The Most Rewarding Lifestyle

Following are a few excerpts from a note from Cathy Carnes, one of the newest members of our church family.

I look back at all the different types of journeys I have lived through, but the last journey I will take, I will take with God. It is yet the longest journey but by far the most rewarding. When I became a Christian, no one told me that there would be a time where I would need to give up the bad stuff, the non spiritual things in my life. No one told me that my heart would change in a way that I would want to surrender my entire life to God. (Thank you for not telling me) Even though I had a willing heart, no one told me how hard some of it would be, (I did not sign up for this part of it.)
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Being a Christian is the most rewarding lifestyle. I say lifestyle because it is not just something that you do to please someone else, it is not just a “sometime things,” it is not just a “I’ll talk to God when it feels good” or “when things get straight in my life, when things are good again”. It is a lifestyle, an everyday relationship with the Almighty God of the universe. God sent Jesus so that we could have a relationship, eternal relationship with him, not only after we die, but now, here on earth. God wants to hear from us on a daily basis. He wants us to tell him everything, all things, and go to him for our comfort and rest. I don’t pick only certain things to tell Jesus, although I have tried, it just doesn’t work. He will eventually reveal to you all things. NO hiding from Jesus. I am learning to open up, be honest, (which is not easy), and talk to him truthfully. (Which is even harder sometimes) He wants to know everything about me, although he already knows, he wants me to tell him.
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I am learning to depend on God, giving him what was his from the start and not taking it back.(ok, sometimes I want to take things back, but it is not easy giving someone else total control over your life. But I can admit it now; He is the one who knows best.) God has been very faithful and patient as I learn what “being a child of God” really means. As I study what God’s love for me means, and what that looks like, I am reminded of one the verses that was introduced to me in the very beginning, even before I was God’s child. John 3:16 clearly states how much God loved us.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

That is so awesome that God would give us Jesus Christ, what a gift, anytime of the year, not just at his birth, (but his birth was just the beginning) and did it so willingly that we could be set free from bondage. THANK YOU GOD! No more living just to hear ourselves breathe, no more just surviving wondering what will be after all this junk on earth.
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I write these things only to glorify God and to let you know that if you don’t know Christ as your Lord and Savior, you, too can have that abundant eternal life.

May The Holy Spirit cover you this day and the days to come and may you bring honor and glory to God as you seek to know him more.

Love to all,

Cathy