The lie of pride

February 27, 2023 carriedinthecrossLeave a comment

Lent day 5

Someone who is not willing to admit their weaknesses can only show their dark side to others.
Pride. One of the greatest and yet underrated sins. We fall and fail and struggle due to pride, and it is pride that often causes people to not follow Jesus, or to only follow Him in name- calling themselves Christians yet living as though they don’t know Him at all. Pride makes us weak but decieves us into thinking we are strong. Pride says that we have no weaknessess and are strong enough on our own. And when we believe that lie then all we can be is dark. The kind of pride that makes you think that you are always right, even when it’s obvious that how you are acting is wrong. The pride that says you are justified, even though deep down you know that you are sinning. The pride that says you don’t need God’s rules, just His best friend status. God said that there is no love in pride because He knew the evil pride would bring. When we see someone who is conceited and full of themselves, that person tends to irritate us, why? Because in truth pride is annoying to those around it. It’s harmful to those in it and around it. And it’s just sad, because pride shows the weakness of the pridefilled person. We all have moments of pride. Some are healthy moments where we feel pleased in an accomplishment, others are harmful moments where we feel better than someone else because of something good in our lives. The only way to fight pride is to acknowledge it and pray for God’s deliverance from it. We may have to do this everytime the feeling rises. But everytime God will help us, that’s who He is, and He is pleased with is for trying to do our best to serve Him.

Christianity · encouragement · free · guidance · Jesus · lent · power of God

Um. Lord. That’s a really large mouth.

February 26, 2023 carriedinthecross1 Comment

Lent day 4

When God prepares a big fish, no boat is big enough to save you.
As the original News Boys wrote in their song about Jonah, “lord how long is this gonna take? Stuck in the belly of a whale.”
God asks some crazy big stuff of us as His people. Not always, but some times, He sends us to speak to people we hate because He loves them. Sometimes He asks us to go where it is dangerous. Sometimes He breaks our bones so we will be in the right hospital at the right time to speak to someone about Him.
I admit a soft feeling toward Jonah. He didn’t want those horrible people of Ninivah who attacked travelers and raided towns and did all kinds of evil to be saved, and he certainly didn’t want to be the one to do the saving. Let them rot, it’s the least they deserve, was his point of view.
Yet God loved the souls of the people and wanted to forgive them and to save them.
We all have people we can’t stand. Some are fellow Christians. Others are lost people in need of Jesus, that doesn’t mean they aren’t terrible people, people who have hurt you or make you feel just sick inside; what it means is that God loves them and wants them to come to Him. I think of Corrie Ten boon speaking to the Nazi Soldier who had beaten her sister. The man had come to know Jesus and had sought her out to ask her forgiveness, and in her heart she said no, she admits to hating him fully and completely and nobody can blame her. But. She prayed and told God that if he wanted her to forgive that man he was going to have to do it through her, cuz she couldn’t do it herself. And he did, and her heart was filled with love for him and compassion. God may send us to Nineveh, but he won’t ever send us alone. He will always go with us, and will help us to love those we would prefer to hate.

Christianity · Devotional · dreams do come true · encouragement · free · guidance · Jesus · lent · Love · searching · still fighting · The Bible · True Joy

Lent day 3 Stop putting your chains back on.When Jesus died and rose again He took our sins on Himself, He set us free from our chains- so why do we keep setting the locks back in place? We claim our sin as our identity, we tattoo it on our arms (or on our foreheads) we announce it with pride, yet it is what is killing us; it is holding us back, tying us down, and making us defeated. Those sins are nailed to the cross, stop tearing them off and sticking them back on yourself, you deserve more, you deserve better. You are loved so much more by Jesus who says to cast your sins aside than you will ever be by the devil who says to keep your sins and to wear them proudly, in fact mr. Do what makes you happy not what the Bible tells you to, aka the devil, doesn’t love you at all. The devil hates you. That’s why he encourages your sins. Jesus loves you. That’s why He tells you to leave your sins behind. Jesus set you free. So be free. Stop being a slave to the devil. Be a redeemed, set free, undefeated, friend of God. For He called you by name.

February 25, 2023 carriedinthecrossLeave a comment

Stop putting your chains back on.
When Jesus died and rose again He took our sins on Himself, He set us free from our chains- so why do we keep setting the locks back in place? We claim our sin as our identity, we tattoo it on our arms (or on our foreheads) we announce it with pride, yet it is what is killing us, it is holding us back, tying us down, and making us defeated. Those sins are nailed to the cross, stop tearing them off and sticking them back on yourself, you deserve more, you deserve better. You are loved so much more by Jesus who says to cast your sins aside than you will ever be by the devil who says to keep your sins and to wear them proudly, in fact mr. Do what makes you happy not what the Bible tells you to, doesn’t love you at all. The devil hates you. That’s why he encourages your sins. Jesus loves you. That’s why He tells you to leave your sins behind. Jesus set you free. So be free. Stop being a slave to the flesh. Be a redeemed, set free, undefeated, friend of God. For He called you by name.

Blog · Devotional · dreams do come true · encouragement · free · guidance · Jesus · lent · Love · power of God · Prayer · searching · The Bible · True Joy

Lent day 2

February 24, 2023 carriedinthecrossLeave a comment

Even the little concerns

Lent day 2
Today needed a photo, and if I’m honest I’m not sure everyone will get is being said in this one because this understanding of God is something we all struggle with.
God cares. Hang on, don’t roll your eyes, I know we have all heard this term missused and misrepresented. Just (as my new yoga teacher would say) breathe into it for a moment. God cares about you. Every tiny, crazy, dumb problem; every monumental catastrophe, He cares.
My example may sound odd but give me a chance.
You see that guy in the photo below? That’s my horse. He’s been my horse for over a decade. We have had big crazy dreams, big crazy failures and many learning moments. I’ve been worried about him lately. It’s been really cold (though he usually prefers that) and he has been acting odd. Distant. Even a little aggressive. I checked him over and he’s physically fine, so I chalked it up to the cold air and waited. Then it warmed up and nothing changed. Now I’m concerned and on with horse behaivior experts trying to see if something is wrong on the inside. With a little work on a few bad habbits his aggressive attitude faded away, but he was still playing shy with me. It felt like something I should deal with myself, I have trained horses for several years, I should be able to solve this on my own. Yet I was worried about him, and a little sad to see him acting that way toward me who loves him so much. So I prayed. I’ll admit my prayer began along the lines of “sorry to bother you with this God,” because like I said, it didn’t seem like a big thing, just something that was bothering me. Skip to today. I’m out in my yard, my horse comes right up to me, which he hasn’t done for the past several weeks, his ears are pricked but I give him some space and let him do his own thing. His own thing turned out to be following me around the yard, wanting to be close to me even though I had no treats, nuzzling my hair and being his normal self. It was so nice to realize that God wasn’t bothered by my odd, seemingly unimportant request. I know this story was long, and most people probably can’t relate to it, my point here is that no matter how silly your request seems, even if you feel like you should be able to deal with the problem yourself, even if you’re worried that God will see it as too small for his power, He still cares, it’s never too small of a problem for God. We get it into our heads that God likes big flashy miracles, but don’t forget that God was not in the Wind, He was in the whisper. Ask Him. No matter how silly small or unimportant it seems, bring it to God and watch for him to make things better. Like a loving father He’s never ashamed to kiss and bandage our scrapes.

Christianity · Devotional · encouragement · free · guidance · holy spirit · Jesus · power of God · searching

Keeping up appearances.Revelation 2:12-17God was with the church of Purgamum and blessed them, but they sinned against Him so He turned His hand against them. Do we care too much about our church’s appearances? Many churches do. In Purgamum the church wanted to appear as the rest of the city appeared, so it conformed to the city’s evil ways, in doing so the church lost God’s favour and was punished. There are certain characteristics that a church should have, such as following the bible and behaving as Jesus did, being welcoming and kind to others and ministering to the community. But to change to better please the outside world can strip the church of her Christianity and cause her to lose God’s blessing. What’s that scripture? Be not conformed to this world. We are not to indulge in the sins of the world around us, we are to, what? Be transformed by the renewing of our spirits. We can love the people of this world and show them the devotion of Jesus without becoming like them. It’s hard, but Jesus commends those who are faithful in their service without becoming stained by sin. Jesus served and saved people all over the place during His time on earth. Never once did He start sinning like those He was there to save. We may feel we need to add some of the ways of these people into our lives to better witness to them, and though the intention is on the right track the thinking is not exactly correct. We can’t sin to make sinners stop sinning, trying to just makes a sinner out of us and then the devil wins another one. So let us pray that God shows us how to help this world without becoming a part of it.

February 19, 2023February 19, 2023 carriedinthecrossLeave a comment

Christianity · CS Lewis · Devotional · dreams do come true · encouragement · free · guidance · Jesus · Love · power of God · searching

Do you know Him?

February 12, 2023February 12, 2023 carriedinthecrossLeave a comment

“It is well. You know me better than you think you know. And you will live to know me better yet.” -The magician’s nephew

Aslan chose the cabby, the humble man of low means and education, to be his first king of Narnia. The Cabby was the only one who had shown a knowledge of someone greater than he guiding things. In the dark and lost feeling of the world not yet born, the Cabby chose to sing a hymn, and in the midst of them up sprung a deep song of no words; Aslan was singing the world into place. The Cabby didn’t feel he deserved to be anything great in the presence of the Lion. Yet when he saw him he knew him. He had always known him. In a different land, by another name, and never yet in person. And here he stood, and he knew the Cabby too. Because when he couldn’t walk by sight, he walked by faith. He grew to be friends with Lewis’s Christ figure in a world where he never saw or heard him, he simply believed.
We can’t see Jesus and rarely do we hear Him as though He were physically standing next to us, but if we choose to seek after His heart and try to know Him in this world, as the lion says, “we will live to know Him better.” So when we stand before Jesus He will say, “I have known you long, do you know me?”
And trembling, we can reply, “no Sir, least of all, not in a regular manner of speaking. Yet I feel somehow, if I may make so free, as how we’ve met before.”

Devotional · encouragement · guidance · Jesus · lent · The Bible

Palms laid before him

January 22, 2023January 22, 2023 carriedinthecrossLeave a comment

Lent devotional 35

Enter Jerusalem, the city streets are filled with celebrating and cheering as a humble and gentle donkey colt strides down the streets.
Palms are laid at the sweet animal’s feet and a sense of pride wells in the donkey’s heart. He is carrying Jesus, as all animals know Jesus is the king of kings, God’s one and only Son; but the donkey senses sonething, a feeling of pain in the heart of his Lord. The donkey is confused and turns his head to nuzzle the King’s foot, a gentle hand strokes the animal’s neck in response. The donkey stretches hard to see Jesus’ face. The beaming smile is a shock to the donkey because it can sense the sadness within the savior’s heart. All the gentle colt can do is continue to carry his Lord.
The animal saw both joy and sorrow and could not understand, but the joy was love for the King’s people, and the sorrow was knowledge that these people were only a breath away from condemning their King to die; but one small donkey showed his love and carried the weight of the savior as the savior carried the weight of the world.

Jesus was recorded as having great anguish as He neared Jerusalem. Anguish that simple human senses could barely begin to understand. To suffer is one thing, but to know you are about to suffer is another. If we saw the suffering that would come in our lives we as people could not handle it. Jesus knew every bit of His suffering to come and that caused Him greater pain than He would have experienced if it had all been a shock or surprise. Days of waiting are too much to bear, but He bore them for us. The false love of the people must have stung and the lies of Judas must have made His heart sick, but He suffered them all because He loves us. Oh what a love that is, who else could give such love? Who else would? Only Jesus loves us so much.

Credit to owner for image

Christianity · Devotional · encouragement · free · guidance · Jesus

Bringing in the lions

January 22, 2023 carriedinthecrossLeave a comment

You may look foolish, silly, naive or even crazy at times, but your Faith in God will never leave you void. Today I was reminded of Perpetua. Beautiful woman who found Jesus through her slaves and was arrested, beaten, tortured and killed, yet she refused to deny her Jesus. Jesus sent her dreams to comfort her, He stood beside her in the Coliseum and she felt no pain as the cow gourd her until finally the Pro councel was bored and had her cut down with a sword. Moments before she stood cleaning her face, so the record says, because she refused to go to Jesus looking as though she were sad.
To have that Faith.
We have been attacked as Christians here in North America, we have been harrassed, insulted, made to look like lunitics or worse, like some sort of cult that lures people in. Why? A young Korean boy named Ching once asked the same thing. Why if our government is so powerful and we are so happy do we fear a little book about God? Why? Because evil runs from God and attacks things that represent His power. Any one not of God is controlled by the devil, so these people fear Christians and want to make us look like the enemy.
We don’t like to think that people who don’t follow Christ are following the devil, we like to imagine that there’s an in-between, a gray Zone, but there isn’t. There is no middle world where you’re not Christian but you’re not following the devil either, we like to believe there is, even some Christians like to claim that there is, but there isn’t, and I am sorry because that is so sad to think about.
When we are persecuted, do we give in? Do we fall to the fads? Do we bow to Caesar? Do we stand and tremble before man or do we tremble before God and refuse to deny Him as He is? When brought before the lions do we curse God and flee from Him or do we stand and say “I go to my Jesus with my head held high, broken in body and mind but unyielding in spirit”?
Where will you stand when the lines are drawn? But for me and my house, we stand with the living God.

Christianity · Devotional · guidance · holy spirit · Jesus · power of God · searching · still fighting · The Bible · True Joy

Are we willing?

January 22, 2023 carriedinthecrossLeave a comment

Are we willing?

What does your dream, goal and ambition mean to you? When the government tells you that you can’t be a teacher, lawyer, politician, doctor, and so on, unless you accept certain sins as no longer sin what will you do? Is dream worth so much that you will buckle and bow to the death system. Death system was a term that came up when I was a kid. In books, in TV (mostly anime) it means a system unacknowledgably careening toward destruction, sort of like Chaos Theory. Back then even the secular world could see it coming and what it would bring. Now even Christ followers bow to the death system. Not the death of the planet, though much of the shows that winked at the death system did cover the death of nature, but instead we should focus on the death of our souls and the rape of our minds. Do we even know what’s wrong anymore? Or are we taking a pen and crossing out the parts of our Faith that offend us? I was reminded recently of what Christians face in countries that don’t support the Christ belief. People with high IQs and great talent have demeaning jobs, can’t attend certain schools or social events and live in shamble, because they refuse to deny even a tiny part of Jesus, they embrace Him even though they are left in the street by the world. Do we? Are we willing to take the humble road rather than deny even a speck of our Lord? So often we see “christians” praised for taking a job in a secular setting because they can, “promote their witness” there. But do they? How much of Jesus did they have to deny to get that job? What sins did they accept so that they would be accepted? The devil sits back and gestures to a goblet, “drink this, accept the darkness and I will give you everything.” Jesus takes our hand and says, “don’t! It’s a trap.” We pull away from Christ, “if I drink what he offers then he will give me a place in society where I can promote you better, it’s just a little sip, I’ll be fine.” Our bold statement dies as we drink the whole glass and join the devil. If Jesus says something is wrong then it is wrong no matter our good intentions. Are we willing to live as ditch diggers and serve Jesus by denying the devil? Or have we already taken of the death drink, and now we serve the devil under the badge that used to say ‘Christian’, but now says ‘deceived’?
We are so lost in this death system that we have forgotten what life is. Go back to Jesus. Reach for Him. Don’t let the devil deceive you. Don’t let your heart become poisoned. Give yourself to Jesus. Whatever you end up doing, no matter how valueless it feels, remember- if you are doing it for Jesus, if you are sacrificing it for Jesus, if you are suffering it for Jesus, then what your doing is right. The easy road of compromise leads to death. Not death in this world, but death of your soul. Don’t give in. Fight back. Dare to take God at His word no matter the cost.

Christianity · Devotional · dreams do come true · encouragement · free · guidance · Jesus · Love · power of God · Prayer · searching · still fighting · The Bible · True Joy

Counting on you

January 22, 2023 carriedinthecrossLeave a comment

Counting on you

We as Christians count on God for so much. We count on Him to be good to us, to forgive us, to love us, to heal us, to help us. But can God count on us for…well…anything?
We don’t think about God counting on us. In fact, we don’t really think that God needs us, do we? We realize that He is God and He can make His plan work no matter what we do or don’t do. But that’s not the point. God doesn’t rely on us, He doesn’t have to, but He does count on us. He counts on us to do His will, to obey His commands, to care for our fellow Christians, to show His love to the lost and broken, He may even have appointed you a position in which you can do these things. He counts on us doing our part. If we never step out our front door, if we never take the chance, if we squelch the voice of God inside of us, aren’t we letting God down. We like to dance around the circle of ‘it’s a partnership, God and I are working together,’ because it makes us think that God is helping us in fulfilling our goals and our dreams, and that is what the outer ring of the circle sometimes looks like- but what about the inner circle, the inner Sanctum if you like, that’s where God is, the place where it’s not our will but His. The place where the fire burns so hot that it hurts sometimes, the place of surrender, are any of us willing to enter that circle? Or do we prefer the edge where it’s safe?
Can God count on us?
Can God say, “I can always count on Lauren to do the right thing?” Or I can always count on Larry, or Lynne, or Tanya, or Carole, or Mark, or Matthew, or whatever your name is, fill in the blank, can God say “him or her, I can always count on”?
I hope so. I hope that we all aim to live within the fire, near the heart of God, so He can count on us.