I Choose Jesus.

Many people I know have a life verse. A verse they memorize at one point in their life and tend to look at it when they are struggling. A popular verse and the one I call my life verse is Jeremiah 29:11. It reads, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." I also tend to read on and consider verse 13 as part of my life verse too. It says, "You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart". I love these two verses because it gives me peace to know that my future is already planned out and none of it will ever hurt me, it will only make me into the person God wants me to be. I also can see that I will discover God's plan for me only if I seek Him and find Him with all my heart. If I don't, it would be sort of hard to discover God in the situations I am placed in.
This past New Years when people were discussing what their new years resolution would be I was thinking I would make a new years resolution and know for a fact that I would never follow through with it. Then I thought of an idea! What if I were to pick out a verse, memorize it, place it in a place I'm at a lot and try and live it out throughout the whole year. Yep, I then decided that's what I was going to do. The slight problem was I wasn't quite sure what verse I wanted to use. God sure does work in crazy ways. At the time in my devotions I was reading through the book of Mark. At the time I was in chapter 8. I then came across verse 34 and 35. They read, "And he called to him the crowd with his disciples and said to them, "If anyone would deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake's and the gospel's will save it." After I read that, I stopped. I remembered reading something similar to that in Matthew, so I went directly to Matthew and searched through it till I found what I was looking for and sure enough I did. The almost exact same verse is found in chapter 16 verse 24 and 25. It reads, "Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take us his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Well, it looked like I had just found my verse for the year 2012. It was Matthew 16:24,25. There is nothing against the verses in Mark and why I chose not to choose them, I just felt more pulled toward Matthew because of the wording.
The biggest reason I chose this verse for the year is because recently I have come to realize that the life I live is not mine, it's God's. He put me in the places He has placed me in all for a reason, so why should I not live it out for Him each day. Never in my life have I ever felt so on fire for God and just have wanted to do everything for Him. I don't really know what changed me from the girl who went to church every Sunday, read my Bible when I felt like it, prayed because someone told me too, and never thanked God for everything He gave me, to the girl who can't wait for Sundays to get here, can't go a day without reading my Bible because then I feel so off, prays for anyone who needs it or asks for it and sometimes even volunteers, and now can't go a day without thanking God for what He has given me. People I come in contact with every day may not notice my change in heart, but I can tell the difference. I think one of the biggest things is being here at Bethel. There is a big change from going to a huge public school where its hard to share what God is doing in your everyday life to going to a small private school where you can bring God into the classroom everyday. In high school I would have that urge to say something "God related" but it just never came out, but now if I have that urge, it will come out. I can share what God is doing everyday with me in class, with my friends and even with random people I don't know well at school. That's why this verse is so close to my heart now. I want to be able to deny myself and follow Jesus in everything I do. I don't want anything to hold me back in my relationship with Christ. I want to be all His.
I like how the first part says, "if anyone would deny himself". It hit me as I can't give credit to myself when situations go well. If I play well in a game or something unexpected happened, I can't say well I knew that was going to happen, I guess hard work pays off. No, no, no. This  verse has taught me that I have to deny myself and give all the credit towards God. He is the one who gave me the talent to play well in a game or put me in the unexpected situation. It was, as Jeremiah 29:11 says, all part of His plan for me. These days I just want to give all the credit to Him, I don't deserve any of it. I am here for a reason, but mostly His reason.
The second part of the verse it was really put me over the edge and made me fall in love with the verse. "Whoever will save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." If I want my life to be all about myself, in the end I'm going to lose it. When I die or He comes back and judges us all, if my life was not pleasing to Him, He is not going to let me into His kingdom. This is one of my worse fears; that I won't be worthy enough to enter His kingdom. I don't even what to think about it and as my last blog post taught me, I can't worry about it, I just have to follow God's plan for my life and do everything for Him. That's where the next part comes in, "But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." The only way I will find life is if I give it all up for Him. I will find life in Him and only Him. Nothing of this world will statisfy me as much as living for Him and in Him will. I know its going to be hard going from day to day giving everything up for Him. But Jesus gave His one and only son up for me and you! Why can I not give up everything just to bring glory to Him on a day to day basis? This thought challenges me every single day. Are my actions one that pleases Him? Does what I say every day please Him? I wonder these things everyday. And as much I wish I could know the answer every night when I put my head down to sleep, I can't. I simply have to wait for that judgement day and continue to do what I believe is pleasing to Him.
As many of my readers may know, I love listening to music and to be able to worship God through that way. The people who sit next to me in church probably hate sitting next to me because I sometimes scream the lyrics to songs just because I tend to get into them. But I just want God to be able to hear me and I want to let Him know I'm singing to Him. One day my mom posted a song to my facebook wall and ever since she did, I love listening to it because its just an amazing song. It's called I Choose Jesus by Moriah Peters. The title pretty much says what it is about, choosing Jesus. The chorus is enough for me; I don't even need to listen to the rest of it to be satisfied. It sings,
"I choose Jesus, I choose Jesus.
The one who first chose me.
I choose Jesus.
For now and enternity."
She is choosing Jesus because He first chose her. I want to be able to choose Him everyday of my life because He first chose me. He choose me and so many other people over His own life. Not many people are able to say that. We really have no excuse to say we don't want to choose Him because He gave up the rest of His life for us. Yeah, I want to choose Him.
Another part of the song says,
"His choice comes at a cost.
All other things are lost.
No other love can mean so much to me."
His choice came at a cost of His own life. He could have continued to live, but instead He chose to die on the cross for you and me so that we could continue to live day to day. And if we do chose Him, everything else is a lose, just like the verse from earlier says. And the love He showed us by dying, is the love that matters the most. Yeah, I still want to choose Him.
My favorite part of the whole song is the ending. It says,
"He chose to love me when I felt unloveable.
He chose to reach me when I felt unreachable.
He carried me out of my fear and doubt.
How I want the world to know I choose Jesus."
He loves me when I least deserve it. When I sin every single day, He still loves me. Whenever I try and run from Him, He still reaches for me and still continues to love me. He takes away any fear about my future or any doubt I may have of the future. He is just that...lets see...AWESOME! And that is why the last part hits me. I want the whole world and everyone I come in contact with to know that I choose Jesus over every. single. thing. in this entire world! He is the only person who will love me whenever, reach down for me whenever, and take away any fears of mine whenever. I mean, come on, why not choose Him? I know I want to.
As I said at the beginning, I wanted to put whatever verse I chose some where were I would see it a lot. It took me a while but I finally decided I would put it on my dash board of my car. I am in there a lot and can see it plainly. No better place. Plus anyone who rides in my car can see it and may realize that I want to follow Christ in everything I do. That I want to carry my cross and follow Him. Now every time I'm in my car I think to myself, "Did I take up my cross and follow Him today?" I know everyday the answer isn't going to be yes, but I hope that as each day goes on, I have more yeses and less no's. Because when my life comes to an end, the only words I want to hear are, "Well done my good and faithful servant."
Jesus chose me over His own life.
I want to choose Him over my own life.
I just recently read this book about a girl who had a gun held to her head and was asked the question, do you believe in Christ? She said yes and lost her life. This really hit me. If I had a gun to my head and was going to die if I said I believed in Christ, what would I do? I ask myself this constantly. But then I remember Matthew 16: 24 and 25. "..for whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it." I want to find life, so I will choose to lose my life for Him. If I have to die just to say that I fully believe in Christ and love Him more than life, than I will. I mean, how could I not. He gave up His life so that I could live today. Yeah, I think I'll choose Jesus any day.
I'll end this with one last thought. It always amazes me how God works sometimes. Last Sunday in church my pastor talked about Mark 8 where I orginnally found the verse that led me to the one in Matthew. I had looked ahead in our study guides we had and was super excited about what he had to say about those two verses. I think the biggest thing that stuck out to me was when he said that if we really want to follow after Him, we need to stop making up own own messiah and just follow after the true One. We just need to pick up our cross, and we might even get persucuted for picking it up. He then went on to say if anyone would desire to save thier life, all of who they are, they must, must, must lose it. Here is probably my favorite quote from his message that day: "If you want your soul to be saved, you have to let it die. You have to die to self." I must let every single thing of mine go. Every. Single. Thing. Every last bit of it. If I want my soul saved. He also said that we must set aside our desires and say I want Jesus. The only thing I should be craving is Jesus. He is the only thing that will satisfy your craving, The only thing. All in all, the main idea of my pastors message on Sunday was to die to live. I have to die to myself in order to find full life. And if Jesus is the only way to do that, yeah I'll choose Jesus anyday.
"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take us his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."
Everyday I want to deny myself.
Everyday I want to pick up my cross.
Everyday I want to lose my life.
Everyday I want to find my life in Christ.
Until that day when He calls me home or comes to get me, I will choose Jesus.
He chose me.
I want to choose Him.
Every.
Single.
Day.
Yeah, I'll take Jesus.


The question is will you?
:)

"I Choose Jesus"-good listen :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL2bZfHmsDs

As you read this, I hope you were not thinking, wow she is really proud of herself for picking this verse. Please, please, please don't think that. I wrote it as a challenge to myself that I need to continue to follow Jesus. I just want people to know how God is working in my life at the time, not to make myself look good. Because I know I am no where near that. Just thought I would add this in!
Thank you for reading! :)