It's been awhile...

I can hardly believe it's taken me so long to get back to writing my blog... but I figure, who's going to read it at this point. Well, you never know.

God is up to something really amazing in my life right now, and I'm so blessed to be able to say that pretty often. He's up to something amazing in a lot of people's lives all the time! Praise the Lord!

I think sometimes when we say things like "Praise the Lord" and "I'm so blessed", people think we're trying to sound really Christian, and it's so sad. I can totally understand people being tired of a lot of the old Christianese phrases... I'm right there with those people. But at the same time, God is really showing me lately how important praise is.

Philippians 4:4 says, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say rejoice!"

Psalm 150 just keeps telling us to praise God over and over.

I think it really made a difference to me lately when I read somewhere about worship, and they said that the difference between worship and missions (just as a comparison) is that missions is a temporary necessity because we're separated from our Creator. So many people need to know Him and they don't! So for now, we need to help people come to know Him.

But WORSHIP IS ETERNAL! We're going to be praising God forever because that is what He wants and that is what we were created for, and that is when we are truly who we were meant to be. It may sound overly-simplistic, but when you think about it, what other purpose are we going to serve once our lives are over? The work will be done... and what was it all for? It only makes sense that the work we do here is for something. Why does Jesus want us to reach the lost?

He wants us to love Him! Jesus didn't come to earth and suffer because He needs us. I'd have to be crazy to think God needs me. He doesn't need any of us. He loves us.

We, as His people, are blessed and happy when we are fulfilling our true purpose. It's not all about us. What are we, really? I mean, we fight against so many horrible things in our lives. Well, not everyone fights against those things, but those who don't certainly aren't happy.

I can't speak for everyone, but I'd be an absolute disaster without God. I'd hate people without God. I'm only who I am today because of His grace. So I don't have anything to be proud of, except the fact that He's my Father. And if He's created me to be happy when I'm obeying Him and loving Him, then I'm happy to do what's right in His eyes. Maybe that sounds selfish, but that's who we are as humans. I don't think I'd serve God if it made me miserable. Would you? I think the mistake we make too often is thinking we have to sacrifice too much to get to the place where we're happy serving Him. In all reality, He does a lot for us, but we have to take some steps too. We're not going to wake up one morning and find ourselves happy and free. We have to really want it... but it's no sacrifice to serve God. It's far too much of one not to serve Him.