Starting the Summer

Yesterday I had lunch and later coffee with a close friend of mine.  Through our conversation I realize that my time at Clemson is going to be a lot more challenging for me spiritually than my time at PC was.  Challenging conversations are going to be a part of my daily routine and that is something I am really ready for.  In other news, I have been home for three days and I am already sick.  I need to be healthy by Friday so I can sing.

Last week and Restart

So I am sitting outside the Student Center at PC right now studying for one of my last three exams as a PC student.  Of course I got distracted by facebook, then gmail, then twitter, and now I am finishing my distractions by writing this too.  It is crazy to see where and how God uses people and how amazing his plan is for so many people.  Through my two years in PC i have seen so many people change into people they never thought they would be.  I have always heard of people changing in college and I always assumed it would be a bad change and sure I have seen some people go crazy in there time here but for every person I have seen do that I have seen one find God and seek him daily.  Now I can’t wait to see what is in store for me at Clemson.  Things will be completely different from the first day I get there.  New first impressions, new professors, new friends, new fraternity.  I am extremely excited to see what I have to go do.  I would appreciate all the prayers I can get as I make this transition though because I am starting to get a little nervous about leaving the PC bubble to go to a big school.  In other news as i wrap up at school it means I am going to start doing this blog on a daily basis again, so starting next Monday, I am going to start my journey through the Synoptic Gospels and try to learn as much as I can about the life of Christ and share what I find with yall.  Have an awesome Monday.

Final Month

I have always wondered what I would do if I found out I only had a month left to live.  I understand that I am no in that situation right now BUT I did just realize I have a month left until I am no longer a PC student.  How am I going to spend my final month here and what relationships will I still invest in after a month is up?  There are so many things I do not understand why we don’t think about them until a situation like this arrises.  So yea let’s see how my conversations change during the next 31 days.

Following God

So this is something that has really been pressed into me lately.  We are called to follow God all the time, not when we think it is easy or convenient.  The reason I started thinking about this is Perry Noble’s final message during the Identity Theft series.  If you didn’t get to see it you should definitely check it out at newspring.cc.  Anyway, since then I have been trying to listen and follow God as much as possible and my life is already being changed because of it.  I would challenge anybody reading this to do the same.

New events

One, yesterday i dropped one of my class because I realized that I had no need for it whatsoever.  Two,  I can’t wait for Unleashed next week.  It is going to be unbelievable. Three, Where the Blue ridge yawns it’s greatness. Holla

Snow

Snow=God’s glory= beautiful= pure and clean= perfection= forgiveness and sanctification.  Random train of thought.

Untitled

This post is really going to have little to nothing beneficial, it is just a lot of thoughts inside my head so it’s my blog i can do what i want.  Humility is one of the hardest things in the world to get a handle on.  I have said it before and I will say it again, racism sucks.  I hate that I allow school work to get me down and stressed at times when I know that I have God’s assurance that He will take care of me.  I hate that as a human I constantly find myself drifting back to thinking about the future instead of the present and how I can do good things for God now.  I hate uncertainties.  I hate wanting something so desperately and not knowing if I will ever be able to have it.

On to things I love.  I love knowing that God has a direction with my life.  I love being involved in a church that constantly makes advancements for the Kingdom.  I love the opportunities that God has put into my life lately that I can use for His glory.  I love that God has blessed me as much as He has and allowed me to be in the position that I am.  I love knowing that God speaks through me and I don’t have to know everything.

This past week has really been one that has tested me and hopefully this next week will too.  I pray that as I seek God he keeps holding me right by the refining fire.  I pray that all of my impurities be brought up and skimmed away.  Constantly seeking is what I am going for.

Galatians 2 continued

^“20I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”  Wow.  There is really not too much for me to expand on here.  This could be looked at two ways though.

1) A declaration from Paul about his salvation.  Paul is telling them that the old him is gone.  This entire transformation has taken place and he is now a new man through Christ.

2) A daily call for Christians.  Every day it is a job to take up the cross and die to ourselves.  We need to persistently remember that nothing we can do is any good and it is only by His grace that we are saved.

Galatians 2, SO LOADED

So I am going to start my post on Galatians 2 but it will probably take another one to finish it.  Here we go.  The beginning of chapter 2 has Paul telling the Galatians how discouraged he was because after his trip nobody wanted what he preached on. “I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. But I did this privately to those who seemed to be leaders, for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain. Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised.” Hopefully nobody reading this is on a campaign to get people to be circumcised BUT most likely can still relate.  There have been so many times where I have felt like God wanted me to do something so I did but did not see the results I thought I would.  Later on Paul explains that because of false teachers people did not respond to what Paul said.  There have always been and always will be people teaching against the truth.  It is our job to make sure we are not discouraged by that and as Paul said,”…not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.”

The second of three things I want to talk about from this chapter is when Paul calls Peter out.  The problem that Paul has with Peter is that, for lack of a better term, he is full of it.  Peter is fine with hanging out with and ministering to the Gentiles as long as other Jews are not around.  When other Jews come around, Peter becomes worried about what the Jews might think so he slowly separates himself from the Gentiles to hang out with the Jews again.  To me this seems like Peter was just worried that people might talk and mess up his reputation.  MODERN DAY APPLICATION.  How many times do we get worried about what other Christians say? Why would it be so bad to hear somebody say, “Did you see Matt yesterday? He was hanging out with those guys who do drugs.  Or he was hanging out with the atheist.”  Is that not what we are called to do?  Every example I find in the Bible shows Jesus ministering to those who need it.  The call of a Christian is not to have a perfect reputation, it is to bring more to Jesus and I think it is time we all started working at it.

SO to keep this thing from being crazy long I am going to tackle to rest of chapter 2 tomorrow.

Galatians

Starting Galatians tomorrow for those of you who are interested in my commentary on the chapters.  Really excited about this one because it has been a long time since I read through it.  SEE YALL TOMORROW