Toil

As I was sitting in my dorm today, I was thinking about what all of this means. What is my purpose for this blog? What is my purpose as far as being an example everyday when I stand against peer pressure, and what happens if I give in? Am I labeled a hypocrite and completely disregarded as a Christian? Will all my work have been for naught? What is all of this leading me to? Why do I have to be an example? Why cannot I be the one is saved later in life and get to do all the things that those who come to him later in life have done? Would people find me untrustworthy because I said I would not do something but then went on doing it anyway because I just wanted to be part of the crowd and have a little fun? As long as I keep my head on straight and stick to my MORALS, I will not fall into peer pressure so I should not worry about that one, being labeled a hypocrite could be seen as a form of judging and unless I am truly a hypocrite, those who are judging me are in the wrong. Where this all is leading me to remains to be seen but it is all on God's timing and I should not concern myself with it. I need to be an example because I have been set apart and called to do the work of Christ because he has bigger plans for me and those around me as long as I continue to do his work. I am not here to partake in the ways of the world because I have been called and am supposed to strive because God is who and what fulfills my soul. He brings me joy and when I am spending time with him and in his word, I am having fun. Some people like to hang out and drink, others look for their next quick fix but God is what keeps me going and brings me enjoyment. It is all about the manner in which we conduct ourselves in Christ that empowers us to work against the ways of the world and to over come doing things that we have said we would never do.

My post on toil is based on 3 verses found in Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 and they are very strong in what it means to toil for a cause because there is toil that is meaningful and toil that is meaningless. If my blog is going to have impact and meaning then I have to live a life that reflects the substance of what I post. If I am unable to do that, then I am not posting a blog worth reading because what I am saying might have validity but the worker is not blessed by the one who is the root of it all since he is not living by the Spirit. We see in this passage, "A Man can do nothing better than eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless a chasing after the wind." Why toil for a cause that is lost or for something that is not worth toiling for? It does no good to do work for something that will not reap benefits because what do you have to show forth? For example, what good does it do me to post everyday if nobody is benefitting from it? I am working for a cause I believe in but I am not willing to take part in it other than just throwing my thoughts on subjects out there for everyone to read. In a way, I am like the sinner who reaps and harvests so that others can benefit but inside I am not keeping any of it for myself and am not growing as everyone else is. I remember all those long work days in practice when it seemed like we were doing pointless things because it seemed as if nothing changed after running because everyone would just go back to their old ways, we toiled for nothing. In the same way, I worked hard my Freshman and Sophomore years in the cages and on the field but did not see the benefits on the field, I felt as though my toil was meaningless. But then I started doing stuff that made more sense my last two years and i saw significant increases because I found that I was at least working towards God a little more and he was blessing me by allowing me to have fun and doing something I love. He did not just make me a better player because I was seeking him, he just allowed me to do something that I love to do and that alone was enough to give me the drive to perform well so in a sense he did make me better but it took work on my part as well. We should all work towards the cause of Christ because in life it is the most important one we could ever work for and we should be grateful that we have the privilege to work towards the cause of Christ.

We serve an amazing God and sometimes I wish I could just escape the world because it would be so much easier but God has a better plan. Show me how to live in the world and be better than my human nature by living in his Spirit. He wants me to see that I can overcome sin and I can overcome the urge to do things I should not be doing because he is trying to show me that I am strong. I have to take the initiative and actually use the strength he has given me. I am praying for all of you and I ask that you will pray for me. There are some of you that I pray for more than you could know and it is because I care about you and want to see you succeed and be happy.

God Bless,

Joseph Robinson

Favoritism

I have had a few responses to yesterday's post and from what it seems, most people seem to agree with me that we cannot just stand on the hinge of making things happen and expect them to happen. Instead, we need to make sure that these things happen by committing to change and allowing the results to become evident. We spend too much time focusing on the broad things that we forget to take care of the things that are eating us to the core. If you do not treat a certain things, they grow on you and become bigger than you could have ever imagined and that is what yesterday's post was trying to convey. As for today, I think I found a book of the bible that is possibly one of my favorites because it leads me to things that I definitely need to work on and that book is James. Have you played a game and picked someone because you knew them better or because you had been friends longer? Have you ever said that some people are better at doing things because of the color of their skin or their sex? Have you ever pushed someone to the side because you did not think that they were capable of helping you or were allowed to be part of a certain situation? I am guilty of all of this in one way or another and that is a big problem because we are told in the bible not to show favoritism. What if God chose favorites and decided to bless some more than others just because he deemed them to be a better Christian or overall person than you? Does not seem fair that we can do it to others but when the table is turned, we cry foul. Favoritism leads to hate and low self-esteem, in our country we were founded on the principal that all are created equal and that everyone has the same rights. Unfortunately we have misconstrued this and it seems as if we believe that anyone who comes here as that right, however, the right is to be given to those who take the necessary steps to become a part of this nation and who abide by the rules. Our nation still sees it's share of racism and would not surprise me if there are illegal slaves in certain areas. The point is that no one is superior to another and favoritism nor hatred should be shown toward any one group or person.

In James 2 1-7, we are given an example of this by James and it is a great concept for us to understand and apply. It states, "My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, 'Here is a good seat for you,' but say to the poor man, 'You stand there' or 'sit on the floor by my feet,' have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised to those who love him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?" We see here that all are to be treated equally and everyone is deserving of the grace of God. We should not dismiss some people because we are afraid to talk to them or because we think they are too bad to receive the gift of life from God, that is showing favoritism and it is not our place to judge others, that is God's position. That is not to say that we should neglect certain groups because they receive too much attention, but we should be careful as to who we are giving our attention to so that we do not get caught up showing favoritism to just one side. Do you show your friends favoritism over people who you just consider acquaintances? Who do you give more time to? Who is on your mind when you are praying? Your church friends or ALL your friends? Unfortunately we show favoritism everyday and we need to be cautious so that we are not shutting people out when it comes to Christ and when it comes to just giving people the time of day. The person who you think is not as important might be the person in which you are the last person they ever get the opportunity to talk to about Christ but you decided that someone else was more important and you showed favoritism. Do not let the blinders be put on, keep moving forward and let God guide you in everything you do.

I hope you all have had an amazing week and I am continuing to pray for all of you. God is working all the time and he is building us up for something special. Continue to seek his way for your life and listen to him.

God Bless,

Joseph Robinson

Action

Another great day that God has given me. I wake up every morning thankful to live another day and sometimes I forget to thank God for the very day that he has given me. I guess I have been blind all this time but one of my favorite lines in a movie that is not a comedy comes from the movie "The Rookie" and it is when Dennis Quaid's character says to a fellow baseball player, "You know what we get to do today Brooks? We get to play Baseball." You see when we truly love something, we find that there is something that keeps bringing us back to it, something inside us just tells us that this is where we belong and we are okay with consistently doing it. The reason why his character says this is that some people take for granted things they get to do on a daily basis and Dennis' character no longer sees baseball as a job that they have to go to everyday, they GET to play baseball. The keyword in that last sentence is GET because it shows that they are privileged to go out and play professional baseball everyday while other people work 9-5 jobs or while others have to do something they hate, maybe even they did not get the chance to play professional sports/baseball because they were "not good enough." See in Christ, we GET to worship God and we GET to go to church on Sunday, we have the privilege to be able to do that, yet most of us see it as a burden that takes up time during our week. We should be grateful to live in a country where we can freely go to church and not live in fear of being arrested or killed because we serve the God that we serve. We have lost the focus of what a relationship with God is all about. He deserves our praise and our time because of what he has done for us. I am not saying that you have to go to church or else you cannot have a relationship with him, but we are told to surround ourselves with believers and have fellowship so church is an easy way to do that. God is the center of the church, he is the foundation on which we stand, we do not need walls to constitute a church because the church is the very essence of the people who support it and the focal point is Christ. I believe that we have lost this focus and it is a problem that needs to be addressed not just in one church but in churches across the nation.

What I have to post on today is fairly simple, I have stated it in many different ways but I think this is one that might finally stick with me. The text is found in James 1:19-27 and I am not going to post all of it. Please look it up, I will discuss it but just cannot post all the verses. Pretty much what we are told is to get rid of all our filth and the garbage that occupies our life so that we can accept the word which we can be saved by. The next verse is my favorite of the section and it states, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." I cannot stress how important this is for us today because I know that I tend to do this too. When we go to church, we cannot just simply listen and take notes, we need to put everything we learn to good use. When I post, it does me no good to just post and move on, I need to do what God is speaking to me and actually apply it. It comes back to that which we would do but do not do and that which we would not do but we end up doing anyway. We cannot simply know how to live a life for God or know what we need to do to make changes in our community,we have to put those ideas into action and do something about it. I am not an Obama supporter but you have to give the guy credit for doing something very similar to this. He had ideas for changes he wanted to make and in a few years, he went from a person that no one knew about, to a guy who is President of the United States. He took his ideas and put them into action, he made every effort to see his dreams come true. Now people might not support him and some might even want to get rid of him but I am not talking about the content of his ideas, I am talking about his drive and his action. There are many historical leaders who did this because they had a vision and they wanted to see it become a reality, they took information and processed it and did something about it. Who is to say that somebody with an idea for the better cannot do the same thing and actually make change that is going to benefit all instead of just a few. I am not saying this has not been done but I think it can be done on a much larger scale and impact not just our communities but our nation as a whole. The clincher to the section is verse 25 which states, "But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that fives freedom, and continues to do this, but not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does." It is not enough to just listen to God but we must do what he asks and follow his guidance. See it is the same when a friend says they need you to get something for them or take them somewhere, if you are capable of doing it, you more than likely will. If you were standing next to a faucet and someone asked you to get them a glass of water, you would not just say "oh that is nice" and move on, you would do it for them and take action based on what you heard. I know that this is finally something that makes sense in regards to this and I have a new outlook on what needs to be done. Just be careful and listen to what God is directing you to do, and then do it.

In regards to being able to worship freely, I have a shirt that is a perfect example that says we GET to worship him in this nation. Here is the picture.

I hope you all had a great day, I was looking forward to baseball this weekend but it is not looking too good with snow on the way. Please pray that the weather stays good so that we can play. I am continuing to pray for all of you and I hope that this will get more interactive soon. Take 5 seconds and post, you never know what it might lead to. Take a chance.

God Bless,

Joseph Robinson

Morals

Today I got to thinking about what it means to have morals and what our moral standards set forth. Sure we all think of the guidelines by which we live our life and people tend to say that you either have good morals or bad morals. Your parents more thank likely instill what we call "morals" in you when you were a kid but really they were just rules by which to follow because they had their ideas of right and wrong. I am not saying that your parents were right or wrong in the way they raised you because it is their choice to raise their kids how they want and it is your choice to raise your kids as you see fitting. The definition that I got off of dictionary.com, defines morals as "motivation based on ideas of right and wrong." Another one would be "of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong." Everyone has their own ideas of things that are moral but who decides what is moral over all? What exactly is sexual immorality? What violates moral standards? Would it being violating a moral standard to go out and get drunk? Most people might say that it is not immoral because it is widely accepted and people think it is okay. This poses the question that if people think something is okay, then it is morally acceptable to do this? Think about it, let me know what you think.

Now I am not saying that I am morally pure, I have definitely had my share of immorality and it is something I struggle with daily. I have found that until I address something, it continues to be a problem in my life. The only way to show God that you truly love him is to show that you can be humble and have humility. Confessing the things you have done and asking for forgiveness is the only way to access his grace. When you let people know what is going on then you can move on past things that you have struggled with, but people have to be paying attention and ask you if you are struggling. In regards to morality, God is the ultimate decider of what is moral and we should base our morals on his principals so that we are following his standards, this also keeps us from bending the rules and making way for our own ideas. I know I have used the verse before but in Galatians 5 it is stated, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law." In the previous verses we see, "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: Sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like." Now even though the first one is the only one that specifically mentions immorality, they are all immoral and they are all sinful in their nature. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were not able to distinguish between good and evil, they were told not to eat from a certain tree and they did. This added a new dimension to the world because it set forth the moral standards that we have come to know today. If we could not distinguish between good and evil then there would be no evil because good would be all that we would know how to do. That is kind of a cloudy description but also, if they had not sinned, then sin would have been non-existent and the rules originally set forth by God would not have been able to have been broken as long as the tree was left alone. No matter what people say, you know that you know that when you do something wrong. People say that the most evil people do not distinguish right and wrong but in my opinion they do, they just choose to do wrong. It goes back to the inner struggle within ourselves. At some point, the evil inside of us is all that is shown to the world because the good is completely forgotten. In the book, Slater wanted Kevin to kill Sam and Sam was the good that was inside of Kevin. I believe it is possible to kill the good inside of us and shut out our conscience which assists in guiding us toward our morals. Overall, morals are what we decide is right and wrong but in the end, the morals we should follow are the ones that have been set forth by God. The morals that he has given us and the distinguishability between right and wrong are the ultimate guide for us to live. He also gave us the commandments but those are the basis for the fruit of the Spirit. Understand what your morals are and stick to them, I sometimes have a hard time and I must work to move forward.

I hope you all are doing great, I am going to spend time in prayer later as I have said my prayer life needs to grow. I am believing that great things will be done here in the next few weeks and I think that a revolution is beginning. Our world is crying out and is in need of the church right now. I firmly believe this even though some would say that people are shunning the church and persecuting it, that is a sign that they need us and are searching for something because what they have has led them astray.

God Bless,

Joseph Robinson

Duty

Still trying to overcome my struggle, I had a rough day and pushed myself to my limits. I need to consciously avoid situations that lead me into temptation and that will be detrimental to me. It does me no good to invest so much time in growing just to let myself fall quickly when I am not in the word. It is just as if one spends time building a relationship when they know that they are going to talk about the same person behind their back and never truly be their friend. We should not put effort into things that we are not really going all out for because it is just wasted effort. I need to go wholeheartedly toward my goals and stop being such a slacker. I know that I love God but I just have a hard time showing it sometimes because it is so easy to get caught up in the world around me. If I spend my whole life living a two sided life, then what have I really gained? The truth is that I have not gained anything except I have wasted time not picking a side and not lived for a cause at all. People always ask why I choose to believe there is a God who saves and the only thing I have to say to that is that I would have rather lived my life for a good cause and been disappointed than stand in front of God on judgement day and be told that he does not know me. Other people ask what is the purpose to life, like why are we here and I believe we are here to live for a reason or a cause, whatever we see is fit. God placed us here to make decisions and hopefully live for him but he will not force our hand on the issue. He allows us to make decisions and choose our own paths.

As Christians and as people we are given instructions for salvation and what to do while we are here and this is found in Corinthians 5:20-6:2. It is stated, "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says, 'In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.' I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation." As servants of Christ, we are here to spread the message of salvation and of his grace, we are here to be examples and live for him. I have gotten the first part down but still need work and I am working fervently to accomplish the last two daily. We have been saved by pure blood and there is no other way to heaven because there are been no other pure offering from any other religion or group that is based on a faith in something. The uniqueness of what Christ did is what separates Christians from everyone else, sure there are other things but the atonement that was made on the cross is the nail in the coffin and sealed the deal for all who believe. I have spoken on the grace of God and we see that here it tells us not to receive it in vain. Remember we cannot abuse the grace of God because we know it will come to us, we cannot stand on the line and switch sides as we see fitting. Pick a side and get as far away from that line as possible. He hears us and he helps us which is what he says in the verses and lastly we see that Paul is saying "Salvation is here" and now is the time to act. Do not spend the rest of your life wondering what you could have done differently but live so that you can look back and be excited that you did all that you could.

Still another great day that God has given to us and I hope that you had a great day. God is such a blessing to us and I am so glad that he is who he is. Keep seeking him and his glory. Give him the praise that he is due and just see what he can do for you. I am praying for all of you and I hope you will do the same for me.

God Bless,

Joseph Robinson

Standing Against

Today was pretty amazing, I am trying to enact some of the things which I said yesterday but I know it will not be an overnight transformation. God is at work and I am going to let him work. The night has brought a new thunder and that is literally as well as figuratively. We have had severe storms here all night and we are under a Tornado Watch Box until 1 in the morning. I am not sure what to think since this is my first major Kansas storm but I know that my God will protect me and I know that should something happen, he is my savior and I am saved by his blood and his grace so i have nothing to worry about. On the other hand, I read something in the Bible that is encouraging and has given me a new outlook on what I said last night. It is how to surpass that struggle and become stronger than that which I do which I would not do. God works in ways we may never understand but we know that it is awesome when he speaks to us even when we are not sure what to be looking for. He just up and puts it in our face sometimes while other times he might be more subtle. Either way, he will show us the way and he will be there to help us in our time of need and searching. We are built up by what we learn in him and he is our source for all things that are good. People attribute good fortune to luck or to chance but really it is God providing because everything is his. Most people just do not recognize that God gives and takes and he is responsible for the tough times we face because he is trying to teach us something and he is responsible for the good things because he loves us and never will forsake us. He is that awesome and powerful that he can do so much in one day and he takes care of all things.

Pretty much the inner struggle that I face is similar to a place in which Ezekiel was told to prophesy against. God told Ezekiel what to say to the city to let them know that they would not stand. In the same way, I need to force the human nature I live in me to be put under because I will not let it stand in me any longer. The text is found in Ezekiel 35:1-7 and it states, "The word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, set your face against Mount Seir, prophesy against it and say, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against you, Mount Seir and I will stretch out my hand against you and make you a desolate waste. I will turn your towns ruins and you will be desolate. Then you will know that I am the Lord. Because you harbored an ancient hostility and delivered the Israelites over to the sword at the time of their calamity, the time their punishment reached its climax, therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I will give you over to bloodshed and it will pursue you. Since you did not hate bloodshed." Pretty much I believe God is telling us that we need to speak out against that which turns us over to sin and ultimately death. God is going to make that part of us a desolate area and no one will know that it exists any longer because it will be dead and will no longer be evident. God does not want the nature that turns us over into the hands of Satan to flourish and we need to let it know that God is stronger and will overcome anything that stands against him. We are no longer slaves to sin and we need to understand that. We do not avoid sin because we are just trying to get to heaven, but we avoid sin because it is detrimental to who we are and it is the primary cause of death. Understand that God will help you overcome the inner struggles that you face and there is nothing that can take that away.

I am continuing to pray for all of you and I hope that you continue to pray for me. God has done amazing things and is showing me new things everyday. I am excited and know that God is going to continue to work on this campus through the students on this campus. I hope you all had a great day.

God Bless,

Joseph Robinson

Struggle

I know it has been over a week since I last posted and many of you are probably wondering if I am done with the blog. The answer is that I am far from being done, I feel like I have only just begun. The week off allowed me to think a lot about where I am at now and what changes I have made in my life. As I have looked back, not much has changed and that is because I have not allowed myself to change. I have found so much that would make my life easier but I have found that I know what to do but just have not done it. I have realized that I need to do more and make an effort to allow more changes to occur in order for there to be a complete transformation from the old self into the new self. You can go to school your whole life and learn things but if you do not actually use the information you have gained, then you are gaining no value from it. The same goes for when we read The Bible. It is not that just reading has no benefit, it is just that it can have more benefit and make our lives easier if we were to just allow it to work through us and in us. I find myself second guessing myself in situations but I would not say that I can keep myself from making the wrong decision. I am actually thinking about what I am doing rather than just doing what is wrong. I know I can make a decision to do what is right or wrong and I cannot honestly say I always make the decision that is right. No matter how hard I try, I cannot do it on my own and I think I keep trying to do it on my own and I see no benefit from it. Every time I sin, I tell myself I gained nothing from it but then I do the same thing again and I still say I see no benefit from it. If I am not benefitting from it, then why I am I still doing it? The answer is that we struggle everyday in order to do what is right, we have a good conscience that tells us what is right and what we should do and then we have a bad conscience (if you will) that tells us we can do something else and we can get away with things or that they will bring us no harm. It is this struggle that keeps me from growing and is having me tread water. I am not willing to give up though and I read a book the other day that addresses the matter. It is a rather interesting book and I am certainly glad to have read it.

The book is called "Three" and is by Ted Dekker, I am not sure if you have read any of his work but if you get the chance, I do not think you will be disappointed. Anyway, the story is about a man who had Dissociative Identity Disorder also known as Multiple Personality Disorder and he has created two imaginary people in his mind. One is a girl named Sam and she is the good in him and the other is named Slater, who is the bad that is in him. Slater is trying to get Kevin to confess a "sin" or else he will kill Kevin and Sam has returned from being away to comfort Kevin and help him through this time. Kevin is oblivious to the fact that these to people are made up in his mind because when he acts as them, he sees life through their eyes only and he cannot control it. I know this seems like a stretch but bear with me here and see where this is going, if you are confused then ask me and I will do my best to explain. Anyway, long story short, Kevin needs to figure out that he is the stalker and it is the job of a detective to do that. He needs to be convinced that he holds power over the good and the evil in him and he needs help to overcome the evil. There is a paragraph in the book that states, "Though being freed from sin, most remain slaves, blinded and gagged by their own deception. 'The good that I would , that I do not do and that which I would not do, that I do.' Welcome to the church in America." What this is saying is that we know that which good that we would do, however, we do not do that for whatever reason and then there is that which is evil which we would not do, but we are somehow drawn to this and we do this. It is the struggle we face everyday and we get caught in between, we need to use Christ so that we can do what is good not only because it is right and it is what we would to, but because it is what we will do because we want to.

I talk to people who think that Christians are hypocrites and that they do not practice what they preach but that is partly because it is true. Unfortunately, most are not hypocrites, they just are uneducated and think they are not sinning when really they are just as bad as those who curse, look at pornography, keep the marriage bed from being pure, drink, etc... Another paragraph from the book states, "A preacher stands against the immorality of adultery, buy all the while he harbors anger toward the third parishioner from the left because the parishioner challenged one of his teachings three months ago. Is anger not as evil as adultery? Or a woman who scorns the man across the aisle for alcoholic indiscretions, while she routinely gossips about him after services. Is gossip not as evil as any vice? What's especially damaging in both cases is that neither the man who harbors anger nor the woman who gossips seriously considers the evil of their own actions. Their sins remain hidden. This is the true cancer in the church." Now these might be someone else's words but I could not agree more. I have said how it is stated that there is no one sin that is greater than another but what compounds this is when people do not think of what they are doing as sin. They are blinding themselves to good and evil and thinking that only others do wrong while they point out flaws in other people but they are missing the little things that are tearing them down inside. I guess what I see in myself is not that I point out others flaws, but it is that I am too lenient on what I consider to be okay and therefore I provide a little cushion in my life as to what is acceptable. This is truly what has been eating at me and has caused me to fall over and over. It is not that I am blind to what is going on, but I am afraid to do something about it for whatever reason. I have no good excuse for not acting and making changes but I simply just do not. At the end of the book, Kevin is told to overcome Slater by pointing a gun at him and shooting. Now we know that you cannot shoot an imaginary person but it is the principle of killing that evil and only allowing the good to preside. I personally have the gun cocked and pointed but just cannot take the shot. I need to have more faith in myself and my God that things will be taken care of and that the Evil can cease to exist. Kevin states, "I figured the least I could do was spend my life showing some small corner of the real world the way to true goodness." This was in response to why he decided to go to seminary, when asked about this response "as opposed to what." He answered, "As opposed to the false reality we all create fro ourselves. Mine was extreme, but it didn't take me long to see that most people live in their own worlds of delusion." Like I said before, we go through life trying to make the perfect world for ourselves whether it be in religion, money, relationships, or life in general and we block out so much that we blind ourselves to certain things we do not want to see. The truth is that we must face reality and take life head on with the help of Christ because that is the only absolute truth that we can hold on to.

Romans 7:15-25 states, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is the sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is the sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work. When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." So this is really confusing because it is a lot of restatement and a big cluster of similar words but I hope that you are understanding that the sin living in us is what pulls us to do what we do not want to do which is the opposite of what we really want to do. The law has been put to death and is no longer valid (this is the old law) because faith has come and we are no longer subject to the law. God's law is above all law but we cannot always follow it because we are drawn away by our sinful nature.We can only overcome this struggle by seeking God and actively using the tools he gives us in order to grow and do that which we want to do and not that which we do not want to do but we do anyway.

I said length does not matter as long as content is there and I was weary about posting so much but I think the content is what it needs to be and length was necessary in order to cover everything. There might have been a better way to say somethings but the points were made and I think it is good for all to hear. I struggle so much with. One last quote from the book, "You are powerless on your own. But if you look to your Maker, you'll find enough power to kill a thousand Slaters." If we look to God, we can overcome anything and our struggle will be nothing but we have to rely on him and listen to him. If he tells us to get rid of something, then we need to do so in order that we do not stumble and fall.

I hope you all had a great week, I am going to get back on track. With all the traveling and busy schedules, I did not have time to post but I am trying to stand firm even when I do not post. I hope you are all doing well and if you have any prayer requests, please let me know.

God Bless,

Joseph Robinson