It’s Not About Me

God Gold of the day

‘All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. (Verse 3)

He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. ‘ (Verse 4-5)

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Tuesday on the God Gold we took a look at some big-time truth! We learned, as it states in verse 3, God is the source of all comfort. We saw areas in our lives where we seek out comfort in the other options the world offers us, in “things.” We took inventory of those “things” we seek for comfort and see when compared to the comfort God gives us, these “things” we use for comfort horizontally in this world are no match to the One whom we seek after vertically which is God. Thank the Lord for giving us Himself, the greatest and only source of true, everlasting comfort in our lives.

Today, we see “why does God comfort us?”

The answer is simple, it’s the same reason we endure suffering for the name of Christ. OTHERS!!!!

I know, it doesn’t sound too appealing right? I thought God was here to comfort us in our troubles solely for “ME.” Well, that’s just not true. Our comfort comes from God so it is never ours in the first place. We receive God’s comfort as we go through different trials and struggles in our daily lives not just so we can have a comfortable life, a “blessed” life. God is always up to so much more than we could ever imagine, God is always at work in our lives to the beat of His drum and not our own. God is simply doing more through our lives than we can see in the current moment. What we see as a struggle in our life, others see the same thing because they too face struggles. If you’re a breathing human being on this earth, chances are certain that you are struggling with something or going through some kind of trouble.

When others see you struggling, they can relate. BUT…..when others seeing you struggling and facing troubles in your life, and you handle them all with such peace and grace. Others see you getting hit by a storm but there you are swimming right through it with a smile on your face filled with joy. So others ask, “how can that be?” It’s odd to see someone handling tough circumstances so smoothly, the only answer to that is GOD!!!!

Out of all the tough situations and troubles I’ve been through, God has given me such comfort in knowing Him personally. God has comforted me in ways that I don’t deserve, but what I fail to realize a lot of the time is this comfort I receive isn’t God blessing me and me alone. What I’ve learned from these verses and what I hope will add some value to your life today is God opening up an opportunity. God shows here that. yes, we are going to suffer more and more as we live our lives for Christ. yes, He is always going to be there to comfort me, but what’s bigger than all of this is what God shows us as; The purpose in the pain.

There is purpose in our pain. When we go through things that are bigger than what we can handle, we have no choice but to lean on God and there He is, arms wide open there to comfort us through it all. But that’s not the extent of God’s purpose for our pain. God’s has a purpose in all that takes place in our lives, ALL for the purpose of pointing others to Him. That’s it! That’s the purpose in the pain. That is why God allows us to go through what we go through and takes care of us the way He does because He is working a bigger plan together that impacts so many more lives for the His Kingdom than what we only see in our little “ME Bubble.”

God’s purpose in your pain, God’s purpose in showing you His comfort in the pain, it’s not all for you, it’s for the ones He’s placed around you. So when you go through something hard and God delivers you, provides for you and gets you through it, it’s bigger than you. That is God opening the door for you to use those moments to impact other’s lives in a BIG way, a God sized way! Those moments God gives us the chance to explain and share with others, “yeah this is really hard but it’s only because of God and His comforting presence in my life that I am still here smiling and standing upright.” If we know others around us are facing battles with trouble too, do you see the opportunity to be had?!?!? God is giving you the chance to show them that this same God that came into your life, met you so mercifully in the midst of your storm and provided His faithful and loving hand of comfort, this is the same God that can do the same in your life.

It hurts to think of all these opportunities I’ve wasted worrying about ME getting through, and what does this mean for ME. Take a look around, there is druggies walking the streets, addicts looking for their next fix, people in our lives chasing so many comforts for their problems and here we stand with the greatest solution to their comfort issue. God has given us such a great opportunity to share with others that there is another way, these ways you’ve been trying that aren’t working, that have you feeling trapped and defeated, the ways of this world and the things we try aren’t the only option. There is a better option, the greatest option, the ONLY option that will fill your comfort need the way you are seeking, His name is Jesus and this is what He’s done in my life.

Move aside from thinking it’s all about you today and walk in the awesome opportunities God has given you to point the hurting people all around you to Him. He has called us for more than having personal comfort in Him. He’s given us a mission and a purpose in all we face and do to share with others the only way to find true comfort in this life. And that way is Jesus.

Throwback Thursday: Real Talk

God Gold of the day

Here’s another “old gold” for you from a couple of years in the past! WOW!! I’m going to go ahead and warn you, this is some real talk so buckle up your seat belts and get ready for a trip to yesterday’s Gold that still holds just as much value today as it ever has!!! Hope you have a great day and praying this God Gold challenges and encourages you in your faith!

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

James 5:16

 

A big revelation in my life the past few weeks has been confession and people around me that encourage me through it, being honest and real about their sins or tough circumstances in their life and because of God working through those people He’s started opening me up to be more real in confession. Still got a lot more real to get but whether it’s my sin or whether it’s my faith, taking the lid off my bad along with speaking of God’s goodness, with each real and honest confession my view and relationship with God becomes bigger and a little clearer. I’ve always struggled with getting real with myself so getting real out loud to others is the scariest thing I’ve ever done. Hanging with my buddy Troy the other night coming off a lot of deep, real talks about faith, I felt the urge to pray before he left. So, I was like “man can I pray before you leave?” He gave me a quick yes but before I prayed, I started explaining myself, why I felt the need to pray, trying to make it seem acceptable to do. How crazy is it that with one of my best friends I felt the need to explain myself wanting to pray even after we spit God Gold back and forth for the past few hours and he said yeah go ahead man when I asked.

I guess it’s just so unusual in the world we live in to pray out loud with someone unless you’re at the dinner table or at church, I couldn’t understand why I had gotten to that level, why anybody could especially when we live in the Bible Belt where we got a church on every corner, we are in one of the most acceptable places in the world to pray and share our faith and sins in a real way like it’s no big deal. I’m only speaking for myself cause I don’t know how you handle this but how come with knowing all that and having real sins/problems along with others around me going through their own personal struggles, why don’t I confess and pray more either by myself or with people around me? There’s Christians in other parts of the world that would be killed for praying and speaking of Christ to others.

Being too comfortable in our sins and in our faith, saying well I don’t have too much sin. but did you hear about what’s his name getting in trouble last weekend? We all have sin, we all have problems, and if we’re real about what we believe to ourselves and others God will open you up to your brokenness and His goodness. Instead of hiding our “little” sin and talking about other’s sins, come to terms with the fact you are a sinner and so is the next guy then take it to God. Pray for that person, speak openly with the people God’s placed in your life about it and pray with them no matter how weird it may seem to do it’s not weird at all to God and that’s all that really matters. We have no idea how much confession and prayer can change someone’s life and even your own until we break down our comfortable, “I’m not that bad” walls and open ourselves up to God. Thank God I’ve recently started some demolition on my walls thanks to some guys showing me these truths by example.

Don’t hold back on your walls and maybe it’ll help someone will start doing the same to theirs!

Be that Somebody

God gold of the day

Walked into a gas station late one night and the lady behind the register said, “hey sir, how are you doing? Welcome to Circle K!” A big smile painted all over her face and at first I thought “that’s different,” usually when you walk into a gas station of all places it’s rare to get such a welcoming and warm response from the person behind the counter. But I thought maybe it’s just me, then as I looked for my pack of juicy fruit I listened as this woman greeted every single person that walked through the door with the same warm greeting! “Hey, how you doing today, welcome to Circle K.” Even if people came in back to back or if she had a customer she was checking out, she didn’t seem to miss a beat. It struck me as odd because usually a job behind a gas station counter is one of the lower paying jobs around and usually the attitudes of gas station workers I’ve encountered over the years is in a lower place on the welcoming and smiling spectrum. But this woman was different, she took her job seriously and she gave it all she had to give, even though I’m sure she wasn’t asked to, she gave anyways.

She was a welcomed surprise (no pun intended) in a world of bad attitudes and poor spirited individuals. I took such a great lesson from her that night as I watched her continue to embrace and successfully over achieve at a job that she could easily like so many others with this job, not care and not try. It was obvious that her heart was shown to each customer and felt by many!

I thought so much from this random woman behind a cash register and I had only known her through one sentence!

A gentleman was checking out in front of me and the two were talking as if they knew each other I guess from years of living in the same community. The old man asked the cashier how her baby was doing before he exited the store and she paused for a moment, sighed and said; “we’re getting by.” It was obvious that getting by was far from what was actually taking place in the woman’s life.

It stopped me dead in my tracks, how could a woman with a baby and obvious problems financially and most likely larger than that; how could she possibly have such a huge smile on her face? How could she radiate with such amazing amounts of joy as she welcomed each and every customer that stepped foot into her store. Struggling, working a job with little advancement possibilities, while taking care of and providing for her baby, but she smiled anyways, served anyways, went above and beyond anyways, and loved anyways with such a simple sentence of; “hey, how are you doing today? Welcome to Circle K!”

What an example this woman is for any of us that are struggling to make ends meet, providing for others or going through any tough situation. Wow, what an example for us to learn from and live in!

Before the old man exited the store, after hearing the woman’s response of “we’re getting by,” in a much different tone than her welcome, he walked behind the register with money in his hand and said, “here you go, this is for that baby of yours, you keep pushing through!”

It was such little moments but once again I watched God’a mighty hand at work in such simple ways!!!! Another great example and lesson from this old man to give, put self aside and give to those who are in need! Anyone could have watched the way this woman worked so hard and went above and beyond with the simple word; why? Why would you give so much when you get so little? After hearing about her struggle, once again; how? How can you remain joyful and having a heart to serve others while going through all this bad?

I don’t know the answers but I think the only answer is God. Only God can bring us through tough situations and give us all and then some of what we need to continue serving Him faithfully! I watched as the woman’s faith was displayed for all to see and I also watched how God takes care of, provides and blesses those who remain faithful even in the worst of times!

From the lessons of this woman and this old man, I could talk all night about the gold to be taken away here but I just pray that you too learn from these awesome faithful examples of love and service! And I simply challenge you today if you are going through something difficult, if you find yourself in a place that seems like it isn’t enough or not good enough for what you need, trust God and smile on!!! Keep loving and serving others with all you got despite the odds, for as you’ve seen, God will always take care of you!!!

And for the one who sees the opportunity to give or love someone in need, I challenge you to reach out to someone, give them exactly what they need, whether that’s money or an encouraging word! Don’t sit by and focus on yourself, God had called you for so much more, take time to reach out by a text, phone call or any opportunity that opens up and give yourself to others! Speak encouragement and bless others with the love from Jesus that lives within your heart! It doesn’t have to be some big grand gesture, just keep it simple because as we’ve seen God works in extremely simple ways! Be that somebody today that reached out with a smile, speaks a warm welcome of encouragement or gives themselves to others around you!!! It’s why we’re here and what it’s all about!!!

Long Distance Relationships

God Gold of the day

 

‘May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, ‘

Romans 15:5

Hope everyone is getting over that Christmas hangover alright! Today, I’m excited as we start what feels like a new season as the new year approaches to share with you some encouraging truth for your daily dose of God Gold!

This verse really stuck out to me today as I watched God show just how valuable and important this truth is. So often we can find ourselves getting caught up in “MY” life and care solely about ourselves, what we have going on and what we have to do. I say that because I too so often fall into that category, but thank God for being who He is and teaching us to live in His ways, although we may get caught in that trap at times, by His grace we don’t have to live that way!

After some experiences today, I saw first hand how crucial it can be to live in harmony with others in the ways God lives in harmony with us. First, with endurance. Having endurance when dealing with others is HUGE!!! God doesn’t say be fast or move quickly here, He speaks of how He loves us being the way we should live with and love others. When we love others and serve them with endurance, we aren’t just saying a nice word here or there to get it over with so we can feel better about ourselves and not guilty because we fulfilled our Christian duty. Having endurance with others is not just loving them when it’s convenient, or when they have done something where you feel like they have done something to earn your love. Loving with endurance is loving despite what we want or see on the surface, living to treat others as God treats us involves a deeper kind of love and service to others. It involves loving others and serving them even when they treat you poorly, even when they don’t love and serve you in that way, or even when you don’t feel like it. How we live with one another isn’t just a one-time good deed, it involves endurance, which takes time. Endurance is seen in those who run for distance like marathon runners. It takes a special kind of mindset for those runners to have going in before they can ever finish their race. It’s an understanding that things aren’t always going to be perfect, it may be raining, there may be obstacles to get by, or your body may be injured or not feeling good. Despite all of those things, there must be an understanding going in to your day that how I treat others, how I encourage them and serve them, to live in this way before them it will take a great deal of patience, sticking with them, hearing them out even if it doesn’t advance your personal agenda. That’s the problem we face when living a “me” life, it’s all about me and only me.

To really run with endurance and encouragement to others, me has no place. It’s first replacing me with Him. How would God handle this person? Serve them? Treat them? First take your eyes off you and place them on God as He gives us examples daily on who He is and how He works His love into our lives. Think for a second on all the bad you do daily, all the times you know exactly what way to go, that God would want you to go, but you decide to go another way. Think of all the decisions you make and things you do that revolve around pleasing you and not pleasing God, which is rejecting Him. Just think of all those things in your life then think about how God deals with you, despite all the many ways we fall short, God continues to love us, continues to faithfully answer our prayers in times of need, bring His blessings to our lives, provide and protect us constantly. Think about how good God continues to be to you day in and day out with the big truth being that YOU DON’T DESERVE IT!

That hit home with me today, and yeah it hurt a little bit but God’s truth will do that to you! What’s even better is God’s truth when we hold Him as lead of our lives, He opens our eyes to what matters most, what we should be doing and how He wants us to live. His truth changes us and I pray in some way this truth will move you from “ME” and move you to Him so you can handle the relationships with others He’s placed all around you in a way that not only changes your life, but even better changes others lives. I watched time and time again today when God got me out of the way and helped me to live in His ways in how I treated others, things changed. I didn’t care as much about me but I constantly thought about how I could add value to someone’s life, how can I serve them or encourage them in a way that may change their life? I can’t take any credit because that was all God’s doing, thankfully He gives us a front row seat to watch Him work!

When God began to move me out of the way, He moved me to speak less and listen more, to speak positive words of encouragement over others even when they weren’t or even when I didn’t feel like it. Then I realized how awesome the feeling was to watch those words and moments of attentiveness to them and their needs, having endurance to stay by their side and encouragement to move them forward in their life, the overwhelming joy it is to watch people be moved by it!!! That’s what it’s all about, that’s why God calls us to live and love others in His ways, because His ways change other’s lives, even if we barely see it or don’t see it at all, it doesn’t matter what the results are in front of you keep running the race for those relationships!!! The results aren’t in what we see but in what we believe and have confidence in what God’s words of love will do in someone’s life.

So I want to challenge you today in what God has challenged me with;

How are you loving and serving others? With a quick hit and run? Or with endurance, staying by their side through thick and thin like God does with us?

What do you spend the majority of your time? You and how to please you? Or God and how to please Him by being other’s focused and living to serve them?

How are you speaking to others? Taking the time to intentionally listen to others and find out how they are doing? Is there any way you can serve them that will add value to their lives?

How are you speaking to others? With words about self, negativity, or words of positive encouragement?

Do you see and handle others like God sees and handles you? We may not deserve it but God loves us constantly anyway, they may not deserve it but do you love them anyways?

Giving Self=Giving Life: Ben Freiburger

God Gold of the day

‘By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. ‘

1 John 3:16-18 

Wanted to spend some time today and give a special shout out to a brother-in-law of mine that I’m super thankful to have in my life, Ben Freiburger. Ben’s your regular college kid, wanted to put things in perspective before I share with you why I felt the need to share why I’m writing about him today. Usually, kids that age and to be honest, I would say all of us on any given day wouldn’t take the time to serve others like Mr. Ben has done recently. Below are pictures and write up from none other than Ben himself, so you can hear from his words how awesome of a moment God aligned to serve someone that Ben didn’t even know. It’s easy to say we’d be willing to lay down our lives for our brothers, but to do it, well I’d be willing to say that something we all struggle with. It can be easy to get so caught up in our busy lives and at the end of the day get caught up in a what serves me mentality.

Today, I wanted to share with you Ben’s story to hopefully encourage you and challenge you to lift your perspective on serving others, and being so focused on others that any opportunity that arises in our lives to encourage or add value to someone else, we don’t think twice but we just faithfully do it. Jesus paved the road to this example of what it looks like to literally sacrifice our own lives for the betterment of another as she laid down His life until death to give us all a chance at life. As you read about Ben’s example here, how awesome is it to see such a Christ-like example played out. Ben, not having anything forcing him to serve in this way, was given an opportunity to serve, had every excuse not to. Traveling time and expenses, sitting through a 6 hour procedure at the hospital and to think he didn’t even know the guy he was serving. He still sacrificed himself and literally gave up part of his life, the life running red through his veins to give another a chance at life. Wow….that’s a pretty powerful display of love, a love that goes far beyond anything we could comprehend or manifest. A love that comes from Jesus and a love Jesus calls us to give to others in our lives.

Your service could look different from this of what Ben did, it could simply be speaking an encouraging word to someone, or so many other things. The big thing that I want you to see, what I’ve seen that has impacted me in huge ways, is the sacrifice of self that must take place in living out this loving service to others. It’s not about us, it’s about Him, and serving others in a way that they see Him! It’s bigger than me and you!

Hope you enjoy these words from Ben and I also hope this can raise some awareness to the opportunities to give through donating pieces of ourselves for others going through sickness and disease. If you’re interested in doing so, there will be a link below that will lead you to how to do that!

“2 years ago I signed up for the Be The Match registry on campus while walking with a friend in Delta Zeta. Their sorority leads the charges on campus every year to get students to sign up. The process took 2 mins and I think I was mainly motivated because they were offering candy for anyone who signed up. I never anticipated it was a decision that would ACTUALLY lead to something like this…..

A couple months ago I was contacted as a potential match for a man suffering with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) in need of a bone marrow transplant. After a few more screenings it was confirmed I was the best match for this patient.

After weeks of anticipation and prayer, this morning I was able to successfully donate my peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) which will hopefully be injected successfully to my patient tomorrow. Hopefully ending his fight with this vicious, life threatening disease.

I am thankful for all the positive feedback and encouragement people have sent my way but I feel slightly weird receiving a lot of it. I don’t feel like I personally did anything “special”. Mainly because almost anyone who gets asked to help save someone’s life would do it without question, I was just fortunate enough to be selected.

So if you’ve made it this far, please consider signing up for the Be The Match registry. It’s so easy to register, all you have to do is send in a cheek swab and contact information and they will let you know if you are a potential match. They take care of all costs, and coordinate all your appointments. All they ask is that you give up your time. A pretty easy sacrifice if you consider the good it can do. If it happened to me why couldn’t it happen to you? Make a quick decision now that could impact someone‘s life FOREVER.

Please sign up with your friends and family this Christmas season and potentially give the best gift you can give. LIFE.”

[LINK] https://join.bethematch.org/s/landing?language=en_US&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_rfvBRCPARIsANlV66PeiCO5k_eRWuk4UOGe6upaRpHkVOuYBv4dnSqFt4la8n5F3HYMxKsaAl_wEALw_wcB&ref=marrow17&utm_campaign=bone_marrow_match&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_content=bonemarrowmatch