Compromise

I don't understand why we are expected to compromise our beliefs; what I really don't understand though is why we allow the expectation to actually cause us to compromise. As Christians we are often expected to compromise who we are and what we believe in because it is offensive and intolerant of sin; sin that many people cling to and do not want to give up. As humans we do our very best to be as selfish as possible, we want what we want when we want it and we want the best of everything; we want to be able to call ourselves Christians and still hold onto as much sinful behavior as possible. We are fallen and sinful and imperfect and we are not capable of being more than that without Christ living within us. God calls us to give up our sinful ways, repent, and follow Him; He doesn't tell us that it's ok to hold on to one or two things that we really can't seem to let go of, in fact those one or two things are where the enemy has the best stronghold and those are the areas we need to give up most.


There is a difference between love and tolerance, we as Christians are called to love all people as Christ loves us we are not called to tolerate sin just as Christ did not tolerate sin. I think we get confused here, many people who are not Christians think that love and tolerance are the same thing, I can completely love someone without encouraging and tolerating sinful behavior. Likewise, it is possible to be tolerant and not love someone at all; in fact I would argue that if you are tolerant then you aren't being loving at all you are being complacent and silent. If we really love people as Christ did we would not want to see them walking on a path that leads straight to hell we would not tolerate that behavior, we would want to save them. We would never be able to see someone we love on this path and just sit back and tolerate it just because they might be offended by us. In the end does it really matter if someone was offended by Christ in you if they were saved because of Christ in you.


Christians are expected to tolerate sin in the world but sin is not tolerant of Christians, no one is condemned for not believing and being a Christian; in fact the culture encourages us to not be Christians. The world loves the humanitarian aspect of Christianity, they love the good parts that are self-serving, they want the smiles and rainbows but when you talk about why we do the things we do when you actually want to share the love that is in your heart that causes you to appear good at all that is discouraged above all. The world wants us to just serve them as much as possible as long as we don't talk about the love of the Lord that is within us. The world wants us to all just "get along" they want us to all become tolerant and complacent.


We are called to offend people, we are called to offend them because of the cross through Him because He says that it is offensive. We have to offend for the right reasons in the right ways though, if people are offended because of Him in us, if they are offended by the cross, if they are offended by Jesus then so be it. We have to be cautious not to offend our of our own fallen nature and sinful ways. We cannot compromise who Jesus is we are either sharing who He is and allowing Him to live within us or we are living in ourselves and representing the enemy, you cannot serve two masters. I just want Him to live within me, I want people to see the love of Christ through me, I want to allow Him to work through me for the good of His Kingdom. I don't want to compromise on the basis of possible offense ever again, if we take away the parts of Jesus that we think might offend someone and water Him down we are only robbing ourselves and those we are trying to reach. You can't water Jesus down, you are either sharing His love and character or you are creating something false completely. You can't have one part of Him and not the rest, it's all or nothing. He desires all of us, He wants us to live for Him completely. He loves us more than we can even comprehend, love people more than they can comprehend, don't compromise just love.


In Christ's Love,
Reed Eden

Change=Growth

I love the thought of change because change means growth and that is always good, not always easy but always good for sure. I love when God puts things in our hands that we think we could never handle, things we never thought we could do; yet through Him anything is possible and He loves to use us in our weakness. Change causes us to step out of our comfort zones and reevaluate our lives or some aspect of it, we don't always enjoy this time because it means we can't just run on auto-pilot we actually have to think about what we are doing. We don't always enjoy a challenge when it means our own lives are being challenged down to the very core of who we are and what we believe.


The enemy loves these times of challenge and change because they produce moments of weakness and instability in our hearts and minds that may not be there on a regular basis. He loves to use these times to plant seeds of doubt and fear and unbelief in our hearts, it's our job to rely on God alone and not allow those seeds to take root and spread in our hearts and souls. These times are also some of the biggest times of spiritual growth and depth because we are more reliant on God than ever. It's amazing to watch and see how God can use any situation for His good in the end, He can take anything you offer Him and make it work for His Kingdom. The biggest, dumbest mistakes in our lives can turn into the most monumental victories for Him, the story of something going from worst to best because of God is a story of triumph and a powerful testimony of His immense love for His children.


The valleys in life, the low moments, the times when you feel like your whole world is falling apart around you and you don't know what to do except throw up your hands and cry out to God; He loves those times because you are finally completely reliant on Him. The goal is to learn and grow from these experiences so that you realize that God will always take care of you, you can always rely on Him, no matter how terrible things seem He has a plan and it will work for the good. What seems like an eternity to us is the blink of an eye in the scheme of things, just remember when you are in your lowest moments that God will get you through it and you will look back and think what a small insignificant amount of time it actually was.


I really hate how I allow myself to become stressed about things of this world, I allow myself to lean on my own understandings and in my insufficiency I can't seem to find the answers, I am struggling to stay above water, and really all I need to do is rely on Him. When I rely on Him I find myself filled with peace in the most stressful situations that would have normally caused me to feel like the end of the world was near, God works best in our lives when we put our faith and hope in Him alone. Don't put your hope in this or that specific thing happening, put your hope in His faithfulness, His goodness, His love because those things never fail and in the end those things have your best interests at heart. When we put our hope in things or actions that are dependent on our will and human nature we are almost always disappointed but when we put our hope in Him and depend on Him and His will we can never be disappointed because we only want what He has for us, even if we don't always understand it.


It is a daily struggle to put this kind of faith in Him, I am a planner, I like to know all the answers, I like to know all the variables so I can create the best possible plan of action. God has really been working on me and giving up that illusion of control because I don't know everything, I don't have all the answers, in fact I don't have any of the answers. He told me there will be obstacles in my life and I don't need to know what they are because if I know I will just try to solve them, He wants my complete faith not my flawed plans and ideas. So I'm doing my best every day to patiently wait upon Him, His timing, His will, and to not let my faith waiver. I have to remind myself all the time that He will handle it and everything will be ok, I start to get nervous when I don't see certain things falling into place when I think they should, God isn't on my time constraints and I have to quit trying to put Him into my boxes of possibility.


Change causes growth and increases our faith and strength in Him. So, I love change, it's not always fun or easy when I'm going through it but the Lord comes through like He promises, like He always does. He never fails me and I look back and laugh at the things I worried about, I laugh at the stress I placed on myself. I have to remind myself, this is God we are talking about not any one of a million people in my life that either have or will disappoint me; He never fails, He is perfect! Thank you Father for being the one thing we can always count on, the one thing that never changes, never fails, always loves, always protects, thank you for being you. Forgive me for being me in my fallen, imperfect, human, sinful nature. Help me to rely more and more on you and less and less on myself. I pray for your will to be mine and your heart to be mine, I want only what you have for me even when it's not easy, even when I can't plan it all out, even when I don't have any of the answers. I put my faith and hope in you alone. I love you Father!


In Christ's Love,
Reed Eden

The Church Is Not A Building

So, I know this is something you have all heard a million times probably; the church isn't a building that you go to on Sundays, the church is the body of believers. We all know this except we don't live this way, that's why we don't like church, that's why people say things like "I don't need to go to church as long as I have a personal relationship with God". Church is supposed to be so much more, and so much less, than this institution we have created, I think this is why I have such a negative image of large churches. It's great that a church's numbers grow and they are blessed with more and more people attending, why are they really there though. I think if we are really honest with ourselves we would see that most of the church consists of consumers and spectators who happily sit on the sidelines taking what they like and criticizing the rest. I have definitely been a part of both of the aforementioned groups, on some level I wasn't even aware of it.

Let's be honest it makes us feel good to go to church on Sunday, somehow that make us feel like we can check God off of our to do list for the rest of the week. We listen to a sermon about how much He loves us (and He does) and it make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Every once in a while there is a convicting sermon or two in there where you leave either making a decision to change, that will likely last a day or two at best, or you criticize the Pastor because you don't like feeling convicted, I don't know how that was ever enough for me. Satan loves these kind of Christians because in their hearts they are serving satan and on the outside they are proclaiming the name of Christ, all we really are in that case is servants of satan that call ourselves Christians and cause others around them to receive a wrong image of what the church and Christians are supposed to look like. We can't serve two masters, you love one and hate the other, regardless of what you say the truth is in your heart.

I really don't like to bash the church, I think we have all heard a lot of this and in a lot of ways we know what the problems are. I also believe that there are a lot deeper issues going on that no one is talking about, we are talking about the outside of the bowl when the inside is filthy and that's where we eat from. So, I really feel like what I am saying isn't just complaining about things that I can't or won't change, I'm not complaining about anything actually, I just want to see the church get remotely close to the way God intended it.

The church is supposed to be a community, a community of believers in Christ that strive everyday to walk with Him. People that know that they are sinners in need of a savior and they live like it everyday. It doesn't mean we don't make mistakes, we are definitely still sinners, we just put our everything into loving our Creator and living for Him in obedience. I have a dream of church being all around us, that you can go to your neighbors house and that's church just as much as the buildings we go to now because God dwells in us not in the building. I believe God really does meet us when we seek Him, I want to constantly and consistently seek Him and His presence. I want to see us live with people who challenge us daily to go deeper in our relationships with Him, people that build us up, people that love one another. I want to see Christ in the people that profess to be Christians, including myself. I don't want to be lukewarm, I want to be held accountable even when it's not easy, especially when it's not easy.The church should be the community we live in.

Can you imagine really living out the things you read about in the Bible, every single day. I always used to feel like church was a history lesson, and in a lot of ways it is, it's also prophetic and current and alive. I just can't imagine ever trying to live this half way, it's just not possible, you're either all in or your not. I want to see people loving, serving, and honoring each other on more than Sunday mornings. I don't want to put on a happy face for church service and pretend to be something I'm not, I want to be myself, an imperfect sinner who struggles every single day. I want to be held accountable in areas of weakness and hold others accountable in their areas of weakness too. The church should be more of a support network for people who want to live Christ centered lives. The church could spend a lot more time and money reaching out if we were living as a community together all the time because we would be stronger in Him.

I just pray for the church as a whole to become the community.

In Christ's Love,

Reed Eden

Faith Is Often Mistaken For Insanity

I suppose this shouldn't really surprise us, I mean the Bible tells us several times that the world will think we are foolish and crazy for our faith and beliefs. It's just so funny to me that the world sees me as crazy because I rely on the Creator of the universe. I guess the real problem is that they just don't believe in Him or the cross, if any of the scientists were given the opportunity to talk to the creator of the entire universe they would jump at the opportunity. The funny part is that they do have that opportunity they just choose not to believe in Him, they choose to lean on their own understanding.


Even though I grew up as a Christian and always believed God existed there were definitely times in my life where I had my doubts, doubts I allowed the enemy to sneak into my thoughts. I recognize that tactic now and I don't have any doubt in my mind that not only does God exist, He is complete control. It's ironic the same people who claim not to believe in God at all are the first one to blame Him when anything bad in this world happens. God gave us free will and with that we all choose to be sinners, God doesn't stop us from doing terrible things to ourselves and others because He gave us the free will to choose right from wrong, good from evil, etc. That doesn't mean that He doesn't offer us a way out, and He can use everything for His good in the end, no matter what they enemy tries to use for evil God can change it to be for His good.


I don't really care if people think I am crazy, I suppose by the world standards I am a little crazy but that's ok with me. I actually don't want people to just think I am the same as everyone else, I want people to say I am different, I want people to say I am foolish. I am not so concerned with the labels but the Bible does say that followers of Him will be called these things so I am more than ok with that. I am not striving to simply be called crazy that would be easily achieved and not beneficial, I actually could care less what people call me or say about me, well I try not to care about it anyways.


The point is people think that it is completely insane to put all of your hope and trust into something that is unseen, to the world you are just crossing your fingers, closing your eyes, jumping off a cliff, and hoping that there is something at the bottom to catch you. The difference is I'm not just blindly jumping off a cliff, I am jumping off with my faith placed firmly in the promises of the Lord. I am not just crossing my fingers, I am praying, seeking His will, reading the Word, and making decisions based on His will for my life not my own because this is not my life it's His. I can see why this seems insane to someone who doesn't believe, to them they look down at the bottom of that cliff and they see rocks and low tide and danger; I look down the cliff and I see the open arms of my Father waiting to catch me and put me exactly where He wants me to be, but I have to jump first. It's such a different and completely amazing way to live your life when you put your faith in the one thing that will never ever fail you; to put your faith in the one thing that always has your best interests at heart even when you can't see it or understand it.


So maybe you call it insanity, I call it faith.


In Christ's Love,
Reed Eden

No Such Thing As Good People

There are no good people in the whole world, there is not one single person who is good. Only God is good, only the reflection of Him in us is good. The world has such skewed definitions of good and evil, right and wrong, and unfortunately a lot of that misguidance spills over to Christians as well. How many times have you heard the statement "Well, I'm a good person." people love to determine their own goodness, it's not ours to determine because the only goodness we have is His. We think that being a worldly definition of good will make us closer to God and it doesn't, we don't understand why we can never be good enough. We can't ever be good enough because we are not good at all; only God is good and we cannot even begin to fathom what His goodness looks like; we can only allow Him to live within us and reflect His goodness through us.


The world has a definition of good and evil, right and wrong that is completely different than the real Godly definitions. These worldly definitions make exceptions for evil and wrong and put them into the good and right categories or into a grey area. We say that certain sin is allowed in certain situations and it will no longer be wrong. We allow people that we define as mostly good to commit evil acts and not be held accountable because they are mostly good by our standards. We say it's ok to lie if you are sparing someone's feelings, it's ok to murder someone if they killed someone you love, it's ok to be deceitful if it gets you something that you are 'entitled' to. These things are not right they are not good, no matter how you look at it lying, deceit, murder, sin, none of it is good, none of those words would be used to describe God, who is in fact the definition of good.


The problem is some where along the line we decided that we were capable of creating our own definitions, we were convinced by the lies of the enemy to allow for changes in good and evil to allow for grey areas. We cannot allow for grey areas, God does not ever say something is only a little sinful or only sometimes sinful. God defines good and evil, right and wrong, it is not our job or our right to make these determinations. This goes back to the fact that He is the creator, imagine if you created something and then someone told you that it wasn't correct they thought it would be more beneficial to change certain things about it. I'm sure a lot of us have received criticism like this before, but what if that same person didn't just tell you they disagreed but actually just made changes to your creation without your permission. This may have also happened to you before, I promise if you have ever experienced this it was not a joyful experience, it most likely upset you greatly. How much more does God have a right to make these determinations about His own creations. I only want His will, His goodness, His love to reflect through me. I don't want to make decisions on my own because I am not my own, I am His and His alone.


So, I'm not a good person and neither are you, there is good in me though, His name is Jesus Christ and He lives inside of me. When you see goodness in me, praise Him, give Him the glory for it is only Him in me that causes anything good. I am but a sinner without His love, mercy, grace, joy, and goodness; with those things I am a daughter, a bride, loved, and His goodness reflects through me. I am but only the vessel that He would choose to use me, love me, love you.


My your goodness radiate from my heart all the days of my life, I love you Lord!


In Christ's Love,
Reed Eden

YES! Woman

It is so ridiculous when I think about how much the world around me controls what I do, how I do it, when I do something, why I do it, and who I do something for. Think about it, how often do you let what someone else MIGHT think affect your actions? I know I don't think I do it that often but, if I am really honest with myself I do it a lot more than I realize. I am not always consciously thinking about others around me; that's even worse to me though, that means I have been doing it for so long that it's just natural, it means that sometimes I don't even realize I am doing it. The first thing I want to do is ask the Lord to make me more aware of these thoughts and actions or lack thereof. 

How many times have you ever wanted to do something but you don't, you hold back, all because someone MIGHT think you are different or crazy or heaven forbid one of those Christians! I keep emphasizing the word might because a lot of what holds us back isn't even the people around us, often it is our own minds and the enemy. We let the possibility of negative reactions stop us from acting at all, so maybe we need to also ask the Lord to help us not always think the worst of people, to help us to not assume their thoughts and feelings. I am not saying that we should never consider where we are and who we are with, nor am I saying that we should just act without any consideration of the possible consequences. I am saying that we should ask for the Lord's direction, if He asks us to do something then nothing else matters except our obedience to Him. If the Lord asks you to do something you can trust that it will work out according to His plans and His good.

Sometimes I am just scared; I just allow fear itself to creep in and stop me, a lot of times I don't even know what I am afraid of. A few minutes later I will reflect on the situation and realize I had nothing to be afraid of, I often find that it's the moments when God wants to do the most amazing things that I am most afraid to step out. I have to remind myself that He is in control, He is trustworthy, He will not let me fall if I step out in faith. This doesn't mean that things are always going to go perfectly the way YOU envision them in your mind, remember these are God's plans not yours; expect Him to show up don't limit how He shows up. People are still people and they may react negatively you can't control that but you can control your actions and reactions. The point is to not allow the fear of being mocked or scorned or laughed at keep you from obeying Him.

I want to be a YES! Woman, when the Lord wants to use me I want to answer Him with an unwavering YES!. I don't want to question His judgement and direction, I do want to seek Him and His will, I do want to make sure that I am obeying Him and that I am not being deceived. I would never suggest to blindly act on something that you are having trouble discerning where it came from, don't use this as an excuse either though. I just want to be the kind of woman that seeks wholeheartedly after His heart, His will, His plans, I want to know Him so intimately that my heart becomes His heart and my thoughts become His thoughts. 

Lord, give me the wisdom and discernment to know your voice and obey, to say yes whenever you call, to love those around me without discrimination, trust you completely that I would never again fear the things of this world, that I would not be controlled by it, that I would not allow the enemy to have any power over my thoughts or my actions. Lord, I ask that when I hear and do not obey, when I allow the world to make my decisions, when I am fearful, when I give in to the enemy and his lies, I pray that I quickly repent and ask for your forgiveness and mercy. Thank you Father for being always faithful, trustworthy, and loving. I love you with all my heart!

I want to be a 'YES WOMAN', when God says go, do, jump, run, give, LOVE...I want to just say YES, not why, just YES! Lord, give me the courage to just say yes, no matter what that looks like to the world. I love HIM!

In Christ's Love,
Reed Eden

Offend Me Please

I came to the revelation this weekend that we not only need to be offended but should desire such offense. This is not meant to come from a hateful place or to be birthed from the enemy in anyway. The word does talk about how people will be offended by it; people will be offended by Christians. In John 6:60-70 the disciples are grumbling and Jesus asks if they are offended, He goes on to explain that the flesh is nothing and what He is offering is the spirit who gives life. So even Jesus offended His disciples with truth of the Spirit and we are called to live like Christ lived, for He lives within us.

One of the definitions of offend says:  to cause difficulty, discomfort, or injury. Obviously, I am not referring to injury; I am referring to being uncomfortable or finding things difficult to deal with. I know that I am a sinner, every day I sin, because of the cross and what Jesus did for me on it I am washed clean through His blood and repentance. Just because we know that we are sinners, that we are imperfect; we should not feel comfortable with that sin, it should be something we are weeding more and more out of our lives every day. If we don't continuously weed out the sin from our gardens then we will never produce fruit because it will constantly be overtaken, choked out, and destroyed by the weeds of sin. 

I want to be offended on a daily basis, by the word, in prayer, from other believers. I want to continue to grow constantly and if I am not being offended by sin then I am the same as I was yesterday and for me that's not acceptable. Like I have said before I am by no means perfect so although I do my best to strive to be different every day that doesn't mean I actually do it all the time; there are plenty of days I am exactly the same or worse than the day before. Things of God will offend us when we are in sin, when there is sin in our heart and we feel convicted about that sin we feel offended as well. It makes us uncomfortable to admit sin and acknowledge that it exists in our own lives; it is difficult to accept discipline from the Father or be held accountable from a fellow Christian. 

No one likes to be told they are wrong, or they have made a mistake, or any other negative thing for that matter. I think the goal here has to be not to think of these things in a negative light, we need to recognize that if we are offended in this way we are in fact growing in Christ and that should over joy us. If we offend one another it should be in the way that Jesus offended the disciples by teaching truth through the spirit, there is a way to cause offense that Jesus would never do, I think we have all been offended in this way before. Sin should be so offensive to us that we just can't stand but to make a change in ourselves to get it out of the way of our relationship with Him. 

Sometimes people are offended in the wrong way too, sometimes people allow themselves to be offended by things they do not understand. I am guilty of this type of offense too, I have been offended by people who act in ways I do not understand at the time as well as I'm sure I have offended others in this way. This happens a lot with moves of the Holy Spirit, many people just do not understand what is going on, they don't believe that what they are seeing is genuine; they don't understand why it isn't happening to them if it is real. This is especially true in manifestations of the Holy Spirit; when people see others shaking, convulsing, laughing uncontrollably, falling on the floor, being healed, they immediately think it is ridiculous and are caught in unbelief. I was one of these people previously, I didn't believe in this kind of thing and I definitely didn't understand it. 

When you finally let your guard down and just say yes to the Spirit and allow Him to move in you, no matter what it looks like, you will know that these things are very much real. It doesn't mean we will all experience the Holy Spirit in such outwardly dramatic ways, but even if it doesn't look like that on the outside it will feel like that on the inside. He wants to encounter us with a fresh touch of His love and in a new way, to renew our love and passion for Him, we just have to say yes and let Him move in ANY way He wants to. I think, actually I know, you will find that if you let go of your expectations of how, why, when, what, etc; if we just expect Him to move, that is exactly what He will do. When we put Him in a box and wait for Him to come into our box of expectations He may never show up because you are waiting for your way instead of seeking His.

In Christ's Love,
Reed Eden