We Forget God's Love.

Wes's message last week really reminded me of how great God's love is for us, and how quickly we seem to forget that.

1 John 3:1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

To be honest with yall I've struggled throughout my life with feeling unlovable, unwanted, and undesired. I have made many decisions to win the attention of others. To feel loved, needed, wanted, or make someone proud... even if only for a moment. Thinking about this reminded me of the other verse Wes shared with us Tuesday:

1 John 2: 15-17 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

Sometimes it is hard for me to believe that God could still want me or still love me when I stumble. That's when I remember the cross, and the incredible grace, mercy, and forgiveness that comes from Jesus Christ. "God check's all the boxes", he loves and wants all of us even with our imperfections. This true love is never lost.

Why then do we so quickly forget that and settle for anything less? By choosing our own ways and not trusting our Father, who's love is unconditional, we are doing just that. Why do we not surrender our hearts to the Lord, trusting Him, loving Him fully, completely, and unconditionally? We should never base our worth, or how lovable we are, by what others think, or how they make us feel. Rather remember that our Father's great love is lavished on us. It is perfect. It is unconditional. It is unfailing.

The second verse really hits home "The world and its desires pass away." Many times when I won the attention, affection, or praise from friends, family, or guys, not too long after I was left feeling even worse than before. Those moments so quickly fade.

There is no greater love than God sending his son Jesus to die on the cross for us. That through his life, death, and resurrection we may have eternal life with our Father in Heaven... who has CHOSEN us. (John 15:19)

We are unconditionally loved. We are children of God.

Praying for you all~

www.theporchdallas.com

Forgive & Love.

Last week Dave gave an awesome message on Forgiveness! Then Sunday JP gave an incredible message on Love!

While praying about what to share this week I started thinking about when I was in high school and a friend of mine had been killed in a car accident. I was absolutely devastated. It was the worst feeling in the world because the day before she was killed we had been in an argument, and I hadn’t forgiven her. For the longest time I beat myself up over this. Eventually I went out to where she was buried, forgave her, prayed, and let go of the burden I had carried for years.

In life I think we often are slow to forgive because of a couple reasons: we think that somehow we have this “power” over the other person by not forgiving them, if we do forgive they might think what they did was acceptable, we may be too prideful, or we may just not know how to forgive. None of the excuses are good or legit. Just because you forgive someone doesn’t mean you have to allow them to hurt you again, or even be a part of your life, but we are called to forgive, so that we may be forgiven. Matthew 6:14-15

Could you imagine if you were not forgiven for the things you have said and done in your life? The good news is that we are forgiven in Christ.

You see in Romans 5:8 it says, But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

When I think about why I haven’t forgiven people in my past I start to realize how silly it is that I haven’t already done so. When I did finally forgive people that have hurt me in some of the worst ways, it was the most freeing experience. I let go, and let God. I can’t even describe that peace that comes from forgiving others.

We are not only called to forgive, but we are first called to love one another. I strongly encourage you to read 1 John 4. Remember that in forgiving and loving others you are showing them Christ’s love and forgiveness. Verse 12 says: No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on LOVE, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:12-14

God is Love.

Praying for you all~

www.theporchdallas.com

GeTTiNG ReaDy FoR THe aMaZoN...(Part 1)

I appreciate your continued prayers and support more than you will ever know. As promised I would like to update periodically with what’s going on regarding my first mission trip! Our team is going through a course at Watermark Community Church every Thursday night for five weeks called Finding Your Mission.

The purpose of this class is to:

1.Discover the power of the gospel to provide purpose and mission to every area of our lives.

2.Discover that we are already greatly and uniquely equipped to be on mission for God.

3.Discover that we live in a unique and challenging mission field right now, every day.

Our first session was last week and the focus was on:

The Gospel Changes Everything. We started by discussing what the gospel is:Jesus Christ, the son of God, died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin, and rose again from the dead to offer forgiveness of sin and eternal life by his grace, through faith in Christ alone.

Then we worked on having a 3 minute testimony to share with others. In our testimony we talk about how are life was before Christ, when we truly trusted Christ as our savior, and how our lives have been changed because of Christ. It's important for us to make Christ the hero of our story, not ourselves or anyone else.

Our homework was to take a SHAPE Test, Spiritual Gift Assessment. I realized the same problem I had in school. If the question isn't extremely detailed I have a hard time figuring out what it is really asking. For example one of the statements you had to rank how likely you were to do the following:Give use of my car for the youth retreat.At first I checked "No Way!" because I'm not comfortable with a group of teenagers taking my car etc, but then if it meant I would drive them to the retreat I would put "Love it!". Too confusing for me :)

We also had to read a chapter about “the opposite of wasting your life is to live by a single, soul-satisfying passion for the supremacy of God in ALL things”. It reminded me of the Francis Chan quote:

“Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”

It made me think of all the time I've wasted in my life trying to please everyone, getting others approval, and succeeding in things that for the moment seemed like a big deal, but really don't matter nor make a huge impact in my life. How many opportunites did I miss to share with others and grow personally? I should have been looking to please Christ and trusting in Him. So glad I am following Him now! Life is much sweeter! Even if I had everything this world could offer, it would mean nothing without Christ. He is my single soul-satisfying passion!I actually read the chapter while on the elliptical because the font was large :) I ended up going faster and for a longer time period than normal because I was so caught up in the reading! Hoping we keep getting chapters with large font… learning about Christ & burning extra calories all at the same time works for me!

Our second session was last night and the focus was on: Spiritual Gifts.We learned that our spiritual gifts are not talents, personality, or fruits of the Spirit, but are a “God given special ability, given to every believer at conversion by the Holy Spirit, to share His love and strengthen the body of Christ”. What really made me think though was when we discussed the traps of the spiritual gifts. Two that stood out were that we shouldn’t compare ourselves to others 1Corinthians 12:21-22, and we shouldn’t expect others to do things the same way we do because we all have different spiritual gifts. We ended last night sharing our 3 minute testimony with a partner.

I could not be more ecstatic about this trip! It has everything I could hope for: Christ centered, awesome group, Brazil, and a boat! I can already see growth in my walk going through this journey, and it is awesome! Thank you for reading this and being apart of my journey!

Romans 12.

How awesome was last week?! Romans 12 is one of my favorite chapters and I encourage you to read it all. JP spoke on verses 1-2 & 1 Peter 1:13-16 (both below).

Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will

1 Peter 1:13-16 Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

While spending time reflecting on these verses I noticed that both talk about preparing/renewing our minds, and not doing what we used to do when we were "ignorant". Instead we should be “in view of God’s mercy”, and setting our hope FULLY on the grace we have been given in Jesus Christ.

I had a conversation with a friend one time about dating and was getting pretty defensive about how I thought dating should be. Eventually he said something, “So you’ve done it your way for years now, and how has that worked out for you?” I instantly thought of the Albert Einstein definition of insanity: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” You see in the past, not just with dating but in general, my focus was not on the Lord, my mind was on what I could do to achieve what I wanted. Once I changed my focus/thoughts/heart towards Christ I started to see this HUGE transformation in my life, and only by the grace of God. I encourage you spend time reading scripture, praying, and truly recognizing what Jesus did for you, for me, for us. When your focus, hope, trust, and faith is in Christ, you will be renewed...you will be transformed, and I promise it will be AWESOME!

"Be holy"

Praying for you all~

www.theporchdallas.com