Jessi's Faith Journey

Too often people think that Christians think they're perfect. We don't. We know we fail. On a daily basis. We are not better, we  have   something better. You see because we are Christians, we have the hope of the cross. That doesn't make us less human. Most days I wish it did. We are called to be separate from the world, but sometimes we fall into the same pitfalls as anyone else. When we step back and look at the culture, we are actually taught to react without thinking. Take facebook for example. We react with likes or love, sometimes even anger or surprise. We react quickly. We can comment and give our opinion in about ten seconds. We are taught to react to each other and then keep on scrolling. Most times we don't even think about how we reacted. We are conditioned to let people know how we feel about what they think. This is now the age we live in. The age of reaction. I have been watching Andy Griffith a lot with my family lately. I love the show. ...

God gave me something this morning in my bible reading. Something I have pondered for a long time. My reading plan has me in Proverbs right now, and I came to Proverbs 16:4 which says 'The Lord has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom'. Let me say that I have a bible with no commentary. I like to read without distraction, so that the Lord can speak to me with His words. Let me also say that I have a number of bibles with commentary in case I don't understand something, I can look and see what scripture means. Proverbs 16:4 was very interesting to me so I got out my MacArthur study bible to see what John had to say about the verse. John MacArthur is incredibly knowledgeable, so if you don't have that study bible, get it. In the commentary it says that the wicked will bring glory to God and referred me to Romans 9:17-23. You can read this for yourself to better understand what I will say next. Verse 18 stuck out to me here because it says 'w...

I hope someday that this blog is read by my children, and I do try to keep them in mind when I write them. I want them to know all that God is teaching me. I think sometimes when we write important stuff, we surround a point with a bunch of useless words. This was put on my heart and I'm going to keep this one simple. Love is a choice. Hate is a choice. Joy is a choice. Anger is a choice. What you choose, is what you will become. Choose love. Choose joy. Over and over again. Choose Jesus. Over and over again.

To tell this story, I would need to back up to Christmas 2017. I was still going to my previous church then, and had really felt God pulling me to help out with Angel Tree. Angel tree was an outreach that helped kids get gifts for Christmas. This program didn't need me at all. They had plenty of volunteers. Nonetheless I felt God pushing me to ask. I reached out to the coordinator and asked to be involved with all of it. She gave me some lists with names and I made some calls. I remember talking to a woman who told me all about her brother's story. See it was her nephew that was to receive a gift. It could have been my brother's story. It really touched my heart. I thought God must have wanted me to see the need in a new way. I reached out to the coordinator and let her know I really wanted to do every part of the angel tree. I won't go into details except to say that I didn't get to be a part of anything else that involved angel tree because I didn't live clos...