Little blurb

I realized today...

Everyone unites for football.

No matter where you are, what you are doing, when you see someone wearing your team's colors, you automatically unite.

I'll scream to random people when I see them sporting the orange and blue. I'll become so excited as we exchange our passion and enthusiasm for the gator nation that we are apart of.

What about Jesus? Do I unite with my brothers and sisters and call out to them when I see them representing our team?

Do I share in passion and excitement with them?

Hmm.. I wonder what it would look like if I treated the kingdom of God like a gator football game?

The Gator Nation is amazing, i won't take anything away from that, but why is it so easy to unite together for something that is temporary?

And I'm the biggest sucker for buying into the temporary.

Lets enjoy our teams, but remember the Kingdom of God is really something to join in together about.

Don't believe everything you think.

Irrational thoughts.

We all experience them.

We all suffer from them.

And too often we are mastered by them.

It makes sense. The devil will use anything and everything to gain control over our lives. If he can't master us by external events, why not try to vandalize our internal world?

Irrational thoughts usually surface from a deep rooted core belief that was created earlier in life. Some core beliefs look a lot like this:

"I am unlovable..."
"I will never be good enough..."
"I am unworthy..."
"I am unwanted..."
"I am defective..."

Many times these core beliefs are so deeply rooted that we don't even recognize them. The enemy is so crafty in using our pain and brokenness to instill these thoughts. Soon enough, he deceives us into creating these beliefs that sustain over the course of our lives. "My parents said I was a mistake.... Maybe I really am unwanted." "Some people make fun of me. I know I've always been different, but maybe I am defective." "He broke up with me. That's the fourth guy... What's wrong with me. There has to be something wrong with me."


It's as easy as that. And Satan is so good at it. His desires are to stunt our growth, make us question God's love for us, and ultimately led us into darkness.

How can we stop this madness?

I recently have been dealing and wrestling with this very question. I have so many jacked-up thought patterns that were established due to Satan's lies about my identity.

What can we do? Don't believe everything you think. I have had to stop and ask myself some questions when it comes to my thoughts:

1. Where did this thought come from? (past, people, failures?)
2. Is there even any evidence for this thought to exist? 
3. What does God think about this? What does He think about me?

"This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; new life has begun!" -2 Corinthians 5:17

Jesus wants to make us brand new. He wants to renew our thoughts and attitudes (Ephesians 4:23). He wants to give us new core beliefs.

"I am fearfully and wonderfully made." -Psalm 139:14
"I am God's masterpiece." -Ephesians 2:10
"I am loved."-1 John 3:1, Ephesian 2:4-5, Romans 8:37-39
"I belong." -1 Peter 2:9 
 
Just as easily as we buy into Satan's lies, we can choose to listen to God's truth. To be very honest, this is a hard process that takes your time and energy, but produces so much freedom if you are willing to seek truth. Challenge yourself. Really dig deep. Pay attention to your reactions. When something goes wrong, what are your automatic thoughts? Listen to the words that come out of your mouth. What words do you choose to speak into existence? They are reflections of our heart and our thoughts.

God is faithful. He will never leave. His truth will stand firm, we just need to actually believe it.

Let's not be victims of irrational thoughts.

They have no power in the presence of truth.

What are you expecting?

Sometimes I experience these deep reflections that get me thinking.

-How did I get here?
-What am I doing?
-Who am I becoming?

Thoughts that can easily allow the enemy to come steal, kill, and destroy if I allow doubt to trickle into my mind.

But then I am reminded of who You are. Who you say I am. Who you are calling me to be. Then the what, when, how questions of my life start to fill me with great hope and faith as I begin trusting that you have the answers to those questions.

Lately, I have been living a life guarded towards the the lover of my soul. A life filled with doubts, disappointment, pain, and little faith.

But I had a huge revelation the other day while reading Luke 5. Over and over Jesus was doing powerful and BIG things.. But there seemed to be a common theme as to why Jesus was doing these awesome things.

"But at your word I will let down the nets." Luke 5:5
"And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus." Luke 5:11
"If you are willing, you CAN heal me and make me clean.” Luke 5:12
"Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, “Young man, your sins are forgiven.” Luke 5:20
"So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him. Luke 5:28

Faith. We hear it all the time, but do we really believe in the power of faith?

These people had great faith and they didn't just sort of believe that Jesus was going to come through- they banked everything on it. They were sold out men of faith!

I want to be a woman of that kind of faith! Man, I deeply desire for that to be rooted in my life!

Let's be sons and daughters of the King who approach our loving and gracious Father with BIG faith believing that he wants... Let me say that again, He WANTS to do awesomely BIG things in our lives!!!

It's time to trade in our half-trusting, cautioned hearts.

It's time to start living with expectancy.