Don't Fall

"For only a few cents you can buy two sparrows, yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's consent. As for you, every hair of your head has been counted. So do not be afraid: you are worth much more than many sparrows." - Matthew 10:29-30

I always had faith since I was a kid. I probably didn't pray very much and one hour of church on Sunday was a big deal for me, but I considered myself a person of faith anyway. When I turned 16, I experienced a special call from God, but with time, I went back to being lukewarm, not actively working on my relationship with God, putting other things first. About a year ago, something changed and I began to really feel like I needed Him more and more. One day, as I prayed kneeling down in my room, I felt the presence of God, of the Holy Spirit surround me and my eyes watered up with tears. I found myself crying, not out of sadness, but out of love… God was letting me feel His love for me, and it was something so amazing that I was scared I would fall again and go back to my old ways of hardly praying and being lazy with my faith. The thought of cooling off from God scared me and hurt me so much that instead of kneeling, I completely bowed down to the ground and asked Jesus over and over again to please not let me fall as my tears fell on the floor. When I lifted my head up again, I grabbed my bible and prayed to God to show me a passage that would tell me what to do, how to keep on following Him… and when I opened the bible to a random page, I got my answer… my finger landed on these two verses… for a few cents, two sparrows can be bought, but not one of them falls without my Father's consent… He's got every hair of my head counted…I shouldn't be afraid of falling because I am worth so much to Him.

And you are worth so much to Him as well. Don't let Spiritual laziness or life distractions keep you from knowing this incredible love of God and how much you mean to Him.

Today's Prayer:
Jesus, I want to get to know You better but my life gets in the way. Sometimes I am too busy or I am just too weak. Help me to overcome these distractions and start giving You the room You deserve. In Your Name we pray, amen.

He Did It Too

"And the Word flesh was made; He had His tent pitched among us." - John 1:14

I have always found it so amazing that God would lower Himself sooo much to actually become a mortal, human being. How could someone eternal, immortal, and omnipotent become one of us? How could our bodies even contain Him? But He did…God chose to cloth Himself with our flesh because that's how much He loves us. He was willing to come down from Heaven and be born of a woman like the rest of us. He grew up, went through adolescence, experienced hurt, joy, pain, embarrassment, excitement, anxiety, worry and anger just like the rest of us. God loves us so much that He wouldn't give us a life that He Himself wouldn't be willing to carry or understand, so He came to experience life with us. There isn't a problem we face that Jesus wasn't willing to experience in the flesh along with us. Loss, poverty, betrayal, those very things that hurt us at our very core, Jesus chose to experience to be united with us and one day free us from the power of sin and death. He pitched His tent among us. He was one of us who bled, was beaten, and died. If our God loves us so much to put Himself through pain, to be united with us, what then could He not ask of us? Or better yet, what aren't we willing to do for our Lord? Pray to Him? Yes. Go to church? Yes? How about have faith in Him even when all things seem opposed? Jesus in human flesh showed us how to have faith, so we can as well. How about love our brother, even when they have wronged us? Jesus in human flesh showed us how to forgive those who beat us down, so we can as well. How about staying faithful in a world that doesn't understand devotion to God and only seeks its own pleasure and interests? Jesus in human flesh showed us how to love God, live upright and persevere in the faith, so we can as well.

Today's Prayer:
Lord Jesus, 2000 years ago, You pitched Your tent among us to show us how much You love us. For our sake, You chose to suffer and feel what we feel, and even go through death. When I think that what You ask is too hard for me to accomplish or unrealistic, remind me that You did it as well, so that I can always follow Your life and Your example. In Your Name we pray, amen.

Eyes on The Prize

"I do not believe I have already reached the goal, nor do I consider myself perfect, but I press on till I possess Christ Jesus, since I have been pursued by Him. No, brothers and sisters, I do not claim to have claimed the prize yet. I say only this: forgetting what is behind me, I race forward and run towards the goal, my eyes on the prize to which God has called us from above in Christ Jesus." - Phillipians 3:12-14

In his letter to the Phillipians, Paul speaks about his goal - being like Christ and sharing in His resurrection. He says he was pursued by Christ and he definitely was. Jesus knocked him off a horse to get his attention! We all know what a champion Paul is to the Christian faith, helping to convert multitudes of people and even today through these letters he left behind.Regardless, Paul was just like you and I are today, trying everyday to get one step closer to God despite of our weak spirits.

Now, I know many of you might think, "But I'm not anything like Paul, he had so much faith and was such a good person," but before Paul became a Christian, he was out there killing people who believed in Jesus. You might think to yourselves, "I don't deserve to follow God," or "I can't go to church because I'm a sinner," but have any of you murdered anyone? Paul did and look at the man Jesus Christ made out of him! How can Jesus not work in you and make a greater person out of you?

Our lives should be a race, every day pressing on until we are one step closer. No one is asking that you become perfect over night but what you do today counts for where you will be tomorrow. Maybe you're expecting a sign from God, just as Jesus appeared to Paul during his conversion, but this email to you today is your call from God now to begin on your race - there are so many people in this world and today, on Pentecost Sunday, Jesus has chosen you to receive this message because He wants you to follow Him. Forget about your past and move forward in Christ - leave the rest to the Lord for if you do this, you WILL see His wonders.

Today's Prayer:
Jesus, I come before You today because You know that I want to be more like You. Help me to put my past aside and strive for this goal day by day. Give me Your Holy Sprit so that I may always be strengthened along the way. In Your Name we pray, Amen.