Let Him Guide Your Life

Luke 5:4-6

- "Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake."

This morning, for some reason I truely can't explain, I have been full of joy! Perhaps it was the 10 hours of sleep I had last night, but for whatever reason I'm extremely joyful! With this joy, I stepped out the front door and looked around and what did I see? Well, I saw my God's beautiful creation. How amaizing His work is, how His beauty shows through His masterpiece that we are able to call our home while we are here on earth. How truely blessed we are. So I began to thank Him, for all that He has done, for all that He is doing, and for all that He is going to do, when I realized that I hadn't yet read this morning. So I ran over to my room, grabbed my Bible, picked up where I left off in Luke and read this passage. I was blown away with these verses, especially in relation to what I was just praising Him for, so I just had to write it all down.

I had just sent out a mass SnapChat saying, "following The Lord will take you to places you would have never expected to ever be in." Then I read this, where we see Simon, jsut living his life, doing what he always does, and Jesus walks in and tells Simon to fish as He tells him to. Simon, adresses Him as "Master" which means we can tell he repects Jesus, he knows what He's all about, says, in my own words, "Master look, we've been doing this all night, a million different ways, but you know what, it can't hurt to try." Now before I get into saying what happens next, when I read this passage this morning, I immediatley looked back at my life. While it's not a very long life, I quickly noticed that I tried living my own way a million different ways. I knew Jesus, I knew He was my Master, I knew what He was all about, yet I did my own thing in a sense. Finally I come up to graduation from Highschool, I had been living my way, trying different roads, different paths of life for 17 years now. While for at least the first 10 years of my life I was obviously too young to really go out and rebel against my parents, I was living with the option of obeying them, or not. So now I graduate from Highschool, faced with the "real world," What am I gonna do? I feel The Lord telling me to go to Guatemala with Potter's Field and give a year of my life to Him, or I could stay home, wait a couple years without going to college, and work my butt off, and make some money and do whatever I want with it. I think this was probably the first time in my life where I actually said, "ya know what, moving to guatemala for a year sounds kinda crazy, and I don't even have enough money to do that, but you know what, It can't hurt to listen to the voice of God right? I mean worst comes to worse I won't get accepted into the program right?" So I put the application in, or in Simon's case, cast my net to the side Jesus told me, and now I am amaized with what He has done with just myself and my net. So what happened with Simon and his fishing? He caught so many fish that his net broke and in the next verses it says he had to call his friends over to help pull all the fish in.

In short, all I really wanted to post today was this fact that God will blow your mind all over the room if you would allow Him to. I am reading a book called Real Worship by Warren Wiersby right now. If we would worship our Lord with wonder and amazement, give Him our lives, you will be caught up in a whirl wind of blessings! I am living in Antigua, Guatemala because I cast my net on the other side. I am teaching children english, spreading the Love of Christ, teaching children the Bible, learning Spanish, meeting people from all around the world, and I'm learning so much more than I ever would have if I had just stayed home and worked. Now obviously The Lord works in different ways, this program isn't for everyone, but in whatever you are doing, just the Lord guide you because you have no idea where you might end up!

Going Hard For Christ

Mark 14:3-8-

"And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as He sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on His head. And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her. And Jesus said, "Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: she is come a forehand to anoint my body to the burying."

Last Tuesday, a team from Oregan arrived here, and will stay for two weeks. So we decided to hang out with them a little bit and get to know these guys and perhaps encourage them to come to Ignite. Before Kids Club the following day, I was talking with a few of them about the Kids Club program in Antigua. They asked me how many kids usually come to Kids Club, I told them that we don't know, quite frankly it's a little hard for me sometimes because due to some rumored about circumstances, the number of kids went from 150ish to a max of 20. Anyways, the clock struck 1pm and it was time for kids to start arriving. A total of 6 children came that day. Personally I felt embarrised. It was my week to "lead" Kids Club and for what we had planned and the 12 extra college students we had visiting we only had 6 children. Once I started thinking like this I took it to prayer. Simply asking the Lord that He would give me an overflowing amount of Joy to be able to share with these kids. Long story short, we had an amaizing time with these children, and the team had a great time as well. That night, for some reason, a few of us interns decided to join the team with their nightly "wrap up" time. As they went around the circle telling their "highs" and "lows" of the day, it got to me. I asked them if they could be praying for me and my heart as I was feeling down today when I really shouldn't have because the number of children shouldn't matter. After my turn one of the team members said something I won't soon forget. He told me that his highlight of the day was watching me lead songs with the kids that came that day. He told me that because of the joy and excitement that I put forth he could see that what I was doing on that stage was for the Lord, and whether it was for 6 or 600 children I would have done the same thing becasue it was for the Lord. PRAISE GOD TO THAT! Talk about an answered prayer! That day I learned what the Lord was saying to His disciples in this passage. There is nothing better than giving our Lord everything you have. I this woman spared no expence when she anointed our King, so why do we? Looking at it, the Lord gives us talents, He gives us resources and He wants us to use them for His glory. I don't think the discples were wrong in thinking that the ointment should have been sold and then the money given to the poor, but giving what the Lord has blessed us with back to Him shows how much we love; and like His word says, we will be blessed in doing that. It makes me think of the "Gringos" I've talked to here who say that they are here to do volunteer work (contruction, helping at orphan homes, etc.) They are doing a great work, but if the Lord has given them a heart for people, they should be not focusing completely on phyisical help, but spiritual help. If they love the Lord and have a heart for people, use that to bring them back to the Lord. It's my prayer that I will never forgot that when we go all out for the Lord, we will be blessed by that.

Am I Satan?!

Mark 8:33-

"But when He had turned about and looked on His disciples He rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind me, Satan: for you savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men."

Everytime I read about Peter in the Bible, actually, I think this goes for anyone who reads about Peter in the Bible, we look at him and his example and think, wow how is it that this guy can mess up so much. He lives with Jesus everyday, and claims to love Him, yet we see him falling short in many different areas. He knows what's right, and he knows what wrong, so why is it that we see him doing the wrong so many times? I mean The Lord told him that He was going to use him to be the foundation of the church, how is it that he was so love by God and yet messed up so much and was even, like we saw in this passage, called Satan!

If there is anyone I would hate to be called Satan by, it would have to be Jesus, not simply for the reason that He is my Lord and Savior and I would hate to have God mad at me, but because He has actually had face to face experiences with the devil, He actually has been around Satan and knows how disgustingly wicked he is. Know I'm not saying that we have no idea how wicked Satan is, but just holding on to the simple truth that Christ knows all, I think He knows a whole lot more about the devil than anyone else. But let's take a look here, why does He call Peter Satan? Jesus says because "you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." This stopped me for a minute, because this would qualify me as Satan. Jesus says in the next verse that "whoever will come after me must deny himself; take up his cross and follow me." If we are wanting to be a follower of Christ we cannot be holding on to anything that is of the world. The Lord will bless us if we walk with Him, whether that is a physical blessing or not, we will be blessed.

Now let's look back at Peter's walk with The Lord, I mean, my walk with The Lord. Because I do walk with The Lord. There isn't much difference in Jesus physically being in a room and Him being there spiritually. We like to think so, but if you think about it, Jesus was on the earth, and man was still wicked. So when we sit here and say, "man those guys where so lucky! They actually walked and talked with Jesus! It must have so much easier to faith in Him!" We are just talking nonsense because He is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow. He was with us then, now, and will always be just the same. Anyways, my walk with The Lord, which could simply be put as knowing what was right and what was wrong and doing what was wrong. Pretty much reminds me of Peter. Pridefully I say that, you know I have my moments when all I wanted was Christ, and I lived for Him in those moments. But my pride is quickly squashed when I think back to what I said and respond to myself with, "Moments Jonny? Really? Moments?" I have failed countless amounts of times and just like we see here in the life of Peter, it happens right after I do something out of faith for The Lord. So what is my point, what am I trying to get at. Honestly it's this simple truth, that we cannot possibly grow closer than we are to Christ and still hold on to some sort of garbage that we want to keep from the world. There are going to come times in everyone's walk with The Lord when you are going to be in a place where it's one thing, or the other. The world or Christ. I pray that we will continue to pursue Christ in those times.