How do you respond

Haven't wrote in here for a long time but I have had a constant statement caught in my head for the past two weeks. It was something my good friend told me about, "how do you respond." This can be taking a lot of different ways but for what is going on in my life I took it like this. Life is filled with actions and response, situations and responses, struggles and responses, tasks and responses, circumstances and responses; its filled with stuff in our lives and responses. The key word in all of this statements is responses. How you respond in things that God places in our life is so important. SO how do you respond?

God's Will is going to be done, whether we like it or not. How do you respond? God is going to call us to to do hard things, how do you respond? God is going to give us blessings and joys, how do you respond? God is going to let trials happen to you, how do you respond? I could go on and on, the point is our response makes us who we are and it also in ways shows who we really are. one of my favorite quotes is from one tree hill, "Because it's only when you're tested that you truly discover who you are. And it's only when you're tested that you discover who you can be. The person that you want to be does exist, somewhere in the other side...of hard work and faith, and belief and beyond the HEARTACHE and fear of what life had." I know that One tree hill doesn't have all the answer but i think they have a point with this quote. God uses stuff all the time to shape us, frame us and sculpt us to who he intends us to be little by little. How do you respond?

There are going to be times where God is going to call you to do something hard, something where you are going to trust him and rely on him. Are you going to fold under the pressure, let fear over come you or trust him. There will be times i fall but thats ok because there is a benefit to trust him. 1Peter 1:8-9. states, You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls. At the end of the day we trust him and thats all we do, well heck look at that, we have salvation and joy. Thats not too bad if you ask me. So again how do you respond?

The beauty of all of this is God is constant, and he will never let you down. He assures us in 1 Corinthians 10:13 saying, All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; He'll never let you be pushed past your limit; He'll always be there to help you come through it. If there is one thing that God is, it is constant so we know we can always rely on him. How do you respond?

In James 1 :2-4 it states, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Now looking at my hard times, trails and struggles in this light it makes me response all the important. Again, how do you respond?

So after look at all this, how i respond is more important than i could have ever known. Also if i know one thing its this, I know that God has nothing but greatness laid in front of me. So why i would i ever choose to respond any other way then a way that would make me better for Jesus or make this world better for Jesus? The thing I need to remember is, my relationship with Jesus isn't for my benefit, it never was. So yet another reason why my response is so important. Our lives are so beneficial for God and his Kingdom, this is easily forgotten in our everyday but yet so important. How do you respond, i guess if i could choose to remember one thing with every respond it would be this, if Jesus isnt the reason what is the purpose? SO one last time, How do you respond?

Romans 12 (message)

Place Your Life Before God

^1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

³I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

^4-6In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.

^6-8If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

^9-10Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

^11-13Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.

^14-16Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down. Get along with each other; don't be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody.

^17-19Don't hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you've got it in you, get along with everybody. Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care of it."

^20-21Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he's thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don't let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.

Psalms 13

¹ How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?

² How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

³ Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;

⁴ my enemy will say, "I have overcome him,"
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

⁵ But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

⁶ I will sing to the LORD,
for he has been good to me.

I Hope to be sharing this with my basketball team here in the near future. God has really put it on my heart. Our team has and continues to be going through tough a season. But what i want to communicated with my team is that God has not turned his back on us. it is actually the complete opposite, he is using these tough times for these tough times to shape us to the people he intends us to be.

²Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. ⁴Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4

What i also want to share with my team is that there is so much more to life then basketball. It is such a huge part of our lives, so when it is going bad it can feel like everything is going bad. We continually forget that we have so many things to be thankful for, we have so many things that we must find joy in. There is such a difference between happiness and joy. We must strive for joy and hope for happiness. happiness is circumstantial, but joy now thats something that is always there.

watch the youtube video below and you will see just how much you have to be thankful for and where joy can come from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Bz_EwHs_Q