Jesus Wept

So today, while I was reading the bible, I was so moved. I went through John 11; the story of Lazarus.
For context, his sisters told them that their brother Lazarus was dying and Jesus loves them. His reply is interesting: "This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God (Jesus) may be glorified through it." Alright, at first glance, this seems comforting! Jesus has told me that my brother's illness will not lead him to death! Yay! He will recover!! right?! FAKE! after he heard this, instead of rushing to Lazarus to heal him, he stays for 2 more days where he was. Honestly, I don't know how you can do that without freaking out LOL it actually didn't seem like he HAD to stay, from what the passage says, it seems that he stayed so that Lazarus could die. Okay...think back...Jesus said that this all happened for the glory of God! At the time, when Lazarus died, it didn't really seem like a glorious time! Jesus tells his disciples that Lazarus is dead and it was all part of the plan. "Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe." For OUR sake? So Lazarus' death isn't only for the glory of God, but also for the disciples sake, and for everyone around him!
Okay, so they go and Jesus finally comes to the place, and Lazarus has been dead in the tomb for 4 days already...rotting and smelling bad! people are weeping and it's sad. Jesus will full confidence in His Father's will and stuff, goes there and tells Martha "I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die." Here, Jesus is talking about Lazarus, but I also believe that he is talking about us as well! Through Jesus, though we are dead in our sins like Lazarus was dead, we can have life if we believe in Him. Right after, he talks to Mary (the other sister) and she has a similar response "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." She was crying and same with everyone around. And check this out..."he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled...Jesus wept." Jesus was greatly troubled!! from this passage, it seems that troubled means that he was sad and loved Lazarus and his sisters! Okay, for you Christian veterans out there, ur probably like, *yawn* heard this a million times! BUT, just think more about this! Jesus is God! He is fully God and fully man! He knows what will happen with Lazarus! If anyone knew what God's will for Lazarus, it was Him!! haha! He knew with uttermost certainty that it was part of the plan. He knew that Lazarus would be raised to life! He knew that this was meant to glorify God! He knows that this is meant to help the people believe! Even though He knew all this with UTTERMOST CERTAINTY, He wept! It made me think about those times when a friend is troubled and you want to comfort them and you say "God has everything in control" or talk about the sovereignty of God like it will make them feel better. Jesus still cried! thats crazy! still kind of blows my mind! Jesus...literally the most relatable God of history! So amazing how he can fully be God and at the same time, feel everything a regular person would feel! I love watching Him do His thing!
In the end, he raised Lazarus from the dead and many people believed, and some hardened hearts went to tell the pharisees! God was glorified through this! Jesus' power was made known! People believed! in the end, everything came to fruition the way it was supposed to! But to say that if you fully trust God you won't get sad or w/e is a lie. Jesus had ultimate faith and knew what was to happen! Even He wept! I think the important thing here is to be able to press on and not get stuck in the weeping! Just wanted to point this out because I thought it was a pretty amazing thing! :)

Jireh!

you are loved

so i was just thinking about Jesus LOLOL and how he love us!
it's just so amazing!!! and I actually find it amazing how he loves us even though sometimes, we do not reciprocate!!! and the thing is, I don't deserve ANY of His love!! legit...nothing!  what do I deserve? LOL romans 6:23!!! but because of Jesus, and His righteousness imputed on me, I can have life! and even with this new life, sometiems i catch myself running from Him! not right now, but sometimes I see it! and honestly, i dont really know how to describe it! but God's pursuit of me is SO encouraging to me!  and His pursuit for those that don't know Him yet!! although they deny God...although their hearts are hardened, God still pursues and loves!

God I ask you to teach me how to love like you love! and to be able to love my future wife like you love me!  God i ask you to help me to continue pursuing her everyday even after marriage...just how you pursue me everyday! haha i feel like i blogged about this a little while ago, but it really clicked this time! and God used it to encourage me now!!! haha I still need to meditate on it more!! i feel like the Spirit wants to tell me more! :) i'm excited for tonight!! :) kkk so here are two songs for you!! one more relavant to this topic than the other! LOOL but i love BOTH of these songs!!!

How He Loves

Don't give up! (you are loved)

Hope you're all doing well! :)

CC: the ultimate cheerleader! lol

Christ is the ultimate cheerleader!!  I don't know if you guys know much about cheerleading, or the cheerleading I'm talking about, but I'm talking about power cheerleading.. not the dumb things where girls with pom-poms kick their feet and look hot....I'm talking about power cheerleading! the intense gymnastics and stuff.. the stuff where guys throw girls super high in the air and catch them.. the one where we make awesome super high pyramids.. yes.. i know.. it's intense! HAHA (at least if ur actually involved in it) So yeah..if you wanna see an example of the cheerleading i'm talking about, you can simply youtube my team "western mustang cheerleaders" or something.. i'm only on the 2011 team so yeah just saying...

What do i mean by this?...Christ being the ultimate cheerleader... well, a couple days ago i was talking to one of my bros about cheering and he's like that could be a Christ parallel! lol and i'm like.. true! LOl i'll blog about it! so i'm blogging about it! LOL

As a mustang male cheerleader, we sort of have a code engrained into our minds: "girls NEVER touch the ground unless they are supposed to" and we keep it (usually) LOL but yeah! we'll literally sacrifice our bodies to make sure the girl in the air is safe when coming down!  This one time, we were doing group to group basket tosses, and they slipped, but the girl was still in the air and only went halfway (we were about 15-20 feet from each other) and guess what? shes fine becasue my partner and I (the catchers) ran for her life and caught her LOL and all was good. sure i might have hurt something.. but honestly, i don't rmb what got hurt cos it was just a minor injury!  but yeah, since we aren't perfect, sometines girls do slip through our fingers! (not gonna lie) but then, whenever it's happened, we've already stopped her.. so she's not really falling so yeah.. its more like. we caught her and dropped her LOL but that's still a mistake!  unlike human cheerleaders, Christ does not screw up! lol! but He sacrificed His entire being for us! (us being the girl cheerleader) no matter what, He is always there for us and never misses! oh yeah! lol something i need to mention... girl cheerleaders are also involved in the catch!.. girls have to kind of grab the guy too!! but yeah! think about that!

Christ's character here:  He's the ultimate cheerleader and NEVER misses!!!

SMILE and be happy!

CC: Selfless and Caring!

Christ is Selfless and Caring!

Okay, so for those of you who need context, I will summarize what happened!
Essentially, Jesus was innocent because He didn't do anything wrong, but the pharisees (people who had a lot of power and were part of the synagogue - kind of like a church) were jealous of Jesus and wanted to kill Him!  They got what they wanted by bribing people in a crowd to tell Pilot (A person in high authority and in charge of people dying and going to prison and stuff...kind of like i judge i guess?) to crucify (the WORST way to die back then...probably one of the worst even now still) Him.  Jesus gets flogged first (because pilot thought it would make the crowd feel bad for him and not have him crucified), but still the crowd yelled "crucify Him" and then eventually He was on a cross...dying.  Btw...for those that don't know how crucifying works, google it cos i don't wanna describe it! AHAH but essentially, you suffocate to death...but yeah! it's really bad!  Anyways, Jesus is there... hanging on that cross, bleeding everywhere, struggling for breath.. and pretty much just dying! Oh yeah...He was also crucified with 2 other criminals...

OKAY! so you guys read that and you're like.. what the! LOL But you see, what He does in His last moments of death, shows you how selfless and how caring for others He truly is!  Honestly, if I were in that position, I'd probably be complaining like.. "MAN this sucks!" or I'd just be feeling bad for myself beucase my body hurts a lot.. everywhere...so yeah let's look at Jesus now! What did He do?
Luke 23:34 Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. OKAY THERE! now.. who would ask God to forgive their EXECUTIONERS for executing them?  I'm pretty sure I would have bitter feelings for someone who just flogged me and put me on a cross! LOL Instead, Jesus still loved and cared for them! and asked God to forgive them!....selfless man!!! no lies!

So like i said before, there were two other criminals being crucified with Christ; one criminal insulted Jesus, the other criminal rebuked that criminal because he knew that they are being punished justly, but Jesus did nothing wrong...so he asked Jesus to rmb him when they are in His kingdom (Luke 23:39-42).  The other criminal believed!  So what did Jesus say? verse 43! Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." Despite the fact that he was a criminal, in the last moment of his life, he believed in Jesus and guess what, Jesus cared for him!

Now, Jesus is still on that cross...suffering, feeling pain, struggling for breath...dying and He looks around...John 19:26-27  When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple (John, for those who don't know!) whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. Okay, for those who don't get this (don't worry i didn't really get it before either), John isn't actually Mary's son... Jesus and John weren't bros!! LOL  Jesus, is caring for His earthly mother.  Essentially by saying those words to John and his mother, he's telling John, his disciple, to take care of His mother.. and John did!

Jesus is Selfless! and He cares so much for others!
I need to be like that! care for those who...don't like me, for those I don't really know and for those that are close to me!!

SMILE! and be happy! :D

Christ's Character

Today in sunday school, we were talking about...how one knows if they are growing spiritually and stuff like that! LOL apparently, last week was like.. things to watch out for or w/e! lol i kind of forgot !HAHA
but i wasn't there!! so I sort of have an excuse! :) haha!  Anyways, it kind of inspired me to start a new "label" or like.. series i guess... called Christ's Character! LOL along with my DG label, VOD, Fitness, My day, thinking stuff and blah blah blah labels! haha...short form for this will be... CC! HAHA
Anyways yeah! I thought this was appropriate because as Christians, we strive to be like Christ... and when I say that, I mean we try to have His character so yeah!

YAY! :D i'm excited! HAHA

Smile! :D and be happy! :D