Ear to the Doorpost!

Hello my AMAZING family and friends!!
Ok so I have reached the end of my second week here!! I can't believe it! The first week went by so slow, but this week absolutely flew by! What a crazy week it's been! Friday I had the chance to lead worship for my class! It was a last minute thing and I was super nervous but I think it went pretty well. Also on Friday we found out the options for outreach! We got to list our top 2 choice and we will find out Tuesday evening where we are going! I will let you all know as soon as I know! I am sooo sooo sooooo excited!

 This week's speaker was Andy Byrd! We covered A LOT of things this week but I will just share what hit home the most. I felt like the topic this week, at least for me, was the love of God. God has been giving me revelation after revelation about his love. The first is that the foundation of Christianity isn't based on our love for Him, but instead it is His love for us. Our whole lives we strive to earn His love and find ourselves continually coming up short. This is what leads to guilt and then ultimately will lead to either apathetic Christianity or total rebellion. Unfortunately for me I fell into the apathetic Christianity category. I always felt so guilty because I failed to do what I believed I had to do to be a "good christian". This caused me to be burned out! I was living to try and earn God's love, instead of living in the freedom of His grace! But one thing I know now is that I am no longer complacent! I am not passive! I wouldn't be here in Kona if I was. I chose to have a tenacity for Him! I chose to fight the good fight because HE LOVES ME!! Haha!

The second thing is that I have been living my whole life believing a lie! MY WHOLE LIFE! The lie was this that I was ugly, that I wasn't good enough, that no one cared about me, and that I wasn't worthy of love! Lies! All lies! And I have believed these lies for so long that they were all that I could hear. They were drowning out the quiet whisper of God's love. I would wake up every morning constantly comparing myself to everyone around me and I developed this hatred for myself. I hated who I was, I hated who God made me to be. My thoughts were always negative and it ate away at my soul and left me broken and living in constant fear of rejection. My parents can testify to the fact that all you had to do is look at me the wrong way and I would fall to pieces and believe that you hated me! I realize now that these are lies that I am hearing and I chose instead to believe truth! I chose to get up in the morning and instead of hating myself I am going to hate the lies. I am so angry with Satan! Andy said that "God is worthy of us getting mad at the things that have robbed us of our inheritance!"  This is so true! I am tired of giving in to Satan and his lies! God's love is changing me! Now this isn't a automatic change! Everyday I am waking up heading into a battle! And there will be times when I fall back into my old habits, but I am just going to repent and then MOVE ON! Please be praying for me!

Also we talked about revival of the heart and reformation of the lifestyle. In my life I have had a lot of revivals of the heart. Amazing moments of intimacy, but never giving him the steering wheel! Now if there was ever a time of revival of the heart in my life this is it! Please be praying that I will give God Lordship of my life! I don't know if you guys have ever heard of the term bond servant, but this is an amazing concept. In Bible times when people would go bankrupt they would chose to be a slave of someone. It was the Jewish custom for Masters to treat their slaves like family. Because this slave hood was voluntary every 7 years all the slaves would be set free. During this time slaves would have be given a chance to get their feet back on the ground. But there was a second option. Slaves could say that they loved their Master and believed that they were better off with their master and so the Master would take the slave to the doorpost and place their ear against the doorpost and pierce their ear. They would then become a bond servant, a slave for live! They would serve their Master for the rest of their life! Amazing! So here I am! Ear to the doorpost! Haha! I am crying as a write this! I want to be a bond servant of Jesus! And even though it sounds contradictory I feel so free! Crazy! I pray that you all could experience this as well! It so AMAZING!!

Ok so that's all I got for this week! Please continue to prayer for my finances! I still need about $3,800! I know that God will provide! Our God is faithful! And no number is to big for my Papa!

Love you, Maggie