Saints

Courage Strength worthy strong tower 

passion Light Confidence Weak

Faithful radical LOVE generation

Refuge willing radiant Saint holy

When you see these words they are inspiring, are they not? What do you find your identity in? Is it what you do, where you live, how you dress, how you talk, your social status? OR is it the Lord? Your answer should be the last one, when we find our Identity in the Lord he gives us all these words and more. We get to be apart of such an amazing revival of our world today. We are called as "Christians" to something more. We are saints, no longer sinners, not saying we don't sin but we are made holy in him through his blood. I have a big heart for the church today in the way they portray God in their messages and daily life. It took me a while to realize that we are the church, it's not a building. We can do church anywhere because we carry him in us. I want to challenge you to raise the bar in your own life, to step it up. A definition of Church is the whole body of christians. When we are together we are doing church, when one member hurts we all suffer. Think about it, your neighbor is apart of the body, so when they are hurting we should also be hurting. When your family member is in pain you also feel some of their pain. I always think of a bunch of people together in the shape of a body and when one person is hurt, it affects the people around them. This is why I love discipleship, which is doing things you don't want to do, and saying things you don't want to hear. When someone or something rubs you the wrong way and you are uncomfortable, you are growing. It's a good thing to be uncomfortable. We need to have courage to tell our brothers and sisters the hard things in a loving way. I'm not saying if someone is bothering you to go tell them, because that can come from a selfish heart just because it's bothering you. You need to pray about it first to see if it's something in yourself that you need to get right, then see if you need to confront the person about the issue. This is tricky because as humans we have a tenancy to run to other people and complain instead of taking it straight to the Lord. We are all connected so when you talk about someone behind their backs, you are just tearing them down not lifting them up. Live at peace with everyone is what we are called to do, among other things but this is one of the hardest to uphold. I'm learning slowly but surly, I was faced with this challenge 9 months ago and I'm still learning day by day to live at peace with everyone and not hold grudges. It's hard because when people actually do wrong you and hurt you, it's easy to stay angry at them, but most of the time they don't even know they hurt you. So take it to them instead of everyone else.  

You are a saint...