Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Decision

i have decided to step it up a notch.
Do i love the Lord? yes.
Have i always loved the Lord? Of course.
But there are certain things that i do that i have hindered me from aquireing a stronger relationship with the Lord. And for that i apologize to everyone around me for my actions.
I have been struggling in my life lately, Struggles that i wish i didn’t have to endure but i am. And i know deep down that God would never put me through anything that He doesn’t believe I can handle. But i have realized that i am handling it in the wrong way.
I strongly believe in having a loving and caring heart and also a forgiving heart. But it is so much easier to have a loving and caring heart towards someone who has never done anything towards me… someone who has never hurt me or the people i love. But i am starting to realize that i can not pick and choose who i love. I must love all like Christ has loved all.
I have been taking baby steps in making these changes but i havent really voiced them until now mainly because i was trying to make sure of everything in my mind.
I want to be a loving person that everyone and anyone can turn to if they have problems. But my own insecurities have gotten in the way of that and also my strong willed nature…i am not proud of how i have handled certain things in the past but i can’t take them back. I have learned from it. and from here on…i make a promise to myself…to go back to the loving person i used to.
Love them like Jesus.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Sunday Morning

Chris and I went to church. Service this morning was GREAT. I am so glad Chris went with me and is going to continue going! He played drums which he loved. He makes the most ridiculous faces when he plays any instrument. Which is why i love him so much. for his ridiculous nature. ;)

Today is mothers day and i am so blessed to have my mother and Chris’s mother, Sue. They are both beautiful ladies and do so much for me all the time. They are wonderful examples of how id like to be. Although i fall short daily. They are wonderful, beautiful and loving women. And of course i love Chris’ mother because without her i wouldnt have Chris and i am so thankful for that  ;). I am so thankful for the both of them. And of course my grandmothers and Chris’ wonderful grandmothers as well. Like our mothers, they are beautiful woman that we both look up to soooooo much. i am glad that there is a day set aside to celebrate them. To just celebrate and aknowledge how much mothers really do daily! They gave us life if not anything else. They deserve a day for just them! But we shouldnt just think them one day a year. we should thank them daily!
I love you Mommy, Sue, Grandma Brenda, Nanny, Grandma Beaird, Grandma Callicott, and Grandma Lane.  Even though you can not read this, you all mean so much to me then you will ever know.
i have some beautiful ladies in my life ^^^Beautiful ladies who are all so God fearing and have gentle hearts for the Lord. I am so lucky to have been raised in a family where i have learned about Christ and His astounding love that i am so not worthy of.

I hope everyone is having as wonderful of a day as i am. After working i fully intend on enjoying the beautiful weather!!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

The Ultimate decision maker is the Husband, but don’t underestimate the influence of a Godly woman

This is focused on marriage but its how Christians should live daily to all people!



We all like Jesus, but we don’t all want to be like him. You admire his humility but do you really want to be that humble. We all think its beautiful when the son of God would get on his knees and wash his disciples’ feet but is that the
goal of your life? We’re thankful that Jesus was spit on, but you would never let that happen to you. You love the fact that He laid down his right but you’re going to spend your WHOLE LIFE fighting for yours. When IN FACT it was NEVER your life to begin with! (WOW) You praise him, sing songs to him, love him because He loved you enough to suffer the whole time on this earth for your sake, but your going to make sure you have fun while your down here and that you have a good time. (That is so convicting, especially in the culture we live in where kids our age just want to party and be with our friends livin it up) He is a great savior, but is he a good role model.



1 John 2:6- Whoever claims to have Jesus in him, WILL live like him.



 The question for today is not “are you a good Christian?... but are you a good Christ.” 
When they see you do they think that’s just like Christ? “Man the way he lays down his life is just like Jesus” 
The way I serve my wife do people look and say "that’s just how Jesus treated people".
 When people see that can you say “well my role model is Jesus and although he created everything he still suffered, served, sacrificed for the sake of other people.” 
When people see a submitted wife and say “no one treats others like that” she can say “you should have seen how Jesus submitted to the Father and his Perfect will!  It’s the way the church is supposed to submit to Christ and how I submit to my husband.”


 The purpose of a Christ centered relationship is that when people see it, they see Christ in the man and the woman.



Men are the head, but Jesus is Lord and He still served!!



The main goal of our lives is to be like Jesus, not to like Jesus, same with our marriages.
 
When people see men serving through being the head, and women submitting to a husband regardless to circumstance and his actions, they see a couple that honors God.



We’re all under the ultimate authority of God.

 When the man steps out from under the umbrella of Gods authority, women should show her reasons why she won’t listen.



God knows what its like to be married to your husband. He knows the Godly women you could be with an ungodly man that you are submitted to.



1 peter 3



Husbands don’t always deserve respect, but God has given them a position of authority and we need to respect that position even when they don’t deserve it.

And there is a time when you have to respect that position that God has given him.
Our motivation is always a need to honor God and be holy, it’s a need to be more and more like Christ. 
The husband shouldn’t be the motivation. It shouldn’t be about your benefit. (ex. If I treat him good he’ll treat me good) 
If you make your first goal about honoring and serving God, then your husband will naturally be impacted.
The side benefit is that your husband will be drawn to you, he will treat you kinder.



Does that mean that ladies have no say in the family choices? Is all they should say is yes sir? 

The ultimate decision maker is the husband but don’t underestimate the influence of a Godly woman!
 God has given you to his husband as his help mate. Its not good for him to be alone, He did create a suitable helper. Your it. 
You need to be for your husband and not against him, he will benefit from your input, if he knows you are for him. And that he knows that its coming from a heart that is sayin “I am your help mate. I want to help you make the best decisions for our house hold.” 
There will be times when the husband is making decisions that you disagree with, but if you have come to him in such a humble way and give him your perspective, in a good time well thought out at a good time, maybe with scriptures to a believer. Give him all of the wisdom God has given you; tell him your heart and how you feel, explain what your feeling and why. When submission comes in when you are able to say “this is how I feel about it but what ever you say I will be able to go along with it” with a good attitude, b/c no husband wants to drag their wife kicking and screaming, like dead weight that they have to pull around.
 Don’t use manipulation to get your way because that’s outside of Gods will.
 Husbands are accountable of God and that’s a pretty weighty position to be in. 
If he makes decisions with the wrong motives and you can see it clearly, you don’t have to stress out about it, because God sees his heart and will hold him accountable, but he will see how you act and how much you pray and provide information and speak lovingly and be for your husband, and in the end you can say ‘‘ok God I will submit to my husband and I recognize that for now this is your will for our lives even though I don’t see how it could be the right thing.’’ 
That’s trusting in your savior, by realizing that this is just the temporal, and we need to be recognizing that God could be working in your husband in ways that you do not recognize or understand. 
The safest place to be is in the will of God and the will of God is for you to be submitted.



Its about serving and being humble and dying to your selves and being like Christ, to put on love among all else, submission flows out of that mindset

If you want to be an excellent wife walk with God aware of his will being filled with the spirit. Try to walk as Jesus walked then you will be the wife he wants you to be. If you really want to be like Christ you won’t have an issue with this. If you’re living like that, when you hear these things you will be like “yeah that’s the way Jesus was”



Jesus was on a throne with millions of angels worshipping him, and he leaves that comforts to come to this tiny planet to become like a man to struggle, to need, to suffer even to love the ones who were about to falsely accuse him and beat him …. All because he loves you so that he could take your beating and most importantly Gods spiritual punishment for you in your place. We think that’s a beautiful story, but do we want to imitate that?? Do we want to have a life like that? That’s where you find real life and true joy. To be like that means we become lower than other people, we love people, we suffer for people, and how much more would we treat our own wives and husbands in that way.





The pastor’s wife had a record deal that she turned down because she knew that if she pursued the deal then she would be going a separate direction than her husband who was trying to start the church. She always wanted that deal but died to her goals to submit to her husband. That’s exactly what Jesus did. He already had the ultimate position and gave it up to submit to God’s will.







Hope you enjoyed! 
This has given me a whollleee new meaning of "submission". we(especially woman) always think of submission as doing exactly what the men say and that the men are just trying to be put above us but in all reality its ALL about doing exactly what the Lord says and putting Christ ahead of us! =]


I hope this has blessed your heart as much as it has mine!


Love,
Taylor!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

"The Perfect Guy"

Lately I've been seeing alot of people with the note on facebook that is "The Perfect Guy" and it has a HUGE list of things that guys a supposed to do to be perfect...
Well, girls, i hate to be the one to break it to you...but this list that you have come up with is, unrealistic.
We as humans are not perfect...so why should we expect our boyfriends to be perfect?
They are human...they can't read our minds...nor are they going to do the "sweetest things ever".

And we have high expectations. Not all of our high expectations are our fault, but the media is leading us to believe that anything BUT a God fearing guy is the "perfect" guy.

I believe that we can not truely embrace the power of love with another human being until we have embraced that which is the Love of Christ. Because Christ created love. We cannot sit here and say "he completes me" (he meaning a boyfriend) until we can say "God the Father Completes me and he is the ONLY thing i need!"
You have to have to a mind set of "Christ is the only one for me" before you can join your life with another. Because without God in a relationship...it will never be a healthy relationship nor will it EVER be true love.
Because again I say. God is the creator of Love...God IS love.

We need to be completely and totally consumed by God.
That is our ONLY reason for being!! God is supposed to be EVERYTHING to us.
Yet we place boyfriends in front and say that they consume us rather than the God of all man kind and The Lord who gives you life daily and gives you the opportunity to Love and be Loved.

1 John 4:8:
Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.


So if God is love...Then how could we possible know the complete mind blowing meaning of what Love is , if we do not know Christ and we don't have a personal relationship with Christ??

So I challenge you to Love God. Give Him all your praise and worship. And the right guy will come for you! Because when you serve the Lord...and you give Him praise...and you love Him and only Him he promises us   that He will give us the Desires of our Hearts.

Stop thinking about what the media says a perfect guy should be and think about Christ and His love and be completely and irrevocably in love with Him.....He will direct you to the right one. And that guy will be perfect in all the ways God has made Him perfect for you and in His own ways...not what the world says.

=]

God Bless.

Taylor

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

God the Father.

Perspective. ---> a College Student Ministry where college students gather to worship and fellowship and dig into the Word.

Tonight we focused on Jonah! Which, as you can tell from my last blog, i've kinda been struggling with what Jonah struggled with...except thankfully I didn't get swallowed by a huge fish!

The book of Jonah concentrates on the story of Jonah. Jonah was told by God himself to go to Nineva to tell the people that their ways of living were evil and not pleasing to God. Well instead of doing so Jonah ran away...trying to hide from God and trying to hide from God's will and perfect plan for Jonah.

How man times do we do that? We run from what God is telling us to do. Because we say we can't do it. Of course you can't do it! But GOD can do ANYTHING. God chose to work through you, to make his will done! So who are YOU to say no to that? 

When we run away from God sometimes we just think that...oh well He will forget. Well, it doesn't really work like that. God doesn't give up on His perfect plan. He will persue you until you come back and open your heart to His perfect plan and finally say "Yes Lord!".

Don't limits on God! Don't just say you surrender to one certain thing. like just missions or just student ministry and so on and so forth.... Open your heart to anything the Lord throws at you. Because just because YOU want to do missions or YOU want to work with students as a youth pastor or whatever it is that YOU want to do...doesn;t mean that's what GOD wants you to do. It's all about God and getting His beautiful Word out into a world of hungry sinners who long to hear it.
Too often we make this all about us and what we can get out of it. BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU! It's all about showing the Love of Christ to others and winning their hearts for Christ because that is what He has commanded to do. It wasn't a suggestions it was a command! 
But we have to have open hearts to do that. We have to be willing to do what God commands us to do.

God promises us that if we are in His will and do His commands then we will receive the desires of our hearts because our desires will then be formed into His desires. God wants to show you the way. He desires to show you the way. He is just waiting patiently for You to want it and desire the ways of God. We will be blessed God promises that. 

So i urge you brothers and sister....say "yes" to Jesus Christ. Because He truely is the way the truth and the life...No other path could be anything compared to the path of Christ.

Man it excites me to think just how much Jesus Christ....the Son of God. The Creator. The King of Kings loves me! and to think he wants to give me the desires of my heart and wants to direct a path that will be completely and totally amazing. 

So Lord here I am. I say "Yes Lord!!"

Will you?


Love,
Taylor

Verse to remember

Jonah 4:2
I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Surrendering To Your Will.

Read this song first....Then i'll get to my blog.=]



"Surrender"

My hands hold safly to my dreams 
Clutching tightly not one has fallen
So many years I've shaped each one
Reflecting my heart showing who I am
Now you're asking me to show 
What I'm holding oh so tightly
Can't open my hands can't let go
Does it matter?
Should I show you?
Can't you let me go?

Surrender, surrender you whisper gently
You say I will be free
I know but can't you see?
My dreams are me. My dreams are me

You say you have a plan for me
And that you want the best for my life
Told me the world had yet to see
What you can do with one
That's committed to Your calling
I know of course what I should do
That I can't hold these dreams forever
If I give them now to You
Will You take them away forever?
Or can I dream again? 




i have been having a hard time with this...Surrendering.
I surrendered my Life to God's will to do missions. To tell people the good news of how Christ died for all people and that the gift is free, all you have to do is ask. But, as sad as it may sound...the past couple of months i've had a hard time with letting go of things that....i know aren't what God wants for my life. 
I spent so much time and effort forming MY dreams and building up what I wanted for MY life. of course i wanted to please God with everything...but i never really considered that maybe MY dreams...and wants weren't what God had planned for me. So i've made changes. God has been working in my life in unbelieveable ways. Moving to Conway was probably the best decision i've ever made in my life. This was my first step to listening to God and surrendering to His Will and not my own.


Its amazing to think, that the God of gods, the Creator of the universe, the King of Kings and Lord of all Lords...has a plan for MY life and wants to be a PART of my life. How cool is that?
He wants to hold my hand and guide me through the good times and the bad. And HE wants to be my best friend. Surrendering to God's will...is difficult for us...even though...it should be so easy...it should be a peice of cake! BUt who are YOU to live your life for you...and YOU only when God has given you EVERYTHING. everything YOU have God has given you.He gave you life. He protects you daily. when He doesn't even have to care.
He loves you, me and everyone so much that He sent His only SON to die on the cross so you wont suffer eternal damnation!!
But, we can't even do the one thing He asks us to...and surrender our lives to Him...and offer ourselves to glorify and honor Him. Lay down our dreams at his feet and take on the role as a servant...glorifying the King of Kings. We don't even take into consideration that what God has planned for us...will be FAR better than we could ever dream.
Whether it be who we plan to marry, jobs, life styles, anything that we have planned God has a better plan. And if we just give it all to Him...He will direct is into the right path.


Now i'm not saying this is easy...because...I am my father's daughter obviously...i am the most stubborn person...and it's a hard thing to do. Just giving my dreams to the Lord. With the possibility of never getting back what i took so long to form.


But here I am GOd. This year is completely dedicated to surrendering to you fully...laying down my dreams at your feet. Here i am. Take me. Mold me. Heal me. Anything you want to do. Take my dreams lead me down the path you have planned.


Pray for me. =]
And i will do the same for you! 
God Bless.


Taylor



Galatians 2:20 

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.