Love comes for free

Having no homework this weekend has done wonders for the sake of my blog. I have made one post everyday for the past three days which is a huge improvement from the one post a week trend I was beginning. Unfortunately, writing a post everyday for a few days means that I have less things to write about. Because of this, I will be writing about my day with extra emphasis on the sermon this morning (I meant to write about my entire day but got a little carried away so it is actually ending after the sermon part).

To start things off, I think I am getting sick. My throat is all scratchy and I have swallowed a gazillion times today but it isn't helping at all. I went to church this morning and listened to Pastor Danny preach an awesome sermon on faith from the book of James. One of the main verses he hit on was this:

Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 

James 2:17

I just finished reading a blog post written by my cousin and she mentioned how the sermon today at her church went along exactly with her week. Well, it just so happens that if you scroll down to the blog post under the one I wrote yesterday, you will see that the same thing happened to me! I wrote about how it's not enough to say you're a Christian but that you have to actually live it out. That's exactly what James is saying here. When you first read this verse it might come across as your actions determine whether or not you can be saved and in Romans 3:28 Paul writes that "a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law." When Pastor Danny brought this up today my first reaction was hey, isn't that a little contradictory? Luckily, he must have known that a lot of people were probably wondering the same thing because then he said this:

Paul addresses works for salvation while James addresses works after salvation.

Ah ha! That's better. Salvation comes for free to us since Jesus paid the price for us. After we are saved, our actions justify our faith. If our lives are truly changed by Jesus, what we do should prove it. Because of faith, we should be willing to hand over our lives to God, who is more than big enough to handle them.

I love how in James 4:13 it is written how our lives are "a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." Our lives are just so crazy insignificant compared to such a huge, perfect God. In the big scheme of things, we are here one minute and gone the next. It amazes me that no matter how important God is, He still chooses to love us and care about us and know everything about us. And not only that, He knows every single detail about the past, present, and future! Still despite all of that, we all seem to somehow find reasons not to trust Him. What would faith look like if the church learned to completely trust God? How awesome would it be if every decision made in our lives was determined by what He wanted to happen? I'm talking to myself as much as anyone else out there but if we give over every aspect of our lives to God, I think he could do the extraordinary things so many of us have been asking for. He's just waiting for us to trust Him.

Pump up the jam

Tomorrow night is a very momentous occasion. It is the last Jam basketball game. For those of you who are unaware, I and many very talented senior girls at Shades have gone undefeated for our whole basketball season this year (minus one game we had to forfeit to go to the Lovelady Center). Yeah, we're good. If it was us against Colby Bryant slam dunk giant we would most likely dominate and make him run off the court crying. We're pretty intimidating too. I'm pretty sure we have the largest fan base in church basketball history that is steadily growing with each game we win. All of the fans do cheers but our top fans, they are bringing out the pushups tomorrow night.

As you can see, we are clearly unstoppable. I like to brag about this (because it is in fact, true) but in reality I am by far from being one of the top players. You see, standing at about 5'8" I am often asked the question, "So, do you play basketball?" Why, funny you might ask! As a matter of fact, I am far from a basketball player. I'm actually a sort of awkward, skinny jean wearing, artist person and seeing a ball being thrown straight towards me frightens me half the time. You can usually pick me out on the court because I am the one who looks completely lost and asks whoever is standing nearest to me if they know what's going on when the whistle is blown.  I get fouled not because I am aggressive, but because I only know a small portion of the rules of basketball. A lot of the time I could care less about competitiveness in the game and think I annoy people sometimes when I try to make small talk while warming the bench. So the answer to that question is no, being tall does not make me a basketball player. Does being short make you a horse jockey? Probably not.

Pure Religion

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."  
James 1:27


This weekend was not only my last dnow as a high schooler but also the most meaningful dnow I have ever gone to. I loved my small group, my leader, my host home, and being able to actually carry out what we were being taught. Andy Blanks spoke and the sessions were incredible. One thing he said while he was preaching on Friday night was that "somehow, people see God's command to help the poor and just think that it's optional." In the Bible, helping the poor is mentioned countless times. To me, it seems like if pure religion is to help those in need, then we are all called to missions to come degree. We really have no excuse not to help other people. Poverty is all around us and we can either choose to take action or choose to ignore it.

During Saturday night's session, I felt like God was really speaking to my heart. After I laid down to go to sleep last night, I couldn't. My thoughts were still racing from the session and I was really scared I would forget them if I didn't write them down so I grabbed my notebook and pen before all the lights were turned off and wrote this:

We have it so ridiculously easy.

Women in Africa take about 2-5 hours to get water for their families. A large percentage of the world doesn't even know if they will get to eat one meal a day. The majority of the world lives on less than a dollar a day.

And then there's us.

We turn on the air conditioner when we get hot. We have plenty of clothing when we're cold. We often whine about not getting our favorite foods when we get a little hungry and complain about not having anything to wear when we have a closet that can hardly stay shut because of all the clothes and shoes piled in it. Quite frankly, a lot of the time we are just entirely too selfish and spoiled.

God has blessed us so we can bless others. It's time for us to stop thinking we deserve everything we have. If things are ever going to change, we need to begin seeing people the way Jesus sees them. He looks pasts circumstances and sees only the beauty of His children. As the body of Christ, we have been called to reach out with love and compassion to the very lowest of society and not only meet physical needs but also share the hope of Jesus. It's up to us to bring religion outside the walls of the church.



“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Romans 10:13-15