Monday, January 14, 2008

Be Authentic - Be Real - Be You!

Friends... how hard it is to find a real, true, authentic, genuine friend! God has been opening my eyes lately to how blessed I am to have those kinds of friends in my life. Everyone makes mistakes and I am always going to be let down by people. God does tell us, "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD" [Jeremiah 17:5]. I cannot depend on people to fulfill and satisfy my needs and desires. But sometimes you need a true, genuine friend to be there for you. And I am so, so blessed to have more than one friend like this! You guys know who you are - and I am so thankful for you.

Tonight at Bible Study we were talking a lot about being yourself and being who you are everywhere you are. We were talking about not wearing your heart on your sleeve, yet letting people know who you are. I don't know about you, but sometimes I try to fit in somewhere before I let the people see who I really am. And then I get close to them, yet it's not really me because I'm being superficial. So they're accepting me for being someone I'm not - and then I'm stuck. So I want to encourage you to try to be who you really, truly are everywhere that you are and with everyone that you're with. Who are you? Well, if you've accepted Christ as your Savior, you're a child of God. And being children of God, we need to live like we are children of God. We all have our own unique, individual personalities that God has blessed us with, and we need to let ourselves blossom into who we really are in Christ by allowing ourselves to be authentic and genuine and real.

I had to write an essay for English class about an important decision I had to make in my life. So this is what I wrote:

"The most important decision you'll ever make in your life is who your master will be. There are only two choices: God or satan and the world." My pastors words have stuck with me and planted themselves in my heart since that message he had preached early one Sunday morning. Yet the meaning of his words went far deeper than what he said. I knew that I needed to make the decision to either follow God wholeheartedly and let Him be the master of my life or to let satan lead my life by way of the world and lead me into darkness and despair.
I had two choices. There were no in-between or gray areas. There was no turning back. I knew that I had to choose who to follow or someone or something was going to choose to lead me. The way that my heart tends to lean towards the world and its ways, I realized that if I didn't choose a master, the world was going to master me. I knew that I didn't want that, because I knew that eventually that would only lead me into darkness and depression and heartache. The only other choice was God - the One who promises light, joy, peace, and real, true life.
You would think that one would choose to allow God to be their master if He promises so much good to His followers. Yet there are many people who allow the world to become their master and they follow it and its crowds into darkness. Many people choose the world to become the master of their hearts and lives and walk straight into a dark pit of sorrow, despair and death. Yet because of God's amazing grace and love, He has pulled me numerous times off of the edge of that pit, as I was struggling to keep myself from falling into it completely. God grabbed ahold of my arms and gently lifted me out of that deep, dark, painful pit and held me in His arms. The words that were whispered to me from Him that day were very clear. I cannot follow and allow both God and the world to be my masters. It's either one or the other. I chose God - and everytime I am hanging on with all of my strength to the edge of that pit, he pulls me out. My God is good, and my God is the master of my life.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Molly! I couldn't find the Joyce Meyer (not MeyerS, lol, I don't know why I thought that) book at the bookstore, so I ordered it from Amazon. Thanks again. ;]

So how's it going? Are you still writing much? (I really liked this post) :]