Lust Does

If you are a human being than you have probably lusted over something in your life. If you're a guy, you might lust all the time...sorry guys but it's true. A simple definition of lust would be attempting to gain satisfaction from somebody else. I am guilty of that, and you are most likely guilty as well.

For most, lust is an ongoing battle. While watching a sermon today, there was a biblical story that was told and it was one that I have never heard before. After hearing the sermon and the story everything made sense so I wanted to share the story and the message the best that I could.
(Try reading through the story twice if it doesn't make sense the first time.)

Amnon and Tamar 

Now Absalom, David's son, had a beautiful sister, whose name was Tamar. And after a time Amnon, David's son, loved her. And Amnon was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible to Amnon to do anything to her. But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David's brother. And Jonadab was a very craft man. And he said to him, "O son of the king, why are you so haggard morning after morning? Will you not tell me?" Amnon said to him, "I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister." Jonadab said to him, 'Lie down on your bed and pretend to be ill. And when your father comes to see you, say to him, 'Let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat, and prepare the food in my right, that I may see it and eat it from her hand." So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. And when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, "Please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat from her hand." Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, "Go to your brother Amnon's ouse and prepare food for him." So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house, where he was lying down. And she took dough and kneaded it and made cakes in his sight and baked the cakes. And she took the pan and emptied it out before him, but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, "Send out everyone from me." So everyone went out from him. Then Amnon said to Tamar, "bring the good into the chamber, that I may eat from your hand." And Tamar took the cakes she had made and brought them near him to eat, he took hold of her and said to her, "Come, like with me, my sister." She answered him, "No, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this outrageous thing. As for me, where could I carry my same? And as for you, you would be as one of the outrageous fools in Israel. Now therefore, please speak to the king, for he will not without me from you." But he would not listen to her, and being stronger than she, he violated her and lay with her. Then Amnon hated her with very great hatred, so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he hd loved her. And Amnon said to her, "Get up! Go!" But she said to him, "No, my brother, for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you did to me."  (2 Samuel 13:1-16) 

Quite the story right?!

Basically, Amnon was so in love with his sister that he became ill. He then asked a crafty man, named Jonadab what he should do. Jonadab told him to get into bed as if he was ill and ask for Tamar to take care of him. Amnon got into bed, pretended to be ill, and when his father came to take care of him, he asked for his sister. Once his sister was in the room, she had baked some bread for him and then he asked her to come to bed with him. She denied it, and since he was bigger and stronger than she was, he took advantage of her and raped her. Because of his actions, he now felt more hate for her than the love that he had. He tried to tell his sister to go, but she denied it because if he made her leave, it was going to be worse than the acts that he had just committed.

There are a few things that I want to point out to you:

- Amnon was so lustful of his sister that he became ill
- Amnon didn't know what to do and where to get advice from so he asked a man named Jonadab
- Amnon did what Jonadab told him to do and pretended to be even more ill than what he was
- When Tamar denied her brother, she tried to get him to do it the right way by asking the king and he denied it
- When Amnon violated his sister he now hated her more than he loved her

Lust is simply, one big lie. When we lust over things, we think that if we could just fulfill that thought we have, everything would be okay! Satan really tries to get us with this one. Lust ruins relationships because lust is taking away something rather than giving it. Love is when you give and lust is when you take. Amnon had been around his sister his entire life and wanted absolutely everything to do with her! This was his sister...which is crazy to me. He wanted her so bad that he physically became ill. Sometimes in this life, we lust over somebody or something so hard that it destroys us. It eats us up, on the inside and out. It's a vicious cycle. We hold our ground and then we give up. We are strong and then throw everything away for short-term, worldly pleasure. It's interesting to me that Tamar would've been okay with things if her brother would've went through the king. She told her brother that he was going to be just like all of the outrageous fools if he did this thing. The desire he had to get satisfaction from Tamar was so great that he was going to do whatever he could to be satisfied by her. When the awful act was finished, he had now hated his sister more than he had originally loved her. That's what lust does. It ruins love.

I also want to add, before I forget...that this is very difficult post for me to write. There are so many things I want to say and want to encourage you with that I hope it all made sense! I also probably forgot a lot of the things that I wanted to say as well. I am confident that however this turns out is the way that the Holy Spirit wanted it to.

There is one more thing I want to touch on. Did you catch where Amnon got his advice to pretend to be ill and then ask for his sister to bake him loaves of bread? That idea came from Jonadab. The crafty guy who is the son of his Dad's brother. Who the heck is this guy and why did he think it was okay for Amnon to be rape his sister? Where do you get advice from? Amnon took the ideas from Jonadab and now he hated his sister more than he loved her. You can't get relationship advice from certain people, you cannot get advice from the magazines you read or the silly things you see on social media. When you need advice the first thing you should do is get your bible out. If you are unfamiliar with your bible, ask the person in your life who you know has it all together...that person who is on fire for the Lord and exemplifies Him in every way. Find that person who you know, in your heart is the right person to talk to about these sorts of things.

Lastly, if you struggle with lust, seek help from some friends and people that you look up too. Lust kills love, and if love is dead than you're missing out on this amazing life that we are so blessed to live every single day.

Agan, I hope and pray this all made sense!

We are not hidden

Do you ever feel like you can hide? I know it can be easy to feel that way sometimes. We like to isolate and keep everything to ourselves...whether it's good or bad.

I believe that it's a thing for people to try and hide things from God. Good luck doing that! He knows everything. The Holy Spirit is omnipresent. Which means, the Holy Spirit is literally present everywhere at all times.

If you are in a place today where you feel like you are hiding your problems from God, my hope is that this verse will encourage you to be open to your flaws and your mistakes. It's not good to hold things in.

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:13) 

NOBODY is hidden from his sight. We are all naked and exposed to the eyes of God. Everything about us is laid out and in front of God, every single part. We are completely exposed so we mine as well be open and honest right? Right!

I know this post was short and it was short for a reason. It didn't have to be long. I wanted to encourage you to be open and to let you know that you are not hidden from God's sight, even when you think you are, that is just the evil one playing games with your mind. We are naked and exposed. Bottom line.

Be open. Be honest. Be transparent. Be vulnerable. Thrive!

Love the Lord

I love the Lord. I really really do. Why?

I love the LORD because He hears My voice and my supplications. (Psalms 116:1) 

Every time I am up after midnight, I make sure that the last thing I do on my phone is look at what the verse of the day is. If I am asleep before that, I check first thing in the morning when I wake up. I don't remember when I started doing it, but it has been a pretty cool habit that I would recommend to so many people. There are a lot of things on our phones that we can see before we go to bed that are things we shouldn't see and a lot of content that we don't have to see. Wednesday night at midnight, I checked the verse before I went to sleep, and thought...hmmm this is a good one (verse above: Psalms 116:1). I didn't really think about the verse too much. That happens sometimes. I look just to look rather than taking something away from it. So I had looked at the verse and there was something about it that had my attention and I really didn't know what that exactly was.

Personally, over the past two weeks I have had that feeling that there is more of me to give. It came to fruition that I want to be sharper rather than a little rounded. It's tough because I look at my life and the things I do on a daily basis and I am busy from the moment I wake up until I lay my head on my pillow at night. It's not like I am doing anything wrong, I just feel like there is more that I could give. I don't have any difficulty prioritizing, I believe the balance I have between my walk with Christ, school, basketball, time spent with my friends and girlfriend is spot on! There is just something more out there that I feel like I need to be doing.

Wednesday morning I meet with someone who I admire and look up too and we read the Bible together and just talk about life. It's a quick and powerful 40 minutes together that is so fulfilling.

Every time we end our Wednesday mornings together we pray. He asked me what prayer requests I had and my number one thing was that I be made sharper, just like I talked about above.

We prayed, and when he left, I felt refueled and sharpened. It was an immediate answer to prayer! I texted my close friend and he replied with this.

I love the LORD because He hears My voice and my supplications. (Psalms 116:1) 

It was the verse of the day! It was the verse that I had looked at right before I went to bed the night before, the verse that I felt like had some significant importance and it did! The Lord had heard what I needed and He provided it.

My friends, the Lord hears our voices and our supplications. The Lord hears what we need when we ask him for it! Love him because of that!

I also encourage you to find those people in your life who can mentor you, listen to you, talk to you, and can encourage you. I know I sound like a broken record because I say this over and over again. I mean it. Your life will change when you begin to spend time with people who want to change your life. There are people out there who want to share with you what they have learned and experienced in this life so that you can be encouraged, motivated, and have a better idea of how to do things and how this life works.

Love the Lord!!!

More & More

What comes to you mind when you think of a life that is pleasing to God? I bet God is thinking...more and more...you must do whatever you can to please Me more and more. What comes to my mind? Honestly, I think of doing good things for other people, and showing love to as many people as I can. It might be different for you and that is totally fine. We all look at things a little differently.

Reading through 1 Thessalonians 4 this afternoon, there were three words that came across twice in the passage that I could not get out of my head and those three words were: More and more.

More and more...what could that mean?

Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. 
(1 Thessalonians 4:1) 

More and more! It's in the very first verse. We are being told as we ought to walk and to please God, that we need to do so more and more.

Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. (1 Thessalonians 4:10-12)

You see that more and more is in there again. We have been taught by God to love one another and we need to this more and more. Amen! I also love the end of that verse. We need to aspire to live quietly, and to mind our own affairs, and to work with our hands, so that we may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.  

I believe that is the key to the entire point that I want to make to you. When we do these things more and more, we will learn that we can live quietly, and to mind our own business. Our own business is our own personal relationship with Jesus Christ. When we live to please Him more and more we learn and recognize that we don't have to be dependent on anyone else for fulfillment. You wonder why you seem to not be able to trust anyone? Nobody else is God. You wonder why you can't be dependent on anyone? Anyone isn't God. I guess what I am trying to say is that even when you think you are doing a good job, there is always more that you can do. Always. More and More. 

This goes beyond the spiritual realm of things as well. It's what we need to do on daily basis. There is always more you can do. We can always study more for that test we don't want to study for, we can always put in more effort on that homework that is only worth 5 points, we can always push ourselves harder at practice, even when we don't think we can. This all ties into our mindset. Have that mindset that you will do more and more because you can do more and more. Nothing is impossible. Anything you set your mind to you are fully capable of doing. More and more. Don't forget about it. 

There is another part of this scripture that is important and I want to briefly touch on and that is sanctification. 

The will of God for us is sanctification. Sanctification is the process of being holy, and it is a gift given from the power of God.

Let's take a look at what sanctification looks like in the eyes of God.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us to impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8)

Sanctification =
- abstaining from sexual immorality
- controlling our own bodies in holiness and honor
- no one transgress and wrong his brother

You might look at that scripture/list and think...oh crap that's me! It's you, it's me, it's everyone. We aren't perfect, we mess up. We can do a better job at being aware when we mess up, and do a better job at trying our best not to do those things. As good as we can possibly be at abstaining from those things, there is always more and more that we could do. We can always do better. We are seeds, meant for growth, remember that. Our growth process allows us to recognize that we need God in this life more than anything else.

Look at that last verse. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives us his Holy Spirit. When we disregard these things, we are disregarding God, not man. I think we get that prioritized incorrectly sometimes. We worry that if we don't do those things, we are disregarding our friends not true! They might get upset, but deep down, they wish that they had the self-control to abstain from those things. It's okay to be different! It's a billion times better to disregard man than it is to disregard God. It might not seem like it is, but trust me. Say no, abstain from those things, be different, please God, more and more!

Location Drives Content

Short and sweet will be this post to a tee.

Did you know that where we meet shapes the discussions we'll have? We've all experienced this, but few have put this idea into practice when we're setting our meetings. It's not silly to meet in the park, at a museum or somewhere fun. Each is engaging and creative and fun in it own way. Location drives content. It's why we should be as picky about where we talk as we are about what we actually discuss. If you have the right conversation at the right place, you just had the right conversation. However, if you have the right conversation at the wrong place, you just had the wrong conversation.

Simply put, location drives content. Think about what where you are planning your meetings and the location determines what you get out of it.

'My Turn' by: Jack Fisher

'My Turn'

Ever had something that you knew you wanted and needed to do and continued to push it off until 'next time?' Now i'm not talking about something small either, rather something God sized and God initiated and God centered. That thing for me consisted of the idea, of everytime we go running for track, pray for at least one person and trust that the person we pray for is the one God is going to work through.

You see before practice, our team goes out for a warm up run down towards the river, and we always pass people doing yard work and just sitting outside. It's a great opportunity to stop and pray for people.

Yesterday we began our run and I told the people with me, "hey if I stop running, it is because I stopped to pray for someone." We continue to run and passed a few people and ran by them. Then we passed an intersection and there was a man in the red shirt leaf blowing the yard, we instantly took that turn and went in approached to ask for prayer. We learned that this man was named Bob and had recently been in rehab two weeks earlier. He gladly accepted our offer for prayer. we held a conversation with him for a while talking about how he used to run track, and do the same events we did. As we concluded our conversation, we prayed for him, and right after we said amen, he goes "my turn." He then continues to pray along these lines, "father, thank you for bringing these for young men into my life, I know it was for a purpose." This simple prayer he said was from the heart and that was noticable by the way he said in the tears in his eyes. We left to continue our run super encouraged by that moment we just had and we all agreed it was so cool that we want to do it again.

When we take time to step out of our comfort zones, and look for the people God wants to bring into our lives or vice versa, we work to establish the kingdom of God here on Earth.

Silence is the enemy

Have you ever been in a situation where felt like you had something to say and didn't say it? I can walk you through what that situation might have been like. You were with a group of people, maybe in class, maybe not...and something in your brain clicked...on the inside you felt like you had the power to change the world with what you had to say...you kept sitting there, probably became a little sweaty, anxious, and nervous and then you missed your chance. You probably sat there kicking yourself in the butt because you didn't say anything.

You don't have to be a chatty Cathy doll all the time either, we all have different personalities and it's easier for some people to share things than it is for others. I get that. I am not good at it either. My personality is the type where I soak in more things than I spill out. I take in everything in situations rather than share the input I have. I know that I can do a better job with this because there are a lot of things that I would like to share with people.

Silence is the enemy. There might have been things that we could've said and it could've changed someones life. The enemy has made us fear these situations. We get filled with the anxiety and doubts that what we say won't matter and that people will think we are weird. Simple as that! Or maybe I am the only one feeling this way...who knows! I don't know how the rest of you feel because I am not you.

Why silence? Why today?

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,"
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

(Pslam 32:1-5) 

There is a difference in the silence between what I talked about above and what is said in that scripture. The scripture is talking about not keeping silent when it comes to confessing our transgressions to the Lord. When we keep those sins to ourselves, that is when our bones waste away and our strength is dried up by the heat of the summer. That is so beautifully written. It's a perfect description of ourselves wasting away when aren't confessing our sins and when we are keeping silent. When we don't confess our sins we are not being honest.

One of the most powerful feelings is the feeling when you confess your sins to the Lord. It's like the chains are broken off and you are free. You can be open and you feel so free. It's a tough feeling to put into words.

There shouldn't be anything that is holding us back from confessing to God. He already knows so we might as well admit it and ask for forgiveness. We will always be forgiven for our sins. We should never fear admitting our wrong doings. Whether it's a sin or in your relationship with others. When we admit our wrong doings, we are being vulnerable. Vulnerability is so important in any relationship. Vulnerability takes relationships to the next level.

Don't be silent. Listen first always and if you have something to say to someone or a sin to confess, say it, confess it, and experience the power of forgiveness.