The Hope. (Update)

I haven’t posted in a while. I have written several unfinished posts and decided to let them die. Although I feel bad about this, I just got out of the worst college semester I have experienced, yet. I took classes that I despised, totaled my car, endured money problems, faced crisis within my family, and much more that I’d rather not post on a blog. What am I supposed to say? “Shoot. That sucked,” “Boy, I’m in the pits,” “Oh, darn”? Actually, when reflecting on this past semester, one passage of scripture comes to mind: “²Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:2-5). I fell in love with this passage at the conclusion of this past college semester. It moved me to reflect on all of the trials I faced and how I pulled through with 3 A’s and a B in a statistics class that almost brought about my demise. More than that, I realized how much I grew as a Christian, son, boyfriend, student, and even a Junior High leader.

There is a phrase in Romans 5:2-5 that I’ve grown cling to: “…we rejoice in hope of the glory of God”. More specifically, there is a word that moves me, “hope”. How can we survive without the hope that our savior has given us? How can we live without being completely depressed? When everything around us is deteriorating and we have lost all motivation to move on, we still have hope. We still have the hope given to us in Christ. We know that when all else is failing around us, we still have the God of the universe who loves us, makes everything work together for our good. Romans 5 tells us that we should “rejoice in our sufferings”. God loves us so much, that he allows us to face tribulation and learn from enduring through the “tough times”, rather than just putting us in a bubble and making sure we are never harmed. In that case, we would never grow or learn!

Rather than looking back with frustration and anger, I will choose to praise the Lord for this past semester.

Something quick for you to think about: You are not your body.

The Ocean.

Here is a quick one.


Have you ever looked at the ocean, and think about how big it is? I'm pretty sure everyone has. Doesn't it make you feel tiny?
Just think: God can fit all of the oceans together in the crevices of his palms.


This crazy revelation slipped into my mind the other day. Which lead me to think, “Does God love everything He created on the Earth, and throughout the whole universe?”
As a selfish human being, my first reaction to my own question was “If I had created all of this, I would be in love with it.”
So this thought rolled around in my head for a while.


Later on in that day, I heard the song “How He Loves,” and I began to think about the ocean again. Than I thought, “Wow! I’m not sure if God loves all of these beautiful creations, but He loves ME more!”




Just let this thought sink in for a little bit; it instantly leads me to worship.






“16So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:16)

The Truth.

I just started a series on the “Whole Armor of God,” (Ephesians 6:10-20) and it has been one of my favorite teachings so far. I am so thankful that I can teach such young Christians the Bible! What an honor! I love developing relationships with my students, and showing them what is right and wrong. The best part of all of this is watching them actually live by the truth, and use what they learn in the Bible as the foundation of their lives. Isn’t that how it should be?


Last Sunday, I started with the first piece of armor, the “Belt of Truth.” The word truth is so intriguing to me. My sociology teacher defined a lie as “anything that alters the truth.” The way I see it, anything that is not the EXACT truth is a lie. There is no way of changing the truth. It has to be how it was originally intended. It cannot be how we want it to be, or how we perceive it. Society teaches us that “the truth is what you make it.” This saying is incorrect, and it would be dangerous for Christians to live by this. We know that the Bible is the truth (John 17:17), and that we are to live by this truth. You can look at it differently, but this doesn’t change the fact that it is still the truth. It IS what it IS. You can’t change it. If you alter the truth in the slightest way, than it is a lie.


Why does Paul tell us to put on the “Belt of Truth”?
What if we told non-believers whatever we wanted? Should we read the bible, and decide what it means? Did WE write the bible? Let’s just imagine this for a second: Christians falsely interpreting the Bible, and preaching false doctrine. Are we really going to live according to man’s own interpretation of the bible? If we don’t show non-believers the truth, than we are robbing them the chance knowing the truth, and causing them to stumble.


“15Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. 16But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. 19But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: "The Lord knows those who are his," and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.’”
(2 Timothy 2:15-19)


As Christians, interpreting the Bible with truth (which sometimes means we won’t like what we read in it) is vital. We must understand it in its TRUE form, live by it’s TRUTH, and preach it in it’s TRUE form. Living by a censored or altered version of the Bible (the truth) doesn’t work.


“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is the truth” (John 17:17)