Music Monday: Tomorrow

This song deals with not sweating your day and giving it over to Jesus. We don't know what will happen tomorrow but He's in control.  Tomorrow could hold the best day ever or it may even be the worst day of our lives to date. Either way we need to yield to Jesus' authority because He is in control.

Prayer: It's not Awkward

You know how when you see that one person everyday in the hallways at school? Its like a regular thing for you on the way to chemistry. You vaguely know that person's name because you had a class with them like last year. But its awkward. Like you want to say hi but you're not sure if they will reject you and pretend like they’ve never seen you.

Sometimes I feel like that’s the way prayer is. You’re a Christian and stuff and you want to pray because… well because Jesus did it. And if He did it, you should too. However it's kind of awkward to talk out loud to a God you can't physically see.
But trust me, it's not as bad at it can seem. And really prayer is one of the coolest things God has blessed us with. But before I share one way I pray, I am going to explain why we pray.

1.        Like I said before, Jesus did it

·          The Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6: 9-13)

·          John 17

2.        It will keep us from temptation

·          Mark 14:38

3.        God hears our prayers and answers them

·          Mark 11:22-24

So prayer is a pretty sweet deal. We get to talk to God and He will fix all of our problems right? Wrong.

In the garden before Jesus was taken to be slaughtered for our sins, He prayed to the Father that He would take the cup away. He was getting punishment for sins He had never and never would commit. That was going to be Hell. Literally. And Jesus asked if there was any other way to get us out of our sin situation. In the end, however, Jesus said not His will but the Father's will be done (Mark 14:36). Jesus knew that the Father's will would come through so that's what we should pray for.

In Spiderman 3 (the old trilogy) Harry prayed that God would kill Peter Parker. Ironically though, Harry ended up dead. God is not just our genie that sits there saying “Poof, what do you want? Poof, what do you want?” It took me a while to get that and that’s why I like to use the Lord’s Prayer to keep me on track. This is not the only way to pray and its not what I do all the time but I would like to share it with you.

Basically I use the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6: 9-13) as a guide . For each line of the Prayer or two I add something and personalize it. It would be too awkward and not real to write down one of my prayers, however I will explain further:

·          Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be Your name

o    I talk about how holy God is and how I want others to know that and I pray that He will reveal to the people around me how amazing He is.

·          Your kingdom come, Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven

o    I pray about wanting God’s will, not mine, to happen in me, in my friends, and in the whole world.

·          Give us this day our daily bread

o    I pray for the necessities in life: food, water, shelter, and Him. Also I pray to not start thinking all of this, His blessings, is from me and that He will keep me leaning on Him for everything everyday.

·          And forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors

o    I ask for forgiveness of my sins and pray that He will help me forgive others

·          And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one

o    I pray that He will keep me from the things I know are tempting for me so I don’t sin against Him

Breakaway Ministries (a Christian ministry at A&M in Texas) did a 6 week in-depth study  over the Lord’s Prayer and how it’s a guide to prayer. Click the link here to listen to all of them. Ben Stuart did a really great job and that podcast is what helped me expand on the idea of praying the Lord’s Prayer.

Comment Below on ways you like to pray!

Memory Verse Thursday: Matthew 10:32-33

Tuesday night (A school night, I am so cool right? Just kidding!) I saw God's Not Dead with a couple of friends and it got me thinking. After I laughed at a couple of the cheesy parts (Don't worry, I wont spoil anything) I thought about one of the verses they mentioned in the movie: Matthew 10:32-33.

Matthew 10:32-33 (ESV)

 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven,  but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

Jesus had His whole life on earth center around dying on the cross so we could be forgiven of our sins. He took us seriously and wants us to take Him seriously and not be ashamed of Him. At my High School, the majority of the people I interact with are not Christians.  A lot of them don't give a hoot about how much Jesus loves them but I still take Him as a big deal because He took me as a big deal. And when you look at how He talked, He made it clear that we shouldn't just brush Him off.

Music Monday: Jesus Paid it all

With Easter still burning fresh in our minds I have decided that this week's song will reflect on that glorious Easter day.

Jesus seriously did pay it all. This is not just a song. He is God so He left Heaven to live among His sinful creation and then be murdered by them. But, like He said in John 10:17-18, He lay down His life and took it back! Jesus did not stay dead. That however doesn't mean He didn't sacrifice. Jesus is the perfect example of sacrifice and I love how this song explains a small portion of what Jesus did.

Misconceptions About Jesus and Easter

It is Easter Saturday so we are currently in the day the Bible barely talks about. If you read the gospels they go through the last week of Jesus (Mark 11- 16:8 is my fave) and they say what happened on each day including Saturday. This is the day Jesus was laid in the tomb as recorded in Matthew 27:57-66. 

For some reason as a child I thought Jesus spent that day in Hell hiding under some fireproof blanket and stealing the key of Life back from the Devil. That apparently isn't in the gospels ... I feel like there are a lot of more misconceptions about Jesus and Easter. Allow me to just list three (even though there are way more).

1. Easter Sunday (April 20 this year) isn't like the exact day Jesus rose from the dead. Every year the date changes. The way people determine Easter is quiet confusing: it is observed on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, as calculated according to tables based in Western churches on the Gregorian calendar and in Orthodox churches on the Julian calendar according to dictionary.com. 

2. Christ is not Jesus' last name. It took me a while to get that and understand that Jesus is THE Christ. Christ also means Messiah. The Messiah is the One who had been prophesized about  all throughout the Old Testament so when people called Jesus the Christ or Messiah (like Peter in Mark 8:27-30) they were acknowledging who He was.

3. You may have heard this one a lot, or maybe not, but one thing constantly being reinforced in my mind at my church is that Jesus isn't and wasn't a "moral teacher". I love the way C.S. Lewis puts it in Mere Christianity: "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great moral teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

There are many more misconceptions but that's all I want to list now. Since tomorrow is Easter (the second best holiday of the year other than the month of Christmas (the day after Thanksgiving up until the day after Christmas)) I would encourage you to read what Jesus did the day He rose form the dead. On the blogs Lies Young Women Believe (check out their blog) they posted something called the "Best Week Ever" where every day this week they went through passages in the Bible of what Jesus did on that day the week He died. 

I encourage you to read the selections tomorrow (Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20 & also Romans 6:23 & Ephesians 2:1) with me. And comment below if you have had any other misconceptions about Easter.

Easter Memory Verse Wednesday: John 11:25-26

Continuing this wonderful Easter week, I decided to have the verse this week be centered around Jesus’ resurrection and what it did.

John 11:25-26 (ESV)

 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,  and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

A lot of times the death and resurrection of Christ can seem so distant. (It did happen around 2,000 years ago.) I feel a lot of times we hear the story of Jesus as just that: a story. But its not. It’s life. He is life.

As you memorize this verse, remind yourself that this isn’t just another story, it is THE story that shifted you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

Easter Music Monday: This is Amazing Grace

It is the "Holy Week" which means Easter is just around the corner. This week everything on God's Grace will be centered around the best example for grace: the cross!

Today's Easter Music Monday is a song by Phil Wickham: This is Amazing Grace. 

As you listen to the song honestly think about how AMAZING what Jesus did for us is. He took our place on the cross and bore our cross! That is the definition of grace and all week we should be reminded of that. But not just all week, but for the rest of our lives.