Intro....God will be WITH us.

October 17, 2013

Hey Friends, the intro is pretty long, so if you just want to skip to my spiritual thought, just scroll down till you see the big letters like this.


Hello Friends. I've started a blog......"ummmm wow, thanks captain obvious". But no seriously, I did start a blog. This is no ordinary blog either. Now some of you may be thinking, "Oh, another one of those study abroad blogs that college students do". You are wrong if you are thinking that. As you can see from the title of this blog, this has nothing to do with the fact that I am in England at the moment. Although, to be fair, the fact that I am in England will probably come out in my thoughts. Regardless, this blog is for me to just tell others what I'm thinking about in a spiritual sense. The reason for this is because of a bible study I went to at Cambray Baptist Church, which happens to be here in Cheltenham. We were talking about the gospel and how it relates to our social media usage. It really got me thinking about how I use my social media? Do I really use it to reflect my faith and hope that lies within Christ? Sure, I don't use profane language or post super offensive stuff on Facebook, but at the same time, do i really ever post stuff about my faith? Do I ever really reflect the work that Jesus is doing in me on Facebook?

I know I know, this is a blog, not Facebook. but if you happen to be reading this, then you know that you got to this blog through Facebook, through the post I made. I want to do a better job of not only reflecting God's work in me, but also, I want to do a better job of digging into his word and spending time in prayer. I think as Christians, that is the most common desire/prayer request, is to really dig into His word more, and to spend more time in prayer. Basically, we want to set more of our own time aside for God. I mean, the Israelites in the Old Testament were sacrificing whole cows and sheep! Think about just how much a cow is worth today. Now think about how much they were worth in ancient Israel. They gave up a whole lot to serve their God, and we can't even spend 15 minutes in prayer a day. I am mainly speaking for myself here, but regardless, we all desire more time with Christ, at least from my observations. I am hoping that by starting this blog, I will be forced to spend more time in the word in order that I might be thinking more about the spiritual and less about the physical. In other words, I am hoping that this endeavor will center my life more around Christ and less around myself.

So, onto my spiritual thought of the day, not inlcuding the previous paragraph, is this....

Yesterday, at the bible study I went to at Cambray, we read Revelation 21:1-5. Throughout the night we were looking at examples of Christ making us into new creations, and how, when we post stuff on Facebook, it is often us trying to create a new image for ourselves. This particular passage talks about the new heaven and new earth joining. it talks about the sea dissapearing, and how every single man will be WITH God and will worship God, because He will be OUR God. It also touched on the fact that there will be no more tears, or death, or destruction, or pain...That, my friends, is a world I very much look forward to. I have been thinking a lot lately about how much I really am tired of this world. I've been here for 20 years and I am already sick of all the pain and destruction that Humanity inflicts upon itself. I guess if I had to chose one spiritual thought for the day though, it would have to be.........

No matter how crummy our days get, no matter how messed up things may seem, both in our lives and the world in general, We have something to look forward to that gives us a lot of hope. We have a Lord and savior who one day, either when we depart this world or He comes down to meet us, will make everything new. He will restore us. He will be WITH us. WITH us. WITH us......God will be physically among us, talking to us, hanging out with us, loving us...God will be WITH us. That there is definitely something that inspires hope if you ask me.

Stay tuned for more Spiritual thoughts and Things with Eric.