“Timing is everything,” They say. This is absolutely true, but whose timing should we rely on? Ours or God’s? That right there is probably one of the easiest questions in the world to answer, but one of the hardest to live by and understand. God’s timing is perfect, when his will is being done, everything will fall into place perfectly and seamlessly, when He is not at the center of that plan, bad things tend to happen.

I recently found myself in conflict with God’s plan. As you can probably guess, God’s plan overrode mine despite my stubborn efforts to get my own way. After a while I realized that maybe I was doing this wrong and prayed about it and turned everything worrying me over to him. It was hard to take , that my master plan had failed so completely and for a while I was bitter and unable to understand why God would let these things happen to me, so I turned to the word and found this:

Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NLT) 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 In those days when you pray, I will listen. 13 If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.

Those verses sum it all up pretty well in my mind. Your life his fully known and planned out by God who allow events to happen when they are meant to and not a second sooner. Your life will be at its happiest and most fulfilling when you turn it over into God’s hands and let go of your selfish ambition. After all, God did create the entire universe and everything in it, including you and me. If he got that right, then how hard can our lives be the Lord Almighty? His care and loving for us is so infinite that we cannot understand its depth, that he sent his own son into our world to take our sins upon himself and die for them so that we may have eternal life with our Creator. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t care about us. Allow God’s will to reign in your life and you can’t go wrong. Just look at my life, everything is now falling into place so perfectly there is no other way to explain it but it being God’s plan.

The short answer is yes, everyone is blessed by God with an amazing ability. This gift is sometimes an inherent ability to do certain things better than others. These are awesome gifts that should be used to their fullest extent to further His work. What people seem to not know or forget is that gifts aren’t always genetic abilities. Sometimes a gift is a circumstance that you find yourself in, or even a gift you receive from another person.

For instance, say you come across some extra money, whether trough a bonus or extra hours at work. Sometimes this money can come in handy for things that pop up in life, while other times this money seems to be of no apparent use to you other than to be blown on stuff, not even important stuff, just stuff. You don’t need the money but if you step back and take a look around, do others maybe have a need? I have been blessed many times recently with the ability to give to friends who needed the money more than I did. It feels great to help and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that God put me in those situations at those times to help people. Kudos to me right? Not in my mind. To me, doing the right thing when God puts you somewhere is just the natural thing to do, not something to be celebrated above and beyond the call of duty.

Don’t get me wrong though, it’s not always money that people need. It can be your gifts, time, or even a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen to another’s problems. Do something to make a difference, even if it is just one person or one time a day. 0+0 will always equal 0. If you do nothing and just go with the flow, you aren’t making a difference. But if you do something to help someone else, how much better would the world be today? There are about 2.1 BILLION Christians in the world today. If they did just one good thing a day, imagine the impact. So start something where you are, it might very well be something small, but remember that even the Giant Red Wood tree starts as a seed that will fit in the palm of your hand.

There is a saying out there that it is, “always darkest before the sun rises.” Well being a Christian this works a little different for us. I have noticed that there are many Christian’s everywhere under attack in deep and serious ways. My heart is with them all, even my life has been a little out of whack here lately as well. Our church seemingly on the brink of collapsing on the eve of a bright future. Then we get good news and its not the end of the world anymore. We must not lose sight of the fact that the Creator of the Universe is on our side, to take heart in that fact that He will never give us more than we can handle, no matter how we feel about ourselves, He knows our limits and won’t let us get pushed too far beyond them.

Nothing ever happens without a reason though our human minds might not be able to make sense of it, God knows and we must trust Him with all that we are. A lost opportunity today is a better deal tomorrow, a broken heart now can lead to a soul mate later. Take heart in your trials and rely on God and your fellow Christians, for what happens today will help you tomorrow. Here is something I pray when I get down:

Dear God

Tomorrow I know the Sun will rise

I am going to get up

Breath in and out

Endure the trials now for the good times yet to come

For Your are with me no matter what

And in that I take hope

Thank You for the gift of eternal life for I fear nothing with you.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen

These days the assault on our faith in the Lord is coming at us from all sides, unfortunately even from within the church at times. Before you go and get mad or depressed thinking that the fight is too big or the odds astronomical, take hope in the Lord and be glad, he didn’t leave us naked in our fight for our faith, in the bible he gave us tools to sustain us and take the fight to the Devil. In modern times we have also come up with even more tools to help us out. so I’m gonna go through a couple with you now.

1. First off the first and best place you should always look is the Bible, it is the divinely inspired Word of God, and if the Creator of the Universe tells someone to write something down, you better believe there is a reason for it. Now there are a multitude of translations out there for everyone and mind. I prefer the New Living Translation owing to the fact that it is both easy to read and still does a commendable job of making the message accessible to the next generation in a way the that the King James Version can’t hope to match. In the Bible is one of the most famous passages I refer to it the Armor of God. It is found in Ephesians 6:10-18 and it states: “10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”
2. Along the lines of being accessible I would also highly suggest getting some sort of Concordance and/or a devotional. In other words some sort of guidebook to the Bible, it makes talking about certain subject. If you see me with my Bible in hand you will see Book of Where To Find It in the Bible as well: If you would like a copy, send me an email or a comment and I will see to it that you get a copy at no cost to yourself at all. http://www.amazon.com/Nelsons-Little-Book-Where-Bible/dp/0785247084
3. If you are reading this then you are on the internet, probably quite frequently if all of the statistics are to be believed. It has happened to me and I am sure it has happened to you as well, clicking on a link and suddenly being assaulted by images and things that you never wished to see. If you have the Mozilla Firefox as your internet browser you are in luck. If you don’t then I suggest you do, its free and the tools available to you are amazing. Anyway the addon is called cooliris and it allows you to hover your mouse over a link and it will give you a snapshot of what lays before you if you click on it. It can be found here: http://www.cooliris.com/Site/download-firefox.html
   1. Since you are on the internet, you might as well use it to glorify God while you are at it. Therefore I suggest you check out these sites, all are useful and great:
      • www.biblegateway.com : This site is one of my favorites, it will help you find most anything in the Bible, only without the nasty papercuts. Also found is a read along summary and footnotes that are both enlightening and concise.
      • www.mylifeministries.org : This may be a shameless plug but this site has it all.
        • A Christian forum with many true Prayer Warriors and a willingness to help.
        • One of, if not the only and best, Christian radio podcast program, Two Blind Squirrels. They keep it real with funny stuff but still manage to deliver powerful tidbits along the way. I personally keep three months worth of podcasts on my MP3 player at all times, the first thing I do every morning is fire up the lap top and load the latest podcast to listen to on my way to work
        • Great people all around with amazing ministries, through blogs, podcast, and other great tools.
4. Above all there are two things that I firmly believe, and these are supported in the bible. You need a good church to support you. Try as you might you cannot convince me that one person can stand the onslaught of the world better than a group of believers standing together and supporting each other. Bible verses supporting this are:
   1. Matthew 18:20 (NLT) “For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”
   2. Hebrews 10:25 (NLT) “For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”

   The other tool that no Christian should be without is prayer. Communicating with you Creator and Savior works wonders for your attitude and soul. Not just that but you are called to pray in the bible. Even Jesus prayed, think about that.

   1. Philippians 4:6 (NLT) Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
   2. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NLT) 16Be joyful always; 17pray continually; 18give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

So there you go, some more tools for you to walk through this world, I hope they help you all. God bless and I pray for you all, though I know not all of your names, I still pray for you

The what? Sounds kind of weird, what is that? Well in determined use it is one of the best ways I have found to keep yourself living a life that would glorify God. Most have heard the term WWJD or, What Would Jesus Do. This saying is fine for most everything with one minor issue for me. Putting that phrase to use is hard in my mind because you have to think through someone else’s mind, you may have an idea about what someone would say or do, but every human mind is unique in how it looks at issues and circumstances. The Presence Principle takes care of that minor hiccup.

It’s easy to understand and simple to get answers from, it goes like this. If your Savior, the Son of God, Jesus Christ were standing next to you, would he be pleased and happy with what you are doing or saying? For whatever reason people tend to forget or not truly grasp that Jesus was a real man, he laughed and had fun just like the rest of us. The difference was that he never derived his fun from hurting others or doing things displeasing to God.

This one is shorter than the last, due to conflicts of the heart and a hectic work schedule, God Bless

I’m sure most of you have heard of this saying and if so you are wondering why on Earth it showed up in a Christian blog. Up until a few months ago I was a Talker and as much as I wanted to change, no matter how hard I wanted to, failure was always the end result. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why until I went to an amazing Christian camp known as Wild Week. While there and in the time immediately following that amazing experience I realized what I was doing wrong, the tungsten filament to my otherwise perfect light bulb (Geek reference, sorry). If all that you consume is garbage, whether it be your musical tastes, the news you follow, the company you keep, you will never get anywhere. To put in rather bluntly poop is poop, it will never become a diamond. Being a Christian our fruit would be acting in a manner that would remind the world of Jesus. I know for a fact that Jesus would never talk about shooting up people, prostitutes, doing drugs in anything resembling a positive light. So let’s take a peak at music first then shall we?

A really popular band right now is Fall Out Boy and their most popular song at the moment is “Thanks for the Memories”. You can find the lyrics at this link: http://www.metrolyrics.com/thanks-for-the-memories-lyrics-fall-out-boy.html . Having listened to the song I can see where you could find it enjoyable, it sounds upbeat and catchy with a great rhythm and pleasant vocals. Most teens would think much of it, but when you actually stop and look at the lyrics what you find certainly contains nothing pleasing to God. The song talks about one night stands in such a manner that you would think he enjoyed it and think that, though this one went sour, I’ll move on to the next girl. Let’s stop right there and blast that little gem all to pieces. First off the bible condemns several times sex out side of wedlock just look here:

• Exodus 20:14 (NLT) “You must not commit adultery.” Adultery is having sex outside of wedlock, even in your mind it still counts, just look at Matthew 5:28 (NLT) “But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
• Proverbs 5:15-17 (NLT) 15 Drink water from your own well—
  share your love only with your wife.
  16 Why spill the water of your springs in the streets,
  having sex with just anyone?
  17 You should reserve it for yourselves.
  Never share it with strangers.

I could go on and one, beating this horse to death but I think you get the idea. Drugs are not specifically mentioned in the bible but just look at 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NLT) 19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. This can also be tied back to promiscuity and a multitude of other issues that I am going to hit on so bear that in mind, look I even made it bold so it’ll be easy to find and refer back to. Think about it, does anything good come from drugs? Science keeps proving that drugs harm the body, killing brain cells and in general just making harder for a person to do the right thing. Even more simple than that is the fact that the bible says that we must still follow the laws of the land in addition to the laws of God (Titus 3:1).

Murder is wrong, everyone knows it, its in the Ten Commandments and it is still illegal most everywhere in the world today. There are exceptions to the rule like self-defense but that is entirely different to straight up murders.

The excuse that some Christians give is that all the good music in secular and that the lyrics don’t affect me. Both of these statements are still excuses, and as well all know, excuses are like rear ends, everyone has them and they all stink. First off the APA or American Psychological Association published a study shown here: http://www.apa.org/releases/violentsongs.html that directly links violent music with an increase in violent behavior. Once again proving my point that, if you put garbage it, that is all that’s going to come out. The other claim that all the good music out there is secular and it all has those kind of subjects is simply preposterous. For every band and genre of music out there, there is either a secular version that plays the same great music that will get you moving without relying on dirty lyrics and curse words to get their point across. For help with this just turn to www.pluggedinonline.com or to http://www.christianitytoday.com/teens/features/alternatives.html or http://www.musicalfish.com/alternatives.html for help with finding the good stuff out there and the Christian alternatives to the bad.

Now all of this has been aimed squarely at music but it also applies to movies, television, and books just as well. Trying to live a life that is pure and pleasing to God while still subjecting yourself to all of this is impossible, even if you think you can control it, your thoughts will still continue to wander into areas that God abhors.

Check back tomorrow when I take a stab at profanity in any form

Right now I want you to stop and ask yourself, “What kind of Christian am I?” In my mind there are only two answers to that question so figuring out where you stand should be really easy. Let me break them down for you here:

Type 1 is the group I like to call the Talkers. They say all the right words and never miss church. They always look nice at church and really friendly, almost too friendly. The fun part is when you take them out of the Church and suddenly you have a Mr. or Miss. Hyde on your hands. They completely flip the script on you and flow with the rest of the world. Between the hours of 10 and 12 on Sunday they live for God, the rest of the time God is put on a shelf.

Type 2 is what I call the Universal Believers. It doesn’t matter when or where you find them, but as soon as you walk up you can tell you are in the presence of a rabid believer. These people are the embodiment of the Fruits of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22-23) no matter where you find them or what is going on. Now this group is a little harder to judge, due to the fact that one cannot tell what is going on in the mind of every person. I know people who can smile to your face and be pokin’ you in the eye within the confines of their mind. I know because I use to be one of them.

Of all the sins or places to sin in, the mind, without a doubt is the hardest to get control over. Being born as sinners we are naturally inclined to do the wrong thing. If you don’t believe me, then watch a toddler running around getting mad, pulling hair and telling you they didn’t break the vase that they just ran into with their head. Getting control of your mind is the hardest but also the most critical, because the mind can influence everything else that you do, say, or think. If this where you struggle here is an idea of what you can do:

1. Identify that this is your problem and realize that you must change it. Without this step all the others are useless and will mean nothing to you.
2. Make up your mind that this is not the way you want to live and know that it is definitely not what Jesus laid down his life so that you can do.
3. Pray, pray and pray some more. This can actually go anywhere on this list and should be done all the time without ceasing
   1. 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 (NLT) 17 Never stop praying. 18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
4. Think, I know this may seem obvious but if you take the time to think and really consider what you are doing then yoy may be quite surprised with what you did without giving it much thought. This can include cursing, listening to raunchy music, looking lustfully at women (or men, women sin too)
   1. Romans 12:1-2 (NLT) 1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
5. Get yourself an Accountability Partner. This is a member of the same sex, or your spouse, that you can confide in and they in you, what the problems are and ask for help in them. Most people I know who have them, including myself, find themselves closer to God and farther from sin, which is the whole idea anyway.
6. Pray some more and dive into the Word, the more you read, the more God can reveal to you and show you scriptures to help with day-to-day life.

Somewhere in there you should also go to someone in authority in your church, or a church if you aren’t a member of one yet, and seek guidance, because there is a good chance that they have some pearl of wisdom that God has given them to help their flock (you). Also you should consider your life and how the world influences you, say what you will but watching the wrong shows on TV, listening to the wrong music, having the wrong kind of friends, and doing the wrong things do not help you at all in your walk with Christ and 10 times out of 10 do serious harm to it. You can also look into Christian literature for something to help you with. I have noticed that no matter what the problem or influence, there is a Christian answer to it, whether in Christian music, books, TV, or even radio, there is always an alternative out there that is pleasing to the Man upstairs.

Tomorrow I will touch more on the media today and how you can find better alternatives to it all.

Well hello there friend and welcome to Reality Check, the place where no topic is out of bounds. If it deals with being a Christian, no topic is too touchy for it to be talked about. My name is Thomas and this will be the place where I get to tell you all about the wonderful things that God has laid on my heart to tell you about. This site will geared mostly towards teenagers but everything will still be applicable to Christians in all stages of their relationship with our wonderful and awesome savior.  In the coming weeks I will be talking on a variety of subjects like:

• Today’s Music
• Using Profanity
• Acceptability vs. Authenticity
• Peer Pressure
• Ways to Grow Closer to God
• Dating
• News in the World Today
• How to Praise God with our Gifts and Talents

So yes, I like to cover a variety of topics and I pray that you get something useful out of them