Life

Seek What Gives You Life

/ Joshua Thomas / 2 Comments

“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Matthew 6:33-34

We continue our series of lessons from b-movies to give us a stronger battle plan for the spiritual warfare we all face, with today looking at the pitfalls of things that suck life away. I always love the way vampires are depicted in movies, these evil creatures who lure victims to them, and drink their blood (ewww). It’s a very visual image when you look at it, this monster literally sucks the life out of their victim. It’s easy to watch these movies and giggle because the vampire just looks like an obvious bad guy, I mean who wears a suit and lives in a creepy castle, only a vampire duh. I think the crazy part is, this happens to many of us on a daily basis. Okay, not the creature who wants to drink your blood, but there are things in our life that we let suck our lives away. We put ourselves in toxic relationships, waste our time with things that don’t matter, and we choose to live on our own; we choose to be independent from God. The truth is, we need to seek what gives us life by becoming dependent on Christ.

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Entering into Unknown Territory

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Well, the summer is finally coming to a close. Not going to lie, I’m ready for this heat to go away. What this also means is that we are all entering into new seasons of our lives. The summer vacations come to a close, college students head back to having their time filled with work, and kids start a new grade while having to wake up early in the mornings (but moooooom, I don’t want to wake up!). It’s funny how fast time seems to fly by, we finish one season of our lives in a blur and jump towards the next. It can be pretty scary if we’re honest. New things always make us unsure of what we know. I’ve been thinking a lot about this because today in fact, I start my senior year at UNCG, which makes me nervecited. What’s that? You have no idea what my made up word means? It’s a combination of nervous and excited. I’m nervous because after this year is when I start looking for jobs and enter into the “real world.” At the same time I’m excited because I will begin a new chapter in the story of my life. We all have transitions and new chapters, all of which have us entering into unknown territory.

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The Power of Fun

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I want to talk about something very serious today. This is something that has been on my heart, and I think many people are struggling from the lack of this important ability. It plagues many and causes hardship and tension when it is not present. I’m talking about fun. Did you like how I tried to make it sound like I was going to talk about something really heavy and sad? I thought it was pretty funny (Hey! It’s like I’m going to talk about fun and made a funny joke!). I want to talk about the importance of fun. We face a lot of tough things in life, things that make it hard for us to continue and want to run away and become a recluse. We can’t do that, the world needs each and every one of us. We all play a vital role in this world, it’s the reason we were created by God! One of the strongest weapons we have in our arsenal is fun, yet most of us try to take the world way too seriously. Having fun creates an open culture in your life, meaning, you find joy even in the hardest circumstances. Even though we face hardship, we can praise God and have fun. Psalm 149:1-5 says, “Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of his faithful people… Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp. For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with victory. Let his faithful people rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds.”

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Invincible

/ Joshua Thomas / 1 Comment

One of the biggest lies we are told is that with we can overcome anything if we put our mind to it. We struggle and the world around us tells us to just power through it, that you are the only one holding you back. Life has us face some of the hardest struggles and deepest hurts that it throws our way, and we feel helpless. We feel like we should be stronger, that we should be invincible, especially as a believer we feel like we shouldn’t be struggling. We all struggle, yet we feel like we are the only ones. I know for me I look at others around me and feel like they have unlocked the secret to being invincible. Then there’s the other side, when life is going great. We aren’t having any issues, life seems to finally be at peace, and we start to feel invincible. This is what I like to call the “invincibility curse.” I know, it sounds pretty cool, I came up with that on my own. Okay, back down to earth. I like to call it this because we all have faced one or both of the symptoms to this curse. We either face situations where we are frustrated by the fact that we aren’t invincible, or we let our guard down when we are in times of peace. The reality of this curse is the fact that we are striving for invincibility, rather than relying on God at all times in our life. We have made invincibility an idol, losing sight of what really matters.

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Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires

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I know what you’re probably thinking, isn’t that Smokey the Bear’s slogan? Why yes, it is in fact! It’s a slogan that pretty much everyone in America has heard before, any National Park has a picture of Smokey somewhere warning campers and hikers alike to be cautious with fire. Commercials tell us that just one match can devastate a forest if we aren’t careful with it. I think the same could be said about our responsibility as a leader. Now before you start to question what I’m even saying, I’m not saying that as a leader you need to watch out for setting a fire. What I am talking about is your responsibility to not start a spiritual fire. We live in a world filled with choices and we see people all around us make compromises of what they believe. We often see leaders in high positions misuse the influence they have, treating others as lesser people or speaking painful words over them in order to grow in status. We try to push others down in order to gain a higher viewpoint, but this will only end in devastation. God has given you all a position to lead, he designed you with a purpose. Your purpose is to bring others into the kingdom. If this is our purpose, why do we misuse our power? Instead of becoming the hero who rescues and saves others from falling, we become a villain drunk with power.

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Being a Leader Is Hard, so Let’s Lead

/ Joshua Thomas / 1 Comment

Being a leader is hard work. It requires you to be strong when others aren’t, make tough decisions, and stand for what you believe is right; but we are all called to be leaders. A leader is simply one who leads a group, pretty basic stuff right? What this looks like is simple, yet complex. That’s one of the things that never ceases to amaze me, how simple God works to do incredible things. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” You see, we were specially designed by God, made in his image, he gave us abilities and talents that are unlike anyone else. He made us, but we have a calling that he gives each of you, use what he has given you to do good works. Those good works are simply serving others, treating others as you want to be treated.

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Your Story Needs to Be Shared

/ Joshua Thomas / 1 Comment

Each day, we create a story. We take on new challenges, we meet new people, and we fight to make it through the hardship. You have a story. You have a past that has led you to this point, you have the ability to make choices now that will propel you into a future God has for you, and you have the power to leave a legacy that will last forever. Over the past three weeks I have written posts to help you understand that we have all been given a story. We all have a past where we can see that God has brought us from, good or bad. We all have the power to choose to live daily seeking Christ, not choosing to be of this world. All ending in our future, that once we trust God with it, we can leave a legacy that matters. These are all things that are vital to your story, but today there is a conclusion that may be the most important aspect of your story. Your story needs to be shared. Another word for your story that we see over and over in the bible is that of your testimony. A testimony is simply a declaration of what you have experienced. Your testimony is unique, because it is yours. Your testimony in Christ has power to it, it has the power to cast out darkness and push the enemy down. Revelation 12:11 says, “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” We have been saved by grace and our testimony of that fact gives us the power over the darkness. We become the light, and when there is light, darkness flees.

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The Story We Live

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We are all living a story. Our lives have characters, some major and some minor, we have triumphs and tragedies, all of it making up our story. This month I am going through the different aspects of our lives through the lens of a story. This was an idea that I first heard about in a book by Donald Miller, the author that I slightly fanboy out on sometimes. His book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, first talks about how we all have a story that we live. This is such a fantastic concept that I have really loved being able to look at the world by. Last week we looked at how our past is a picture of where God has brought us from and how he has used even the hardest aspects of life for our good, growing us and forming us into the people we are called to be. We all have a past, but what about the now? It’s easy to see God work by the way he has used our past experiences, but what about right now, how can we live a story that means something. This is one of the most vital parts to how we live a story. We don’t know the future (unless you have super powers), so we need to choose what will help us live our story. Paul in the bible writes numerous letters over and over to Timothy, creating much of the New Testament and outlining how we should live. In Titus, Paul writes to Timothy about how one should live and carry themselves daily. Titus 2:7-8 says, “In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.”

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Altered State of Mind

/ Joshua Thomas / 1 Comment

Last week I talked about making a very important choice, a choice that will affect the rest of your life, but what happens afterwards? How do I go about living my life? So often we are able to make the choice, but we continue to live our lives as they were. This isn’t me saying we should all become hermit people only reading the bible every moment of the day, not a bad thing just basically impossible if you have to drive and interact with people, what I am saying is that we become changed people. A relationship with God isn’t some checklist to complete, that isn’t a relationship. We are in relationship with so many people, friends, family, co-workers; but the most important relationship we have is with our creator. When we spend time with these people in our life, we make an effort to connect with them, that’s what God wants for us. When we make the effort to connect with him, our outlook is altered.

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The Most Important Choice

/ Joshua Thomas / 3 Comments

Hello again my good reader! Over the past couple of months on this blog I’ve been focusing on different aspects that we can learn and use to build our arsenal against the trials that life throws at us. It has been somewhat of a theme, but today I want to focus in on the reason behind why I’ve been writing about these traits. My reasoning is because I have seen that only you can strengthen yourself. Here’s what I mean, we as people can listen to inspirational speakers, read the best books, talk to the wisest of people, but there’s one thing that we all forget. All of these are good, but it comes down to the fact that only you can make the choice over your life. This is one of the most beautiful lessons that Jesus teaches us, a gift he gives us. We all have a choice, and this choice is the decision of life or death. Yeah, that serious. Paul gives us the two options in plain, clear, view. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life.” One of the things that is so good about the bible is that things are so simple, a choice of living in sin, or turning from sin and running into freedom. It’s the choice, meaning the only choice we need. Do we follow the world, or do we choose to follow Christ? Without choosing to have a relationship with Christ, you can still work on the skills that I’ve written about, but it isn’t sustainable. Think of it like an environmental standpoint, if we keep using a non-renewable resource, we are left with nothing. Things break down, we lose the ability to live like we once were. The same is true without Christ, without having a daily renewal, we break down. We need to make the choice.

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