Please Pray

I like to go to this site called Adventures in Christianity which is a bunch of Christian Blogs about witnessing and parts of the Bible they've read and spiritual topics, but recently they've been having a lot of problems with people hacking into their site and messing it up. Please pray that God help these people and stop the hackers.

Witnessing Sunday

8:45- Wake up and get ready for church
9:15- Leave for Church
9:20- Arrive at Church
9:30- Enjoy the very very very great service
12:00- Leave church to go eat at Burger King
12:50- Leave Burger King to go to the Mall to witness
1:00- Arrice at mall and find everyone.
1:15- Pray, talk, and break up into groups.
Missinator, Little Girl, JC, and I went around the food court and I went up to as many tables as I could and put down a tract. Afterwards we talked to a lady and asked if we could pray for her. She said yes, but not right now, the manager didn't like it. So we told her we would and walked on. Missinator led mostly and prayed with people and I was in the background. Scared to share. Finally after completely messing up and not sharing sooo many times. JC said, Come on man. There're some guys over there just sitting. Missinator was sharing her testimony with some guy and I told JC in a minute. He said, "We're here to witness to people. Not to watch Missy do it." BOOM! God reached out to me through that and I went and began talking to people. Unfortunately I didn't get far with too many people besides praying with them. No one wanted to talk. But God did let me go farther than I ever had. I asked them if they needed anything prayed about and the two boys said nope. I asked them if they had a few minutes to talk. One of them said, sure. I was dumbfounded. Someone wanted to talk to me? What what what? I asked him, if you died righ tnow, where would you go? He said Heaven. I asked him that if he stood in front of the pearly gates and God said, why should I let you in. What would he tell God. He said that he would get in because he trusts in Jesus Christ and knows he can not get in by himself. I shook his hand because I knew he was serious. At first I was a little dismayed since I couldn't lead someone to Christ, but then I realized God had led me that far with that boy so I wouldn't be attacked and discouraged by someone. God had protected me and let me start being bolder wtih one of His children so I could grow and become more comfortable with it. :-) God is good. We prayed with some other people and I met with some other people who said they were Christians. One guy after I asked if he needed any prayer said he had just got done praying. Hahaha. Guys, pray for the people of this city. There are so many lost. All in all it was a pretty successful trip. Chase got to go through the law and gospel with a person! We planted many seeds and hopefully God will grow some of them. Can't wait to do it again. I think Sunday afternoon witnessing is going to become a regular thing now. :-) God willing.

Tomorrow

After church going out to witness to people. Please pray that we be filled with the Spirit and have boldness and compassion for the lost for God's Glory and the advancement of His kingdom.

Spiritual Oppression

I like this topic...I really want to do my next sermon on this.
Ephesians 6:11-17
11Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 14Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, 15and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; 16in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

These verses are some of my favorites. They really show us what our situation against satan and sin is as Christians. It's a Battle. Satan is definitely the greatest liar, deciever, and trickster ever. There are two main ways he works: Antagonistically and Agreeably. When Satan tricked Eve into taking the apple, he didn't scare her into it. Satan spoke lies and deceived her into taking the apple. He worked with her, not against her. But since we as born-again Christians have our natures changed and we want to please God and want to do things that glorify Him, we do not listen so easily to Satan's lies. Sometimes we fall and slip, but if we truly have Christ in us, we are less easily deceived by Satan's lies because we know the truth of Christ. But that doesn't stop Satan, so what does he do (especially in times of new belief or trouble)? He attacks us spiritually. He puts on us a weight, a feeling, doubts, guilt, exhaustion, complacency, and many many other things that stall and hinder our walk with the Lord. He makes it hard for us to continue to deepen our walk with God. If you're walking with God and you're content with how deep your walk is and don't really try to have a deeper walk, then let me tell you, satan has a foothold on you and he is slowing your walk. We should always be seeking and striving to deepen our knowledge of who God is and what his character is. We go through tons of spiritual attacks by Satan who uses the slightest twitch of the eye or smallest word we read and twist it and make us doubt. And what does God tell us to do? Put on the Armor of God
His truth.
Righteousness
The Gospel
Faith
Salvation
The word of God.

It says, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all of the flaming arrows of Satan. Have faith and it will pass. Have faith. See, this is something I forget a lot. Any doubts, any fears, any problems we have can be solved by faith. By trusting that God will take care of us because we are His children. Satan's attacks will bounce right off this impenetrable shield.

It also says, take the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Hebrews 4:12
The word of God is immensly powerful. People hold a Bible in their hand and don't realize they have the sharpest sword ever made in their hand. Let's go look at Jesus when he was tempted by Satan. Every time the Devil made an attempt to persuade Jesus, Jesus came back by quoting the Bible and Satan could not do anything but try something else.

So whenever you're in spiritual oppression. You feel bad or you're doubting or you have guilt that is not conviction, simply pray and read your Bible. Now it may take some time for it to go away, but everything has to go through the Father Filter, and if God is allowing you to experience this oppression, He could be trying to grow you in dependency on Him or faith or anything else. Always just come to God and wait on Him to deliver you. Surrender yourself to Him and pray for Him to stop the attacks and to open you up to whatever He wants to teach you and read your Bible.

Hope this helps some people. Love ya'll.

Which way is right?

With millions of religions, why should we choose Christianity. If a lost person asks us why Christianity is better than any other way, what would you tell them? Hmm? Because being a Christian ensures you a good, prosperous life? WRONG. We're told the world will hate us because if you're a true Christian, God has set you apart from the world and has made us different. Which is why the world hates us and why we will face persecution and be made fun of. What we preach is foolishness to the Gentiles. So why is Christianity better than any other religion? Why is Christ the only way? What's your answer? Mr. Kerry talked about it a little this morning in Sunday School and that led me to make this blog. Let's take a look at other world religions. Most every religion agrees Murder, Stealing, Lying, etc. Is wrong. That they are sin. That if you do these things you will not make it into "heaven". That if you love other people and do your best you will make it into "heaven". By "heaven" I mean whichever religion's version of the good afterlife. So what do all other religions say to do to get to "heaven"? Be a good person, do your best, don't be bad, and live a good life helping people. If you do something bad, do something good and it'll go away. Tell a lie, give $50 to charity. What does Christianity teach? If you think it teaches those things you're wrong my friend. The Bible states it pretty clearly when it says our best works are like filthy rags to God. Let's be honest with ourselves, how often do you act as righteous and pure as you possibly can? Maybe once or twice a year at most. That's the best you can do, but it's still like filthy rags to God. What about all the other times when you're not doing your best? That's even worse to God. We're so steeped in sin, that any amount of good things we do will never make up for it all. No matter how much we do, we'll never earn our way into Heaven. God knows this and He wants us to be with Him, but the only way He can do that is to make a way for us to be forgiven. He did this through Christ. You ask anyone, "Do you think you're a good person?" 98% Will say yes. Take them through 3 of the 10 Commandments. "Do you think you're a good person?" No. Have you ever lied? Just one lie is breaking the commandment. Ever stolen something, value is irrelevant. Just taking something that is not yours is breaking the commandment. Ever lust after someone, thereby commiting adultery with her in your heart? Just once, and that's adultery. You're a lying, thieving, adulterer at heart my friend. If God looks at you, and just sees those three things, you still are going to get punished. No matter how many good things you've done. Because the good things you do don't make up for the bad things you have done. It's like a judge convicts you for murder, but you say you've given to charity for the last 30 years. Doesn't matter. You broke the law, you have to pay the punishment for it. But God, out of His loving, merciful nature gave us a way to avoid the punishment for what we deserve, Hell. See, Christianity says that there isn't anything we can do on our own to merit salvation and Heaven, but other religions say there is. In fact most every other religion says that you have to do this or you have to do that and have to act this way to earn God's favor. Why are there so many religions like this? Because we want to be able to earn it, we want to be able to boast about it. There is a way that seems right unto men, but it leads to Death. The only way, the only truth, and the only light is to rely and trust in Jesus Christ. :-) I'm so happy I do. if you don't I implore you to speak with me and explain to me why you do not.

Tonight

I messed up...
:-(
Pray for me please.
I need tonight to spend time with the God whom I know will forgive me even though I deserve NOTHING of the kind...

The Schedule for Tomorrow. My last free Friday for 11 weeks.

School
Work in the Music Library, organizing it.
More School
Meeting about a new Gospel Choir at School after school!
Home.
Study.
Sleep.

I'd like to go witnessing soon if anyone would enjoy coming with us.

Preaching

I gave my first sermon tonight and it was very very humbling. Getting put up there with no preparation (I purposely made no plans, papers, or anything besides Bible verses so I had to rely on God and not on myself) and having to rely on God to use me and when I began to go off on my own I get tongue-tied because I have no idea what to do and constantly having to trust God to supply you with what to say so you don't look like an idiot is pretty humbling. I loved it though. Man, I thought I knew a lot, but there's so much more to learn and understand. I love Leonard Ravenhill's quote, "Take this from an old man: There is no finality to the Christian life this side of eternity". I've met, heard, and talked to so many people who are just fired up for God and just want to go out and further the Kingdom and it fires me up too. I love my brothers and sisters in Christ. Some cool ones you should go watch on youtube are
http://www.youtube.com/user/VenomFangX
http://www.youtube.com/user/shockawenow
http://www.youtube.com/user/CrossReach
They're all pretty cool Godly people.
Prayer, Sharing, and Reading are definitely 3 of the most important things to do as a born-again believer.
I need some prayer. My flesh wants one thing, but I don't know exactly what to do about. Hahaha, I love how Aaron said it, "When you ask God a question, He has three answers: Yes, No, and Wait." Also I'm reading a book called waiting on God. So I'm going to wait until His answer is made clear to me either through His word, His people, or circumstances. I love ya'll and I encourage you that if you're a guest to leave a comment.

Geez

Where is everyone?
It feels like I haven't seen or really talked to anyone in days and I miss ya'll a lot.

David Ring

Was amazing. He's a very Godly man. His sermon was touching, powerful, inspiring, and made me so happy. He addressed some issues I've been having and I really heard God calling to me. I had some great prayer time with God tonight and I feel so invigorated. Our walks don't get to a place and stop. There are always challenges and there's always room to grow. As Leonard Ravenhill once put it, "Take this from an old man, there is no finality to the Christian life this side of eternity." I'd been worried because there always seemed so much that I was doing wrong or not getting or failing at, but God brings us through those things so that by our faith in Him and reliance on Him that we might be grown in our relationship with Him. And there isn't a point where God says, "Alright we're done with you Jacob. You're done being conformed to Christ's image." God's always going to be challenging us and growing us and making us more and more His. As long as we have faith in God and Christ and trust in them then everything we go through and everything that happens works for our good. How do I know? The Bible tells us this. Look at David Ring, He had a disability, but as soon as he trusted in God and had faith then God worked his Cerebal Palsy to his good and growth. God is amazing. He can take our worst faults and change them into our strongest strengths! Praise and glory Him. I love ya'll