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RussellA
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Name: Russ
Location: Hattiesburg, Mississippi, United States
Birthday: 7/2/1984
Gender: Male
Interests: Hangin' out with friends, Christian Theology, Jesus.
Expertise: um...maybe Spanish sorta?
Occupation: Student
Industry: Other
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
1/12/2003
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| For a long time, I used to write on here in order to encourage others with the things that I was learning. I think my style has changed a bit though. Lately, I just feel like just writing about whatever is on my mind. Maybe that will be encouraging also...maybe boring...I don't know, but it's my xanga and I'll post what I want, lol. Just kiddin...sorta. Anyway, so I was just reading in my Bible and every book has a sort of introduction to each book. If any of you read the New Living Translation Life Application Bible (if any of you even read my blog of course, lol) you would also have this same type of commentary. But anyway, at the beginning of I Corinthians, the commentator talks about how chameleons have a type of camouflage that we all know about. When they are on a leaf, they may turn to green. When they are on the dirt, they will turn brown. They change lots of different colors in order to hide from their predators. The commentary goes on to talk about how we as Christians aren't called to live like that at all. We are called to stand out. Sometimes I wonder to what extent though. I go through life every day and I live for Christ in my personal life, but I don't know to what extent we are called to invade the lives of others. Some people would want you to believe that we should be all up in everybody's lives telling them how their sins are so wrong and how they need to turn away and follow Jesus. I've seen people do that though. It doesn't seem to do much good. Usually everybody hates on that type of person. Of course, some people argue that we are suppossed to be hated on. I don't know. That seems kind of confusing/counteractive to me. Just because somebody hates me for my beliefs and convictions doesn't mean that I'm successfully ministering/following Jesus. Half of the time it seems like we are suppossed to go out there and make ourselves hated. And of course, there are people out there who want to only point out specific sins. You know, the people who travel around the country and tell people who are gay that they are basically doomed to Hell with no hope. Some people think that we should just tell other people that Jesus loves them and nothing else. You know...It's all about grace and mercy. Some people don't tell anybody about Jesus. My personal situation though is that I work in a place where I'm not suppossed to talk about my religion. I feel like it's where God wants me at this time in my life. I don't think that means that I should just say "Forget the system. I'm going to do whatever I want. Then I'll lose my job and go out and preach on the streets." I do my best to show students the love of Jesus through my actions. When I'm able, I engage in friendships where I can love people who don't know Christ. When those times come, sometimes Christ opens up opportunities for me to share with those people. Sometimes it seems otherwise. It just seems like there has to be a middle ground where God is glorified. Who knows...I'll just keep doing the best I can. I mean...Jesus answered peoples' questions when they asked about inheriting the Kingdom of God, but He didn't seem to get in their face about it. That's as best as I can see it...
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| Well, it's been a while now since I've written on here, but I decided to get back on and give it a whirl. It's crazy how much time and circumstances change while simultaneously changing yourself. A lot has changed in my life over the past two or three years. There have been good times and hard times, but Christ is faithful to grow us through both. The main thing that I'm learning though is that this is a journey. We are going to have our good days and our bad days, but in the end it's not about a certain day. It's about how far we have come over time. I'm learning that life is a hard, hard journey and there is a lot more to it than I give it credit for. For a long time I have held a lot of people to a very high standard- one that not even I can live up to. This life is so hard though. We as Christians struggle so much to live a godly life and it is so much hard work and then we are so surprised and sometimes even angry at other Christians for falling away. It's as if we want so much pity on ourselves for our hard struggles and then we slam other people for giving into the temptations that we ourselves struggle with. This life is so hard that I can't even get through it without messing up. But then I don't show any grace and mercy to those who give in. I'm not saying that we should give in. I'm just saying that I need to be more understanding of others. When people fall into sin and fall away from Christ, it's not a good time for me to get upset with them. It's a good time for me to step back and say, "Man, it's so hard. I hurt for them." And it's a good time for me to lift them up in prayer. How can I go through life and struggle so much and then hate on other people who are going through the same hard world. It just doesn't make sense. I'm going to try to do a better job of that. Have a good day.
Soli Deo Gloria
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| I'm becoming a little more convinced that the members of the body of Christ have little to no understanding of sin. They don't know what actions that we commit are considered sins. I think that the church has almost rationalized sins away. I mean, how is it that people who are involved deeply in the church can end up in divorces or in jail for stealing money or how about this one...I read a story recently about a church in which the staff members were all having affairs together. How is it that the sins are not addressed as sins? How is it that a church could become such a place to work...where the people working there aren't even convicted that what they are doing is wrong? And to think that these were the people leading that church. It's just crazy isn't it? I think that the answer is that we must spend time in the word of Christ daily and we must preach the gospel to one another. If we lose sight of our sins, we lose sight of our Saviour. If we don't know that we are sinners then we don't know that we need a Savior. We lose sight of our need for God then we lose sight of everything. We are a needy people and if we become self-sufficient, we are doomed to the follow the will of our sinful nature, which will by the way, without a doubt, lead us into destruction. Then some time later, we will look back and wonder why our life is a wreck? We MUST learn to acknowledge we are sinners in need of a Saviour. Charles Spurgeon once said in his own words that if our sin is great then our Saviour is great. If we don't know our sin is great then we won't understand the greatness of our savior. I believe that the reason we are dwindeling in our passion for Jesus Christ is because we are dwindeling in our understanding of our sin. When we acknowledge our sins specifically, we realize our great need for our Savior. And when we realize that our Savior saved us from this great sin, we fall in love with Him and desire to follow after Him. The greatest problem, however, is that we don't want to acknowledge our depravity. We are prideful and want to hold onto the idea that we are good people. We are not. Even if we do a good action apart from Christ, there is some sort of selfishness behind it, even if it is the mere fact that we didn't do it for Christ. Any way you look at it, we are nothing without Him, nothing except sinful. If we are not willing to acknowledge our depravity, we might as well forget acknowledging Christ in our lives, because if we don't suffer from depravit we will never know that we need to acknowledge him anyway. We are sinners in great need. Acknowledge your need and accept His forgiveness and love and press on towards repentance and freedom in Christ. He has made the only way that leads to fulfillment. Follow the Way. Soli Deo Gloria. | | |
| From "My Utmost For His Highest": "Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation..." 2 Corinthians 7:10 "Conviction of sin is best described in the words : My sins, my sins, my Savior,
How sad on Thee they fall. Conviction of sin is one of the most uncommon things that ever happens to a person. It is the beginning of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict people of sin (see John 16:8). And when the Holy Spirit stirs a person's conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not that person's relationship with others that bothers him but his relationship with God- "Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight..." (Psalm 51:4). The wonders of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven person who is truly holy. He proves he is forgiven by being the opposite of what he was previously by the grace of God. Repentance always brings a person to the point of saying "I have sinned." The surest sign that God is at work in his life is when he says that and means it. Anything less is simply sorrow for having made foolish mistakes- a reflex action caused by self-disgust. The entrance into the kingdom of God is through the sharp, sudden pains of repentance colliding with man's suspectable "goodness". Then the Holy Spirit, who produces these struggles, begins the formation of the Son of God in the person's life (See Galatians 4:19). The new life will reveal itself in conscious repentances followed by unconscious holiness, never the other way around. The foundation of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a person cannot repent when he chooses- repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for "the gift of tears." If you ever cease to understand the value of repentance, you allow yourself to remain in sin. Examine yourself to see if you have forgotten how to be truly repentant."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Standing By Your God-given Convictions So, I just thought that today's My Utmost For His Highest was really encouraging and that you should read it. I definitely recommend picking up a copy of the updated version, if you've never read it, because it's really good. Anyway, so I've been reading The Grand Weaver for a few weeks now, struggling to get through it, not because it's bad or a hard read, just because things get busy sometimes. But anyway, I wanted to share something that I have learned from it. As Ravi Zacharias talks about our will (in the sense of will power), he discusses the topic of conviction. He discusses the struggle of Christians to stand by their conviction no matter what and gives encouragment for doing so. But his main point comes down to this: If pagans can follow strict sets of rules and stand by them one hundred percent in order to be loyal to a group that they are a part of, how much easier should it be for Christians. If the Nazis can all team up and follow Hitler's rules to the dot, then why can't we seem to stand by our convictions. The answer is that we don't pray for the Holy Spirit to fill us up. When we pray consistently and whole-heartidly for the Spirit to fill us, He gives us the strength that we need to stand by our convictions and if we have the Spirit in us then we should be able to obey and stand by our convictions even more than the pagans can. There is truly no excuse, because we have the Spirit to strengthen us and pull us through. So if we know that we are doing something that is wrong, then we need to stand up and pray that the Spirit would strengthen us against it. He will be faithful to fill us and strengthen us when we are faithful to pray and ask Him to. Just thought I would share. Have a great day. Soli Deo Gloria. | | |
| One thing that I've found as I've gone along in this life is that nothing is worth anything unless it's purpose is the glory of God. Our lives aren't worth anything unless they serve to further glorify God. I believe this is why people commit suicide. Either they don't realize or they have forgotten the purpose of their life. We don't exist for ourselves. We exist for Jesus. If He isn't being glorified then what's the point? See, after we leave this life, the only things that will remain are our lives, God, His word and His glory. We don't take our money or things, so what's the point of living for that? If God is glorified in our relationships, then those are definitely worth experiencing. He obviously designed us for the relationships, so they are worth experiences. But His glory is the only thing worth living for. We should have this as our attitude constantly. Everything that we do should be aimed at His glory. But it's funny that we can feel like we are focused on His glory and then something happens and all of the sudden the focus switches back to me. We should struggle and fight to glorify Him not only in the good times, but more in the bad times. It's easy to glorify Him in the good times. But when there isn't enough money at the end of the day or you get in a fight with your family or a friend, that's when it's hardest to glorify Him and that's when we have to strive the most to glorify Him. We have to allow Him to dwell in us to the point that we can't escape His glory. Why is it that we feel like we have to look out for ourselves. So many times we worry about being taken advantage of. I don't ever want that to be how I think about life. Wasn't Jesus willingly taken advantage of? He allowed Himself to be taken advantage of. We act like we own ourselves or our things. We don't own anything. We were bought with a price by the blood of Jesus and He owns everything that we have, so that means that we don't own anything, including our very souls. We should hold our things losely. We should hold each other losely and we should learn to let go of ourselves, that He would use us for His glory. It's only when we let go of our own rights that He is truly able to use us. We are never guaranteed a good life. We are never guaranteed that everything is going to work out just the way we planned it or hoped for it to. The truth is, God wants to use hard times and good times alike to mold us and prepare us for the things that He planned for us long ago. When we let go of ourselves and live only for His glory, we will begin to realize that the hard times that we go through are actually His molding of our lives. He is preparing us for something in the future. I bet if you though real hard you could thing of something hard that has happened in your life a long time ago or maybe even recently, that looking back on it now, you can see that it prepared you for something else along the way. That's the way God works. He is holds us to the fire. And as He holds us to the fire, we become moldable and He is creating out of us, His own kind of art. As we let go of ourselves and live for His glory, we become a masterpiece that He has molded us into that we would truly glorify Him. He loves us and we should glorify Him even as the pains of being refined happen. Think of hard times as an opportunity for His glory and not as the result of some sin. Don't shake your fists at God and ask Him "Why me? Why me?". Be thankful for the opportunity to be used by Him. He molds us for His glory and we are fortunate that He would consider us worthy of this use. Soli Deo Gloria. | | |
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