faithful

I think today is a good day for a post that is short and sweet. Here we go.

The Lord answers prayer.

He is faithful.

He hears us when we call his name.

He is eternal.

Rejoice in Him always.

"But You are always the same, and You will live forever." Psalm 102:27

"Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again - Rejoice!" Philippians 4:4

Sometimes it is difficult to praise the Lord in all of our circumstances, but He calls us to do so. And when we do as He commands, our stresses and worries fall away, and His peace that we receive is astounding.

grace and the imperfect

God has really been trying to get a hold of me lately, and for some reason, I'm fighting against it. It's shocking to realize how different my relationship with Christ has been in the past several months because of a lack of spending time with Him.

This post is an attempt to be honest. Honest so that it's relatable. Honest so that maybe I can connect with someone on another level and they can see that we aren't perfect. That's so important to understand. We are not perfect.

But God is.



You see, the beautiful thing about being imperfect is that God doesn't expect us to be perfect. That's what Jesus died for. There is no pressure on us to be the perfect Christian. Sin happens, but God's grace covers it all. Christ accepts us just as we are. He meets us where we are regardless of what we've done or what we're continuing to do. This doesn't mean that you have free reign to do whatever you want, but when Christ works in your favor, suddenly sin doesn't seem so appealing. When you receive Christ, you are a new creation. You, as a new creation, gain a new perspective on life, an eternal perspective.

"This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" 2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT

Remember: you don't do works to receive salvation. You do works because you have been saved. You do God's work because when Christ is in your life, doing anything else doesn't seem to make sense.

I constantly feel like I'm fighting against so many things in my walk with the Lord. I sometimes feel like I want to give up and just give in to sin. Things would seemingly be easier that way. But all sin does is destroy the true joy and peace and love that we experience when in the presence of the Almighty.

The next step is to take what seems like a chore and turn it into the relationship. Think about the things that God has done for you in your life. Remind yourself why you began to follow Him in the first place. Think about your actions and the consequences they lead to. Once you grasp that God's grace is more than enough, Christ will miraculously transform your mind and, more importantly, your heart.

the potter and the clay

Again, I'm posting to say that every day, I am changed by the Father. The past several weeks have been a little difficult. The reason being that it's quite a struggle to let go and let God take complete control of your life. Especially for me. I can be a little bit of a control freak.

Have you heard the song "Blessed Be Your Name" by Matt Redman? The bridge in that song says, "You give and take away." Well, I'm currently experiencing the second half of that phrase. I can honestly say I've never had to live this out before, and if I have, I just never took into account that it was God working in me. At the time being, everything that I thought I wanted is floating up in the air, and I'm beginning at square one. I'm starting over. God has taken away the things that I thought I wanted so that He can really do something with my life. It's very humbling, but the humility that I am learning is something that I treasure more as time goes on. While I may not know at all what I want, I believe that the Lord will start filling my heart with desires that are pleasing to Him.

Let's talk about the potter and the clay comparison for a moment.

Jeremiah 18:3-6 says, "So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, 'Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?' declares the Lord. 'Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.'"

The Lord demonstrates that He is the potter and we are the clay. This passage is specifically talking about God taking control over Israel because of the evil that has engulfed it. But we can look at this in a more personal way. If God is the potter, and we are the clay, God has a plan for our lives just as the potter has a plan for the clay he is shaping in his hands. If the potter sees an imperfection in the clay, he breaks down the clay to rebuild it into the beautiful pot that he had planned for it. In this same way, when God sees something in us that He wants to change, He breaks us down so that He can build us back up into the beautiful creation that He had planned all along.

I heard a sermon in the past year that centered around this passage, and the pastor speaking said something that has stuck with me ever since then: when the potter is shaping the clay, he never tells the clay what he will turn it into. In the same way, we don't have any right to demand God to tell us what it is He's creating in us. We have to allow God to work in us and have faith that He will guide us every step of the way without questioning Him or giving up on His plan for our lives.

This brings me to my current reality. I honestly believe that God has been breaking me down so the HE can be the one to build me back up. Since I am, like I said previously, starting at square one, I pretty much have no choice but to go in the direction that the Lord is leading me. And while this is quite intimidating and I have absolutely NO CLUE where the Lord is leading me, I know that just by following His lead and His example, He will create something beautiful in me that can and will be used for His glory. Not only that, but He will lead me to have a fulfilling life with no regrets.