About a week ago I got into an accident. It was a very unfortunate chain of event. Two Mondays ago I had decided to build a new type of potato launcher. So I drew up the plans and bought all of the necessary materials. On Friday I started to put it together. When I had finished putting on the glue and locking all of the pieces into place, I had to take a break and let the glue dry. Then when I came back to it on Saturday I tried to shoot it. But I was met with failure. My combustion chamber was to big and I couldn’t get my fuel (Axe Body Spray) to ignite. So I went back to work. On Sunday Morning I got the new couplet that I needed to put the combustion chamber back together after I cut in in half. So I glued the couplet into place and “Walla.” The PVC part of this experiment was finally finished. To finish the project in its entirety, I needed to finish the electrical part. I drilled two holes into the PVC for the electrodes. Placed them into their finished location, and it was finished. I quickly looked into the combustion chamber to make sure that the electrodes where still working, clicked the igniter once and Disaster…
With a stunning flash of light the right side of my face was quickly engulfed in flames. I received 2nd degree and 1st degree burns all over my face. All of my eyelashes, 3 quarters of my eyebrow, and a large portion of the hair on the right side of my head was incinerated instantaneously from the heat. I rushed inside to get my face under water because it burned like nothing I had ever felt before. My parents came in to see what had happened and I was rushed over to the hospital. Where good old Portage thought that the emergency Room was a little overdoing it, so they placed me in the urgent care waiting room instead. After being in the hospital for about 25 minutes, the urgent care receptionist finally thought that it would be a good idea to give me some ice, so I finally received some form of treatment. About 10 minutes later I was placed in my own comfy little room. 5 minutes after that I finally got to see a doctor. They cleaned everything up, quick checked that my eye hadn’t been permanently injured, quickly grabbed some of the hair that persisted to fall out where ever I walked. And after 20 minutes after that I was on my way home.
But you want to know what is truly funny about this story. After receiving 2nd degree burns to my face that were so serious that if they didn’t heal correctly I would have permanent scarring. And after I almost lost the use of my eye, I was concerned about one thing… “O my Gosh I look like a loser!!!” Where the doctors recommended that I go home and sleep, the next place I told my mom to take me was “Cost Cutters.” Did you see the stupidity when I asked my mom to take me there. After receiving these injuries that had a high possibility of being permanent, the only thing I was concerned about was the things that would easily grow back in due time. My perception of what was truly important was masked by what in the long term (or even two weeks) wouldn’t even be an issue. All because I didn’t want to look different. I wanted to maintain the ability to stay average. The ability to not be looked at weird in the hall-ways of school, and certainly not to be harassed.
My story is a perfect recreation of why teenagers choose to not accept the message that God has so graciously placed before them. John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Isn’t that amazing? God loves us so much that he gave us his one and only son to die on a cross as our personal sacrifice so that we may have an eternity with him. Even though we did absolutely nothing to deserve it. This message is the single most important message that we will ever hear, yet we, as teenagers, often write it off.
Remember my story? Remember how I only cared about what Society would say about my face as apposed to what was truly important? Teenagers every where are beginning to following this very same path. They are beginning to only care abut what society says about Christianity as apposed to what they feel inside is truly important. The number of teenagers who are being turned away from Christianity because they are scared of what their friends will think is rising at an alarming rate. We need to instill in our youth today a very important message. The message that it is okay to be different. It is okay to look weird to the people around you, as long as you know that you are the normal one, and everyone else is truly the different ones. If we teach this message to our youth it will have an amazing turnout. In this specific case, it is even the difference between eternal life with God and eternal punishment.
Teenagers today have one huge problem. They care way to much about what other people think. I can personally admit to it. The amount of time I have spent caring about what other people thought, as apposed to just being myself is one of the biggest mistakes of my life. We need to start focusing on the choices that we make and not about what people think about them. We need to completely block out the worldly influence in our lives, and only care about the spiritual influence. A pastor once told me that, “your life on earth is like a single spray of aerosol in the entire universe, it doesn’t matter. What does is the choices that you make and the people that you help lead to Christ.” Your life will go on for eternity whether you accept the message or not. You need to make sure that the short spray of life you have on earth is done doing what is truly important. To “Walk the Christian Walk” you need to stop caring about what society says about your actions, and only care about God says.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
The World's Most Contagious Sin... Swearing
In my life there is one sin that I commit most often when compared to every other one. This sin is swearing. Ever since I was a kid and I heard those certain bad words for the first time, they stuck with me for the rest of my life. Despite how hard I would try not to, profanity would still slip out of mouth before I knew what had happened. This eventually led to me letting out some kind of curse after every negative occasion I encountered. My parents and other significant adults would try to punish me and get me to stop, but it wouldn’t work. Swearing became one of the biggest habitual sins I had ever committed. But I was saved by grace when God revealed portions of scripture to me. After years of swearing, I finally gained the ability to control my tongue.
There are many verse that go over sinning. One of the verse that make the most impact it Ephesians 4:29. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for the building of others up… [and what] may benefit those who listen.” Notice how the verse says “Do not” at the beginning. This means do no swear ever, it doesn’t mean don’t swear when you’re having a good day, or don’t swear when everything is just dandy. It says don’t swear ever. That means when you kick a step really hard, you don’t swear. Or when you find out you ruined a project you had been working on for over an hour, you still don’t swear. This verse tells us that there is never an OK time to swear. But that the only thing that should ever come out of our mouth is “that which benefits those who listen.”
James 3:9-10 says “With the tongue we praise our lord and father, and with it we curse men who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.” We can not praise God and curse humans with the same mouth, that is too hypocritical to even imagine. The chapter goes on to say that fresh water and salt water can not come from the same spring. Therefore you cant not swear and obey God at the same time. Either we are a pure and holy spring that produces pure and holy water, or we are an evil spring that produces evil and impure water. A characteristic of a Christian “Walking the Christian Walk” is that they have taken on the traits of the “clean” spring, and have striven to be more Christ-like as time goes on.
When I had reached this point in my life I began to understand that swearing was a greater sin than the grain of salt characteristic I had previously portrayed it as. But where did that leave me. I knew now that I was a habitual sinner, but how did I dig my self out of this mile deep hole? The answer I needed was found in 1 John 1:9 - “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” After reading this verse I realized that not only was God going to forgive me of my sin, but he was going to help me stop sinning too. I also realized from the latter half of this verse that God was not only going to forgive me of my sin, but was also going to purify me of it too. When I finally understood what God meant when he said this, God produced in my brain a way to relate this to my everyday life.
We all know from buying water at a gas station what “Purified” water is. It is everyday water that goes through a filtration process to make it clean and healthier to drink. This is exactly what God says he will do in 1 John 1:9. God tells us that he is going to become our spiritual filter. He will take our normal everyday life, filter it through his word and his teachings, and will produce in us clean and holy water.
After this long process to rid myself of swearing I finally realized what God was trying to tell me; That I couldn’t do it alone. I was a human, and therefore it is my nature to sin. Unless some greater being stepped in and helped me along the way, I would always fail and revert back to my old sinful ways. It finally dawned on me that God wasn’t asking for me to go at it alone. God was only asking for me to give it my full efforts and he would help me along the way to finish the race in a worthy matter.
Swearing is one of the most addictive sins that Christians have to go through. We are taught our whole life that it is not “that bad” of a sin. After all it is impossible to avoid the media surrounding us. There is swearing on TV, the radio, internet, and even in our school systems. Thus our brain is constantly dulled down to completely ignore the true nature behind the words. The old saying “monkey see monkey do,“ in this case, is actually a sad reality. Our brains our programmed to recreate what we see and hear around us. Therefore it is only natural for us to make swearing a regular habit. The only way to conquer this sin is through the power that God gives us when we accept his message. When the holy Spirit enters our heart God gives us a newfound strength to do whatever we set our hearts to doing. But remember, God doesn’t expect us to be perfect, in fact he knows we will slip up and eventually fail. But if we ask God to forgive us when this happens; He will pick us back up and set us again “on the road to victory.” If we put our minds to it and ask God for his help, swearing will become an easy thing for us to overcome. And before you know it, you will be one step closer to “Walking the Christian Walk” in everyday of your life.
There are many verse that go over sinning. One of the verse that make the most impact it Ephesians 4:29. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for the building of others up… [and what] may benefit those who listen.” Notice how the verse says “Do not” at the beginning. This means do no swear ever, it doesn’t mean don’t swear when you’re having a good day, or don’t swear when everything is just dandy. It says don’t swear ever. That means when you kick a step really hard, you don’t swear. Or when you find out you ruined a project you had been working on for over an hour, you still don’t swear. This verse tells us that there is never an OK time to swear. But that the only thing that should ever come out of our mouth is “that which benefits those who listen.”
James 3:9-10 says “With the tongue we praise our lord and father, and with it we curse men who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.” We can not praise God and curse humans with the same mouth, that is too hypocritical to even imagine. The chapter goes on to say that fresh water and salt water can not come from the same spring. Therefore you cant not swear and obey God at the same time. Either we are a pure and holy spring that produces pure and holy water, or we are an evil spring that produces evil and impure water. A characteristic of a Christian “Walking the Christian Walk” is that they have taken on the traits of the “clean” spring, and have striven to be more Christ-like as time goes on.
When I had reached this point in my life I began to understand that swearing was a greater sin than the grain of salt characteristic I had previously portrayed it as. But where did that leave me. I knew now that I was a habitual sinner, but how did I dig my self out of this mile deep hole? The answer I needed was found in 1 John 1:9 - “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” After reading this verse I realized that not only was God going to forgive me of my sin, but he was going to help me stop sinning too. I also realized from the latter half of this verse that God was not only going to forgive me of my sin, but was also going to purify me of it too. When I finally understood what God meant when he said this, God produced in my brain a way to relate this to my everyday life.
We all know from buying water at a gas station what “Purified” water is. It is everyday water that goes through a filtration process to make it clean and healthier to drink. This is exactly what God says he will do in 1 John 1:9. God tells us that he is going to become our spiritual filter. He will take our normal everyday life, filter it through his word and his teachings, and will produce in us clean and holy water.
After this long process to rid myself of swearing I finally realized what God was trying to tell me; That I couldn’t do it alone. I was a human, and therefore it is my nature to sin. Unless some greater being stepped in and helped me along the way, I would always fail and revert back to my old sinful ways. It finally dawned on me that God wasn’t asking for me to go at it alone. God was only asking for me to give it my full efforts and he would help me along the way to finish the race in a worthy matter.
Swearing is one of the most addictive sins that Christians have to go through. We are taught our whole life that it is not “that bad” of a sin. After all it is impossible to avoid the media surrounding us. There is swearing on TV, the radio, internet, and even in our school systems. Thus our brain is constantly dulled down to completely ignore the true nature behind the words. The old saying “monkey see monkey do,“ in this case, is actually a sad reality. Our brains our programmed to recreate what we see and hear around us. Therefore it is only natural for us to make swearing a regular habit. The only way to conquer this sin is through the power that God gives us when we accept his message. When the holy Spirit enters our heart God gives us a newfound strength to do whatever we set our hearts to doing. But remember, God doesn’t expect us to be perfect, in fact he knows we will slip up and eventually fail. But if we ask God to forgive us when this happens; He will pick us back up and set us again “on the road to victory.” If we put our minds to it and ask God for his help, swearing will become an easy thing for us to overcome. And before you know it, you will be one step closer to “Walking the Christian Walk” in everyday of your life.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Why Am I doing This
I keep getting this question of why Am I doing this. The only real answer to that is because God has begun using me in oppurtunities greater than myself. As I stated in my testimony, my life has always had God as a part of it, but recently I realised how wrong of a Choice that was. God is not part of my life, God is my entire life. Until recently that thought didnt click for me. I thought God was my life, but until my grandpa died, I didnt realise how wrong I was. My life wasnt truly about God. My life was about myself, and I was just letting God be a sideline observer. When my grandpa died everything aligned in my mind and I realised that my life needed to literally revolve around God.
When this dawned on me, I gave my life up completely to God, and now he is using it for his greater purpose. My life has completely gone through reconstruction all of what I though before has now been altered. Like the ideas I had subconsciously formed about what the sins mattered and which ones didnt. And the thoughts I had about Devotions. And basically.... Everything.
I am doing this blog to hopefully make the same change that happened in my life, happen in others too. I am dedicating my time right now to help get this message through to christians everywhere that God needs to be the center point of your life. He literally needs to be the the point of origin that everything else revolves around. It took me 2 years of really thinking to get this through my head, but now that it has, I am trying to make a difference. By writing this blog I am trying to get the Young Christians of the world off of their spiritual couches, and starting running the race that God has placced before them. With this blog I hope to help teenagers from all parts of the globe stop going through the motions. And to help them realize that sitting back as the world revolves is not enough for God. But that we, in every second of every day, no matter what stage of life we are going through, need to be fully and completely "Walking the Christian Walk" and not "Walking the Worldly Walk"
When this dawned on me, I gave my life up completely to God, and now he is using it for his greater purpose. My life has completely gone through reconstruction all of what I though before has now been altered. Like the ideas I had subconsciously formed about what the sins mattered and which ones didnt. And the thoughts I had about Devotions. And basically.... Everything.
I am doing this blog to hopefully make the same change that happened in my life, happen in others too. I am dedicating my time right now to help get this message through to christians everywhere that God needs to be the center point of your life. He literally needs to be the the point of origin that everything else revolves around. It took me 2 years of really thinking to get this through my head, but now that it has, I am trying to make a difference. By writing this blog I am trying to get the Young Christians of the world off of their spiritual couches, and starting running the race that God has placced before them. With this blog I hope to help teenagers from all parts of the globe stop going through the motions. And to help them realize that sitting back as the world revolves is not enough for God. But that we, in every second of every day, no matter what stage of life we are going through, need to be fully and completely "Walking the Christian Walk" and not "Walking the Worldly Walk"
Not having time for God
Life is hard. My life could be completely summarized in those three words. And many teenagers because of this don't spend time with God. They worry about the worries of this world and in many cases, the only time they spend with God is when their family forces the off to Church. But even when they go they aren't giving it their all and not taking in what they are learning.
These teens say "I have school, sports, friends, and no time to walk with God." But that’s not true, they have time but they choose to put God Last on their schedule. Matthew 6:33 says "but seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness." We should always have time for God because he should be the first thing we plan to do. You don't necessarily have to make God the first thing you do in the morning (although that is an awesome system to get into) But you need to plan him into your schedule first. We need to plan what we are doing around spending time with God, and not the spending time with God around what we are doing.
For example, If you have had a long hard day and you know that you are only going to make it another half hour or so. Then when you get home don't go sit on the couch to watch the TV unless you know that you will have enough energy to do a devotion after the show is over and before you go to sleep. God wants us to spend time with him daily, but it is little excuses like watching that one last TV show that can often get between us and God.
Another excuse that teenagers normally uses to get out of their time with God is School. They say they were studying so hard and were up so late that they physically had no time to walk with God. Matthew 6:25 says "Do not worry about your life." This verse is telling us that no matter what is on your plate and no matter how important it is, God still wants to be put first. Do you seriously not believe that if you give God a 30 minute devotional before, after or even during studying, that he will not give you enough strength to finish what needs to be done.
There is actually a story in the bible that though originally written about money still works perfectly for time as well. In Matthew 22:15-22, the Pharisees laid a trap for Jesus. They questioned whether it was right to pay taxes to Caesar because if they did they would have less money to give to God. Jesus then, recognizing the trap they had set, responded "Give to Caesar what it Caesar's and give to God what is God's." This verse can be used perfectly to illustrate the time we spend with God. Because it is not a choice of which choice do we give our time to, but how do we split our time up between the two. We use the excuse of "we can not spend time with God because we have to spend time on other matters." But just like this verse says, give the time you need for school to school, and likewise give the time you need for God to God.
God gave you everything that you see around you. He created everything from the trees surrounding your house to the skin that you are currently wearing. But his only wish for us to give back to him is our Time. He doesn't ask for us to have a 6 hour devotional everyday, but he asks that we spend some time with him (If you really look inside of yourself you will know how much time you need to spend in devotion to him). But then, even in the times that we are not spending personally with God we should still be doing everything in a sort of way that glorifies God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 states this exactly and says "what ever you do, do all to the glory of God." So no matter what each day is spent doing, every single thing we do should be done for the glory of God. And thus every second of every day will be spent growing us closer and strengthening our relationship with God.
These teens say "I have school, sports, friends, and no time to walk with God." But that’s not true, they have time but they choose to put God Last on their schedule. Matthew 6:33 says "but seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness." We should always have time for God because he should be the first thing we plan to do. You don't necessarily have to make God the first thing you do in the morning (although that is an awesome system to get into) But you need to plan him into your schedule first. We need to plan what we are doing around spending time with God, and not the spending time with God around what we are doing.
For example, If you have had a long hard day and you know that you are only going to make it another half hour or so. Then when you get home don't go sit on the couch to watch the TV unless you know that you will have enough energy to do a devotion after the show is over and before you go to sleep. God wants us to spend time with him daily, but it is little excuses like watching that one last TV show that can often get between us and God.
Another excuse that teenagers normally uses to get out of their time with God is School. They say they were studying so hard and were up so late that they physically had no time to walk with God. Matthew 6:25 says "Do not worry about your life." This verse is telling us that no matter what is on your plate and no matter how important it is, God still wants to be put first. Do you seriously not believe that if you give God a 30 minute devotional before, after or even during studying, that he will not give you enough strength to finish what needs to be done.
There is actually a story in the bible that though originally written about money still works perfectly for time as well. In Matthew 22:15-22, the Pharisees laid a trap for Jesus. They questioned whether it was right to pay taxes to Caesar because if they did they would have less money to give to God. Jesus then, recognizing the trap they had set, responded "Give to Caesar what it Caesar's and give to God what is God's." This verse can be used perfectly to illustrate the time we spend with God. Because it is not a choice of which choice do we give our time to, but how do we split our time up between the two. We use the excuse of "we can not spend time with God because we have to spend time on other matters." But just like this verse says, give the time you need for school to school, and likewise give the time you need for God to God.
God gave you everything that you see around you. He created everything from the trees surrounding your house to the skin that you are currently wearing. But his only wish for us to give back to him is our Time. He doesn't ask for us to have a 6 hour devotional everyday, but he asks that we spend some time with him (If you really look inside of yourself you will know how much time you need to spend in devotion to him). But then, even in the times that we are not spending personally with God we should still be doing everything in a sort of way that glorifies God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 states this exactly and says "what ever you do, do all to the glory of God." So no matter what each day is spent doing, every single thing we do should be done for the glory of God. And thus every second of every day will be spent growing us closer and strengthening our relationship with God.
Friday, May 28, 2010
My Testimony
My name is Jacob Schieber. I am fifteen years old and a sophomore at Portage High School in Wisconsin. What this blog is about to me is a way to share the Gospel but also a way to motivate the Teenagers of this nation to love their God in the same way he loves us.
As the first edition to my blog I am just going to share my testimony with you. It is nothing special, I was not healed from paralysis, nor did I gain teh ability to Walk on Water. But this is my story, this is the walk that I took, and this is the output that it created.
My Story-
My story starts out very similar to most Christians. I was born into a very Christian family and God was always ever-present in my life. So from birth on up my parents always kept me involved in the church. After one such youth group I heard the good news and felt convicted, I went home told my mother about it, and a few minutes after that, at the age of 6 years old, I got down onto my knees and excepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.
After that, I lived the ordinary Christian life. I participated in my church's youth group and everything stayed the same for most of my childhood. Then everything started to get different when I got into Junior High. I started to participate in the teenager section of my youth group. With this Jesus started to loose more meaning day after day. I still loved God and went to Sunday morning and Wednesday night church services, but God didn't matter anymore. Where before I was excited to go to learn about Jesus, I was now excited to spend time with the junior high "cool" kids. What this entitled for me was a complete loss of interest in the youth group. I literally only cared about the matters of my current life and didn't really consider God as necessary in my life, but only as a side note.
This continued for most of my 7th and beginning half of 8th grade year. But then everything changed at a winter retreat bible Camp. I am not sure exactly what the message was, but it had to do with the fact of living a Christian Life. These lessons, only lasting for 3 days, completely altered how I viewed God. I know longer saw God as the boring person standing on the sidelines watching my life go by, but as the director of my life. The person who i should literally let take control of my life. Then God started to show me that the friends I was hanging out with were shallow and mean, and that the only person I truly needed to start spending more time with was God. So for the rest of that 8th grade year, I read through as much of the bible as I could.
My life took an even bigger turn in the summer before my 8th grade year. I went back to that same winter camp, but only in summer form. I spent the first week in the high school retreat program. The second week i spent just off camp but still in the mix of things. I had become best friends with one of the teens whose parents worked permanently on Camp. So I spent another week around God learning and getting as close to God as I possibly could. And lastly, for the third week, My family came up to the camp and I got to stay another week in the family retreat program. So for three straight weeks i was completely separated from Satan's world and was permanently resting in God's safe zone.
These three weeks of camp again altered my entire view on life. Life was no longer spent with God controlling my life, but now God was my life. I started to see everything as he wanted it to be and then I started to do what he told me to do. So for my entire freshman year at school I was the on-fire for the Lord.
This leads me to last summer. With everything still clicking, I spent two more weeks up at that camp, once for high school camp and the second for family camp. But things started to change a little. I was still an on fire Christian for God, but material things started to sink into my world. I started to make promises to give my work money to God, but he never received my 10%. And then, because my focus was on money, I started to care about Xboxes and ipod touches more than I cared about spending time with God.
God whipped me back into shape at the beginning of my 2nd year at high school. First semester I was placed into the sophomore World History Class. This class, although called World History,only talks about History for the first term. the second term is completely about World Religions.
As I went through these talks about religions I really began to get confused all over again. I never doubted my faith, but I started to wonder why I wasn't on fire for God. We went over Islamic suicide bombers and I started to wonder why my faith wasn't like that any more. Not that I would blow up myself to make a statement, but that my life was no longer completely based on God.
After a very angering discussion on the book "Ishmael." God started to do work in my life again. I started to realise how phony the other world religions were to me and how i needed to start straightening up my life to be completely centered on God. So I began to read my bible again. I got a new compacted leather one to make a symbol of change and i took the bible to school with me everyday. I then read through the gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John, and after that the "tians" (Galatians, Philippians....). All the way until the new testament was completed.
Then God finally locked myself into his loving embrace and permanently became my life. Everything stayed the same for the next about 6 months. Then in beginning of April God started to do something in me again. He directed me to write a book. I talked to my youth pastor about it, he gave me the thumbs up and I started to alter the notes I had been collecting for the 5 years and turned them into digitalized copies. My faith was only reboosted by relearning all of the knowledge that had oringialy been why I had accepted Christ
A week later, tragedy struck. On the way home from my golf lesson we got a call that my grandfather had just been hospitalised and that things were not looking good. So we rushed the 45 minute trip home and went immediately into the hospital.... We were received to the story that about 20 seconds earlier the medics had legally pronounced my grandpa Brakebush dead.
The funeral was hard, but the thought that my grandpa Billy had died a Christian man helped me get through it. God used this experience to tell me that life would not last forever. He had just returned one of his children "home to glory" with no prior notice and now he was telling me, "get going, you have had your chance to crawl, but now is your time to run." So the book I had been writing started to be the only thing I could think about. I would read 200 page books in 3 days just so that I could be briefed on a subject I wanted to learn. Always keeping a notepad next to me when reading so I could write down what God was really telling me through the writings of modern day authors.
That story leads me to today. I heard that journaling was a great source of straightening out your thoughts. And I really wanted people to hear what I was writing about so I thought, "Hey, write a blog"
This blog is a way for me to help teach people the lessons in my book before I am finally able to release it. My email address is listed on the blog, please write me comments or send me emails, but either way, if the lessons in this blog teaches you something or helps you grow closer to the Lord then please let me know. If I get no answers then I will know it was for not, but please let your voice be known. If I did something in your life write back to me.
As of today the destiny of "Walk the Christian Walk"(my book) is sealed. I have now made all of my readers my accountability partners and I have gained people to help get me through the writing of this book. Today and forever on, I begin to firmly "Walk the Christian Walk" for all to see.
As the first edition to my blog I am just going to share my testimony with you. It is nothing special, I was not healed from paralysis, nor did I gain teh ability to Walk on Water. But this is my story, this is the walk that I took, and this is the output that it created.
My Story-
My story starts out very similar to most Christians. I was born into a very Christian family and God was always ever-present in my life. So from birth on up my parents always kept me involved in the church. After one such youth group I heard the good news and felt convicted, I went home told my mother about it, and a few minutes after that, at the age of 6 years old, I got down onto my knees and excepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.
After that, I lived the ordinary Christian life. I participated in my church's youth group and everything stayed the same for most of my childhood. Then everything started to get different when I got into Junior High. I started to participate in the teenager section of my youth group. With this Jesus started to loose more meaning day after day. I still loved God and went to Sunday morning and Wednesday night church services, but God didn't matter anymore. Where before I was excited to go to learn about Jesus, I was now excited to spend time with the junior high "cool" kids. What this entitled for me was a complete loss of interest in the youth group. I literally only cared about the matters of my current life and didn't really consider God as necessary in my life, but only as a side note.
This continued for most of my 7th and beginning half of 8th grade year. But then everything changed at a winter retreat bible Camp. I am not sure exactly what the message was, but it had to do with the fact of living a Christian Life. These lessons, only lasting for 3 days, completely altered how I viewed God. I know longer saw God as the boring person standing on the sidelines watching my life go by, but as the director of my life. The person who i should literally let take control of my life. Then God started to show me that the friends I was hanging out with were shallow and mean, and that the only person I truly needed to start spending more time with was God. So for the rest of that 8th grade year, I read through as much of the bible as I could.
My life took an even bigger turn in the summer before my 8th grade year. I went back to that same winter camp, but only in summer form. I spent the first week in the high school retreat program. The second week i spent just off camp but still in the mix of things. I had become best friends with one of the teens whose parents worked permanently on Camp. So I spent another week around God learning and getting as close to God as I possibly could. And lastly, for the third week, My family came up to the camp and I got to stay another week in the family retreat program. So for three straight weeks i was completely separated from Satan's world and was permanently resting in God's safe zone.
These three weeks of camp again altered my entire view on life. Life was no longer spent with God controlling my life, but now God was my life. I started to see everything as he wanted it to be and then I started to do what he told me to do. So for my entire freshman year at school I was the on-fire for the Lord.
This leads me to last summer. With everything still clicking, I spent two more weeks up at that camp, once for high school camp and the second for family camp. But things started to change a little. I was still an on fire Christian for God, but material things started to sink into my world. I started to make promises to give my work money to God, but he never received my 10%. And then, because my focus was on money, I started to care about Xboxes and ipod touches more than I cared about spending time with God.
God whipped me back into shape at the beginning of my 2nd year at high school. First semester I was placed into the sophomore World History Class. This class, although called World History,only talks about History for the first term. the second term is completely about World Religions.
As I went through these talks about religions I really began to get confused all over again. I never doubted my faith, but I started to wonder why I wasn't on fire for God. We went over Islamic suicide bombers and I started to wonder why my faith wasn't like that any more. Not that I would blow up myself to make a statement, but that my life was no longer completely based on God.
After a very angering discussion on the book "Ishmael." God started to do work in my life again. I started to realise how phony the other world religions were to me and how i needed to start straightening up my life to be completely centered on God. So I began to read my bible again. I got a new compacted leather one to make a symbol of change and i took the bible to school with me everyday. I then read through the gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John, and after that the "tians" (Galatians, Philippians....). All the way until the new testament was completed.
Then God finally locked myself into his loving embrace and permanently became my life. Everything stayed the same for the next about 6 months. Then in beginning of April God started to do something in me again. He directed me to write a book. I talked to my youth pastor about it, he gave me the thumbs up and I started to alter the notes I had been collecting for the 5 years and turned them into digitalized copies. My faith was only reboosted by relearning all of the knowledge that had oringialy been why I had accepted Christ
A week later, tragedy struck. On the way home from my golf lesson we got a call that my grandfather had just been hospitalised and that things were not looking good. So we rushed the 45 minute trip home and went immediately into the hospital.... We were received to the story that about 20 seconds earlier the medics had legally pronounced my grandpa Brakebush dead.
The funeral was hard, but the thought that my grandpa Billy had died a Christian man helped me get through it. God used this experience to tell me that life would not last forever. He had just returned one of his children "home to glory" with no prior notice and now he was telling me, "get going, you have had your chance to crawl, but now is your time to run." So the book I had been writing started to be the only thing I could think about. I would read 200 page books in 3 days just so that I could be briefed on a subject I wanted to learn. Always keeping a notepad next to me when reading so I could write down what God was really telling me through the writings of modern day authors.
That story leads me to today. I heard that journaling was a great source of straightening out your thoughts. And I really wanted people to hear what I was writing about so I thought, "Hey, write a blog"
This blog is a way for me to help teach people the lessons in my book before I am finally able to release it. My email address is listed on the blog, please write me comments or send me emails, but either way, if the lessons in this blog teaches you something or helps you grow closer to the Lord then please let me know. If I get no answers then I will know it was for not, but please let your voice be known. If I did something in your life write back to me.
As of today the destiny of "Walk the Christian Walk"(my book) is sealed. I have now made all of my readers my accountability partners and I have gained people to help get me through the writing of this book. Today and forever on, I begin to firmly "Walk the Christian Walk" for all to see.
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