Passover and Last Supper

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?" He said, "Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, 'The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.'" And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover. When it was evening, he reclined at the table with the twelve. And as they were eating, he said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me." And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, "Is it I, Lord?" He answered, "He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born." Judas, who would betray him, answered, "Is it I, Rabbi?" He said to him, "You have said so." Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is my body." And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
~ Matthew 26:17-30

This was that Gospel passage at my church last night. I just wanted to share it with you as this is Holy Week. Last night we remembered the Passover and the Last Supper. Jesus knew that one of His disciples was going to betray Him at some point during the night. He didn't let that get to Him though because He wanted to be with all of His disciples because it was the last time that He was going to be with them before He died. He took both the bread and the wine and gave it to His disciples telling them that it is His body and blood and whenever they drank of it they were to do so in remembrance of Him. So as we take communion each time, we need to remember to do so in Jesus' name. It is a time for us to remember that Jesus' died on the cross to take away our sins so that we can be forgiven for all the things we have done. This should be reassuring to us because even though we have sinned, God loved us enough to send His Son for us so that we can be forgiven.

Remember that your sins are always forgiven no matter what they are.
Justina Strecker

What Wondrous Love Is This

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul,
What wondrous love is this, O my soul.
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul.

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down.
When I was sinking down beneath God's righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul, for my soul,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.

To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing,
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb who is the great "I Am"
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing,
While millions join the theme, I will sing.

And when from death I'm free, I'll sing on, I'll sing on,
And when from death I'm free, I'll sing on
And when from death I'm free, I'll sing and joyful be,
And through eternity, I'll sing on, I'll sing on,
And through eternity, I'll sing on.
~ What Wondrous Love Is This

So as it is Lent I have sung this song several times throughout church services, chapel and praise and I love hearing it and singing along to it each and every time. God really has some wondrous love for us. We are sinners and our curse is that He should condemn us, but He sent Jesus to die on the cross for us and that to me is some really strong love. He sent His son that He loved very much to come into the world to live a perfect life so that all of us sinners could be saved because of His wondrous love. No matter the things we do, both bad and good, God will always love us and continue loving us throughout eternity. We go through struggles and get farther away from God at times, but He laid aside His crown so that we can be forgiven and live with Him.

We should lift up our voices for God because He has given us the ability to sing and so we should use our voices to praise Him. There are millions that join in singing praises to the Lord which is an amazing thought. He has freed us from eternal death and even though we will die on earth, we will live forever in heaven when we believe in Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. We need to remember that God has freed us from death and we should be happy because we will live with God through eternity. Easter is coming up quickly and it is a great time to remember the wondrous gift that God gave us, sending His son, Jesus, to live a perfect life and then having Him die so that our sins could be forgiven.

Remember that God has a wondrous love for you.
Justina Marie

Happy 3/16 God So Loved The World

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God."
~ John 3:16-21

Today is March 16 (3/16) so I thought I would do John 3:16 and some verses following. During the time of Adam and Eve "The Fall" took place and sin entered the world. Since then there has been darkness in the world. We are all sinners and we sin every day. Even though there is still darkness in this world because there are those who don't believe and even those who do believe do commit sins, there is still Light in the world because God sent His only son, Jesus, to die for us. Through this merciful act of God we can all have hope. God didn't send Jesus to the world so that we would feel even worse because we commit sin and Jesus was perfect. He didn't send Jesus so that He would look at all of us sinners and tell us that we are worth no good and should be condemned. God sent Jesus for a much better thing and something that only one who is graceful can do. We are sinners and we need forgiveness and sometimes it is hard for us to forgive others, but because of Jesus we have hope that we are forgiven and will have eternal life.

The good news for us is that God sent Jesus to be our light and to save us from the darkness. Jesus is the truth and if we believe in that we come into the Light. Being in the light we can see all that God has done, does and will forever do for us. By being in the light we can see the evil things that others do and we have the power from God to turn away from the things of the darkness and go find something in the light to do. When we follow the light we are following the path to Jesus which then leads us to God. God sent Jesus to us so that we can go into the light and see all of the great things that God has done for us.

Remember that Jesus is the truth and the light.
Justina Marie

God Carry Me

Jesus calm my heart
Come near me please
Lord don't let these worries get the best of me
Oh I believe, that You're still here with me
Cause You meant what You said when you said You'd never leave

Carry me, carry me, carry me now
From my sinking sand to Your solid ground
The only way I'm ever going to make it out
Is if you carry me, carry me, carry me now
God carry me, carry me, carry me now
~ Carry Me by Josh Wilson

The past couple weeks I have been really worn down and tired. I have had so much on my mind and so many worries about different things in my life. Many times I questioned why all these things were happening to me because I felt like I was struggling and wasn't going to get anywhere on my own. My friends were surrounding me the entire time and I could feel that they truly cared about me and that God was showing through them. They were trying to help me release my worries and told me that I would be alright. God was using my friends to show me that He is working through them to help me realize that He is with me and helping me through these struggles that I am having.

What I need to remember and everyone needs to remember is that even when we are in the low places and struggling is that God is always with us. He is going to carry us through the tough times that we go through to get to His solid ground. It is important to remember that we can't get ourselves out of the struggles that we are in by ourselves. We need to know that God is the only one that is going to help us make it out of the sinking sand that we get into. No matter what we go through God is there with us and is carrying us through everything that we do.

Remember that God will never leave your side no matter what struggles you are in He will carry you.
Justina Marie

Inspiration from a Former President

Sorry I haven't blogged in awhile. I have been quite busy with school and getting a lot of stuff done because next week is spring break and so that means there is to much to do for the couple weeks that lead up until that time. The video is about 5 minutes and the words in the video are the message that I think is a great inspiration that was shared with me and so I wanted to share it with others.

Ronald Reagan Tribute - Bel Air Presbyterian Church- 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvN1jTkzXbY

"I know now that whatever days are left to me belong to Him." This is a quote that really stuck out to me when I watched the video the first time. We go about our day and we often do many things, like I said lately I have just been doing a lot of homework trying to get all the things that have been assigned for me to do done on time so that I can turn them in. While doing so I haven't really been thinking about where God fits into what I am doing. Yes I still have been going to church and chapel, but I haven't been really living my life for Him as Ronald Reagan stated in the video. Even though we have busy lives we need to make time for God and make sure that all the things we are doing are for God because He is the one that gave us life and has a plan for us. Reagan also says, "We will never find every answer, solve every problem or heal every wound, but we can do a lot if we walk together down that one path that we know provides real hope." By this quote we should be reminded that we are not strong enough to answer every question that we may have, but that doesn't mean that we should give up hope. We should walk with others and bring others to the path that does bring true hope to us.

Remember that even though we can't answer everything that there is still a path to walk along that provides us with real hope.
Justina Marie

Losing

Well it's only the dead that can live
But still I wrestle with this
to lose the pain that's mine
Seventy times seven times
'Cause Lord it doesn't feel right
For me to turn a blind eye
Though I guess it's not that much
When I think of what You've done

This is love, this is hate...
We've got a choice to make

Oh, Father won't You forgive them?
They don't know what they've been doin' (oh no)
Oh, Father, give me grace to forgive them
'Cause I feel like the one losin'
~ Losing by Tenth Avenue North

When someone hurts us or inflicts even the slightest of pain to us, when often remember this and don't forget. There are times where we may not think about it, but that is always in the back of our minds. We know the people that have hurt us and even though we forgive them, we struggle to do so at times and we struggle to forget what others have done to hurt us. Matthew 18:21-22 is where Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive his brother or sister that sins against him. Jesus told him not just seven times, but seventy seven times. Even if one continues to sin against us we should continue to forgive them for every mistake that we make. Not only because it is right, but because we also sin against others and we want forgiveness from them.

Jesus went to the cross to take away our sins. Jesus told God that He should forgive those who are torturing Him because they don't know what they are doing. Because Jesus told God this we can't say that He doesn't know how we have been hurt and the pain we feel from the bad things that others do against us. God felt a great deal of pain when Jesus was being tortured because that was His only son that He sent so that He could die on the cross and take away our sins. We have the choice to make on whether we want to forgive someone for the pain they caused us or if we want to dislike them because of it. Hebrews 8:12 says, "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." We ask God to forgive us and we should also ask Him to forgive others for they have sinned against us, but they don't know what they are doing. This is just like what Jesus asked when He was dying on the cross. The Hebrews verse tells us that God remembers their sins no more. We need His grace to help us forgive those that we struggle to find forgiveness for. At times when we struggle to forgive someone is when we feel like we are losing and so when we find it in us to forgive them we begin to feel better. It is because of God that we forgive others for what they have done.

Remember that God gives us the grace to forgive everyone and we just have to accept it and forgive them.
Justina Marie

Let God take the Lead

I know I'm safest when I'm in Your will, and trust Your Word
I know I'm dangerous when I trust myself, my vision blurred
And I ain't got no time to play life's foolish games
Got plenty aims, but do they really Glorify Your name
And it's a shame, the way I want to do these things for You, yeah
Don't even cling to you, take time to sit and glean from You
It seems You were patient in my ignorance
If ignorance is bliss, its 'cause she never heard of this

I could play the background
I could play the background
Cause I know sometimes I get in the way
So won't You take the lead, lead, lead?
So won't You take the lead, lead, lead?
And I could play the background, background
And you could take the lead
~Background by Lecrae

I really like what this song is getting out. Feel free to check out the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZosXYJYV8c to listen to the song and see the rest of the lyrics. There are many times where we try to do the things that we want to do and try to take control of our life. God sometimes gets pushed back and we begin to take control and think that we can do things on our own. We need to remember that we need God to help us through everything because He is the one that gave us all the gifts we have and the most important gift was the day of our birth when He gave us a life to live. It is important that we remember that when we start to try and do things on our own that we are going to have our path blurred. There may be plenty of things that we think we want to do or accomplish in our life and we might be on the path of not getting to them so we try to change what is going on in our life so that we can get them, but we have to remember that if we are being strayed away from something that we will be taken to something else because God is taking us there and it is His plan.

In life there are many people that want the attention to be on them, but we should want to play the background. Even the times where we try to go our own path God is working to have us let him take back control of our lives. Even though we may be ignorant of His plan at times and how He is trying to work in our lives, He is always patient and working to get us back on track. We should let God take the lead and we can be the background because He is going to lead us on the path that He wants us to go. He will not lead us astray of the things that He wants for us and wants us to do. If we get off the path He will lead us astray from that, but He is leading us back to the path that He wants us to be on and that He has planned for us. God has a wonderful plan for us and we should be willing to step back from what we think should happen and allow Him to take us allow that plan that He has for us. Each one of us has a special plan and so we may not be taken along exactly like our friends or families, but that is because we are all unique and need a unique plan to take us where God wants us.

Remember to let God take the lead of your life.
Justina Marie