and we pray

sorry for the long hiatus in my blogging but im back.

Anyways... we pray. What do we pray for? Do we pray for others? Do we pray for ourselves? Why do you pray... odds are its a selfish reason. i feel like we buy in to a trap that says if we pray for things we want God has to give them to us and this simply is not truth. The truth is we are completely under the dominion of God and we cannot make him do anything. He has no obligation whatsoever to answer our prayers like we want him to. When we are sick we pray for healing... what if God wants us to learn to trust through our long suffering? What if he wants us to learn dependency through our weakness? Well then, what good would getting better quickly do? A lot for your physical needs but you would be deprived spiritually. God grows us through our hardships and trials. Next time you pray ask God for his will, ask God for trials and hard things to overtake you so you can learn what it is to be in full dependency of God and his providential grace. He has already given you the grace before the trial even comes, you just need to learn what it looks like and what he is trying to teach you. If your life was roses and sunshine all the time how would you ever learn to appreciate the rain? Even though rain keeps you bound inside and it looks gloomy and depressing it feeds life. It rejuvenates the ground and breaths life and refreshing into the plants,   the same way trials are hard, but when you trust God and get through them you realize how much he was there holding you and renewing your mind and spirit through them. Stay steadfast and recognize and embrace his grace in every circumstance. Grace and peace and love in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus bring the rain.

Cigarettes and coffee

We all have addictions, we all have a vice. We all have a past that haunts us, but there is hope. The things that bind you to this world are fleeting, they are simple, they are escapable. Christ makes us more than conquerors, he makes us heirs. The Lord of all can free you from the trappings of this world. Don't dwell on the past, the mistakes, the pain. Focus instead on the upward goal of Christ in our lives, focus on your renewing and repentance. If you hold onto things you cannot change you are forsaking the Grace of God, and also failing to see the beauty of your failures. We are all human, flesh, and sin. We all have fallen short of the glory of God, considerably. There is nothing in your life God has not used for good. He works all things for the good of those who love him. Make the choice this day to say "Lord i am letting go of these trivial things that haunt me, i am embracing your grace. i am choosing to see the beauty you have placed in my life....in every moment." You are free.

Romans 7

Believers United to Christ

 ¹Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?

 ²For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband.

 ³So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.

 ⁴Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

 ⁵For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

 ⁶But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

 ⁷What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET."

 ⁸But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.

 ⁹I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died;

 ¹⁰and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me;

 ¹¹for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment,deceived me and through it killed me.

 ¹²So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

 ¹³Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

The Conflict of Two Natures

 ¹⁴For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.

 ¹⁵For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.

 ¹⁶But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.

 ¹⁷So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

 ¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.

 ¹⁹For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.

 ²⁰But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

 ²¹I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.

 ²²For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,

 ²³but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.

 ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

 ²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

living it

Living.....breathing.....moving....working....sleeping. Life, the drudgery that becomes us? Not so much.... it is what we make it. If we make life menial and trivialize every little thing that upsets us we begin to change, we begin to harbor resentment towards things that we never payed half a thought to before. Think about it... is your life really that bad? Do you really have it that hard? Are you trying to glorify your trials by magnifying them to everyone in hopes of consoling or sympathy? Maybe you do have it that bad..... but nevertheless, stop complaining. Everything we have is by grace, God gives us trials to shape us and make us stronger. He will never give you more than you can handle going through. Maybe you cant go through it because your to busy complaining and pitying yourself instead of focusing on the goal ahead? Romans 8:18 "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Instead of nursing sorrow and dwelling on your trials hardships, focus on the glory ahead, the promises that are to be given to us! Sometimes we make the hardships of our trials our glory. (GLORY: something that is a source of honor, fame, or admiration; a distinguished ornament or an object of pride). Why? Why do we glorify our hardships? Because of an issue of pride. We want people to know that we are suffering and battling through it, as if it is by our own strength. Instead glorify God in your struggles, glorify him and admonish your sinful desire inside to glorify yourself. Instead let your praise be to the one who carries you through your hardships and declare his good works to the world. Psalm 96:3 "Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples."

Prayer for love

I pray, Father, that out of your glorious riches you may strengthen me with power through your Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith. And I pray that I, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all I ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within me, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.