Life

Serve Day 2017

/ Joshua Thomas / Leave a comment

“My brothers and sisters, you were chosen to be free. But don’t use your freedom as an excuse to live under the power of sin. Instead, serve one another in love.”

-Galatians 5:13

By the time you are reading this I will be on a van driving to camp Kidjam with a group of elementary students ready to have an awesome week of camp. My life recently has become very packed with lots to do. I’m finishing up my last online course for university, I get to go on two weeks of different camps as a leader, and I am in the continual journey of figuring out the next steps in life. In the midst of trying to figure life out, serve day just happened. It is such a great reminder of reaching out to serve the people in our community and to share the name of Jesus. If you aren’t familiar with serve day, it is a day where churches from all over the country have their small groups go out and serve their city. It is one of my favorite things about my church. There were so many groups doing so many different projects all over the city, it was such an empowering thing to see, and I wanted to share some things God taught me about serving others.

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Misfit: Live in Community

/ Joshua Thomas / 3 Comments

I’ve really loved doing this series the past few weeks. I felt like God wanted me to speak to the misfits like me, people who feel like they don’t fit in, but have been made with purpose unlike anything else. I started writing it when I was dealing with my own fears and thoughts about feeling like I didn’t fit in with people. During this time, I felt like God wanted me to start reading through the first couple of books in the new testament, primarily focusing on the misfits that surrounded Jesus. What I saw was how people who never fit in were used, and they ushered in the church and spreading the gospel. It is quite an amazing thing to see, and it culminated in this last post which I am writing now. I want to talk about being a misfit in community with other misfits. The thing that’s hard about feeling like you don’t fit in, is the fact that many of us stop there and begin to believe there’s no place for us. The truth is, we can come together as misfits and be in community together, because when we do this, we become the church.

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Misfit: Different and Pivotal

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One of the hardest things I find in life is that when we feel like an outsider, we feel like that makes us unimportant. For a majority of my life I have thought like this, that because I wasn’t like the average dude, I was somehow less important. I think for many of us this becomes the way we view our lives. We see the lives others are living and ask ourselves why can’t we have that kind of story, why everything for everyone else seems to be so easy. We look at our lives and the choices we’ve made and wonder if we can ever make a difference, if our stories will ever leave a mark on the world around us. So many of us have made mistakes, don’t fit into the norms of the people around us, and we can feel like we are unimportant to creating an impact. I’m here to say that this is so not true, the enemy wants to twist your mind and make you believe that you aren’t important. You are important. Your life has value. The thing we must always remember is that God made you in his image, meaning that he is calling you to something greater. While you may be feeling like a misfit, this means that you are different and that you are pivotal to the greater picture.

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Think Like a Kid

/ Joshua Thomas / 4 Comments

Have you ever watched kids at play? It’s one of the best things to see. You see kids create incredible stories and live in worlds that could not possibly be in existence, yet it is alive in the minds of children. I think back to when I was a kid; I would fight countless battles against robots in my back yard, save the world from villains as a superhero (with all the powers, duh), and I would win the hearts of all those I defended. Countless battles and I would never lose. Kids come together and join their vast worlds to play for hours on end, going from the wild west to the outer reaches of space. There is truly nothing like watching kids at play, and there is power in their play. I think God wants us to be like that, to think like a kid. A child’s mind is open and they have faith that in everything they pursue, they will achieve. They are not jaded by experiences, they simply want to move forward and change the world around them. I think we need to remember this, I think we need to start thinking like kids again.

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The Greatest Tool

/ Joshua Thomas / 3 Comments

None of us like feeling powerless. We want to be strong and stand against anything that comes our way, but so often we end up feeling helpless. I’m talking about both a physical attack, but a mental attack or another way to put it, a spiritual attack. We have an enemy who lurks in the shadows trying to tear us down and make us question whether God is truly there. Now before I continue, this isn’t a post about how “the devil made me do it,” stop that, you did it and you have to own the mistake (rant over). Today I want to write about how to combat spiritual attack, because each of us fight on a daily basis. There are words spoken over us (see last week’s post), there are temptations that arise, and there are hardships that don’t make sense to us. Each of these things are a form of spiritual attack, designed to make us lose sight of the one who loves us, the one who gave his life for us. You see, we aren’t hopeless in the midst of these things, we actually have the tool we need to fight back. It’s so easy for church culture to just say, “hang in there,” or my personal favorite, “I’ll pray for you,” (then never pray when you could do it in that moment with them). This tool is powerful and we all have experienced it, but we often don’t consciously see it as a weapon, then it hit me while reading a book.

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Speak Life

/ Joshua Thomas / 1 Comment

“Don’t let any evil talk come out of your mouths. Say only what will help to build others up and meet their needs. Then what you say will help those who listen.”

Ephesians 4:29

I love words. It’s one of the reasons I love to write, so many words with deep meaning can come together and create a complete thought. That thought can then translate into an idea, and ideas become unstoppable. They create change and leave an impact, but we have to be careful with our words. Many times, we get excited by the power of positive change and movements from people because of words, also have the capability to tear down and destroy others. I have a deep love of words, but I also understand that they have a dark side to them. It all depends on how we utilize this powerful tool. We all have a responsibility with our words, one that we can use to build up and encourage, or tear down and crush others. Today I want to talk about the impact of speaking life can be towards another person, because we need this more than ever.

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Pray in All Things

/ Joshua Thomas / 1 Comment

Recently, I’ve been scared. There’s lots of scary stuff going on in my life. End of the semester stress, graduating this year, starting a job to fund raise for a future career of ministry, and simply wanting to do what God has called me for. I’ve been scared, but God is bigger than my fears. This past week had many cool moments occur. I learned that I had the chance to speak at our high school ministry, I had a great conversation with my campus pastor, and I had a chance to pray over people in our city. That’s the moment where it happened, where a simple thing hit me in my moment of feeling weak. Prayer. One of those basic things we have in our walk with Christ. So simple, yet often I overlook the importance of prayer. In my season of fear I have been praying a lot, asking for a sign (some kind of neon lights in the sky to point me) I have been wanting all the answers to my life immediately. God doesn’t work on my schedule. Aww man! But it would be so much nicer, I mean, I know what’s best for me! That’s my human side, and it’s many of your reactions too, well maybe you don’t whine, but you get the idea. In all of my fear, I am choosing to pray, because when I choose to humble myself, then the Lord works.

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Foundation Focus

/ Joshua Thomas / Leave a comment

I’ve been struggling with anxiety and depression over the past few months. I’ve been so afraid of the future and the path I will take over the next months after school. The stress of trying to finish well but not have a clear direction after this season scares me, it makes me feel like I am failing at my purpose. All I desire is to write words that will inspire others and serve the next generation in ministry, but the path is so unclear and that’s what makes it so difficult. That’s the reason I need Christ more than ever. It’s the reason we all need Christ more than ever. This past week I was worshiping with my brothers and sisters and received prayer of encouragement for this struggle I’ve been facing. After this I prayed with Matt the artist. I call him this because he truly thinks in abstract ways like an artist, and we prayed together in an abstract way. We prayed to look for the moment of origin for anxiety, and when I found it, he asked me to now put God in that situation. Everything changed. You see, Matt the artist helped me understand that I can’t go about things on my own, my foundation needs to be focused on my savior. Our focus needs to be on the foundation of our life.

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Seeking His Presence

/ Joshua Thomas / 2 Comments

It’s now been a full week into the New Year. How have you done with your resolutions so far? Yeah me either. It’s funny how quick we can lose doing a resolution, so I’m trying to set goals for myself. While these seem similar, my goal is going to be things I aspire towards, where a resolution is a hard start and if you fail, it feels like you have made a huge mistake. I choose to set goals that I want to do daily in order to strive for more out of my life. Last week I talked about the characteristic I choose to take on for this coming year; how I want to be like an avenger. Goals are a bit different. Some goals I’ve set for myself this year are things I want to do that will help me be better at my daily walk. I want to write each day so that I can get better and grow as a writer. I want to read at least fifty pages a day, which is a lot, but I want to continue to read more and learn more through reading. I want to meet more people and learn their stories. I want to spend money wisely and avoid things in life that bring me down. The biggest goal I set for myself this year is this, I want to seek the presence of God each day and step into what he has set out for me.

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Fearfully and Wonderfully Created

/ Joshua Thomas / 3 Comments

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

Psalm 139:14

About a year ago I had this revelation. I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and saw a t-shirt. It was the daughter of someone that I follow and her shirt said, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” That stuck with me so much, because it means so much. The caption was something sweet about his daughter and helping her know she was made in the image of God. Cut to a few days later when I went to the Orange conference (a Next gen ministry conference), and they started talking about how vital the role of pastors and small group leaders play in the lives of the next generation. They said they do this by helping the next generation see that they are made in the image of God. Not a coincidence. Over and over since then God has been placing this on my heart, and if you’ve read my blog consistently, you know that I really like to push this fact. The reason I push it is because living into that title shifts your perspective. It allows you to move from thinking that you were some accident by science, but that you were created, fearfully and wonderfully, with a higher purpose for your life.

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