Fire in Our Hearts

Here I am at the beginning of my second week of college classes. I'm so thankful that today was a day off, because I certainly needed it. I've been busy with lots of chemistry, FYS, and psychology reading this whole week, and its definitley been a challenge. College definitley takes a lot more time than high school did. And this weekend, I went to my roommate, Laura's house for the weekend! We got to have some downtime, have free food, visit with her family, and eat fudge from monks at a monestary. :)

Yesterday we also got the chance to go to a church called "Refuge." It was a great time to be worshipping the Lord will so many fellow believers. The neat thing about that church, was that almost every single person who was there either is an alumni of, or current student at my school! We got to hear some appreciations from people and how others had been encouraged throughout the week. There was also a man there who lives with his family in Ecuador, and does ministry work with street kids in a home called Shalom. It was a real blessing from God to hear his message, and to visit with people from school.

At the end of the night, along with 10 other girls, we got to have a little late night snack with the other ladies in the church! It was a lot of fun and we got to forget about all the homework we had to do...at least for a couple of hours. But I heard a message yesterday morning that really made me think. We were reading in Acts 16:16-34 where Paul and Silas were called by God to preach in Macedonia. When they arrived in Philippi, they began to spread the gospel and people gave their hearts to the Lord. But another day a woman who was possessed by demons, and could tell the future, began shouting through the streets that Paul and Silas were servants of God and carried the message of true salvation. Well, Paul and Silas got a little irritated at being followed and yelled at through the streets, so they cast the demon out of her. But little did they know that the girl was a source of wealth for her master's. So eventually the master's took Paul and Silas into the streets and they were beaten by a mob and thrown into prison.

But while they were in prison, Paul and Silas sang praises to God and prayed continually, and all the other inmates listened to them. Then there was a massive earthquake and all the doors of the prison flew open. Did you catch that? ALL the doors, not just Paul and Silas's (but I'll get to that in a minute). Then when the jailer saw that all the prisoners were gone, he went to kill himself, knowing that would be his final fate. But Paul interuppted him and said, "Wait, we're all here." And the jailer asked how he could be saved. So Paul and Silas shared God's word with the man, and he and his entire family accepted the Lord! How cool is that? All this happened because Paul and Silas prayed for God to deliver them. God saved every single person in that prison because of the faith of two followers. He answered a simple prayer. Do you think that maybe the deliverance we pray for can be everyone's deliverance? What if we prayed for our schools, our communites, our city, our state? Maybe something big...something momumental would happen here!

It starts with our own fire for the Lord. Maybe people will see your life and say, "Why are they different from me? I want that...I want what they have." Instead of being discouraged because we might stand out from the crowd, we should thank God that we are blessed to live for Him. It's definitley a challenge, but I'm trying to live my life as a living testimony. Maybe its not always that you have the right words to say...but its what you do on a daily basis. God is blessed when our hearts totally focused on him...when everything we do has a purpose for the kingdom. We should live our life for God because He loved us first and because of everything that He has done and is still to do...out of none of our own doing.

And in the end...if God is with us, then who could be against us?