Sometimes in our lives, we are just like a pumpkin. We know that we have a lot going on and are loaded with the junk of this world; however, we refuse to open up so that God can clean hearts.
We think that we can handle our own problems, or that we have to be better before God can handle our mess. This way of thinking is only lies straight from the Devil. The whole point of the cross is that we can come to God anytime with any mess and He will take it! He loves us so much that He sent His son to die on the cross for us. So why do we think that He wouldn’t take this mess from us when He already dealt with it on the cross? God loves us more than we could ever imagine, and all we have to do is open our hearts to His plan, purpose, and calling for us.
When we finally open our hearts and let God in, He takes all the nasty junk out of us. Just like taking all the seeds and guts out of a pumpkin, God takes the junk from us. Not only does he take the stuff out, but he cleans us and puts His light in us, so that we can shine for Him. If I can encourage you with this blog post, I would want to encourage you to let Him into your heart and follow His path for
your life.
Full: Filling and Growing
Sometimes in life we fill ourselves up with things that we want. We think these things are the best for us, but in reality they never are. God always has something better for us, we just have to listen to what He says. However, being human, We don’t always mean that we listen to Him, so we do what we want. This is where the problem lies.
If I fill up a clay pot with Pepsi, coffee, coffee creamer, salt, pepper, and chocolate pudding and plant a flower in this "dirt," it will never grow. Why? It's what I wanted at the time, and it all looked like dirt when I put it together. The flower will never grow because it is not getting the nutrients that it needs to survive. We have filled the pot up with junk and trash: things that will kill the plant, not allow it to grow.
This happens in our everyday life all the time. We want things like a new car, iphone, an apple watch, ect. Although nothing is wrong with these things, we let these things consume our lives. We fill ourselves with a new game on the iphone, a new T.V. series, our Facebook feed, and other worldly things. We want all these things, but in the end, we will never grow from using these things. We will only grow by filling ourselves with the nutrients we need. Just like the plant needs water dirt, and sunlight, we need God’s word, prayer, and to listen to His plans. This is what we allow us to grow and flourish.
Ask yourself, what am I filling myself up with?
If your answer is something that is not allowing you to grow, then it’s time to make some adjustments. I pray that God shows you these things, not to condemn or convict you, but to allow you to grow!
Being Full
This week in class, we started a new sequence of lessons called Full. These lessons are to teach the kids on how to fill their lives with the important things like God, family, and friends. God revealed to me that sometimes we let the small things in life consumes us. This can be anything that we allow to rank over everything in our lives. In today's society, phones play a major role. Phones are great tools that allow people to communicate better with each other; however, sometimes we allow our phones to consume us. We are always checking our phones, talking on our phones, texting on our phones, and always have our phones in our hands. I love my phone just as much as anyone, but ask yourself these question. How much time is my phone taking up? What other things could I be doing with my time? Does my phone rank in the #1 spot in my life? Now I'm not saying phones are horrible, don't use them. I am just giving a basic example of a small thing that we let become a huge deal in our lives.
This last Sunday each kid ranked important things that the have: 1-10. I asked the kids to cross 8 things off their list. This made them chose the top two important things in their life. I am so glad that every kid either picked God, Family, or Friends instead of smaller things like T.V. The kids realized what was most important to them.
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