uplifting friends: centered on God

Hey friends! I hope you are all having a lovely day today. Today I want to talk with you all about something that has really been on my heart lately. Something that took a long time and a lot of mistakes for me to learn the truth about.

"Don't team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness?"

2 Corinthians 6:14

I used to read this verse and think to myself that it was only talking about boys. Yep, just boys, I would think to myself. I already knew and understood how important it was for me to give my heart in the future to a man who passionately loved the Lord, so I figured that I had received every tid bit of wisdom that I could from this scripture in 2 Corinthians. Turns out I was wrong, and this verse is actually referring to every relationship in our life.  This verse is referring to our friends, our co-workers or business partners, our colleagues, basically everyone who we are involved with some type of relationship in our lives. And I had to learn this truth in the verse the hard way. 

I convinced myself to believe that it didn't really matter that some of my closest friends didn't love the Lord and weren't leading me closer to Christ. And no, I'm not saying that you should hide in a cave and run away from every non-Christian friend that walks into your life. I have non-Christian friends, but do I consider these friends my close friends? No. Ones that I spend frequent amounts of time with outside of school or work? No. They are my friends, but they are not the kind of friends that I would seek advice from or anything like that. I'm not calling them stupid or saying that I am better than them, I'm simply living a life based on how scripture calls us to live. God doesn't tell us to live like this to make us miserable, He tells us to live like this and have relationships centered around Him to MAKE US HAPPY. If we are surrounding ourselves mostly with people who are leading us away from the light, then our own individual light will diminish, and eventually our light will be gone.  

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."

1 Peter 2:9

I certainly hope that your not upset with me at this point of reading this post, because I know that I became REALLY upset when God confronted me with this issue in my own life. I made up every excuse I could on how I believed that I was right and He was wrong. "But God, my non-Christain friends can simply let me know if they think if that guy was nice or not, whats the harm in that?! and there is nothing wrong with me sharing some of my heart with them!"

The thing is, when I did share my heart with non-beliving friends in the past, I didn't feel good afterwards. The conversation between us didn't leave me feeling encouraged as I hoped it would. They didn't really have much to say at all about the problems in my life, and God seemed non-existant to them. I didn't like that at all. And also, talking about guys with my non-Christian friends was a whole different story. They just didn't understand that there was so much more to a new guy pursuing me than that he was "really cute and nice!" They just didn't get or understand how important a man of faith was to me, and they never encouraged me to pursue a man of faith at all. When I realized these two things, this is about when I started to reel in the anchor on the non-Christian relationships in my life. No I did not let them completely go, I just made them much much MUCH more surface based, simply because that was about as far as I could go with these type of friendships in my life without allowing my heart to go in the wrong direction.

So my friends, in conclusion, yes God does call us as Christians to love everyone, but he also calls us to guard our own hearts by surrounding ourselves continually with people who are leading us closer to Him. I wish I didn't make the many mistakes in my past of surrounding myself with people who didn't loved the Lord, and because of those mistakes I made I was hurt. I learned that I had to be intentional in making friends who loved the Lord, and also that I had to let go of some of the relationships in my life that were leading me in the wrong direction. It wasn't easy, but it certainly was worth it, and now I am in a much happier place in my life. If any of you are in a place in your life where you are unhappy with your relationships, know that if I was able to turn around my own relationships with the help of Jesus, then so can YOU!

I love you guys!

P.S.-  Click here to like Forever Convinced on Facebook and show my page some love friends! :)

Love always, Jess

praying for your FUTURE MAN. [the power of prayer]

     Hey friends! I'm so glad to be back in the blogging scene. Finals week for college was a killer, but my exams are over now and I'm thrilled to be back & finally just sit and share my thoughts with each of you today.

     God has been putting on my heart this past week a lot of thoughts about my future husband. Where is he? Who is he? Have I already met him yet? When will I meet him? What if I'm not ready for a relationship when I meet him? What if I don't know how to manage a relationship with Jesus and a boyfriend at the same time when he does come along?

     I don't know about you all, but these are so many questions that run through my head on a daily basis about him. Like, I hope I'm not a crazy person...please tell me this is normal at my age. The more I thought about it though and read some scripture in my Bible, I realized that God has always intended for me to marry someone, and he has put this desire on my heart to be with a man forever for a reason. Genesis 3:18 says: "Then the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just and right for him."

      As you can see, God wants us to be married. He wants us to find the love of our lives, that special someone he planned for us to be with long ago. God has the perfect match for you and me, but I'm realizing for myself that this godly man won't just come out of nowhere to me unless I PRAY.

      Prayer...what do you think about it? When I first became I Christian, I'm going to be completely honest with you, I doubted prayer. I doubted God was really listening. I believed in God and knew He was real, but I just couldn't imagine The God of the universe really cared enough to listen to me. I had to get to the point in my life where I was completely broken so God could cry out to me, "Are you ready to listen to me now, Jessica? I never intended for you to be put through all of this harm. Confess your sins and come back to me." From here I finally began to listen to Him, I finally began to confess, and it was here in my life where I finally began to see a way out of the darkness. There was finally a light at the end of my dark tunnel. There was no longer any more endless hope for me. Now I can say that with full confidence that God's response to our prayer to Him is: Comforting. Peaceful. BEYOND REAL. Beautiful. Encouraging. Amazing.

     So here it goes, I wanted to share with you ladies some ideas of mine on praying for your future husbands. I hope it encourages you. I hope it helps you to understand even more that God does have a special prince planned out for you. & Before I begin, I just wanted to say that these ideas of mine are not intended only for the single ladies, but also the married ones, the dating ones, the engaged ones, etc.

1) You pray for his heart.

Proverbs 4:23 "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."

Praying for your mans heart is IMPORTANT. Our man's hearts are so very special and need to be prayed for just as badly as our own. We often walk into situations where we end up getting hurt because we didn't ask God to give us the wisdom for protecting our hearts. Well, it's the same for men. Pray that God would guard their hearts, Pray that they would give their hearts to God EVERY day, Pray that they would always be seeking the Lord's heart until the time comes when God allows for them to pursue yours with tender care.

2) You pray that he would follow the Holy Spirit's leading in his life.

Another big one that I felt like I should share with you is this. From my own personal experience, following the Holy Spirit in my life has lead me to joy and peace, despite the pain it sometimes has taken for me to get there. This is why it's so important to pray for your man to follow the holy spirit's leading in his life as well. God's spirit speaks to each of us and guide us in all that we do, according to John 14:26 which says: "But the Advocate, the Holy spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind to you everything that I have said to you." Pray that your man would listen to the spirit's leading in EVERY part of his life, not just some parts. Pray that God wouldn't let the enemy lead him astray and get off track. Pray that he wouldn't allow the spirit to condemn him (because that's not from God) but only to CONVICT him. Conviction reveals us the truth we need to understand, condemnation tears us down.

3) You pray that he would love Jesus with all of his heart, mind, and soul, more than he could ever love you.

Sounds cray, right? Nope not at all! Some of you are probably thinking: "But don't I want my man to love ME with his whole heart?" Nope, you sure don't. I say this because if your man truly loves the Lord, his love for you will reflect his love for Jesus, which will be better than you ever imagined. God must be in the center of our relationships in order for them to be everything we have ever wanted them to be. God completely filled my old empty & broken heart with His unconditional love, which allowed for me to understand that NO man can ever love me in the way that He loves me. As much as I want an awesome Jesus-loving husband someday, I'll always want Jesus more. That's why I think it's so important to pray for our future men to love Jesus with all of their heart, mind, and soul. (Luke 10:27) Pray that God will always be first in their day-day-life, Pray that they would be able to understand the importance of quiet time with the Lord EVERY day, Pray that their love for the Lord would be so evident and strong that it would overflow into your own relationship with each other. Ephesians 5:25 says: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her." In other words, pray that your man's love for you would be similar to how much he loves Jesus.

4) You pray that he would surround himself with godly friends who keep him accountable

I have learned in the past year how important my Christian friendship are more than ever. These are the friends who keep me accountable of my actions, call me out on my sin, pray for me, watch out for me,and love me. Wouldn't you want your man to be surrounding himself with friends like these as well? After all, 1 Corinthians 15:33 says: "Do not be mislead, bad company leads to bad character." Pray that your man would surround himself with godly friends who keep him accountable of his actions. Pray that he would seek God's wisdom above all else when building new relationships. Pray that he would be able to maintain, encourage, the new godly friends that come into his life.

5) Pray that you would both meet when your READY, in God's timing.

Ah yes. I'll be 100% honest with you guys, this is the part that might be the hardest for myself. I often find myself creating fairy tale romances in my head the second I spot a cute Christian boy at church. Yep, I just admitted that. But hey, were only human. Lately God has been really telling me lately just to be patient and WAIT. He's been reminding how important it is that my future husband is brought into my life when both him and I are ready to meet each other. Pray that both you and your man would be completely ready for a relationship together when God brings him into your life. Pray that his heart would be ready to take care of yours when you meet. Pray that he is patient enough when pursuing you so that he treats you respectfully, generously, unselfishly, and lovingly.

Q&A Time!

What if I don't know if a boy I am starting to really like is "the one?" How do I know if it's God's will or I'm moving things too fast?

Gosh. there have been quite a few times in the past where in my relationships I totally jumped into things with a new guy way too fast, without talking about God with it first. Then whuddya know? I got hurt. I wish I could help you understand the importance for you to bring whatever situation you are currently in with a boy to God first and ask for His approval. For me, Talking with God about a new guy in my life is a daily conversation. I have to remind myself each day to tell God that if this new guy isn't in His will for me, then the He should take him out of my life and set me right back on his perfect plan for my life. So yes my lovely ladies, put God first. Not only in all the big things, but even the itsy bitsy things. (God wants to be THAT intimate with you, I promise.) Be prepared for anything to happen, knowing God works in mysterious ways. If you find out a new guy you've been seeing isn't interested in you anymore, don't allow for yourself to get too upset, as hard as that is to do. (Trust me, I KNOW. I've been hurt. It's painful.) But this truly just means that God has a better guy for you. After all, God wants you to be with someone who brings out the absolute BEST in you. You deserve to be treated like a princess.

Love ya'll! Happy Sunday!