Fattening the Soul by Sin

   Did you know that in order to burn of one M&M you have to walk the length of a football field and back? One little M&M!! So whenever I eat those delicious bite size candies, I always feel like I need to run a football field 20 times. Whenever I eat something really good I regret it because I automatically know that whatever I just ate was not only extremely delightful but probably extremely fattening. Or I just love it when you think your going all healthy by eating a salad and its 450 calories, then you look at it like its crazy for being THAT many calories! I mean its lettuce, that should be a free-be, right? Unfortunately, fatty foods fatten up our bodies and make them slow. I was always told that food was "a moment on the lips and a lifetime on the hips!" Its true though! You eat great looking food in hope that it will taste as good as it looks, but that's were we become blind sided. If you view sin as a great big value meal, you may lunge right toward that appealing meal. You might think to yourself, "well if it looks that great, it will probably make me feel that great." And then you eat it, but only to find that later on "sin" isn't to kind with giving out heartburn. Sin naturally looks appealing to us. Really examine that phrase...sin and appealing were used in one sentence to describe each other. I mean who in their right mind would give into sin if they knew that it would ruin their life for the absolute worst??? Yeah... I don't think anybody would. So how do we recognize the appealing version of a choice, which is sin, and the right but challenging choice. We need to ask God to change our hearts. Our hearts and our minds are the most vulnerable to sin, so choose wisely who you let in. Never be fooled by outward appearances, they might seem like its the best thing in the world but as soon as you let that in. It takes over you and slows down your whole body which will keep you from reaching God. Don't let sin and Satan call the dibs on your heart and mind. He has already taken enough from this world. And don't classify sin and appealing as words that are grouped as one because they contradict each other. But has the phrase " appealing sin" ever stopped us from sinning? Of course not. I warn you that if you don't dig deeper to see right below the surface that the sin will entice you to thinking it is all you need. Just like when we eat the big quarter pounder we know, once we eat it, that it was not a very healthy choice. But we don't care about that once we decide to eat it. Before you decide to take a bite, take a good look at it because you will find many flaws that will become your flaws but even bigger. Don't buy into sins ad campaign to eat your soul, it is a recipe for disaster. Prevent sin from getting in your way of life or of worshiping your God.

P.S So put down the fries and don't go to McDonald's for week and try to apply this to your everyday life.... think of sin as equalling fat.


Word for the Day:  "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us."
                                                     ~Hebrews 12:1

Living Faith in Chicago

  I am writing to you today instead of yesterday due to the fact that I am still getting use to life back home after being in Chicago for a week. Being in the windy city was a blessing altogether, our whole group was stretched beyond our ability. Even though we didn't go to a third-world country this year, God was still shining brighter than ever. Going up there our mission was to evangelize to those that are too busy to fit God in their everyday lives and those that are homeless. We were also working on an after school program called By the Hand Club, by painting the inside of all of their classrooms. While some of the guys of our group were working on a roof of a church that we went to on Sunday as well. This church moved me...we went in to this English/Spanish service to find everyone jumping up and down yelling the Lords name in worship. When I started singing, tears came to my eyes because the presence of the Lord was beyond belief! Just to see those people declare their love for the Lord was such an amazing breath of fresh air after spending a year here at home and going to school where God really isn't thought of. So when we first started our evangelism we didn't have too much luck, I could tell our group wanted to reach out to those but when it came time to go out and talk to people it was a whole other story. I myself wanted to push myself and go out on my own to just let God speak through me. And I did have that chance a couple of times but I never really took it. Even though I felt like I failed by not speaking out but just in that, God taught me a lesson. One day we were to go back to that same church we went to on Sunday to go to another service, this was kinda of a random thing. Right after dinner we were to go and our leaders decided that we were just going to go down to the park and debrief and worship. So we all drove down to the park and we walked around for a spot that wouldn't be around a lot of people because we didn't want to anger a lot of people. We kept walking and we were about to sit down when we saw this huge swarm of dragonflies above us so we moved over a little bit and sat down. Once we all sat down some of us noticed a homeless man sitting right by a tree that was a couple feet away from us. He was just laying there, he was sleeping. So we just started to talk about our day and how God had worked in us as we were working then we started to sing our worship songs. And that in itself was great... just to sit by the water in a park in Chicago was like being surrounded by God and His words of praises. As worship went on some of us noticed that the homeless man had turned towards us and was listening to us sing. Once we were done we were walking around taking pictures and what not, and the two shyest girls of our group went up to the homeless man and ask him if he wanted a cookie. The man took it and was very grateful for it, the two girls started a conversation about why we were in Chicago and they got to talk to him about God a little bit. Then in a matter of a couple minutes our whole group was around him. We had a very in depth conversation with this man about if God is real and the big bang theory. He was very intelligent, we learned a lot about him and we were challenged at the same time to answer his questions that really made us think. At one point in the conversation a girl sitting next to me was explaining that Gods creations can show that He created the world. At the time she used the wind blowing and the trees moving as an example and from that point on we both noticed that the wind had picked up until we left. God was literally moving in us!! We were all on fire for God for the rest of the week after that. That was a true blessing because if we went to church that would of never of happened. One other thing that we did one night during debrief was meditations. We were to all go away from each other to relax and close our eyes and look for a symbol that God wanted us to see. The first thing I saw was a crescent moon, it was weird because I thought that the moon meant nothing to the trip but I went along with it. And instead of opening up to my favorite scripture I just opened the bible to a random page and saw the word lamp that my finger was on and it was Proverbs 31:18 which read, " She makes sure her dealings are profitable; her lamp burns late into the night." That really gave me a sense in my heart that God meant for that to happen. At first it was a little creepy how that went together so well, but then I thought well maybe I will get to reach out to somebody at night when we go out. But as the trip went on it never happened, even though our trip was still great in our eyes and Gods my vision never came to life. So once we finished our mission and toured the city we went on home and as soon as I left I wanted to go back. I have a passion for the city and maybe to go to Moody one day and that really excites me to know that God may want that for me. So yesterday was a great day to be home but it was also a day that I thought about my future and going back to the city to plant His seeds and I began to worry about all of that. Until I stepped outside to walk my dog and I looked strait up in the night sky to see a crescent moon. God was speaking to me during my trip to let me know that when I get home everything would work out until I was able to go back to the city! That really lit a smile on my face. This is the main story of the trip to Chicago that I so graciously got to experience. I have so much more in my mind that came out of this trip, but it would take me days to write that down. Want to hear even more? Shoot me an email or a comment and I would love to go in detail with you about my journey. But know this... when things don't go the way that you think they should, God will turn it around so that its even better... but in the meantime, don't give up on that. I challenge you this week to try meditation in Gods heart, I would love to hear what you find and how you apply that to your everyday life. Because even though we think that we have everything we need, there is always a space for God in your life.


Word for the day: " But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, accoring to what their actions deserve."
                                                                                       ~ Jeremiah 17:10

Below the Surface

    During Christmas time there is always an intense amount of gift wrapping. You spend weeks just staying up late to wrap all of the latest gadgets for a certain person in your life to celebrate the birth of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Most of the time we are automatically appealed to the present that is given to us. Because its wrapped in your favorite character or a wonderful scene of winter. And it just always seems to get you in the mood. But have you ever unwrapped a gift and hated it?? I'm sure this has happen to everyone. Either because the person that bought it just didn't follow your wish list or you never gave it to them. Either way when you get a horrible gift there is always a lack of communication. But there really is no way you could ever see it coming, unless they told you what they got you. Well this same idea applies to scripture. I love to find a good bible verse and read it and sometimes understand it but all that's matters is that, well God just gave me some brownie points! I realized this past week that this is one huge point of conviction for me. When you read scripture you should always go in with the mind set that whatever your reading about should always apply to your life in some way. Make sure that you ALWAYS apply your readings to your life. Yes, God loves when we just dig into His word but what good does it do to our faith if we don't apply it? The goodness of His grace and mercy isn't fully understood and it may never go into action. I challenge you this week to not just read into His word more, and I pray that you strive to have quiet times with Him everyday, but to take that and expand it physically. When we read His words that's doing 50% of the praise we are to do of Him, scripture wise. And we need to fill the rest of that 50% with understanding and application of His words in our everyday lives. Then if we are only really doing 50 % of it, then we are never truly knowing all of Gods power! I challenge you to not just start doing this and focus on it for the week, but to hear this and learn from it and do it from now on. I need to work on it myself, understanding His words completely wont come in a day but working at it everyday will bring it upon you.

Need prayer??? Let me know, I would love to pray for you!




P.S: I am writing to you late on a Friday night because in 4 hours I will be on my way to Chicago for a week long missions trip with my missions team. I ask that you could please pray for our safe travels and that we find the wisdom of Gods grace to be able to effectively bring others to Christ. Thank you!




Matthew 22:29 "Your mistake is that you don't know the scriptures, and you don't know the power of God."

John 5:39 " You search the scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the scriptures point to me!"

Creation of Fear

        When I think of the creation of humans I picture a sculpture taking their clay apart piece by piece to create one masterpiece that is displayed among the rest of their work. And they all reflect off of each other; they share a light of radiance that shines beyond anything human. Once a sculpture makes their new pot or vase they don’t think of how it will be broken. They had just spent several days in taking their entire glorious creative mind into many tedious hours to create something so small but yet something so beautiful. The creator is confident that their new masterpiece will show many sides of their creative ways. I’m sure you have heard that we are the clay and God is the potter, well it’s true. Once He created us He knew that we would fall several times in our life time. And you think why would He make us in knowing that we would fail in life? Yes, He made us in KNOWING that but He also knew that we would become stronger in those times. Think about a time that tested your faith, a time where you thought that this is it. You were going to live a horrible and depressing life forever, and that you would just have to get use to it. Whenever I go through those “life threatening” times it almost seems like you being to fall deeper and deeper into sin. Now after awhile I began to pick up something in my experience of heartbreaks. That we are not supposed to worry about our future because one, we can’t control it whatsoever and second of all God is the one who writes our story. You probably just got the typical visual of God sitting up in heaven on a cloud writing away your life story. Even though that looks appealing that’s not exactly what in talking about when I say God writes your story. When He created us He knew where you would go, what you would say, what you would think, and every one of your decisions you would ever make. And every single person on this earth is wired differently in those factors. He made every single one of us differently and yeah I’m sure when He created everyone that way He knew that we would butt heads in some way. Just think of a world that was exactly the same…there would be no diversity. We would all look at everything the same way, there would only be one opinion! That seems way too creepy for me! God created us with diversity in knowing that He was chancing hard times between the human races. And when we go through those tough times the first thing we automatically do is worry. And believe or not doubt and worrying is a sin, I actually just learned that a couple days ago in my quiet time. I constantly doubt the Lord because I can never make decisions for myself so I ask the Lord for help while asking the people around for help. You won’t receive anything from the Lord unless you come to Him with faith in Him only. Because if you don’t then you are like a wave that is being swayed by the wind but you are of the sea. If life was easy then as soon as we landed on this earth God would have dropped down billions of instruction manuals titled “How to Be a Human.” Even though that sounds like the easy way out, we can find the answer without wasting a bunch of trees in heaven. No one will ever know every detail in how God wants us to live our life, but being put here on earth is how we are suppose to find out. When you go through trials and hard times you don’t automatically think of positive thoughts. But the only reason God wants us to go through trials is because He wants us to grow in our faith. Even if you feel like He is not there, He is….He always is. Think of it as laser tag. You know the game where you go in and put on the cool vest and have the cool gun that shots a colored laser oh you always have those ironically corny “team names”. If you think of your trials as a laser tag game they really go hand in hand. You go out with your team (Spiritually: the ones you love, will always have your back) to tackle the mission (Spiritually: your trial) and the whole time you have your vest that is always there to keep you safe (Spiritually: the vest is God!). He may not always be there talking to you but He is there, and He will give you the advice when He knows that you need it. When He is silent is when you are learning. The only way we can read the manual to life is by connecting and trusting God. So let go of your worries this week and focus on living the life God has planned for you, not what you think He has planned.

Word for the Day:   “The Lord Himself will fight for you, just stay calm.”

                                                           ~Exodus 14:14

Appearance vs. God

   How long does it take you to get dressed in the morning? How about when you are going out with your friends? Now if you’re a woman I’m sure your thinking at least a half hour because you can’t just throw on some sweat pants and a t-shirt to go on a date. We take time to get ready to look and smell nice because there is always a part of us that wants to impress people. But sometimes we worry about what others think so much that it begins to consume us. When we consume ourselves with that worry we clothe our self with something were not. This is when we let the outside influence take control of our true self that is on the inside. God does not care what you look like on the outside, even though you worry about your weight or your hair or what you’re wearing. That means no harm to God. All that He looks at is what is really underneath it all. He cares about what is in your heart. He knows what you really feel and what you really mean when on the outside, you could be showing something totally different and most people wouldn’t know. So why do we hide our true feelings from society when they are good? It’s because we naturally want to be looked at like were “normal”. But why would you want to be “normal”? I’m challenging you to go against “the norm” this week and to show who you really are. Because God adores those who care about what’s on the inside. You could be 6 foot tall, Taylor Swift hair, 106 pounds, and have it all but what most people don’t realize is that most of those people don’t have it all together on the inside. Or those people may not even know the Lord or be happy with their appearance! No matter who you are we all where a veil that either hides who we are or who we should be. So take off the veil! And stop consuming your time in worrying about what you should look like and start jumping into Gods word. Starting consuming yourself with how God sees you, but DON’T worry about His judgment because He has none.  You may think that you look good on the outside but those “good looks” don’t always run too deep. You will be surprised at how much better your life will be and feel when you are good from the inside out.

 “ But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”  ~ 1 Samuel 16:7