The Good Test

It is Easter weekend, let us remember what Jesus has done for us, as we should daily. As this is a long post, please spare yourself some time to read the whole thing.

When questioned, nearly every person proclaims themselves as a good person.

Proverbs 21:2
All a man's ways seem right to him,
but the LORD weighs the heart.

Most people when asked whether or not they will go to heaven answer yes. But what is heaven’s standard for just, honorable, and good. Who is honorable to enter Heaven?
God has not left us in the dark; He has given us His Law, the Ten Commandments. This reveals the standard we must meet. We are told that the Law of the Lord is perfect. God has exposed His Law to every human heart.

Romans 2:14-16
When outsiders who have never heard of God's law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God's law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God's yes and no, right and wrong. Their response to God's yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman. The Message from God that I proclaim through Jesus Christ takes into account all these differences.

Even so, the law cannot save us:
Romans 3:20
Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

Have you lied?
Have you cheated?
Have you stole anything?
Used God's name as a curse word?

Romans 3:23
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Can you see your dilemma? You are guilty of sinning against God Himself, and, because you have a conscience, ["con"=with, "science"=knowledge] you have sinned "with knowledge." Does the fact that you have sinned against God scare you? It should. You have actually angered Him by your sin. The Bible says His wrath abides on you, that you are an "enemy of God in your mind through wicked works."

Perhaps you think God is good and because of his goodness He will overlook your sins?
But if you knew of a human judge who turned a blind eye to the crimes of a guilty rapist...would you describe him as a "good" judge?
No.
That would be a "corrupt" judge.
God could never be a corrupt judge!
He will punish all the rapists, murderers, and thieves... But He won't stop there. He will also punish all liars, the lustful, adulterers, idolaters, and blasphemers.
The place of eternal punishment is Hell.

God does not want you to perish. He is rich in mercy and compassion, and has provided a way for you to be forgiven. He has invited you to come to Him for a full pardon and receive the free gift of Eternal Life. You cannot earn it, and you do not deserve it, but God is offering it to you as proof of His love for you.

Imagine you are standing in front of a judge, guilty of multiple serious crimes. All the evidence has been presented and there is no doubt about your guilt. Your apologies and good works cannot erase your crimes; therefore you must be punished. The fine for your crime is $250,000 or imprisonment, but you don’t have two pennies to rub together. The judge is about to pass sentence when someone you don't even know steps in and pays your fine for you! The court accepts the money and declares that you are free to go. The law has been satisfied, your debt has been paid in full, and the stranger’s sacrifice was a demonstration of his love for you. That’s what God did for you 2000 years ago.

The Bible says that the God of the Universe became a man, Jesus Christ, and suffered and died on the cross for your sins and mine so that we could be set free. Then he rose again from the dead and defeated death!

It's as simple as this—we broke the Law, and Jesus paid our fine.

Romans 5:8
God demonstrated His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Galatians 3:13
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us.

Do you see God’s great love for you? Do you see your need for His forgiveness? Do what He commands and

Acts 3:19
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.

You must turn away from sin and turn to God. Desire to have NOTHING to do with sin, and surrender your life to the One who can save you. Jesus died to set you free, and then he rose from death to be your Lord.

Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If you will confess and forsake your sins [repent] and trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, God will forgive you and you’ll pass from death to life.
If you are not sure how to pray, read Psalm 51 and make it your prayer.

What does it mean to "put your faith in Jesus Christ?" It means to personally trust in Jesus the same way you’d trust in a parachute if you had to jump 25,000 feet out of an airplane. You wouldn’t just "believe" in the parachute; you would put it on! In the same way, the Bible says, "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ..." and you will be saved. There are millions of people who "believe" Jesus exists . . . but they have not put on the Savior—there’s a BIG difference. And the difference will be obvious when you “jump” through the door of death.
Today, with all your heart—turn away from sin, and surrender your life to Jesus Christ. Please don’t put it off till later. You may die today and then it will be too late. You may not yet have all the answers to your questions, but better to put on the parachute first and then ask questions, then to pass through the door unprepared, grasping for the parachute when it’s too late.

All you need to do is pray something like this—

"Dear God, today I turn away from all my sin [Confess them to God] and I put my trust in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I come to you now and ask you to take control of my life, I give it to you. Help me to live every day in a way that pleases you. Please forgive me, and grant me your gift of everlasting life. Amen."

There is nothing magic about these words—it is the attitude of your heart that God cares about. God will transform you from the inside out. You will think and feel differently as you learn to trust and obey Him. God will give you new strength to live right and love Him above all else. Read your Bible daily and obey His Word. You can trust God—He loves you and will always be faithful.

If you've decided to reject the gift of forgiveness and you die in your sins, there is no hope for you. There is no purgatory. The wrath of God abides on you and you will spend eternity in Hell, plain and simple.

If you've made it through, congratulations! Nothing can really convince you to take on a true relationship with God besides a divine revelation from Him about the power of His love and grace. I pray that your heart will be stirred to receive the forgiveness that comes through Christ Jesus.

Keep on pressing

I just wanted to share something that was on my heart about pressing into the presence of God while in worship [reverent honor and respect paid to God] through song and dance. This has been placed on my heart and I wanted to share it with everyone, hopefully this will be a word of encouragement!

Yesterday I had work, and work was long and tiring. I haven’t worked a 12 hour shift in awhile so it was physically draining. Work involved a lot of lifting, moving, pushing, and carrying as it is the nature of the business. I am truly blessed with the job God gave me and I love it. The fact that I get to be involved with people all day makes the time spent there worth it. So I got home late, and had to wake up early for school the next morning.

I wasn’t feeling to well when I woke up the next morning as I got ready for Chapel. I was overly tired, my feet were hurting, and my arms were sore. Let us say I would rather be in bed. For those of you who don’t know, we have a class called Chapel at the beginning of the day which involves worship, the word, announcements, and our leadership group meetings at the end. Now I had a choice during worship, I could have just sat there in the seats and enjoyed some good music, maybe stand for a little bit OR I could make the choice to truly press into the presence of God even though my physical body wanted otherwise. This meant standing when I wanted to sit, jumping when I couldn’t jump, and raising my hands when my arms when I couldn’t. Doing this while my arms ached, feet hurt, and body was sore. True sacrifice which in turn is true worship and I believe God honors that.

It was awe inspiring. The feeling of worshiping God when my physical body couldn’t gave me unbelievable energy. The presence of God was so overwhelming that I started to literally cry. The presence of His love for me was truly amazing and I hope everyone has the chance to feel His love for us. He loves you so much and wants to share His love with you, but you need to let Him. He already loves you unconditionally; He just wants you to love Him the same.

My challenge for anyone who reads this is when in worship, when you feel like sitting down, don’t. When you want to lower your hands, press in harder, when you want to stop praying, pray louder. Truly give all you are to Him.

Psalm 59:16
But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble

Psalm 28:7
The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.

Go! Go! Go!

So a couple weeks have gone by since my last entry and a lot has happened. It’s crazy to think that I’ve been here for over two months!

Once more, Happy Birthday to all who have birthday’s in March! I’m 19! Almost out of my teenage years with one more year till 20! It’s weird, I remember turning 13 and thought I was so much old because I was a teenager, ha-ha.

So let us talk about work for a moment. My job is amazing! I love it so much. I’ve only been working there for a couple weeks, but it’s been sweet. I got the opportunity to start work with a group of people new to the business as well, so we were all in the same boat. A lot of the people I met working also started work a couple weeks ago as well. One great thing about this job is that I’m always working with people, whether it’s serving or my work mates; we have a great time and have fun. I couldn’t have asked for a better job! The uniforms are sweet to, there all black, and there easy to move around in, the cool thing is we don’t have to take our uniforms home, we get them at the start of the shift from the dry cleaners in the basement of the hotel and bring them back at the end, so our uniforms are always clean! So cool! We get to use this cool machine when we start shift, all you have to do is enter your employee number and then you put your finger print on the scanner and it signs you in and out. So overall I am very happy to work at Hilton and am glad that God placed me there.

Last week for college, we volunteered at the Colour Your World Women’s Conference from Wednesday to Saturday. That was an experience hard to describe. The Acer arena was filled with 17,000 women. I mean, 17,000 women! It was insane. You can imagine the worship. The preachers were amazing. I was hosting at the door for seating so I got to listen to a lot of the Word being spoken and messages preached and even as a man it impacted my life for the most part as it was mainly geared towards women! [Would you have guessed?] I got to meet some amazing ladies that really impacted my life with there generosity and kindness, they truly made the conference a blast! [Shout-out to Merrily if you’re reading this! Thanks for being so awesome!] Although there was only one bathroom for the males [By the way, the Acer arena for people from Edmonton, is just as big as the Rexall Place] But even with all the toilets [As Australians like to refer to them as] there was still massive lines to wait through for the ladies. One thing about Australians I find is they like their coffee. A LOT! You can find two or three coffee shops on every corner and every café has a barista to attend to the coffee machines they use. Well the line-ups for coffee were worse than the toilet, which I thought was funny. My door was by one and through out the whole conference there was a queue. I have had a couple coffees since I’ve been here and they are quite amazing, although I rather drink tea than coffee.

So after the conference was over, which was sad, but it was an amazing event nevertheless! The very next day [Sunday, March 18] Hillsong recorded their church album at the arena. So once again the Acer arena was packed full of Christians worshiping God. It was awesome. I feel so blessed to be apart of it.

[Thanks Jana for the picture of the Kangaroo from the Zoo, although I still have yet to see one!]So last week was a tiresome one, but the Joy of the Lord is my strength. Even with only 5 hours of sleep a day, it was worth every last bit. The lucky thing about going to college is we get to do the same thing for another two conferences further into the year!

Speaking of God providing, I just wanted to share how awesome He has been the past couple of weeks. Everything has been falling into place so perfectly. It’s awesome how when you follow his plan, everything works out for the better. Even when you’re not sure how things are going to turn out, you know that He has your best interest in mind. It’s great to know that you’re following the will of God and that you have the creator of the world and all that exists looking out for you. How awesome is He.

Anyways, I think that covers everything that is going on right now. I can’t think of anything else. So yah, have a great day, be blessed!



Represent.

A new job!

A quick entry to say...I got a job at Hilton Hotels! Glory be to God! How amazing He is! That picture, my friends is the place where I will be working! That actual building! Nice eh? Just today I got the answer I was waiting for, my training starts next Monday at 8:45 AM! I can't wait to get involved there! I will be helping out with banquets, so that includes setting up the rooms for banquets, serving, and as well as taking everything down! God is my provider! It's been crazy, living on the edge. Just when you think your alone, God shows up and reminds you that He has been there the whole time. It is awesome.

I just want to encourage you with this verse that my sister gave to me.

1 Timothy 4:12 Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

"In my life, be lifted high,
In our world, be lifted high,
In our love, be lifted high"

Let it be, Jesus.

March!

I must say March is my favorite month! A lot of great things happen in March! Birthdays! So if your birthday is in March, consider yourself lucky because we share a great month. If your birthday is in any other month also consider yourself lucky, because I'm sure your month is just as exciting! I turn 19 on the 19 of March!

Today was a good day. Today was my day off. I went for a couple of walks [more than once] to the same place. I went swimming twice. I worked on some homework for a little bit. I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I had two great peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch [Honestly, the key is cold bread and jelly, wow].


Some great potato and bacon soup for supper. It's been a great day.

I love shout outs! This one for a very special two persons, an answer to prayer, amazing people! Just being awesome people and doing the will of God, it's what I love about em! Thanks for being there when I needed you the most, I'll try to do the same! Love you lots!

P.S. Comments are free, so leave one! ;)