Living Life for Christ Alone

"I am the vine, you are the branches..." John 15:5 I've been pondering this whole concept of me being a branch and Jesus being a vine, and since I have, it's become less of a mere concept  and more a reality for me. Since no word that came out of Jesus' mouth is irrelevant, it's worth pondering... He never spoke useless words. He means much by even just the few words I shared above. Let me share some of my most recent thoughts with you. I think they are thoughts from the very throne of heaven. If you read on, you'll see why. Let´s look at those words again: "I am the vine, you are the branches..." John 15:5 Jesus interrupts His whole talk about abiding and fruitfulness (read John 15) to remind His disciples that He  is the Vine, and we are the branches . He  is the source of life that we abide in. If we talk about abiding and forget we are abiding in a Person, we miss the point. The point of John 15, though mentioned a lot, is not ab...

"Would not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart." Psalm 44:21 It is so good to remember that God knows me... And in spite of -not because of - His intimate knowledge of Me, He loves me. Love has to give, just due to its nature. It is self-sacrificing and gives all  every time, yet it's not able to show itself without an object to lavish itself on. As the waves of the sea need a shore to wash over again and again, so God seeks out a heart to wash over again and again with His love. Imagine it! This is why He created us. It was not good for the Godhead to be alone. Why? Because love that has no one to give to can't truly reveal its full splendor. God desires to lavish His love on an undeserving heart, because it's there  that His love's full depth and power is revealed, awe is inspired, and His heart is finally understood by a watching world. What keeps us from knowing His love? Ask yourself.... Have I built walls on my heart...

It has been a long work week, let me tell you. This morning, I had a 45 minute drive to work, and while most days I can’t wait to get to work and get the job done, this morning I relished the thought of being in the car, alone, for 45 minutes. Driving time has become a time where God invites me to pray and process my thoughts out loud to Him, or meditate on scripture out loud. I don’t always do this, but when I do, I’m really glad I did. This morning I was planning to spend the time praying and thinking about a passage of scripture I’ve been memorizing, but instead I landed on a mini passage I just read this morning that had stuck, in spite of how sleepy I was after the long week. “Who is like the Lord our God, who dwells on high…” I began to quote. The passage was Psalm 113:5-6. At first, it seemed like an obvious question…. “Who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth?” I said it again. “Who is like the Lord our God…?” Well...

“’If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest?’” Luke 12:26 This question that Jesus posed echoed in my mind as I pondered the topic of anxiety. We have experienced another worldwide flood. Not a flood of water, but of anxiety. You can find it in almost every section of society. There is hardly a person who is untouched by it. I myself am not exempt from it, which is why I find myself writing about it today. This verse in the Proverbs sums up the hidden state of mind of those who are controlled by it: “Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression…” Proverbs 12:25 It explains why much of our world is depressed from one degree to another. It explains why at certain points in my life, I have plunged into depression too. Have you struggled with this? This morning, I decided to dig into scripture to see what God Himself says about anxiety. Maybe it will help someone out there. It certainly has helped me! Here are just a few obs...

For a long time, I struggled with the voice of condemnation. I desperately wanted to please God, but never felt like I could do enough to please Him. The voice of accusation and condemnation would speak, and I would fall into the trap of introspection.  To this day, there are still times when I fall for that voice. But God has been over the years teaching me to recognize when He is convicting and when the enemy, the accuser, is condemning. Because there is a difference. They are not the same. Characteristics of the Accuser’s voice: 1. When Satan comes, he tempts us to despair of our relationship with God. He takes his accusations and puts them between us and God, tempting us to believe that whatever we have done or have failed to do has become a reason for God not to want us anymore. He lies to us and says that our sin has separated us from the love of God. Have you ever felt driven away from God because of guilt and shame? That is not God doing that. God...

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.” –John 15:18 These words forge upstream in a world where our natural inclination is to be the most well-liked, popular person we could be. But Jesus spoke these words without hesitation or shame. He spoke them right before He was to be crucified on a cross. He spoke them knowing most of the men hearing His words that day would one day be martyred for their faith in Him. He spoke them knowing that they would be written down for people like you and I to read and marvel at how difficult those words are to embrace. He spoke them so that we would not be disillusioned when people reject us for following Him with our whole heart. He spoke them so that we would not be surprised when people don’t like us talking about Him. He spoke them so we would count the cost before we make a stand for Jesus in a world where people don’t want God. He spoke them so that we would know they aren’t rejecting us, but Him. ...

This morning, as I was reading my bible, a verse caught my attention that I hadn’t really given thought to before. Let me share it with you. God speaking: “…I was crushed by their adulterous heart, which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols…” (Ezekiel 6:9) A couple of things struck me… We live in a world that glorifies sin. It calls evil good, and good evil. Much of our culture and media today is based off of little to no morality, and pushes messages that encourage you to step over your moral lines drawn for yourself and try the unthinkable. Pride, selfishness, divorce, sex before marriage, gay marriage, adultery, murder, hate, lying, envy, slander, and on and on –these things are often portrayed as good. Our Christian culture is not left unaffected by this either. How many Christians do you and I know who minimize sin against God? It is hard to find someone who weeps over sin anymore. Most people either push it under a spir...

Pain. I’ve never gone looking for it and I’ve never seen it as an enjoyable thing in and of itself. I think we all can agree that this one four-letter word in our lifetimes -however short or long they have been thus far- has stirred up more doubts and questions about God than most other topics in the world. I have lived most of my life viewing pain as an enemy. Perhaps you have too. We weigh our decisions, the goals in our lives, the friends we will have, even whether or not we will come close to God by how much pain –emotional or physical- each choice will cost us. The majority of the world we live in has structured their lives around comfort and ease. Pain is not even an option. Nor is it a topic we really want to talk about. Not unless there is a way to avoid it. But today, I am going to talk about it. Maybe knowing this, you will close your webpage and read no further. That’s ok. This topic is not for the faint of heart. But if you are willing, God can give you g...

Several months ago, I convinced myself that I needed my very own power tools. Seriously. ;)  The first power tool I intended to buy was a drill. I had all these visions of me being able to quickly fix some of the broken furniture I acquire for resale without too much hassle.  Finally the day came that Kevin and I went to Harbor Freight to buy that power drill that I had so long dreamed about. It was an exciting day when I first put it to use! However, the very first thing I had to do when I got the tool out was charge the battery, because it arrived home powerless.  I could push that trigger all day, but nothing would happen until that was done. Once it was charged, I could use it. But I could only use it so long before the battery died again. That’s the case with all battery-powered tools, or battery-powered anything. (Disclaimer: I am not- repeat, NOT- and expert with tools! lol)  When I was looking around at all the options, I noticed that ...

Early each morning, I sit on the couch in my living room, one lamp lit on the table beside me casting shadows all over the room, bible in my lap. Sunlight hasn’t yet peered into the apartment and it’s almost eerie how many shadows can hide corners and crevices from the naked eye. But as the sun rises to full height, the apartment fills with light, and what was dim before becomes visible. I hope that is symbolic of the light Jesus is shedding in our hearts as we peer deeper into the workings of the flesh. I am not yet ready to shed light on how Christ truly sets us free, because I feel we need to unwrap the other side of fleshly living. I heard an enlightening message recently that helped me understand what happens next when my flesh puts on self-righteousness. Let’s pick up on the picture from the last post . My flesh has had me trying so hard to please God that I get sick of it. Every day seams worse than the last one. “Oh, just give up,” the flesh finally says one day...

One thing I do quite often before I see people (most girls do this, so I’m not alone!) is go to the mirror, fix my hair and put makeup on my face. I think as a whole, people –both men and women- want to be presentable when they see other people. We all have our way of doing it. And we all have our reasons for doing it. Certain events call for certain dress. At church, we dress up in our “church clothes”. At work, we wear the appropriate “work clothes”. None of that is wrong, but I want to talk about another dressing up we do that is very wrong, but appears to be very right. In my previous post , I talked about the flesh. In quick recap, if I were to put the whole post in one sentence, it would be this: The flesh has no power over Christ in you. Now I want to talk about one way my very own flesh strives to deceive me on a daily basis. Oh, how do I begin? Imagine with me that I am standing in Christ (to pick up on the scene from the previous post), and my flesh is hiding ...