"I ran away from You"

"Oh lord, I'm ready now
All the walls are down
Time is running out
And I wanna make this count
I ran away from you
And did what I wanted to
But I don't wanna let you down"

(These are lyrics from "Lord I'm Ready Now" by Plumb.)

You know what really sticks out to me? The lyrics "I ran away from you and did what I wanted to". In my opinion, there's so much truth to that one statement. How many of us decide that what we want to do or what we feel like doing is completely fine? Even though, in the back of our minds, we know that the Bible is totally against it. Trust me, I'm a victim of running far away from Christ and not listening to what Jesus has to say.

I think trying to be that "Perfect Christian" is really hard. Really, who is? You can't be perfect all the time, or any of the time for that matter. Then again, don't use that as an excuse to purposely make terrible choices. Your mentality shouldn't be "I'm not perfect, so why even bother trying?" Well, I'll tell you something. We weren't created to be perfect (obviously), but we were created to honor our Creator, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Let's talk about Honor. What does it mean to honor someone? Well, if  you click Here , You can get the dictionary definition of what the word actually is presented as. Buttttttt what do you think it means? We were created to HONOR someone and I feel like the word could be used to describe a king. Then again, the Creator is our King above all Kings as well. How do you treat a king? Do you ignore all the proclaims that he makes? Do you pretend he's not real? Do you pretend he's not the one who makes the laws? (Are these sounding like crazy suggestions yet?)

The answer is NO! You treat a king with respect, you can't ignore him, you know he's real, and you follow the laws that he makes. (We in the U.S don't have a king obviously, so use your imagination). Anyways, why do we treat Jesus any differently than we would a king? Why SHOULD we treat Jesus differently? Well, we actually should in some aspects, whoops. Sorry to confuse you. A king is just a human, fully flawed. Our God? He's not. He's the perfect one, creating a bunch of screw ups like you and me. If being called a "screw up" is offending, whoops.

We run away from Him daily, it's true. Never doubt that he's run away from you- because trust me, he hasn't. He's got your back even when you can't seem to even fathom that he's got yours. Faith isn't an obligation, and you're also not obligated to be a perfect little robot.

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." (John 10:11) 

"Yet you are near, Lord, and all your commands are true." (Pslam 119:151) 

"And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
(2 Corinthians 3:18)

"Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you." (Jeremiah 32:17) 


Have a good day (:

Just a little something about Grace

As a girl, doing my hair is quite a normal thing. More than once have I burned myself with a straightener or a curling iron. You know what? I still pick that thing up and keep using it. I'm sure you do too. Why though? It hurt me, so shouldn't I stop using it all together? (Sounds like crazy reasoning, right?) Well, we do the same thing to other people. When people hurt us, we shut down and shut them out. They hurt us, so we should just carry that grudge against them, right? *Loud Air Horn/ Buzzer noise* That's where we're all wrong! The easiest (and one of the worst) things in this world to do is hold something over somebody. Trust me, I'm guilty too.

You see though, God doesn't hold grudges. We would all be completely screwed if that were the case. I fail Him daily, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Grace is given to us by God, even though we mess up constantly.

 "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:8-10 

(http://biblehub.com/niv/ephesians/2.htm)

Since we've been saved by this grace, can we not give grace to other people? Have you ever been incredibly mad at someone? OR incredibly hurt by somebody? I have. It's not fun at all. You know what I've never thought about until recently? (Thanks Camp Lone Star)  Jesus died for that person too. He died for me. He died for you. He died for the person who hurt you. Why should we not forgive those people/ that person who hurt/ made you angry? Yes, I know it's hard. Things like forgiving others don't come as fast as we'd like. One step at a time. Pray for those who hurt you. Pray for the people that make you angry. See what it does to your life. God created us in his image and to be like him. That includes forgiveness. No matter how deep the wound, God can work through you to forgive that other person. Whatever you're going through, you can do it. 

 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." Hebrews 12:1-3

(https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+12)

Deferred Gratification

"For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." Philippians 2:13

This has been sticking out to me the entire day. I don't know why exactly. I feel like it's reassuring that God has everything in control. He's the one  "who works in YOU to will and to ACT in order to fulfill HIS good purpose." It's more fun when read like that, right?

Lately, I've been thinking a whole lot about deferred gratification.  Now, people might ask what that means. It doesn't matter (well, it does a little) what It means to me, but what does that phrase mean to you? Defer means to put off, right? And Gratification is "pleasure, especially when gained from the

satisfaction of a desire." (I had to look that one up to get it exactly right). Basically, it means to put

off this pleasure of our personal desires. If you've seen the Harry Potter movies, the mirror of Erised shows anyone who looks into it their greatest desire. Our biggest desire as Christians should be to live

a life that's pleasing to Our Lord and Savior.

Now, I'm not saying that we're all so good at that, but I pair the word "desire" with "sexual desires". Aye, now we've got something to talk about, right? It's so so so easy to fall into this temptation as a hormone-driven teenager. Constantly I have to remind myself of deferred gratification. The more I wait on the temptations, the more I'm going to be able to give to my future Husband. Make sense? Sort of?

Basically, I want to give every single part of myself to my future husband because God has already

picked him out. The more I give myself away to temporary people, the less I have to give the (already

God-Chosen) man. We have to guard ourselves from the people who only want us for our bodies, and

not as people to strengthen our faith. I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, but if you're not

happy or praising Jesus in everything that you do- maybe evaluate your life and sort out your priorities.

Personally, I've done a crummy job at putting Jesus first in my life. I think it's time to spend less time on

Twitter and more time in my Bible. Anyways, as random and sporadic as that was, I hope it made you

think at least a little bit. Have a great week:)

Emma Jane

1 Kings 3

I know, my title completely tells you what this is going to be about (sarcasm intended). But in Sunday school, we were reading 1 Kings 3:5-14. Well, we read some more, but these verses really got me thinking. Solomon was a great king over all of Israel. He could of abused his power. He could've been a ruthless king, but he was forever faithful to his Lord and Savior. 1 Kings 3:5 says "At Gibeon the Lord appeared to solomon during the night in a dream, and God said. "Ask for whatever you want me to give you."  Now, If someone told me this, the first thing popping into my mind is maybe a private jet. Like whatever I want? Maybe a boyfriend, lots of money, and a nice big mansion to top it all off. Materialistic things. Like loads of ice cream. Solomon could've easily asked for wealth, women, or great power. Do you know what he asked for instead? Wisdom. He asked for wisdom. "So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?" 1 Kings 3:9. Do you know what I love most? First of all, he addresses the people as "Yours". He's talking to The Lord here. Like "These people aren't mine, they're YOURS."  He's so humble, and on top of all of this, he asks for wisdom. He wants to rule God's people full of Wisdom. Solomon know's that God's in control. 

I think we can all learn from Solomon.  We focus all of our energy on materialistic things. People come in and out of our lives. That super cool brand new phone will one day break. Everything is going to stop one day.  Do you know who's going to be there when it does? Our Lord and Savior. 

Also, with the control thing. Solomon trusted in God. I know from experience that sometimes it's really really hard. Romans 8:27 says "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." 

Solomon, he was called. And The Lord granted him with much more than wisdom. But I mean, he trusted in The Lord wholeheartedly. And boy, do I wish I could be like Solomon. Don't we all though? What's really stopping any of us from putting all of our faith into Christ? Why do we focus on earthy possessions instead of God? Why have we started worshipping people and objects? Why is it so hard to trust God with our lives completely? 

I cannot answer these questions. But we're in a world full of sinners. I'm one included. This probably didn't make any sense, but let's try to follow Solomon's example. 

Well, until next time, 

stay lovely.

Emma Jane 

Screwing Up

Honestly, I've been screwing up a lot lately. I mean, hard-core screwing up. My life's a roller coaster right now, because I'm realizing that decisions we make affect other people. I mean we can't all be perfect all the time because that would be impossible. I don't think we can even get close to perfection. The only perfect one is Jesus Christ. Honestly, we should talk about him more often. He's so forgiving. We have a very forgiving God. Did you know that? 2 Corinthians 2:10 says "Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven- if there was anything to forgive- I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your your sake..." That's pretty powerful stuff. We gotta learn how to forgive others because God already has been forgiving us since the day we were born. "Bear with each other and forgive one another if  any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." Colossians 3:13.

The Bible says one thing, but our brains say another. You feel me? Like i've screwed up so badly, and I feel so unworthy of forgiveness to be honest. It truly is amazing how God's love, power, and might all work. He can cause you do do amazing things (like forgiving someone). I've probably said the word "forgive" or a form of that word so many times in this little blog post, but I don't care really. So what? I repeat things. God's love and mercy should be repeated. We should scream it and proclaim it to the heavens how forgiving He is.

If I ever learned one thing, It's that God can forgive us even when we can't even forgive ourselves. Psalm 130:4 says "But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you." Now, that just speaks to me tonight. I just thank God for His amazing grace and love. With HIM lays forgiveness so that we can SERVE him gladly. In the song "Seek Ye First" the third verse goes:

"Man shall not live by bread alone,
But by every word
That proceeds out from the mouth of God.

Hallelu, Hallelujah!"

And we seriously couldn't do anything without God. Without God, there wouldn't be any true love. Without true love, forgiveness wouldn't exist. We can't live "by bread alone". It doesn't work like that. We're in need of God's amazing grace. I think it's spectacular that he loves us even when we aren't able to love ourselves. 

I hope you have a good week :)

Until next time, 

Emma Jane

Difficulty

So, today has got me thinking. Difficult things are always going to happen to us. I feel as though bad things are more frequent as we get older because God made it this way. It's so hard to trust his plan because we have one of our own. We think so often that we can run this marathon of life and go in a straight line for several years. Well, let me tell you what, my line has so many curves as if it's a rollercoaster. We have this dream picture in our head where everything works out just as we plan it, right? If everything works out like my dreams, I'll be a famous author living in Paris, married to a wonderful husband. Somehow, you and I both know that's probably not going to happen. I'm not sure if you're on much social media, but there's this quote floating around and it says "Let go and let God." Honestly, I really love it. It doesn't mean to sit on our bums and let him control every aspect of our lives, but we do need to relinquish our control while serving him at the same time. Everything we do should be to love and praise him, even when he turns our life into a 180 spin on a rollercoaster. Let me tell you something. That's a really really hard thing to do. It's so hard to praise God when you feel like the world is crushing down on you. When you feel alone, unworthy of love, and unloved. It's so easy to ask "Why me? Why do I even feel this way?" Well, only God can answer that question. I do believe that everything in our life happens for a reason. We might lose people who we love, we might gain some who can't love us. I also firmly believe that doors have to close, because God knows exactly how to open up that small window. If we cling so strongly to that door (Like on Monsters Inc.), then what do we have to gain? What do we have to lose knowing God's in control of our lives? We should be celebrating because of his glorious plan. On Sunday we looked at Isaiah 40:30-31. It says "Even youth grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

Well, I love you guys.

Until next time,

Emma Jane.

I'm a hypocrite

Hi, so yes, it's me again. Today has been pretty normal, thanks for asking. I just wanted to say, that I'm a total hypocrite. In my last blog post I gave you plenty of useful tips to stay healthy for the holidays. I, personally did not follow then whatsoever. Therefore, use all of those pretty great tips to slim down after the holidays. Ive lost a few pounds this week, so yay! If you're in the struggle bus with your weight, don't give up! If you're struggling with anything actually, don't give up. It's going to be a long long road, but God's got your back. I know everyone has their own personal battles going on every single day. I know that the road gets super tough. I know this. Seriously, y'all. Don't lose hope because you have an all-powerful, living hope in Jesus. He died for you to take away your sins and then he rose again. That's pretty incredible. If Jesus like gave up on us, what would that look like? We wouldn't be in a happy place right now, that's for sure. But guys, I know it's hard to want to live or do anything when you're in a dark place but Jesus really does love you. He brings peace and clarity into our lives and even though it's hard to see sometimes, he's always there-shining.

I don't really have much to say today but Jesus loves you wholeheartedly.

Emma Jane