Getting close to your friend.

It has been a many amount of months since I have contributed to the blog world. I must admit that when I am going through a rough time it is hard to be motivated to put my trash out there and let people learn from it. I am hoping that after so many situations like this I will learn what causes the trash and avoid it before it consumes months of my life. Anyway, God is so good and every time I sit down and consider the greatness of God I am amazed again that he loves me so intimately and even that he would allow Jesus to die for someone as unworthy as me.

I went to a conference and the speaker was talking about how as a parent you knew before you had kids that they would hurt you. You knew and chose to have them anyway. That is what God did with us as well. He knew we would be fickle hearted and we would turn from him time and time again. I consider the turning from him as small as nurturing a prideful attitude. It does not have to be having an affair on a spouse. You see sin is the same; there is only one word for it. We cannot categorize un-forgiveness as any less detrimental than a lie. In fact the physical ramifications of both will be enough to look into a more inclusive health plan.

The speaker was asking us if we felt we were growing spiritually. The audience of coarse all good Christians shouted, “Yes.” “How can you tell?” was the next question and the crowd was silent. He explained that we tend to measure by two things that produce depression and deception.

ONE: Absence of sin.
I have stopped sinning in an area. I have given up an addiction or some such sin. This doesn’t work because as humans we will probably replace it with another addiction or with the sin of pride and be haughty to the people who are still in that sin.

TWO: Consistency of Religious activity
I am involved in more religious activities. This doesn’t work because you can read your bible for an hour a day or be in church every night and never hear from God or get to know him anymore. Use the Pharisees as an example. They knew the scripture inside and out and spent much time at the temple but they did not know God. They had not heard from or had a personal relationship with God. They didn’t even recognize his son when he came to visit in the flesh.

The two ways that you can tell you are growing spiritually is this:

ONE: You have an increased awareness of how far from God you actually are.

TWO: You have an increased awareness of how much God loves you.

This was so significant to me. We do not have to strive to get to the next meeting. We do not have to DO anything. Well, have a relationship with the God of the universe.

Our value to God is NOT based on our performance!!

You see we can do NOTHING to get God to love us anymore.
AND
We can do NOTHING to get God to love us any less.

We totally have the ability to make God sad. Just like our parents. We can make them mad. But with God His love is constant more than the rising of the sun.

One last thing that the speaker said that I thought was great to put into words is that a true friendship is based on joy not benefits. You are friends with a person because of how you feel when you are with them not because of what they add to your life or what they can do for you.
This seems like a no brainer but I have stayed in a relationship that made me feel like crap for about the last two months because I was worried about how he would feel and it opened me up to a lot of discouragement, totally not worth it.

We need to make sure that we are living our destiny. What is it that is God’s absolute best for us and choose that. Why do we spend so much time on things that we think will make us happy?? God has been around for a little more time, he would know. And for those of us in our thirties and forties we have been around long enough to know that our way is not workin. We don’t choose the joy route. We choose the happy route, which is only as good as the circumstances around us (what happens) and we cannot control those. So the outcome is always temporal. We listen to all the shouting voices of our society and miss the voice with the most power to change our lives.

What message from the voices is having the most effect on your heart today? Are you feeling pressure to own a house? Or you should have a better paying job? Are you believing that you shouldn’t feel guilty over the porn because everyone does it? Is it that you should be married? Should you have kids by now? Is your car a piece of crap? How about that you should be out having fun with the opposite sex till 2 a.m. every weekend? You ARE single, right??

LIVIN LA VIDA LOCA!!

Is that true happiness? Where does my mark on eternity come into the equation? How do I point people to Jesus, He is the answer to every question of value, security, relationships, jobs, finances, etc? I encourage you today to take time to spend with your friend, as a friend, Jesus. Silent time, to allow him to speak truth to you about your worth and the things that are truly important in your life. His plan is so much better than ours; I think we all agree on that one.

Later,
Kari