus that determines our value.
My value comes from my acceptance of what Jesus did for me and my life in correlation with my repentance from the things that caused Him to be sacrificed in the first place. I am by no means perfect and in some ways I am no better than I was before, but healing is a process, change is a process, Christianity is a process on a path that I have chosen to take for myself. We are special because we are valuable to God and not because someone else says that we are. And no one can take that away from us.

Christian Legacy: Greater In God

Life is about legacy. A Christian legacy is the sum total of the good that you have done for God, and others. No matter where you've been or where you are, there is no better time than the present to make life greater. Greater for yourself and greater for others. This can be achieved by anyone. Even in times of trial, a simple smile can go a long way. Something minute such as an action of seemingly no immediate value may help someone else. Do the math.

Legacy is part of God's plan for our life. If there seems to be distance from God it is not because He walked away, but rather it is because we walked away. But by grace, God does not hold a grudge. He is there to help us. All we have to do is take His hand and walk in faith with Him. He knows the plans that He has for our lives (there is a plan for everyone) and for we who believe in Him and the power in simply saying His name, He desires abundant prosperity(Jeremiah 29:11). He is Great and can make our lives even greater than what they are now. "Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4) which means having God makes us greater than anything that is outside of ourselves.

We must leave a mark on the world. What will yours be? Hopefully it will be one that shows that you are hand in hand with God and His ways. A life that reflects the search to adhere to the ways of Jesus Christ. For it is He and He alone who is the Way the Truth and the Life. He is the only way to the Father. And with that access to to the Father we have unlimited access to power from the Creator; therefore, we obtain access to anything in existence that will assist us toward the achievements of an appropriate legacy to be left behind.

Our legacy should be a building block for others. Whether or not we try to leave a legacy, one will be left. So it is very important that we leave a legacy that is constructive and not destructive, focusing energies on those things that will build us as they may be the very things to build another. Perhaps important so because the inverse is true in the way of destruction. We are meant to grow in God and help others do so as well. That which is of God, is that which will build us up and make us greater, and through us make others greater, and through them make the world greater. Legacy.

Let's Talk: Grace and Mercy

"Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world."

Dear God, give me the strength for which I ask, that I may do Your will. I want You to dwell inside my heart Lord, because You inside my heart makes me greater than he who is in this world. There will be nothing that he can do to me to break me or take me from your glory. So it doesn't matter what he does to me or even what I do to myself. Because Your ways are so much greater, and You have more power than the devouring lion. So he may try but he won't break me. It won't matter what place he puts me in or what place I put myself in, but the place I find myself in when I look to You and I focus on You. I may not know what place that will be, but I do know that You will elevate me above what I can do. There i will keep my eyes stayed on you just like the trapeze artists focused to stay safe and secure.

And You promised to bless us Lord, as long as we turn to You and give You everything; as long as we repent and turn away from those things that would break us down; turn away from them and walk into the direction of something that will take their place. A positive for the negative, light for the darkness, good for the bad, strength for the weakness. All we need is Your strength Lord. Sometimes we don't have enough strength to make it through some of these things, but we have to remember to look to you for that strength and realize that we can't do this on our own.

You never said that it would be easy, but You did say that You would never put more on us than we could bare. Therefore, we should press on and know that means You are there for us no matter what. You've given us strength, and when we become weak and we don't see any hope, the truth still remains evident that You won't put more on us than we can bear. And if we get tired and don't think that we can go on; if our feet become buried while kicking through the sands of time or the road gets rough, You are there to pick us up in Your mighty yet gentle arms, and hold and carry us. As mighty as we think we are to carry so much weight on our shoulders, when we become weak, not only will you carry us, but you will carry our problems. If You don't get rid of them, You will decrease their impact in our lives. You said "Come to me, ye who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest." 

So we look to You because You are THAT good. It's not because we deserve it-definitely not. But it's because You have chosen to give us what so many people talk about and so few understand until something happens- You have decided to give us Your grace and Your mercy. We deserve to die and forever be forgotten in the lake of fire and burn in hell. No sugar coating it. We deserve to be wiped from existence because we are dirty sinners. But the good thing is that Your mercy said "No! I made them. They are my children!" And You gave us the option and the will to choose. That's where Your mercy and grace falls into place. You gave us Your Son as a sacrifice. So instead of us dying, He died. His blood came from His body for us. His body was broken and torn for us. You gave Him as a sacrifice to suffer in our stead. What more could anyone do? You gave us life more abundantly so that we could actually live longer in the sense that actually matters. You are great for that! And that is a clear example of Your grace.

 You continue to give to us what we don't deserve (Your grace and mercy), as if we have deserved it the entire time. I didn't deserve it. No one living on this earth deserved it, but you still give it to us. And you're not asking us to do anything that is difficult. You are only asking us to do as we should do anyway, by showing gratitude and praise, and realizing that You didn't have to show us favor but You did. And You are only asking us to turn to You, and that is not difficult. There are people in this world that would ask us to do things far more difficult, maybe things that we should never be asked to do. But You asked us to calm ourselves, look inside our hearts, and just be still and focus on the things that we should want to focus on anyway-things that are positive.  Positive things like You, Your grace and mercy, which have been evident in our lives from birth and will be evident until the day that we die. 

Everyday You show grace. Food on the table is Your grace. Use of our limbs is Your grace. The song in our heart that we sing is Your grace. Even the hardships that we face are grace, because we can learn from these hardships and then give a testimony that someone needs, while being Your ambassador. I do not claim to be perfect. I have made mistakes. Some things that I am not proud of. There have been some evils in my life that have grabbed me and embraced me. There have even been some evils in my life that I have embraced myself. But the good thing is that I can learn from it. I'm sorry for those things, and that gives me the opportunity to look back and ask You God to have your way in my life with those situations and to forgive me and teach me not to do those things again. Give me the strength not to do those things again and therefore become a living testament and testimony to someone else as a living encouragement, because You are a living God. I know this because I see You and feel You in my heart. I see Your goodness that You've given me because it is so much. It is Your grace I see in everything. We don't deserve it but You give it to us. Your grace and your mercy.  

Anytime that situations get rough we should look to You. All of us. Because going through some things or being tested doesn't mean that we are being punished. It may be difficult to related this to anything less than punishment or torture perhaps, but there is always some good that can come through the cloud of uncertainty. There is always something that can be taught or learned, because tests bring testimonies. We should look to You in faith and know that we will be renewed. We should run with faith in our own respective races of life, and know wholeheartedly, and with confidence, that Your grace and mercy has provided an avenue of peace and reconciliation, that we may come to You via the Gift of Jesus Christ.