This is my life. This is what God taught me. Counseling from God’s Word

Girl, wash your face! I don’t understand why we tell people these things when really what we should be telling them is to repent of their sins, deny themselves daily and take up their cross and follow Christ! Things get hard but in times of trials and struggles or when things get hard we need to remember that Christ is the one who gives us strength, that God is the one who gives us hope (Romans 15:13), and thatall things work together for our good (Romans 8:29-29).  That good is to be conformed into the image of Christ!  I don’t understand why we use the world’s sayings or conform to the ways of the world when God gave us all the answers we need in the Bible! It’s God who gives us wisdom, knowledge and understanding! (Colossians 10:9)

Have you ever been somewhere and you were just like this feels like home? Like you felt like you really belonged there.  That’s how I felt about Hawaii.  I was there for almost three months, which is the longest I’ve been anywhere pretty much except for Texas and Arizona.  I really felt like it was my home there and the ohana I had over there at Waialae Baptist Church was like my family and every time I watch the live stream of their church service and see the people I would always interact with I remember them by name and pray for them.  I don’t know if they will ever know how much they really impacted my life.  I made a lot of mistakes there but I also grew so much and learned so much about myself and how I need to change.  Sometimes I think if I never go back there my heart is going to break.  But then my friend Glory Joy was talking to me tonight about how sometimes God doesn’t allow you to go back and live in a place you love and how sometimes...

Lately it seems like life is going crazy and people are just going their own ways and doing whatever makes them feel good.  Maybe that’s always happened and I’m just not noticing it.  James 1 talks about how it is our desires that lead to sin.  Anymore people just want to do whatever makes them feel good.  The world says if it makes you feel good do it, God says do what He says is good.  If we trust and obey God we may not always have all the successes and we may not be famous but God will know our name and that is all that matters. The love of God is great and His mercy and forgiveness is great.  It surpasses anything we will ever understand. It’s easy to get discouraged but if we trust God He will work everything out according to His plan. If you do not know Him turn to Him and trust Him today He is always waiting for you.  Life is hard sometimes and there may be challenges that we may never have thought we would have to face but God will always be...

“For by grace you have been saved trough faith; and that bit of yourselves, it is a gift of God;  it as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9 Y’all God loves us and His salvation is a free gift to us.  We can’t earn it.  We can’t love others enough and we can’t do enough good things.  When we feel like we fail He comes and sustains us again.  There is no where we can go to escape His love (Psalm 139).  Y’all I feel like I fail sometimes because I don’t love people the way I should.  James 2 talks about how we are supposed to love everybody regardless of who they are and I feel like I fail at that.  I’m so thankful that God takes my sin  and He makes me new.  It is because of Him that we are able to love anybody at all.  I’m thankful that God is love and that He loves me.   We are saved by faith not works y’all.  It is a gift of God. He takes us at our lowest while we are still sinners and He re...

Hey y’all I haven’t really updated you about my future lately or what my thoughts are for my future so I thought I would do that now.  I’m not sure what 2019 will bring.  I’m not sure what beyond that will bring.  I just trust in. God that will bring His plans for my life to pass.   Right now I am still working towards the ACBC certification.  I don’t know if that will happen before or after I graduate.  I’m still praying about going to Hawaii but I don’t know when that will happen.  I’m praying about trying to get a youth or music ministry internship at a church somewhere while having some kind of job and trying to get more experience in ministry.  I don’t know if you are like this but I want to be content with everything but then when I don’t get what I want I just want to throw a hissy fit sometimes. It makes me think of James 4 where it says you want and do not have.  I was listening to a observation video from the IBCD from Jim and Carol...

Pastor Matt Sanders has been doing a sermon series on being disciples and discipleship.  It’s made me think about a lot of things.  Why do are we content (myself included) to just go to church and read the Bible but not actually live life together?  Why are we so focused on ourselves that we don’t stop to help a brother or sister who might be living in sin?  Why don’t we serve together and work more towards unity?  Why are we not always healthy churches?  Why don’t we live the life that God has called us to do.  I feel like part of it might be lack of knowledge.  Maybe we are so used to things the way they have always been.  If it was good enough in the 1960’s or the -990’s it’s good enough for now.  Part of it might be because we are confirming too much to the culture and living/looking too much like the world.  Part of it might be complacency and maybe even some laziness.  We know what we need to do (myself included) and yet ...

"Therefore I (Paul), the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."  Ephesians 4:1-3 It is easy to lose focus of the calling on our lives.  It is easy to forget what God has called us to and to walk worthy of that calling.  It is easy to live more like the world and less like Christ and focus more on ourselves and our desires than on Christ and others.  I guess that is why it says, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." Matthew 16:24 I was listening to a sermon by Pastor Matt Sanders from Waialae Baptist Church that he had preached this summer, and he reminded me of how we are to "walk in a manner of our calling", and how walking involves action.  As a church we are n...

I was listening to the January 6th worship service from Kalihi Union Church today.  The pastor there is Jonathan Steeper.  He is a really godly man and knows the word of God well.  Near the beginning of the service he always talks to the children for a few minutes.  Today he was talking to them about the Ten Commandments.  One thing he said to them was “As you grow as children you will know you are growing to be like Jesus when you don’t do things on the outside because someone tells you to but you do them on the inside because you want to.” I believe this is something that everyone needs to remember.  The way we will know we love Jesus and are becoming more like Jesus is if we do the things He wants us to do not because it is a requirement or because we are checking off the marks on our spiritual checklist but we will know we love Jesus and are becoming more like Him when we do the things He asks us to do because we want to.  Sometimes we do thing...