a time of testing

Hello all!
This is just me talking about Jesus. I don't know if it is anything in specific.
It has been quite sometime since I have been blogging. I need to update part three of the Gospels. (Sanctification) Which is a big deal and is basically evidence in your life to test and approve your salvation. Good to know I would think!

Anyway I just wanted to let you all know that we are called to be SO obedient to the Lord.
Now this is a challenge but it is something that we need to strive for and press on. We need to FIGHT to know Jesus and who he is. There is no such thing as being stagnant.. you are either gaining ground or losing it.. (Dan Perkins was talking about this the other day) How in 1 Peter I believe the enemy prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. That is what we are up against as Christians.

We are playing against.. the dirtiest, roughest.. bunch of cheaters and malicious.. catty team you can think of!
There are no rules.
The enemy wants to crush you.
We need to be walking in Jesus's protection. His will for our lives and pursing the Lord protects us. Follow the Lord! FLEE from sin.

Paul says that all the time. FLEE from immorality. Not turn away, not walk the other direction. No, we are called to run away from things that will tempt us.

Jesus longs for us to sit in his presence. Jesus is a person.
He is a PERSON! We think of God as this big idea or .. concept and it is really hard for us to love a concept. It isn't hard for us to love a person.

It is hard for us to love someone we don't know.
Same thing with Jesus, get in the word! Read about how Jesus answered questions! His wisdom, his love and compassion for the lost and sick! He loves you!

The more we know about something the more we love it.. its true.

I seriously encourage you all to spend time with the Lord.
OWN YOUR FAITH. IT IS YOURS! DO NOT GET FED BY ANYONE ELSE.
don't live off of someone else's food and relationship with the Lord.
Do not think that because your friends know Jesus and you go to youth and you sing the songs and all this stuff that you KNOW Jesus.

We need to spend time with Jesus on a personal level. Lets think of it this way.. So Jesus died for you.
Specifically you, and so .. he clearly wants to have a relationship with you. He wants to spend time for you to get to know him.

He loves it when his children meet with him at youth, but guess what.
Let's turn this into a personal relationship.
With your best friend or your boyfriend or girlfriend.
Do you want to spend time with your friends alone ever? YES.
If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend you go on dates because you want to be intimate with that person, get to know them on a one on one level!

JESUS WANTS TO GO ON DATES WITH YOU.
How shallow of us to just meet with him when .. "well everyone else is going to be there."
wait. okay i have an idea. hopefully i can get my point across.

So .. your boyfriend/girlfriend wants to hang out with you..
He invites you to spend time with him/her.
You say.. yeah.. I will.. but who all is going to be there?
I mean is anyone else going to hang out with us? Or is it just going to be me and you? Cause I kind of think it would be more fun if other people were there. (Youth) I don't want to go if its just going to be me and you.

This is what we do to Jesus, we are good at meeting with him at .. "movie night" or a "party" but .. ehh I don't really know if I want to hang out with you alone Jesus.. that could be awkward.
We are friends.. in groups but .. not THAT kind of friend..

Do you guys no what I mean?
I am not trying to be like accusing but I really think we just want to spend time with Jesus when everyone else is doing it.

Pursue the Lord!!!
He is eagerly waiting for you. Get to know his voice! He is calling you! We just can't hear it.

It was weird .. the other day I was just sitting with Jesus thanking him for how much he loved me, and I was crying. I got down on my knees and was bowing before him.
But suddenly.. for some reason.. I had this feeling, I my head I thought..
"get up my child, I want to hug you, don't kneel before me, this isn't the time."

WOAH. haha It was kind of crazy I broke down crying! The Lord LOVES LOVES LOVES US! He wants to wrap his arms around us. There is a time and a place to worship him! and there is a time and a place to RECEIVE his love!!!

It was like.. Maybe the Lord was speaking to me.. "I know you know I am worthy of being praised.. but how about you just sit in my love for a second and soak it up."
It was good stuff.

This is a very random post.
But give Jesus the time he deserves. He loves it and smiles when you turn your face to his. He CAN see you. He is always watching .. more intently than Santa Claus..
He see's you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake.

He wants you to look up to heaven and seek his face! Look to the sky! Say Jesus! I am looking for you where are you! I can't see you but I know you are there! But I am a little kid, I am trying to see you but I just can't yet!

Someday we will see him. How glorious it will be.
Do you want to be someone who had been looking for his face all the days of your life? So that when he finally reveals himself and comes down from heaven.. He will feel your appreciation and excitement.
Or will your reaction be.. oh! Jesus you surprised me I wasn't expecting you.
or YES!! HERE YOU ARE! MY MESSIAH! My Savior!!!! Lover of my soul!!!!
YOU ARE HERE!!!!

I have no idea if this stuff makes sense. I think it does haha
Anyway .. that's all.
-Mali

The Gospels, Part Two (Justification)

Recap..

God is Holy and Just.. meaning that if he is Just righteousness is rewarded and wickedness condemned.

We are wicked (Man) we have fallen short and missed the mark and the plan God had for us. We are sinners. 

So if God is a Just God, how can we be in his presence.. how can we reach the Father? We come to the Crisis Moment.. where we understand we are desperate NEED of a savior. And we realized Jesus Christ is the only way we can be justified.

Justification is a court term.. you are either Justified, or Condemned. 

So.. God is more holy and just than we can ever imagine.. we cannot begin to fathom it..

We need to properly understand (more like try to understand) all the different attributes of God. Or not attributes necessarily.. we need to know who God is .. and everything that he is.. or strive to know the REAL God.

We know that God is love, he is kind, he is, slow to anger, but we also need to remember that the LORD is HOLY, and RIGHTEOUS, and JUST. (don't create an idol)

Now yes the fear of the Lord is important.. but we do not come to repent because we are.. scared of him.. and that he is some mean ruler. 

We are drawn to the Lord because of the kindness we have received through his great love for us.

If you have a hard time understanding or viewing God in a certain way.. or one of his.. qualities or attributes of who he is.. then ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you!

Ask for the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom while reading the bible or a better understanding of what is being said.

So God hates sin and hates evil because it hurts us.. same thing.. Tyrel said that if someone was trying to hurt his child.. he would pay. Tyrel wouldn't let someone hurt his little girl.. and then get away with it. 

Or there is a strong desire to protect our loved ones from things that hurt them.

God hates SIN. Sin hurts us. Sin keeps us from God. God hates sin because he loves us. 

(hate the sin, not the sinner)

So.. Justice is us getting what we deserve.

When wickedness is justified and righteousness is condemned it is an abomination to the Lord. 

In this world.. I think we see it pretty often.. we see things Glorified.. we see sin in our lives in the .. media or wherever.. schools.. Sin is glorified.. Wickedness is "okay" and doing the right thing is either made fun of or .. condemned.. looked down upon in our culture and GOD probably HATES it. 

It is stripping Justice by rewarded evil. That is not just. Anyway.. that isn't really the point of this Blog its about OUR justification and being made pure through the sacrifice of Jesus. 

But this is kind of one of the points.. we are not justified through God's kindness.. 

God wasn't like okay well i love you children.. so i am going to just pardon your sins because of the kindess i have on you.. NOPE. 

God is Just :  righteousness must be rewarded and wickedness condemned.

Our sin is NOT pardoned through kindness. 

Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the GIFT of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

We should be dead. The payment of sin is death. We sinned.. we should be eternally damned.

We don't understand the GOOD NEWS of the gospel because we don't truly understand how fallen we are..

I was thinking about this the other day.. or while he was talking about all this.. and I was like you know what its absolutely true.

Ever since we are little.. we hear about Jesus.. 

We already know the good news.. we don't understand the magnitude of the sacrifice!

Our culture.. our our era's view on like the bible is we skipped ahead to the climax and the ending of a movie. We know what happens! We are like everything is okay! If we would have grown up reading the bible from front to back (obviously when we are little we wont understand) But like if we read the bible like a book. From beginning to end.. i feel like we would understand the LONG AWAITED MESSIAH a little better.

People were waiting for thousands of years! They were living under the law having to sacrifice animals and try and live a perfect life! They couldn't do it, and it was hard! But then! Prophets like Isaiah speak of a messiah.. someone who will come and set them free! 

The people asked Jesus.. like John the bapstist.. "are you the one we have been waiting for?!" is it you! Is it true? has the time come!?

Jesus is HERE!!! He has come to set us free from our sins and our transgressions! 

I think we take the bible for granted. At least I have.. I want to read about Jesus today.. okay yeah.. lets see here what do I want to read.. Mark? Luke? hmm i read Mark yesterday.. how about John!

We can just flip open the New Testament and read about him! and people before him were longing for him to arrive! 

Anyway.. sorry about the tangent.

We are condemned Criminals being declared Justified (innocent) in the eyes of God.

1 John 2:1-2 "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense -- Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world."

(pretty sure i have been spelling atoning "attoining" WAY incorrectly haha whatevs learn something new every day)

 So how thankful should be be! Jesus speaks in our defense! Awesome, thank you thank you thank you Jesus!

In other versions it says he is our Advocate which is like a mediator or helper. His sacrifice has been appeasement for our sin. He has made amends and reconnected what has been disconnected.

So then in Isaiah 53 Well first of all you should absolutely read it. But the Lord was PLEASED to crush Jesus. Pleased to put him to grief. Because at that time.. Jesus bore the weight of all of our sin. God hates sin.

Blood must be shed for our sin.. someone must die. Jesus shed the blood and died for us. Pure, holy, Jesus, his blood has washed us clean. Nothing more precious. 

Leviticus 16:8-10.. Read it.. but I am going to summarize

So there are two Goats.. one must be sacrificed for payment for the sin.. and they other is called the scapegoat.. they send the scapegoat into the desert and that symbolizes that all of their sins are carried away from them. 

So Jesus is both of those for us. He payed for our sin.. and bore our sin.. he took all of our sin and took it away from us. Or this Goat thing is symbolic of Jesus.

Okay so.. Justification. Jesus died for us ONCE and for ALL! no more sacrifices.. no more payments. it is done, it is finished. we are made pure through him and accepting him as our LORD and SAVIOR.

Again.. Matthew 5 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven." We must must must acknowledge that we are poor in spirit. We are depraved. We are sinners, and evil and bad and have fallen short of the glory of the Lord! But the Lord so loved us God so loved us that he sent his one and only son.

So that we could become purified again and take part in the Kingdom of Heaven.. to have relationship with the most Holy and Almighty God. Wow. How great is this love?

The love of God is the most powerful thing in the universe.

Romans 8:31 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, not any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Like .. you know the sacrifice made.. that is the representation of God's love. God's love is seen through Jesus! We get to .. have a glimpse at the Love of the father.

Ephesians 3:18-19 "may have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled tot he measure of all the fullness of God."

Amazing, our Lord's love for us surpasses our knowledge.. I think my only response is why. Why? Why? What can we offer you Lord! I must offer you my life and dedicate my life to Glorifying you for you have given all for me. Thank you Jesus. 

By the blood of Jesus alone we are saved. 

Thank you for dying for us that way we could inherit you Kingdom! 

Let my life be pleasing to the sacrifice you made.

-Mali