Monday, December 24, 2012

A Letter to Jesus

Dear Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Jesus
 
        This time of year, Christmas Cards are sent all over the world sending best wishes of a happy holiday season, peace on earth, and a happy new year. We go shopping, and even though they say it's the "happiest time of the year" people are fighting over presents, and prices, and who will get all the new fangled toys. People complain about the long lines, and you can't even wish the cashier a "Merry Christmas" anymore because you don't want anyone to be "offended".  Families come together to eat ham, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pie. People are sitting around the fire telling stories, or standing around the piano singing carols. They sing of Jingle Bells, Snow, Snowmen coming to life, Reindeer whose noses light up, A Big Jolly man who comes down the chimney to deliver presents to good boys and girls, Silent Nights, Holy Nights, Angels Singing, and Much more! There are nativity scenes portraying a beautiful scene of donkeys and sheep sitting around a glowing baby in a manger. Of course, you know all of this though! We celebrate people's birthdays year after year with parties, balloons, presents, and cake. But how often do we set aside some time, this time of the year, to celerate your birth? You don't get presents, you don't get parties, you don't get balloons, or cake. Instead we focus on the warm fuzzy feeling of the holidays. I am sorry we so often get caught up in the ways of the world. I am sorry we so often think about the holiday instead of thinking about you.
 
        So I just wanted to take a minute from the presents, from the food, from the family, from the carols, and the fuzzy feelings to thank you for everything! Thank you for your life, your death, and your salvation. Thank you for being willing to come down from Heaven, to come to this Earth as a baby. Thank you for being willing to be born of a virgin, and for being willing to be born in a manger. Thank you for making yourself lower, so I could go higher! Thank you for the ministry you lead here on the earth. Thank you for coming to pay the penalty of death for my sins. Thank you for the pain and suffering you placed on yourself for me. Thank you for placing all of my sin on yourself. Thank you for rising again on the third day. Thank you for washing my sins away, and making me free. Thank you for taking a rotten sinner like me, and making me a new person. Thank you for forgiving me, no matter how much I don't deserve it. Thank you for the hope that I have in my life. Thank you that I can know what will happen to me when I die someday. Thank you for your Amazing Grace, and Thank you for your Wonderful Love for me!
 
        I am nobody special, I don't deserve anything special, I am just a normal human being, but you have done something great in my life! Help me to remember that, not only today, not only this time of year, but every day. Help me never to be ashamed of who I am, help me instead to be a light to the world I live in, and help me to grow to be more like you every day.
 
        Once again, I thank you for everything you've done, and everything you do! Happy Birthday, I love you!
                                                                                                                       
Love,
~Daniel~

Thursday, December 13, 2012

To Live for the Glory of God

Life! It is such a precious thing.

I wrote a blog post a few months ago that started out the same way. It's such a simple statement, and how true it can be. Do we ever think about it? Do we ever sit back and think about the life that we live? As I was saying, a few months ago I wrote a blog post that started out the same way, except it had a different focus behind it. I focused on death, As this year is coming closer and closer to the end, I have thought back several times on the year I have had, and over, and over, and over the subject of death has come up. Whether a loved one passing away, or questions being asked of me, or reading something, or even performing in a show that deals with that subject. It's not necessarily a bad thing, I had never thought this much about death before this year, and I think it's a very good thing to think about. It will happen to everybody, and as the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10:31

"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

I believe we can do EVERYTHING to the glory of God, including dying. I'm not worried about it, and I look forward to the day that God takes me home. But I won't go fully into that again, if you would like to read some of my thoughts, feel free to take a look at my blog post "To Die for the Glory of God"

A very wise friend of mine commented on it, and in return to the post, she thanked me for sharing, and she stated "To die well, we must live well"

For the past few months, I have wanted to write another post, kind of a branching off of that one. With going from one thing to another, I haven't had much time to, but I have thought about it, and here I am once again. This time, I would like to focus on the importance of life.

Of course death is a very important thing, and I believe we should die for the glory of God, but in order to do so, we must first use the time that we have wisely, we can't waste a second, we must use the time that we have to live for the Glory of God

If you have ever walked through a graveyard, and looked at some of the stones, you will notice there is one thing common amongst them all, of course many of them have flags or crosses, many of them have eulogies or verses, many of them have quotes, but the thing that is common amongst them all is the date. They say: 1859 - 1934, 1862 - 1933, 1858 - 1952, and many, many more. They all have a little dash, a few spikes from a chisel, a little line. We don't pay attention to it much, but it represents something so great!

James 4:14 says,

"Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."
God has given us such a great gift. He's given us that line, those few spikes from the chisel, He's given us the vapour that James talks so clearly about, God has given us.....life! It may not be very long, But how do we spend that life? For me, I want to live my life in a way that would be glorifying to God. When I get to Heaven, I want to be able to stand in front of God, and I want Him to be able to say "Well done my good and faithful servant"

Even though God loves me, and he enjoys the relationship I have with Him, I don't believe he has placed me here on the earth for my own good, It's for His good, and His glory, so as for me, I want to live my life for the Glory of God.

There are so many choices to make in life, there are so many paths to choose, I know that I have had decisions to make in the past, and I will be making all sorts of decisions in the future too, sometimes I make the right ones, and sometimes I make the wrong ones, but in the end, I ask forgiveness and try and learn from my mistakes. As I have thought the past few days, I am at a rough intersection in my life, there are so many roads to choose, so many choices to make: What college to go to, What career to go into, What job to get, How to spend my extra time, Who God wants me to marry in the future, etc. and while it's not always easy, and I can't say I will always follow through with it, I have decided just to trust God, do whatever He wants me to do, go wherever He wants me to go, be the kind of person He wants me to be, and follow Him no matter what. I know He has a perfect plan for my life, I know He has it all figured out, and I know as long as I do that, He won't lead me wrong!

I look at people like Hudson Taylor, Billy Graham, D.L. Moody, Billy Sunday, Fanny Crosby, even Peter, James, John, Luke, Joseph, Moses, David, Daniel, and Jesus himself, all of these people lived extraordinary lives. God used them to do AMAZING things, and all they had to do was give their life over to God. No, of course they weren't perfect (aside from Jesus) but they decided they were going to follow God, they gave everything they had to do whatever God wanted, and they lived their lives to do all for the Glory of God.

That's what I want for my life too. No, maybe God won't use me to change millions of lives. No, maybe He won't call me to do anything extraordinary, and I will be the first to tell you, I am FAR from perfect, but I pray that I won't waste a second. Life is too short! While I look forward to the day God takes me home, however that may be, until then, whatever God has planned for me, in life, in death, in good times, and in bad, I want to Live, Die, and Do All to the Glory of God. That's not a wasted life for me!



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Thanks once again for reading! I'm glad I had the opportunity to finally sit down and put these thoughts in words. I hope it made sense! The Lord has been laying it on my heart for a while, and I know in my life I want to live, and die for God's glory! As I said in one of my last blog posts, We shouldn't live every day worried that it could be our last, We should live every day is if it would be. Let us treat every day as if it were our last day. Let's do everything to the glory of God. You'll notice I changed the title of my blog, I think it's fitting for my thoughts, and maybe, someday, if God lays it on my heart, I can elaborate a little more. I will look forward to writing again very soon. Have a blessed day!

~Daniel~