Words vs Actions

Let me start out with what I told all 555 people I have on my facebook:
Claiming to be a Christian does not guarantee you a spot in heaven, some people have a false understanding of what it means to claim the name of Christ. If you say you believe in him, then start LIVING for him every day, in every action. Jesus is not just a quick fix, he is a life style. He is our role model.
Why is it that we all think that once we say the prayer, we're fixed forever? Let me tell you right now, it doesn't work that way. I get so excited when I can talk to people, believers or unbelievers, about God. I get SO excited when people accept Christ into their lives!!! I had 7 campers this summer either commit their lives to Christ for the first time or rededicate their lives. All in one evening too. My co-counsellor and myself were SO excited, she had to run out and tell someone and she had tears in her eyes. All I wanted to do was scream and praise God! It was just an awesome evening and I remember it so well. I remember the feeling of excitement I got from seeing all these girls, at bed time, wanting to invite Jesus into their hearts. Praise God. I will never ever tell someone: No, I won't let you accept Jesus because you're going to be a hypocrite just like the rest. No. I would never do that. Anyone who has, wants to, or will ever accept Christ, I am so excited for you!!!!! I think that the thing most people get confused with is believing in God and living for God. When you accept Jesus into your heart, that's because you believe in God. Okay, fantastic. But notice how Jesus never told us to become "Christians". That's a human term. Jesus told us to follow him and he would make us fishers of men. I actually never got the phrase "fishers of men" until a little while ago. What I understand from it is that Jesus wants us to go and find (fish) other people and tell them about Him. He wants us to go and be friends with them and show them God's love and help them commit their lives.
I am sick of seeing people say with their mouths that they believe in God and that they are Christians and then go against everything the bible says. The bible clearly says "do not have sex until you are married", yet many people I know have had sex before they are married and think nothing of it. Now, swearing and smoking and drinking and stuff like that, I think are gray areas. I don't know for sure if the bible says anything specifically about swearing. I do believe though that your body is your temple, and I don't think that alcohol is something that I would want to put into my temple. Same with smoking. I really can't tell you what to do with your life. I can't judge you. But I can tell you that when you say that you are a "Christian", that's saying you believe in God and want to follow him, that you can't do it half heartedly. It doesn't work. I'm tired of seeing teens go and work at Christian camps, preach to these kids and then come home and they're swearing and drinking and having sex again. It's not right. And I hate it. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the person, but I do hate their actions. People will know you by your actions.
I just realized how off topic I got, sorry guys. Anyways, I was talking to my pastor the other day about how people tend to think that after you become a Christian, life will be easy. My reaction made him laugh, because with the sound I made and the face I made, it was obvious that I sure knew better than that. Life is not easy when you follow God. Is that a bad thing? Heck no! He will make you uncomfortable. He will challenge you. But it will make you so much stronger. People say that I've "lived so much life" already. I never knew what they were talking about, but looking back on it, yeah, I have. With giving my life to Christ, came an adventure. It is one wild ride you guys, sort of like a roller coaster. (Don't judge me! I'm allowed to use cheesy examples every now and again :) ) Sometimes you will be so high on the Holy Spirit, on fire for God, and other times you will be on your face crying because of the events of the day. I have hit the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, and you know what? I wouldn't take one minute of it back. I love my life, and I love who God made me and who he's helping me become. I love him so much and I would never be able to turn my back on him. It's painful even thinking about it. Once, I tried to think about becoming atheist. Burning my bible, not praying, not having a god. And I couldn't even think about it. I tried imagining burning my bible, and I couldn't do it. I can't do it. I can't do anything without God, and I'm slowly but surely coming to that realization. He is so good to me even when I'm the most terrible daughter in the world. I can't ever thank him enough or serve him enough or do anything that could ever show how eternally grateful I am. Living for God is the hardest thing you will ever do, it's going to test you and it's going to make you cry, but it's going to give you the greatest joy in the world and it will be the only thing that makes life worth living for, trust me. Love you guys!
Blessings,
Ariel

God Speaks

This is such a powerful song. This isn't the band speaking to you, or a member of the band speaking to their girlfriend, or friend, this is GOD speaking to YOU through them. I know that some of you have heard this song a million times, like me, but never listened to the lyrics. Read the lyrics, listen to the lyrics, and take them to heart. God's asking you, why are you doing all these things? Why are you striving? Why are you trying to earn grace? Why are you crying? Why are you doing all of these things when I'm right here, with open arms, waiting for you to run into them? "Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough?" We all do this, or have done this. Tried to fill that emptiness that only God can fill with something else. Can you even imagine how much his heart aches as he sees you going through all this, without him, trying to find something, anything, that will make it all better? It's not that God can't pull you out of it, it's that he wants you to grow as a person. God can do whatever he wants. Don't doubt him. God's always there for you, at the drop of a hat, he's already there. "Please don't fight these hands that are holding you". God's never let go of you. He's always been there, holding onto you, he doesn't want you to fall. He really doesn't. It's when we let go of him that we hit rock bottom. "When I drank the world's sin so I could carry you in and give you life, I wanna give you life". Jesus died for you. In saying this, he doesn't exclude anyone. Jesus wants all of us! He died a terrible death, this person who had no sin at all, completely whole and pure and perfect, and he took all of our sin upon him. How incredible is that? He wants you to sit by the throne with him. He wants you with him. He doesn't wanna watch you suffer. No way. "I love you, I want you to know, that I, yeah, I love you, I'll never let you go". HE WANTS YOU, HE WANTS US, TO KNOW THAT HE LOVES US. He loves us unconditionally, no matter what. He will give you the greatest love you can ever get. He loves you.
God bless,
Ariel

Australia

Okay, I just had to share this quick little tidbit...last night I was just spending time with God, talking to him. Earlier I had noticed that I had my first viewer from South America (yay!!!) and I was SO pumped! So I started thinking about that, I have viewers from North America, South America, Asia, and Europe. And I was like, God, how cool would it be to have just one viewer from Australia? Just one. Can I please have one person read my blog from Australia?
This morning, I checked my stats, as per usual. I see one the little world map they give me, that Australia is a light green color, I look down a little, and it says: Australia-1 viewer. Praise God!!! God is good! Every single day, every single hour, every single minute! He answers prayers! God is so good!!!!
God bless!
Ariel

Pre-Blessed Food

Okay, first of all, I would like to apologize for making you endure that video, but I found it funny! Then again, I'm a teenager with a horribly corrupt (yes, I just looked up the definition of that word! Thankyou google.) sense of humor.

But really, have you seen some of the infomercials we've got goin' on?? Hey, I've got a great idea; let's all get a Sham-wow! Then, lets go out on the street, use it, and exclaim "WOW!" every 5 seconds! Yikes, I'm tired. I think it's a good idea. But then, I'll need to do that while wearing a Snuggie, of course. I want the leopard print one. I think it'll really make my eyes pop! But then my back side might get chilled. Hmm. Oh! I can even put a Bumpit in my hair! It'll be sky-high, there's no way anyone will be able to ignore me. (If you don't think that I'm a complete freak by now, maybe you should go to a doctor. Just sayin'.)
But seriously, these are such dumb things. Useful in some way, but they act like it's the best thing since sliced bread. We had it coming.
And if you were offended by this, I really don't understand it. We have a right to be made fun of! Everyone gets made fun of. Gays, whites, blacks, Americans, Canadians, vegetarians, athiests, menonites, everyone. Why should we get left out?
There is no way that we can live in a society where Christians are the way they are, and where we can sell anything. There is always someone who will buy into it.
I have to say, they did a good job. Usually, in infomercials, they take something that never had anything wrong with it to begin with, and try to fix it. We all know it's not gonna work! "Since I got preblessed food, ain't nothin' changed!" Exactly. It's quite a unique idea though. Having people buying food, praying over it, and putting it back on shelves. Well done. Now, we have all seen black people praising God. It's just awesome! (I'm not being racist, I call myself white, because me skin is white. Vice versa.) I love their voices, the way they get into it, they are probably some of the coolest people I have ever seen. And you know what? They get made fun of too! I had to laugh so hard at that part, "If you don't want a white guy praying over your food, we've got that too!" It's so ridiculous, it has to be funny. Then, you find these people who are so busy with work and watching tv, that praying is just too much of a hassle. Honestly, this is what we've come to guys. We get so caught up in worldly things that we push God back another step. This is a wake up call, right now. "Inside of every package of pre-blessed food, is 2 tickets to heaven!" I laughed so hard! But have we really come to this? It's like Monopoly, get out of jail free card. It's ridiculous. This "sharing them with your friends and family" thing, should be something we already do! Your ticket to heaven is Jesus Christ. And you can share him with all the people in the world and you'll never run out!
I love Julian Smith. He is hilarious. I don't know where this guy comes up with his ideas, but I think it's great. Watch some more of his videos, you will pee yourself, guaranteed! www.juliansmith.tv
God bless,
Ariel

Lion of God

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today
Is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips
Then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.
That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."
-What If I Stumble by DC Talk
Is this you? Does this statement apply to you? I read this a couple days ago, and I couldn't get over the boldness and the truthfulness in it. Have you ever thought about it in this way? Someone once said to me, "Well, I'm Christian, just not all the way Christian." There is no in between with God!!! In Revelation it says "So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth." You're not supposed to be on the fence about God! That's not what he wants. Either you're all for him or all against him. Not somewhere in the middle, because there, you can't really serve him. Maybe I'm completely off with this, and please correct me if I am, but this is what I get out of it. I'm tired of Sunday-Morning-Christians. It sickens me. Am I perfect? No way!!! But I know for a fact I am not a Sunday-Morning-Christian. I spend time with God every day. I try my hardest to build him into my school lifestyle. I try my hardest to live as Jesus lived. Jesus is my role model, no one else. Why? Because he was perfect. Not one flaw. All humans have flaws, but not Jesus. That's why he's the perfect role model. He never messed up. These people I know, they come to church on Sunday, but in church they're still texting and swearing. They leave, they use God's name in vain, they swear, they're disrespectful, they talk dirty, I hate that! And you know what? So does God. I know that for a fact. You think that if you say you believe in God with your mouth, it's all good, you don't have to do anything else. You know what I've learned? Living for God will make your life so hard, BUT it will fulfill you, it will give you life, it will fill you with joy, you will live the best life possible because you will be following God's plan! "The Lord has taught me a hard lesson, but he did not let me die." Psalm 118:18. That right there says that you will go through hard times. Some people commit themselves to Christ and think it's smooth sailing from then on. No way, not even maybe. It's hard. But when you have God on your side, he'll make everything work out. I've always felt like a mistake because my parents had me when they weren't married and when they were very young. But I've realized through the help of some amazing people that, yes, humans make mistakes, but God can take those mistakes and make them work for his good. He took this broken situation and made a beautiful masterpiece. I'm not a mistake. God makes no mistakes. If he didn't intend for me to be here, I wouldn't be on this earth right now. His timing is perfect. No doubt. He knew what I was going to do. He knew that I could help change this world. He knew that I could impact people. He knows. I used to hate my name, just because. I never liked it all throughout grade school and middle school. Now, I love it. I believe that God specifically chose my name for me. Lion of God. That's the meaning of my name. There is no doubt in my mind that God knew that I would serve him with all my heart, mind, soul and strength. When I think of a lion, I think of ferocious, ready to fight, ready to defend, never gives up, protects her cubs. I'm ready to fight. I'm not gonna stop! Now that I'm in this war, I'm going to fight it to the end. And in the end, when I die, I get to live on forever with my daddy in heaven. How could you ever lose this fight?? Your mortality doesn't mean you have to die.

I Killed Jesus

You know, sometimes I feel like I'm stealing people's words, their ideas. I know for a fact that everything I've posted on here is not something I thought up all by myself. I'm not that smart. Some of it is my own, but lots of it I learned from other people. When I hear something that I think is so true, or that I like, or that I think other people need to know, I tell people. I'm usually very eager to tell people. But then again, we all know how Jesus saved us, the incredible way that he saved us, but many of us are very reluctant to tell people. If you find a new song, or get a new makeup set, or get a new video game, or hear a cool story, you text your friends right aways. So why don't we do it with Jesus? Don't get me wrong, I'm the same way. I'm a very shy person, I get embarrassed very easily, by the stupidest things too. But I'm really trying to fight this.

I got 6 new tshirts from http://www.c28.com/. Very, very cool site, check it out. It's a ministry first, store second. They have a "Need Jesus?" tab that I think is so awesome, they have a forum, prayer requests, you make friends very quickly on there. And the awesome thing is, they're all willing to talk to you. No one hesitates. Everyone is friends. I want it to be like that in the community, in real life. Not just online. Yeah, it's gonna be hard, but won't it be worth it? I wish there were no cliques. I wish that everyone could just be friends with everyone, talk to everyone, even just a simple, "How's it going?" every now and again. Anyways, back to C28. These are the shirts I got.

I wore the "I killed Jesus" shirt to church today. I was kind of disappointed, I only got stopped a few times. But those few times were just awesome! I want people to question that shirt!! It's such a bold statement, but it is true. And the first thing that you see is, white on black, I killed Jesus. I love it. But really, we all killed Jesus. If you have ever sinned, which we all have, you killed him. He died for our sins, we all sinned, we all killed him. This is a sensitive truth for some people, which I really don't get. I love that Jesus loved us so much, in all our imperfectness, that he died for us. I honestly don't know how someone as perfect as he is could stand us humans. We screw up so bad. I mean, I have a hard time handling people! They irritate me to no end! And Jesus came from heaven, where everything is perfect, to be with us. Incredible man. He came to this imperfect world, where people were so ignorant towards him, and he saved us. He showed mercy to us when all people gave to him was hate. I love him so much. So much.

God bless,

Ariel

Picture This

Something that I have recently learned is that God really knows what he's doing. He knows what's going to happen before it happens. If he thinks that something won't do you any good, or will hurt you too deeply, or will cause you severe pain (emotionally, physically, spiritually), he won't let you go through it. He's got our backs. As humans, we don't realize that. We're too quick to act when something bad happens. We think of the worst. Something that I'm really trying to do is, when bad times hit, as they always will, I want to think of the good times. My big sister, Jenny, told me to think about this past year. Not the bad times, but all the amazing things God did in my heart, all the amazing people I met at camp, all the amazing kids I got to influence. This is what makes life worth living. And she is so right. I don't think, actually, scratch that; I KNOW that God never makes mistakes. It's us that make mistakes. We make mistakes, but God doesn't look at those mistakes how humans do. Humans have very closed minds. God looks at something that was done and says, look at what I can do with this, look at what I can make happen because of this. He can take something that is completely broken and make a master piece out of it. How amazing is that? I've noticed that we also care too much about things on this earth. Like, if someone drops their iPod and it breaks, they get so angry because now they can't use it. But, in the back of our minds, we knew that it wasn't going to last our whole lives anyways. I once heard that someone was at a restaurant and he had his iPhone on the table. The waitress accidentally knocked it off of the table and it broke. She apologized, she was so sorry. His reply, "It's not my treasure." This is how we should all view things. I love that perspective. But it's a very hard mind set to get into.
Another thing I've been thinking about: Mary, Jesus' earthly mother. How awesome would that be?? Picture this, you and your boyfriend are engaged, you've stayed pure, you love God, and all of a sudden something's weird, you take a pregnancy test and it says Pregnant,  but it's impossible, you've never had sex. God tells you that you are pregnant with his son, he's trusting you with his son from heaven, to raise him and to love him, to take care of him and to trust in God. How crazy is that?! I would give up everything to be in Mary's place! To have the son of God inside of you, to give him life, to love him and raise him and watch him grow up to be this amazing man, King. I can't even imagine. It would be so incredible. Even just being one of Jesus' friends. Seeing him at work. I think we can still be his friends and see him at work. I am and I have. It's incredible and I wouldn't trade it for the world. God is good.
God bless,
Ariel