This is Honest Jill..
This morning our leadership training group got together and went over a few scenarios and how we would or should react. So there was some role playing going on. I realized, that I am horrible at role playing...I tense up, my mind goes blank...bla bla bla.
This really kinda bothered me, cuz of course Satan then told me (like he does all the time) that I can't do what I am supposed to be doing. and that is building people and being in relationships with people.
But the other day, my dear friend sent me some verses, or chapters more like it! And i would like to share. Because I was just thinking how I struggle so badly, to see things through God's perspective and to embrace people and myself and Him and to be the godly woman God has called me to be, who He is molding me to be, i fail all the time. and i tend to be quite hard on myself. BUT, Jesus has made me victorious, and will continue to mold me, and to pick me up...(Thank you Father for grace and never letting go!)
1 Corinthians 12 (read all of 12-31 PLEASE!)
"The Body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many; they form one body...Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it." (verse 1 and 27 in short!)
We all have a special part. we all have the same Spirit of God inside of us. We are all ONE body. I don't know how to get my excitement and realization across from this, but I pray that myself, and all of us walk in this truth. and strive for this to be true in our lives, and in our relationships and in our mindsets. Lift each other up, die to yourself, embrace others, embrace LIFE, and walk in truth and in confidence. We have something to be confident about, and that is that we have the Spirit of God inside of us!!!! We need to stop walking around defeated and start walking victorious. (im talking to myself here!)
"I'm a treasure in the arms of Christ." Sanctus Real
Monday, April 5, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
This week God has kinda been showing me a lot...but one thing that I really want to share is this:
He hit me with this reality...
I have the Spirit of the Living God inside of me. The same Spirit that comforted Jesus in His times of need, the same Spirit that gave the Apostles the power to do miracles, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead! Amongst so many other things...this same Spirit, is living inside of ME.
I know we all "know" this. But if we would really let this truth permeate in us, we would look at ourselves a lot differently. this is where i struggle with most. we would also live differently, treat people differently, act differently.
you see, i feel like we walk outside of grace, all the time. especially with ourselves. and often times with other people as well.
But the truth is, I have the Holy Spirit inside of me. I can know what to say to people, what to pray, what to do in my day, because He is inside of me, leading me, guiding me. I can be confident in who I am, becasue the Holy Spirit is my strength. I can have no shame, and walk in the person I am created to be, walk in the love of God. I can endure people, I can understand the Bible, I can have the fruit of the Spirit because the Spirit who gives gives all understanding and wisdom and knowledge and fruit, is INSIDE OF ME!
(do you get the point?!)
This realization and truth, is changing my sight. My view. Of myself. Which is what I needed. I don't have to dislike myself, be frustrated with myself and my failures, because the Holy Spirit is inside of me, and God is full of grace that I can walk in every moment. I can dwell on the goodness of God and all the other stuff fades away.
So just get to know Jesus. Spend time with Jesus. Realize that the Spirit of the Living God is inside of you and walk in grace at every moment. Focus on God.
The Holy Spirit is our strength. The joy of the Lord is our strength.
He hit me with this reality...
I have the Spirit of the Living God inside of me. The same Spirit that comforted Jesus in His times of need, the same Spirit that gave the Apostles the power to do miracles, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead! Amongst so many other things...this same Spirit, is living inside of ME.
I know we all "know" this. But if we would really let this truth permeate in us, we would look at ourselves a lot differently. this is where i struggle with most. we would also live differently, treat people differently, act differently.
you see, i feel like we walk outside of grace, all the time. especially with ourselves. and often times with other people as well.
But the truth is, I have the Holy Spirit inside of me. I can know what to say to people, what to pray, what to do in my day, because He is inside of me, leading me, guiding me. I can be confident in who I am, becasue the Holy Spirit is my strength. I can have no shame, and walk in the person I am created to be, walk in the love of God. I can endure people, I can understand the Bible, I can have the fruit of the Spirit because the Spirit who gives gives all understanding and wisdom and knowledge and fruit, is INSIDE OF ME!
(do you get the point?!)
This realization and truth, is changing my sight. My view. Of myself. Which is what I needed. I don't have to dislike myself, be frustrated with myself and my failures, because the Holy Spirit is inside of me, and God is full of grace that I can walk in every moment. I can dwell on the goodness of God and all the other stuff fades away.
So just get to know Jesus. Spend time with Jesus. Realize that the Spirit of the Living God is inside of you and walk in grace at every moment. Focus on God.
The Holy Spirit is our strength. The joy of the Lord is our strength.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Beautiful Life comes from a Grateful Heart
This morning God just kinda hit me with this thought... My life, is completely beautiful. This journey I am on, is a beautiful journey. It is a journey where living with people, living in biblical community, learning to love people in a way I never have before, falling more in love with God each day, learning how to deal with things in the midst of always being around people....is so beautiful. Not everyone has this. And I feel like I have been taking it all for granted so far. I havent been seeing the privelage of living this way. The perks of living this way, the blessings of living this way. and God kinda opened my eyes this morning.
It helps that He has been teaching me about having a grateful heart. And He has been in the process of softening my heart a lot. and with that, comes a grateful heart. the ability to see things the way God does. To see the blessings, and appreciate them. To see the people, and love them. To see all that God has done, is doing, and will continue to do, and feeling like you are living the life He has for you and loving it.
It is a beautiful thing.
"Enter His gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. give thanks to him and priase his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations." Psalm 100:4-5
It helps that He has been teaching me about having a grateful heart. And He has been in the process of softening my heart a lot. and with that, comes a grateful heart. the ability to see things the way God does. To see the blessings, and appreciate them. To see the people, and love them. To see all that God has done, is doing, and will continue to do, and feeling like you are living the life He has for you and loving it.
It is a beautiful thing.
"Enter His gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. give thanks to him and priase his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations." Psalm 100:4-5
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
God's Love
My heart feels very fragile right now. And I know that it is God completely transforming my heart and making it His own. Which is very needed.
One thing that in the last couple days God has kinda spoken to me about, and that my heart is just crying out for...(which there is a lot..but this is just a piece!) is to speak and boast in His Love. It just kind of hit me...that I tend not to focus on God's love a whole lot. I tend to not actually talk about God's love for me, and for His people, to His people. Which as a believer and lover of Jesus Christ, this is not very good. And with God softening my heart and molding it, this is something that He is just pouring into me. I just need courage and boldness from His Spirit to walk in His love, to boast in His love, and to have it as my focus.
I want to encourage. I want to speak Love. I want to live Loved.
"...for our of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks."
Matthew 12: 34
If my heart is overflowing with the Love of God, the words that come out of my mouth will be honoring to God. This is one of the desires of my heart.
P.S.
I really like God's word. Like, a lot!
One thing that in the last couple days God has kinda spoken to me about, and that my heart is just crying out for...(which there is a lot..but this is just a piece!) is to speak and boast in His Love. It just kind of hit me...that I tend not to focus on God's love a whole lot. I tend to not actually talk about God's love for me, and for His people, to His people. Which as a believer and lover of Jesus Christ, this is not very good. And with God softening my heart and molding it, this is something that He is just pouring into me. I just need courage and boldness from His Spirit to walk in His love, to boast in His love, and to have it as my focus.
I want to encourage. I want to speak Love. I want to live Loved.
"...for our of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks."
Matthew 12: 34
If my heart is overflowing with the Love of God, the words that come out of my mouth will be honoring to God. This is one of the desires of my heart.
P.S.
I really like God's word. Like, a lot!
Monday, January 18, 2010
Just a snippet
Seeking God:
One thing I am praying right now that I learn, and that I am in the midst of learning and forever will be learning I feel because there is so much to learn on this one subject! let alone so many others!!
So here are my thoughts:
Seeking God is and should be the center of our actions, our attitudes, our thoughts...
All through our lives we will either be seeking God, or we won't be seeking God. About every story in the Bible, in its essence, whether it was meant to be shown or not, is about whether the people are seeking God, or not seeking God. When we seek God, we are fixing our eyes on Jesus, on God's ways, His Holiness and power and forgetting ourselves.
There are so many verses in the bible, on seeking God.
a few are:
Luke 11:9 "So i say to you: Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and you will find knock and the door will be opened to you." Are you seeking God like you would search for a hidden treasure?!?!
John 15:7 "If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you." Keep your focus on God, keep His words and His statutes in your heart and mind and seek Him and you will find and receive what it is you desire and long for IN HIM!
Right now i am reading Fearless by Max Lucado and this is an excerpt from the book.
"Seek first the kingdom of wealth, and you'll worry over every dollar. Seek first the kingdom of health, and you'll sweat every blemish and bump. Seek first the kingdom of popularity and you'll relive every conflict. Seek first the kingdom of safety, and you'll jump at every crack of the twig. But seek first his kingdom, and you will find it. On that, we can depend and never worry."
We will always be seeking something, whether we are aware of this or not. So my prayer is that we are aware of what it is we are seeking. and that we are seeking God in all things. and submitting ourselves to His ways and to never stop seeking Him.
"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33
One thing I am praying right now that I learn, and that I am in the midst of learning and forever will be learning I feel because there is so much to learn on this one subject! let alone so many others!!
So here are my thoughts:
Seeking God is and should be the center of our actions, our attitudes, our thoughts...
All through our lives we will either be seeking God, or we won't be seeking God. About every story in the Bible, in its essence, whether it was meant to be shown or not, is about whether the people are seeking God, or not seeking God. When we seek God, we are fixing our eyes on Jesus, on God's ways, His Holiness and power and forgetting ourselves.
There are so many verses in the bible, on seeking God.
a few are:
Luke 11:9 "So i say to you: Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and you will find knock and the door will be opened to you." Are you seeking God like you would search for a hidden treasure?!?!
John 15:7 "If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you." Keep your focus on God, keep His words and His statutes in your heart and mind and seek Him and you will find and receive what it is you desire and long for IN HIM!
Right now i am reading Fearless by Max Lucado and this is an excerpt from the book.
"Seek first the kingdom of wealth, and you'll worry over every dollar. Seek first the kingdom of health, and you'll sweat every blemish and bump. Seek first the kingdom of popularity and you'll relive every conflict. Seek first the kingdom of safety, and you'll jump at every crack of the twig. But seek first his kingdom, and you will find it. On that, we can depend and never worry."
We will always be seeking something, whether we are aware of this or not. So my prayer is that we are aware of what it is we are seeking. and that we are seeking God in all things. and submitting ourselves to His ways and to never stop seeking Him.
"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
A call to Unity among God's People
I love reading books about people's lives. I love reading the Bible about peoples lives and Jesus' life. I love learning. like, LOVE learning(that is, if its something i want to learn about!) and I'm realizing that I need to spend soo much more time learning and studying God's word.
As well as just reading. and learning from other people who have experienced God in their lives.
So for the past like year (yes i read like 5 books at once which then takes me forever to finish) i have been reading The Heavenly Man. I picked it up again yesterday, and read for about 2-3 hours. I love this book. I highly suggest it to ALL OF YOU! It's about this man, Yun, and His life and His desire and longing and love for God. He is in prison for a lot of His life. He fasted for 74 days in prison, was humiliated and tortured beyond anything we here in America can even imagine. and yet amidst it all, He stayed faithful to Jesus. He remembered Jesus' sufferings, and He had joy. He reached thousands of inmates and guards in these Chinese prisons. God's story through Him is incredible, and scriptures that He recited just come alive in a new way.
But at one time in his life, He is out of prison and is working with all the house churches in China. He is realizing that so many of them are not unified. They are not the way they used to be where they all relied on God and all sought God. Now, they were all starting to believe different theologies, and not being willing to work with other believers because they believed in different things (like women preaching, or different denominations). they were being separated because of all the resources and influence of other people's beliefs. they were taking their eyes off of God and onto themselves. They were zealous for God, but not in the right knowledge of God.
For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Romans 10:2
Yun noticed this, and vowed that it had to change. That it was not biblical. It was not the way Jesus lived. Yun sought out people, and prayed to God earnestly for this. For unity among the hosue churches and people. He started discipling the people in his own church. He reached out to other leaders in other churches that he knew, and soon enough they all were broken and realized that their eyes needed to be on Jesus and not on all the different types of beliefs. But on one belief, and that belief being Jesus Christ!
God put this on Brother Yun's heart in 1994. and He hasn't stopped with him or in China. Ever since JEsus' life and the church of Acts. God has been calling His children to be unified. We just so often miss it. We are to fixed on ourselves. or what other people are telling us. We have so many resources out there in the Christian world, telling us what's right and what's wrong in the church. all these different beliefs on how to live for Jesus. But what happened to just simply believing and living the word of God!?! We are all called to be unified. To be a community. To love each other. Why are we so focused on ourselves?! and so focused on other people believing differently than us?! If we all believe in the same God, same Jesus, we are one. We can settle the differences, rather then let them turn into bitterness. There is love.
Unity keeps love and keeps the focus on One being.
My prayer is that all our eyes are opened, and that we choose to love and to be united and that "our hearts will be conquered by God's love!"
"They found that their theological differences centered upon issues that weren't essential to the faith." Brother Yun.
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. Acts 4:32
As well as just reading. and learning from other people who have experienced God in their lives.
So for the past like year (yes i read like 5 books at once which then takes me forever to finish) i have been reading The Heavenly Man. I picked it up again yesterday, and read for about 2-3 hours. I love this book. I highly suggest it to ALL OF YOU! It's about this man, Yun, and His life and His desire and longing and love for God. He is in prison for a lot of His life. He fasted for 74 days in prison, was humiliated and tortured beyond anything we here in America can even imagine. and yet amidst it all, He stayed faithful to Jesus. He remembered Jesus' sufferings, and He had joy. He reached thousands of inmates and guards in these Chinese prisons. God's story through Him is incredible, and scriptures that He recited just come alive in a new way.
But at one time in his life, He is out of prison and is working with all the house churches in China. He is realizing that so many of them are not unified. They are not the way they used to be where they all relied on God and all sought God. Now, they were all starting to believe different theologies, and not being willing to work with other believers because they believed in different things (like women preaching, or different denominations). they were being separated because of all the resources and influence of other people's beliefs. they were taking their eyes off of God and onto themselves. They were zealous for God, but not in the right knowledge of God.
For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Romans 10:2
Yun noticed this, and vowed that it had to change. That it was not biblical. It was not the way Jesus lived. Yun sought out people, and prayed to God earnestly for this. For unity among the hosue churches and people. He started discipling the people in his own church. He reached out to other leaders in other churches that he knew, and soon enough they all were broken and realized that their eyes needed to be on Jesus and not on all the different types of beliefs. But on one belief, and that belief being Jesus Christ!
God put this on Brother Yun's heart in 1994. and He hasn't stopped with him or in China. Ever since JEsus' life and the church of Acts. God has been calling His children to be unified. We just so often miss it. We are to fixed on ourselves. or what other people are telling us. We have so many resources out there in the Christian world, telling us what's right and what's wrong in the church. all these different beliefs on how to live for Jesus. But what happened to just simply believing and living the word of God!?! We are all called to be unified. To be a community. To love each other. Why are we so focused on ourselves?! and so focused on other people believing differently than us?! If we all believe in the same God, same Jesus, we are one. We can settle the differences, rather then let them turn into bitterness. There is love.
Unity keeps love and keeps the focus on One being.
My prayer is that all our eyes are opened, and that we choose to love and to be united and that "our hearts will be conquered by God's love!"
"They found that their theological differences centered upon issues that weren't essential to the faith." Brother Yun.
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. Acts 4:32
Monday, December 14, 2009
Amazing Grace
God has been teaching me a lot about His Grace within this past month, and most recently He has kinda pointed His grace out to me once again.
Just this past week I was finding life a little complacent...i tend to get bored with life and myself if change is not occuring in my life. I thrive off of change and new things in life for the most part. But what I want to share is this:
Sometimes, I really wish we could show God our love for Him and serve Him in our own strength. But this my friends, is impossible, as I am learning. There is nothing good in me. No strength in me to live a godly life. I NEED God's Spirit to guide me. To help me to love Him better. To serve my Savior and to liv a life of love. I cannot do it on my own. I will always fail if I try. So this past week God has really shown me (once again) how weak I am, and how strong He is. Also that IT IS OKAY to need Him to love Him. He actually really likes it that way. It keeps us remembering who He is, and who we are! Having that reverence for a Holy God whom we cannot live without!
2 Corinthians 12:10
For the sake of Christ then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Just this past week I was finding life a little complacent...i tend to get bored with life and myself if change is not occuring in my life. I thrive off of change and new things in life for the most part. But what I want to share is this:
Sometimes, I really wish we could show God our love for Him and serve Him in our own strength. But this my friends, is impossible, as I am learning. There is nothing good in me. No strength in me to live a godly life. I NEED God's Spirit to guide me. To help me to love Him better. To serve my Savior and to liv a life of love. I cannot do it on my own. I will always fail if I try. So this past week God has really shown me (once again) how weak I am, and how strong He is. Also that IT IS OKAY to need Him to love Him. He actually really likes it that way. It keeps us remembering who He is, and who we are! Having that reverence for a Holy God whom we cannot live without!
2 Corinthians 12:10
For the sake of Christ then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
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