Discernment [5/31/12]

Hello!

Today, I would like to talk a bit about discernment. In all honesty, I don't know very much, so I'm hoping you guys will be able to help me out a bit. These past few weeks, I've really been needing answers from God, and although I'm getting answers, I'm not always sure if it's from God or from something else. Some answers seem more obvious, while others I have a very hard time discerning.

The reason why I do become confused is because there is one thing I do know.

2 Corinthians 11:14

But I am not surprised!

Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 

1 John 4:1

Dear friends, do not believe everyone

who claims to speak by the Spirit.

You must test them to see if the spirit

they have comes from God.

For there are many false prophets in the world.

Signs we see and words we hear are not always going to be from God. Many times, Satan will communicate to us in ways that are extremely similar to God; so similar in fact, that we may believe it is God! I also know, as children of God, we must learn to discern between good and evil. As we grow closer and closer to God, we are able to discern more and more! 

1 John also says to test them... At first I was confused. I wasn't sure how to test them, but that's because I didn't read on. 

1 John 4:2

This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God:

If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges

that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God.

But if someone claims to be a prophet

and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, 

that person is not from God.

Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist,

which you hear is coming into the world

and indeed is already here. 

Okay, I'm not sure if I'm insanely simple-minded or something, but it looks like the way we must know is if they: a) Acknowledge Jesus Christ came in a real body, or b) Doesn't acknowledge the truth about Jesus Christ. Once again, I'm a little confused. Is this really that simple? Is it really just as black and white as it appears? The reason why I'm a bit perplexed this is because of one of my friends. She is a dear friend to me, and I've known her for a very long time. She falls in the category of option a, but at times, I feel as if something is amiss. At times, she gives me advice on what to do spiritually, yet I feel like her advice is extremely far from what God wants. 

This is what is confusing me quite a bit right now. It would be great if you guys could help with this! 

I pray we will be able to easily discern between good and evil! I'm having a hard time with it right now... There are many different events in my life that require major decisions, yet I'm not sure what God wants. It is said that God will always answer with a yes, no, or maybe. But how do we learn to discern when he is answering? Because God doesn't always answer right away... 

I feel it may have a lot to do with drawing closer to God. The closer we are to him, the easier it will be to tell between what is from him and what isn't, right? Please correct me if I'm wrong, because for this blog, I'm not too sure. I hope you guys are thinking about this too! We definitely need to be seeking the ability to discern what is from God and what isn't from God! 

Thanks for reading this post :) I'm sorry I haven't been posting every single day... I've been so busy. But I know that's no excuse hehe. I will do my very post to continue posting every day! But thank you for the continuous love, support and encouragement. 

- kjoosaurus out!

Broken Down Walls [5/28/12]

Hello there!

Tonight, I was able to experience a beautiful moment with my own mother. For a few days, we have been  talking about how we want to pray with each other, but it didn't happen until tonight! Of course, I was feeling lazy once again, so I almost backed out of it. I didn't feel like getting out my bible and discussing it with her. For some reason, while we were reading the bible, I kept getting annoyed of her as well. It was extremely odd because I had absolutely no reason to be annoyed by her, and it was really distracting me from reading God's word!

Either way, I just prayed to God that he would help me. I prayed for him to cast away all of the distractions, and right away, they disappeared! I was able to focus on the word of God, and I was able to freely discuss the book with my Mom! :)

Then, as we were praying, an even more amazing thing happened.

To explain a bit, lately, God has been asking me to call out to him while I'm in prayer. I often pray at night when everybody is sleeping, so my prayers happen to be whispers. Yet, every time I prayed, God kept asking me to call out to him. He just wanted me to yell out his name! Although I knew this, I used the excuse of it being too late at night to stop myself from calling out his name. But tonight, as I was praying with my Mom, she was praying for me when she started to say, "Lord, cast out this spirit of heaviness. Kristen, just call out to God. He wants you to call out to him! Kristen! Call out to him!"

Of course, I realized then how much there is blocking the path between me and God. He has been wanting to get closer to me recently, but I've been allowing myself to be brought down and distracted... Before my Mom even said this, I was wanting so badly to call out his name! I wanted to yell out! "JESUS! JESUS!" But there was something in my way... God definitely wanted me to pray with my Mom tonight, because tonight, I finally called out to him. Slowly, very slowly, I'm getting closer and closer to God.

I can still feel the clutter of stuff that's in the way, but I felt so much freer tonight! I want to be able to love God with all my heart, and with everything I have!

Mark 12:30

And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart,

all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. 

He really does want us to love him with every thing we have. He wants us to give everything up to him, and just love him! I desperately want to be able to love him with all that I have! I hope you do too! There are so many things that can keep us from loving him completely. This world is filled with distractions and doubts, but God does want us to be close with him. He wants us to draw closer and closer to him every single day. We need to break down these walls! We need to throw away our pride! We need to seek him in every thing we do. We need to pray and pray and pray!

Our God is a beautiful, wonderful God. Tonight, he brought me so much joy! I feel so much happier and freer as I draw closer to him! I want to love him completely! One day, I hope to love him as much as he loves us. :) 

- kjoosaurus out!

One on One [5/27/12]

Hi everybody!

I hope you're all doing well. A lot has been happening in my life in these past few days, and I hope I can share about them sometime soon! I've been learning a lot in the past while, but I just wanted to share with you all something God has been asking me to do.

My life has always been prone to becoming very hectic. I've always been terrible at staying at home, and being without people. Therefore, I'm almost always out and I'm almost always surrounded by many people. As I've mentioned before, I have recently gotten to know God a bit more and he has really motivated me to reach out to others and tell them the good news! With this new vision, I've been going out and meeting up with more and more people! It has definitely been great and all, but it has caused me to forget something very important.

In this busy life, I have forgotten that I need to spend some time with God too. No, not in a crowd of people, but time where it's just me and God.

As Jesus spent his time on earth, he preached, healed and performed miracles! But, he always found time to spend with God.

Matthew 26:39

He went on a little farther and bowed

with his face to the ground, praying

"My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of

suffering be taken away from me.

Yet I want your will to be done, not mine."

He prays a similar prayer to God three separate times. I really love to see this from Jesus. To see how he really does have a relationship with God, and how he tells God what is going on and how he is feeling. It's also very encouraging to see Jesus say, "I want your will to be done, not mine." Jesus sets us a perfect example. He knows what is to come, and he takes the time to pray to God about it. I mean, when I think about it, this is huge. A lot of times, when something really bad is happening to me, I don't pray about it. I'm so consumed in my worries and my sorrows, that I forgot to lift them all up to God. 

Jesus finds the time to lift everything up to God. He finds the time to be alone with God. 

Luke 5:16

But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer. 

Jesus was doing quite a bit. He was a very busy man, and he was doing huge things! But, he still found time to spend with God! When I read this, I realized how much junk I need to cut out of my life. I have so many distractions that surround me, and I'm letting them distract me quite a bit! Sometimes, I'm not even busy. Sometimes, I just find a whole bunch of nothing to do, and I call myself "busy." Because of this, I've been spending less and less time with God... But recently, he's been calling me back to him. He wants me to spend time with him! He wants you to spend time with him! 

I actually deleted my Facebook account for a while... Just to get used to not having it around. It's terrible, but I really let Facebook distract me. Of course, there are tons of other things that distract me, but Facebook is the biggest. It's silly because I don't really do anything on Facebook anyways! God doesn't want these things to keep us from him. I mean, they're a great way for me to connect with people, but I definitely cannot let it consume so much time as I've already let it! I'm sure we all have something that is distracting us from spending time with God. I hope we will all realize what that is, and figure out a way to stop it from being a distraction! 

Let's all get to know our God even better! :) Thanks for reading this post!

- kjoosaurus out!

Cry for Attention [5/25/12]

Hello there!

Today, I had a friend ask me how I was doing spiritually... Although I did not have the time to express my joy, I can say now, I am extremely joyful that he asked me this! Just with that one question, a whole conversation about God came up! Isn't that wonderful? I'm getting excited right now as I realize how simple it is to bring God into our lives. So, I hope we will all ask each other how our spiritual lives are! 

Now, today, I'm going to quickly share about something I learned in Matthew. I was reading Matthew chapter 6, and I noticed a very obvious recurring theme. This chapter was teaching about giving to the needy, prayer, fasting and money. Here, I'll show you some of the verses I read. 

Matthew 6:1-2

Watch out! 

Don't do your good deeds publicly,

 to be admired by others, 

for you will lose the reward 

from your Father in heaven.

When you give to someone in need, don't do

as the hypocrites do-blowing 

trumpets in the synagogues and streets

to call attention to their acts of charity!

I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get. 

Then I read:

Matthew 6:5-6

When you pray, 

don't be like the hypocrites

who love to pray publicly on street corners and in

the synagogues where everyone can see them. 

I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get.

But when you pray, go away by yourself, 

shut the door behind you, and pray

to your Father in private.

Then your Father, who sees everything,

will reward you. 

And the final example:

Matthew 6:16

And when you fast, don't make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, 

for they try to look miserable and dishevelled 

so people will admire them for their fasting. 

I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. 

So, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but in every single passage, there is one common theme. We must not boast to others. We must not do the things we do for the fame of it! This is something I am definitely guilty of. I've always struggled with seeking the attention of others, and I would do things to get people to notice me. I wanted people to like me, and to look up to me. But, because of this, I was just falling more and more. 

As humans, we often seem to seek the attention from others. We crave it. We want to know people care about us and look up to us, so we try to put ourselves out there for them to see. But is this the reward we should be seeking? Are we going to be satisfied when we get some attention from people? The answer is no. Nothing of this world will ever completely satisfy us. The best and most fulfilling reward comes from God! 

So, let's do good deeds to honour our father, and not to be admired by others! The rewards from our father are the best rewards! They are the only rewards we should be seeking. It will be tough, but together, we can all overcome this need for worldly rewards! Hooray~ :) 

Sorry, it was a bit shorter tonight... But, we will meet again tomorrow! Hehe. 

Good night everybody!

- kjoosaurus out!

Encouraging One Another [5/24/12]

Hello there!

Sorry I didn't post anything yesterday... Lately, I've been struggling with reading the word, and I've been putting it off for a long time, but last night, I finally decided to throw all laziness aside, and I spent some time with God. Of course, it was worth it! For the past few days, I've been staying home and watching movies and dramas. I've been doing absolutely nothing. I always had a feeling that I should be reading his word, but I just couldn't shake the laziness off!

So, yesterday, while I was spending some time with God, he told me a little something that I would love to share with you all today! As I was praying, God was reminding me of something I had heard a while ago. It's something many of us know, but fewer of us do. He told me we should be holding each other accountable and encouraging each other to spend time with God, and to keep up our relationship with him! This is something I had needed in the past week. I needed people to ask me how I was doing spiritually, I needed people to ask me about my relationship with God.

Hebrews 3:12-14

Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. 

Make sure that your own hearts

are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God.

You must warn each other every day, while it is still "today," so that

none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened

against God.

For if we are faithful to the end, 

trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, 

we will share in all that belongs to Christ. 

As my days without God went by, what I noticed was how I was slowly turning away from God. I had very few thoughts about him, and I was immersing myself into worldly things. I was becoming more and more obsessed with whatever drama or movie I was watching, and I chose to do worldly things instead of godly things. It is incredibly easy to fall into this trap! That's why the bible says, "You must warn each other every day." Do you guys see how important it is to keep God in our conversation and actions every single day? 

So... How should we go about doing this? Well, something I have personally decided to work on, is asking people how they're doing spiritually, or asking them how their relationship is going with God. Is it not important to check up with our brothers and sisters in Christ? I was trying to think of why I had never done this before, and I realized... It's because many people will act uncomfortable when we ask them this question. I never want to make people feel uncomfortable, so I think I've been avoiding this question. But, we need to be asking this question! We need to talk about God! 

Conversations about God should not only take place at church, or at bible studies. They should take place anywhere and everywhere! I hope you will begin to ask your brothers and sisters in Christ how they are doing spiritually. I'm going to do my best to talk about it too. Also, if anybody ever asks you, please don't say, "Oh, it's good." or "It's fine." Yes, it may be good, but we need to elaborate! Go in depth about it! Open up to others about your relationship with Christ! Tell your brothers and sisters in Christ what he is doing for you, so together we can grow! Honestly, I learn so much every time I have a christ based conversation with my brothers and sisters. So, what's stopping us!? Why aren't we talking about this with each other?! 

Another thing we should start doing, is meeting up with one another to read the bible together, to grow together and to pray together. I'm really eager to start doing this with my brothers and sisters in Christ! Just reading the word and praying together... How much growth and changes there will be in both of our lives! I'm not saying this should be a one time thing. Oh no, this should be continuous! We should do this as often as we can! For it says in Matthew 18:20:

For where two or three gather together 

as my followers, I am there among them.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. So, if two or three of us meet, and study the word and pray with one another, then that means Jesus is in that place with them! And if Jesus is there, then wonderful things MUST be happening! So, once again I say, why aren't we doing this!? Of course, we will always find excuses to why we aren't able to do this. We might say, "There's nobody interested" or "I don't have time." There are millions of excuses we could come up with, but none of them are good enough! There is not a single reason on earth that can justify not having fellowship! So, if you say you don't have time, well, make time! If you have time to be on Facebook, if you have time to watch tv, if you have time to sit there and do absolutely nothing, then you definitely have time to meet up with your brothers and sisters in Christ to read the word and pray together! 

Don't let laziness overcome you. Don't let it even take a part in your life! Don't let those lazy thoughts get into your head like they did in mine... I will pray for you! I will pray that we will all meet up together to learn more about God. That we will seek to do his will! That we will never ever turn away from him! So together, let us be faithful till the end! 

- kjoosaurus out!

The Perfect Person [5/22/12]

Hello! kjoosaurus is now checking in =P

I had quite a blessed night tonight! I was able to attend the youth group at my church, and the message that was spoken was great! Once again, we spoke about love.

Love, love, love. Such a vast topic. We could talk about it for days and days and days. So, I will be talking about it again today and I would like to share a bit more about what I learned about love. I got the amazing opportunity to lead a small group today, and I hope the girls in this group learned something from what I said, because I definitely learned a lot from what they said.

The message told today was very interesting, and perfectly relatable to my life. There was something that was said, and it just meant so much to me.

I find that something we worry about a lot is who we're going to end up with. We're always searching for our life partner, and I'm sure many feel like the search will never end! But why do we put so much energy into this? Why must we find that life partner right now? I mean, I'm only 19. I'm still young, but I find myself searching for people that could be potential candidates. Not everybody is like this, but I think I could safely say that many of us are.

Because of this eagerness to find our life partner, I find many of us jumping into relationships too quickly. We don't always consider why we're going into a relationship. We don't think about whether it is love, or lust. We just want that person who will always be there for us; that person who will be by our side! In many cases, I know we can become very lonely. In our loneliness, we don't think before we jump into a relationship, because we are craving love so badly. But shouldn't God's love be enough for us?

I always forget about that. God's love is enough, and when the time is right, he will provide me with the perfect man.

Today, in our small groups, the other leader and I asked the girls why they choose to jump into relationships so quickly. The answers I got were varying, interesting and a bit shocking for me to hear.

One girl said, "I use relationships to make other people jealous."

Another girl said, "I think you need to date around to make sure you know what your type is. You need to know what boys are like before you settle down with one of them."

And finally, another girl said, "I think relationships are something we should be careful about. Think about it like a chocolate bar. Every time you're in a relationship, you're giving a part of yourself to that person. Therefore, it's like they're taking a bite from your chocolate bar. The more times you let people have a bite of your chocolate bar, the less you will have. So, if you give too many people a bite, your husband will only have a little piece of the chocolate bar left!"

This last answer really made me think. Wow. Once I finally get married, I want to be able to give my husband everything. I want him to have that complete chocolate bar, and not just a piece of it. Therefore, I should wait for the person God has set aside for me, shouldn't I? I put so much time and energy into looking for a relationship. But I should be waiting until God tells me I am ready. Because, to be completely honest, I know I'm not ready right now.

On God's time, we will get this relationship we are all searching for, but it will be the perfect time and the perfect person for us!

Genesis 2:18

The Lord God said, "It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." 

God is getting somebody ready for us! We will find this person when the time is right. We will find this person once we are ready and once they are ready. So, while we wait, we should invest our energy into our relationship with God! I'm definitely no relationship expert, but I do know that the most beautiful relationships ever are the Christ based relationships. And to have this Christ based relationship, we must get to know Christ first! 

Have a lovely night :)

- kjoosaurus out!

Complete Trust [5/21/12]

Hello!

So, for the first time in my life, I had God speak to me through a sermon! There's been a lot on my mind recently, and I have been stressing out way too much because of it. I let myself get overly stressed out and very distracted. All I could think about was how to fix my problems, and how to resolve things. I was not at peace, and I was having a very difficult time focusing on God.

But God reached out to me and provided me with words of comfort and guidance! The topic of the sermon on Sunday was called "Trust God and Do the Next Thing." It was extremely helpful to me, and I was very excited to share it with you all!

I'm not going to share every part of the sermon... Just the part that meant a lot to me! Otherwise, this post would be a very long one.

Psalm 121

I look up to the mountains-

does my help come from there?

My help comes from the Lord,

who made heaven and earth!

He will not let you stumble; 

the one who watches over you will not 

slumber.

Indeed, he who watches over Israel 

never slumbers or sleeps. 

The Lord himself watches over you!

The Lord stands beside you as your

protective shade.

The sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon at night.

The Lord keeps you from all harm 

and watches over your life.

The Lord keeps watch over you as you come 

and go, 

both now and forever. 

God is always watching over us, and keeping us from harm. It is God himself who is standing beside us! So, there should be no need at all for us to stress out over our problems. God is always watching, and he is guiding us! One of the most important points I learned was that we must live our life for Christ, and we must entrust our whole life to Him! There is absolutely no need to worry. There's no need to cause ourselves harm by thinking we are alone in our problems, for God is with us! He is by our side, and he is helping us!

Isn't it great to know God is keeping us from harm? This passage really comforts me because it helps me realize that I am never alone, and that God cares so much about us! I love the last bit, "The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever."

He is with us right now, and forever. How great he is!

Whatever might be stressing you out right now, whatever obstacles you may be facing... Just give everything up to God! Let's just focus on obeying God, and everything else will fall into place! He will always provide for us. :)

Thank you for reading this post! Here's the song I listened to while writing this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvTg2WFTHyE

- kjoosaurus out! 

Armor of God [5/20/12]

Good evening everybody!

Is there anything you are afraid of? I've noticed that most people are afraid of spiders, the dark, roller coasters, dying, etc. Well, to be honest, I just listed most of the things I am afraid of. It used to be impossible for people to tell me scary stories, because if they did, I would spend the rest of the week in fear. I couldn't watch any scary movies, because I would start being very paranoid, and check behind all the doors, etc.

You see, I am a person who is very easily scared. But, why do I let these things scare me?

This has been on my mind for a while because of a conversation I once had with a friend. I admire this friend very much because she does not seem to fear very many things. But, as I've been thinking, I've come to realize how I as well should live a life without fear of such things. What do we have to fear, when the Lord is on our side?

Psalm 27:1 

The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? 

The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? 

Why do we let so many things strike fear in us? I find that many of us try to ignore the fact that Satan is truly alive and scheming things to make us fall, and the reason why we try to ignore this is because we are scared. Satan does many different things that may make us feel scared. He may send demons our way to strike fear in us, but there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of! The Lord is on our side, and yes, there is always a spiritual battle going on, but we have the armour of God that allows us to stand firm! 

A few days ago, a friend told me, the Devil can bark, but he cannot bite. He can try to scare us all he wants, but because we have God on our side, he can't do any real harm to us! Praise the Lord for this!

^{Ephesians 6:10-17}

¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

We are given the armor of God so that we may fight this spiritual warfare! When we have fear in our hearts, we are also doubting the strength of our God, and this gives Satan an advantage. We must never doubt our God, and we must always keep in mind that Satan is continuously trying his best to attack us. He will try many different things to strike fear in our hearts, but we must continue to rely on the strength of our God!

A commentary I was reading online said this, "Resist him, and he will flee."

Isn't it wonderful how powerful God is? What we must do is resist what Satan throws at us, and he will flee. The power of God helps us with this! We really aren't alone; God is always watching over us, guiding us, and protecting us! How great he is! Let us stand together with God! Let us not be afraid of Satan's tricks, for the Lord is with us! Amen? AMEN!

Thank you for reading my blog today! Hope you had a very lovely night :) 

 

- kjoosaurus out! 

His Temple [5/19/12]

Aloha!

Today, I would like to talk about something God has given to us; this thing He has given to us is something we often fail to take care of, myself included.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

In many ways, we do not glorify God with our body. This body we have... It isn't ours! It belongs to God, yet we somehow manage to take such bad care of it. This world is filled with so many things that we can fill our body with, and destroy it. I am so guilty of this. Living in such a comfortable lifestyle makes it even more difficult. I have access to all of the food I want, I can drink anything, I could even smoke if I chose to. Everything is just a few steps away.

Have you ever gone out to eat, and stuffed yourself until you felt like you were about to burst? I used to eat like this every single day. For every single meal, I ate until I could actually feel my stomach expanding. Therefore, for the next meal, I could eat more and more. I always ate foods that were unhealthy too... I had a major sweet tooth. Now that I think of it, I was a very greedy eater, and this greed inside of me was damaging my body! I ended up having to see a specialist to help me with my eating habits because they had gotten so bad. The specialist did help, but as always, asking God to help me did the most. God doesn't want us to damage our bodies. Our bodies are a temple!

If you owned a temple made of stone, I'm sure you would take very good care of it. Would you let it crumble? Would you personally bring it down, stone by stone? I don't think you would. If you were given a stone temple from God for the Holy Spirit, I'm sure you would make sure it was in perfect condition. If I had the money, I would hire gardeners, cleaners, maintenance, and all other things! If I didn't have the money, I would do my best to clean and maintain it myself! This should be the same for our bodies because our bodies ARE a temple!

I believe it's very important to take care of our bodies. We must do our best to keep healthy by exercising, and eating the right amount. Something we must be careful of is making sure we aren't doing this all for the vanity. This is a trap I quickly fell into. I used to be extremely self-conscious of my body, and this made me want to be skinnier and skinnier. But it's funny, because I never got near my goal. Only when I have been exercising and eating healthier with God and the Holy Spirit in mind, have I lost any weight.

Our bodies should also be clean of any sins! Because God and the Holy Spirit are pure, the temple the Holy Spirit resides in should be pure as well, should it not? The temple should do nothing but the work of God... The temple should be taken care of. Eating unhealthily, drinking excessively, sexual immorality... You know what you're doing. Why do we purposely damage the temple of the Holy Spirit? I hope you begin to think of how you're going to take care of this temple. I know I still have a lot of things to change in my lifestyle. Everyday, I'm still doing things I shouldn't be doing, but let's all work on it together!

Thank you thank you for reading this post today! I hope your day is full of joy! 


- kjoosaurus out!

Living by the Spirit's Power [5/17/12]

Good evening!

Today, I had a special request to write about Galatians 5:16-26. The bible always puts me in a state of awe when I read a passage and I see how relevant and true it is when applied with my own life! 

Galatians 5:16-26

¹⁶ So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

¹⁹ The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;²⁰ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹ and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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. ²⁴ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.²⁵ Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶ Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

I'm not sure about you guys, but as I was reading this passage, I caught myself nodding my head in agreement with it. Do you see all of the acts of flesh that are listed? Before I came to Christ, I was guilty of almost all of them. I had to look up dissension in the dictionary, and it means strong disagreement. I giggled a bit when I read this because before I came to Christ, I argued with everybody! It didn't matter whether I actually agreed with them or not, I always looked for arguments. It's kind of weird now that I think of it. Why would somebody want to argue with people? Well, I'm not sure WHY I wanted to, but I did. 


It's not only this quality that I possessed. I was also a very, very jealous person. Actually, it is still something I struggle with, and jealousy is a very annoying quality to possess. It prevents you from doing a lot. It is a very difficult quality to have in a relationship, and jealousy can lead to many destructive things. I'm so grateful to have met Christ, because He has truly been changing me in this way! 


Something that I have recently come to realize is that there is always a war going on. Yes, we may not be able to see it at times, and we may not be able to feel it at times, but it is always happening. As children of God who have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, we are still going to struggle with our flaws and our imperfections, but we will no longer be dominated by these things because we now have the strength of the Lord on our side! 


It is not enough to stop these acts of flesh, but we must also seek the fruit of the Spirit! 

Romans 8:5-8

⁵ Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires;but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. ⁶ The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. ⁸ Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

We must always be seeking the Spirit. God will be pleased once we have a mind governed by the Spirit, and why wouldn't we want to anyways? I can personally testify that being closer with the Lord has made me a million times happier. Inside, I am at peace for the Lord is with me. Of course the battle is always occurring, but the Lord continues to have an obvious presence in my life that is not only visible to me, but visible to others as well. With the Lord, we find true joy, love, and peace! So, why shouldn't we seek him? 

I want to hang all of my sins and acts of the flesh on the cross. The struggle is present now, but soon, they will be gone! I know many of you are struggling as well, and I will be praying for you! If any of you have   any struggles you want to share with me, please do! I will pray for you! 

May you feel the presence of the Lord by your side every single second of your day. May you know He is always with you. He never leaves us alone! :) The Lord is great, is he not? He brings us true joy, love and happiness! With Him, our struggles are nothing. Nothing at all! Praise Him! 

Have a good night everybody! 

- kjoosaurus out!

Parts of a Whole [5/16/12]

Hello to all of God's beautiful children!

Was your day filled with many blessings? Of course it was! Every single day is a blessing hehe :) I had a fabulous day! I was able to hang out with a friend from Ottawa, and it was plenty of fun! I really, really miss everybody from my church in Ottawa. I wish you could all visit me! I'm praying it will happen one day!

Well, today, I wanted to talk a little about something I learned last night. I was at Soultrek (the youth group at my church) and a friend of mine was preaching. His message was great! He talked about the body of Christ, and how we make up the body while Jesus makes up the head.

1 Corinthians 12:12

¹² Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body,so it is with Christ. ¹³ For we were 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.¹⁴ Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

¹⁵ Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?¹⁸ But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹ If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

²¹ 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!” ²² On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, ²⁴ while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, ²⁵ so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

We, as the church, make up the body. Every single one of us has a certain part, and we must do our part to help the body function! God calls each one of us to play a certain role for Him. Oftentimes, I find we know what He wants us to do, but we do not wish to follow through with it! Why do we do this? Sometimes, there are different pressures in our lives. Sometimes, we're too scared to do it. There are many, many reasons that may prevent us from completing the role God has given us, but we shouldn't let our doubts and fears overcome us! 

When we do not do our part, the rest of the body cannot function properly! I really love how well this is written. It is 100% relatable to our human bodies. If our eyes do not do its job, then the rest of our body struggles. If our hands do not work, then the rest of our body struggles. It is the same with the spiritual body! When God calls us to do our part, we must do our part! 

There is not a single part of a body that can do every single part. A part is a part, but all of the parts together makes a whole! 

Corinthians 12:27-30

²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ²⁸ And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. ²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰ Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues^[d]? Do all interpret? ³¹ Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.

Each one of us has a different gift that we must use for the work of the Lord! But, none of us has all of these gifts. We all work together, and together, we make one body! I hope you will seek to do his work. I hope you will pray and ask God what it is He wants you to do. Ask Him to USE you! Ask Him to help you do your part! Some of us know exactly what he wants us to do while others are not as certain. Right now, I know I'm supposed to be writing this blog. I know God will continue to use us in more and more ways! 

So, what are you doing to serve God? What could you change in your life to serve Him better? Do you think you are doing your part right now? 

I personally know I'm not doing enough... There is so much more I should be doing, but I feel scared to do it! Slowly, God is breaking down these walls of fear, and I feel closer and closer to doing my part. May he break down your walls of fear! May he cast away any doubts you may have. Let us praise him through the storm! :) 

Here's the song I listened to today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxvAaq9q5Kw

Well, goodnight to all of God's children! May all of your dreams be from Him! :) 

- kjoosaurus out!

One Way [5/15/12]

Hello my friends!

How are you all doing? I hope you are living beautiful Christ-filled lives :) I went to my church's youth group tonight, and it was absolutely wonderful! It is so great to see these young people filled with so much joy. Truly a blessing! I pray they will continue to become more and more passionate for God; I pray  their hearts would really open up to God!

As I was praying about what to write tonight, God told me to go straight to illbehonest.com to watch some videos. The first video I saw was this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8X8dYCfKk_g. The video speaks of how Jesus Christ is the one and only way.

The reason why this immediately caught my interest was because of how I have recently been in the presence of many, many Catholics. It began a couple of months ago. I was discussing with a fellow sister in Christ of the differences between Catholicism and Christianity. I truly could not think of any difference other than the processes of things, and how Catholics pray to the Virgin Mary. Then, this sister began to explain how Catholics also believe they are able to go to Heaven by more ways than just Jesus. She told me they believed doing good deeds would also allow them to go to Heaven. This surprised me very much!

After I talked about this with her, I noticed an increase of Catholics in my life. I met people on the greyhound who were Catholic, I discovered I have family that is Catholic, and I recently met many Catholic people on my trip to Korea! Now, I know Catholicism is not a rare religion, but I was still surprised at how I have only recently noticed how many Catholics are around me!

Then, I began to think... Is there a reason why God is placing them in my life? Is there something He wants me to do? I'm still not completely sure of what it is He wants, but it has started to get me thinking.

There must be so many people in this world who are SO close to being saved, but they are thinking they are able to be perfect in God's eyes if they do good deeds, good things, etc. Yet, the truth is, Jesus Christ is the only way! It is only through Jesus Christ that we are able to be with our perfect God in heaven above. As the video says, we must trust in Jesus Christ. We must truly believe Christ died for us; it is the biggest proof of His great love for us! Nothing we ourselves do will make us perfect in God's eyes. Only when we accept Jesus Christ and accept the beautiful and true story of how he died for us, all of us sinners, will we become perfect in the eyes of our God.

It would be great if God would use us all to show others how Jesus Christ is the one and only way! May He speak through us and use us to tell the truth to all the nations!

John 14:6

New International Version (NIV)

⁶ Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

I wasn't listening to this song while I was writing this post, but I remembered it as I was finishing up! We always used to sing this song at VBS :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPuUIUWE8h8

Thank you so much for reading this post! Every single one of you is such a special blessing in my life. You are all God's beautiful children, and He loves every single one of us so much! May you continue to trust in Him through every second of your day. May His presence be very obvious in your life!


- kjoosaurus out! 

God's will, not ours. [5/14/12]

Hello Hello!

kjoosaurus is back in business. I would like to thank all the mysterious authors who have been posting for me while I was in Korea. I think they did a fantastic job, and I hope God revealed things to them as they wrote :) My trip to Korea was a whole lot of fun! I went to learn Korean, and that didn't work out very well, but I had a very good time while I was there! The only thing I was shocked about was the vanity and materialism that consumes the country... But that is a story for another day!

Today, I would like to talk about something God has been teaching and showing me.

Hmmm. Where should I start. Okay, so I became friends with this one person a few years ago, called R (I'm using this since mysterious single-lettered names seem to have become a trend on this blog), and the two of us became very, very close. The only thing is, R is not a believer.

I didn't really care about R not being a believer because I was not at all focused on God at that time of my life. So, we had a very ungodly relationship, and other than coming to church with me sometimes, R had no experiences with God. But, as you know, I became very close to Christ while I was in Ottawa, and I actually came to realize how R was distracting me very much from building a relationship with Christ. So, at that time, I stopped talking to R very much, and I continued to build an amazing relationship with Christ.

Well, everything was going quite fine and dandy... Until I got home. R knew I was home, so R made a couple of visits to my home and things went downhill from there. You see, R is a very lonely person, and it hurt me to see my close friend be so alone. I wanted to be close with R again, but one thing R made very clear to me, was that there was no religion and no God to be a part of our relationship. R has never wanted to hear anything about God, but in the time we've been apart... This has become worse. Every time I mention anything about my wonderful God, R tunes out. So, just to please R, I stopped directly talking about God. Instead, I tried more subtle tactics (I am absolutely terrible at being subtle.) I prayed for R, and I tried to make R have a different perspective about God.

But, do you notice how I keep saying I? It was ME trying to do all the work. I was not at all letting God do the work. I was relying on my own power and knowledge to bring this dear friend to Christ.

Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.

You see, because of my desperation to help R find Christ, I forgot something very important. I forgot to trust God, and allow God to do all of the work with His power. I often find myself doing these things... It brings me so much sadness to see R be living life without Christ. To see somebody I love so much be living in such loneliness, and so much pain... It brings me quite a bit of heartache. But! I know God is working, and I'm most likely a distraction to R. God doesn't want me to try to take control... He doesn't want me to try to do any of the work. He wants me to hand R over to Him, and in time, R will be able to know the glory and mercy of God as well.

This isn't the only time I have tried to rely on my own knowledge and power. I often forget to rely solely on God. God has the most knowledge, and the most power. He knows exactly what is going on, and exactly what is going to happen. He just wants us to put our matters into His hands, and He will deal with them in His time. We just need to learn to let go of our habit of controlling things. It's definitely hard, but God hears our prayers. He's not sitting in Heaven with His ears plugged! He's listening to us, and he's always going to answer us! May we learn to trust the Lord, and not lean on our own understanding. :)

Thanks for reading my post tonight! I hope you are all doing well! God bless!

Here's the song I listened to while writing this post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp5PZuuB3Pg

Also, I wanted to share the video of my baptism with you all! Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2ZAgSYH8oI

- kjoosaurus out! :) 

Perfect Love [5/14/12]

Hi all! Q here.

I want to tell you all about perfect love!

What is perfect love?

Perfect love is when people experience God's love through us.

I realized from a sermon today that this is how we are to love one another; that God would use us to show His love to people.  That is what our Lord, Jesus, did for us! God's greatest demonstration of love was sacrificing His only Son to die for our sins so that we could live through Him (John 3:16).  Jesus did what He did because He truly loved us.  This is what the gospel is about! Love! Because God is love. We can only love through God because He loves us.  It is through His love showing through us, that we are able to love.  And I mean, what greater love is there than God's love? Nothing! He is love, and whoever abides in Him, God will abide in them, and love will be made perfect among them (1 John 4:16-17).  We are to be imitators of God, living a life of love, just as Christ loved us (Ephesians 5:1-2).  And we know God because we know Christ, and because His Spirit and His Word reveals us such things.  And this is why we preach the gospel: that people will be blessed by God's love when they believe! This is why God used Jesus and uses us (He gives us authority [Matthew 10:1]) to heal every sickness and disease, to raise the dead, to cast out demons: that people will see God's power and love! We can only love through God who loves us.  And this is made possible for those who believe in Jesus (1 John 5:1-5).  And loving people is not hard (Matthew 11:30; 1 John 5:3) because God simply does all the work, as long as we have faith in the power and love of God.

How beautiful and wonderful His love is!  His love is so spectacular and glorious! I praise and worship Him because of His love! Because He is who He is!  He never changes because His love for us never changes! Praise God :)

I really pray for God's love to be made perfect in me, so that His love would draw me out to peoples everywhere and show them an all powerful God who loves them and will redeem them through Jesus if they believe in Him.

Matthew 22:36-40

New International Version (NIV)

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

1 John 4:19

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.

People and Love [5/12/12]

Hellooo it's another bloggity! This time it's from W! Heheh.

It'll probably be Mother's Day by the time most of you read this, so happy Mother's Day!

I hope many of you have shown your love and respect for your mom today! Even though

you should be doing this everyday... Myself included of course. (:

Okay, so I've been sitting in front of my computer screen for a while now.. I don't know what to write.  Sooo I'm just gonna tell you about myself.  

I've been thinking about the concept of love for quite some time now, and I still can't really understand it, let alone "feel it." Well, maybe I do feel it, but because I don't understand it, I don't know if I'm feeling it.. lol I hope that made sense. 

As I kept thinking about it, an important question came to mind.  Why don't I understand it?

And I'm sure most people would feel the same way, as love has always been tricky to us.

But for me, I may have found a reason to my difficulty with understanding love and loving others.  And it roots back to my days in high school..  I don't really like to talk about it, but maybe it might help you..somehow..

First, I'll tell you about me before high school.  I was a very popular kid, I was always the leader of my group of friends, I dated the "hottest" person (lol trying to be ambiguous here) at school.  Basically, everybody liked me.

But when I got into high school, I suddenly went into a deep depression.. I lost the desire to be around people and stopped hanging out with my friends, and I simply stopped talking altogether, even with my family.  And so I lost a lot of my friends from middle school, and I couldn't really make new friends either.  I felt very lonely, on top of feeling hopeless and worthless.  I felt I had lost everything.  Everyday, it was a struggle just to wake up knowing that there wasn't going to be anything in it that would give me some form of hope or joy. But what really shattered my heart was that nobody seemed to care.  I had gone from such a lively and joyful person to being a person that was absolutely miserable; so miserable that the torment of being depressed even led to thoughts of being no more.. But no one seemed to care.. Not even my family, my school friends, nor friends from church.  All I wanted to hear was for someone to ask me, "Hey, are you okay? How are you doing?"  Was it so much to ask? Just those simple words would've sufficed for me to know that someone out there somehow cared for me.  But it only became a fantasy.. The two years of such torment nearly killed me..  How could my own family not care?  Not even my friends.. Not even Christians at church, who I thought was supposed to be all about caring for other people.. And so I lost all hope and faith in people.. They seemed not able to love others.  And I think this is the reason why I'm still skeptical about love and have a hard time embracing it.

I know one thing's for sure though.  And it is that God's love always endures and is mighty to save.  When I simply couldn't bear it anymore, I prayed to God desperately to take my pain away.  I told Him that I couldn't take it anymore.. I've never prayed so desperately in my life.  And the next day, I began to feel better. I felt hope. He really touched my heart and gave me hope in Him to save me from my troubles.  His love never fails.  His love was mighty enough to die for His people.  I know what love is because of what Jesus did for me. But what is the love that people are capable of? Are we capable? If so, it must be through Jesus.. I don't know, I'm still having trouble figuring it out.  I hope God will show me one day what it looks like, and how it feels. And  I hope that He'll show me through a person.. So I could have faith in people..and in myself. That we really are capable of love.  And well, I've already begun to believe that we are capable.  I am starting to see it in certain people :)  And well, I believe it is only through Jesus that we are able :) Yes. I believe it! Lol. You've just witnessed my thought process..  

I'm going to keep praying for God to put His love in my heart, so that I can love others.

Oh, and another thought! Maybe what I went through was just a glimpse of the pain that God went through because of how much people hated Him, their Creator, who loved them...who loves us.. But anyways, it's getting late so I'm gonna hit the hay! lol who says that anymore..

Thanks for reading :) I hope it meant something to you.

1 John 4:19

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.