real talk

1 JOHN 3

18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

Words are the fruits of the heart, and actions are the fruits of words. God is the only one who knows if all 3 match. my words can't be different from what my heart feels or what my behavior portrays to others, because that'll count as lying. God can tell, even when i can't. The bible tells us to be real, not fake. It's easy to love someone with words because how are they going to check to see if it's compatible with your heart? It's not like there's a window to your heart...but in actuality, the mouth is. Our words need to portray our hearts, which in turn will be portrayed by our actions.

Moral of the story- don't just tell someone you love them, but SHOW them. God didn't only tell us He loved us a million times; He sacrificed His only living son to prove it.

Lord Prepare Me

Lord prepare me, to be a sanctuary,

Pure and holy, tried and true

With thanksgiving, I'll be a living,

Sanctuary, for You.

struggles.

EPHESIANS 4:26-27

26 “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.

words of wisdom for me. i know my struggles and problems with anger & frustration. it's to the point that the problem itself makes me angry, which is a probably a pretty good indication that it is a problem. i've had times where i'm in an angry state and i vent it out there and then to the person nearest to me. or other times, i sleep it off- which, i very very strongly recommend AGAINST.

my personal goal, hope, prayer, whatever- is that when i get so angry to a point that i'm shaking and can feel a gigantic lump in my throat is to take all that to the feet of cross, and not blurt out whatever's on my tongue. even if i could even take one minute to just close my eyes, take a deep breath, and envision Jesus taking that all for me and being nailed on the cross for it; that would be better. even just the stupid things that drives me crazy has led me to sin and God knew that.

not persistent enough.

LUKE 18:1-8

1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

i love this parable.

the way Jesus uses this analogy of a cold and hard-hearted judge who yields to a voiceless widow's persistence to show the even greater magnitude of God's willingness to listen is crazy. not only that, i am reminded that prayer is not easy. prayer life is so frustratingly hard, that i find 95% of the time i let myself succumb to the numbness of not praying. i end up wanting to not pray. in the beginning of the school year, i guess something happened and my prayer life was on fire (compared to before). i loved to pray, i looked forward to praying at prayer meetings because each time, i swore i could feel the wind of the spirit gushing through and within me that helped me to pray. i was tight with God- He heard me, i heard Him.

& then what happened? life. of course. suddenly, that gushing wind passed, and i was no longer able to keep praying, let alone stay awake. thus, the disappointment of not being able to pray in a constant string of words kinda just deflated that prayer-high. i thought it was something that i could master, but it's not. i was reminded recently that everyone goes through bumps and bruises with prayer. sometimes it feels as though God is like a hard-hearted judge who just doesn't want to listen. no matter how many times i want to open the bible, meditate, and just spend time with my Father, that lack of spiritual high is what stops me. it's so deceptive. i pray that i would learn from the persistent widow, that i'd keep being annoyingly persistent with prayer until something happens.