Living Above the Sun Ministries

“The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable” -Brennan Manning Need I say more? I think about this quote often. It scares me. First of all I want to always make sure I am never one of these "Christians." What is the definition of a Christian anyway? In my opinion I believe a Christian is someone who has totally given their life to Jesus, accepting He died for their sins, and have experienced a total life change; a change so radical that it's unexplainable. What is so sad to me is that not many people experience this, even people who call themselves Christians. So those of us who do know the truth must go out and proclaim it to the world, not just with our lips and actions in church, the world doesn't see that. Our actions must speak louder than our words. If we want the world to ...

At this point in my life as a 21 year old, I'm still in the learning years of my life. I'm in the quiet years where God is still molding me, or maybe re-molding. I've been learning a lot about life lately in the fact that sometimes I don't give myself a lot of credit. I think I'm being humble, but really it's second guessing the awesome plans God has for my life, and turning my back against everything I dreamed and believed I could do. Christians think it maybe arrogant and prideful to say I am worthy of what God is doing in my life. Preachers even preach against this. But I think God makes us worthy by doing a work in us, we are forgiven people, BECAUSE of what JESUS has done. IT IS FINISHED!!! Our Heavenly Father looks at us through His blood and sacrifice and sees us as pure and spotless. Our job is to study, pray and SUBMIT (the HARD part!) so God will use us and ultimately receive ALL the glory for whatever He accomplishes in our lives – however great...

So yesterday, April 21, I celebrated my 21st birthday. This year though, my cousin, Beth had her baby yesterday so my new cousin and I will share the same birthday which I think is so special. I was kinda of tense holding him because I've not held many babies in my life and I didn't want to hurt him or drop him. I get nervous around fragile, little babies. How precious they are. I love it! It was a sweet happy day.

My brother and I go to Elevation Church on Saturday nights here in Charlotte. We both enjoy Pastor Steven Furtick's messages and preaching style. We both are able to apply his teachings right on the spot. So this past weekend Furtick's message was on Spiritual Hearing loss and the importance of listening to what he (Furtick) has to say as well as being tuned into God. So after saying all that, I have a funny story to tell you. So normally I'm a pretty good listener, I take notes and am very alert nodding my head and all the things your preacher likes to see from you. So pastor Steven is opening up the message and all of a sudden my brother turns to me and says "You need help!" tell me something I don't know, then this older dude next to me who has ear plugs in his ears because of the loud music turned to me and told me I needed help, and everyone else was turning to their neighbor in the building saying something. So, I turned back to Nathan and I said...

I'm reading a new book, "The Ragamuffin Gospel" written by Brennan Manning. I have only read the first 20 pages and I already love the book. My Aunt Anna let me borrow it, and recommended I read it. In the introduction Manning wrote: "The Ragamuffin Gospel was written for the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out." We have all been there, or will be there one day. I guess so far what I've gleaned is something I have thought a lot about in my adult life which has not been very long. We Christians tend to let others and the secular world control us. Even I am to blame for this. We believe what the world says about us, yet all the while we still somehow hold our Bible tight in our grip (maybe) containing words of truth about us that we would like to believe, and we basically tell God He's lying to us. Here is how Manning puts it in his book: "We are overcome by the ordinariness of life, by daily duties done over and over again. we secretly ad...

It has been my habit for a few weeks now to take walks in the morning. On these walks I pray, I sing, I take in God creation around me. I try to say positive things about myself in relation to my relationship with God. Things such as, "God is on my side" (better than Nationwide Insurance, HAHA!!) "God is good, and has good plans for my life." Or, "Blessings are chasing me down and overflowing my life." It's not prideful to say things like this, because when you say things like this you create an environment in your life for God to work, and the enemy, Satan, to be defeated! YES! Negative talk all the time will produce negative things, however, Positive talk all the time will produce positive things...pretty easy huh? I know it's hard to be positive all the time, sometimes we feel like that country song, "I just wanna be mad for a while." But anyway, that is beside the point. The point is, the confession of our mouth is a powerful...