Flip It!

This is the last Flip It message I will write (that I know of… God works in mysterious ways). I just wanted to say thank each and every one of you for your support over the last three years. Yes, Lindsey, Hailey, and I write the messages, but we write them because of you, because of your support and love. This is extremely bittersweet. We won’t be deleting the group. We are just no longer sending out messages. I love you all from the bottom of my heart. 

This group started as a little bitty thing for my youth group. We all needed a reminder every once in awhile to stay in the word. Then it exploded. Friends began inviting friends, and it eventually grew to 3000+ at its most populated point, but it only got this big because someone decided that we weren’t the only ones who needed a regular reminder to spend some time with God. 

“Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”

I’ve written about these verses countless times. I love these verses because they are applicable to everyone. I’ve got friends in Taiwan. I know people who’ve got friends in Nicaragua, Mexico, and even Thailand. The common denominator through all of these bonds is Jesus Christ and the bravery to step out and step up for God and His word. As this group comes to end, I pray that each and every one of you remembers that they can be this brave. You can step up and shout Jesus’s name for the world to hear because you are not alone. God is with you. God is with me as I try to continue on His path for my life. We are rebels to the world and warriors for Christ. It’s a tough journey but the most rewarding anyone of us will ever experience. 

If you take anything from this group, I want it to be that God loves you and is with you absolutely all of the time. This is one of the most important things any of us can keep with us. It will get us through the good, the bad, and the ugly. It will help us make decisions, and it will help us be brave enough to flip our lives back to the way it should be: God’s way. 

Don’t forget to spend time in God’s word or in His presence today, tomorrow, and forever. 

Passages:

2 Samuel 7:1-8:18 

John 14:15-31 

Psalm 119:33-48 

Proverbs 15:33

Uninhibited.

“I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.” 2 Samuel 6:22

When David had the ark of the Lord moved to Jersualem, he went ahead of the ark. He danced. He praised God. He offered sacrifices. He rejoiced. He lept. All for God, in front of all of Israel. His wife Michal got on to him for his actions, acting out in front of the slave girls “as any vulgar fellow would” (verse 20). But David looked straight at his wife and answered that he acted that way for the Lord. And he was more than willing to become even more undiginifed than that for the Lord. He didn’t care what other people thought- he was going to praise the Lord.

How different is David’s attitude than our attitude most of the time when it comes to this type of thing? We’d so much rather blend in the crowd and not draw attention to ourselves. We don’t want to humiliate ourselves. Instead, David threw away his inhibitions and fears of what other people would say and just praised God. He celebrated God and rejoiced in our Lord. He threw away what was expected of him when it came to God. And that is how we should be as well. We shouldn’t be so afraid praise God. Instead we should be willing to become undignified for our Savior. We should be willing to throw ourselves completely into praising our Lord.

Are you willing to be undignifed before the Lord? Spend some time in His word. :)
-Lindsey-

Quality over quantity. This is generally a nonexistent phrase when it comes to college English classes. Yes, they want quality, just spread out over lots and lots of pages of writing. 

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” Philippians 4:6

Have you ever had the idea that long prayers are much better and mean more to God than short prayers? Where did you hear that? Or did you just assume? When writing a college paper, we are given guidelines- everything from word counts to material to be discussed to how many sources we need to include. The same thing goes for prayer. We have guidelines that are laid out for us in Matthew 6:9-13. We all know these verses in different variations:

“Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, the power, and glory forever. Amen.”

Look how long it is. 64 words. 6 sentences. It starts out addressing God as the father and praising his name. Then it asks God to carry out His will on earth and then to supply for all our needs. Forgiveness comes next- for ourselves and others, followed by protection, and affirmation that everything belongs to Him. Short, sweet, and to the point. Sometimes God needs us to be concise- not for Him, but to prove a point to us. Some of the most powerful and effective prayers are things like “Thank you, Lord,” “Oh, God, I need your wisdom,” “Give me the strength to keep going.” Just a few words can connect us with heaven and call on the Lord to act on our behalf. It’s all about the quality of our prayers, not the quantity. It’s not the length of our prayers that makes them effective, but the sincerity and the faith behind them. 

Don’t forget to spend time in God’s word and in His presence today. :)

Passages:

2 Samuel 2:12-3:39 

John 13:1-30 

Psalm 119:1-16 

Proverbs 15:29-30

-Paige-

God is for us.

“What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31

God is for us. We also know that Satan is against us. The question we must ask is are we going to get into agreement with God or with the devil? You know the answer. Stop being against yourself because Satan is against you.

Sad to say, sometimes we discover people are also against us. Satan works through people as well as independently. He attacks our confidence through the things people say or don’t say. How important are people’s opinions of us? Are we thinking for ourselves, or are we always taking everyone else’s opinion? If people’s opinions, judgments, and attitudes toward us are sometimes inspired by the devil, instead of agreeing with what they think and what they say, we must resist it.

If we know God is for us, then it shouldn’t matter how we feel or what other people think of us. As the Bible says, “So we take comfort and are encouraged and confidently and boldly say, The Lord is my Helper; I will not be seized with alarm. What can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6).

Don’t forget to spend time with God and in His word today, too! :)

-Hailey-

What makes you feel alive? Is it dancing? Skydiving? Running? Writing? We all have little things in our lives that make life worthwhile and help us feel alive.

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” Romans 8:2

When we try to have a relationship with God by keeping every single commandment and rule He laid out in the Bible, we will always feel defeated and like we aren’t good enough. We will just fail miserably. Jesus kept God’s law perfectly for us, and paid the debt we owed for our sinfulness. He opened up a way for us to approach God through faith in Him rather than through our own works. Jesus said that if we love Him we will keep and obey His commandments. He did not say that if we kept them all, He would love us. God already loves us, and He wants us to respond to His love by willing doing our best to obey Him. He also wants us to know that when we make mistakes we can be instantly and completely forgiven. Sin produces spiritual death, but through Christ we can live. 

Don’t forget to spend time in God’s word or in His presence today. :)

Passages:

1 Samuel 29:1-31:13 

John 11:55-12:19 

Psalm 118:1-18 

Proverbs 15:24-26

-Paige

Surrender.

“Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.” Psalm 55:22

The definition of surrender according to dictionary.com is: “to yield (something) to the possession or power of another; deliver up possession of on demand or under duress.” This is what we are called to do on a daily basis in our relationship with God. We are called to surrender. We are called to lay down everything at His feet.

“Here at Your feet, I lay my past down, my wanderings, all my mistakes down and I am free.”

God calls us to lay our pasts down. Sometimes this is very hard. We all come from different backgrounds. We’ve all made different mistakes in our lives. We’ve all wandered further away than we planned. We all have our own story, we all have things that seem to haunt us. Mistakes we’ve made, paths we’ve travelled, whatever it may be. But God wants us to lay it down at His feet, to longer be haunted by those choices. We have to lay the past down.

“Here at Your feet, I lay this day down. Not in my strength, but in Yours I’ve found
all I need. You’re all I need.”

It’s so easy to get lost in the present day. We are so busy in our day to day lives. We are constantly on the go, and when we’re not on the go, we’re thinking about the next thing we should be doing. But we need to lay it down as well. Because God is the one who can get us through the craziness of life. He can give us the strength. He is all we need. We have to lay the present day down.

“Here at Your feet, I lay my future down. All of my dreams, I give to You now, and I find peace. I find peace.”

Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in making plans for the future. We make plans for our life, choosing where we think we should be in the next five to ten years. We have dreams of what we want in our lives. But God wants us to lay them all down. He wants us to surrender our plans and follow His plans. He will help us achieve our dreams, or blow them way out of the water. His plan for our lives is 10x better than anything we could ever write for ourselves. We have to lay the future down before Him and trust that He knows best when it comes to our futures and our dreams.

“Here at Your feet, I lay my life down, for You my King, You’re all I want now and my soul sings.”

All we need, all we really want is in our Savior. He can fill every need and every want we ever will have with His presence. In everything, we need to lay our lives down. We need to surrender to Him and give Him everything of us.

“Jesus, Jesus, at Your feet, oh, to dwell and never leave. Jesus, Jesus, at Your feet, there is nowhere else for me. There is nowhere else for me.”

As we surrender, we need to dwell there. It needs to be a daily renewal of surrender of our lives. We are to lay everything in our lives at His feet. There is no where better than to be surrendered before our Savior.

“‘Cause I am free, here at Your feet. All I need is at Your feet. I find peace. We’re at Your feet.”

Spend some time in His word.

-Lindsey- (lyrics from “At Your Feet” by Casting Crowns).

One simple but powerful proof of the Holy Spirit’s power in someone’s life is how much their life has changed.

“The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you in power, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person.” 1 Samuel 10:6

I write all the time about how we need to change certain things in our lives or to get us to think about what we need to change in our lives. At Jesus’ trail, Peter denied Him three times because he was afraid of the Jews, but after being filled with the Holy Spirit he was no longer afraid. He stood on the Day of Pentecost and preached an extremely bold message. The result of Peter’s preaching was that 3000 souls came to know God. The Holy Spirit changed Peter. It turned him into another man- one who wasn’t fearful but courageous. Peter was not the only one who took a bold stand that day. All eleven of the remaining disciples did the same. They were all hiding behind their fear of the Jews when Jesus came to them after His resurrection. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and became fearless and brave.

The power of the Holy Spirit has changed many lives. It has changed me, and it will continue to change people till the end of time. In order to fix the things we need to fix in our lives, we need the Holy Spirit and God’s help. Don’t forget to spend time in God’s word or in His presence today. :)

Passages:
1 Samuel 24:1-25:44 
John 10:22-42 
Psalm 116:1-19 
Proverbs 15:20-21

-Paige-

Have you ever been betrayed? It hurts, doesn’t it? None of us are immune from it. The moment we dare to trust someone else, we run the risk of being betrayed. Jesus understands. He himself was betrayed.

“Not a single one of all the good promises the Lord had given to the family of Israel was left unfulfilled; everything he had spoken came true.” Joshua 21:45

Trust is very fragile. Once your trust has been violated, it becomes that much more difficult to trust again, and if it is betrayed often enough, we tend to become bitter and cynical. Many respond to repeated betrayals by carefully constructing a wall around them, refusing to allow anyone inside. The most tragic consequence occurs when someone believes that he or she has been betrayed by God. The person wrongly assumes that God is obligated to grant them a trouble-free life. How do some people respond when the pain and pressure of everyday living comes crashing into their circumstances? Many try to block God out of their lives completely. Throughout the book of Joshua, God’s people faced repeated challenges. Their journey into the promised land was marked by highs and lows. There were periods of great victory and days of a dreaded defeat. At times, some may have concluded that God betrayed them, but He didn’t. When the final episode was written, Joshua 21:45 served as a figting and accurate conclusion. God remained faithful to them; He will always be faithful to you. You can trust Him completely.

Don’t forget to spend time in God’s word or in His presence today! :)

Passages:

1 Samuel 22:1-23:29 

John 10:1-21 

Psalm 115:1-18 

Proverbs 15:18-19

-Paige-

Have you ever just had that nagging feeling that something is missing? That you just don’t feel complete, or maybe are just dissatisfied with your life?

“Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” Psalm 90:14

God puts blessings into our lives in so many more ways than I count. It is up to us to decide how to treat those blessings and what to do with them. We can look for love, adoration, and unfailing promises in a relationship, but what is that relationship without God as the center of it? We can treat our possessions and gifts as if they were made of gold, but what do these things mean if we do not give in return? What do these things mean if they do not honor God or we let them gain more importance in our hearts than our relationship with God? We can be thankful for so many blessings in our lives, but we have to be careful not to let these wonderful things become more important to us than God or get in the way of His path for our lives. When we do this, we can often feel as if there is something missing in our lives. We then seek to find what that might be, but we often look in the wrong places. This can be by acquiring more bigger, better, newer possessions, or by changing the relationships in our lives. The truth is, though, only God can give us the satisfaction we desire, not earthly possessions or human relationships. Only God can make us feel complete.

So, if you are feeling as if there is something missing in your life, examine your priorities. If God is not the top of that list, then maybe you should do a little rearranging. Then, and only then, will you feel complete again.

Don’t forget to spend time with God and in His word today. :)

-Hailey-

Who do you consider family? There are some people who have a mom, a dad, a sibling, two sets of grandparents, maybe an aunt and uncle and a couple of cousins with other people have very different looking families. My family consists of my mom, my three sisters, one set of grandparents, an aunt, an uncle, three cousins, and a great aunt and uncle. 

“And Moses recited the words of this song from beginning to end in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel.” Deuteronomy 31:30

Moses had an incredible opportunity. Standing before millions of people, he had the chance to tell them about the wonders of God. He had the privilege of singing God’s praises before the whole Jewish nation, to demonstrate his love and devotion for the Lord. When you go to worship God at church, though you may not be in front of millions or even thousands of people, you have the special privilege to worship God in the company of others. The next time you go to church, look at the people around you. Remind yourself that these are your family members; they are the people who will pray for you and care for you, the people you can pray for and care for. Think about the fact that millions of Christians around the world are worshiping God with you. Following Jesus not only brings you eternal life, it brings you a wonderful, worldwide family right here on earth. 

How do you think Moses felt worshiping God with so many people? I have an idea simply because of Passion earlier this month. Imagine what it’s like, and don’t forget to spend time in God’s word or in His presence today.

Passages:

1 Samuel 18:5-19:24 

John 8:31-59 

Psalm 112:1-10 

Proverbs 15:12-14

-Paige-