"i just wanna have fun"!

Its coming up for summer and would say I’m a summer girl.

I love summer, I love the sun, I love the heat, I love going to the beach and lake with all my friends. Summer just seems such a great season of fellowship, barbeque's. Its all awesome!!

But I caught myself thinking, thinking about the definition of ‘fun’.

What is fun?

So as We are approaching the summer season our ultimate agenda of summer is FUN,

We gotta look at this from God’s perspective, biblical perspective.
Summer just seems like we end up doing anti-biblical and we pursue pleasure instead!
Anytime you pursue pleasure you are going to face trouble.

Sin is fun, if it was’t fun we wouldn't have any problems. Don’t ever let anyone say to you that sin is not fun. Don’t DE-funk sin.
We are living in a culture, in a world that has bought into a huge lie this false market of what FUN is.
Sin is fun, but sin is fun for ONLY a SEASON
For the moment….. Living for the moment.
think about it
If it’s not fun in the morning it is not fun! If I can’t laugh about it in church it is not fun! Seriously lets get real, lets get honest with ourselves about it.

Seriously what is fun? What defines fun? What does the bible say about fun? What does our culture say? What is fun?? I have a lot of questions as you can see. But we have all found ourselves asking ourselves these questions.

We gotta define the whining teenagers response and even adults
“I just wanna have fun”
Is it a momentary feeling that we have? Is it a substance that we put in our bodies That gives us this feeling.

IS THIS FUN? -






I have kids saying that its fun! pre-martial sex is fun, marijuana is fun, dirty dancing is fun you know what sin is fun, I'm not going to lie this is all fun but this kind of fun will only last for a season then you will find yourself unsatisfied, empty and confused!

Is it fun when you feel shame and guilt after?

Culture says it is fun. Culture says do it more, and you wont think about it and it will be alright and it’s a vicious cycle over and over and over and over again and it restricts you and puts you in bondage of your own pursuit of pleasure and you are NEVER satisfied!!

I hate hate hate how the enemy has tricked this world with this lie of what fun is, this reality of fun that puts your straight into bondage, that momentary of fun with the person you just slept with when drunk your now pregnant and thinking what did i get myself into? and now your restricted because your going to have a child for the rest of your life or now you have STD.
Hold up for a moment! Don’t get mad of what you just read here, understand that God can transform and restore, what I’m trying to bring us down to is what do we know is fun?

okay Bekah we get the point now, so what is fun? all my friends at school are doing it, they seem to have fun.

John 10:10 New living translation,
i
The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and
destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

THIS was a huge wake up call for me. – that Jesus, his PURPOSE is to give YOU and I a satisfying life, a full life, a life to ALL its fullness, abundantly to the MAXIMUM!
HELLO??? its says JESUS his purpose, God’s purpose coming down here to earth was to give ME life to the fullest!!

God refuses to call fun what cannot satisfy.
God says fun is fulfillment and he wants to satisfy the desires of your heart!

God says my kinda fun is fulfillment.

What does the bible define as fun? Psalms 16 :11 presence comes before pleasure. If you get God’s presence you get everything! Pleasures forevermore.

Are you having fun yet??
If your not, go back to the book and find out what fun is!!

my very first sermon

Be careful what you pray for and what you ask God to do in your life, if you pray that God will open new doors for you, be prepared because he’s going to do exactly that! Its up to you to step out of the boat.
God really loves to surprise me, stretch me, and challenge me, and open doors for me.

I got asked a couple of months ago to speak at Comox valley Christian school…. Jokingly I said yes.
So I’ve been praying these past few weeks on what God would like me to speak on, I wasn’t given a theme or a subject but was told I could speak on anything. And the plan was to speak to the high school girls.
I had something prepared and it was going to be a talk on intimidation and inadequacy. …..And girl stuff.
We have some awesome beautiful girls that attend this school and I know that God has an amazing call on each one of them so I knew that this talk would be appropriate to them, because unfortunately the enemy loves to attack us on intimidation and inadequate thoughts about ourselves.
BUT - ‘We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us’!

I spoke at the school on May 1st…….. few days before I went to finish up on preparing my talk at Zocalo’s on 5th street Courtenay…. I love this little place!
As I was finishing off my points and outline the Holy Spirit decided to surprise me by saying ‘ your not going to be talking on this’.
I thought ‘Great!’ in a bit of a sarcastic tone, truthfully I wasn’t impressed
“I just spent lots of time on this! But Okay you know better! You better give me something quick!”

I’m having a little giggle to myself right now, God is good.

2 Days before I spoke I went to the church and was informed that the speaker for the guys had cancelled… and that I was now to speak to all off them.
My heart sank and I started to feel inadequate.
BUT! – It all made sense to why I wasn’t to speak on what I had prepared days before.

The DAY BEFORE I was to speak the Holy Spirit started to speak and so off I went with a pen and paper wrote for a few hours.
I was actually pretty impressed by what the Holy Spirit was giving me.

It was about our attitudes towards worship, could we really praise and worship God under any circumstance in any situation?
I love love love the story of Paul and Silus because every time I read it, I’m convicted! I’m really challenged and I love their attitude!
It was all about their attitude and choosing to worship God sooo this is what I started to prepare to talk on.

I was also very thankful to get a phone call from 2 of my closest friends Breanne and Lexi to let me know that they were coming along with me to the school to intercede while I preached. I have amazing friends…

I really couldn’t sleep the night before, not because I was nervous but because I was soooo STOKED! The Holy Spirit was just bubbling inside of me a fire in my belly!
I eventually Feel asleep around 1am and woke up at 6am not because I chose to but because the Holy Spirit told me to! And I’m glad he did because it was an awesome morning to spend with Jesus.

Off to the school I went…. A little nervous but Stoked!
We had worship in chapel and I realized why the Holy Spirit gave me the message I prepared…
What would we do without him directing our ways???

I was really surprised at how it all went, I love it when you can walk off stage from leading worship or preaching and saying ‘ I didn’t do any of that’!
That’s EXACTLY how I felt; I didn’t have to do anything but allow the Holy Spirit to speak through me.

I also had my first sermon blooper as well, I asked the kids to picture Paul and Silus situation in the prison what they could have felt like and told them to picture them NAKED!!! – Then I quickly corrected myself!
But it was a good laugh, we all laughed!
After the chapel I took all the girls for a bible class and took them outside in the sunshine! It was awesome! We all had lots of fun, and I loved loved sharing and having fellowship with each one of them.

I’ve been completely challenged these past few weeks that I know that God has a plan for me, and the things that have been prophesied over me I just didn’t realize it would all happen so soon, but God has been stretching me, molding me constantly I’m learning to step out of my comfort zone and stepping out of the boat.
And I am BLESSED!!!

the Joy of the lord IS my strength

The joy of the lord IS my strength..

ponder that for a moment, be still.... think about it?

Im having a joyful moment, lately I've been waking up every morning completely stoked! My cup overflows!
Its quite funny how God works! I love his surprises...


I just attended a youth and young adults conference called the 'Filling Station' in Surrey BC, accompanied by two awesome men of God, who strive only to go deeper, hungry and thirsty for more of him.
The weekend I have to say was pretty awesome, I get so pumped seeing young adults, junior highs and high school student hungry! their boldness, with arms high, stepping forward in having a personal relationship with their saviour... (sighs, takes a deep breath, ahhhhhh and smiles)
Inn a way God started something new in me, he does continue to stretch me constantly, he really taught me how to be still...to rest in him, to trust in him, to step out in confidence in him.
Yes I've heard this so many times but this time the Holy Spirit was training me, i was actually learning it, actually experiencing it. Knowing that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, I said ALL things! I can move a mountain with him being the strength of my life.

I'm the type of person that when there's worship going on and most people are at the front jumping I immediately dive right in... Ready to get my praise on!
But this time at the conference every time I headed to the front to jump and dance, the Holy spirit immediately would tell me, 'i want you to go to the back' a little disappointed i pouted my lips and headed to the back
i don't really know why God was asking me to do this, i know we can get to pumped being up at the front, adrenaline is rushing, were dancing before our king but i think God was wanting me to do this so i wouldn't be distracted by the people around me, it would just be me and Jesus.

In Chapel before the service we spent a lot of time on our knees, praying for breakthrough in spiritual warfare, praying for our leaders and speakers, for the kids, for our young adults.
Man oh man its so powerful to see how God turns up and the Holy Spirit pouring, pouring, stirring, stirring.
We all had an expectation that God would move and he did! Lives were touched, the altars were full of kids on their knees giving their lives to Jesus.
So powerful to see, we get excited we jump with Joy over their lives, we jump with Joy when we see God moving in their lives. Wohoooo!!

Filling station's theme this year was about 'Grace', we had awesome speakers, Simon Gau, Donna and Doug Lasit from Portland, Oregon.

Simon spoke on the Friday night about how we are covered by God's Grace, and questioning us 'do our hearts burn to follow? Because if they don't we are in trouble!'

We all had workshops that followed on the Saturday, I attended Donna Lasit's workshop on worship. Oh wow I was so blessed, so encouraged, so impacted, so in AWE.
Did you know that worship is like to kiss the hand of God. ......picture that for a moment, it puts a big smile on your face doesn't it?
Donna sang, I love how God places songs on her heart randomly, then she spoke a little maybe about ten minutes, but those 10 minutes were very very encouraging, I think I may have cried throughout the whole workshop. Just a joyful, Godly cry.... people who know me well know that I cry lots when I'm in the presence of God, joyfully and sometimes when my heart breaks for others. Anyway!
Later on that day I attended the 2nd workshop of Doug's class on Timothy 2, we talked about the life of timothy how Paul was a little crazy ha ha so we learned the spirit of leadership I was loving it!
A lot of laughs, a lots of AMENS!
Later on that evening Pastor Doug Lasit spoke again on 'what is the cause you are living for?, what is that cause? what it means to live for Jesus,
our CAUSE is this – we live to love God, build the church, reach humanity with the Love of Jesus.

Sunday church at Bible Fellowship is always awesome, I love the pastors, the people, all of us gathered together. I love it :)
Doug and Donna both spoke that morning, Doug was at 9am and Donna was at 11am, unfortunately i was running a little late and only heard Donna spoke.
Donna spoke on Idolatry, on how idolatry is anything you put above God! Anything you put 1st above God is Idolatry, we need to know what is important to us.
2 kings 17- they worshipped worthless idols you become worthless yourself, you are doing to find yourself worthless when you put things in front of God.

Donna also talked about Idol image- our desire to be accepted, that the world has bought into the lie that even I have bought into this lie that if you look good you will feel good. Yes you can feel good for a time... but it wont last long. Its an insecurity issue and I think so many of us deal with it.
Donna really challenged us on understanding what worship is, I think its something that we really need to study and meditate on, really look at it from God's perspective not our own.

Think about this - Can we really worship God at our lowest point, our darkest moment when everything has been taken away from us?
I love love love, in-fact my favourite story in the bible is the story of Paul and Silus in Acts 16- Paul and Silus are stuck in prison they were praying and singing , the other prisoners must of thought these guys were a bunch of loony's because they were NAKED, they are in the worst conditions, there probably in pain, their chained up and there's probably rats running around their feet, YET they praised and worshipped God.
I love that it stirs something within me and I get so excited, its time that we got our praise on in every situation, his praise shall always be on our lips!

I'm actually getting side-tracked.. because I was planning on talking about my trip and stay in Portland not the Filling station, I just got to excited :)

Sooooo how it came about... on the Sunday after Donna spoke at church, my two closest friends Deanna and Daniel were heading back to Portland Bible College, but before all that happened I bumped into Doug Lasit and mentioned that I had two friends from the bible college and i mentioned to him that I thought it would be an awesome idea if I came down for the week and he agreed .... but truthfully I didn't think I would actually go.
So just before Daniel and Deanna left for Portland I had very little time to make my decision! It was a little ' should i stay or should i go now' moment. Soooooooo a lot of people encouraged me to go... and I did hesitate so many times just because i didn't have enough clothes and my hair straightener and felt i was very unprepared.
So the conversation an hour before we left surrey was, yes, no,yes, no, maybe, yes, no, no, no ,yes, i don't know. Ha ha so you can imagine! I had no idea if I were to go or not.
I am very very happy that I went! I Soaked in so much, I got to experience awesome teaching from the classes at the bible college, amazing worship at chapel, Lisa Trent spoke at youth on Wednesday! Oh how amazing it was, the altar was flooded with kids!!!
I am super blessed! I am rich in the blessings of God.
Not to mention that I was surrounded by amazing, amazing, amazing people of God. The girls in the dorm were so loveable.
I'm having a little giggle with myself :).
when an opportunity arises last minutes like that, Go for it! Unless there is big Red lights going off and the Holy Spirit is very clear with his 'NO'.







I'm excited to go home and back to my church! I miss all my youth, excited to spend time with my Sunday school kids! Just excited to be with my church family in general.
I wasn't gone that long but whenever I'm away from home and my church. I miss them and get so excited to see them when I come back.

As you can tell I'm pretty high on life right now...!!

JESUS!!!

Struck

I’ve been struck, like a bullet to the heart, a bit of a wake up call.
I have been shaken, like a medicine bottle, ‘shake well before use’ I really needed to be shaken well before God could of used me.

As a youth leader in my church I’m held to a higher standard, people ARE watching me, watching my reactions, my attitude for I am an example.
If you think about it every Christian is, every Christian should be held to a higher standard for everyone is watching us, the world is. They are watching Christians. How they act, the words they say and use (are they words of life or words of death?)

I have to say, it took me a while to get this. And I admit I have failed miserably in this area of example I could have done better, a lot better. Yes we are human we do make mistakes but we need to think about the people around us, who are we affecting?
I’m not saying I’m trying to be perfect, not at all because I know I never will be and we do learn from mistakes, sometimes we could of dealt with a situation better but from experience we will know how to approach it if it happens again in the future.
Do we want to leave people a bad taste of Christians? heck no!

I have to admit through my years when I was 16/17 I hated Christians. I didn’t have a good taste of Christians. When I thought of Christians the things that came to mind were not positive at all I thought they are all backstabbers, ‘holier’, prideful twats. Obviously I had a lot of bitterness and unforgivness in my heart. Thank you Jesus for changing my heart! I’ve fallen madly in love with the church and the church family!

I’ve come to realize that I have received gift after gift, grace after grace! And when Im old I will take a step back and have a glance on my past and know I will be overwhelmed by how much God has done in my life. It comes down to GRACE, a word we don’t hear enough.

To be continued…..

I am just a girl....

I am just a girl standing in front of a man they call saviour.

In rags and ashamed I’m afraid to look at him in the eyes

I want to kiss his feet but I feel unworthy.

He wants to sit and talk to me, to love on me?

I lay my head in my hands and cover my face, how can this man love me?

Tears fall off my face and he wipes them away, he lifts my chin up and calls me Princess, Daughter of the king.

I have rags, stains and covered in dirt he wants to wash me clean and renew my heart

I have just met this man they call Saviour, but he has been In my heart for a very long time.

He loves me and makes me whole.

I don’t understand this grace because the world cannot give it; it’s a beautiful gift that I do not deserve.

He holds out his hand and we walk, we walk this road called life,

He is constantly smiling at me.

I have fallen in love with this man they call saviour.

He is beautiful and I adore him, his presence, his love, and his indescribable grace

I am his and he is mine, my king, my savior, my husband, my everything,

He is Jesus Christ the Messiah, the one I have been looking for.

So I'm laying on a hospital bed at this very moment as i write this,

I'm very impressed that I have my very own TV with Internet and I can make and receive phone calls with my very own personal number, high five, very nice

I'm not worried, although my mother is freaking out, I don't blame her, if I found my daughter collapsed on the floor I would be to.
It was weird, I woke up feeling perky went downstairs felt a big pop in my stomach then i was on the floor....then from that moment on I had severe pains so bad that I couldn't stand or move. So off to the hospital we go, I waited in the emergency ward for ages to be seen, then a good old family friend ended up examining me which was pretty awesome...and weird. Then I had a young student who looked like he just left high school wanting to stick a flipping cannula in my arm for a drip, usually I would say yes go for it but i freaked out a little and asked if a real doctor could do it, he ended up doing worse and failed twice to put it in me not to mention it really hurt and i may have said a very bad word....feeling very guilty.

I'm laying here eating my dinner, its quite good and i get ice-cream wahay

but i watch this woman across from me who has just been told she has cancer, unfortunately the don't tell her privately but simply pull the curtain over to tell her.
her family arrive and know nothing yet until she starts crying. it was awful, the curtain is closed but all you can hear is family tears. the doctor came back and explained everything to the woman, repeatedly apologising about the news.
i cant imagine what this woman and her family are going through, but i pray that GOD will do a miracle.
for doctors to tell news like this, i just couldn't do it. i would cry with my patients, i would pray with them.

let us pray for those who are sick and believe that GOD will bring healing in Jesus name.

A little Testimony

This wasn’t easy for me to write, Testimonies are great but this one wasn’t easy for me to write, I took a glance back and said okay here it goes, I’m going to write.
This is a Testimony of a season in my life that I haven’t really talked about with many people, simply because it was a time I didn’t want to remember.
It took me a while to write this, I teared up a couple of times writing this, trying to remember what I was going through in those moments. I teared up because it also reminded me of God’s grace and no matter what situation you’re going through, he is there.

It’s quite long but please do take the time to read it, :)

For ever how long I can remember since I was child through out primary school, high school and college I allowed people to walk over me, bully me and torment me through those years.
I didn’t know how to stand up or speak up for myself, I didn’t know how to, it wasn't my nature, I just allowed people to walk over me, use me and treat me like I was dirt off the ground.
I don’t remember I lot from my school years, etc friendships or even learning, all I remember is coming home crying everyday, shutting myself away from the world I would constantly curl up in a corner and cry in my pillow.

Primary school were horrible years of sillyness, I remember having stones thrown at me, My Mother arguing with other mothers to tell there kids to leave me alone.

High school was a lot worse horrible years of torment, I’ve been to 4 high schools; I wasn’t a trouble child I was very shy. (Shocker! Yes I Rebekah was shy in her high school years.)
I started attending Loudoun Academy in Ayrshire after I got back from Canada when I was 15 and a bit.
I didn’t know anyone and I didn’t stay at that school long enough to know anyone, i was there for no longer than 5 months.
These were the hardest, challenging 5 months of my life.

If you have seen the movie ‘mean girls’, at the beginning of the movie Lindsay Lohan’s character starts off at this new school, nobody talks to her and she spend her first few lunches sitting on a toilet seat eating her lunch. That was me, no joke. I actually did that, but scrap out the eating lunch bit on the toilet seat that’s a little disgusting.
All I remember is that people weren’t warm to me, teased and tormented me.
I had my head smacked off a computer by one of the girls in class as the teacher had quickly popped out to get something. I was stunned and confused in why this girl had all of a sudden done that to me, I hadn’t done anything to her!
I walked out that classroom afraid, numb, and confused I just wanted to run (ever had that feeling where you just wanted to run and didn't care where) I had that feeling a lot.
I still couldn’t stick up for myself I didn’t want to because that would only cause a fight.
A friend told my mum what had happened and the next thing I knew my mum had called up the school to let them know what happened. My mum would always be so mad when things like this happened, it was too constant. Like any mother they would hate to see their child being bullied for no reason, you would want to protect them and stick up for them.

For some stupid reason telling the school what happend to your child can be the worst thing ever, it causes more problems.
Ayrshire is not the place to do that, you’re only asking for trouble not just for yourself but for your family.

Things got a lot worse, those 5 months were so difficult my relationship with God was the only thing keeping me alive. Every morning before school and after school I would be on my knees praying and face down in worship. I needed God more than ever.
One morning I remember being on my knees praying and I felt the Holy spirit saying to me “prepare yourself today something is about to happen” it wasn’t a warning but I remember thinking ‘oh finally this is the day that something good is going to happen! maybe people will want to be my friend, maybe God is going to do something really awesome today’.
Well God certainly did, but it wasn’t what I had in mind.

The music department is separated from the main building and I remember coming out of the music department to go to my other class, all of sudden I hear yelling behind me, next thing my hair was being pulled back, I was on the ground and my head was being hit off a brick wall.
I was being kicked, punched and spat on by this girl, I saw all the kids and even some of my ‘friends’ surrounding us, doing nothing.

No cheering, just watching.

A kept hearing this verse over and over again ‘The Lord is my light and salvation whom shall I fear, the Lord is the strength of all I am, whom shall I be afraid. All I could feel was God’s presence, he was right there beside me.

I felt no pain as this girl kept kicking me over and over again.
I managed to pull myself up and walk to the first aid room but I didn’t quite make it there, I collapsed on the way and I remember being carried to the first aid room by the janitor. I sat on the bed crying and crying, the nurses held me “its going to be okay” they kept saying. I knew it would be but I wasn’t crying because that girl beat me to the ground, I was crying because I was so overwhelmed that the thing I needed the most was God to be right there beside me, and he was!
Later I was taken to Hospital, I had no broken bones or any serious injuries, just a concussion.

The next day I had a Police Officer come over to my house and sat me down asking if I wanted to press charges on this girl. I thought about it but I knew this would go on her record, that this could affect her life, and so I didn’t. The Officer was quite shocked and astonished that I refused; he kept repeating “are you sure?”
I was very sure, I didn’t hate the girl I wasn’t even mad at her, I wanted to be mad at her but I couldn’t.
To this day I still don’t really know why I couldn’t be mad at her but I think it was God working on my heart with instant forgiveness and teaching me about what Grace.

I didn't go back to school after that, my family didn't want me to. But I did go back for 1 day and that day was to let my Principal know I wasn’t coming back and also to confront the girl who attacked me. I wanted to let her know that I forgave her. It wasn’t hard to tell her, she pretty much laughed in my face and called me every horrible name you could imagine. I walked away with a smile, I ignored the lies and I kept my head up high knowing my position as a daughter of Christ and no one could separate me from the Love of God and his amazing, indescribable Grace.

God walked me through some tough times during that season in my life, I really struggled with depression during that time and thought it would be so much easier to make everything go away by ending my life, I tried to so many times by suffocating myself in a pillow, I failed to take my life so many times. I was in and out if hospital because my mum would randomly find me on the floor unconscious meanwhile I have worship music playing in the background? I try to remember those days, what I was going through, what I was feeling, what I was going through in my head. All I know is that Satan tormented me he wanted me dead, he’s out to do 3 things, steal, kill and destroy. I remember crying on the floor so much begging God to let me come home and be with him. He kept reminding me of Jeremiah 29:11. I just couldn’t see it at the time because Satan had me wrapped up in chains. Those chains needed to be broken.
Yes those days were very difficult but I will never forget the moment my father, my saviour protecting me filling me with his words of life, reminding me,

‘The Lord is my light and Salvation whom shall I fear, the Lord is the strength of all I am whom shall I be afraid.’

I wasn’t going to blog this but I felt it was on my heart to do so.
There can be times in our lives where we want to give up but know that that is the very thing that the enemy wants you to do, we aren’t going to let him have his glory.
We will stand up against him for he is under us and God has given us the authority to speak against him.

We will sing,

‘The enemy is being defeated and death couldn’t hold you down, were going to life our voice in victory were going to make your praises loud,
Shout onto God with a voice of triumph, shout onto God with a voice of praise, shout onto God with a voice of Triumph we life your name up! We life your name up!

swim at your own risk, Just say Nay

I read this amazing Testimony on myspace.com/abstinenceisawesome

A few weeks ago my wonderful dear close friend Lexi Wilton showed me this testimony on the website above, I'm not sure who wrote the story but i thank the girl for what she shared, it was very encouraging and spoke LIFE,

I wanted to write about this on where i've been, but this girl did it all for me it was like reading my own testimony.
I have to share it,

here is is,


"I have the right to do anything," you say - but not everything is beneficial. "I have the right to do anything" - but I will not be mastered by anything [...] Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins people commit are outside their bodies, but those who sin sexually sin against their own bodies. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:12 and 18-20.


I'm not going to start bashing anyone here. Nor is the Bible. I've been struggling with this stuff for years, and I know I'm not the only one.]

I was sitting at Michikewis in my car today, reading my chapters for Economics (which is a jolly good time... HA) and I saw a sign that said, "Swim at your ownrisk."

I started thinking analagously (SURPRISE). Physical contact with other people is a "Swim at your own risk" action.
It's not a sin to kiss someone. But you're swimming at your own risk. The undertow is strong, and we are small.
The Hebrew word for kiss literally means "tokindle." When you kiss someone, you're lighting (and feeding) a fire.It's not that hard to get to the point of, "It was only a kiss - How did it end up like this?" (A la The Killers).

Sex was intended to be part of a permanent relationship within the context of marriage: an expression of passion and love between two people whose desire for each other will always be exclusive and intimate.
Saving sex for marriage is not a curse; it's a gift. If you get sexually involved before you're married, you're cheating yourself and your husband or wife out of something really special and amazing. You bear the cost of your actions.

The stuff from 1 Corinthians 6 has nothing to do with God being out to get us for not being sexually pure. We have to take the consequences. We have babies, we get STDs, we're emotionally scarred.
God bought us at a price - We are SPECIAL and BEAUTIFUL and PURE toHim.

He is crazy about us.

We're not subjects He's anxious to bark orders at. As Christians, we're His kids, and He loves us more than we could ever even begin to ask Him to. He gave us the gift of our sexuality for the purpose of enjoying a special relationship with one person - it's JUST LIKE the way He wants our relationship with Him to be.
He desires an intimate, passionate, undying relationship with us.If you've ever read Song of Solomon, you know that a lot of stuff in there is pretty racy... And it's in the BIBLE? Whoaaa. That book is all about showing us God's desire for intimacy with us.
We (the church) are His bride.

The key is not to get as close to having sex as you can without having sex.

The intention is to GIVE as much of yourself as you can to the man or woman you spend the rest of your life with.
Do you really want to fool around now at the cost of your marital sexual relationship? Even if you don't go all theway, it's still going to damage you in the end.

You were given your sexuality for a purpose - a better goal than getting in the backseat of the car with someone who you're not really sure you're going to be with for the rest of your life. I don't have EVERYTHING to give to myhusband... I wish I did, but I don't. I hate knowing that I'm going to have to give him what's left over of me. He won't be the first person that I've been intimate with. I hate knowing that.

If you haven't made sexual mistakes yet, please don't sell yourself short by giving yourself up now. It's not worth it. If you have made mistakes, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. Maybe you've done a little, maybe you've done a lot. It's not to late to start over. It never has been, and it never will. God's love is everlasting, and He's never unwilling to forgive. He can bring you to the place where you're able to forgive yourself and start over.

Seriously, the best weapon you can have in the fight for purity is accountability.

I am so blessed to have beautiful, godly, passionate women in my life (You lovely ladies know who you are) who don't give up on me and always ask how I'm doing in my purity. We've all made mistakes, but we are all standing for something more important than our mistakes - our future. Accountability is nowhere near easy, but it's so necessary, and it's a huge help.
I love, respect, and admire my ladies to infinity and beyond.
Something beautiful that brought me to tears is from the book of Jeremiah. In a lot of otherplaces in the Bible, Israel is compared to a prostitute.

In Jeremiah31, God is rejoicing over her return to Him. Look at what He says abouther.
I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness. I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel. Again you will take up your tambourines and go out todance with the joyful. Jeremiah 31:3-4.

God restores whores.

I cried when I read that, because I've always had an issue with believing God could forgive me for the mistakes I make in life, let alone believing I could forgive myself.
Being reminded about His heart for me gave me a new perspectiveon purity... I am His first and foremost. He wants me to come to Him WITH ALL OF MY RUBBISH.
He never said, "Get rid of all the bad stuff you've done, become perfect, and THEN come to me for forgiveness and love." We are wretches indeed, but His heart is bigger than our blunders.
He is the one that cleans us off. We can't do it alone. When we come to Him, He's willing and able to make us new again.

I CAN STILLWEAR WHITE ON MY WEDDING DAY, because God has made me pure again. He washed away the disgusting stains I wore and gave me new, white,beautiful robes to wear, because that's who He is. That's the wholenature of salvation - He takes your fithy rags and gives you new life.
The thing is, He stays in one place. We are the ones who move far away from Him. The further we get from Him, the easier it is to cover our white robes in stains. But if we stay close to Him and make Him our focus, we're not going to be wading through garbage, holding our robes up so we can get a minimal amount of muck on our purity. We'll be close enough that we don't have to run very far to reach Him. The closer weget, the less likely it is that we'll have a reason to come running back covered in rubbish.

Save it for Marraige


- Know that God is a God who transforms, renews and washes clean everything that is not of him. I love how God restores. Don't ever be ashamed of your Testimony, your Testimony is so important, no matter if its little or Big, God will use you to speak words to a lifeless world!
it could change someone's life, someone's view on life.

My little Brother, Brodie

I love his Testimony! unfortunatly its taking a very very long time to upload the video of his testimony but heres a bit about him.

He is 11 years old and he truly amazes me, an incredibly talented handsome guy.

The thing that blows me away about my brother is that he is confident, he is Confident in God, he is bold, he faces his fears

I love how God is molding him and I love how he is willing to do whatever God tells him to do his obedience and submission. I always remember him from a very Young age that he has been never ashamed of Jesus, never ashamed to tell people, even to strangers on the street. He really is an amazing a person of Integrity.

I love the gifts and talents God has placed in his life he has such an amazing gift of evangelism, anyone that has met him knows what I mean. He's never shy and loves to talk, he always talks about his passions in life, he constantly stirs up his passion.

I'm so excited to see what God is going to do in his life, I have complete confidence in him because I know that God has began a good, GREAT work in him and its still to be completed! Phil 1:6I

it isn't over for him God has so much more! I know that he will be a man after God's heart, and he already is.

I love how you can hear him a mile away! seriously you can, I love the story that Pastor Craig tells about my brother when we house sat for the Powell's next door to them, The Millar's thought that my brother was playing with a whole bunch of kids when in fact it was only himself, and I know that the girls were pretty freaked out by him :)

I love how he is loud, I see visions of him at the front of a battle running towards the enemy,fearless and yelling 'devil you won't defeat me'. He has yelled this while playing with his swords.

He pours out unconditional love towards anyone and will make friends with almost anyone in any place. he will make you laugh, even though he tells the worst jokes ever and can be kinda weird sometimes, he still makes anyone especially me laugh.

Best of all, He makes me breakfast! i'm blessed!

I love my Brother so much and I'm so proud to be his Sister

Gossip

I’ve come to realize that my attitude lately, stinks.

God is breaking intimidation and offences in my life continually everyday.I cannot allow the enemy to keep pulling me down and keep targeting me with these weaknesses.

My weaknesses, I care to much about what is going on in people lives, I want to know what’s going on in peoples lives.
I keep looking for the solution when people come to me and talk.
I need to stop solving things and just listen.

Gossip is so huge, When I think of gossip I think that in a lot of conversations go on, its mostly gossip and talking about other people’s lives not very nicely.
When I was in high school and college then main high light of conversation was talking about other people, we would point out people and make fun of them by what they wear etc.
There was no life in our conversations, all we ever did was backstab and talk about other people. .....How sad

During my 3rd year at college, things got a whole lot better it was as though we all understood how gossip destroyed people, this reason was because the 2nd year of beauty therapy so many people never came back to college because they were so hurt and affected by gossip.
During the 3rd year I can proudly say, not once did gossip reach my ear or was spoken, And when it did happen it was sorted immediately with the two people who had issues in a correcty manor.
We all got along very well and when we didn’t we took the guts by stepping forward and confronting each other. When I look back to my 3rd year of college, I have to say I look back in delight of it all, the care for each other, the encouragement we received from each other; we never gave up on each other.
We were all like family and a very good team!And that’s the way it should have been. If one of us were out of money we would help the person.
I had one close friend who was going through a rough time at her home, her brother got out of jail and came back to the home only to destroy it all. He did a lot of damage. As this was happening, my friend phoned me crying on the phone, I could hear all the banging and breaking of glass, I could hear screaming of people in the background. Immediately I called a friend to come pick me up and to take me to her.We picked her up and allowed the police to deal with the rest and She stayed with me for a few days.
As you can see, we were all very close.If something happened we would call each other no matter what time it was if we were in need or danger. I look back on my 3rd year of college and think, I loved them all, Each one of them genuinely.
Now my 2nd year of college on the other hand was a disaster for me, gossip was so out of control, people were so selfish and didn’t care about each other. I had no friends and the people that were ‘friends’ only were because they couldn’t make any friends because of their bad history of backstabbing.I was a friend with all the backstabbers and gossipers, why? Because no one else would be their friend and I wasn’t going to allow them to sit on their own all the time and have a horrible year. Yea they have struggles but it didn’t make me love them any less, I stood by them.... But so many times they hurt me also because they gossiped about me.
I’ve forgiven each one of them, so I’m not holding any grudges, and I cannot allow offence to be taken.

Gossip destroys lives! In the spirit and emotionally.Words speak life! What life are you speaking when you speak about someone in the wrong way?We are all sick and tired of the same cycle of gossip. So lets start a new cycle of putting an end to it!! We need to avoid the areas that will pull you down! We need to constantly pursue love, peace, faith and righteousness.We need to get our Negative attitudes out of our life! Attitudes towards people.
‘If you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all’ this was a phrase that was said a lot by my family and me. I’ve learned that this phrase is GARBAGE!
We need to bring positive out of every situation, get negativity out of your hearts and minds!It’s your choice! Don’t allow yourself to be in a situation where you know you will fall, where you know Gossip will try and creep it, we need to cut it off.