#badventist

"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us."

-Romans 8:37

We all have secrets that we'd like to keep to ourselves. Our deepest and darkest fears we feel like no one on earth is worth that amount of trust to confide in. Our baggage takes its time eating away at our lives. As a young Christian, certain things are looked down upon. As a person of the world, society accepts all ups and downs and calls it a way of life. I listen to the music of drinking, smoking, objectifying women, and living life as if this earth had no end. Some of them put God in their music to seek Him out and level with Him, but it kills me that they don't know who He really is. It's cruel the words that I hear, and I justify what I listen to by telling myself that every word said reminds me why I'm on a "Godly path". I feel like I can "fix" these starving music artists and feed them with the Word, because they have an idea of who Christ is but have no way of getting to dive deeper. The only thing that has changed is my profane language.

Christians hide their worldly pleasures because it's a straight inevitable path of being judged by their peers, while others are fully embracing the lifestyle they've chosen for themselves. Some leave their Christ because His children don't show a good example of what He's like. You have things going on in your life, and that's okay. God wants you to come to Him as you are. That doesn't mean He's going to leave you in the same place that you started.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."

-2 Corinthians 5:17

If you have demons in your closet, don't give them praise. They are not worthy of recognition and adoration. If you do something to forget about reality, that's not where God wants you to be. Outside of your grief is not a good place to find Him. If you have baggage, pain, emptiness, you bring that all to Him. You can ask Him to change your heart and flip you around. He transforms, He saves, He heals. It's not worth saying that you have an issue and continuing to stick with it. Don't choose to face broken people that downplay your demons. Those monsters do not define who you are, that's the job of the One that made you. You need to remember that you are so special, your God is greater than all the problems tearing at your soul. You have the One that holds the world at your fingertips.

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love."

-1 John 4:18

Heaven will be a reunion. We’ll get to pick up where we left off withthe people we loved.  It will be one ofthose moments where we remember that tears and goodbyes were never a part ofGod’s original plan. But even before or after the tears there were the good times. The question for this series on sacrifice is to ask what we think good times look like when you choose to follow God. We know from the two previous posts that the Christian journey is not always easy. But it’s all leading to something great.

When speaking of great, it can be said that my generation is nostalgic. It is all about reunions, sequels, and throwbacks to days gone by. Reboots are constantly in the work, and we like to see the cast from our favorite TV show come back together. It’s almost as if we can’t say goodbye to yesterday. Maybe it’s those were the good old days. Perhaps we want to recreate what made us feel good.