You know guys, God opens doors and he most definitely closes doors. Sometimes it really hurst but we can get through it. I'm okay because my trust is in that God who is in charge of those doors, it just really sucks sometimes.

Lord I have so many things on my heart tonight. I'm frustrated and hurt yet your doing so much work on my heart. Every day you are teaching me and molding me into someone you can use, and I'm so grateful/exited to see what you have in store for me this coming school year. But at the same time, I feel like your method of getting to me is as usual a little drastic. I'm sorry it takes so much to get my attention. Lord I'm hurt and angry right now, but God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.

All Things New "New Man" (Official Music Video)

If you haven't read Romans 8: 31-39 in a while you should do that.

Jesus died on the cross to save us. We accept salvation by believing and letting the Holy Spirit dwell within us. Jesus did all the work for us, all we do is accept the gift. So where do good works come in? Obviously we as the Body of Christ are supposed to spread the Good News with our words and actions, but what is the correct motive? We are not saved by good works but faith without works is dead. So my question is this: Do we do good works as a response of thankfulness to God's gift to us? Or do we do good works because we think we need to do them in order to be a real Christian? This Bible study is almost scaring people in to volunteering. I'm sure there are many other options as to why people volunteer and what not, but I like to think we should serve out of thankfulness to what God has blessed us with. Nothing we do will earn us salvation. So then what about the Christians that believe in Jesus but were never active about it? Will Jesus really say "Away from me, I never knew you"? We are saved by faith right? I'm not sure what the right answer is so any wise words would be cool to hear.

So this Bible study that we were basically forced to join is making me mad. This guy makes it seem like we are bad Christians if we don't move to China and covert at least one person a week. The thing is that  I don't think God cares about the number of people as he does about the quality of each relationship. Yes we need to spread the Gospel but before we pray the prayer with someone, we need to let them know what they are getting in to. God wants true followers, not luke warm fans. And we don't have to go around the world, there are needs here. Some are prayer warriors, others are awesome stay at home moms that are called to raise up her children.

Also, he says Christians need to be different from non believers y our actions. My problem with this is that he is saying we act no better than people that only care about themselves but there are non Christians who are amazing leading fights for clean water and relief from natural disasters. So yes we need to act like Christ but we also need to speak up about it.

I'm half asleep while writing this so it's probably not well worded but oh well.

Witness Essentials

So I've been reading a book for about a year now haha (I hate reading) And I need to tell you guys about it...so basically just Melanie. I'm about done with Dan Meyer's book Witness Essentials, Evangelism That Makes Disciples and it's seriously so good. I've always been surrounded by other believers and rarely get the chance to share the Gospel with people, which stinks, but this book has some amazing advise/steps to help facilitate those hard, and sometimes awkward, conversations. After reading it, I feel more comfortable about being vocal about my faith and perusing the active Christian live we are all called to. So pick up this book or ask me to borrow it or something because we need to be more vocal and this will help. I hope you guys that are at public schools will pick this up and change lives...or at least plant some seeds for the Holy Spirit to grow. Anyways, get your hands on this book.

#DanRocks Idk why I did that but it was funny at the time hahaha