72 days

10 weeks

10 weekends from now, I will be MARRIED!

It has been a wild journey of wedding planning. Some good & bad!

Truely growing to love Trey Barnett more and more every day as we prepare for our lives together.  God has definitely been teaching us patience and a big amount of it.  He has been guiding us and showing us that HE is the one in control and not Trey and Amber.  His will be done and not Trey and Amber’s.  His plan is better than ours.  And thats clearly seen throughout our relationship the past 3 years.

God really opened my eyes up to Isaiah 55 Tuesday morning..this is what I read..

“Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.”

This meant everything to me when I read it tuesday morning.  I have really been ready for God to make a move and quick but God has not opened a door for us yet so thats His way of showing me hey, its not what you want or when you want, its when I want..BUT this is why this passage was so encouraging…He is the GREAT PROVIDER.  Trey and I don’t need to spend hours and days worrying about where our lives are gonna be or worrying about money.  Yes, we can take wise steps towards having money, and towards other things but it shouldn’t consume us on a daily basis.  This passage is basically saying He who has nothing who cares?  Come to the waters and drink.  Come to Jesus and you will never thirst again.  Its saying that all you truely need is Jesus Christ and nothing else.  He is the Great Provider who gives you your EVERY need at the RIGHT time..during HIS time.

We can delight outselves in HIM! Isn’t that awesome news?  We dont have to go to the world for our pleasure-we dont have to go the world to find satisfaction.  Our satisfaction is in Christ Jesus!! He only can provide, He only can rescue, He only can satisfy EVERY need you will EVER have!!!!!! He is the the..

Jehovah-Jireh!!! (the Great Provider)

“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” Phillipians 4:19

So when we need something what do we do?

“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:16

He will provide!! I have full confidence that He has Trey and I’s relationship and future marriage under his complete control if we just surrender our lives and surrender to Him. He is so good to me.

Our God is greater, Our God is stronger, God you are higher than ANY other!! God you are healer, awesome in power, Our God, Our God…

glory be 2 him,

a.

I frankly do not want to go to sleep because I am so into the things I am learning.

Aside from that, I am drinking orange juice. Its great. My roommate does not like PULP so she refuses to drink this orange juice, ironic, cause she is the one who bought it.

Our body and soul are one. Many people do not understand this. “Don’t be so quick to buy into the thought of “what u do with your body has no effect on your soul”-When you are sick physically its hard to focus spiritually. When your sick spiritually you feel sick physically. We are one thing.”(from Louis Brenton)..hmm..never thought about that.

Your relationship with Him is not just that your spiritually joined to Him. There is a physical reality.

–Have you ever cleaned your ears to where it made you cough? It just happened to me. I coughed so much.

Firstly, want to say, all props to Louis Brenton, who preached this sermon..Im just taking notes as I am listening..directly from what he is saying, so here we go.

-”He intentionally compares your relationship to Christ with the personal intimacy of a marriage relationship with sexual intimacy. We are described to be one flesh. And it says “one spirit with Christ”. Point of this is to show that we are meant to have DEEP, DEEP intimacy with Christ.

Human sexuality is more than physical. God has designed sex in such a way that there is a deeper bonding going on rather then just physical contact. God meant sex to be a deep bonding. However, there is a great danger to that when we misuse sex.

-Even outside of marriage the spiritual reality of one flesh still occurs. This should scare the begeez out of us. We bond with those we get physical with. There is a spiritual reality. That is a BIG deal. And it is not constrained to just marriage now in our society.

FLEE from sexual immorality. Must be avoided with URGENCY and DECISVENESS.

“-Flee from sexual immorality. This command for “flee” is in Greek a present imparitive verb, meaning flee all the time, don’t argue, don’t debate, always flee, don’t explain, don’t treat sexual sin like you can overcome it, treat it as a trap. Run! Scream like a little girl if you have to. Don’t stand there and see how much you can take. Techical Greek term for that is: STUPID.”

“No hint of sexual immorality.” Greek word for sexual immorality is “porneia” Does not just mean doing the deed, it means any type of sexual activity outside of marriage. It doesn’t mean making out is okay, it means flee from that too. Just cause your not going all the way “Porneia” is still happening which means you are still committing sexual sin.  Satan does not let you read the fine print. Sexual sin never delivers what it promises. It does a lot of damage. Pleasure=pain.

God doesn’t just own our souls. My body is not mine, it belongs to Christ. Aint yo body. It belongs to Jesus Christ. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

This sermon was entitled “The Theology of Sexuality”-Louis is a great speaker. Gets right down the point. And he is a sinner just like the rest of us, which makes him cooler.

Miss my church, but I know the Lord is planting my feet here in Jackson.

Our apartment is right by the highway and it is really loud right now, believe it or not at 2am cars are still flying by.

Its now 2am and still not tired.

More orange juice here I come

blessings, a.

Do you love Jesus?

Is Jesus an uncomfortable aquatience? Or is he the love of your life?

Is he so uncomfortable to you that you keep him in a box and will not speak of his name in front of your friends, coworkers, strangers?

Or are you so in love with him that you constantly bring up His name

^“When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”(john 21:15)

¹⁶Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

¹⁷ The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Do you earnestly love Jesus?

Matthew 17:1-13
1 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. 3And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 5He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” 6When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. 7But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” 8And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.  9 And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them,  “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.” 10And the disciples asked him, “Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?” 11He answered, “Elijah does come, and he will restore all things. 12But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands.” 13 Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.
The first time I heard the 2 Peter verse was at a Bible study and man it knocked me off my seat.  Here Peter is writing, saying that after being a first hand witness of the transfiguration, something amazing beyond human belief, says we have something more sure of who Christ is, through the prophetic word, also known as the Bible.  That is pretty amazing!!!  I mean think about it, that little book we own is something more than just words on a page.  I mean what more could we want, or say?  We have something better than an eye witness account of God Himself, the Bible…Not much more for me to say than this

Part 2 is centering around Luke 22:54-62 where Peter denies Christ.

Notice verse 54. ” Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house,and Peter was following at a distance.”

-There is really no following Christ from a distance. You cannot love Jesus and love the world. Also, note the lengths that Peter will go to in order to protect himself; lying being one.(verses 56-60) This reminds me of the times that we are in front of people, our friends, coworkers, etc and completley act like we know nothing of our Jesus Christ. We lie, we get ashamed, we start to care too much about their opinion’s rather then God’s.

Two things led Peter to make this choice. One being fear of man. We put confidence in man because like I just stated we are TOO concerned about other people’s opinion’s about us. That crazy cousin that need’s Jesus that we come in contact with a few years during family gatherings we dont even mention the name of Christ because we are too concerned about what cousin larry will think of us rather then what God will think of us.

The second thing that led Peter to this choice was the illusion of safety. This is the part that struck me. YOU are not safe. WE are not safe. At any moment a meteor could come crashing into earth. At any moment someone could break into your house and take your life. At any moment a fire could break out and kill you. Listen to this statement: Your security is in God, otherwise it is NONEXISTANT. Your security is in God alone. He is the only one that has kept you safe thus far in life. And if there’s moments where you havent been safe, like sitting in a bathroom during an F4 tornado the only thing keeping those walls from collapsing on my head was the grace of God!

So what brought Peter back?

Well, he saw Jesus. Verse 61 says “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter”. They made eye contact, during that split second their eyes were connected. Secondly, he has a memory of Christ’s words. Still in verse 61 ” And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, ^(G) “Before the rooster crows today, you will^(H) deny me three times.” Peter remembered what the Lord has said to him, and that broke him down. The last thing that brought Peter back was Jesus’ prayer and God’s power. Luke 22:32 states ”

³²but^(A) I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again,^(B) strengthen your brothers.”

Peter not only learned from all of this but he GAINED from this experience. Much like in our own lives when we go through things like this there is a purpose that the Lord has because he wants us to gain from experiences like this.

Peter was finally able to see how jacked up he was and to see and hate his sin. He learned that there is grace and forgiveness even for sins like the one’s that he committed.  In our lives we dont want to go through things like this because we measure “good” differently than what God measures it by. Get this statement:

We want comfort, God wants Christ likeness.

Wow! We want comfort, ease, we dont want to have to go through hardships. But God wants Christ likeness and sometimes gaining Christ likeness includes going through things that will stretch us, help us learn, and make and mold us into who God wants us to be.

Finally, Peter was brought to the end of himself and learned wisdom and learned humility. Listen to 1 Peter 5:5-8 that demonstrates this.

Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,  casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded;be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Peter is speaking through experience through this passage. He is telling us to clothe our selves with humility because its something that He did NOT do. He learned humbleness and is telling us to HUMBLE ourselves because he DIDNT and he elarned. He is telling us to be watchful of our enemy because the enemy GOT him and took him DOWN and wants us to learn from HIS mistakes.

Its such an eye opening way of reading this passage. Im so excited to see the ending part of this series. God is so good!!

Okay, so these are musts:

/faithful to the lord/

/consistantly in the word/

/has a desire to be a leader/

/loves people in general/

/someone pushing me beyond my limit/

/respectful in every aspect/

/family man/

/encouraging to me and others/

/has a passion and desire for growing in the lord/

/involved and loves the church/

/heart for the lost/

And now for the sillys:

/sense of humor/

/random/

/passion for music/

/trys new things and spontaneous/

/not afraid to cry/

/loves to eat/

I just think its funny that Trey matches up to a point everything on this list, even the sillys. It is describing him more than I can tell you. This boy has a huge passion for music, is an excellent musician, and is def. not afraid to cry. If you know Trey you know this!

That is all. : )