Matthew 3:8: “Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.” (NLT)
I have read this verse multiple times and yet when I read it last night, I saw it with a fresh pair of eyes. Isn’t that funny how that happens?
So I got my journal out and made a few notes…
Am I living right?
Am I truly repentant?
Have I asked God for forgiveness for my many sins?
And finally…
Do people see Jesus in me and the way I live? Or do I confuse them with my lifestyle?
28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28, NLT)
Are your burdens too heavy? Are you feeling tired of trying to carry them on your own?
Come to Jesus. He’s the answer. He will give you the rest you need and the strength for tomorrow.
13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15 And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”
Romans 10:13-15
We are expected, as followers of Christ, to be a light to the world. To share our faith with the lost. To be the hands and feet of Jesus.
We read in Romans 10:13 that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord WILL be saved!
However….how do these people realize their need for the Lord unless they are taught? How do these people realize their need for salvation if they have never heard about Jesus?
It’s through us! It’s up to us to bring the Good News to the lost!
We can’t ignore our calling!
Demons of doubt
Demons of fear
Demons of distraction
“Don’t lose interest this time” the nagging voice hisses to me. “You always lose interest when you get “invested” in a project. You give up whenever things get even remotely hard.”
The voice inside my head won’t leave me alone. It haunts me all day and all night. “You aren’t good enough to write. You don’t have a story to tell so why are you even trying?”
I fight back sometimes but it’s never enough. The voice always wins. No matter what I do, that ridiculous, nagging voice stays with me. It haunts me, it consumes me. It IS me. I’m the voice inside my head.
There are days I hate myself for trying so hard. That voice just won’t quit. It taunts me, urging me to release some kind of emotion rather than straight indifference that I feel.
So how do I silence the voice? How do I fight the voice and win? How do I fight myself?
Fighting Satan is my weakness. I never have the strength to fight. He knows all my weak points and he uses them to distract me. To intimidate me. To make me feel inadequate. Useless. Unworthy.
Maybe I am all those things. Maybe I AM inadequate, unfit to pursue this so called “dream” of mine.
My wandering brain goes back and forth between the voices. Yes, voices. Plural.
Day after day I fight. Well maybe not every day. But I do fight. I just don’t fight hard enough sometimes.
After the voice quiets down (though it never goes away) the distractions come. I sit at my computer screen, willing my fingers to type out a sentence. Just one sentence.
Oh wait, I need to go to the bathroom. I need to check social media. I need a snack.
No, I NEED to bang out this essay. That’s what I NEED to do.
Why hello brain fog! You’re just in time.
Welcome to my world. Where distractions and brain fog combine to form an army to distract me into doing the many tasks I need to accomplish rather than write.
Have you ever felt lost in a crowd? I have. I feel it right now. I’m so lost in this world of distraction and irritability. I’m irritable because I cannot write for the life of me. I’m distracted BECAUSE since the writing won’t come, I obsess about the million and one other things I already know I won’t complete.
“Write what you know!” I HATE that phrase. How does someone write what they know when they don’t know anything worth telling?
The voices in my head won’t leave me alone and I don’t know what to do.
Welcome to my brain…
You might wanna leave…
I’ve been listening to a lot of sermons by Adrian Rogers lately. If you have never heard him, please check out his website, http://www.lwf.org. Love Worth Finding ministries was founded by Rogers in 1987. On their website you can listen to sermons, both audio and television and you can download his sermon notes/outlines as well.
Rogers was so passionate about winning souls to Christ and it showed in every one of his sermons. I came across a particular one titled “Every Christian an Evangelist.” that really struck home with me. I’m going to share the link so you can watch the sermon. I think it’s very beneficial.
As Christians we are called to evangelize. According to Rogers, “We can’t all be preachers but we can all be reachers.” It is our duty to win souls to the Lord.
Have you ever taken a spiritual gifts test to discover what your spiritual gift might be? As believers we are all gifted in one way or another. We all have that God given gift when we become believers.
Well I took one the other night and according to this test I have the gift of exhortation. People with this gift have the ability to encourage others through the written or spoken word and Biblical truth. I don’t pretend to know everything but I do hope this blog reaches out to those searching for the truth.
When I first started this blog I wasn’t where I needed to be with the Lord. I had backslidden pretty far. But in the summer of 2017 I finally got right with the Lord and started blogging for Jesus.
I discovered the other night that God is using my natural ability to write to reach out to the world and hopefully encourage whoever takes the time to read my blog.
I never put the two together. Not until last night.
In the book of Acts, chapter 8 verse 26, we read about Philip. Philip was one of the first to take the Good News of Christ to those outside the borders of Judiasm. He was a strong and effective evangelist. He was directed by an angel to head to Gaza and there, he met an Ethiopian eunuch who was reading in the book of Isaiah and had questions about what he was reading.
The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage.” Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The man replied, ” How can I unless someone instructs me. And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.Acts 8:29-31
Philip told the Ethiopian man all about the Good News of Jesus and the man accepted Christ and immediately wanted to be baptized!
Philip exemplifies early Christian evangelists, whom the Holy Spirit empowered and guided. He was obedient and followed Jesus, telling others about Him.
You see, God has a plan for each and every one of us. Every Christian is to be an evangelist. We need to be endeavoring to bring souls to Christ.
We don’t know what opportunities God may have in store for us but if we are obedient and follow his will, He WILL make them known.
Who knows? Maybe the next person you reach out to will turn out to be the next Billy Graham or D.L Moody! According to Adrian Rogers, in “1885 a Sunday School teacher led an uneducated shoe clerk to faith in Christ who became the great evangelist Dwight L. Moody. God used Moody to inspire the British pastor F.B. Meyer whom God then used to inspire Wilbur Chapman. Chapman was then used in the life of W.A Sunday, who preached revival meetings that spawned prayer meetings in Charlotte, North Carolina seeking God to send a revival to Charlotte. A revival did come to Charlotte and a 16 year old named Billy Graham was saved.“
I find that so awesome!
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even to the end of the age.Matthew 28:19-20
5 Things I Enjoy… (in no particular order)
1. Reading
2. Writing (a given, right?..I mean, since I do blog and all… LOL)
3. Watching sports (mainly college basketball, GO TAR HEELS!!!)
4. Spending time with my family
5. Listening to music
I haven’t blogged in over 3 months.
Mainly because a lot has been going on in my life so I have put off blogging.
But also because the ideas won’t come. It’s all cobwebs and crickets in my brain, LOL. I am going to do my best to clear them out!
Meanwhile, let me tell ya…2024 definitely did not get off to a good start for my mom. We were down in South Carolina visiting my sister and her family for the holidays. On the 1st, she was getting ready to take her meds and do her blood sugar when suddenly she could not remember how to do any of it. I watched as she sat there…staring at her meds and her blood sugar kit…obviously, something was going on…and since lately, I’ve been having a “half glass empty” outlook, my mind was racing with thoughts of dementia…
So after we arrived back home, she started feeling under the weather and on that Friday she woke up sick to her stomach and sluggish. I immediately took her to the ER where they ran tons of tests and admitted her for a couple days because….she was dehydrated. Apparently, in the elderly, something as simple as dehydration or UTI can cause confusion! I had no idea!
So she was given fluids and kept for observation for a couple of days.
The relief that washed over me when it was not the beginning of dementia…it was a huge wave.
Back to my inconsistency with keeping up with my blog…I will do better. I promise. I WANT to be consistent! I have just allowed the distractions and difficulties to take over.
How has your 2024 started out? Good? So so?
Thought-provoking post! Would I be ashamed if Jesus were to return this instant?
Hey y’all. It’s been a long time, I know. (It’s me, hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.)
I’ve been going through a rough patch since being denied a third time for disability.
I promise to get on here in regular intervals soon.
Just wanted to hop on here and let y’all know that.
Hope everyone has a great week!
All You Need is Jesus 
You must be logged in to post a comment.