comma,

Today is Palm Sunday. There's only a week before the highlight of the Christian calendar, in five days Jesus will be beaten, tormented and spat on for our sins as he carries the consequences of sin on his shoulders for all of mankind. But in seven days, we will rejoice as he has resurrected from the grave, ultimately showing his power, his love, but most importantly hope.

My devotions the past few days have constantly been saying, "during this time of lent, reflect on...". I think i haven't been taking the time to reflect on his grace, his love, and his sacrifice. During band practice, we did devotionals, and it talked about being in constant communion with Christ. It said that quiet time isn't enough. It was a surprise because i always thought that if i made time to spend with Christ, that would be sufficient. But its much more. Its to be thinking about him, in every moment. Sometimes its difficult, because you're focusing on other things, how exactly do you focus on Christ as well? To quote the devotion,

"the key to friendship with God is not changing what you do, but chaining your attitude toward what you do. What you normally do for yourself, you begin doing for God, whether it is eating, bathing working, relaxing, or taking out the trash." - Rick Warren

There's so much more to this thing we call faith. It isn't just an action where you say "i believe". It isn't just the baptism where you get dunked. There's more. Its a commitment and its a lifestyle. There's more that we live for.

During today's sermon my pastor said something that stuck out to me, "life is a comma, not a period." There's much more after life. What you do in this life determines what happens in the next life. Like the parable in Matthew 25:31-46, it talks about goats and sheep. One will enter heaven because they lived out Christ's life, and one will enter the gates of Hell because they were not representatives of Christ.

This last week of lent, before easter, I hope that i can work harder to reflect and think about God glory, and focus on him more. On his love and sacrifice for me.

²⁷ Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,²⁸ so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Hebrews 9:27

In The Process: Lent

It has already been an official week of lent! We started on the 22nd of February, and here we are! There are a few things that i've noticed with lent, and today's devotional brought it up, so i decided to reflect on it. First of all, Lent is a 40 day period before easter, where you give up something for the Lord. It can be chocolate, it can be social networking, it can be coffee, anything that was apart of your life. It is so that you can use that time to reflect and spend more time with God.

For me personally, i've decided to give up twitter. Its my first time lenting, (since i always seem to forget and not know when it starts) and i've actually found it extremely effective, especially the first few days. It was difficult, to delete the app, take off the bookmark, delete the SMS twitter contact, and just stripping it away, and having it change literally overnight. But I remember clearly, i would go on the computer and cursor would automatically go to the spot where twitter was, but it was gone, and every single time i did that, i thought of God instead. Every time i wanted to tweet off my phone, i'd think of God. I'd remember the reason im doing this, and it kept him in my mind.

Like I said, Lent is a time where you give up something, so you have more time to think of God and reflect on his greatness, today's devo said,

Lent is a good time to go back to “the beginning of the good news,” recognizing that we are still capable of sin even though we believe in and follow Jesus. His Spirit is working in us, but (in this life) we are not yet made perfect. ~ Today's Devotional

Reflecting, that "we are still capable of sin even though we believe in and follow Jesus". The devo was about repentance, and im sure we all have sins we need to confess and turn away from. I know I for one do. Use this time of lent, instead of going on twitter, or getting that cup of coffee each day, to focus more on God, and how to be more like him.

I remember reading a tweet before lent started saying "the moment when God can send his son to die on cross, but we cant give up social networking". It just shows our priorities and how much we invest our time and effort into things.

Are you lenting? If so, how's it going? If not, is there something you can give up for lent?

Sacrifice.

Have you ever thought of sacrificing something that you love so much just for God?
To be honest i feel like i wouldnt do it. (i know it's pretty bad) So now is the time of lent. Lent is when you give up something for 40 days so that you can get closer to God. So i decided to lent twitter (since im on it or im tweeting like every other second :$ )
I was very hesitant about it when i was thinking of what to lent and today we had a Bible study with our small group at church and someone said if Christ can give up his life for us then why cant we just sacrifice something as small as twitter.

That's when it hit me hard. I struggle to spend time with God while he gave up his ONE and ONLY son for ME? Unbelievable. I wasn't even born yet and he thought of me. I just couldn't believe it.

After this Bible study now know that Christ died for us and he sacrificed his most prized possession and if he can do it, then we can give up something small (such as time or social media) just to spend a little time with him.