Always and Forever [5/24/13]

Hello hello hello!

So lately, I have been falling deeper and deeper in love with my beautiful saviour and wonderful creator. It's so nice to be able to spend time with him daily, rejoicing and thanking him for how he has blessed me! When I was still in Sunday School, I can remember thinking "how is it possible that people talk about God all the time? Aren't we going to run out of things to talk about? We talk about him every week... I DON'T UNDERSTAND."

What a silly little girl I was! As I dive into the word, I'm not only discovering more about God, but also discovering how little I know about God. It's a chain reaction. When one question is answered, two more pop up! As I've been seeking him more, one of God's many characteristics has been sticking out to me and challenging me in new ways.

Psalm 16:8
I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Matthew 28:20
...And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Deuteronomy 31:8
The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.

These verses are only the tiniest examples of God's persistence and consistence in our lives! I'm sure all of you have experienced similar ups and downs in your faith and lives to my own. We have our good days and our bad days, we have our struggles and our joys, our trials and tribulations. But we have a God who always remains the same! There's no such thing as a bad day for him. He doesn't go through the same roller coaster rides that we go through - he is constant in our lives and persistently showing us his beauty and love no matter how hard we try to push it away.

This brings me great comfort knowing how reliable, dependable and consistent our father is! When everything in this world falls away, we will still have our father - he does not change like shifting shadows (James 1:17)

When I see verses that say "surely I am with you always" and "he will never leave you or forsake you" it reminds me of multiple choice questions on exam. Before you get super confused, question how God reminds me of a multiple choice question and then call me crazy, hear me out.

In the beginning of first year, I went to the Academic Success Center to get some advice because I was absolutely terrible at multiple choice questions (I mean seriously, who tells you to pick the better answer of two right answers?!) Anyways, one piece of advice they gave me was to try avoiding answers that contain the words "always" or "never" because nothing is consistent enough to be always or never.

What great advice! It's so very true! Things in this world will not go on forever and ever. Things on this earth are simply temporary and will one day cease to exist, but God is the one constant in all of our lives! Always loving and guiding us as we journey through this world. This love and persistence he has shown us has brought up a desire in my heart to be just like him in this way! Persistently loving my fellow brothers and sisters in all situations and at all times! I know there will always be people in this world we struggle with - people who manage to push all the right buttons at all the right times. I have people in my life who seem to just cause so much trouble for themselves and then complain about it endlessly - asking me for love and attention that I eventually become reluctant to give. It's easy to stop paying attention to these people and spending the time we used to because we don't want to hear about how they made the exact same mistake as the last ten mistakes.

Yet this is one of the many ways our father loves us. We are constantly making the exact same mistakes over and over again! We try to learn from our mistakes but we so often end up making the same ones. But thankfully, God is persistent and patient with us. He loves us and is there for us despite the situation and I hope to love my fellow brothers and sisters just as he loves me. How eternally grateful I am to my saviour! I am grateful for him loving me despite all of my silly mistakes and mountains of complaints! I hope to imitate my wonderful maker and learn to love even those who push those buttons! Join me in this journey of learning to love as God first loved us :)

"Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."
- Ephesians 5:1

- 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!