Recent Thoughts...

Being a Spiritual leader. I mean as a guy, that's who I am supposed to be for my family, when that time comes. How can I prepare for that role now? Here's some of the things that I've come up with:

1. BE HUMBLE
Too often, I find myself being prideful towards things that I definitely shouldn't be. Even things like sin! Sadly there's been times when I've been prideful about not struggling in an area of my life, looking down on everyone else, only to fall to the same sin. Not only did it cause pain in my own life, I hurt someone else deeply too. What God has shown me is that we should never think ourselves "above" a certain sin, or think that we're all set in any area of our life. Instead, humbly thank God if He has blessed us with strength in an area, but also don't take your eyes off of God. Looking around at others and judging them will often cause you to fall down with them.

2. BE SPIRITUAL
Now that can sound weird... "Be Spiritual"??? But I've been thinking about it alot lately. I NEED to have a spiritual mindset. When I went to the Journey to the Heart, I purposely focused my mind on the things of Christ, so that He was my sole desire and the most important thing to me, and in that process, God showed me how important it is to have a Spiritual mindset. If while I'm at work, when I'm at home, and when I go to bed, I'm walking in the Spirit, I will NOT fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Gal 5:16). That is a promise, and an awesome one for sure. The question is, how do I walk in the Spirit? Like I was saying before, if I have that Spiritual mindset where the most important thing to me is Jesus, I'll seek after Him. Yet not in my own strength, because if I do, as Eric Ludy says "I'll end up a miserable replica". No, I need to allow the Spirit of God to control me in such a way, that my actions are directed by God Himself. In saying "allow" I don't mean just "Let go, and let God" (Sorry guys!). I mean, allowing Jesus to be my Master and guide me daily, monthly, hourly, etc.. But here's the thing, and it's extremely important. I am still required to choose to follow the guidance of Christ as my Master, because unfortunately He's not our only option. There's also the flesh, which is, sadly, our default. So what you need to do is right-click on your heart and select "Properties". Then click on the tab "Attributes", and select "Load Custom Settings". Now, browse to your head and select the file called "Spirit of God.dll". Now here is the important part... don't miss this. Click REPLACE AND APPLY. Wait. A dialog box pops up. "Are you sure you want to replace "Flesh.dll" with Spirit of God.dll"? ". CLICK YES.


Ok, we're not computers, and I'm sorry for that analogy. I never knew computers were so much like our Christian walk! No, but seriously, Galatians 5:16 is a promise that we need to live by!

3. HAVE RESPECT
Not just for God, but for your parents and for everyone, really. The big one though, is your parents. This is probably the area I've failed most in, and sadly it shows. The strain between my parents and myself will more than likely be transferred over to my wife after I'm married, and that's unacceptable to me. But here's the problem! That CANNOT be my motivation, because I'll be (have been) doing that in my own strength, and at best, I'll be a fake. I need to respect my parents because my Master, Jesus Christ commands me to, and in all reality, they deserve it!

Have respect for others as well. This is more important than I think we realize alot of times.

4. BE HUMBLE (Again)
I felt it neccesary to mention this again, because it's so easy to overlook. When you have Spiritual growth, or you're praised, be 'umble and thank GOD!

5. BE LOVING
And not just towards your spouse to be. You've heard the saying, "The way you treat your mom, is the way you'll treat your wife". Trust me, your future spouse has heard it too. Don't let that be the incentive for loving your mom though! Your mom deserves your love for countless (and I mean that literally) reasons! Goodness think of the pain she went through just to bring you in to this world! My mom has sacrificed so much for me, and has given of herself solely for my benefit. I love you mom :) Same goes for your sisters though! Often you'll (me) treeat them the same as you treat your mom. Love them with your heart, not with your words.

6. BE A GOOD FRIEND
Self Sacrifice. It's the most important part. You know, sometimes a good friend is hard to find. Don't let that be so for you, specifically for the reason that you're spouse will (hopefully) be your best friend. Be worthy of that, and make sure that you go out of your way for the other person. I w an't to shoot for that goal, starting with my family. I want to be known as "a good friend". :)


As I look back over this, maybe I should have been thinking, "How do I prepare for marriage?", but oh well :) God Bless you all!

Extreme Makeover: Blog Edition Happening Now!

Hey! I apologize for my absence as of lately, I've been so incredibly busy, and I guess my blog just wasn't one of my priority's. But now, well not quite now, but as soon as I finish giving my blog a complete makeover, I will begin posting again ;) There's gonna be alot of changes in the look of things on here, so don't be like "is he really going to leave it like that?". Don't worry, with any luck, it'll be looking better than ever! :)

God Bless you all! Stay strong in the Faith!

Kevin

Reacting To Situations

I was talking to someone at church yesterday, about how sometimes things happen, or decisions people make, just can make you so upset. The more I think about it, the more I realize that that will never change in life. There will always be something or someone that does something and it ticks you off. But reacting and showing the person how upset we are with them is not the way I see Jesus acting. When your parents say or do something that upsets you, what's your reaction? I know I can have the tendency to make it clear to them that I'm not happy with them and act in a disrespectful way. And I ask myself, Is that how Jesus would react? No, I know it isn't. Look how Jesus acted to the people who were threatening to kill Him? And when they were falsely accusing Him? He didn't show anger! He barely said a word! Sometimes I think about what it was like for Jesus as a teenager. I mean, you wonder if Jesus ever wanted to do something, or maybe He wanted to go hang out with John or something, and instead His parents said "no". No biggy, right? But what about us? when there's something we want really bad or something we want to do a lot, and our parents tell us no, what's our reaction? Even if we outwardly display respect and submission, what are we thinking inside? What are we really wanting to say to our parents when a situation like that arises? "Why can't I do this?" or "Why can't so and so come over?". Their reason may seem stupid or totally ungrounded to you. But does that give us an excuse for reacting in a bad way? I mean Jesus had every reason you can think of for blowing up they've chief priest and officials for talking to Him the way they did. Goodness, He's the one who gave them the tongue to say those things. Yet He still demonstrated to us how we should act. Do I act like Jesus in that way? Do you? It's something to think about. I know I need to work on seeing situations from Jesus's perspective, instead of my own. I need to put that in practice now. So next time things don't go the way you want them to, or you want to see someone really, really, REALLY bad, ask yourself; How would Jesus react in this situation? See where it takes you.


Sorry if I kinda went in circles. This started out as a 3-4 sentence post on Google Buzz and as I was writing, more and more just kept coming out, so I decided to write it on here instead.

God Bless!

Kevin