But from a human standpoint, there is such thing as a good person and a bad person. So why do the “good” people have to suffer harm?

Answer 1

Let’s look at Job. Job was very good in God’s eyes.

Job 1:1

In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.

Yet he lost everything he had, all his family, livestock, money, slaves, everything. He even suffered physical pain. So why did this good man have to suffer? From my understanding, his suffering served God by teaching us and the rest of the world what a man of God was really like, that the ‘best’ of us, is still going to have to suffer and to teach integrity. The second reason was to receive a blessing. When Job finished suffering, God blessed him with more than he had at first.

Job teaches us integrity and that God is with you and will bless you.

Answer 2 

This is the answer I really wanted to present. Bad things happen to good people because of our sin. We all fall short of the glory of God, and we all sin daily. It is because of our sin, and because of original sin that we suffer. Now we must pay the consequences of our sin. Jesus died to save us from eternal damnation, but not to save us from all of our daily consequences of sin. It is because of our sin that good people suffer. Sin knows no right or wrong, sin does not know the difference between good people and bad people.

The question I think we should ask ourselves is not “Why do bad things happen to good people”? but rather “Why do bad things happen to God, and why did He have to pay the ultimate sacrifice for our sins?” Think about that. God is perfect. Why does God have to suffer the pain of His lost loved ones day in and day out. When we suffer, He suffers. Why did God have to sacrifice His Son to pay for our sins? Why do we blame God for everything that goes bad? Why are we as a nation abandoning God? God doesn’t deserve us, He deserves much more than us. Yet He loves us the same. Yet He chooses to suffer with us, so that He can be closer to us. He doesn’t have to, He choose to, long ago, before He even made us, He knew we would betray Him, but He choose to make us anyways.

What love is this that we don’t deserve?

Related articles

• Necessary Tension (jessicabuckland.wordpress.com)
• “Why Do the Righteous Suffer?”: Wisdom From the Book of Job (thomaslovesjesus.wordpress.com)
• Endure to the End and be Saved (escapetoreality.org)

Proverbs3:5

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

Something I have been thinking about lately is if I were Jesus, how would I have been wanted to be born into this world? I think I would want to be born into a rich family, that way I could afford all the modern technologies so I could evangelize efficiently. I would have wanted to be good looking, maybe not the best looking, but good enough to be noticed and respected. I would definitely want to be accepted by others. I would want a lot of twitter, facebook, and blog followers. I would want a big church, or at least some sort of central location. And the list goes on.

But you know, that’s not how it was. Jesus was born to a poor family, in a town where nothing good comes from. In terms of his physical appearance:

Isaiah 53:2

..He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

Jesus was not accepted by others

Isaiah 53:3

He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

There was nothing attractive or desirable about this man. He wasn’t given this huge platform to work from, in fact He didn’t have anything on His side! The odds were against Him.

But yet all the time in our life, we tell God “If only I had more money,” “If only I had more time,” “If only I had the newest iPhone,” “If only I had more blog views,” “If only I had more twitter followers,” “If only I had more friends,” “If only I had that job, or that promotion,” “If only….” Our “If only…”s and our excuses could go on forever.

Jesus did have one thing on His side. He had God, and He trusted in God. Look at what Jesus accomplished because of God. He changed the world. He didn’t have all the qualifications what we believe we need to share Christ to others, He just had God.

To take this one step further, we often think of ourselves as God. Not intentionally, but we feel like we know what’s best for us and we feel like we know what has to happen in order for us to follow Christ best.

The ugly truth is, you don’t know what’s best for you. How can we question our Creator who made the universe and everything in it. The God who made you, science, and math. The Father who loves you unconditionally, even despite all of your wrongs. Our God is so big, how can we even begin to understand what is best for us and question the circumstances we are in?

Related articles

• Jesus > I – He must Become Greater – Me Less (darrellcreswell.wordpress.com)
• Perfections Place (anointedplace.wordpress.com)
• “Why?” – An Easter Sermon (calltoprayerministriesblog.org)
• Isaiah 53 (mrbnd.wordpress.com)

One day you get a letter in the mail, it says “Go west! Once you start going west, I’ll show you where to go! On top of that, I will make the father of the future U.S.A. All that it is, will be yours!

What a bold offer. Would you take it? Or would you just throw it away, and keep living in your comfortable life? What if, instead of a letter, it was God telling you that?

Would you go?

Genesis 12:1-2

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.

You see that is the same thing God told Abram when Abram was 74 years old! He told Him to go! Don’t worry about where you go, I will show you and be with you! Then I will make you into a great nation!

So Abram trusted God, he left his life, and God fulfilled His promises!

Stepping outside of our comfort zone can often be to radical for us. We find ourselves saying “I trust God” or “In God we trust” but when the situation calls for it, do we really trust Him?

Another story that comes to mind is when Jesus was walking on water.

Matthew 14:29 – 31

“Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

Jesus tells Peter to “come” and walk to him on water, so Peter does. But as soon as Peter saw the wind he began to doubt and in his doubt, He began to sink! Luckily Jesus still grabbed him and pulled him up despite his doubts.

The obstacles we face tell us “you can’t do it,” “this is to big for you.” Don’t believe it’s lies! God is bigger than that! He can do all things! When we forget that Jesus is on our side like Peter did, we will sink! So don’t doubt!

To put it another way, if you are building a church, a ministry, or maybe dealing with sin, temptation, money, etc, and we look at the obstacles that are attacking us and lose our faith, Jesus won’t hold us on top of the water anymore and we will sink! We have to trust Him for His power.

I want to challenge you today, to do that thing that scares you! Trust that God is behind you, and once you start, don’t get distracted by the obstacles! If you do, you will surely sink!

When we don’t have faith, we don’t give Jesus the opportunity to use His power!

Faith=God’s power.

Loss of faith = Reliance on our own power.

You may not be able to accomplish it, but God can!

Related articles

• lead me where my trust is without borders (empoweredandequipped.wordpress.com)
• Doubt and Unbelief (onechosen.wordpress.com)
• Recipe for a Miracle! (sayhellohope.wordpress.com)
• In the Face of Fear (csahm.com)
• He Came in the Storm (believersbrain.com)
• Peter believed in Jesus, but the reality of the storm was too much for his faith. (twgdailydevotionals.wordpress.com)

When I post these in the future, I plan on making them more polished, and hopefully not as convicting.

So any who, here is my trial run.

Here is the original scrip I worked off of. I added and removed some parts as I was recording it.

Closet Christian

Here is a picture of an 8 year old boy who died in yesterdays bombings.

Yesterdays Boston bombings was a huge wakeup call to me. You never know when the people around you are going to be taken from this world. It upsets me deeply to have heard about the death of the 8 year old boy waiting for his father at the finish line.

But there is a much deeper issue going on that we forget about in the comforts of our own home. Too many people are dying while our Father in Heaven, is waiting on us at the ultimate finish line.

Look around you, look at the people in your life. Your family members. Your coworkers. Your friends. If they were to be gone today, would they be united with our Father in Heaven, or will they be put in the pits of Hell for eternity?

It’s a hard thought to deal with. Maybe I’m going to far with this, maybe I need to lighten up a bit. But is eternal damnation something to be taken lightly?!

Is our fear of sharing our faith more important than the life of our friends, family and neighbors?!

The seeds you plant, WILL NOT save everyone you share your faith with. In fact I guarantee you will fail at least 95% of the time. But the fact is, people die everyday, from unexpected events. What we don’t know is where they are going to spend eternity.

My intention isn’t to use a scar tactic to push others to spread God’s Word, but for us, including myself, to be aware, there is a war out there! What part are you taking in fighting the war? You don’t need to go push Christ on everyone you see and meet. But rather, just take a step out of your comfort zone and don’t be afraid to share Christ when the opportunity presents itself.

We are called to be ambassadors of Christ, it is all of our responsibilities to represent Christ to the world. Like John the Baptist, we are to point the way to Christ through our actions and our words. Others are to look at us and say

, “Woah, now there is a radical person living outside of the norms of this world. There is a person who has much love and forgiveness to give. How can I be more like them?”

Sin is everywhere. We as Christians need to step out of the closet and show others the power of Christ’s love and forgiveness.

I’m sick of it, I’m sick of the actions of sin. Are you ready to take a stand?

Oh, and don’t forget to share!

No more telling Catholics, you guys aren’t christians because you pray to Mary, worship the Pope, and think you’re saved through your actions. No more making fun of Lutherans because they believe we are saved by grace alone. No more making fun of Baptists because they like to jump around and sing. No more making fun of non-denominationals because they preach Christ’s love so heavily and have no set doctrine. Just no more. I’m tired of these labels that are suppose to define us to some certain way. (I know I’m missing a lot of the different christian religions, I don’t know enough to add them all)

The sad thing is, most christian religions have the same core belief on how we are saved, but we are just misunderstood between each other. Through this misunderstanding we start pointing figures saying “You’re wrong here, here and here!”

Catholics are just saying if you really have given your heart to God, you are going to want to do good works and will do them. Lutherans are just saying there is nothing you can do to earn forgiveness. Baptists just love the Lord so much they want to dance (so did David). Non-denominationals just want the focus of the message on Christs love for us (after all, isn’t that all that matters?).

There are others outside of the Church that want to be a part of the Church, but when they see us Church members arguing all the time over all the small differences, they don’t see what their heart desires. All over the internet you can see christians arguing with other christians over what is truly christian and what isn’t. Who wants to be a part of something that is always in disagreement with one another? Lets first take the plank out of our own eye…

Be humble. Treat each other with Love. Arguing only makes you look like a fool.

To those outside of the Church, who want to get in and just be accepted for who you are, I’m sorry for the way we act. We’re not perfect either. No body is. That is why we are in Church, so we can seek the One who truly is perfect and who loves us so much He died for us. He accepts you, and me, for who we really are. He doesn’t care what we wear, He doesn’t care what you look like, He doesn’t care if you are gay or not, He doesn’t care if you don’t have a lot of money, He doesn’t care if everyone in your life has turned on you, what He does care about is you! No matter where you are in life, there is always hope. No matter how broken you are, no matter how much you have been rejected by others, even the Church, Christ still wants you. He is ready to transform you and make you new.

So Church, lets take a step down from our pedestal, and help someone out in need. Go to that ‘sinner’ that no one likes, that no body wants to be seen with and invite them over! Show them love. Take a step out of your comfort zone and befriend someone you’ve looked down on.

We want to show others the way to Heaven, not the way to Hell. And with that, I would like to send this with a video. Start it at 11:09, and you can end it at 12:40. If you really don’t have time, start it at 12:20 then. But I believe this hits an important truth within the Church.

Related articles

• Different churches; one BODY (bcong.wordpress.com)
• Individual Members Make Up The Body (1Corinthians 12:12-27) (markblock.wordpress.com)
• What Is a Lutheran Church? (talkingdonkey.wordpress.com)
• Why are there so many denominations? (Special note on Lutheranism) (lawgospelaction.wordpress.com)
• 8 Things to Remember about the Catholic Church (eyesonheaven.net)

Matthew 16:24

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

So it has to do with giving up ourselves to Christ to serve Him as a disciple.

A rich man came up to Jesus and asked Him “Lord, what good thing must I do to enter Heaven?” But Jesus responds by telling him there is no good man, and we must obey the commandments. He goes further by saying:

Matthew 16:21-22

If you want to be perfect go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Before I get to the point, I want to share another set of verses of another man wanting to follow Jesus

Matthew 8:18-22

When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Following Jesus isn’t about what you can do for Him, but rather giving up everything for Him. We all want to follow Jesus our way, the easy way. We want to follow Jesus when it only means going to church, when it only means praying to God before you go to bed, when it only means professing His name on your facebook/twitter page, we only want to follow Jesus when it means doing the easy stuff. But when it gets hard and nasty, hey, thats what God’s grace is for right? .. Maybe, but if you can only commit to the easy things, ask yourself where is your heart? Is it truly for God?

In the two biblical passages, both of these men wanted to follow Christ but when Christ laid out the guidelines for them, neither one of them could commit.

I find it fascinating that that there are a few more stories (I believe) like this in the New Testament where people asked Jesus to follow Him, but once He told them what it means to follow Him, they all backed away. They couldn’t give up their cross to follow Him.

Those asking Jesus to follow Him, went away knowing they couldn’t live up to it. But then there are those, the 12 disciples, Paul, and some others throughout the bible, who God came to them first and said “Follow me” and they did, no questions asked. They gave up everything in their life, they gave up their comfortable home, their friends, their money, their family, everything they knew, to follow Christ.

The men Jesus sought out, who knew little about the man, gave up everything to follow Him. That takes quite a bit of faith.

So what does it mean to give up your cross daily and follow Him? It means giving up every part of your life to follow Him. It means stepping out of your comfort zone to share His Word. It means to keep on going, when others tell you you’re crazy. It means to confess all your sins before the Lord and admit your weakness. It means making Christ the focus out of everything in your life, the little things and the big things. It means giving up your life for Christ.

To add an ever more serious tone to it, many of the Apostles gave their life for Christ. To the apostles, taking up their cross daily and following Him, ment giving up their own life. I can’t even begin to express, or fathem, how serious their love and their relationship with Christ was. Some of us get uncomfortable just talking to our own family about Christ, but these men kept expressing their love for Him. To the point where government officials told them to shut up or they would crucify them, but they just couldn’t stop sharing His Word!! This is what it means to give up your cross for Christ.

What are you prepared to do?

Here’s a link to a song by Christian rapper KB about giving up your cross daily. For those that don’t like rap, I will post the lyrics below the song.

Lyrics:

Yo, so they may be like KB you got it goin’ on
In twenty years they’ll forget me like Kevin in Home Alone
Sown, grown and blown, mown and then its gone
That’s the history of grass, and man ain’t much more (Talk about it)
(Hit me) No one will care what you invented
Half the stuff that we use we can care less ’bout the origin
Listen, I ain’t trippin’ I love to lift up inventions
But more than liftin’ inventors, who invented the inventor That’s God (Talk about it)
My whole clique Christ lovers,
My outfit it might be plain, but I’m fly with the (w)right brothers
Life covered, Jesus he saves well
Free’s the mind for those doin’ time in a brain cell
Jesus ’til I expire, I may have a good year of
Fire stones fall from the sky, I’ll never tire
Serious don’t use the word play, this consonant word play
Competent conquerin’ content content e’rrday

We lost judged
Dead men walking on a dead earth
Looking for a heart and a soul search
Everything I want
It don’t mean much
It don’t mean much to me
Money, fame
Coming for your heart
Sex, drugs
Secret of the dark
Everything, everything the world wants
It don’t mean much
It don’t mean much to me

Yeah, Lord sometimes its envy on my lips, lust on my hips
Feet prone to slip because I’m so weak
We often fake like we’re meek, say we’re the least, speak deep
But the Lord is like son please
We exaggerate our strengths, hide our mistakes
That’s a bad place, cuz we only make his grace cheap
When I’m angry my pride wants to slay me
I know one person who needs to take up his cross daily, that’s me
Yeah, and our deepest desires might be the worst thing
Our hearts are wicked, you don’t know what that curse brings
I get something new then I look at you
If you have one and a litle that that, I want two, greed
We have peasants mimicking’ the life of kings
Yeah you have fame and things, you never had peace
Made in his image, but then we made a mess
Win, lose, or draw, he’s a picture of success
Say cheese

We lost judged
Dead men walking on a dead earth
Looking for a heart and a soul search
Everything I want
It don’t mean much
It don’t mean much to me
Money, fame
Coming for your heart
Sex, drugs
Secret of the dark
Everything, everything the world wants
It don’t mean much
It don’t mean much to me

You make a song about Jesus, you never going to hell
Yeah that’s written in the first book of (what was it) nowhere
I know that’s no bail , but his fare won’t go well
Lord help ‘fore our days end, like a hotel
‘Cuz death doesn’t care how many albums you sold
And death doesn’t schedule like this time or no
Death clock reading it’s sooner time to go
But it’ll be soon time to go
Chose God and grow
Watch the throne all you want, but it’ll never be ya’ll seat
The throne’s occupied like it’s palace on Wall Street
My God so great that He puts great to shame
Ain’t a man bad enough, he ain’t bad enough to save
Jesus, came here to save the worst of sinners
How you think I’m able to rap these verses with Him
To the earth He entered
Full of mercy in a
Death and the resurrection He got your boy singing

We lost judged
Dead men walking on a dead earth
Looking for a heart and a soul search
Everything I want
It don’t mean much
It don’t mean much to me
Money, fame
Coming for your heart
Sex, drugs
Secret of the dark
Everything, everything the world wants
It don’t mean much
It don’t mean much to me

Related articles

• Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me…What??? (relationaldiscipleship.wordpress.com)
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Thanks in advanced for all who read and share your thoughts!

Just for reference, I read the script below out loud and timed it at a little over 9 minutes.

Prayer is a funny thing. I’ve talked to many people about prayer throughout the years. Christians have told me they believe God tells us to pray, but that they aren’t sure if it works. Some have told me it’s a waste of time to pray for them, and that they don’t even want me pray for them. Some Christians pray only once in a few weeks because they just plain forget about it. Then there are people who don’t live a life for Christ, but because they pray once in a while, they believe they are going to heaven.

In some cases prayer is a last resort.  It’s the last thing we do. We will say “Well I guess all I can do is pray now.” In other situations we will tell our friends “I’ll pray for you. I’m sorry I can’t do more.” We’ve lost the sense of the power prayer has.

I think you can relate somehow. I can. Sometimes prayer gets hard because we feel Christ just isn’t answering it and it may even cause us to fall a little bit in our faith.

We’ve lost hope in prayer.

I want to share with you ways that you can regain your hope in prayer.  To pray bold and confident prayers that you’ve never even dreamed of. It starts with Scripture.

One of the biggest things Christians over look is placing themselves in the Word of God. Some of our excuses are “I’m to busy.” “I just don’t understand it.” “It’s just not for me.” And “it doesn’t apply to me.” “I just don’t want to read.” Those excuses exist to serve one purpose, to keep you away from God’s Word. The devil knows the power of God’s Word and he fears it greatly, so he wants to keep you away from it.

What opened up my mind were the epistles that can be found in the New Testament. Paul’s letters opened up my mind to how awesome my God, our God is. I fell in love with God, and with this love came the first step of prayer, communication.

Prayer is communication with God, and the more you love Him, the more you communicate with Him, and the more you communicate with Him the more you love Him and recognize Him in all the different areas of your life.

It’s like when you have a crush. You just want to talk to your crush more, and the more you talk to them, the more you like them, and the more you like them, the more you want to talk to them. It’s a cycle.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 (NLT)

Never stop praying

With Scripture comes the second step of prayer, aligning your hearts with God.

When God doesn’t answer your prayer the way you want Him to, it is not because He is not there, it is because you are asking for stuff that is not for your greater good, or for the greater good of Heaven.

It’s difficult to accept when your grandparent, or other, passes away after you have been praying so hard for their survival.  But we cannot lean on our own understanding, as stated in Proverb’s 3:5-6 (NIV)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;

 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Maybe God let your grandparent die to ease their pain, maybe it was so they can rejoice in the kingdom of Heaven, maybe it was to bring recognition to whatever they stood for so that others can follow in their footsteps. There could be so many reasons, but you got to trust that Christ has a plan.

As we read Scripture daily, God puts a transformation in you that is beyond belief. It’s amazing the amount of wisdom, understanding, and peace He places upon you. In this transformation we begin to yearn not the things of this world, but for the things that are Christ pleasing. When we start praying Christ centered prayers, and giving up our earthly desires, we will begin to see Christ answering our prayers in the way we want them to be answered. We will start to recognize His presence in our life.

But you can’t expect them always to be answered. Not even all of Jesus’ prayers are answered. If you open up to Luke 22 you can see Christ praying to God for a way out of His death, He prayers so hard that He is covered in sweat, and then His sweat turns into blood. But God tells Him no. Jesus was rejected by God as well.

I want to share a few stories of my own about prayer that come to mind:

Between my freshmen and sophomore year of college I was a graphic design student. One of my teachers was a complete stickler. Everything had to be professional, on time, done right, and absolutely positively no excuses! She was the strictest teacher I have ever had. She didn’t like to be strict, but she did to prepare us for ‘the real world.’ Well on three different occasions throughout those two years, I had either forgotten or just wasn’t able to finish my art projects. Not showing up to class on a day a project was due, was simply not an option. If we did, we had to have a perfectly valid excuse, and have our project turned in a head of time. If not, the consequences were even worse than showing up with an unfinished project. So there was three occasions that I just couldn’t finish my projects for whatever reason, so I prayed. But before I prayed each time, I told myself I would only pray once, and I would trust that the Lord would take care of it. Sure enough He did. One time, I completely wrote down the wrong due date so I came to class and found out I had a whole another week to do it, and the other two, by the grace of God, we came to class and she randomly decided to push back the due dates for whatever miraculous reason.

The second is a story of a butterfly. I was sitting in chapel one day and a butterfly flew past my feet. Just for the fun of it, it wasn’t to test God it was just spur of the moment. I asked God to make that butterfly come back. And it did! Then I said, make that butterfly land on my foot, so it did! But it immediately got back up and started flying back the way it was going; I was dissatisfied. Then I said, Really God, I want a real landing. Making it land again on my other foot! So it turned around and did! I was simply amazed!

The point of these two stories is this, prayer is a powerful thing. It calls directly on God. God is the creator of all things, if you call on Him, have confidence that He will deliver! Philippians 4:13 states

“I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

This is more than just a verse guys, this is truth! Have the confidence that you can do all things. Matthew 17:20 states:

He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

We have so much power at our hands; we need to have confidence with it! This is not to say God is a genie to grant all your wishes cause you have confidence, remember you have to align your hearts, this is just saying don’t doubt the creator of all things.

Don’t be afraid to pray bold prayers.

The last step is to pray frequently.

Prayer isn’t always a once and done thing. Lets look at Scripture to see it was to say about praying often.

First look at Elijah in 1 Kings 17:21-22

Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”  The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived.

Elijah, a powerful prophet of the Lord didn’t just ask God once to bring the boy back to life, he had to cry out three times! But he did so in confidence in the name of the Lord!

Luke 11:11-13

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks fora fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!

Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Always pray, and never give up. This woman begged the king for justice. At first he didn’t give it to her, but through her persistence he let her have her wish. Will God, who loves us, not give us more?! Cry out to Him day and night, and He will give you what you ask for.

Prayer needs to become like breathing, always do it.

Lastly, don’t forget to recognize answered prayers. In 2^nd Samuel 6:22 David says, “I will become even more undignified than this,” I think that is an awesome response to going crazy about an answered prayer. He just rejoices. Some of you may have heard of Kari Jobe, a very talented Christian singer. On March 27^th she wrote

“Wow..I prayed a very specific prayer this morning and The Lord just answered me in the way I asked Him to. What?!! So faithful! Faith!!!”

I love her response! She just straight up rejoices!

I hope this has helped you as much as it has helped me in my relationship with Christ and my view on prayer. To dig further, I suggest a book by Pastor Craig Groeschel from Life Church called “Altar Ego.” He tackles prayer throughout his book, and uses some amazing examples of answered prayers.

God bless y’all! Stay true to His discipleship!

Age: 21

Location: Minnesota

Confession:

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not who I pretend to be. I’m fakin’ it. I’ve been wearing this mask for all to long now. My actions don’t point to God. They don’t point to anything really, just myself. I’m far from being a Christian. Online, sure, I can fool anyone online. It’s easy to make myself look all godly online. This came to my complete realization and fell heavily on my heart from twitter. Recently I started following somewhere between 50 and 100 Christian accounts. Most of them work under anonymous names and are in high school. I see these kids posting new tweets every minute proclaiming their love for Jesus, scripture verses, and/or some kind of inspirational Christian quote. At first I thought it was great, and it is great to see this from the youth!

I was favoriting, retweeting, and making some of my own Christian tweets. I quickly gained about 70 new followers, quickly making me feel like a better Christian. While this was happening I was very conscious of my friends outside of twitter, you know the ones from real life. These are my friends I hang with all of the time. I realized that who I am online, is completely different then who I am offline. I can’t help but wonder what they thought of the difference in my real life actions and my online words. I felt horrible. I wear this Christian mask online in search for my own recognition and to gain my own set of followers.

I am completely guilty of living a life not pleasing to my Father in Heaven

I definitely create my own gods and put my trust in me before God. I obsess in TV shows, whatever my current task is and worrying about school. I serve myself and do things to make myself look good. I spend way too much time worrying about who I look to others. To every person I most look a certain way, to this person I most be the perfect Christian, to this person I most be the guy who doesn’t worry about things, etc, etc. I wear a Christian next lace, 3 Christian bracelets, one ring, and tons of different Christian shirts to make myself appear as a Christian, as if what I wear is going to save me. At the very core of it all, I’m realizing everything in my life has to be about me and I’ve never known how to make it about others.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to Church. Instead, I convince myself that just watching Church online is good enough. After all, where does it say in the bible to go to Church? I read my bible every day, read Christian books everyday, and I watch Church online. But I’m missing the point that Church is about coming together as a body of Christ, being together in fellowship. The sad thing is, I don’t have a group of Christ seeking friends, and that is largely where my fall is.

In honoring the Sabbath, I can’t remember the last time I even had a day to rest. I’m constantly busy. I worship my schedule.

I’m sure my parents could agree that I don’t do the best at obeying them. I’m always telling my mom “no”, “later” with the intent of forgetting about it, or most commonly with some kind of sarcastic reply and then ignoring what she said all together. My father has to ask me a 100 times before I even consider doing what he says.

There isn’t a day that goes by that others do not annoy me. All it takes is one thing and I’m annoyed at that ‘stupid’ person Then I just can’t wait and plan out how I am doing to tell someone about how ‘stupid’ that person was. I make sure never to ‘hate’ anyone though, just strongly dislike.

Lust, don’t even get my started there. It lurks at every corner just calling out to me, pushing all my buttons, making me weak. I’ve seeked relationships that weren’t pleasing to God, but rather sought them out of my own desires. Thankfully, the Lord didn’t let them go through and stopped them before they got anywhere. I’m weak for women, but I am even more weak to girls that make me feel better about myself.

Instead of coveting, I just go out and buy it and make it the number one thing in my life. Why wish you could have something, when you can just go buy it, right? That will end the satisfaction, wrong. It only digs into a deeper search of more unsatisfying desires that leave you craving for more.

I am the guy who is too scared to share God’s Word. I cling to hope that maybe the mask I show these people will share them Christ. But how can actions do what words were designed for, to proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus. God being God, always gives me perfect opportunities to share my faith, but instead of praying for help and the words to say, I pray God would make them change the subject so I don’t have to tell them about my love for Jesus, which just makes me wonder, do I really love God, or is that just another mask that I ‘m trying to convince God of?

The truth of it all is I am not perfect. I live in fear guided by my own desires. I have placed God 2^nd or maybe even 4^th or 5^th in my life. I may proclaim to myself, to God and my online community that I love Jesus, but when all is said and done, I can’t put my words to actions.

What hurts the most is that despite all of this, I know Jesus still loves me, I know He still wants to use me. I know He has the power to make me new, but I’ve just lost feelings to all that. I’ve gained apathy. I’ve reached a point where the devil has been trying to get me at.

I wish I knew how to give it al back to God and truly mean it from the bottom of my heart. I know He can heal me.  I’ve just forgotten how to show excitement for the Lord. I’ve lost the courage, the wisdom, the strength, the self-control and all the many other blessings the Lord gives. I pray to receive it back.

I’m lost without the Lord; Christ is my light, my life. Without Him I am nothing. I just want my actions and my heart to realign with Christ. I know Christ accepts me the way I am, but I can’t accept myself unless I am completely living for Him.