speak life

Call Out the Greatness in Others

/ Joshua Thomas / Leave a comment

I’ve been talking about love a lot recently. Most of my posts have centered around the idea of how to love others and how to love ourselves the way Jesus loves. The idea for me was sparked during a conference I went to over the spring of last year, the Orange Conference, its’ main theme being “it’s personal.” One of the speakers was Bob Goff, and of course, if you know anything about him, he’s all about loving people. This spark made me look at the way I live. How do I love others like Jesus? What does that look like? What steps can I take towards loving in his radical ways? The answer seems to be right in front of me, in front of all of us. We want to be better people. We want to make positive changes and influence in the lives of the people we come across. So, what do we do?

We do what Jesus did, we call out the greatness in others.

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Be an Encourager

/ Joshua Thomas / Leave a comment

“So encourage each other and build each other up.”

1 Thessalonians 5:11

Ahh yes, the November weather has finally come! At least sort of here in North Carolina. I love this month, I love October, but I really like the themes that surround November. Thanksgiving time is here, which means many blogs about things we are thankful for, but one of the things I want to do is talk about ways to treat those in our lives. Family is big to me, not just biological, but my friends; brothers and sisters in Christ. One of my favorite memories about November and thanksgiving is that each year, my family would open up our home to people who couldn’t make it home or may have not had family. It was always awesome to me, but I’ll save my thoughts on that for later (no spoilers). I think so often we talk about what we’re thankful for, but sometimes don’t always show it. Talk is great, but God gives us actions to live out faith. Today I want to talk about something that many of us don’t do nearly as much as we need to, because we all need it desperately. We need to be an encourager.

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Misfit: Learning the Power of Never Fitting in

/ Joshua Thomas / 2 Comments

I think many of us at one time or another have felt like an outsider. We find ourselves in seasons where we feel like we’re on our own, that we don’t have that community that we all so desperately need. We want to be the main character of our story, yet we feel like we fade into the background. That’s the feelings we get as a misfit, a person set apart from others. Lately, I’ve been feeling like a misfit. Recently graduated from university, on the hunt for ministry positions, and making it by working with an after-school program. I find myself in a transition period, and that can be hard. I feel God calling me to something more, and more and more I feel that Greensboro is not my end destination. It becomes a not very fun cycle to get into, to feel like you are called for more and that God has a plan, yet it doesn’t seem similar to those around you. In an age of social media, we see updates from those around us, giving us the idea that everyone has it all together and that you become the outsider because you don’t have your goals realized yet. As I have been feeling these feelings and thinking about what it means, God has reminded me of misfits from the bible. God used people who didn’t fit in to do a great work. I think he wants to use you too.

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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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The Power of Words

/ Joshua Thomas / Leave a comment

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Genesis 1:27

The past few weeks I’ve been writing to you about your self-worth. I’ve been writing because I feel like you needed to hear life giving words. You see, there is power in words. Words can build us up or tear us down, they possess so much potential but are rarely used to their full power. We are created by a God who spoke the universe into existence, one who sent his son to die on the cross for each of us, and while he was on the cross defeated death when he said, “It is finished.” Proverbs 18:21 says, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Our words are a powerful tool that we all wield. I think we need to reclaim this weapon. We have all felt the sting of what happens when others use this to hurt us, to tear our hearts open and cause so much pain. The past two weeks I have been writing about the fact that we are all made in the image of God, and we are so worth loving. We must believe this fact, we must believe that God created us for so much more. We are greater than what the world tries to say we are, we are made for a purpose. We are made to build up the kingdom, so we must use the power of our words to accomplish the mission.

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