Tag: God

Christianese 101, encouragement

Christianese 101: Free Will

Adrianna Smith

freewill

–>Can I mess up God’s plan for me?<–

I feel like a lot of younger Christians, and even some older ones, have this question on their mind every now and again. They often find themselves wondering if we have free will can we mess up the plan God has for us? I mean, can you mess up God’s will for your life? Can you just do something so insane, so crazy that you destroy everything that the all mighty God has planned for you to do? Some people would say yes that because God gives us ‘free will’ we can indeed mess up what He wants for us, while others stay focused on the fact that God is sovereign and since He controls everything there is no way that you could mess up His will for your life. Me, I’m a bit more complex than that. My answer is, no and yes at the same time. You can indeed ‘mess up’ God’s will for your life, but you can’t really mess it up.

Continue reading “Christianese 101: Free Will” →

Advertisement
Christianese 101, prophecy

Christianese 101: Suffering Wars

Adrianna Smith

suffering

I’m kind of more on the sarcastic side of speech every now and again. I will occasionally joke or comment about being tired from school or work, but it’s usually nothing that is that deep for me. I do it just to poke fun at my situation. However, I notice that people get to the point where they get this big chip on their shoulders where they feel like they’ve been through more than another person so they should get more blessings. Or they have been through more than another person so they don’t feel sympathetic to a person’s situation. I see Christians especially falling into that ‘but, I suffered more’ comparison game. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the hunger games of suffering and we’re all having a ‘suffering war’ to see who outshines each other in what they’ve went through. However, God doesn’t play this game though. No, seriously He doesn’t. He actually will bless whomever He wants whether or not they suffered as much as you.

Continue reading “Christianese 101: Suffering Wars” →

encouragement, prophecy

Name Dropping

Adrianna Smith

name

Life is about who you know, right? People get special treatment, special privileges and even specific jobs because they know people who work there or operate in circles that are higher in the totem pole. Sometimes even becoming enemies with the wrong people can put you in a bad place in certain circles. This is why some people in society will find themselves name dropping. They’ll let certain names of people come into their mouths so that they can gain access to places that they would never have access to before.

What saddens me is that I see people in the church doing this. If they find out that you’re someone special in a certain circle or spot in life they’ll mention your name just so they can get access. Even in jobs, people will try to pretend as though they know someone who you know just so they can get close to you because they feel as though you have something they can use. I can’t help but to laugh at all these things when I see this, especially in Christians because we don’t realize that we have the most important name of all that should always be on our tongues: Jesus.

Continue reading “Name Dropping” →

lessons

The Christ-led Ace Attorney

Adrianna Smith

Ace

—>False Prophets: How to spot a counterfeit?<—

There are a lot of different ministries and things written or spoken about God online currently. The internet is littered and cluttered with more information than anyone bothers to look at or read. Clutter tends to lead not only to distraction, but also to confusion. This confusion is often in what ministry or minister to listen to. Who do you trust when multiple people are barking similar yet different messages at you? Who is telling the truth? It’s so easy to struggle with being able to tell the difference between good sound biblical doctrine and ‘teaching’ that’s just for entertainment or show. We almost have to become like Phoenix Wright in the game Ace Attorney and analyze each message word by word to spot the contradiction in their story.

Continue reading “The Christ-led Ace Attorney” →

encouragement

Millionaire Matchmaker

Adrianna Smith

MM

–>Persistent Prayer<–

What if the richest person in the world came up to you and asked you to ask them for anything you wanted, as long as it followed their morals and standards of living? Note that this rich person is very fond of you in a platonic way and wants to help you with anything, especially your needs. Their wealth is infinite, in the sense that no matter what you ask for their wealth will not be depleted much at all. They will match you up with anything or anyone that you need. Not only do they ask you if you want anything, they want you to ask them for the things you need. What’s even more awesome is you don’t even have to pick up a phone to ask them, you just have to start talking and they’ll hear you.

Most people now-a-days would probably be ecstatic at first about being able to do this. They would make sure they followed the rules of making the request. They would probably love asking daily because since they can see that person, they know who that person is, and trust in what others say about that person’s wealth they have full faith that this person could deliver their requests. Why, then, don’t people feel this giddy about God?

Continue reading “Millionaire Matchmaker” →

encouragement, lessons

Get Your Own Oil!

Adrianna Smith

GYOO

So, you’ve spent a little time trying to approach God. You feel like you know Him and maybe you do. You feel like He’s telling or leading you to do something in your life: start a business, get a degree, get a job, or whatever it is you feel like He’s leading you to do. You’ve told everyone that God has told you to do this thing. You’ve boasted about how awesome the idea is to as many people as you could.

There’s just one problem: it’s been years since He’s told you to do this thing. What’s worse is you haven’t even started doing anything about this idea, maybe at the most you’ve started a facebook page for it. And to make things even worse you procrastinated so long you no longer have time to do this idea or thought God gave you. So, what do you do? You try to get other people to do it for you–and for free too. If you’re doing something like this you need to ask yourself: Why would God give you something just so you could try to force it on someone else’s shoulders?

Continue reading “Get Your Own Oil!” →

lessons, testimony

Knowing who God is

Adrianna Smith

DYKM

Have you ever just talked with someone for years and years and suddenly your relationship with them just blows up in your face? Questions come out about whether this person was ever really for you or if they ever really knew who you were. See, what I’m learning is we can have conversations with people for days, or years even, and find out that they don’t really know and understand who we are and what we are about. The truth is that this person probably never really wanted or tried to understand who you were from the beginning because they might be clinging to whatever preconceived notion they had about you from the beginning. When I see this happen so easily in human relationships, it makes me wonder about our relationship with God. Do we really know Him? Do we really try to learn and understand who He is? Or do we just believe what others have said about Him or our own initial judgments we had about Him?

Continue reading “Knowing who God is” →

lessons

How to love people who hate your guts!

Adrianna Smith

LYE

How do you deal with people who mistreat you? How do you deal with people who use you for their own selfish purposes? How do you deal with people who plot and scheme against you? How do you deal with people who seem to hate you just because you are you? We all know what the Bible says: Love your enemies, right? Well, what exactly does that even look like? How can you love someone who is clearly hell bent on your destruction? When I think on the teachings of Jesus, I always find myself going back to the Old Testament stories. One that really comes to mind where a man hated God’s people for no real good reason was Haman in the story of Esther.

Continue reading “How to love people who hate your guts!” →

encouragement

Just Fire Me, God…

Adrianna Smith

 

JfmG
No, seriously God, just do it. Just end this assignment you’ve put me on right now because there is no way I can do this on my own. How do you even expect me to go through this assignment? Am I even qualified? If I am, I guess I just got all kinds of unqualified because this task seems unbearable and impossible! I thought I was prepared, but now I’m not sure. So, what do we do when God sends us on ‘Mission Impossible’? We believe the impossible can be achieved by Him. Let’s turn to Daniel 3.

Continue reading “Just Fire Me, God…” →