.Armor.

Time and time again I have heard the story of Jesus Christ in the wilderness, being tempted by Satan. I have read the book of Matthew many time and have heard sermons preach on it many times too. But as I read it this time, something different jumps out at me. It is so amazing how you can read God's word over and over again and each time you can learn something new. God's word is so amazing like that! Always teaching us; always changing us.

It was a few days back, I was starting the 4th Chapter of Matthew. It starts to tell us how Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted by Satan. Jesus had been fasting for 40 days (which I think is incredible) and it is pretty safe to say he was pretty hungry. Jesus was feeling weak and extremely vulnerable. Satan comes to remind him that he is Jesus, the son of God. That at his command he could turn the stone into bread and eat at any moment. Jesus, remembering his task at hand, unwavered by his weakness comes back at Satan with Scripture. He tells Satan that "it is written man shall not eat by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God". (Matthew 4:4). 

Satan tempts Jesus a total of three times and each time Jesus comes back with God's Word. After the third time Jesus quotes the Word of God, Satan flees. 

I've always been told that we are to arm ourselves with the word. To hide it in our heart so that we may be ready in and out of season. But! It never occurred to me to arm myself with verses that I can use against Satan. You see Satan will always attack us where we are weak. If we have a tendency to be lazy, he will tempt us in that area. Insecure, he will attack us with whatever we are insecure about. If we have sexual sin, he will tempt us there. It doesn't help either that our culture has so many outlets that make our weaknesses so easy to indulge in. 

Laying it all out on the line here:

I decided to write down what my weaknesses are and they are:

I pretty much love to sleep. Really, I do.

I find it easy to become complacent and tend to lack motivation to strive forward. 

I find huge comfort in security and truth be told, I adore my American life. Way. Too. Much.

I am a hermit and will do almost anything to stay home. True Story.

So I found scriptures to arm myself against my weaknesses:

Laziness: 

Proverbs 13:4 - The soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat. 

Colossians 3:23 - & whatever you do, do it heartily unto the Lord and not unto men. 

Proverbs 20:13 - Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty, open thine eyes & thou shalt be satisfied with bread.

2 Timothy 2:15 - Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Hebrews 13:16 - But to do good & to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

James 1:22a - Be ye doers of the Word.

Proverbs 14:23 - In all labor there is profit, but the talk of the lips (tendeth) only to penury.

Complacency

The complacency of fools will destroy them. Proverbs 1:32

So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert & self-controlled. 1 Thessalonians 5:6)

Behold, I come like a thief, blessed is he who stays awake. Rev. 16:15

You ought to live holy and Godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. 2 Peter 3:11-12

Reasons to NOT be a hermit:

Ecc: 4:9-10 - Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: if one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the one who has no one to help him up.

Proverbs 17:17 - A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity. 

Proverbs 27:17 - As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Proverbs 18:24 - To have friends, we must be friendly. 

Of course there are so many more verses for each and there are verses for every weakness we deal with. Arm yourself with those verses and Satan can't bring you down. 

Love,

Your sister in Christ,

Crystal Roberts

.Embrace.

My entire life I have struggled with embracing myself. The world tells us that we should, all while pumping images in our heads of what a women is to be like and to look like. It's not easy to find confidence and security while trying to find your identity in the world. It's lonely, it's miserable and well frankly it's pretty self-destructing. Oh, and why we care to impress those that don't truly care about us is something I will never quite grasp. I will never begin to understand why many of us measure ourselves with such vain and impossible standards.

I am weeks away from my twenty-seventh birthday, I am married to a wonderful, Godly man and have an absolutely adorable nineteen month old. So this is my declaration for the sake of my sanity and for the betterment of my family; I am giving myself freedom to embrace who I am. '

No, this isn't a post about self-confidence, believing in yourself or anything regarding you in yourself. This is a post about a creator God, who created us in his image. Our God, who is personal, loving and who wants us to love ourselves. Not in who we are in ourselves, but in who we are in him. You are free to love yourself, to love all of you. You are free to feel pretty and do the things that make you feel pretty. The only standard you need to measure yourself is by Christ's and the scripture is pretty clear about how he feels about us.

Things I am committing to:
Not spending hours fixing my hair (maybe for special occasions). I am embracing my natural wavy hair and honestly I have gotten more compliments than ever on my hair. It's nice letting it air dry and putting a little frizz control product and that's it. Seriously. I'm pretty sure my husband loves me being ready super duper fast too. :)

Taking care of myself. It's ok for me to spend money on myself. Really if you think about it, it's selfish not to. Your husband wants you to be pretty, dress pretty and feel pretty. Our confidence makes us more attractive to our husband and mine deserves the best me I can be.

Being happy about me. Because God created me in his image, he wants me. That's something to celebrate all the time.

Go and be beautiful!

Humility: NOT thinking less of yourself; KNOWING that you are nothing without Christ, but everything with him.


Love,
-Crystal Roberts

Messy hair & I'm loving it. 

Struggle, Strife and Surrender

There is so much I struggle with on a daily basis, it truly is sad. From who I am, What I can do or can't to and so many other things that bring me down. I feel like there is so much strife with in me. I constantly battle with the world and who it wants me to be and with my loving savior and who he desires me to be. I compete with everyone and I never am satisfied with anything I do. Sometimes this causes me to go to the opposite extreme and do absolutely nothing.

My husband recently told me the most amazing thing I've ever heard, I don't remember where he read it, but it was this; "If we had no thought of ourselves, we could be in perfect communion with God." These very words have been echoing inside me since I heard them. It was when Adam and Even began to look inward that the disconnect between them and God began. Looking inward caused them to doubt God's word and then led to direct disobedience.

During my quite time I have been reading A.W. Tozer's, "The Pursuit of God", which is so well written and so thought provoking. My recent thoughts have been why the church is the way it is. Why are we so cold of heart? So uncaring, so inactive? Let me bring that closer to home, why am I so uncaring, so inactive? Because really this is not about anyone else but myself. I can't change anyone else, but me. A.W. Tozer said this, "There is something more serious than coldness of heart... It is the veil of our fleshly fallen nature living on unjudged within us, uncrucified and unrepudiated. It is the close-woven veil of self-life which we have never truly acknowledged, of which we have been secretly ashamed, and for these reasons have never brought them to the judgement of the cross." He also said that "we must distinguish between lazy "acceptance" from the real work of God" and that "we must insist on the work being done."

You see I try to be "good", to have all the appearances of being a good and caring human being. I volunteer at local charities enough to say I do it, I donate my photography services and I'm involved in my church. But something seems to still be missing. I have become to realize that I have been OK with lazy "acceptance" and haven't insisted on the work being done. I mean yeah, I've accepted Jesus as my savior. I live my life for him, I don't curse and I'm extremely conservative. So those are all positives. If I looked deep though, I would say that I haven't brought everything to the cross. I say I want to, because I really want to want to. IF that makes since. BUT, my hearts desire; if I were to be completely honest here... is for God just to conform to my will. I know what I want and I want him to just give it to me.

My favorite verse right now:
1 John 5:21 - Little Children, Keep yourselves from Idols.

I know that verse might not seem like it goes with the rest of what I wrote. But, to me it does. I think this is a direct command from God. Even as children we idolize things that we shouldn't. We are taught that it is OK to in a since. We replace the things of God with God. We are so discontent because we have allowed our hearts desire to be things and not loving God and truly knowing him.

Oh, how I wish to be different this year. To not just say I am going to change, but actually do it. So this post is to publicly declare my goals for the upcoming year.

Goals for 2014:
God's will, not mine. In all things and at all times.
Surrender, Surrender, SURRENDER.
Stop fighting a battle that has already been won.
Stop yearning for things and start yearning for Jesus.
Everything else is secondary.

Blessings,
Crystal Roberts

Fences

Not too far from here lies a beautiful church. It is red bricked, with cream columns, a beautiful steeple and fancy rod iron fence. The rod iron fence encloses the church’s entire property and it stays securely locked to prevent anyone unwanted on the property. Directly across that beautiful church is a nice park, with trees that give shade and places for sitting. This nice park isn’t just a park; many homeless people have taken up residence at this park. This park is home to many people who have nothing, literally nothing. This beautiful church lies across the street and it is in the perfect place to reach out, to help and show Christ’s love. However, in place of Christ’s heart is a rod iron fence that is securely locked, keeping out those who we are commanded to love. Matthew 25:40 

This isn’t a bash on that specific church or its people, for I fear that most churches would do the same. I am afraid to believe that many of us, whether physical or figuratively, put up gates and keep “the least of them” out. We go to our comfortable church and sit in our comfortable pews, when church is over we indulge in a meal and family or social gathering. We go home to our comfortable homes, lie down in our comfortable beds and sleep comfortably. We give not a thought of those very one’s we are commanded to love. I say WE, because I include myself in this. I am probably the worst of them, the one who cast judgment and looks the other way. If you don’t do this, if you do love the least of them, than know you are in the minority and I praise the living God for you. I pray to be more like you, to love more like you, to care more like you do.  

I don't have much more to say on this matter. I am left feeling ashamed and speechless. However, I will leave you with this verse to ponder;  

⁴ No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. 2 Timothy 2:4 (ESV)