11-13-2011

Thank You for today, and for my amazing husband!
Please teach me patience, and not to be so sensitive about things that don't matter!
Lord, I know that you have placed a specific type of adoption on my heart, if it's Your will for us to do this, please place it on Clint's heart also. If we don't have the same heart about this it would be a mistake.
Help Clint to know what to do about a job. The time is coming very soon when we have to make an official decision, and more than anything we want to do what will bring You glory!
I want to pray for a couple of marriages that may or may not work out. Lord open their hearts to You so that they will have Your wisdom figuring out their situations!
Please be with family members, that they will come to TRULY understand what it means to love you, and to follow you whole-heartedly!
Please reveal the sin in our own lives Lord, and teach us to trust You no matter what our circumstances!
Amen
Eph 2:22
"And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit." 

Galations 2

Nov. 3, 2011
Dear Lord,
Thank You for the family I was born into, and for the family that I married into! They are all amazing!
Please teach me and Clint what it means to do every thing we do for Your glory!
I know that if we were to have a baby soon Clint would be thrilled, but we don't want to rush anything that You don't have planned. Please give us wisdom to know what to do in this situation.
Thank You for sending Clint these opportunities to be interviewed with companies he likes, please help us to know exactly what You want us to do on the job front!
Help me to know what route to take for school, and Lord pleaaaaase let it be a quick road! =) I'm tired of school, I'm tired of the jokes, and I'm tired of feeling like people don't believe that I will follow through.
Lord, above all else I pray that You will bring glory to Your name and further Your kingdom through Clint and I both apart and together!
Lord there are people that I need to pray for and You know who they are and You know what they need, Lord I pray for wisdom in each of their situations! Guide them to what You want for them, don't let Satan take things that look like good and use them for evil! You are sovereign, please help us to understand a little bit of the big picture!
Galations 2:14
"When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?"

I realize this verse is talking about Jews Vs. Gentiles, and that is not the same as believer vs. nonbelievers, but when I read this verse that is what I thought of. How is it that we live our lives to blend in with the world, yet so many times expect the world to live as Christ? Aren't we to be the examples? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."
Don't forget what Love is.
1 Cor. 13.

The Next 30 Days

For the next 30 days (well, 29 now) I will be using arise and rebel as a prayer journal.
So
Nov 2, 2011
Dear Lord,
Thank You for today, and for everything You have given me.
Please remind me to keep a positive attitude, because my attitude reflects You.
Thank You for Clint, and for providing him with the Spiritual growth that we need to not only make this marriage last, but to make us both madly in love with each other every day.
Thank You for parents that taught me how to love despite frustrations, and for siblings to practice it on =).
Lord please help Clint and I to know what doors are opened by You, more than anything we want to do Your will. Help us not to get caught up in the things of this world, but to always be concerned with the things of eternity.
Remind us both daily that people are what matter, not our jobs, or our classes, or what neighborhood we live in. People are what we need to be ultimately concerned about!
I know that You always provide a way for the things of Your will, but I ask Lord that You would help me to seek out that way and follow it for next semester. Knowing what You want me to do and doing it are very different. Help me to DO.
Gal. 1:10
"...if I were still trying to please people I would not be a servant of Christ"

Faith like a trampoline

Rob Bell wrote a book a few years ago called "Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith."
Now I have to be honest, I never made it through the entire book, it was too much for me to comprehend, it made me exhausted trying to comprehend everything that was going on in that book, but one analogy that I remember mauling over for some time was the analogy that; perhaps instead of looking at our faith as bricks, we should look at it as a trampoline.
Why?
Think about it, if your faith is made of bricks, one brick after another, and you find out, without a doubt, that one little bitty thing in what you believe is not true, your entire wall of faith comes crashing down around you.
Now maybe this one little bitty thing was an error on someone else's part; the translator's who interpreted the Bible, or maybe it's just a common misconception and we never stopped to think of it differently b/c that's just what everyone has been taught for centuries.
HOWEVER
If your faith is made like a trampoline, it is made up of springs. If you find out that one thing is wrong, you take away a spring and you're faith is still in tact. Maybe a little unsteady until you rebuild that specific spring, but it hasn't completely fallen apart.

NOTE
I am not suggesting that there is anything in the Bible that is untrue, because I don't believe that. I do believe that humans make mistakes, and that there are plenty of things that we may have been taught as kids that are not necessarily truth, like: divorce is never ok, or you should hang out with "good" people, or how we are taught from such a young age that we shouldn't be caught in a sketchy place no matter our intentions b/c of what people might think. Jesus hung out with hookers, and was seen in the homes of thieves.

This has nothing to do with what I wanted to blog about tonight.....
I'm not even sure why I thought of it, it's been a couple years since I even picked that book up.
Oh well, I guess I'll blog about the book of Matthew some other time.  

It's The Law

My senior year in H.S. I went to prom with my gay guy friend. I still take crap for that on occasion.

One of my many major pet peeves is when I'm sitting with a group of people my age all with my same beliefs and I hear the term "faggot" leave their mouth referring to another human being. Or when I hear them say something to the effect of, get me away from that, or let's leave I can't stand it. GROW UP, physically annd spiritually.

I find that homosexuality is a touchy subject among church-eons (yes, I did just make that word up). It sometimes seems like preachers think they get extra points for hitting the "BIG" topics. 'Man, today I talked about politics, drugs, and homosexuality, thats..... 25 points in one sermon!!' When I was younger it seemed like a topic people were afraid to discuss, it was danced around but never stepped on.

These days it's like it's everyone's favorite topic.

Now let me be clear here, and if I offend you I'm sorry, but please read the whole post before you write me off as another judgmental hypocrite because my intention are quite the opposite.

Maybe I should start by stating my intentions: I intend to let you know what is more important that right or wrong. I intend to remind you of what I think we, as Christ's body, sometimes forget.

OK so there are 2 verses in the Bible over this topic, so let's take a look at the most popular one first,

"Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit God's kingdom? Do not be deceived: no sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, revilers, or swindlers will inherit Gods kingdom."

Who hasn't heard that in a sermon right?

what about the next part....

"Some of you were like this; but you were WASHED, you were SANCTIFIED, you were JUSTIFIED in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

-1 cor 6:9-11

Not as commonly used. Quite frankly, until I looked it up I didn't even know that was the next verse. Let's talk about the other part though, who of us have never had something that was more important to us than Christ (IDOLATER), who of us has never wanted just a little bit more after we got something (GREEDY), who of us has never wasted time or money (SWINDLER)? I have done all of those things. Guess what, that puts me in the saame exacct category. SINNER.

Next Verse

"Now we know that the law is not meant for a righteous person, but for the lawless and rebellios, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and irreverent, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral and homosexuals, for kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and for whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching based on the glorious gospel of the blessed God that was entrusted to me."

-1 Timothy 1:9-11

Guess what guys, God is the judge, Jesus is the defense lawyer. It isn't our job to tell someone how horrible we may think they are because they are still GODS creation.

HAND CRAFTED.

MADE IN HIS IMAGE.

THOUGHT OF WAY BEFORE THEIR TIME.

We are called to love

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, sould, mind and strength this is the first and greatest commandment, the second is like it love your neighbor as yourself.

This is who Christ came to love. The hurt, the broken, the sick, the abandoned, the abused, the lost, the lonely, the confused. The people who were kicked out by the holiest of holies in that day, The Pharisees.

Let's try it and see what happens. Go out and befriend a person that the world, or even the church might be apalled by. Show them something different. Rebel against the thinking of this age, arise and become Christs body, reaching, hearing, speaking, GOING.

"But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

-Luke 14:13-14

Make them Wonder

Something I have had on my mind a lot lately is an issue that a lot of people don't even realize is happening.

Human Trafficking.

I'm sure you have heard of Drug Trafficking, and maybe you have heard of Human Trafficking but for a lot of people it's something they think about thousands of miles away. Well let me clue you in. It's not just thousands of miles away, it's right in our back yard.

Human Trafficking- It's exactly what it sounds like, people like me and you are taken, moved locations, and sold for many reasons.

According to the dreamcenter.org there are approx

27 MILLION people in modern-day slavery across the world.

14.5-17.5 THOUSAND people trafficked into the United States EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

50% of people trafficked are children

80% are women or young girls

While the United States is primarily a destination country or a country used primarily to traffic through, that doesn't mean that people don't disappear from our homes to be forced into this kind of situation.

In 06 primetime did a story on a young girl from phoenix who was abducted from her DRIVEWAY for the purpose of Human Trafficking.

In 08 there was a story done on jammedtruesotries.blogspot.com of a H.S. girl from Florida who was kidnapped and sold to a man in Texas.

And these are just the stories of your average kids, not counting the runaways, or the kids who are 'unloved,' thrown aside by parents because they weren't wanted in the first place.

These are just a few statistics, and just the statistics in the States. So today the challenge is to GO

"Therefore go, and make disciples of all nation, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." Matt. 28:19

Start here. This is not the only major issue that gets swept under the rug in the United States. Seek it out, what is the issue, how can we fix it? Who can we minister to, and how?

As christians we are called to be examples for the world. We are the ones that should be out there attempting to love the unloveable, and helping to right the world of the things that have gone so so wrong.

Let's do something DANGEROUS

Something that they will see

Something that will make them wonder WHY

"The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion."

Prov. 28:1

The Church

"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. Fro we are all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body-whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free-and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many."

1 Cor 12:12-13

Growing up, I had always heard the body of Christ described as one specific church, or if we were to get reaaallly crazy, our entire denomination, but it was a rare occasion, if it ever happened, to hear it on any larger level.

It was always preached that everyone played a part in the church, and we always needed people to step up and take a place because that is what made us a church family, and we would regularly fellowship together as a church, and even with other churches in our denomination, but I don't remember a single time in my entire childhood that we worshiped, or had fellowships with churches outside of our denomination.

How ridiculous is that?

God's divine words say that,

^{"The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you" On the contrary, those parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.}

^{Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.}

1 Cor 12:21-27

Guess what guys, as long as we

"confess with [our] mouth[s] Jesus is Lord and believe in [our] heart[s] that God raised Him from the dead [we] WILL BE SAVED. With the heart one believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, resulting in salvation."

Romans 10:9-10

That means that Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Jew, Pentecostal, any other denomination you could POSSIBLY imagine, is perfectly capable of being a part of the body of Christ!

*Let me clarify for anyone who may misinterpret that last sentence. What I am saying is it doesn't matter what building you worship in, or what title you give yourself, as long as you follow Romans 10 you are a part of the body of Christ! Though some people may see the name of a specific denomination in that sentence and say, "that's not possible" what I'm saying is there are exceptions to every denomination! I can be Catholic and REBEL against the rule that says I must go through a priest to confess my sins. I could probably come up with a similar scenario for every one of those denominations, that's just the easiest one to use for this explanation.*

It doesn't matter what church you worship at, if you have done what Romans 10 says you ARE a part of the body of Christ, and how phenomenal would it be if the world saw us as ONE BODY?!

How differently do you think people would view followers of Christ if we learned to set aside those nitpicky things and WORSHIP OUR CREATOR TOGETHER!! What kind of a worship experience could that be?

I think God would be on his massive heavenly throne filled with joy and delight as His creation began TRULY loving one another the way He wants to teach us to love!

I am challenging you to back down next time someone wants to fight about whether or not you are allowed to consume alcohol, or whether or not you should go to church on Sunday, Saturday, or any other day of the week. Back down next time someone wants to fight about if it was Adam's fault or Eve's.

IT DOESN'T MATTER!!!! What matters is that the world sees us as ONE body, unified against the darkness that surrounds our entire existence! Satan doesn't want us to ban together because he knows how disasterous it would be for him.

Arise as one body and one church

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."

-1Peter 2:9

MYTH

One of the biggest myths about following Christ is that once you 'pray the prayer' and follow these three steps your life will be happy, and easy, and you will never have to worry again.

2 major problems with that.

1. Following Christ is not a 3 step program, follow this guide and you'll have all the answers kind of deal. It is not a sprint through life, it is a marathon. It takes time EVERY DAY, it takes maajor dedication. Jesus asked a lot of people to do a lot of really hard things when He walked the earth. Like in Luke 21 when he asks the rich man to sell his belongings and give to the poor.

2. Following Christ does not guarantee you a stress-free life of bliss. Look at Esther, or Job. Esther was an orphan who was chosen by a king to marry him. While acting as queen she found out her people were going to be executed, a little stressful I'd guess, she had to act against century-old rules and risk her life for her people.

Job was considered by God Himself to be a "man of perfect integrity" (job 1:8). He lost everything, his possessions, his family, he caught insufferable disease.

This is not an easy gig. Following Christ means being willing to give up everything on this earth that you have ever worked for or loved. I am not saying that you should give up your spouse or your children, in fact that would be a really bad idea. I'm saying that God calls us to love HIM more than our spouses or our children. He calls us to be willing at any moment to say Yes, God no matter what He is asking us to do! It is scary, thrilling, exciting, possibly dangerous, and ALWAYS worth it!

So basically I'm challenging you. Rebel against what 'Christianity' has become. Don't be a follower of the church, be a follower of Jesus, and don't swallow everything your told in the church. Take it home, read it, discover it for yourself.

Arise into a new generation, a generation that doesn't pretend to be perfect, but that shows the world your real self. What good is a God that loves perfect people?! WE ARE SINNERS, accept it, God still forgives us, He loves us despite our imperfections and thaat is the God that the world is desperate to know! Don't walk into church as this righteous, holier-than-thou person that you are desperately trying to be.

The world needs us to be REAL

"Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me."

-John 12:26

The Reason

I went to a concert the other night where I sang my heart out to Christ with an auditorium full of other thirsty believers. My heart was broken for a people group that I never ever expected to be broken for, but before I tell you about that let me explain something.

This blog is not an attempt to preach at you, it is not to generate hateful arguments, or to pose a stick-it-to-the-man attitude. I created this blog for one reason.

To Arise.

Ever since that night my heart has burned with a passion, and a desire to know Christ more intimately so that I could show others what they are missing out on, and I know that if I don't talk about what is going on in my heart on a daily basis, and if I don't stay in constant communication with Christ, that desire will fade.

So this is my attempt to keep the passion alive. To Arise, and become the person God created me to be.

Now let me attempt to explain my heart.

I was raised in a christian home, and growing up my life revolved around church.

This caused 2 very important things in my life

1. I know that above anything else in this whole entire world God calls me to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself."

2. The church is full of sinners pretending to be perfect.

So naturally I was offended by the church, because I hated the idea of going to a place where everyone was pretending to be something they are not, and I was bitter about it for a long time. When God broke my heart, it was like I could hear Him, and He was saying,

'Look at all of these people, I LOVE THEM. They are my creation, and they are missing the point! They are trying so hard, they are so weary, remind them, I can give them rest."

*Adding Clarity. I love going to church, and I love the people I meet there and the relationships I have built. I am not saying every person is missing the point, and I am not saying everyone is pretending. I'm saying that there are a lot of people in the church who misunderstand what a church family is or, and they misunderstand for good reason sometimes. Due to the fact that we are human, we often forget that we are called to love each other through the good and the bad times, and we sometimes think it's our place to decide if a person should or shouldn't be forgiven, or judged. Simple mistake, easy trap to fall into, I've been there. "All, like sheep have gone astray" Is. 53:6

I have so much on my heart to share.

Now you know why I am here.

"My name will be great among the nations, from the rising of the sun to its setting... says the Lord of Hosts."

-Malachi 1:11