Those words are not enough.

There is a God who loves me

Who wraps me in His arms

And that is the place where I'm changed

And that's where I belong

I have a focus and it's to be where I belong. This is not putting myself on some sort of high horse above others, it's simply me doing what is best for me right now. I know I am disappointing some people, I know I'm letting people down. I know some people miss me. I know some people think I've changed, I'm different, I'm not who I used to be. You know what? You're right, sorry. I can only wish that if you guys care about me as much as you say you do, that you'd just accept me, support, and encourage me. I pray that you just simply be a true friend to me. I'm realizing more and more to start taking my life a little more on the serious side. It's not always supposed to fun and games, and talking about wanting to do things. Empty words are not enough, and it's about time I put them to action. I've been changing again lately, mostly mentally. My attitude is different, and I'm getting geared in a whole new direction. I've been making changes these last couple weeks, and all started at the advice of one of my closest friends. It's completely taken off from there.The bottom line is that it's in Him, where I belong. It's doing His work, following Him, in His arms that is where things happen for me; it's where I belong in. If home is where the heart is then home is where You are and it's where I'll be. I'm sorry if not hanging out, or I don't talk to you as much. I'm sorry if I act differently. I miss my friends, but I feel God trying to get me be alone for a while. I feel I need to grow severely, and unfortunately I can't do it unless I'm alone. Alone with Him, spending time with my Father. I can't always be dependent on my friends to get me through things, but I have a dire need to be fully dependent on Him. I pray that for all of you. That we all grow a dire dependency on Him. I pray that we start to act upon those empty words we utter often, because honestly those words are not enough.

my prayer for all of us.

with love,
- Adam

Trademark

From the inside out.
I named my blog from the inside out with good reason, it is the very cry of my heart. As I dwell on that thought, I try to think what it truly means to me. Why is it the cry of my heart? It's what I need. I pray daily that the Lord consumes me from the inside out. That He sets this heart of mine ablaze with a passion that oozes out of every crevice of me and pours out to the world. But, what does it mean for God to consume from the inside out? What does it mean for anything to consume us from the inside out?

Well every thing that we pour out, every thing that we do, it all stems from the inside, our souls. We act upon how we feel and what we believe inside. That is why I pray daily that God consumes me from the inside out. It can't be any other way. We can't be true good Christians, if God isn't consuming us. If He isn't at our heart constantly, we're going to act out of our ambitions and not out of His will.

It isn't easy though, to allow God to consume you from the inside out. It's a battle to fight your selfish desires and the trouble of life to stay focused at all times. Some times we pray, God consume me, fill my cup. Sigh, fill my cup; how I beg Him to fill my cup. The problem, my cup isn't clean. So He fills my cup constantly but I got smudges and dirt in my cup, that ruin His filling. It's no wonder that I screw up often. It's no wonder that we all fall constantly. We need to work to wipe our cup clean, and keep it clean. When we accept Him in to our hearts, He wiped our cup squeaky clean. Then we dirty our cups over and over, as we beg, fill it up please. What good is it going to do to fill it up with something so precious, in a cup that needs to be wiped clean again. We got to wipe the cup clean, well ask Him to wipe it and help us keep it clean.

Consume me Lord, but I'm going to go do this too. Consume me Lord, but I plan on doing that today. What are we doing? We have a precious cup in our body, the more we fill it up with nonsense, how much is it going to help when we try to mix Him in there. He wants nothing to do with our nonsense, it just doesn't blend. No wonder, most people have such intense internal struggles. Keep our bodies, our cup, clean! So when we ask Him to fill our cup, we need to be asking to remove the things that dirty our cups and corrupt what He is trying to fill. He needs to be the only thing that consuming us from the inside out. When He isn't the only thing being poured in, He isn't going to be the only thing poured out. I'm not sure about you, but I want nothing but my life to testify Him. That is why this is my prayer, the cry of my heart and soul; that He be the only thing to consume from the inside out.


However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. - Acts 20:24


with love,
- Adam

My heart and my soul, I give You control
Consume me from the inside out, Lord
Let justice and praise become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Everlasting
Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending
Your glory goes beyond all fame

And the cry of my heart
Is to bring You praise
From the inside out
Lord, my soul cries out

I must have done something right

I must have done something right? Pssh nope, not in the least bit. I don't deserve a bit of any blessing. None of us do, but yet He blesses us anyways. I'd like to share a quick story that happened to me today. I was exchanging texts with a friend of mine. We were speaking about an upcoming mission trip to Costa Rica that we're going on in June. I simply just asked him if he got my deposit money that I had turned in. That's when God decided to show me His love and faithfulness. My friend responds back with yeah and someone donated 200 for you. I didn't believe it. Wow! I began to cry and thank Him. I'm not sure who or why anybody would donate money to me, yet alone $200. That is such a huge blessing. I wish I could thank and hug whoever that kind soul is. But most of all, I wish I could hug God so tight right now. Thank You so much! It's ironic, because just the night before I was talking with a close friend of mine about the trip. I was just sharing on how bad I need money right now, mainly because of the trip. We've been praying about it for weeks in our small group. I have maintained and will continue to uphold it, that God will provide. I have about $170 in my checking account right now, I'm waiting on a chunk of money that I'm supposed to receive, and I'm still looking for a job. I haven't received income since January. Honestly, we could say I'm strapped for cash, but I've maintained I know God has got me covered. I have continued to say I'm not sure how, but I know it's going to get done and it'll be because of Him. So hearing that news today simply proved how faithful He is. To those that call upon Him, He is there listening, and He will provide what is needed. It's tough sometimes to see that, let alone believe He can be so faithful; but He is beyond our imagination and comprehension. He is Lord, He is all, He is sovereign, He is amazing! I don't deserve His faithful, but yet He pours it on me. Though striving, I am no where near as faithful as He deserves, yet it doesn't stop Him from being faithful to me. Seriously the joy and tears are beyond explanation right now. Thank You, and all the praise and glory to You. Thank you, whoever you are, that out of the kindness of their heart saw a need and decided to meet it. I pray God pours the blessing in return to you, in more than abundant ways. I truly this was not just some random coincidence, but rather a display of my God. You want proof that God is real, alive, and true? Then look no further than the events of my life and what He just did today alone. It's tough to think what did I do to deserve it, and honestly I did nothing but accept Him as Lord of my life. A decision that in reality, He allowed me to make. So all the praise be to Him! Wow!

with love,
- Adam

hope for every fallen man.

This kind of a continuation of the last blog, it's just some side thoughts. On the subject of falling into sin. Something I was really struggling with was keeping on my toes and staying in the armor of God. It is so easy to fall, and so easy to get distracted when we aren't being firm and keeping that armor on at all times. I've spoken with a few friends about the armor of God, and even watched a few videos here and there. I've come to realization on how crucial the armor of God is. How vital it is to remain firm at all times, so that we don't fall. This is something that definitely deserves its own detailed post; that I'll post on eventually. But for now a little encouragement, remain firm and fight to stay in Him. The battle we face as Christians is a non-stop daily continual attack in the spiritual warfare realm. But when we remain truly in Him, where or better yet how can we fall?

Ephesians 6:10-17

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

14 Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

with love,

- Adam

Fallen Man

The following is an excerpt from something I'm piecing together.

* "Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul." - 1 Peter 2:11*

Abstain from sinful desires? Resisting the temptation of sin & flesh? Now that is a lot easier said than done. How easy is it for us to go around saying, don't give in, just fight it. I don't care what you're dealing with, it is not easy to just walk away from temptations; I mean c'mon they're just so tempting. But it is clear, we are urged to abstain from those sinful desires. Why? They wage war against your soul. That sounds just crazy, but it is true. We are going to face these temptations and situations throughout the day and daily, but we must resist. Besides the fact the God commands us not to sin, but the sin has consequences. So many consequences to our sin, that we may, including myself, not even be aware of. Trust me, I fall short consistently, but the more I fall, the more I realize the effects and affects. I see how by not fighting through things, that the effects are obvious. They affect me. They change my mood. They change my desire. They change my mindset. They change my everything. Sin leaves you feeling ashamed, unworthy, disgusting, and just flat out terrible. Which in result causes you to be discouraged and down. Because of that, then sin leaves you vulnerable to falling more to more sin. It's like a chain reaction. Starts here, then there, then back there, then over there, and you're left falling apart to pieces. All the while fighting to get your feet back firm in Him. That seems like a lot of chaos to go through just because why not right? See sin really does wage war against your soul; I personally like to think it eats away at you. It's why we are urged to stay away from those sinful desires and fight them. 

But like I said it's not easy though. Well, especially not easy to do on our own. We absolutely can't do it on our own. So how do we get past and abstain from those sinful desires. The answer is found in Galatians.

* "So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." - Galatians 5:16*

If we are walking by the Spirit, we will not fall. That again is hard, but so possible when we remain in Him, when we depend and rely purely on Him. That's the key, that's how we truly walk by the Spirit. When everything is on Him, it makes everything possible. It can't just be a sometimes thing or a part time thing, it needs to be a full time, nonstop, all day, every day, twice on Sunday thing. We need to be living, breathing, serving Him that will keep us from gratifying the flesh. When we take the focus off of us, and place it on Him and only Him, then does it become easier to bypass the flesh. We actually seem to forget about it, because we are so consumed in Him. 

That is my goal to make everything that was about me, now about Him. He is it, He is all there is.

* "However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace." - Acts 20:24*

with love as always,

- Adam

the last, the lost, the least.

Break my heart for what breaks Yours. Help me realize how much You love me, and truly blessed I am. Help me see the things I take for granted. Open my eyes to truly see the need of this city. Humble me and break me to depend on You. Give me boldness to proclaim Your name and show Your love. Mission accomplished. So many emotions running through my veins, and so many thoughts circulating my head. I feel crushed. I can't seem to produce a genuine smile right now because I can't possibly be happy having seen what I saw. I was scared to take that step forward, and serve Him, but I decided I needed to start walking. Too often I say I want to do this or I need to do that, it's about time I just go. The last few days I have been finding the courage to start going through with what the God's put on my heart. It hit a peak Tuesday night when I went through by going with my small group, that I meet with on Tuesday nights, to go downtown to feed the homeless. 

What a truly humbling, heartbreaking experience. We made a ton of pb&j's in little baggies to hand out along with a cold bottle of water, a devotional book, and a card with information where they can go get free food, showers, clothes, and a church service. Such a great opportunity to go show the love of Christ. We are the body of Christ, we are His arms and feet; but how are we doing the body justice, if we aren't reaching and moving to people for Christ. To see the faces of these people as we handed them these things is a lesson we can all take to heart. The display of sincere gratitude and appreciation for us taking time to reach out to them broke my heart. I realize how much I take for granted. I saw my selfishness on a whole new level that had been unseen before.

I got the opportunity to sit down with one of the guys who managed to strike a conversation with one of the homeless we were feeding. This man he was talking to was named Juan. He was 57 years old and has been homeless for about 7 years he told us. I'm not sure on how the conversation I just saw that he was taking advantage of the window of opportunity he was being given and I felt to come in too. We were able to start talking about Christ with this man. Unfortunately, this man's heart had been so hardened towards Christ that he began insulting Christ and everything He stands for. I don't blame him though, honestly. Unfortunately, some people proclaiming Christ and proclaiming wanting to help were also doing some questionable things I'd rather not share, but it ranged from substance abuse to sexual abuse of the homeless people. This man's family had been directly affected by these people abusing the homeless. This angered me as to how could someone abuse and tarnish the name of Christ by doing such things and being such hypocrites. This man was so convinced that Christ was such a coward, and wasn't anything worthy, let alone the Son of God. We tried to convince this man otherwise, and that we were different. That those people were false teachers and lacked a true intimate relationship with Christ, and we were there to show the true love of Christ to him because He loves us and him too. We tried to show him that just because you can proclaim the name doesn't mean anything unless you had a real relationship with Him. That real relationship is when actions and attitudes start to change and you set off on a path to become more Christ-like. We told him that our Jesus truly loves him and we did too. That the real Jesus Christ is the Son of God who sacrificed Himself because He loved us. It made no sense to this man, as to why then things so terrible had happened in his life; which in turn allowed us to shed light on God's sovereignty and how He has reasons for everything. I began to share parts of my life with this man that were my darkest, toughest times and similar times of those around me, and how none of it made sense to me either. That it wasn't    asked if we could pray for him and his family, and both of us prayed hard for this man. We again began to just chit chat as we waited to get picked up. Luckily, this man did show true gratefulness for us taking time to come show him love. 

This all was such a humbling experience. It was also eye-opening to realize something new for me to think about to share with you guys. I hope we can realize how important the name we carry daily is. That name Christ is no joke. When we carry that name people watch us. Whether people care to admit or not, they are dying to see if there truly is a hope out there in Christ. Unfortunately, that name, Jesus Christ, gets tarnished time and time again. Tarnished by people who claim the name but fail to walk the walk of Christ. This shows how important and vital it is for us to live for Christ. To constantly, walk in such a way that those who don't know Christ will come to know Him by the way we act and talk. That when people look into our hearts, they see the heart of Christ in us. It is a huge responsibility that we accept when we accept Him into our lives. We are called to live for Him, and every time we fail, we hurt that testimony for Him. So be aware of what we do and say, because we never know who is watching or listening. And those instances might be the only glimpse of Christ people get to see, so carry it right.

All in all, such an amazing experience. None of it would've been possible without Christ though. He gave us the strength and love to go out there and show His love. He is the reason we reach out, He is the reason for everything. As much as my heart breaks knowing what goes in my city, I also leave with a new perspective of gratitude for Christ. He is such a key part in my life. Every blessing I have is because of Him and His love for me. I spent the entire day heartbroken, but now while still heartbroken, I now have a greater love and appreciation for Christ. Now that brings tears and a true smile to my face. He is so amazing, so great, so loving, so merciful, so faithful, so powerful, so caring, just so perfect. I thank God for being God to me. I pray this all can be a new springboard for me to reach a whole new level in Him. I seek to become that much firmer in Him because He is perfect in everything. I pray the same for all of you. I ask that we strive to carry that name right, and that we also keep people like Juan and the fellow homeless in our prayers. There is such a great need and desperation for Christ in our city and its people. I pray that God does something great here, and I can already see it taking form. Now I pray that we all have the boldness and courage to step up and follow Him. I urge you guys along with myself to let's go and follow Him. I truly wanted to share this with you guys, not for any of my glory but for the glory of Christ. I don't care to show, oh look at me doing Christ things, but rather what Christ is doing in my life and the lives around us. Christ be with us all daily.

with love as always,

-adam

Hoopes I did it again.

"I'm delivered, but it doesn't seem right
unless I keep my eyes focused on the savior who gave his life"
- devotion by Hillsong United



It's hard to remember that you have been delivered, redeemed, and forgiven when you struggle everyday and fail consistently. But though it is difficult, it is not impossible. 


I know firsthand how easy it to fall and keep falling. To feel that you're stuck. That no matter what you seem to do you can't seem to progress or grow. That feeling of every time you take a step forward you take two steps backwards. It stinks, actually it's terrible. And what I think the worst part of it all is that you can't understand it. You don't want to be in it, but you can't helped but get sucked in deeper. It's like quicksand; the more you move and try, the more you sink. You want to get back but you can't. You feel yourself losing grip and slipping away, and it just makes no sense to you.


Well, allow me to explain and clarify a bit as to why we get these struggles. It all comes down to our focus. We consume ourselves with these struggles because our focus is on us and the current struggles, which will only lead you to more struggles. When we struggle, we can't focus on ourselves and the struggles. We need to focus on the One who can get us out of the struggle. We need to adjust that focus on Him and keep it there. I have found this helpful to me lately, many times. When I notice myself stuck, rather than pouting, I question myself as to what am I doing. And I quickly realize I am being selfish keeping my focus on myself and those problems. My Dad deserves my focus, and it is selfish of me not to give it to Him. When I understand that, and make adjustments, I begin to realize that I am also conquering my struggles through Him. When I shift my focus back to God, I remember that I am redeemed. I remember that I am no longer bound to sin, but freed and strengthen in Him to overcome it. He is greater than our afflictions. His glory is greater than our struggles. He overcame this world and His love needs to overwhelm are selfishness so we can too.



It's all easier said than done though right? Yeah unfortunately, but don't quit. Keep striving, remain steadfast to push through. Let Him be the fuel to the engine that gets us through the strife. I think that is a perfect depiction of what needs to be the case of our lives. We are like engines, or vessels better yet. How we move is affected by what we inject ourselves with to get us going. If our focus is on things of this world, or the problems we face striving after those things, then we have the answer why we aren't getting very far. Now if our strive is after Him first, how far are we going to go? The answer is found in Matthew 6:33 - "Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need." When He is our central focus, when our lives revolve around seeking Him, then everything we need will be given to us. That includes all the strength, courage, wisdom, and love to get through the things going on. It is a must to remind ourselves all day and every day to do this. So we are constantly being reminded to keep Him first, and constantly dying to self. They go hand in hand. In order to seek Him first, we need to die to ourselves and our selfishness. This is possible, very possible. Life and it's problems are hard. We are going to fall at times, but understand that we are stronger than we think when we adjust our focus to where it belongs. I hope this helps some that are stuck in constant failings and feel discouraged. I encourage you, you can do it through him. Philippians 4:13 - "I can do all things through Him who gives me strength."

Forgiven

At the cross, with three words, he did one thing, to allow one thing, all because of another three words.

At the cross, He said it is done when He died for us so He could save us because He loves us. The cross is amazing; amazing in the sense, that something so gruesome and sad did something so loving and beautiful that we can now celebrate. For me, the thought of the cross breaks me to pieces inside. It allows me to see the love He displayed, which in consequence allows me to grow an even deeper love and appreciation for Him and what He did. I could go on and on about the cross, because as a Christian it is the central focus of my faith. It is the reason I can have a relationship with my Dad. If my life isn't cross-centered, if my life isn't laid down at the cross, then what am I doing and where is my faith at? Everything I enjoy, every thing is because of what was done for me and you at the cross. That's why everything about our lives needs to be cross-centered. It needs be to our central focus because with our lives focused on the cross it'll enable us to keep Him constantly at our attention. It is also vital to know He tore the veil. He made that bridge connection we needed to get to God our Father, so that we may have that direct line for a relationship. And we all know how much that relationship brings through Him. So that is why the cross is so crucial; it's why I enjoy my freedom and salvation. The cross is why I'm forgiven. The beauty of being forgiven, just shows His mercy, grace, and love for us. And not because we deserve any of it, simply because He love us. I'm forgiven because of His love shown at the cross.