Wake up and smell the roses

Our life is not about us!
Jesus our Savior, who walked this earth and lived a sinless life was persecuted spit on tortured beaten and hung on a cross to die after sweating blood asking the father to take this cup from Him, but He did not, because even Jesus’s life here on earth was not about Him! What makes us so special that we think that this world and this life revolves around our happiness our wants our needs our opinions our hurts our pains our successes ??!?!! Stop and smell the roses people , the life we are living right now, is temporary! TEMPORARY! When we focus our eyes upon Jesus and are filled with HIS Spirit, we have unshakable joy! This world only offers temporary happiness. Here today and gone tomorrow, Jesus said He will shAke this earth, what are you clinging to??? 

DIGGING YOURSELF OUT: A Must!!

Over the last 15 hours I have had plenty of time to think… while shoveling 🙂  Of course my first thoughts were..” OW my back is killing me.”, “Isn’t this what I had kids for?”, lol… “Will it ever end?”,and “That plow truck better not come by again and push all of this snow back in my driveway!!”.  However, among’st those thoughts I started praying, for multiple things and multiple people.  Somehow I got distracted and started thinking about sin.. sin in our lives.  No matter how much we love God and we spend time in prayer, we continuously need to dig ourselves out.  We live in a sinful world and each and every day we are hammered with sin… in our own lives and those around us.  We have two options… just like I had shoveling the driveway..

  1.  We can give our sin to God and lay ourselves down daily..(We can shovel every hour even though the snow continues to fall, to keep the driveway cleaned out) .. it may seem pointless and without end.. but its a lot less painful shoveling a couple inches of snow than try to push around a foot of snow.  
  2. Or we can wait.  We can look out the window and watch as the snow falls hour after hour waiting for it to stop, while it just keeps accumulating.  By the time it finally stops snowing you are snowed in!  You can’t get out of your drive way.  When you do get out there to clean out the driveway the snow is so heavy you can barely  move it-  your back is in pain before you are even halfway through and you just want to give up.  Sin is the same way, if you just continue to let it pile up, it’s harder and harder to move spiritually.  You can just sit by pretending like your sin isn’t there, like you are living righteously, but we can NOT live righteously without continually being cleansed.  

My suggestion: no matter how deep you’re in it right now, it’s time to dig yourself out!!  Give it up to God, no matter how painful it may be, He already knows, there is nothing hidden from Him.  He is waiting to lift the burden from you and cleanse your heart!  He does all the heavy lifting for us, we just have to ask Him.   YOU GOT THIS!!  If you need help- ask for some extra hands… FOLDED HANDS IN PRAYER.  God Bless You:)

How To: FOCUS on the Truth!!

How do we focus on the Truth?  This is a very difficult task to accomplish even for a follower of Christ!  It is difficult because our eyes are only able to focus on one object at a time… yes we have peripheral vision … but we can only truly have clear vision of whatever our eyes are on.  Unfortunately … our eyes are usually focused on ourselves (hence the selfie 😉 )  I have learned that when we focus on ourselves and our problems, our eyes as well as our hearts, are no longer on HIM!  I love the Lord and make Him the center of my life, I serve Him and love others, I am by no means perfect, but HE is my #1.. I say all of this to share a story with you when I truly realized that I was not focused on the truth!!

I have an amazing prayer partner, we have been praying with one another for about a year now, we get together once a week and share our needs and pray for one another and others.  My family was under extreme financial burden, and I was just completely down!  I couldn’t wait to meet with her and just unload all the pain and worry that I had about my family’s finances and struggles, and I needed direction and comfort and was in a bad spot.  I went up to the church to work on some things, and had an amazing conversation about Jesus and the church, and just an intense conversation with a man that happened to pop in for a minute.  When I left there I was so filled the Holy Spirit, and so focused on Jesus that I realized… WHAT AM I DOING?!?!?!?!  Why am I so focused on these worldly things that I have already placed into Gods hands?? Why do I feel as if I have to carry the burden or figure it out??  I gave my worries to God and have no doubt He will take care of our family!  He takes care of the birds right??? Matthew 6:26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Elijah was fed by ravens !! So Elijah did what the Lord had told him to do. He went to the Kerith Valley. It was east of the Jordan River. He stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning. They also brought him bread and meat in the evening. He drank water from the brook. – 1 Kings 17:5-6 Wow! I could not wait to meet with my prayer partner and just ask her to pray that I stay focused on HIM.  I was so overwhelmed with Joy in my spirit and the worry left me and I continued praising and seeking my GOD!  What a difference perspective and our focus can make!  Please watch the clip below from the movie Patch Adams.. I have watched this over and over again and used it in a sermon, and to this day it is burnt into my mind.. I just picture the words coming from Jesus.

He says:  You’re focused on the problem… If you focus on the problem you’ll never see the solution.. LOOK AT ME! Look beyond, see what no one else chooses to see out of fear of conformity and laziness.  See the whole world anew each day!!

I believe as Christians, true disciples of Christ, that in order to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to truly trust Him, we have to stop focusing on this dark world and lock eyes with our Creator.   We are to be in the world, but not of the world.  Lock eyes with Jesus… take a step out of the boat and onto the water.. don’t look down at ourselves when the wind blows and the waves begin to form… lock eyes with the ALMIGHTY and walk on water with HIM!  Stay focused!! Pray for Jesus to continue to reveal Himself to you, to cleanse you of anything not of Him.  It’s not about us.. we are here on this earth to glorify HIM.  ( That’ll be my next blog post… haha)

I hope that you have taken something from this.  I do believe we all go through things so that when we learn from them we can share with others!  Our mess is our message right?!?!  lol

God’s Blessings to you

— Your sister in Christ– April Crump

THE TRUTH

THE TRUTH —

Since this is my very first blog I would like to discuss the Truth.

 According to Merriam Webster the definition of truth is this:

  • the truth : the real facts about something : the things that are true

  • : the quality or state of being true

  • : a statement or idea that is true or accepted as true

As Christians and disciples of Jesus we may know the truth.  We may know John 3 16 Wallpaper John 3 16

We may know that Jesus walked this earth a sinless man and was beaten, battered, spit on, hung on a cross to die, for our sins.  The truth  is that He did this because He loves us and He took on our sins so that we may be washed free and can spend eternity with Him.  The truth is that we are placed on this earth for relationship with Him.  To be the hands and feet of Jesus in this dark world.  The truth is that we are to be servants, to love one another, to give of ourselves, put others first.  The truth is that all of these things are so contrary to all of the world and everything in it.  How are we able to live in truth when the whole world is everything but?  How?  Are you really asking, do you really want to know?  The answer is this:

You bow before the Lord– You surrender yourself and let Jesus know that you are His, allow Him to take control — Our God is not a lion that will force himself into your life or force his will upon you, He is waiting for you to ask.  Psalm 25:14 The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.  Ask, Seek, Knock  Matthew 7:7-8 7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

You ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins- knowing that you will need to continue to do this daily, because we are sinners.  Also know that what you ask God to forgive you of and repent and turn from your sin, He separates those sins from you as far as the East is from the West!(Psalms 103:12)   Do not allow the enemy to hold them over your head any longer.

When all things are made right before God, you go in prayer with a cleansed heart, asking the Lord to give you strength, courage, boldness, as well as grace and gentleness.  I ask the Lord to allow me to see everyone through His Eyes, I ask God to allow me to love others as He loves.  The Holy Spirit dwells within us and when we grow in our walk with Christ we begin to the fruit of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-23   22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

So the original question from above is how do we live in truth?  Give our lives to Christ, surrender ourselves, seek Him and His truth through His living word- THE BIBLE.  Walk daily with the Lord in prayer.  When we ask Christ to give us His courage and His boldness and to open our eyes and hearts to be more like Him, we will see the world anew.  We will have the ability to walk in TRUTH through the spirit He has given us…… but we have to chose it each and every day!!!

— Gods Blessings to you–

I will continue in my next Blog to show you how to FOCUS on the truth, now that we know how to Live in the truth and not conform to this world.  DON’T GIVE UP!! The fight, the struggle is worth every second.  If you have any questions or need me to pray for you please feel free to comment .  (I think you can comment on blogs… I am a newbie 🙂

Your Sister In Christ- April Crump