Freshman year prayer challenge

 38You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[h]39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

43 You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.   Matthew 5:38-48 NIV

When I was a freshman in high school our seminary teacher gave us a three part prayer challenge.  And I will be fully honest about this.  I only remember one part of the challenge because it was the part that stuck with me.  We were asked to pick someone that we didn't like or didn't get along with, an "enemy" and for two weeks we were asked to specifically pray for that person.  We were even asked to prayerfully decide who we would be praying for.  At first I thought I would pray for my sister because we fought a lot, then I considered a girl from my grade that I had never liked.  But trying to be a good kid and follow the assignment I hit my knees and asked who I should focus on for this prayer challenge.  And it quickly came to me that I should be focusing on someone who I would have initially called a friend.  At first I thought that I must be wrong.  I told myself that I was worried about this friend and therefore thought of her because I knew that she needed prayer to get through the things she was facing.  The more I thought about it though I realized that I had some pretty negative feelings about her.  She and I had been friends since grade school.  But I really did have a lot of negativity toward her.  We were beginning to grow apart and I didn't want to face the fact that she was no longer someone that I wanted to have a close relationship with.  After much debate I decided to pray for her during the prayer challenge.  I know that for me thinking of her needs and her struggles instead of thinking about the fact that I thought she was making terrible decisions and wasn't doing what I thought she should be doing made an impact.  I will never know what God did with my prayers for her.  I don't know if she was blessed during that time or not but I know that I was surely blessed by the experience.

Now that I am an adult I would love to think the negative situations would be easier to handle and I would be able to have respectful working relationships with people regardless of how I feel about them on a personal level.  But it turns out that being an adult does not magically make things easier.  As I have recently struggled through a situation that has been very difficult for me to handle I have struggled to remain positive and not to think of another person in a hatefully way.  

And being honest again I was very judgmental of this person.  I gossiped about them and was not at all shy when sharing my frustrations.  But after talking to a "friend" I realized that I was not helping my own situation with my actions.  Even though I am struggling with the situation dragging anyone who will listen into my personal issues with another does not make the situation better.  In fact it only deepens my frustration and reflects badly on my character.  After my talk with my "friend" I was looking for a scripture to focus this weeks blog on and I realized that the above passage from Matthew was exactly what I needed to focus my study on.  Whether anyone reading this gets anything from it doesn't matter.  I desperately needed this passage this week.  As I have read it and studied it the prayer challenge came back to me.  I hit my knees and asked God to forgive me for the judgmental and gossipy way that I was handling my situation.  I asked Him to bless the person with whom I have been struggling.  I asked Him to meet the needs of this person.  Then I asked Him for strength to handle the situation from here on out in a more Christ like way.  And I asked Him to help me remember that even when I don't get along with someone they are still one of His children. 

With Easter coming in just a few days I have been meditating on Christs awesome sacrifice for my salvation.  And with the struggle I have recently had I have begun to realize just how much He has done for me.  He did not die for the "big" sins.  Sin in His eyes is sin.  My choice to gossip and tear another down caused Him just as much suffering and pain as any other sin committed by myself or anyone else.  When I hit my knees and ask for forgiveness of my sins and ask for strength in my quest to be a better Christian and be more Christlike I am tapping into that wonderful saving power that came to be as He hung and suffered on that rugged cross.  

John 15, its all about the love

I am a little late with this post because I was struggling with what to focus on this week.  But as I reviewed this chapter that we covered in church last week it began to be clear what God was putting on my heart.

John 15:9-11
       As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.  If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 

This verse, and this whole chapter speak volumes on love.  And in a way it is a chapter that I have had a very hard time understanding.  Throughout my life I have had many many difficult times when I felt that this specific passage was sealing my fate of not making it to heaven.  As humans we make mistakes and we falter.  To quote one of my current favorite songs, "I've fallen down from grace a few too many times."  In times that I was struggling with sin this passage, which states that Jesus loves us as the Father loves Him, was distressing.  I felt that because I was not keeping His commandments 100% of the time without faltering He would be unable to love me.  Of course I was familiar with the concept of repentance but I have often thought to myself, "well, this is it.  I've messed up too much, He isn't going to let this one go.  I've ran out of chances.  How could Jesus ever love a mess like me."

John 15:13
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

With the above feelings in mind this scripture was also hard for me.  I tended to take it one of two ways.  I would either feel absolutely guilty because Jesus died for a loser like me, or I would decide that He obviously left me out of His atonement because I was such a horrible sinner and therefore, because I wan't covered by His atonement, meaning His death was not for me,  I was not His friend.  

John 15:14-17
You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.

So here is what I have learned and felt as I read and pondered this chapter and as I have grown as a Christian.  JESUS LOVES ME.  Sin happens, and He knows that I will not be able to follow every commandment all of the time.  He knows I will fall, He knows that I will sometimes make terrible decisions.  But following His command is not perfection.  Following His commands is something that has to be done everyday.  And sometimes at the end of the day following the Lords command also means hitting your knees, confessing your sins, and using His atonement.  Then the next morning after starting your day off on your knees and asking for His support and guidance you go forth and strive to follow His path just a little straighter then you did the day before.  And all of that makes this passage so much sweeter.  When I am striving to follow His commandments and I have a close relationship with God that includes heartfelt prayers and true confession of my sins with effort to follow Him more closely everyday then Jesus is my friend and he loves me.  Even in all my faults He loves me.  He CHOSE me.  And through His awesome love I will have joy, COMPLETE JOY. 

Following a new path

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  -Romans 8:26 ESV

Recently at church we talked about standing up for Christ.  About sharing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ with our friends, family, acquaintances, and everyone else that we may come in contact with.  After one particular service I shared with Jeremy on our way home that I have no idea how to share Jesus.  Which kinda seems weird since I grew up in a culture where going out on missions and sharing our beliefs was totally normal.  But I'm just not really that person.  I mean I have shared my beliefs with friends and family but I'm just not the type that strikes up a random conversation with someone I don't really know and tells them all about Jesus and my faith in Him.  I know that as Christians we are supposed to share Him and I want everyone to know about him and have the opportunity to accept him as their Lord and Savior but I want that to happen without me having to stretch out and feel uncomfortable and share Him with others.  in my perfect world I would wear a button kind of like retail workers sometimes wear and it would say  "Ask me about Jesus and how you can accept Him as your Lord and Savior!"   Because I really don't mind sharing Jesus but I don't like the idea of bringing the topic up.  If someone would ask me outright about my beliefs I am happy to share.  But that isn't what we are called to do.  We aren't called to sit in our comfort zone and share Him only with those who actively seek information about Jesus.  We are called to go out to everyone, stretch ourselves in ways that we don't feel like being stretched, be uncomfortable at times, and make sure that when someone meets us they ultimately meet Jesus.  

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. -Acts 1:8 ESV

Since I told Jeremy about my lack of confidence in sharing Jesus with others I started really thinking about what I could do to be a "better Christian."  I wanted to find a way to make myself comfortable with sharing Jesus.  I wanted to "feel better" about myself and feel like I was doing everything I could to share Jesus.  But lets be honest here, growth is painful.  It isn't easy to become a better person and it can't just happen.  But I really didn't have any idea how I would stretch myself.  The only thing I could come up with was just forcing myself to walk up to random people and ask, "Excuse me, do you know where you will go when this life is over?  Would you like to know more about Jesus and how you can be saved by His grace?"  And starting to ask this question as a habit every time I meet a new person just didn't seem right,  nor did it seem like anything I would ever actually do.  But recently I have been thinking about the few blogs I have written about my faith and I started having this thought in the back of my head that blogging is how I was supposed to share Jesus Christ.  I was supposed to share Him, His message, and His Gospel through our blog.  And every time this thought popped into my head I immediately would think to myself that it was a ridiculous thought and I would immediately dismiss it.  But as I was praying a few nights ago the thought came very strongly to me that I needed to blog about Jesus.  And as strong as the feeling was I still wasn't ready to accept it.  Blogging about Jesus just seems weird to me.  Jesus who lived such a simple, humble life, travelling town to town by foot, a carpenter who's apostles were fishermen, a man who shared His Gospel through parables and on hillsides would never want little old me to share him in a virtual world.  But the next morning while I prayed I couldn't deny that my recent prayers to have the courage to find a way to share Jesus were being answered and even if the answer wasn't what I thought it would or should be it was none the less God's answer to my prayer.  

So here I am.  Writing my first blog since being prompted by the spirit to share Jesus by writing about Him and His teachings.  And I want to be very clear here.  I am not confident in my Bible knowledge.  I do not think I am even sort of knowledgeable when it comes to the teachings of Jesus.  Every time we go to church I learn something new.  When I read the bible I constantly come across things that I don't understand.  But I am putting my faith in God trusting that if it is His will for me to share my faith through a blog that He will give me the messages he wants me to share and he will speak through my fingers.  I plan to share a weekly "devotional" here on our blog and will also continue to blog about our family and any other random things that strike me.  

If you do not have the desire to read my Christian posts I am totally ok with that.  I hope that the messages I share will reach those who are searching for faith but I realize that not everyone is open to my beliefs or cares to hear my thoughts on faith.  When I share my blogs I will try to post in such a way that people will know if the posts are a devotional or something of a different nature.  But if I don't share that information and you open my blog and realize you don't want to hear what I have to say close the window and move on.  If you feel so inclined feel free to share by blog with others.  And please bear with me as I attempt to follow the promptings of the spirit and share my faith in Jesus because right now I am very unsure of this but I know that starting this blog is an answer to my prayers and God has a purpose for me and this new adventure.