Aesthetics

Ask yourself an aesthetic question today? 

What is beauty? How do you define beauty? 

Ephesians 4:15-16

"But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building it-self up in love."

Challenge:
* How are we doing?

Prayer

Colossians 4:2 [“Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.”] A couple of weeks ago I found myself struggling with my prayer life. I had a revelation the other day that I wasn’t trusting God in my prayer life, but I was giving God a time limit. Every time I asked God for something I would flip over an Hourglass and say, “all right God I need an answer in the next couple of hours”. I convinced myself that prayer is just a confession time and that God just gives you what you ask for. For a couple of weeks my prayer life consisted of laying out all my problems and issues to God and it felt incredible, but I would leave my prayer time bare and disgruntled. I was exasperated and irate with God that He wasn’t being charitable to what I sought to attain. I expected a well-defined solution every time I rested my issues in front of God and expected Him to fix them immediately. In my prayer time I began to yell in frustration to God with the issues I was dealing with. I was being an all-inclusive mannequin that permitted the evils of my life to costume and silhouette my character when I came before God in entreaty to disentangle my stringy and long troubles within a certain period. I was endeavoring to exist on my own time and not on Gods. My desires were not even tenuously neighboring God’s desires for my life. My earthly desires were enchanting me away from the love of my life…Christ Jesus. God turned a light on inside of me and it became nauseatingly vibrant what I was doing and I swiftly ran from it. I quickly changed my prayer life to where I didn’t just confess hardships to God, but I sat still and meditated on what my Father was telling me. I am not saying that confessing all of our issues and problems is a bad thing, because its not. Professing all of our issues and complications is one of the most essential elements in our prayer life. God wants us to do that. However, we are absolutely wrong to think we can just lay our problems on God and give Him a time limit. God wants to educate us and bolster our lives through our tribulations. Trust and rely on God. Listen to what he has to say to you. Rely on God to teach you and strengthen you. Don’t let your prayer life consists of requests without listening to what God has to say. Take Colossians 4:2 and use it. “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving”. Don’t take prayer for granite. Truly seek what God has for you. If we do it on our own we will fail. If we do not listen to God’s solution, wait on his timing and trust in Him we will be disillusioned and hollow. We succeed through following what Christ Jesus has for us. This is one of the ways we communicate with God and we need to strive every day to keep it stout and sturdy. Trust in Him. He will provide!

Temptation

Ecclesiastes 1:16-18..."I said in my heart,"I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my hear has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge." And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow."

We are tempted so easily to conform to this world. We stretch our hands out and hold earthly things, but ultimately they turn to sand. All this world does is eat us up. Let us not focus our eyes on earthly things, but focus our eyes on that which is above. Focus our eyes on Christ. All is vanity under the sun!

Good Quote

Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.
-C. S. Lewis-

Whats in our path?

The majority of our world including Christians live their every day life the way they want to. They live their life around worldly principles through common sense right and wrong and worldly happiness. The problem with doing this is...what you are living for doesn't fulfill your design. Christianity tells us to follow God's Will in our life and I couldn't agree more. However, it is impossible to follow that in our life 100 percent correctly. Christians must seek His Will in their life absolutely!! However, we will always fall short. I don't think it starts off with us following His Will, but I think it starts off with us following His design in our life. Mark 1:17 says "And Jesus said to them,"Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men."" Through biblical knowledge I believe that His Design for us is to share the love of Christ and be used as tools to help fill His Kingdom. Hebrews 12 explains exactly how we can start following His design. Hebrews 12:1-2 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding it's shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God." Once we fully understand this we can begin to see God's Plan and Will for our lives considerably clearer because we are ready to commit to His design.

This picture represents exactly what you just read. We look out into the blurred distance...it seems so complicated but when you understand His design for your life it becomes much clearer.

Warning: Pay Attention

It is sad to think that most people in church don't go for a spiritual purpose. A large number of people in the USA go to church and just go through the motions. However, this is not what God intended church to be. I think this is exactly why Non-Christians hate the idea of Christianity. But, let me assure those Non-Christians that Christianity is not perfect but Christ is. In other words religion is not perfect. My faith is not Christianity...my faith is in Jesus Christ. We must understand relationship over religion. Understanding this concept says we are ready to take the next step by beginning an actual relationship with our Lord and Savior. The flip side is a fake and forced relationship. The key is to find a church that understands the concept and is there for you to grow in fellowship and in relationship with Jesus Christ. Moreover, Hebrews 2 tells us to pay attention to this exact thing.
Hebrews 2:1-3:
"Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the message declared through angels was valid, and every transgression or disobedience received a just penalty, how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? It was declared at first through the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him,"

Impact- We as Christians must pay greater attention to Christ rather than Christianity. Those of you who are not Christians I would urge you to not base your beliefs off of close minded and going through the motions Christians but rather, base your beliefs and identity on just you and Christ. What is Jesus Christ telling you?