introducing...

 

 

I created this blog over 2 years ago but only began taking it seriously...what? Less than a year ago? And in that short period of time, I've been amazed at the love and support that I've received from the blogging community. But in the last few months, I've gotten more rude comments than necessary and people have tried to get me in the middle of needless drama. After a lot of prayer and thinking, I decided that closing down this blog is not an option, despite the fact that a lot of people out there were probably hoping that I'd have given up by now. But, the blog did need a face-lift. I needed a change, and I felt like the Lord wants me to continue to pursue this path (blogging, writing, journalism, etc.) possibly very long-term. This is my passion - writing. I adore it. I did get stuck in a rut, though. I realized that I can and should pursue different topics again, important topics. I should continue learning different things (photography, design, HTML...) and I should continue figuring out how to write about hot topics and topics that are so often over-looked, yet so important (fashion, faith, history, modern days, books, style, you name it) and I have never been this excited for such a big, drastic, and yes, very sudden, change. And I hope that you are all excited to join me as I learn. Because yes, I'm learning as I go. I'm older and yes, I've grown a lot since this blog first came into existence. And it's time that the blog grew up with me. Because this? I love this. I love this community, I love being a part of it. I love having roots here, even if it's just a simple blog for some.

 

 

So, tonight I introduce While She Waits - I hope it impacts y'all as much as writing these posts and planning the future ones have impacted me. The new name comes from one of my favorite quotes, which I included at the end of this post. You see, so often us girls get in such a hurry to get careers, find our Prince Charming, get married, have children - whatever it is that your heart desires, that we forget about how sacred of a time that this is. Sacred Singleness, ladies. This time is truly important. So, while I wait for that period of my life to begin, for a new chapter to start, I'm falling deeper in love with Christ. Because I will only know what true love is, while I wait. :) And because of that true love, yes, I will continue on waiting.

Much love to all of my old readers, and hello to all of my new ones. 

“Girls, if you will learn to wait patiently and confidently for God to bring a Christlike man into your life, you will not be disappointed. And guys, learn to treat women like the Perfect Gentleman, Jesus Christ If you do, you will not only be promoted out of “jerkhood,” but you will then be worthy of a beautiful princess of purity who is saving herself just for you.”
― Eric Ludy

Hated By The World, Loved By Jesus

Last night, a big debate took over my whole Instagram after I was asked a simple question  - "What is your opinion on homosexuality?" The people on my Instagram are very aware that I'm a Christian. I've never hidden my faith from them. My bio, my captions, even my photos, they typically always have something to do with God. I've also never been shy on there about my opinions. I've used a lot of my posts on here for captions on there and yes, I've received hate before. But never in my life have I received as much hate as I did last night. All because I quoted the Bible and told the person that I was against homosexuality - please note, in nowhere did I say that I was against the person. I am against the actual act of homosexuality but I will not be mean spirited to a homosexual. That being said, I will not hide truth from them, either.

"I was just told that, it's okay for me to have a religion and believe that homosexuality is wrong but I can't say anything about it because I may offend someone.

Well, I'm more concerned about the lost people going to Hell than stepping on someone's toes.

In my opinion, never saying a word to a sinner and keeping my faith to myself? That's worse than having the cure to cancer and keeping it from those who are suffering with the disease.

I will be kind, but I will be truthful. And I most certainly will not hide my faith, the truth or the gospel. End of story. It's not an option." - Post from Facebook written by myself.

I got over 500 comments that night, some were defending Christ but most were defending sin. When I finally tried to end the drama (I have no issue with friendly debate but I won't allow meaningless drama) the comments continued rolling in. I posted the lyrics of Sinner Saved By Grace and suddenly, I was mean because I said people are sinners.

Listen to me - I am a sinner. I am disgusting. I am not worthy of God nor am I worthy of His love, His grace, His salvation. But He gave it to me anyways. No one is worthy of what God has given us, but you know what? God loves us anyways. He forgives us, He is waiting on us to turn away from sin so He can wrap us in His arms. But in order to have that, you must repent. I don't want to just say everything I said in my last post but really, it's so important to remember God's stand on this. He doesn't hate us, He hates the sin created by Satan who is trying his best to kill us and keep us away from our Heavenly Father. 

It is not that I'm being mean to anyone. We are all sinners saved by grace, indeed. I sin daily and I fail God daily. I try, but sometimes I don't succeed. I don't wake up in the morning and say, "Hmm, I wonder how many people I can offend today..." I do, however, wake up with a desire to witness. (wait, gotta back up. I wake up with a desire for caffeine. Then, I get in a better mood and want to witness. Very few people wake up feeling saved. Just sayin') I don't want to hurt feelings, but I acknowledge that the truth hurts and sometimes, I'm going to have to step on people's toes in order to share the gospel. It's just a given.

If you are a Christian, you will be hated.
You will be persecuted.
You will be bullied.
You will be mocked.

John 15:18 If the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. 

I am proud to be hated by the world, because I know that I am loved by Jesus. It is my goal to lead others to Christ so they can know His love, His grace, His gifts to those willing to receive them. But no one gets saved by the watered down gospel that the world is preaching. Hell exists, folks. It's time that Christian's fight against it.

God Doesn't Owe Us

I absolutely hate hearing someone say that God owes them happiness, or that, if God is a loving God, why doesn't He just forgive us with no questions asked and no requirements? People act as if God owes us something, when in reality, He has never and will never owe us a thing. He's already given us much more than we deserve - a life, family, friends, this earth despite it's issues, and of course, Heaven. The biggest gift He has ever given us is the gift of His Son, and salvation. God did not owe us salvation, nor did He owe us Heaven. He gave us the ability to either take or leave His gift, and it is entirely up to us on what we do. Either way, our eternity will be spent in Heaven or Hell.

God does not owe you a life of sin.
He does not owe you salvation with no repentance.
He does not owe you Heaven.
He does not owe you anything.

A girl I know has a very big issue with homosexuality. She has a hard time believing that God will send homosexuals to Hell because of whom they are with, whether it be male or female. She also claims to be a Christian, but in my opinion you can not be so confused on big issues in the Bible and be a true child of the Lord. She asked me the other day how a loving God (the one I serve, she said) could be so mean to someone that He created. In her mind, she believes that God created homosexuals to be, yes, homosexual.

Let me be clear - God did not create sin.

Homosexuality is sin, it says so in the Bible. It is an unnatural abomination and it clearly says in the Word of God that anyone who practices homosexuality will not inherit the kingdom of Heaven. It says this in not only the Old Testament, but the New Testament. It also says in the Bible that God did not create sin. Sin is from Satan, the end. God did create the people, but He did not create their sin.

Getting back on topic, no matter what our sin is, whether it be homosexuality, addiction, bullying, lying, cheating, whatever sin you struggle with most, no matter how little or small it may be, we are called to repent. God doesn't owe us a little pet sin. God despises sin, He can not look at sin. When we live in sin and refuse to repent, guess what?

God doesn't even want to glance at us, and who can blame Him?

Look around at what sin does. It kills people. It destroys families. It ruins relationships. Sin is the very thing that keeps God away from His children, it's the very thing created by His enemy, Satan. He hates sin because He loves us.

Hear that? See, when we are so busy complaining about God being so mean to us because He doesn't want us living in sin, we are failing to see the big picture.

Sin is killing us.

It's taking us away from our Heavenly Father, it is killing us day by day. It is ruining us, staining us. Our only hope is God. Our only escape route is repentance and we must repent to receive salvation.

When you're willing to see the big picture, you realize how loving He really is. 

God doesn't owe us and He never will owe us, but He loves us so much that He freely gives the gift of salvation for those who love Him more than the sin.

Isaiah 30:15

For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said, "In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength." But you were not willing,

 

 

Acts 3:19

"Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord ;

 

 

Romans 2:4

Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

The Itching Ear Church

1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. 5 But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.- 1 Timothy 4:1-5

Our sermon yesterday morning was titled The Itching Ear Church and we read from 1 Timothy 4. In our world today, we're seeing more and more churches pop up that focus so heavily on tickling ears and making people comfortable in their sin instead of convicting them and saving them from Hell. These are churches full of people that have stopped looking for truth and started looking for pleasure. They want to be comfortable. They want to water down the gospel to fit their sinful minds and they want God to compromise, but God does not compromise in order to make us happier here on earth.

In these churches, we see -

Grace Without Guilt - 

The people in these churches want Heaven without Hell, salvation without repentance. They want God's grace without the conviction, they don't want to let go of their sin in order to receive rewards from God and enter into Heaven. They want to live like the world in the presence of Christ. As Christian's, we are not called to make people happy. We are not called to be people pleasers. We are called to reprove and rebuke, to preach without apology despite the fact that it may run some of these people off. We are to challenge them, show them the truth of the gospel  - all of it. 

Doxology Without Doctrine - 

The people in an Itching Ear Church just want to feel good and hear their own, made-up doctrine. It's not about truth or praising God in the way He intended, it's about making us happy individually without His true doctrine involved. They want everything to be about them - even praise.

They also tend to pat themselves on the back when they praise, as if their praise and worship music is what puts them in the presence of God, when in reality, the only thing that makes us capable of being in His presence is the blood of Christ. They've taken the blood out of the picture though, because that makes people uncomfortable. Their worship has turned into nothing but pagan styled worship, with repetitive music to make them happy, instead of focusing on making God happy. They want to rely on themselves, not God's doctrine. They use what they want. Their music has no meaning, their prayers become empty. They are so focused on themselves that they forget about God.

Testimony Without Truth - 

They've forsaken truth for the world and it's watered down gospel. Without conviction, repentance, the blood, all truth from the Bible, we can have no true testimony. When you leave the truth behind, you are left with hardly anything but your own feelings. You're left with pure religion, but no Jesus. When you forsake God's truth, you are forsaking Him as a whole.

don't forget to check out Trinity Baptist Church!

The Christian Atheists

"Let me ask you, how many atheists are now in this house? Perhaps not a single one of you would accept the title, and yet, if you live from Monday morning to Saturday night in the same way as you would live if there were no God, you are practical atheists." - Charles Spurgeon.

Last night, I was on a Charles Spurgeon kick (I'm always in a Charles Spurgeon kick) and was looking through some of his quotes online. Whenever I get in a bit of a blogging rut, I typically look through some of his quotes because I always manage to get some inspiration from them. My favorite part about reading them is how bold he was. He was blunt, straight to the point. He didn't sugarcoat the gospel with lies to try and get more people to follow him. (the key word would be him, not Christ, if he did that) and I can always get excited to write something based on one of his quotes. This one jumped out at me last night. It's always hard for me to pick a favorite, but that one is most definitely one of them. It rings so true for so many people in the church. Without pointing fingers, I can say that I know a lot of those people that he was talking about, some even in my church every Sunday and Wednesday. It's proof that going to church doesn't make you a Christian, only being born again can make you a new person, and repentance (turning away from your sin) is a huge part of being born again. The title seems odd, I know. How can an Atheist be a Christian? In reality, it's impossible. You can not be an Atheist and a Christian at the same time because being a Christian would mean you believe in and on Jesus Christ, being an Atheist is basically the exact opposite. But so many "Christian's" out there live like Atheists, do they not? They act like a Christian on Sunday's and like an Atheist every day in-between. Well, God does not call us to be part-time Christian's, just like we don't have a part-time God. Being a Christian is an all day, every day kind of thing. You can't choose to be an Atheist for a few hours so you can go out and have fun. You are either a Christian all the time, or dare I say...you aren't truly a Christian. Granted, everyone falls short of the glory of God which means we all sin and we all fall into temptation, but it is how we treat that sin and what we do after we fall that makes the difference. Do we simply give into the temptation and think, "Well, better luck next time!" and continue on, or do we fall on our knees in repentance and beg the Lord for forgiveness and try our hardest to stay away from that sin?

Really, the question is...are you a part-time Church-goer, or are you a full-time Christian?