What does God want from us?

I have been reading "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren. I am gaining some insight into the purpose of my life. I have learned somethings, and somethings I have been reminded of by reading this book. today is chapter 13. the thirteenth day of my 40 day journey to find out my true purpose in Life. Hopefully as the book promises, I will know what exactly is my purpose in this life on earth by the end of the book.

The following is the things I have found important about our purpose in Life from the book.

God created us to love us. He wants communion with him. And I'm not just talking about the act of "communion"by recieving the body (bread) and the wine (blood) of Christ. I am talking about the fact that God wants us to love him. He wants us to talk to him like he is sitting right next to us. He wants to be our best friend.

And He wants us to worship him. And by "worship" I dont mean the music and singing session of church on sunday mornings. He wants us to do anything and everything with him in mind. That is what the Bible means when it was said in Deuteronomy 6:5 " And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. " We are supposed to bring Glory and Praise to God with the way we live our lives and the things we do in our lives. Rick Warren wrote "we should have the love of God in our mind not only while in church, praying or praising God, but we should have Him in mind while doing even menial tasks such as doing dishes, laundry, or dusting."

God wants us to love him the way he loves us. And wants us to draw close in to a relationship with Him. God doesnt just want us to pray the prayer of salvation and or get baptised and go to church. Those things are just the beggining of our walk with Christ. In fact you can be a Christian without going to church but you cant be a Christian if you are not tryin to get in a closer relationship with God. I mean you can, but your walk with Christ will be stunted, therefore rendering your spiritual life almost completely lifeless. To add to that; (paraphrased by Rick Warren in "the purpose driven life" Our life on earth is just temporary. It is a test to determine two things: One being whether or not we go to heaven. The second being what our job will be in Heaven )

So surrender your life completely to God and you will reap the best thing of all, which is a relationship with God so close, that it will never end and you will be with him in eternity.
I will leave you with a verse I find very encouraging; Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things."

a little bit of backround

I know that some of you who may have read my other blog posts may think I havent been a Christian for very long. One reason someone could have come to that conclusion is that I have written about learning stuff in my faith that some of you may have learned a long time ago.

To clear that up, I became a Christian when I was 5 years old. You would think that after twenty eight years of being a Christian, I would be way past the issues of faith and understanding and learning that I am at right now. But in the twenty eight years of being a Christian I have stumbled, and faltered, and had setbacks of faith, especially when I moved away to college. As most Christians moved away to school, they may have found a local church close to campus, and participated in Christian activities, within the school or outside of the school. Thats not what I did. When living back home, I was totally into church and bible study, community service, youth groups, and high school Christian groups. So when I moved out on my own at college, I sort of let go, of God's hand and after looking back, I see that is the time where he carried me, when there was only one set of footprints in the sand. Which has happened more than once in my life but I digress.... I began to question God, I even started to doubt, I prayed for signs that he was there and at the time, I never did see God reveal himself to me. But after college I look back and I can see all those times that God showed himself to me, I just didnt see it at the time. I have even had setbacks in my relationship with God since then, but I am learning and growing in faith. And what I may say may indicate ignorance of Christ is not ignorance, but it is immaturity. I have studied the Bible and much protestant theology. Although I have always had some of my own original theological views. I am still a little immature, and although I have had much adversity in my life, I feel as though my immaturity in my faith and walk with Jesus could be because I walked away from God (so i thought) but my doubt only led me to find out that my faith was strengthened when It was time. Now I have a lot of living to do, and with living comes learning. And by learning you grow in relationship with Christ. so I guess I would say to you who are young in your Christian Walk, if you come to a point of doubt, its okay to question because you may learn. but please dont walk away from God because it will really set you back in your maturing with Christ. when you go away to college or move to a new town, find a church (the first one may not be the right one) but find a church, and Christian groups and activities. you dont want a set back in your life with God.

Faith in the face of adversity

It is easy to praise GOD when things are going great. But it's not so easy when things are not so good or even worse when life sucks. At the first of the year I had experienced a very nerve racking, angering problem with my insurance company. Time after time, I talked to and was put on hold by about 20 different people trying to resolve a very simple issue. I was told more than once that "We are sorry that person gave you incorrect information" as I was told more than once my issue was resolved and then found out it wasn't resolved. I prayed and prayed with faith and continued praying that my issue would be resolved while praising GOD still in the midst of this adversity. But time after time it wasnt getting resolved, and at one point I stopped praising GOD, I began cursing at him, I went as far as to tell GOD that I was angry with him and I told him that he sucked, once the anger began to subside, I asked him "Father why have you forsaken me? Why have you failed to help me?" And so I questioned what good my faith was, and what good is praising GOD if my prayers werent being answered. As the situation with the insurance company was trying my patience, I knew not to pray for patience, I learned a long time ago not to pray for patience because then GOD will really put you to the test to learn patience. so..................................... I went on, bordering on impatience and worry to the point that I felt physically ill and exhausted. But my wife began to speak to me, telling me that praying in faith is not like having a magic Geenie, I then became distracted while examining my faith and trying to figure out what faith really was, if it was not what I thought it was, what was it? And I began to realize that I thought that having faith and praising GOD in the midst of adversity meant that GOD would help me just how I wanted him to if I belived enough. (Which is partly due to the fact that usually when I pray, things happen.)
So as the grim situation with the insurance was coming along, and I was getting promised that the issue would be resolved, I examined what faith really meant: and to me I discovered Faith is the belief that GOD is there, He cares, and He Is In Control. I learned that Faith can move mountains, but it will be moved in GOD's way, and in GOD's time, not ours. And I learned that praising GOD during tough times was not a guarantee of things going my way, I learned that praising GOD through adversity is about aknowledging that He is Righteous and Faithful. I have a feeling this is not my last lesson from GOD that includes adversity, but I'm willing to go through the hard times in order to learn more about GOD and grow in faith.

First of all, what in the world is a Prayer Warrior?

I pray alot! I almost pray ceaselessly. I like to communicate with God, and although I tell him that I love him and thank him for the blessings he has bestowed upon me and others often, most of the time I am asking him for help with this or that for example: I usually pray for the safety and health of my friends and family and even people I have met that I probably wont ever see again, sometimes people I havent seen in so long that I have to rename them. But God knows who I am talking about whether or not I have their name right. I also usually pray for others asking God to give them peace, comfort, joy and understanding among other things. I have always prayed to God like a person to person phone call. My prayers are from the heart, and usually in my own words. Although I often pray the Lord's Prayer. (The prayer that Jesus taught us to pray.) I readily admit to God that I dont have a clue what the best outcome of a situation would be and I surrender to him trusting him even though I know his will could be something just awful, I pray for his will anyway because for everything there is a season. I do this because I know that God is in control. And that everything happens in his perfect timing. To be a prayer warrior you dont have to have the right words, you just have to have the right heart, a heart full of Love.