Activities

Too often, I think that we forget in our Christian life our duty here. Many of us fill up our lives with activities with friends and family. And even if they are church activities, we forget about the lost. We forget about the sick and dying world around us. We get so involved in our activities, that we don't break for the lost and dying people around us. So many times, we forget to have a passion and heart like this:

God Bless,
  A.W.

"Jesus promises you two things: a cross to die on and eternal life."

God Bless,
  A.W.

Freedom

I believe in freedom. I believe that God can set any man or woman free from any addiction.
First off I should tell you that there are more addictions than you think. Most of you would right off that bat say, 'drugs, alcohol, etc.' Well, there are many more things than that. And it's not only non-Christians that struggle with these kinds of things. The difference from a non-Christian and a Christian facing an addiction is that God has opened the Christian's eyes to see how deep the hole really is that he has fallen into, and God gives that person the will to look up out of that hole and cry out to God. Because that Christian knows that he cannot climb out of that hole by himself, he knows that God is the only one who can help him.
And the non-Christian won't even realize how disgusting and sick his addiction is without God. And he will never have the strength and will to get out of that hole without God.
But today I am not talking about the non-Christians as they struggle with addiction.
I am talking about the Christians who are fighting tooth and claw against sin and are at the brink of falling again.

In my last post I talked about prayer, and that God always answers it, even if the wait is long. Today I am going to write about praying through addictions. Everyone always says that you can never be free of an addiction. And they always tell a story about someone who had struggled so hard, and then he thought it was over, and then a few years later he fell again. So often life seems to be that way, you fight so hard, and the temptation stops for a while, and then when you are least expecting it you fall again. Just like that. The devil won again.
I am not encouraging you to stop fighting. No, you must always be on your guard, no matter how small or great the temptation is. I don't believe in sinless perfection on earth, so I am not saying that you can reach that or anything. But I believe you will always be battling sin on this earth.
Stories like I posted above has by no doubt ruined peoples' hopes of freedom. And that story above is just an example of how a lot of peoples' lives are. They fight and pray so hard, and the addiction seems to fade, we put our guard down and then we fall. It's a frightening thought, but a true one.
Sometimes I think it's because we stop praying, and we forget what has tempted us so greatly in the past.

That really makes me feel hopeless, that I will always be falling back into that hole again and again. But then, a few months ago I'll Be Honest posted a video by Paul Washer on the promises of God, and God showed me that I can be set free from addiction. Not as in never sinning, and never struggling with that thing again. But rather that if I keep praying and fighting against my sin, in the end I will have victory over that addiction.
If you pray that God will take away your desires for that addiction He will.
He will keep you. Even when you cannot keep yourself, He will hold you up.
I am not saying that you will never fall again in your addiction if you pray that once, but if you keep praying for freedom and if you are striving towards God and away from that sin. God will set you free.
And even when you fall you must not give up. You must look to God the morning after. You must not let the devil speak lies to you. This Micah 7:8--9 is for the morning after.

"Do not rejoice over me, my enemy;
 When I fall I will arise;
Whe I sit in darkness,
The Lord will be a light to me.
I will bear the indignation of the LORD,
Because I have sinned against Him,
Until He pleads my case
And executes justice for me.
He will bring me forth to the light;
I will see His righteousness."

There is hope the morning after. There is hope.
You will always be fighting, but by God's grace He will keep you and in the end you will have victory over that addiction. It is never we who keep ourselves. But God who keeps us.

God Bless,
  A.W.

5 A.M.

Yes, this is about waking up.
I know, I know, I said I would write something spiritual on Monday...but my post does have to do with God and prayer.
So this morning I was looking at blogs and I went to one and someone was talking about waking up at 5 A.M, and praying. Convicted me a little of my own life, becuase I don't wake up at 5 in the morning anymore.
I wake up at 7--7:30.
Actually I got off of my wake up schedule when I started taking this medication that I haven't taken for a few months. It's side effect on me was to make me tired. And I have to take it every night. But now I don't have an excuse, it doesn't effect me much anymore. So why do I still wake up late?
Because I am lazy and I "need my sleep".
Yes, I have trouble sleeping, and after I get in bed it usually takes an hour for me to get to sleep, but I still get enough sleep.
I don't need a full 8 hours.
There is something odd about waking up late for me, whenever I wake up at 7 I am exhausted and when I wake up at 5, I am usually totally awake. Even when I go to bed at 12 and wake up at 5 I am awake.
I don't understand my body. It makes absolutely no sense.
Anyways, a lot of people used to tell me "Why wake up at 5? You'll have to do that soon anyways when you get a job, you should sleep in while you can."
Sounds like a wise idea, and I admit that part of me loves, loves, loves sleep.
I don't have to think when I sleep. The bad thing about sleep is that I wake up and look at my time and all I can think is, "Where has the time gone?"
I don't want to waste my life by sleeping. I am sure that when Jesus was on earth He didn't get a full 8 hour sleeping time every night. He didn't wait till someone got Him up, He was disciplined.
That's how I should be.

I don't follow many peoples' tweets but I do follow Paul Washer's.
He doesn't post a whole lot, but you can definitely take a lot away from the things he posts. Some of those things I have never thought about even. All of you should go read his tweets one day.
Anyways, I find it interesting how many times he says, "It's 3:30 am" "It's 4 am right now" and then he goes on to talk about prayer.
Prayer! I don't randomly wake up that early and pray to God. And when I do wake up early God usually isn't the first one on my mind. But, man, Paul Washer has so many posts on prayer and him being up early to spend time with God.
I am sure that many godly men wake up early to meet with God. The Puritans did.
I am not as godly as the Puritans were, and their disciplined life is something to aspire to. Not in a legalistic way of course.

When I used to wake up at 5, people would always ask, "Why do you wake up at 5? It's so early."
Mostly I just said it was because I wanted to write. But I actually never sat down to write till 7. The other two hours before I would spend getting ready for the day, and spending time with my God.
Those were some of the best days, when I woke up early, before I could be distracted by everything else in life, and I could just meet with God. It made my entire day refreshing. Sometimes like right now I wish that I had never flaked off of that schedule.
I don't want want to stand before God one day and say that I spent so much time sleeping and sleeping, becuase I "needed it."
I don't want to waste my life that way. And it's an easy thing to do.
And when I get really depressed all I want to do is sleep. What a way to waste your life.

People say to wait till I am older to wake up early, but what if I die young?
What will I say to God on how I used the time He gave me? What excuse will I give? Will I just say, "God, if you would have given me time to get a job I would have started waking up early."
That isn't a very good excuse.
 It all leads back to laziness for me. I am tired and I don't feel like getting up.
I think I am always going to be in a state of tiredness, so there isn't any point in trying to "cure" my tiredness.

Not saying that you all should wake up at 5 every morning, but I know for me, it's something that I need to start doing. I don't want to live life so laid back and undisciplined.
God tells us to pray, and I do that best in the morning. So that is what I am going to do.
Hope that you will examine your own life to see if you are being lazy or not in waking up. I know that I have to.

God Bless,
  A.W.