1) Ask a teacher what they need, how you can serve them, donate cleaning supplies or whatever needed items to their classroom
2)Reach out to a teacher and encourage them. It can be a short simple message, just let them know how valued and loved they are, and say thank you for all they do in changing kids lives on the daily
3) Pray for a teacher. All it takes is one minute of your day to lift up a teacher, all the obstacles and tough situations they may be facing, lift them up to God and it says in God’s Word;
“The prayer of a righteous person is POWERFUL and EFFECTIVE.”
-James 5:16
It may not seem like much, but taking just 1 minute to pray for a teacher can be so powerful and effective in a teachers life and each of their student’s lives in their class.
You have the chance to support those who are daily raising up our next generation even in the difficulties of Covid and all that is taking place this year!
And for you teachers out there; here’s some encouragement to hold onto this year!
“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
James 1:2-4
Whatever challenges you may face, remember that God is working through those moments to stretch you and grow you, making you even more effective in how you serve your students and those around you! Keep battling this year, we are with you, and we love you so much!
A big THANK YOU to all the teachers out there! Every day you step in the classroom you change many lives just by showing up! Y’all are world changers, keep doing ya thang
Another throwback God Gold for you on this beautiful Thursday! After rereading it over again, WOW!!! God’s awesome gold never loses it powerful flavor!!! Hope this is a BIG time encouragement for you today and above all else, I pray this moves you closer in your relationship with the Lord!
“Or do you think the scripture means nothing when it says, “The spirit that God caused to live within us has an envious yearning”? But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, “ God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.” So submit to God. But resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
James 4:5-7
When I first looked at James 4, I was seeing the first 10 or so verses as do’s and don’ts. After actually mediating on it, instead of building my perspective from the first glance, it’s so much more. I was thinking of it like an equation instead of the relationship that it is. Those moments when we chase after passions and pleasures of the flesh, the Holy Spirit makes His presence known but when we choose pleasure over what is holy and glorifying to God, of course there is jealousy. God loves us so much when He sees us go the wrong route it hurts and it’s the same way with people we love, if we see them chasing after the wrong route, it hurts. Then God gives us greater grace because He knows the standards are set high for His children. We are always going to fall short on our own, but His grace lifts us up so that’s not always the case! We can sit here and think our sin is too much and we can’t bare to talk to the Lord about it, but that’s where we are humbled. That’s where we learn that His ways are always higher than ours. When we feel that humility and conviction in our relationship with the Lord we shouldn’t hide from it and be proud, we should embrace it, repent, and fully submit our lives to Him. When we die to our life of chasing passions and pleasure and submit, the devil doesn’t stand a chance. He can’t overcome the Holy, righteous, power from the God of the universe. With that strong connection we can’t be beaten by the evil of the world. It begins and ends with our hearts, our relationship with the Lord. If we are humbling ourselves daily, submitting daily, it will show in our lives and in the world, bringing glory to God.
This is another older God Golds for you today but man does it still pack that same golden punch!!! I remember going through a time early on in my faith where James 4 was a Book and chapter I studied for quite some time. I remember getting super excited and jacked up about it but whats crazy is how easily over these past two years I’ve forgotten why I felt the way I did about it. So as we dig into these “James 4” old golds the next few weeks, let’s find out what got me so pumped up back then and what God has to pump you up today!
James 4:1-4
Warning Against Worldliness
“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
James 4 has worked on me in big ways this weekend so I figured I’d go over it piece by piece. I’ve noticed when fleshly passions for worldly things are at war inside of me it doesn’t just affect my world, it effects everyone around me. When focused on those passions, justifying how bad they are, telling myself “it’s not that bad.” Any passion that doesn’t align with the Lord is worldly, not Godly. You want something so bad and you can’t have it, becoming unsatisfied and usually when I’m not satisfied, it reflects in my character. Going above and beyond to get what we want but not realizing what we need. Then we ask the Lord to fulfill our wants instead of our needs, He doesn’t respond because He knows that what we want is for the passions of our flesh to be satisfied. When acting in faith and asking for God’s will to be done no matter what we want or desire after, the Lord gives us what we need because we are placing God’s will above our own will and selfish wants. At times I’ve become comfortable with or found myself chasing after worldly passions, not realizing what that comfortability and desire means. It means we are an enemy to God. Let that sink in. After all that God has done for me, the abundance of love that His presence has brought to my life. That’s what hit me deep, bringing on some big heart changes. Being friends with the world means we’re accepted, comfortable, we don’t have to do too much, just swim the same direction as the masses. Sounds pretty good but is that living out God’s purpose for our lives? Or bringing glory to the name that has given us everything? Nope. Who cares what the world says? Who cares how uncomfortable we get? Who cares if we become unpopular? Who are we living for, the world or God? Those questions hit me in places I’ve never been hit and I pray it does the same for you. It’s time to swim upstream against the current, the opposite way of the world. It’s time to stand up and stand out for our faith. Proclaiming His powerful, glorious, almighty name in everything we do. The world needs Christ, so let’s take Christ to the world.
“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
James 1:2-4
I hope everyone has had an awesome week!!! I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t have a lot to say today but ever since this wild animal planet, bad Australian accent, video came out earlier this week, it’s been something that has stuck with me each day. Each day this week I have faced so many moments where a trial, or in other words, a “challenge” knocked on my front door and I had no choice but to answer it. I’ll be the first to tell you, like a lot of us, I HATE facing uncomfortable situations. I know all of us may have different ideas or situations of what makes us uncomfortable, but at the end of the day, in some shape or size we are all faced with them at some time or another in our lives.
What’s been sitting on me this week is seeing how God works in our lives, He is constantly pushing us and allowing us to go through challenges daily. Sounds crazy that such a good and loving God would do that but it’s true, HE DOES THAT! And I used to wonder and ask questions like, “why God? Why let me go through this if it is so hard and causes so much pain to go through something way out of my comfort zone?” Well, these past couple of years of my life, and this week in particular, God has answered this question with an resounding truth.
“I’m training you and making you better.”
That’s not the exact words I heard audibly from God but that’s what God’s answer has been to this tough question. It’s been so hard to see His goodness in some of the situations I’ve faced, maybe that’s where you’re at too? But, stop a second and take a look at each hard and painful challenge you’ve faced over the years of your life or just recently. Was it hard? Yes. Was it fun? Definitely not. Did these challenges grow you, mold you, and shape you into a way better version of yourself? Actually, yeah, yes they have! Did these tough moments from yesterday make you stronger today? Wow, okay, yeah they did, stronger than I’ve ever been! Did you grow closer to God in these times, learn more of Him, and watch your faith skyrocket? YESSS!!! Without a doubt!!! How did you know Jordan? Well, I don’t know much but from my experience in these tough situations, that has been the results God has brought to my life too!
With the last question today, “Was it worth it to go through all this?”
I’ll leave that one to you to answer on your own. I know for me, the answer to this question this week was yes so when I faced so many more trials, challenges and hard moments outside of my comfort zone, I wanted to run, hide and get away from facing these trials but the answer to this question completely shifted my perspective every single time. It shifted my perspective from, “oh no, I want to run,” to, “okay, this will be tough but God is with me in this and it will be worth it to be made stronger, the pain will be worth it to be grown closer to Him and in my faith. It will be worth it to go through some painful moments for a short time for His glory and goodness to pour out of my life and into the lives of others that will have an impact that will last forever.”
I’m not saying I haven’t ran and hid a few times this week from challenges, but thanks and glory to God for reminding me of this truth, “IT WILL BE WORTH IT ALL.” So whatever you face today or tomorrow, just know it is worth it, the pain is only temporary, God’s glory will last forever, and embrace them!!!! God is training you and preparing you for more tomorrow through the challenges you face today!!! Lean in to Him and He’ll give you everything to keep chugging along!!
Shoutout to Brandon Payne for the quote;
“smooth seas never made skilled sailors.”
Also, just in case you missed God’s Wild, Animal Planet edition God gold, here it is attached below! Hope it helps and is a HUGE encouragement to you today!!
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!
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