Loss

The world lost a good person yesterday. Brandon Ward Kohler lost his life in an accident during his first college Spring Break. As I reflect on this tragedy, I can't help but think about the boy I knew. Brandon was a good person. He didn't always make the wisest decisions, but what 19-year old boy does? What I remember most was his smile and how he would go around hugging everyone. He loved his friends and his family and he is sorely missed. I am praying for his family and friends and I ask that you would too. My heart goes out to them and to anyone who has ever lost someone too soon. It breaks my heart that we won't get to see his smiling face again while we're on this earth. But I know that one day we'll meet him in the clouds and he'll be wearing the biggest smile we'll have ever seen. Until then we have to keep toiling here on earth. But while we wait and work, I hope that you'll keep these verses in mind:

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for me, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. ~Colossians 3:23-24

Please keep Brandon's friends and family in your prayers.
God Bless,
Taylor

Lead Me To The Cross

So, today was an especially busy day. I definitely did not accomplish everything that I had hoped to, but I feel like I was productive, so I guess that's enough. Anyway, I don't have much to say tonight, but I have had this song running through my head all day. So here it is:

Lead Me To The Cross

Savior I come
Quiet my soul
Remember
Redemption's hill
Where Your blood was spilled
For my ransom
Everything I once held dear
I count it all as lost

Lead me to the cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord, I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Lead me, Lead me to the cross

You were as I
Tempted and tried
Human
The word became flesh
Bore my sin and death
Now you're risen
Everything I once held dear
I count it all as lost

Lead me to the cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord, I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Oh Lead me, Lead me to the cross

To Your heart
To Your heart
Lead me to Your heart
Lead me to Your heart

Lead me to the cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord, I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Lead me, Lead me, Lead me to the cross


God Bless,
Taylor

Yielding

Sooo... my blog has been suffering severely. I've been busy lately... so busy in fact that more than a couple times I have even forgotten to do my devotional. Shame on me. In that same vein, I wish I could say that everything in my life is going smoothly, but of course, it's not. There is always something for me to worry about or get stuck on. Then there are the personal issues and family concerns. On top of those things, there is always more schoolwork than I would care to be doing. However, I KNOW that if I just turned EVERYTHING over to God, I could spend a lot less time doing/worrying about things that are trivial. I KNOW this. But knowing and DOING are two absolutely different things. I am happy to say that I only have 6 1/2 days, 6 classes, 3 meetings, and 3 hours of mentoring until my Spring Break officially starts. After SB starts, I will be bowling, listening to Michael Buble in concert, and going to Myrtle Beach for 4 days before I hang out with my bestie who goes to a different college. I know that I will enjoy my break A LOT, but I also know that I will enjoy it a lot more if I'm at peace with God.

Peace. The Merriam-Webster dictionary has this to say: A) a state of tranquillity or quiet B) freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions C) harmony in personal relations
I think that all of these are things that I can stand to gain by allowing God to run my life. I KNOW that He will do a better job of running my life than I can. Now I just have to learn how to let Him into my every action, my every thought, and my every word.

Today I'm taking the devotional from "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswlad Chambers. It's called "Yielding."

Romans 6:16 - Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

The first thing I must be willing to admit when I begin to examine what controls and dominates me is that I am the one responsible for having yielded myself to whatever it may be. If I am a slave to myself, I amto blame because somewhere in the past I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because at some point in my life I yielded myself to Him.
If a child gives in to selfishness, he will find it to be the most enslaving tyranny on earth. There is no power within the human soul itself that is capable of breaking the bondage of the nature created by yielding. For example, yield for one second to anything in the nature of lust, and although you may hate yourself for having yielding, you become enslaved to that things. (Remember what lust is--"I must have it now," whether it is the lust of the flesh or the lust of the mind.) No release or escapte from it will ever come from any human power, but only through the power of redemption. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only One who can break the dominating power in your life, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. "...He has anointed Me... to proclaim liberty to the captives..." (Luke 4:18 and Isaiah 61:1).
When you yield to something, you will soon realize the tremendous control it has over you. Even though you say, "Oh, I can give up that habit whenever I like," you wil know you can't. You will find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you willingly yielded to it. It is easy to sing, "He will break every fetter," while at the same time living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. But yielding to Jesus will break every kind of slavery in any person's life.


I have to put my life in His hands completely. I know that I haven't turned my life completely over to Him, and I know that it is hurting me along my way. It's easy to say one thing and do another. It is much harder to live the life you know that you are SUPPOSED to. I want my actions to match my words in EVERY aspect of my life.
I know that there are people out there who are in this boat with me. So I challenge you to yield your life to Christ.
I know His grace/mercy/love is sufficient for me.

God Bless,
Taylor

Look Up!

I'm taking this devotional straight from my Sunday School workbook. This workbook is about the prophesies that have yet to be fulfilled from the Bible. It talks about the Rapture and the fact that we are living in the days when Christ will return. As I was watching the news last night, I saw a blurb on the Chilean earthquake. My friend and I started talking about the prophesy of the end of days and we are both well aware that the Bible says that God will send earthquakes in the time before the Rapture. As we talked I found that I am not really looking forward to Jesus coming back and taking us home to Heaven. Well... that's not exactly right. I am excited about that part, but I'm scared about the fact of when He will actually come. I worry that I won't have had time to experience life in the ways that I want to. I wonder if I will have time to graduate from college. Will I find the love of my life? Will I have time to get married and have children? Will I get to have and teach my own classroom before He comes back? Then I opened my workbook and found this... article, so to say. It's something that I really need to think about, and I'm sure that it's something that others need to read too.


When my mom was a little girl, she walked to and from school every day with her brother. And every day on the way home she would stare intently at the sky. "Watch where you're going!" her older brother scolded her as she tripped on the sidewalk and stumbled into him, interrupting her gaze at the clouds. "I'm trying to be the first one to see Jesus when He comes back!" she explained to him. Excitement sparkled in her eyes as she told him of how magnificent and glorious the sky would be when her Savior returned to take her to Heaven.
Why is it so easy for a young child to simply look up without allowing other things to crowd her mind and cloud her excitement? How are children so unafraid to live in faith about the return of Christ? As we get older, thoughts of anticipation and excitement for eternity are easily strangled by fear or other idols in our lives. Instead of looking up, hoping to see Christ bursting forth, we are anxious about future events, or we push thoughts of Christ's return aside.
I have often shivered in fear when I read of future things. It is hard to even imagine what will occur. It is hard to understand anything different than what I know here on earth. It is easy to want to experience more on earth and to try and tell God what His plans should be, hoping that He will listen to me. "God, wait until I graduate from high school. Wait until I finish college. Wait until I start a career and a marriage. God, just wait until I can experience the joy of children. Wait until I'm ready for You to come."
But will there ever really be a time when you or I don't have something else we want to do? Will there ever be a time when we say, "Ok, God, I've checked off everything on my list. You can come now"? I must be brought back to the reality that God is not bound by time, and Christ's return is more important and exciting than anything I will ever experience or even imagine here on earth.
Until I submissively look to God change my heart, my heart will never naturally long for His return. The Bible talks about setting "your affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Collossians 3:2). Luke 12:34 tells me that where my treasure is, my heart will also be. When I am wishing for anything other than to be with my Savior, it proves that my treasure is here on earth, and not in Heaven. Instead of desiring the awesomeness of what it will be like to worship God in Heaven, I simply desire moths and rust and everything that will not last. I am seeking happiness and joy in my circumstances here on earth, which is only dirt, instead of eternal happiness and complete joy with my Savior?
My thoughts and words reveal that I, like many Christians, have not embraced the reality that Christ promises to return at any moment. For centuries, Christians have lost their excitement for Christ's return, turning their eyes upon earthly things for temporal satisfaction. Many Christians expected Christ to return shortly after He ascended to Heaven, but when His return was delayed, many scoffed in unbelief, "walking after their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming?" (2 Peter 3:3-4). In Peter's second letter to the church, he reminded Christians that Christ has promised to return "as a thief in the night" (2 Peter 3:10), and admonished Christians to live every day as if Christ would come at any moment. Peter's encouragement to the church to change its thinking and way of living also applies to us today.
Peter explained that in order to be ready for the return of Christ, we must live holy and godly lives. Our daily behavior and actions must be motivated by the possibility of Christ returning at any moment. If we truly believe that He could come today, then we will behave in a way that pleases Him. And if we are striving to live a life characterized by holiness through His power, we will desire to worship Him with an attitude of reverence and respect. Our fearful shivers of the events to the end times will turn into praise to our Almighty God, Whose power will be revealed at His coming!
We will be ready for Christ's return not only by living holy and godly lives, but also by looking for His return. Just as God promises us of Christ's return, He also promises us that He will place His wrath upon those who have not repented and put their trust in Him (2 Peter 3:10-12). We know through His Word that God is "longsuffering not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). But we also know that not everyone will repent and put his or her trust in Jesus alone for salvation. It is sobering to think that some of my friends, family, or neighbors will experience God's wrath. And it is convincing that I often think that I'm too busy or too afraid to warn them of their coming judgment.
When I begin to ponder how beautiful, magnificent, and glorious it will be when Christ returns to take me home, my thoughts of fear and anxiety about the coming events begin to melt away. But until my life begins to reflect Him instead of desiring to accomplish my "checklist" here on earth, I will not be ready and looking for His return.
In order to be ready and to look for Christ's return, we must be willing to change. Having the desire to graduate high school, to go college, start a career and a marriage is not sinful in and of itself. But when those desires alone are what we seek after and live for and are not motivated by the desire to glorify God--the reason for our existence--they are only selfishness rooted in a prideful spirit.
So take a step back and look up with the eyes of a child. Does your life reflect holiness and godliness? Do you desire things of Heaven or things or earth? Can you truly say today, "I want to be the first one to see Jesus return"?
By Holly Leeper



I know that this is something that I need to work on in my life. I should be so filled with excitement that about Jesus' return that I shouldn't be able to contain myself! This is my God and my Savior who is coming back to take me to my eternal home. There should be nothing that I should look forward to more.

God Bless,
Taylor

Breaking the Chains

Tonight I am again pulling my material from Josh McDowell's Youth Devotions 2. The biggest thing that I personally got from this devotional is the key verse, but I am relaying the whole devotional to you because I know that someone out there needs more than just the key verse.

Break Free From Those Flimsy Chains
Ephesians 1:3-8 - Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence.

You don't have to wonder why many kids grow up with a warped sense of their worth to God and to others--and a twisted sense of their true identity. Parents, teachers, the media, advertisers, and marketers can pummel into you the idea that your identity depends on how good you look, how well you perform, and how well you succeed. You can know better than that and still have a hard time shaking the thoughts that put you down or control how you act.
We're like the circus elephant whose leg is held to a stake with a bicycle chain. How can a flimsy chain control such a brawny animal? The elephant is locked up by a memory. As a baby, the elephant tried to break loose but wasn't strong enough. It hasn't forgotten that lesson. Even though the elephant could break the chain with a small yank, he rarely tries. He's conditioned to captivity. But notice this: If he does break away, he is almost impossible to control again.
How you think of yourself works the same way. Most of us are trained to think that how we look, perform, and achieve is all-important--so even when we know better, we're chained by that dumb idea. But God wants to set you free from the flimsy chains that keep you from realizing your full potential as God's unique, valued creation. God's truth is stronger than those chains. You can break free to be--and be glad to be--who God mae you.
An important part of understanding who you are involves getting into your head what God says about who you are.
First God tells you that you are his child. John 1:12 says, "To all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God." Try putting yourself in this verse: "I have believed God and accepted him. He has given me the right to be his child." Write these words on a card and place it where you can see it when you feel put down.
Then God says that you are chose. Ephesians 1:4 tells us, "He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight." Personalize that verse too: "I was chosen by God, before he even created the world, to be holy and blameless."
When you let these Scripture truths dig their way deep into your heart, you see yourself afresh. You're bigger than the chains that bind you.

Who shouts louder--the people around you who hand you a warped view of who you are, or God with his true view of you? Why?
Say thanks to God for what he has shown you about yourself.


I think that this is an important lesson for everyone to learn. Like I said, my favorite part of it is the key verse: Ephesians 1:4. It really makes you think. YOU were chosen BEFORE God even created the EARTH to be HOLY and BLAMELESS in His sight. Wow. If that doesn't make you feel loved and wanted, I don't know what will.
I give this ongoing challenge: Try to see yourself as God sees you. You are His child. A person that He loved SO much that He sent His only begotten son to shed His blood on a cross for YOUR sins. Nothing gets any more powerful.

God Bless,
Taylor

Child of the King

So... I'm super sorry that I haven't posted a blog in the past four days. I could give you excuses about how time got away from me, or that I had a lot of homework, but neither of those excuses is good enough for God, so they're not good enough for you either. So I will just say that I am sorry, BUT I have an awesome blog for tonight.

This blog comes from one of my devotionals: Josh McDowell's Youth Devotions 2. I think I'll just jump in and talk about it more afterward.

It is entitled "Check Your I.D."

Psalm 8:1-9 - O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who has set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the mon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast corwned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast pu all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

What makes you who you are? They way you look? Your performance at school? Your hobbies, sports, and after-school busyness? Your spiritual gifts?
You're way more than any of that. Who you are is also more than your race, family pedigree, or skill at computer games. Those are important pieces of your identity. But they're just the outer layers.
People say, "Clothes make the person," but you no doubt know better than that. Clothes might enhance you or disguise you or promote you, but they don't make you. There's more to your identity than how you decorate your body or shockingly accessorize your ears, nose, or belly button.
And then there are all those diet and fitness infomercials promising to make you into a total man or woman: you'll shed pounds, tone up flab, and watch your life change. But does a transformed body affect your true identity? Of course not. You might like your new looks. But your true identity has slim-to-none to do with whether you're buff-or bulge in a few places.
So if these outer layers are just layers over your true identity, who are you underneath it all? That's something that you want to figure out, because your core identity-especially how you see yourself-plays a huge role in how you carry yourself in daily life, how happy you are, how you treat other people, and how you respond to God. It's vital that you know who you are apart from what you look like and what you do.
Maybe you've never pondered the question, "Who am I?" Maybe you've worked so hard on your outer layers that you've missed the big truth that you're a person of great value and worth, made in the image of the Creator and crowned with glory and honor (Psalm 8:5). One girl said this about her friend: "She's one of the prettiest girls in the world, but she thinks she's incredibly ugly. She feels grotesque. That's why she can't trust anyone who says they love her. It's as if she's saying to God, 'God, if you love me, you must be a real jerk.'" This girl's thinking is flawed because she fails to realize that a loving God holds the key to her identity. Only He knows her real worth.
Truth is, when you're a Christian your innermost identity is this: You're a child of the King. And when you get close to the King, you begin to see yourself as the princess or prince you are.

God wants you not only to understand who you are but also to enjoy being that person. What gets in the way of seeing yourself first as God's child?

Ask God to teach you a biblical view of yourself.


This devotional really spoke to me tonight. I got down to the bottom, and read the words "You're a child of the King" and I instantly knew what I would be writing about. God places things in front of us for a reason. Right before I sat down to read this devotional, I was taking a shower, and some song lyrics began to form in my head. Each time I began to think about words to start a verse with, the phrase, "I'm a child of the King" would come first. I actually came back and wrote down the lyrics that had been running through my head before I read the devotional. Not only did those two things happen one after the other, but also at BCM tonight, the speaker touched on the fact that we are God's children, His sons and daughters, and that we were created in His image. We are to live a life that is pleasing and honors Him.

At then end of the day, no matter how badly we may screw up, we are still God's children. AND He will always love us and be there to pick us up and dust us off. ALL that we have to do is ask. And once we are His, He will never let us go.

So when you're feeling down and out or like you're not good enough, for whatever reason, take comfort in the fact that you are God's child. He will never leave or forsake you, and He is your constant friend and protector. For those of us who are saved, God LIVES in our hearts. He resides within us, and nothing can take Him out of us.

"I am His, and He is mine"

God Bless,
Taylor

The RIGHT Right

Proverbs 16:25 - There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

As teenagers (or when you were a teenager), we have a tendency to disregard what other, usually older, people tell us is the right way to do things. Most of us wanted to do things our own way. We may have even used the excuse, "What is right for you may be wrong for me."
When it comes to God and His instructions, there is no room for this kind of attitude. God lays down our "Rights" and "Wrongs" very clearly in His word. He doesn't leave room for discussion.
C.S. Lewis wrote in his book Mere Christianity: "Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe real Right or Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson."
Paul also tells us that even those who have never heard of the Ten Commandments "demonstrate that God's law is written within them, for their own consciences accuse them or tell them they are doing what is right" (Romans 2:15).

The great thing is, we don't have to wonder about what is right or wrong in God's eyes. He tells us everything in His word. And if we ever need clarification or further explanations, He tells us to come to Him.
James 1:5 - If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all me liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

Psalm 145:18-19 - The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them.

I think we could all benefit by being in His word and His way in an even bigger way than we are now. We need to remember to keep God in first place in our lives and to turn to Him when we have questions about what is right and what is wrong.

God Bless,
Taylor