learning to fall

I've heard it said a million times
That I should hold on tight to Jesus
But I took this road so far from home
And distance came between us

When I walked away, I knew one day
I'd need Your grace

So now You'll find me on my knees
Surrendering
‘Cause I know that I'm really not so strong
And now, I'm done fighting for control
Oh, You can have this life
That I've been holding for so long
I'm learning to fall
Let my world crumble

You ran so fast to rescue me
While I was barely breathing
You picked me up, You touched my face
And I began to see more clearly

Though I'm such a disgrace, You still forgave
Your love remains

Take me as an offering
I surrender everything
No more living without You


As I listin to this song I was like these guy dont know me but they made a song about me. I just felt like sharing It with you guys let me know what ya think

Somebody is Growing Ancient!

Happy 19th B-day Chris Read! Thanks for your chipper spirit, servant heart and leadership in SIGMA. Youve been a blessing. Continue to serve God with your whole heart and know that He will use you to do great things. We'll be praying for you.

Christ's Constraining Love

Yesterday was just one of those days... One where where you feel really discouraged and just don't know how you can ever get back up again. Yet, God remains faithful and His working does not depend on our feelings. Amen for that! I listened to a message last night that God brought me to for a reason. I needed it. The speaker was talking about how we sometimes start focusing on our failures and on how much we aren't loving God. He reminded us that we didn't love God in the first place and then went on to point out 2 Cor. 5:14 that says "The Love of Christ constraineth us." He said for us to notice that it doesn't say "the love FOR Christ contraineth us", but rather "the love OF Christ constraineth us". Even when we aren't desiring God the way we should, His love is keeping us. And it is His love that helps us to draw close to Him. I know this is such an old thing, but somehow it just overwhelmed me last night. I just needed to be reminded that God doesn't ever stop loving us.

Another thing God used to encourage me was something Rachel said in a prayer this morning. She basically said "God, we go our own way and push you out of sight, but then when we turn back to You, You just open Your arms to us." and I was thinking to myself, "How does He do that? As a human, if a person kept pushing me away and then just turned back to me when they needed help, I don't think I'd be very willing to show love. I wouldn't want them to think that I was someone they could just run over whenever they felt like it. I wouldn't want them to think that they could take advantage of me." Yet, that's exactly what God does for us. Every time we sin, He gently tries to turn us back to Him. As Rachel was praying and I was thinking about all this, it suddenly hit me anew. That is what true agape love is. I know I've heard that God loves us with an agape love and that He loves his enemies, but somehow this morning it seemed so personal and real to me. We don't have anything in us that desires or loves God, yet His love constrains, upholds and draws us closer to Him. I can't say that I understand it, but it does make me feel an overflowing sense of love and adoration for my God. A God who loved me so much that He forsook His own Son so that He would never, ever have to forsake me.

Chrystal

Happy Birthday to you!

Hapy 17th Birthay Rachel Dierking! Hope your day was great! Thanks for your flute playing and participation in Sigma. Keep using your talents to serve the Lord. We'll continue to pray for you as you seek God's will for your life.

Happy 15th B-day Jordan!!!

Happy Birthday Jordan Dierking. Thanks for your part in the youth group. Its been encouraging to see you grow and share what God has been doing in your life. Always keep Him first. Hope this coming year is one where you get to know Him even more. We'll be praying for you.

Undeserving of Such Love

Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him, and say, "Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You have become what you were not so that I might become what I was not." --Martin Luther

Speak, O Lord, and Renew My Mind.

Speak, O Lord, as we come to You
To receive the food of Your Holy Word.
Take Your truth, plant it deep in us;
Shape and fashion us in Your likeness,
That the light of Christ might be seen today
In our acts of love and our deeds of faith.
Speak, O Lord, and fulfill in us
All Your purposes for Your glory.

Teach us, Lord, full obedience,
Holy reverence, true humility;
Test our thoughts and our attitudes
In the radiance of Your purity.
Cause our faith to rise; cause our eyes to see
Your majestic love and authority.
Words of power that can never fail—
Let their truth prevail over unbelief.

Speak, O Lord, and renew our minds;
Help us grasp the heights of Your plans for us—
Truths unchanged from the dawn of time
That will echo down through eternity.
And by grace we'll stand on Your promises,
And by faith we'll walk as You walk with us.
Speak, O Lord, till Your church is built
And the earth is filled with Your glory.

(Stuart Townend and Keith Getty)

Greatly Encouraged...

I'm thinking of writing up a petition to give to the church, requesting that we have Evangelistic Meetings every day of the week, all year long. Any one care to sign? =)

Ok, seriously...the Evangelistic Meetings were exactly what I needed right now. I'm having a hard time picking out which one was my favorite message, because every single one of them was so challenging and encouraging. God taught me a lot this week. He showed me that I still have a lot to change and alot of growing up to do. Those of you who weren't able to make it every night, I truly feel sorry for you. You really missed out. (though you can fix that by getting the recordings... ;)

I don't want this week to be one that just fades into all the other services and meetings I've been to in my life. I want the decisions I made to stick. I want to remember what God taught me and I want my life to change. I have a little bit of time right now before my math class and I feel like writing up what God showed me this week and some of the things that really stood out to me in each service. So... here goes...

SUNDAY- John 15
I found it rather interesting that Mark Kittrell spoke about being spiritually pruned since our family had spent all of Sat. pruning our orchard and I had been thinking about writing up a post talking about the similarities of Gods pruning in our lives. Coincidental? I think not. God’s working is amazing. I needed to hear that message. I needed to be reminded that struggles are for our good. Mark Kittrell said that God prunes us for two reasons. 1. Because we aren’t bearing fruit at all. 2. Because He wants more. I don’t know that I’ve ever thought of it in that second way before. I mean, I know that God prunes us in an effort to change us, but sometimes God brings trials, convictions, etc. into our lives even when we seriously feel that we’re doing everything right. Sometimes we feel like we’re failing God despite the fact that we’re seeking Him! I’ve been here before. I’ve had thoughts like “If I’m truly desiring God why am I still struggling? Why do I feel like I still need to change something? Why am I always going up and down? Why can’t I just stay victorious for a long period of time? Etc.” Yep…I’ve definitely been there before. Yet, something Mark Kittrell said has been stuck in my mind. “God isn’t a God who allows us to get comfortable and then lets us stay there. He always wants us to grow and to give Him more. Praise God for struggles! They prove He is still working!” I can’t say that this exactly makes me love the times of struggle, but it does encourage me to keep going. God isn’t trying to be cruel. He simply wants us to see that we need Him to continue the work in us that He Himself started to do.

MONDAY- Luke 9:57-62
At the beginning of the service Kittrell said that we should pray "God, whatever you want me to do, I will obey. etc." and then the service would be guaranteed to be a success. (I think this would be a good thing to pray every day. Then our lives would be guaranteed to be a success. ;) In his message he talked about those who wanted to follow Christ but weren't willing to give up their comforts. They weren't willing to follow Him despite the obstacles. They wanted to follow Him BUT they had to do such and such first. It was as if they were telling God "Don't worry. EVENTUALLY I will get to it, but first just let me do things my way." I do that. Sadly...I do it quite often. For the past week I had really been struggling with just letting God have control. The Christian life can be so hard at times. The battle can be so fierce. The fight can be so tiring. So to be honest...I was enjoying just coasting. (Even though I was miserable at the same time.) On Monday God spoke to me and encouraged me to keep going. To keep growing. The invitation was given and they played the song, "I Surrender All" and that was the end of it for me. I made a decision about surrendering. Not necessarily about the future....though that’s certainly a part of it!....this decision was more about surrendering in the little, daily things. I've had enough of my pride, my self, etc. I gave God back the control and made a decision to follow His will in the future...and in today. No matter where He leads me. I want to follow on HIS terms... NOT mine. I'm so thankful for God's faithfulness and patience with me. He is such a good God and it feels so good to be back in fellowship with Him. Just for the record though...You can keep praying for me. ;) Satan doesn't like it when we make decisions for the Lord and he will do everything in his power to keep us from sticking to them.

TUESDAY- Philippians 2:1-11
"Humility is not when a man thinks meanly of himself….its when he doesn’t think of himself at all." Ouch. "Look at everyone else as if they are superior to you." Ouch again. A lot of times when I'm with people that are younger than me or people who are newer Christians, I look at them as if I'm talking to them because its a ministry or because they can learn something from me. (Yes...I know...completely ridiculous!) It totally changes your perspective when you start looking at them as if you can learn something from them! No matter who they are. Christ was a spirit and He was EQUAL with God. He, of all people could have been proud of His standing and of who He was. He could have done it without sinning. He was on the same level as God. The heaven and earth could not contain Him! He however chose to be confined to the form of mans body. He emptied himself of all selfish desires to bring himself the glory He deserved and chose to be put under the subjection of puny, sinful man. He chose to put man above Himself and think of MAN as His superior. Wow! That is so incredible! When its put that way its hard to believe that we even try to take the glory for things in our life. We've done nothing compared to what Christ did. I laughed at Corrie Ten Booms comment of “Young man, when Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on the back of a donkey, and everyone was waving palm branches and throwing garments in the road and singing praises, do you think that for one moment it ever entered the head of that donkey that any of that was for him?” She continued, “If I can be the donkey on which Jesus Christ rides in his glory, I give him all the praise and all the honor.” I laughed at that thought of a donkey taking the glory, but its rather sad that I have to admit that I've been so stupid as to do just that. I liked Kittrells illustration of the Football coach at the building they visited. He is the face everyone sees, but behind the scenes there are MANY people carrying out the different tasks who are really the ones making things happen. (Scheduling, Cleaning uniforms, Recording Videos, etc.) Yet only the coach is seen. Our lives as Christians should be doing the same thing. We should be portraying Christ.

WEDNESDAY- Joshua 1:1-9
If we want to fight God's battles and win, we have to fight God's battles..Gods way.
Gods Battle Strategy for Success
1. We must have His Presence- The walls of Jericho are not going to fall by just going through the motions. We must have the presence of God in our lives if we ever want to have any victory.
2. We must have courage to do what is right- Obey God’s Word. Don't turn to the left or right. Don't take God's Word and twist it to say what you want it to say. Take a stand. The Romans didn’t have armor for their back, because they weren’t ever expecting to turn back! God doesn’t expect us to turn back… or charge forward either, for that matter. He simply calls us to stand our ground and then let Him fight our battles for us.
3. We must have His Word- How much QUALITY time are you spending in God’s Word? Study it, mediate on it and use it! "Then shalt thou make thy way prosperous and then shalt thou have good success." There is only one offensive weapon in the armor of God and that’s the Word.
4. We must have confidence in God- Remember that God is on our side. He has promised to go with us wherever we go. Seriously…what do we have to be afraid of? Don’t start looking at your failures. Don’t start looking at the world around you. Don’t be depressed by the seeming lack of fruit in your life. Look at each day with a renewed confidence that with God on your side, nothing can permanently stand in your way. "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest." What a great reminder!

Anyways...the services were an incredible spiritual boost for me and I thoroughly enjoyed Mark Kittrells messages. I don't know about you, but I'm just glad that when he was young he didn't didn't make that phone call to the basketball coach, but instead followed God's will for his life. I've been reminded to keep going. Keep growing. And to keep surrendering. Its worth it.

“Dear Christian, look in the back of your Bible… WE WIN!!!!”

Chrystal

Gal 6:13

For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh.

When the world tries to persuade you into doing what they do, they are not doing it because they care about you. They make you their friend, and make you scared to stand up for God for fear of losing the friendship. Their desire is to have people like you and me, following them so that they can say look at all the followers i have. They're not doing it because the truly care about you, or to have a relationship that is used to encourage one another. Their reasons are selfish!

James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

Jordan

Longings after God

"My dear Lord, I can but tell Thee that Thou knowest I long for nothing but Thyself, nothing but holiness, nothing but union with Thy will. Thou hast given me these desires, and thou alone canst give me the thing desired. My soul longs for communion with Thee, for mortification of indwelling corruption, especially spiritual pride. How precious it is to have a tender sense and clear apprehension of the mystery of godliness, of true holiness! What a blessedness to be like Thee as much as it is possible for a creature to be like its creator! Lord, give me more of Thy likeness; enlarge my soul to contain fullness of holiness; engage me to live more for Thee. Help me to be less pleased with my spiritual experiences, and when I feel at ease after sweet communings, teach me it is far too little I know and do. Blessed Lord, let me climb up near to Thee, and love, and long, and plead, and wrestle with Thee, and pant for deliverance from the body of sin, for my heart is wandering and lifeless, and my soul mourns to think it should ever lose sight of its beloved. Wrap my life in divine love, and keep me ever desiring Thee, always humble and resigned to Thy will, more fixed on Thyself, that I may be more fitted for doing and suffering."

(From "The Valley of Vision; A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions")

the second law of thermal dynamics(Jacob)

hey everybody I thought I would Post just a bit about how my life has been going lately. so some of you probably know about my older brother and the divorce that he is going through. Its always hard to watch a loved one go through some thing like that. My older brother and I never really had a great relation ship but lately he has made attempt to try to spend some time to try to work on it. So if you could pray for Gods hand to help him through this hard time and also that him and I could work on our relationship. I would really appreciate it. So then on top of that work has been really slow I actually didn't work at all last week. My sister's husband Scott has been out of work for like 4 months and my sister is a bus driver and the family is trying to stay afloat on her income. Its been hard for them to make ends meet. I have been trying to help them out when ever I can. AND THEN on top of all the before mentioned Scott's sister was kicked out of her house by her husband and
my sister and scott took her in and gave her a place to stay but she has been trying to hurt her self. so Me and My family need lots of PRAYER. Thanks for listening to me. Love you guys Jacob

Psalm 130..

During our Russian prayer meeting (at our "girls only" valentines party) Angela shared a verse and I underlined it in my Bible. I thought of it again yesterday and decided to look it up and read the whole chapter. I loved it!!! So, I thought I'd share it with you all too!



1Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.
2Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

3If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
4But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
5I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
6My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
7Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
8And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.



Those couple verses in yellow were so amazing! I liked verse 3 (thats the one Angela shared)... We think we are so great, but in reality if God were to look at us for our works than we would not even stand a chance for Heaven, but thankfully, when God looks at us He sees Christ (not us) if we are saved! And then it says that God forgives so that He will be feared. It's amazing to think that God is showing himself strong when He forgives us. And then verse 5 is another great verse. Even when we see no evidence that God is at work, we can be sure that his plan is working out for our better! We need to stay in the Word, and keep our eyes fixed on him!

I pray that you all are keeping on keeping on!

In Christ,

Rachel

The Source of Help

This is going to be short and sweet because I don't have much time, (That seems to be a regular thing in my life these days ;) but I just wanted to share a verse I discovered in my devotions that has been a huge encouragement to me.

Jeremiah 1:19- "And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee."

God doesn't promise that there won't be battles. There will. Many, in fact. But He DOES promise that we will have the ultimate victory because He will always be there to deliver us in our time of need.

About putting on the whole armor of God...You know, we are given a shield to defend ourselves, but we are also given a sword to fight!

"Lord, help us to do everything today as if it depends on us....but KNOWING that it all depends on YOU"

Keep struggling and be strengthened.
Chrystal