My Prayer for Today

The last thing I wrote in my prayer journal today was this..."Have me to be more like Jesus and less like Ashley." The closer I draw to God, the more I see how bad I truly am--I see my sin so much clearer and I realize how underserving I am of God's mercy. Each day I want to become more like His son, who didn't give into temptation, who loved the people who were hard to love, who put others before himself, and who lived in the light. Ashley gives into temptation all the time, Ashley finds it easier to love those who love her, Ashley can be selfish and puts herself first a lot of the time, and there are areas of darkness in Ashley's life. My desire is to let go of myself everyday and gain more of Christ in the process. And that is my prayer for today.

A Verse Left Not Underlined

Today I was reading 1 John 3. 1 John is one of my most highlighted and underlined books in my Bible. I was reading through this passage and stopped when I got to verse 6. Then I read verse 6 again. And again. And again.  I took a break and a few hours later, I read it again. This verse hits super DEEP! "Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is." Woah!  That's intense! Here's the thing, I have verses BEFORE verse 6 underlined, and I have verses AFTER verse 6 underlined, but verse 1 John 3:6 IS NOT underlined in my Bible! Why? Well, I would say because I wrestle with it. This verse doesn't give me a warm, happy feeling. This verse nauseates me. It makes me sick! It makes me analyze myself. This verse has been on my mind all day! Do I understand who HE is? Do I? Do I sincerely know HIM? Because if I do, there's a lot a junk in my life that shouldn't be going on. There are words I say, thoughts I think, desires I want that quite honestly should not be in my life. Today---I have really had to evaluate myself. Read this verse. Read it over and over and over and over again. It will lead you to your knees. 

Minimizing Sin = Minimizing God's Forgiveness

The other day I read an excerpt out of C.S. Lewis' "The Weight of Glory." One thing he mentioned was that we tend to make excuses for our sin. We want to justify our sin to make us feel better about ourselves. Lewis states, "Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin, the sin that is left over without any excuse, after all allowances have been made, and seeing it in all its horror, dirt, meanness, and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled tot he man who has done it. That, and only that, is forgiveness, and that we can always have from God if we ask for it." These few sentences really convicted me. There will be times that I pray to God for forgiveness and I'm not specific. I just ask for God to forgive me for where I've failed Him because I'm too ashamed and embarrassed to verbally tell God what I'm struggling with. I feel like if I leave it unspoken, then the sin isn't as bad. The truth is, we need to see how bad our sin is. When we look at it for what it is, God's mercy is that much greater. When we minimize the sin then we minimize God's forgiveness. 

⁴¹ Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other. ⁴² But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”

 ⁴³ Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”

   “That’s right,” Jesus said.-Luke 7:41-43

A Radical Love Letter

I just finished reading David Platt's "Radical Together" and the book is intense! I underlined every other word. The book is challenging and will really get you thinking about some things. Platt does a good job of incorporating real life stories to back up his theory/idea for how ministry should be done and one that really sparked my attention was a story about a man named Adoniram Judson. Judson was a missionary and fell in love with a girl named Ann. This was the letter Judson wrote to Ann's father before he asked her to marry him:
         
       "I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all of this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?"


This is what I wrote in my book after that::

My mouth dropped after reading this letter. Judson didn't sugar coat what marriage was going to be like, but he did make it crystal clear on what sharing the gospel would mean for him and his future wife. I look at this as a love letter. The thing is, it's a not a love letter expressing his feelings for Ann, it's one that's expressing his love for Christ.


 Ann's father approved and in the end, living the missionary life cost Ann her life. I wish I had more to say about reading this, but the letter seems to speak for itself. How radical are we willing to be? As radical as Adoniram Judson? 

Heaven

Last night, I went to a 10th Avenue North concert. I wasn't expected to be blessed the way I was afterwards. The lead singer was so intentional with his audience, it was crazy! It was unlike any other Christian concert I'd been to before...this was worship! At one point during the concert he asked everyone to lift their hands up in the air--not for attention, not to act holier than thou, but to cry out to our Father, to show that we are humbled and we need Him. I looked around and got goosebumps. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. This concert was held at Cardinal Stadium in Louisville and it wasn't even half way full. My guess would be that there was about 10,000 people in attendance and to see half a stadium of people with their arms lifted was so AWEsome. But then I started thinking, this is only a teeny tiny glimpse of what heaven is going to be like. This was just a few thousand people from the Kentucky and Indiana area. What would it look like if the entire nation was in front of God doing this? What would it look like if it was the whole world? How about with ALL the children of God from centuries before us until present day? All of this thinking made my head hurt, but it blew my mind away! It really made me think how incredible heaven is going to be and how GREAT our God is! This picture does no justice for what I saw last night because this was just a fraction of the stadium and it certainly does no justice to what heaven will look like. Amen! 

"And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. They sang: "Blessing and honor and glory and power  belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever!" -Revelation 5:13

He Goes Before Us

Lately, I've been studying 1 Corinthians and I came across a passage that really encouraged me. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul is writing to the people of Corinth and he tells them to remember their ancestors who had to travel in the wilderness. "I don't want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground." -1 Corinthians 10:1


After reading this, I went back and read Exodus 33 where Moses is speaking to God about leading the Israelites out of Egypt and the Lord told him, "I will personally go with you, Moses, and I will give you rest--everything will be fine with you." -Exodus 33:14


The Lord went ahead of the Israelites. It was God who led them out of Egypt because HE went before them. Going back to 1 Corinthians, Paul continues to write, "The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted he will show you a way out so that you can endure." -1 Corinthians 10:13


Paul tells us that the Lord is ALWAYS with us, and not only is He with us, He's in front of us, showing us the way. Paul was encouraging the Corinthians and he's encouraging us not to forget how God provided for the Israelites when they wandered in the wilderness. Just how God provided for them He provides for us today. He leads us and provides us a way out. He leads us out of our own Egypt (our sin, our temptations, our struggles) and leads us to the Promised Land (a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ).

Thanks to my Secret Santa this summer, I have a really awesome book that I'm so excited to own::"A Year With C.S. Lewis." I love C.S. Lewis and this book allows me to read little segments of some of his best work every single day. What I read today was kinda interesting, but I think he has a valid point::

"If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither."-from Mere Christianity 

Reading this reminded me of James 2:10, "For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God's laws." 

We tend to look at sins and rank them in a certain order to make us feel better about ourselves. We seem to think that lying isn't as bad as adultery and that stealing isn't as bad as murder. I feel like we get so consumed with setting our own rules and boundaries to what we believe God thinks, but we forget that God's ways are higher than ours. He doesn't think the same way we do and just because we see sexual sin as being worse than lying or stealing, doesn't mean that God sees it that way. We like to think that God sees things the same way that we do, but the truth is, He doesn't because He is God and we are not.

It was striking to see C.S. Lewis say that a regular church goer might be closer to hell than a prostitute, but I believe his statement could be quite true.