The Tough but Priceless Road

“The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh”

- Jonathan Edwards

Who ever said life as a Christian would be easy? Who would even think that?

"Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" 2 Tim 3 :12 (ESV)

Paul warns Timothy that anyone who follows Jesus Christ will face suffering of some sort. That is as plain as it gets. The world does not accept Jesus and does not accept any that accept him. The reason is because the world is of sin and Christ is blameless and holy. Until they see that without Jesus Christ there is not other way, they will continue in sin. They will also continue to persecute those who live a life in Christ. Christians will face abuse, neglect, they will be poked fun at, cursed at , etc. The one thing we have to remember it is for His Name and His Glory! All that we go through on this earth is seen by our Creator. He has our place secure for us in heaven. We just have to persevere while we are here and spread his Glory. Let those know who we stand for and why we do.

1 Corinthians 4:11-13 - To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor with our own hands. When we reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. - (ESV)

Paul is telling the apostles that this is what they are facing. He is telling them that following Jesus Christ is not an easy walk. That you face these things. In that, we are no different in facing persecution. Standing strong is what Paul is telling them. In doing that, Christ guides us through everything else.

When we are cursed at, we bless that person. When looked at wrong, we look back with a smile, when punished, we forgive. When done wrong by someone, we do right to them. As we are called to by as Christ, we are to do as he would. We are saved only by God's Grace and shouldn't we show everyone else that we are grateful. When knocked down, we are to get back up and continue on that path chose for us. Our flesh may say otherwise, but we have to remember that the Spirit is what we are called to listen to not our flesh. It (our flesh) is in this world, and gets caught up in the world so easy. Many out there believe the walk with Jesus is an easy one, but it is total opposite. It is tough and is tiresome. God gives us the Spirit and fellow believers to stay accountable. The road we are traveling now may seem so long, but is only a spec in the eyes of our God.The Lord encourages us all to persevere and push forward, and when we get to that finish line we are looked upon by Him saying "Well done faithful one"............

Prayer Request

Dear Friends and Family,

I sit hear tonight in a lot of thought. My mind seems like it is wondering all over the place. It seems like it is going 90 mph, yet so much more is to be thought about. Many of you have been keeping up with my injury, so I figured I would just blog about the latest. God answered our prayers about getting a diagnosis for my injury. It is called " Internal Disk Derangement". Two of my disk are affected by this currently. What I do understand is that the gel in the disk is coming out and the disk is tearing down. My L-5 is already to a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 is the worst. The L-3 is a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. Anyway, we have decided to have a small surgery where the doctor is going to go in and remove the gel that is out.

He did state though that since my pain has escalated in the more recent weeks, that it may be worse even to the possibility of being plum broke down. If so then they will have to go in with a more extensive surgery.

As I sit here I ask that you all will please continue to pray for my family and I. My beautiful wife has been so supportive, and if not for her in my life I wouldn't be what I am today. Besides my God, she is next in line. This time has been a time of Humbleness for me. It has been humiliating at times, but I know my Lord and Savior is right next to me through all of this. He is sovereign and has had a plan for all of this long ago. He didn't just look up one day and say "Oops, Ben messed up his back ". He has a reason for all of this and is already showing some of them to. We are blessed to have a merciful and sovereign

As my family and I pray over the next few months I ask that you all will stand beside us and be in prayer with us. This will not be an easy time and your support will be greatly appreciated. I love each and everyone of you and thank you for all you have done.

The prayer request we have is that God will have His Will in all of this. He has the ability to do whatever He wants with this, But not for my sake I ask............Only His!

Ben

The Beauty of Christ

As I sit here tonight going through picture of old and new, I ran across this one. This picture was taken earlier this year at my house. This one has a story behind it so I am going to share it with you.

The roses in this picture have bloomed every year for the past five years that we have lived here. My wife or myself have never watered these bushes. Every year though, they seem to get even more beautiful. In May right before I got hurt, we came home one day and I told Melissa to grab the camera and take this picture. You see that day I noticed something in particular. The branch that lay right there in front of these beautiful pictures represented us (humans). We are dead in sin and lost. We don't realize how awful we look to others or God. We wander through life as a dead branch waiting on the next place to fall. In fact some of us only focus on the next time will will fall or mess up. This picture shows though that the roses (Christ), can cover up and take away that dead look. That with Christ he can turn our deadness into beauty. You see I feel like that day God showed me that He can make anything look beautiful when we step back and trust in Him. The beauty of Christ covers that of us, and makes us pure in the eyes of our Father . We should step back today and thank our Lord and Savior for His love and mercy that He has for us. He has chose us (dead branches) to cover in the beauty of Him (the roses) to share live eternally with our Father.