Mark 11:22-24: And Jesus answered and said to them, Have faith in God. Truly I say to you that whoever says to this mountain, Be taken up and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says happens, he will have it. For this reason I say to you, All things that you pray and ask, believe that you have recieved them, and you will have them.

It seems weird to pray for things in this way. It seems weird to pray, “Lord, you have done this for me” instead of “Lord, please do this for me”. But it actually strengthens your faith in Him. To believe that it has already been given to you means that you don’t doubt that the Lord will give it to you, whereas begging for something before the Lord shows that you have some doubt that it will happen. It’s hard to have this much faith. But we have to remember faith doesn’t come from ourselves. Faith isn’t anything we possess. Faith is God. All we need is to keep taking God in as our Life, and His Life becomes our faith. 

And sometimes it’s not about getting what we ask for. Sometimes we get what we need when He doesn’t give us what we want. And this can be hard on our faith. Sometimes I just have to pray, “Lord, it’s so hard to believe in You on my own. Help me to believe You. Lord I just need you.” And then it becomes so easy to just believe in Him. We don’t have to worry about whether or not we will get what we ask for, because we know, no matter what, we will always have Him, and we can be content with that. :)

It reminds me of a song:

Lord, now I see
You only want me to believe,
Not to change
In all my failures and defeats
To believe what You have done,
And not in what I see.

Lord, I believe
When all around me is defeat,
And it seems
That nothing’s changing outwardly,
No! I’m not discouraged,
I’m believing You.

Yes, I believe
And there is no demand on me.
Simple faith,
Yes, that is all you want from me.
Freed from anxious doubting,
I’m free to just believe. 

Believing You,
Because, Lord, You are my success!
When I fail,
All I must do is just confess,
And go on enjoying You -
I love believing You! 

Lord, I love You, no matter what. Even when I hate you for not answering my prayers the way I wanted You to, I still love you. Keep me loving You.

=)

Jeremiah 12:1 - Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are all those who deal treacherously at ease?

Why does it always seem like good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people? Because sometimes, it’s true. However, God is not out to punish us, or be cruel. Even as christians, we all have baggage. We are all weighed down by something in the world that might get between us and God. And God doesn’t want this. He only wants us to be able to enjoy Him. Everything else shouldn’t matter. Everything else doesn’t matter. So he tries to strip it away from us. Sometimes He might leave someone with nothing but God - not to hurt them, but to allow them to realise that they need nothing but God. This was the case in Job, and with some of the psalmists.

Jeremiah 17:7-9 - Blessed is the man who trusts in Jehovah /And whose trust Jehovah is. /And he will be like a tree transplanted beside water, /Which sends out roots by a stream, /And will not be afraid when heat comes; /For its leaves remain flourishing, /And it will not be anxious in the year of drought /And will not cease to bear fruit. /The heart is deceitful above all things, /And it is incurable; /Who can know it?

When we realise that we need nothing but God, we will be like these trees. Nothing will worry us, because we have God. In Phil 3:8 Paul said, “But moreover I also count all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse that I may gain Christ”.

Sometimes even our own heart can get in the way. Our feelings can lead us astray, even deceive us. Sometimes we have to cast our own feelings aside to gain Christ. I know I’ve had to do this over the past week. I would have loved nothing more to just curl up and cry at times and just forget about Him, but instead, I just turned to Him, casting my own feelings aside. And in the end, He does sort all of our feelings out. He finds the solutions for us. If we trust Him, we don’t have to worry about anything, because He will provide everything. =)

Subject:
Christ — The All-Inclusive One
Having the first place in All Things,
as the Mystery and Embodiment of God,
as the Head and Constituent of the Church,
as the Allotted Portion, Life, Constituent,
and Hope of the saints, and
as the Body of All Positive Things 

Over the next 4 months, the high schoolers in my district are going to attempt memorising the whole book of Colossians, so I decided to join them. =)

I’ve got the subject memorised, so let’s see how this goes… Oh Lord Jesus!

Jer 9:23-24 - … Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man glory in his might; let not the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories glory in this, that he has insight and knows Me, that I am Jehovah who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for in these things I delight, declares Jehovah.

Our glory is not in how much we know. Our glory is not in what we can do. Our glory is not in how rich we are. Even though all of these things may be good, they are not things that will last forever. When we are gone, they will eventually mean nothing. So what is the point to our lives? Where do we find glory?

Our true glory is in God. Knowing God, receiving Him as our supply and salvation, this is our glory. Our God is eternal, so all we receive from Him is eternal. When we are no longer on this earth and in the kingdom with Him, what we receive from Him will be our real treasure that can last for eternity. Everything we receive from the world will fade away.

And the wonderful thing is, it’s so easy to receive Him. All we have to do is exercise our spirit. Some people may read the Bible, or call on His name… But one surefire way of exercising our spirit is to confess our sins. Why? Because our conscience is the leading part of our spirit. Everyone at some point has felt their conscience nagging at them. All we have to do is confess what is on our heart, and we just get Christ poured over us. I always feel so happy, refreshed and full of God after confessing. =)