http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=127523126891&ref=mf

Talk about convicting! I encountered this video while scrolling through my news feed on Facebook the other day. I will be completely honest, I saw that it was a twelve minute long video and I at first dismissed it. I thought "okay hold up, this sounds good, but twelve minutes?! no thanks...I have better things to do!" Well I kept coming back to it and scrolling over and and I finally decided to watch it. Best decision that I have made in a while! This dude, whoever he is, really knows what he is talking about! I did some research and found out that he is just a guy who has a Facebook page and post's some videos as he pleases. You can't even find this video on Youtube (which made me quite upset but that's another story). Anyway, I'm blabbing. Let's get to the point. After watching this video countless times, one major key point really stuck out in my head and I cant help but to write about it and sort of "talk it out." He began listing things like people using the Lord's name in vain, being seen in places that were built to be places of sin, the scoffing of the name of Jesus that we hear every day, jokes that defy His very name and slap His face in rebellion, fornication that we see in movies, etc. All of these things are of the "world." They are normal in the "world". The speaker says that "You will hate one and love the other always. If you love the world, you hate Him. Otherwise Jesus was wrong." I don't know about you but that cuts really deep. A few seconds before he made that statement, he was talking about the movies that we watch, the things that we do, the things that we say, the places that we go and the things that we hear. Think about the things that we hear on a daily basis.. how many classmates or friends use the Lord's name in vain and you simply just dismiss it? You silently think, "okay well they don't go to church like I do, they don't know Jesus like I do, they are a different religion, etc." Sometimes you don't even give it a second thought because that's "normal to hear these days." How about the places that we go? As a college age girl , I know so many people that go clubbing and bar-hopping on a Friday night, that go to apartments and get drunk with a bunch of people on the weekends. Just take a moment to think about what you do on the weekends. Where do you find your pleasure? Does it take alcohol in your system to make you happy? Does it take going out and dancing up against (ill be frank) guy's crotches or girls bodies to feel accepted? All the while Jesus looks down and wonders "Was My death on the cross not enough to satisfy you?" What about the fornications in movies that you watch? I understand that it is normal in this society to have a sex scene in every PG-13 and R movie. But examine that. Most if not all of those scenes involve intimacy between those that are out of wed-lock. What is the point of supporting that? Does that honor God? Why fill your mind up with things that do not bring Him joy? If you do not feel offended about these things, any one of them.. then in Jesus's words, you hate Him. Who are you trying to convince? How disgusting. Thats being completely blunt. And frankly, that is what we as Christians need. Not sugar coated ways to go about this. I am so at blame for this as well. We need to take the initiative to wake up every morning and die to self. Ask God to take away the temptations to do things that are not "of" Him and that do not put a smile on His face. You need to die to your desires. Thats tough! But is God worth it? You better believe it! Did He think we were worth dying for?! YES. Then let's live as if we are dying to self, for the sake of His GLORY! Really, it's the least we can do. Your ultimate goal and desire and plea should be that you want NOTHING to do with sin and EVERYTHING to do with God. True love for God means true hatred for sin. What do we do on those Friday nights when we go out and watch an R rated movie with plenty of sex scenes and a vast amount Jesus's name used in vain? Or how about when we go out and get wasted only to wake up the next morning and regret what happened the night before. We are slapping our very Creator in the face and turning our backs in rebellion saying "No thanks God, i'll do it my way this time. Maybe next time i'll do it Your way? I'll get back to You on that..." We may not have these exact thoughts, but subconsciously it is EXACTLY the mindset that we have. We need not have this attitude. I have felt so convicted about this recently. I examine my actions on a daily basis and I see myself more often than not "spitting" in God's face and turning my back on Him. I may not be intentional about it, but the point is that I do it. Sure, we are all sinners. "No one is good, not even one." But shouldn't we repent of our sins and learn from them and focus our eyes on the eternal things and not the temporary things in life? That's just what I got from this. I need to make it more of a goal to wake up every morning and plead with God that He take any foolish and selfish desire away. AWAY. I want it out of sight and gone. I don't know about you, but I want to and need to be putting more smiles on my Heavenly Father's face. I want to be crucified to the world and the world crucified to me.

Why did I chose to name my blog Psalm One Thirty Nine? Where to start. Have you ever read it? Just go ahead and meditate on these few verses from it before I ramble.

"1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain."

If those words do not give you chill bumps then I have no clue what will! This week I decided to venture out into the great outdoors and go down to the dock in my neighborhood with just myself and my Bible. I got settled down and opened up my Bible to Psalm 139. I didn't flip any pages or try to find a different book in it, but instead I just began to read. What I read and what you just read above completely changed my perspective on things and truly opened my eyes to just how Great our God is. In the first verse, the psalmist David writes of how God "perceives our thoughts from afar." I had to read that one over about four times before it really hit me. My God, the Creator of this world and everything on and in it, is able to distinguish my own thoughts..every. single.one.of.them. He knows what I am thinking at all times. Take a moment to think about that. A moment won't even do it justice. The human brain produces on average approximately seventy thousand thoughts per day. There are approximately six billion people on this earth. You do the math. Can you even fathom the fact that God takes the time to know and observe every single thing we think, say and do? A sense of awe-struck fear came over me when I pondered this. I mean just evaluating my thought life makes me cringe. Yet my God sees everything that I think and everything that I do and everything that I say and He forgives me for it all. How refreshing it is to know that God has already forgiven me for IT ALL by the death of His Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. Jesus Christ died for the sins I committed yesterday, today and tomorrow. Really, how GREAT is our GOD?! Great does not even do Him justice. No word does. David then goes on to write in verse five, " You hem me in—behind and before; You have laid your hand upon me." God's hand is a constant source of strength. Can you feel it resting upon you? When I think and meditate on it I sure can. No matter how far my sinful life will stray away from Him, His hand remains steady on my shoulder. When I am having a day full of despair and one in which I am in a constant state of sinful thought, it is SO invigorating to know and trust that God's hand is still faithfully upon me and can and WILL steer me in the direction of the cross. But do I truly live my life knowing that God's hand is upon me? Do I wake up everyday with the assurance of that? No, certainly not as much as I need to! Reading this psalm, even just part of it, overwhelmingly encouraged me to become more aware of God's intricate presence in my life. Though I turn my back on Him countless times a day, though a majority of my thoughts are not pleasing or glorifying to Him and though my actions on a daily basis are that of an utter disgrace, my God's hand has never left me and never will. He is a light to the darkness around me. His forgiveness and His mercy astounds me. Goodness gracious I cannot seem to grasp how truly REMARKABLE God is!! "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain."