Inside Out

'we are to live in such a way that demands a gospel explanation' this is a quote I read from facebook the other day from @aaronivey. I thought is was really cool and it made me think. Does your life and the things you do in it require the presentation of the gospel just to be understood? I wish I could say mine does. But I know that would be far from the case. I mean, I am sure it does sometimes, to some people. But on the whole, I could use some major overhaul of attitude, thoughts, self-control, speech, actions, etc. Then today at church in our study on the book of James. @kylegoen preached an awesome message on taming the tongue. (which you should totally go watch at www.lifepoint.org) It fit so well with that little nugget from Aaron. First off, during the worship, one of the songs we sang:
Inside Out by Hillsong United:
A thousand times I've failed
Still Your mercy remains And should I stumble again
I'm caught in Your grace
Everlasting
Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending
Your glory goes beyond all fame

In my heart and my soul
Lord I give You control
Consume me from the inside out,
Lord, let justice and praise
Become my embrace
To love you from the inside out.

Your will above all else
My purpose remains
The art of losing myself
In bringing You praise
Everlasting
Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending
Your glory goes beyond all fame

In my heart and my soul
Lord I give You control
Consume me from the inside out,
Lord, let justice and praise
Become my embrace
To love You from the inside out.

Everlasting
Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending
Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart
Is to bring You praise
From the inside out
Lord my soul cries out

I love that line. "Consume me from the inside out". Man how I want to be consumed by him. So on fire for Him and the things that He loves! Oh to feel like that again. It has been a while. Not just to have that feeling for a few hours or days. But I mean to really be immersed in it every day where my life spills out Jesus everywhere I go and in everything I do. If I am on fire for God, that fire should be catching on. As Kyle said this morning, fire (when it is free) can duplicate itself and will consume whatever is in its path. My life should be causing others to be consumed as well. The things I do, say, laugh at, get frustrated with, spend my time on, how I respond to things, etc all should be proclaiming His name in some way. To make people think and notice that something is different.

So anyway, I just want to say that I am proclaiming today that this week is going to be different. I can't say exactly what that looks like in entirety but I will be changing up some things a bit from what I have been doing lately. Starting with getting back to quiet times of course! And hitting the gym and laying off the unnecessary extra sweets. And watching my tongue extra carefully in the anger, negativity, complaining department, hehe. And doing a better job of what I am "putting in" so that what "comes out" is what I want to shine and not something I don't want. Among so much more, but you get what I mean. Only through the Lord's strength! Anyway, enough for now. Good night!

summer update

Man it has been a really long time for me to post something. I was going to a few times but never made it and then most of the time I just didnt feel like doing it.

Life has been interesting this year. I can't believe its about to be July already, man the time has flown. Taylor is going to be 5 months old this week! She is still such a sweetie. She isn't growing very fast but she is a huggable lovable super cutie that steals our hearts every day! She still doesnt like tummy time, she has rolled over a few times front to back but not the other way yet. She is content to just lay there and play with her hands and feet or a toy. The other day she looked at Ethan and started cracking up. Then looked at Jacey and back at Ethan, the whole time just laughing a lot. We have never heard her do that and it was the cutest thing ever. (I think she pooed right before and thought it was funny and the kids make her smile a lot so yeah.) She sleeps great through the night like 12-13 hours. She will wake up and just lie there quietly until I come and get her up. Who knows how long she is awake before I go in there sometimes. She is so quiet.

The kids and I have been having a lot of fun doing summer things. My 12 yr old "nephew", Jesse, from TX is here staying with us for a month. He is a great kid and we enjoy having him here. We miss them living near us. Ethan keeps wanting to do school stuff. I have to keep telling him that it is summer time and we are taking a break for a bit and that we can do some soon, lol. He is doing a summer reading program through the library and is enjoying that. Jacey is still frustrating me to no end. I think this week I am going to start her over with the whole potty training thing like she is 2 yrs old. Between that issue and her tantrums, i think she really is the child that was put here to grow my character, lol (or show my lack of at times). She did get to try gymnastics for the first time last week. She had a lot of fun and while we were there Ethan took tons of pics of her and loved watching everyone there. He wanted to try it to so we went back another day for him. He had fun too. He loved the rings. The whole time we were there for Ethan's class, she was dying to be out there too. So, we are signing them both up for weekly lessons for the rest of the summer.

Erick has a busy summer with the band. They auditioned a drummer last week. He is from the St. Louis area. He and his wife came down for the weekend and stayed with us. They are great people and we enjoyed having them here. The audition went really well and if all goes well, they will be moving to the Nashville area. The band has a lot of shows booked for July. the just had one this weekend that went really well. The radio single is doing alright for a first release from an unknown indie band. So I guess we will see what happens from here.

I am alright. Should be a lot better, but could be doing a lot worse, hehe. Ben slacking BIG TIME in the work out dept. I sooooo need to get back to the gym. I have not felt motivated for it. I have also been eating poorly for months now and I have actually gained some weight. (and I haven't even finished losing baby weight). I have also not had a quiet time in a really long time. Which is prolly noticable just in the fact that I haven't had a dying urge to write. I have not been reading either. I have just been vegging every night instead. And I have been sleeping in every morning. I was getting woken up so many times so often that it was sooo nice to finally get some sleep and be able to sleep in. I mean I can sleep till like 9 with Taylor, it is AWESOME! So I have been taking advantage of that opportunity with it being summer and all. I know that sok to do sometimes, but I should still keep my priorities in line. So anyway I am pledging this week to be diff. Read my next post for more info.

There is still a lot going on the rest of the summer. We will keep you all updated as we can. Love to all.

Holy Fighters

I was listening to Obama talk today and he was mentioning that he wanted everyone everywhere to have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Now we have all heard or read those words many a times before and have cheered for them I am sure. We are so proud of our country and what it stands for. But it got me to thinking...is it that very pursuit of happiness that has ruined the world? I think it should be life, liberty, and the pursuit of HOLINESS! We should be striving to see how many ways we can be used by God and find out what He wants to do through us. We Belong to God and need to live our lives as completely sold out to him and set apart for Him. It is not about what we want but what He has willed for the benefit of all and most importantly for His glory. What do you pursue more? your happiness or your holiness?

Also it made me think about liberty. It is great, don't get me wrong. I love many of the freedoms I have and feel blessed by many of them. But it can be a slippery slope. You must be careful with liberty. I mean think of our country where we are one of the "free-est" places to be and look at the sedentary life of so many christians, the lack of passion ans fervor, the decline of christianity, etc. Then look at other places in which christianity is banned and look at how strong the believers are there and what they are getting accomplished and how explosive the growth rate is there and how alive the people feel. It makes me wonder if the existence of liberty creates weakness? When you don't have to fight for something, do you still fight? When you feel no threat, you tend to relax and get comfortable. But no matter how free you may be or feel, don't you think we should always be fighting and running hard after what you believe? Now I am not necessarily talking about physical fighting. I am talking more about the other aspects of fighting. In the dictionary these are also listed

the ability, will, or inclination to fight: There was no fight left in him.

to contend in any manner; strive vigorously for or against something: He fought bravely against despair.

Now, unfortunately I think most of us do a horrible job at this. As Christians we should be fighting every day. This life is a fight. The bible even tells us to put on the full armor of God. We are the Lord's army. We need to always be prepared to defend ourselves and our God as well as provide for and protect his people and promote His name. We should be fighting for our marriages, for our families, and for our friendships. Not just for the people themselves but for the actual things that would be responsible for making them what they should be. For the concepts of love, peace, grace, mercy, truth, honor, repentance, forgiveness, etc. Good marriages, families and friendships don't just happen. They are fought for. They are daily prayed over and worked hard on. Defensive barriers are put in place to protect them and people are there to combat when the walls are shaken by any who try to come a destroy them. As Warren Barfield puts it "Love is not a fight, but it's worth fighting for". The same goes for your faith. You must fight to keep your mind and heart pure and focused and on doing your best to do what we are called to do here on earth- worship Him and bring him Glory. ARE YOU A FIGHTER? Or are you lazing around in your "freedoms" and end up caught unprepared and eventually letting other ideals overcome you?

We should make sure not to let the freedom we have in Christ and in this country to turn us into lazy, un-passionate, un-propelled, easily manipulated people. Do you feel you only come alive when attacks, hardships, and unfortune come your way? Or only when something spectacular happens or might happen? If so, do you know why?

Doesn't it feel good to have something to fight for and to fight for it? Doesn't it feel good to know that God has set you apart for something special- that he has called you to be His?

not ready?

Ok, I so want to do the triathlon, been waiting so long to do one now. But I think it is too soon to do one, especially one a little bigger than I had wanted to do for a first timer. I am so out of shape and my joints are having issues. I think my body is still getting back to normal after having the baby. I don't remember it taking this long to recuperate in the past with my other two kids. The running not only gets me winded but it is a little hard on my knees so I think I should stick to the eliptical, bike, swimming type stuff for now. So that means now running 3 miles in a triathlon, lol. I hate to back down after just agreeing to do this event, but I think I was just eager to do it. I am already passing up a smaller triathlon at our YMCA next weekend because I knew that would be too soon, and that one would have been a great one to do. Hopefully I can do the one I was going to do last summer, it is at the end of July. So we will see. For now I will stick to my 6 day workout fat loss routine and work my way up to triathlon training from there. I could still use the prayers and support though, thanks.

Chrissy

Steppin it up

Ok, I have been working out again for about 2 wks now... well, last night I was contacted by a friend who is a trainer and she asked me if I wanted to join her and some friends in a mini triathlon on April 26th. I said i would do it and so now with my workout today I have started gearing myself to prepare for it. Yes, I know I am crazy! I just had a baby 8 wks ago and i still have weight to lose from that and I have never done a tri before. But I have been wanting to do one for a long time. I actually was supposed to do my first one last July right before I turned 30, but I got preggo, lol. So, I am going to need a lot of wisdom, energy, stamina, prayers, and support. I do not want to overdo it in anyway or push myself too hard. But I do need to be able to finish the thing. That's the goal, just finish it! It is an indoor triathlon consisting of 1 mile swim, 15 mile bike, and 3 mile treadmill run. I am going to need to go shopping for a new swimsuit, blah.

I was training for fat loss, but now I need to focus my training more on the event, so that means steppin it up and doin some major sweating and breathing. Today as part of my workout, I first decided to jog a mile straight through just to see if I could do it and see how long it took me (since I haven't really jogged in like 11 months. Well, right into it I was already tired and wanted to stop but i pressed on. I did it without stopping but it was a horrible time, 12:38 at a speed of 4.7-5.0 and my heart rate stayed in the mid to high 170's. Man am I out of shape.

I will keep you updated on how the training goes. I am looking fwd to getting in shape!

Chrissy

feeling sick?

Last week Erick and I both got sick. I can't remember the last time I was sick like that. It was a bad stomach bug of some sort. I never recall my tummy hurting so bad. I was sitting there praying for God to make it go away, to get the sickness out. It got me to thinking... we hate being physically sick, we do not like feeling bad or being in pain. We moan and groan and beg and plea for it to go away so we can feel better. Don't you think we should be that way spiritually as well? I mean think about it. When you are sick, you clearly have signs that you are; you can feel it and see it. What about when you are spiritually unhealthy? Shouldn't we feel sick when we are falling away from God? Are there signs, symptoms, pains, moans, praying to get better? Do we crave feeling spiritually healthy as much as we crave feeling physically healthy? Shouldn't we? Even more so maybe? We should be able to tell when we are "sick" spiritually. We should know the signs, feel the pain, see the destruction, seek out help to "feel better", etc. It would be great if we treated our spiritual lives that way... not wanting one hint of "sickness" to creep in to bring us down and hold us back from living the life we are meant to live. As much as we hate being sick and feeling bad, we should despise being away from God and do whatever we can to restore our "health". We should be on our knees crying out to God to draw us closer, to forgive us, to restore us, to cleanse us, to take away anything hindering us, etc. We should not want to remain "sick", the pain of it should be overwhelming and pushing us to get better.

Salvation

What does the bible say about salvation?

What is it?

Salvation-
• in my bible it is defined as redemption
• in the english dictionary it is defined as Preservation or deliverance from destruction, difficulty, or evil. n 1: (Christianity) the act of delivering from sin or saving from evil [syn: redemption] 2: a means of preserving from harm or unpleasantness; 3: the state of being saved or preserved from harm 4: saving someone or something from harm or from an unpleasant situation
• before: dead drowning in sin that overpowers us; after: alive in Christ, power of sin broken

The greek word is soteria which translates to: rescue, safety, deliver, save. He rescues us from any harm, we can no longer be harmed by anything or harm ourselves.


When does it happen?


The change from death to life- Salvation

Romans 6:22 but now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life.

Romans 7:5-6 for when we were controlled by the sinful nature the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies so that we bore fruit for death. But now by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” The law says that we have to be perfect or have eternal separation from God. That was impossible for us, so Christ came to redeem us from that law. This is salvation.

When we choose salvation we are choosing to be united with Christ, associated with Christ, a member of Christ’s family and of his mission. When we accept His salvation it is not a selfish act but it is an act of worship. It should all be about God, not us.

With that in mind, there should be a transformation inside that person so that their life will never be the same again. They are now living for something else instead of for themselves. Everything they do in life should be based on God and His ways. And the ultimate goal in that person’s life should be to want to please God and honor Him with their life because of how awesome He is; this is evident in how much He loves you and what He did for you even though you were filled with sin. It is amazing that He could want us. We have to give our life to Him; make Him the Lord of our lives- this is salvation. Luke 9:24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.

Our lives must try to resemble his as much as we can. 1 John 2:6 Whoever claims to live in Him, must walk as Jesus did. 1 john 3:23-24 this is His command: to believe in the name of His son Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us. Those who obey His commands live in Him and He in them. And this is how we know that He lives in us; we know it by the spirit He gave us.

God is love. To know God is to know love and to live for God is to live in love. All our actions should be led by love. 1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed form death to life cuz we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love, remains in death. 3:18-20 let us not love with words and tongues but with actions and truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence whenever our hearts condemn us.

We are saved by faith. Faith in who Christ is and what he said and promised and in His power. That faith should spur us on to do the things Christ commands us. If someone is saved their life should reflect that. James 2:14 What good is it my brothers if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds. 2:26 as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. Therefore, if someone has a lifestyle of purposefully committing sin, I would say that person prolly does not know God. Matt 7:16 by their fruit you will recognize them. Yes we all sin daily, but when we are in Christ we are striving to pull away from that sin and become more like Christ. Read pretty much all of Romans 7 and 8.


Who does the saving?

Deut 32:39 "See now that I myself am He! There is no God besides me. I put to death and I bring to life. I have wounded and I will heal. And no one can deliver out of my hand
Nobody is worthy of God’s love, not one is good.

Matt 19:16-26 read it

Romans 3:10-12 there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.

There is no way we can say on our own that we were saved. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves, nothing that shows us worthy. He loves us so much that he offers us life and all we do is accept that love. He chose us while we were engrossed in the evil of this world. Works do not save us. Love saves us in grace through faith in Christ. We do works because we are saved and that salvation moves us to good works. We do not rely on those works for salvation.
Gal 3:11 clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith.
Gal 5:4 you who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

God is the one who saves us. He offers the gift of salvation freely. He chose us before we even existed, before we could chose Him. How could we chose Him if we didn’t know He existed? He revealed Himself to us. If He didn’t do that, then we would not be able to chose Him. Romans 3:20 therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law, rather through the law we become conscious of sin.

Eph 1:4 for He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight

Vs 9 and he made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Christ.

Eph 2:8-9 for it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works so that no one can boast.


Can we become unsaved again?

John 10:28-29 I give them eternal life and they shall never perish, no one can snatch them out of my hand, my father who has given them to me is greater than all, no one can snatch them out of my fathers hand.

This says that we have eternal life. That means from the moment we accept life, we have it eternally. When we accept we are united with Christ. He is in us and us in Him. We may not always act in His ways but nevertheless we are still in Him. We can not overpower God’s love for us.

Romans 8:38-39 (paraphrase) nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, no angel or demon or even ourselves.

If we say we can do something to loose our salvation then basically we are saying that works take part in salvation. We would be saying that we have to do something to deserve salvation. We know this is not true, as stated above in scripture (eph 2:8-9) Works have nothing to do with receiving salvation so they can have nothing to do with taking it away.

We are perfect in God’s eyes once we are saved cuz He looks at us through Jesus. Hebrews 10:14 because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. Coll 3:3 for you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

How funny does it sound to say… today I have been really good so if I die today I will go to heaven, then the next day say today I have been really bad so if I die today then I will go to hell? To say that would be to say that our daily actions determine our eternity.

Rom 6:23 The wages of sin is death, the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus.
He is our savior, He redeems us from that death we deserve and gives us eternal life. He has overcome death, death is no more when we are in Christ. 2tim 1:9-11 “…Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel…”