Have you ever accomplished something small and felt good about it? What if you felt like that all of the time? What exactly is a small victory and how can we continue to grow through the little things in life? We as humans often overlook the small things and don’t really pay any attention to the effect of victory. The fact of the matter is, little victories aren’t actually little at all, they just seem that way. God tells us time and time again that He is there with us through our hardships. That’s what allows us to remain steadfast in his love. Wether it’s victory over sin or victory over death, we are called to draw near to God no matter what. 

Jesus teaches us so many things about God’s character. His life on earth as a human has taught us what God wants from us and how we are redeemed. God wants a relationship, the one we all desire deep down within ourselves. He helps us overcome sin through his blood which has healed us. 

Jesus teaches us about fighting. He tells us not to fight with the man who wants to fight. And if someone strikes you, you must turn the other cheek. Are you someone who frequently gets in fights over little things? By avoiding certain situations you might find yourself attaining victory. By not getting in a fight with someone who is just egging you on, you have won that battle. This victory might lead to many more. We are at war in our minds when we are in these situations. You should take a few moments to pause and notice these things because even though they seem small, God is extremely proud of you for winning that battle. 

Jesus teaches us what to say. I don’t know about you but I can never say the right thing. Then I feel like a terrible representative for Christ and the church. Wether it’s using profanity or making empty promises, we can overcome this obstacle. Eventually everything could be overcome, but only with the help of our loving Father. It’s better not to make any promises at all than to make empty ones. Matthew 5:37 says, “Let your yes be YES and let your no be NO, anything more than this comes from the devil.” Isn’t that crazy? When I read this, it changed the way I thought about my salvation. I thought, “Sure I’m saved but am I living like a saved person should be living?” The answer was no and sometimes I find myself back where I started. But I know that God will never let me go. 

We might be able to accomplish little victories here and now with God but the ultimate victory was accomplished when Jesus died and was resurrected on the third day. This was the most meaningful act of all time, to humble Himself and allowed others to crucify the King of kings. God wants us to live humble lives and He allows us to be victorious over the grip of sin. 

Sin has such a hold on our world and only through Christ we can break out of those shackles weighing us down. Jesus says, “Be sorry for your sins and turn from them. The holy nation of heaven is near.” (Matt 4:17) The key factor here is Turning away from sin. But how do we change our sinful nature? Through Christ! God Himself, in the person of His Holy Spirit, takes up residence in our hearts. We are in Christ and He is in us. This is how we break through our walls of corruption, no one can accomplish this without God. 

Every time I resist temptation I am victorious. Every time I say no to sin and yes to Jesus, I am victorious. Every time I pray, I’m winning. Every time I worship God, I win. How do we resist temptation? Well, maybe we should do as Jesus did and memorize the scriptures. God has given us the keys to the kingdom when we learn about Jesus’ encounter with the devil. Jesus was tempted three times and three times Jesus said, “It is Written.” Memorizing the scriptures allows us to resist temptation. Oh How powerful the word of God is. Try to memorize some parts of scripture that have to do with what you struggle with the most. This is a challenge I am proposing to you, that you would take the time to memorize God’s word. When you face your sin recite the scripture and glorify God instead of giving in. 

Everyone gets tempted, even Jesus. But wether or not you resist that temptation will determine if you will be victorious or not. It’s liberating to know that with God all things are possible. It doesn’t matter what sin you are struggling with, if you really try God will help you break loose. We were slaves to sin but through Jesus we were born again.

In Christ we are regenerated, renewed, and born again, and this new creation is spiritually minded, whereas the old nature is carnally minded. The new nature fellowships with God, obeys His will, and is devoted to His service. These are actions the old nature is incapable of doing or even desiring to do. So keep attaining those victories and always remember what Jesus said, “The holy nation of heaven is near.” Stay humble throughout your journey and God is going to bless you. 

By: Mark A. DeJesus

What is this middle path I’m talking about? Is it the need to be indifferent? Or is it letting go and not involving yourself in anything extreme? Well, it’s neither of these. Being in the middle path simply means to be aware of suffering and avoiding extremes of pleasure and pain. This helps us realize the need for peace. Being in the middle means moving dynamically through extremes. Violence causes pain and suffering but violence seems to be unavoidable most times. The truth is that violence isn’t always necessary but it still happens. We all experience suffering and desire to one day put an end to all of it. This need for peace is felt by every human being who has ever suffered, which is everyone to an extent. 

God grants us this peace that we all desire. He promises peace, wether it’s in this life or in heaven where we go on to live happily forever. People think that the middle path means being one foot in and one foot out but it doesn’t. The middle path is recognizing that you will suffer but God will be there every step of the way. We are called to rejoice in our suffering because we know the truth. We are chosen by God himself to be apart of his Glorious Kingdom. The bible says that if your name isn’t written in the book of life its because he never knew (Ginosko) you. And if your not in the book of life then you will go to Hell. But how could I ever be at peace knowing that? How do I know if my name is in God’s book? Well, do you seek to strengthen your relationship with Christ? Have you begged God for forgiveness and were you born again? If so you can be at peace especially in the midst of your hardships. The middle path is recognizing your flaws and realizing that you are too weak to overcome them by yourself. It’s relying on God completely for your salvation. 

In heaven there will not be a need for peace because there will be no violence. There will be no hardships, no persecution, not hatred, no tears. Love won’t get confused with attachment in heaven. This is a huge problem in our world today. Conditional love is attachment. The useful people are valued and respected but the non so useful people are abandoned and often treated poorly. Jesus never loved someone based off of their usefulness so why do we? Even parents who’s child is more likely to be successful gets the most attention while the other child gets left behind and feels neglected. These things come naturally to us and in order for us to experience real love we must love unconditionally, like God loves us. We must break through our sinful nature in order to be righteous.

Will our ways ever get close to true righteousness? Or is my entire life based off of me trying to meet expectations that I will never actually meet? It seems utterly impossible to ever meet perfection. Well, it seems that way because it is that way. Perfection has only been accomplished by one person, Jesus Christ himself. God is the only perfect being in existence. There is a way to reach a different type of perfection in our own way though. It’s called excellence or sanctification. Giving 100 percent and fully devoting yourself to becoming as righteous as you possibly can allows you to get closer to Christ. This form of perfection is called excellence. It is to always give it your all in everything you do for God. 

Why do we have so much emotional strain affecting us in ways we don’t understand? I’m not an emotional person whatsoever but I do know a lot about the stress it causes people. Not saying that it ever affected me but I have been observing people every day since I was very young. I used to ask questions like why are they crying or why is she so sad. These people were at a funerals and I learned that normal people have a hard time letting people go. They never want to say goodbye as if their absence hurts them physically. I just didn’t get it. When I finally started to understand that people’s feelings were fragile and some things are better left unsaid, I knew that I was the one that was defective. There was never anything wrong with those people, it was me the entire time. My inability to get affected by the loss of a “loved one” or even what I thought love meant is what made me so confused my whole life. I used to think love was needing someone to either survive or just to function. I also thought love was optional and I always thought that one day maybe I could feel love too. 

When Jesus came into the picture He showed me who I was meant to be. There was a time that my passion for him was overflowing but eventually, I ran away. I didn’t feel at peace and I guess you can say I had cold feet. I ran away and went with my original plan to becoming a Marine. Here I am 4 years later and I’m ready for another enlistment. I thought that by running away from God and his purpose for me, I was being rebellious. I decided to leave the church but God never stopped pursuing me. Once God has you in the palm of his hand he never lets you go. We are always at arms reach or closer. We’re the ones that try to leave Him, but He loves us too much to just walk away. Instead I walk in the promises of God knowing that I will suffer, but rejoicing in His Glory anyway. The middle path is not being of the world but in it.

Being in the world but not of it simply means not living carnally but physically residing on this earth. I don’t want to participate in the world’s sinful activities and I often times find myself wanting to change the world. The problem is not knowing how. If only I could speak to the masses and everyone would listen but thats not true at all. I’m always angry because I spent my entire life observing those around me and I hate the sin that is corrupting people’s lives, including my own. I hate when I sin but for some reason there isn’t a way to not sin. Sure, hating sin is a good thing but not when it makes you anxious. I think that in order to find peace you need to except your faults and rely solely on Jesus to take it away. Our sinful nature sometimes causes us to hate ourselves as well. Jesus doesn’t want that, He wants you to love your life and all of those around you.

Am I at peace yet? I’ve done all of these things like putting a check in the box, so what’s the problem? Oh I know, I forgot the most important thing. Relationship! God wants us to know Him and He wants to know us intimately. It doesn’t matter if I’m putting checks in boxes for him because without love it all means nothing. Without full devotion we will be left depleted. Without wanting Christ we forget the importance of obedience. And if peace is what you are really after then you’re going to have to trust God. Some people say that God promises peace, so we will have peace wether in this life or in heaven. Want to know what I think? If we can trust God enough in this life to truly feel at peace during our hardships, that’s the peace God is promising us. If we could do that imagine what else we can do. Maybe changing the world isn’t as far fetched as I initially thought. 

God is!! Savior,king,sovereign,Good,just and so much more!!

I am nothing. we are small, chaotic, sinners, were just bad ok?

So why would God chose us to be vessels when we are hypocrites? Why would God use us if we are so terrible? Why would God use me? So many questions asking why. We hang onto things that don’t have meaning, it doesn’t matter. We’ve given up on ourselves. We’ve killed ourselves in a way because there is no life. I can’t see life in my brethren’s eyes. I feel the depression, nothing but sorrow. The only joy they feel is a few moments of fun in the world. this can’t be true joy because you don’t know Jesus. If you don’t know Jesus then you will never know what real joy feels like. I’m afraid for my friends and family but nothing I do is enough to save them. So I’ll just do everything I can, pray and sing because I know my king is listening. Can I say these things? Can we fully grasp life and death? How can we see if we have lost sight of what matters? This world is rapidly blinding us from the truth. Telling us we’re not worthy so we give up faith. Faith was all we had yet we gave it up. We cry and laugh but we still can’t feel a thing. We’re numb

I hated the core part of myself. I fought so many battles and thought I won but little did I know it would come back years later and ambush me. I’m losing this battle because I tried identifying myself as straight when that is far from what I am. I can only suppress my romantic attractions for so long before I start to go crazy and awaken the second part of me that I hate. I’ve never been able to generate an emotional connection with anyone that was genuine. I’ve been avoiding the topic because I’m actually scared. For many years I let myself believe that I didn’t have any fears but that was just a way of keeping myself strong. Who was I kidding I could never be strong enough to overcome my fear of love. That’s what it is, I never really felt love. I tried to force myself to feel love as long as I can remember. I’m scared of love because it requires me to open up. It requires me to care. It requires me to be emotional or empathetic. I can’t do that even if I tried. Maybe I did try a few times, I have. I kept getting the same answer. I hate having to fake caring for something that I don’t care about or saying I love you because I feel obligated.(This was because I was only pursuing straight relationships) As I was growing up I always asked myself the same question, Am I gay? Now there’s no question about it and I’ve been asking myself something else, am I incapable of being happy? Or am I not allowed to be?

The God who loves me and whom I love to my understanding requires me to hate the core part of me that I could never change. Growing up I thought it was true and as an adult I felt the same way. But the more time I spend praying for God to take it away the more I realized that it was there to stay and I cannot do anything about it but hold it in and never let it get out. This is my darkest secret, my scariest thought, and most doubtful lifestyle. I thought I was cursed, I thought satan had a hold of me and after all my devotion, prayer, and fasting I thought that would release me from the grip of sin. But after all that I’m still attracted to guys so it couldn’t be satan… it’s me. It’s the way I was born. People were born blind and were cured. People were born deaf but now they can hear. People were born mute but now they speak. These are all things people were born with and I believe I was born gay. So why would God cure blindness but not homosexuals? I get it, it’s not a sin to be blind, deaf, mute, etc. But that’s my point. Homosexuality is not a disability, it’s not a sin, it’s not a choice.

There was a time I was truly transformed and I’ve never been the same since. But some things just never changed. They were the things I felt needed to be changed the most. I didn’t know these things would come back somewhat later in my life.

In high school when I decided to turn my life around and pursue a meaningful life with Christ, I realized that my sexual orientation was not going to change. But I made the decision to seek God and ignore my sinful yet natural thoughts. The way I chose to live was painful and time after time I found myself angry with who I am and jealous of every one who was normal. But I knew that only by denying this part of me I will be successful in every way, even if it cost me my happiness. Everlasting joy is better than being happy or feeling settled with the storm in my mind.

There are very few things that can emotionally hurt me and thats because of my psychopathic tendencies. But even though there aren’t many things that can hurt me emotionally, this did. I chose to live a straight lifestyle and the thought of never being the person my heart desires really got to me and it still does. Ive gotten so used to the pain that I’ve grown numb to it. I brainwashed myself because I didn’t want anyone else to know. I often times doubt that this is the life God is calling me to live. How much more of this can I actually take? A part of me wants to forget everything and run to another man, kiss another man, and to just be with a man. But I know that I can never, ever do that… Ever

We’re so sure that our will is right and we’re going in the right direction. Then God’s will intervenes and we remember the importance of obedience. What I always seem to forget or ignore is the fact that Gods will is so much greater than my own. Then I decide to obey Him. And when I do everything seems to fall in place. Then there are other times I’ve decided to rebel against God’s will because I wasn’t happy. But God never gives up even when I do, its not about being happy anymore. Its about finding Joy in the Lord. I cant find joy in anything in this world but the love of God brings so much joy and peace.

Did you ever look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’re doing Gods will. Or is the lifestyle you’re living God approved. Well you should everyday because all it takes is one mistake until your falling back to your old ways. If we aren’t continuously praying then we aren’t getting closer to God at all, we are separating. Even when it feels like you aren’t moving forward or backwards the truth is you’re moving backwards because there is no in between. There is no pause, you are falling away not rising up. We must pray, we must fast, we must love one another, be slow to anger, and all of the rest. But most importantly love God with all you are and be willing to lose everything for the sake of His name. Because He did give it all for you.

Who am I to get in the way of Gods plan? I have rebelled against God and his plan for me but He still shows his love for me in numerous ways. He still forgives me and my worst mistakes. He still found a way to use me in my unbelief. God really is relentless, we are the completely opposite. We give up too easily and try to find comfort in sinful sings. But we do realize these things so there is no excuse, we’re just too complacent. Complaining about everything, yes I’m talking about myself too. We’re all in need of Jesus to take us away from our sinful nature and to renew us. To become new creatures we must give everything to the Lord, there’s no such thing as a carnal Christian! If you claim to be a Christian but look like the rest of the world; I’m sorry to say, you are not a Christian. You are not following Jesus and His teachings. You’re trying to find justification in the way that you’re living. We must be set apart from the world and if you’re too ashamed to do that then you need to examine yourself. Examine yourselves even if you are a Christian, make sure you’re living right. Don’t take the Lords name in vane by not living like a true Christian. As representatives of Jesus Christ we should be known for our love for Him.

I used to cry out to God. Even if I had to force myself to cry to make it seem more sincere. What was I thinking? God is all knowing, there’s no doubt the He knew exactly how I felt. I think He knows that those emotions are extremely difficult for me to feel. But I do believe God allowed me to feel them a few times as I prayed and prayed and continued to pray. Then I stopped because I was still gay and praying the gay away was definitely not working. All it did was make me feel unworthy one hundred percent of the time. I knew that one day I would accept it, it just couldn’t be anytime soon.

I always knew it was wrong which is why I relentlessly tried to “fix” myself. I kept giving it to the Lord even though I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. This was my darkest burden of which I didn’t have anyone to tell about, mostly because of all the shame it would bring. If I couldn’t accept it for myself how are my friends and family supposed to? I’ve stayed up countless nights, went on late and early prayer walks, and fasted but all of that resulting in complete and utter failure. God can most definitely do anything and everything but for some reason He didn’t want to fix me. Maybe there wasn’t anything broken that could be fixed, I just have to live with it. So he didn’t fix the worst part of me and everyday I have to live with the struggle knowing that what I’m attracted to is abominable. Abominations upon more abominations. I’m a walking disaster, I’m the worst hypocrite of them all. I always think that I’m not capable of being a leader because my likeliness to fail is ten times more than that of a heterosexual male. that should make not failing more respectable don’t you think? Anyway, I have no idea what God has in store for me until that day, I must keep on giving him my burdens so that the Lord will take care of me (Ps 55:22). It’s so much easier to handle my desire to kill than it is to handle my gayness. Even that comes around the corner and catches me off guard knocking me to the ground. Then I’m asking God to take it away and to rescue me.

Ever since I was a child, I knew I would be fighting a war against homosexuality. In first grade when I had my first crush(and it wasn’t a girl) I didn’t even know what gay was. It wasn’t until third grade that I found out it was wrong. Everyone was using the word gay as an insult and I didn’t know what the word meant so I did what every little kid did when they wanted to know something. I asked my older brother and when he told me that gay meant liking boys I completely ceased all thoughts of being homosexual. I force myself into liking girls and eventually it worked. But I still liked guys, I’ve always liked them. I didn’t want to be more abnormal than I already felt. I was always alone and didn’t have any friends, I never showed any emotion other than being happy. I avoided feeling sad but I did feel anger. Anytime something sad happened and everyone was crying I wondered why I wasn’t. Why was I always the confused one? Emotionally and sexually; can I just be normal? I never thought this would effect me but here I am writing about how much of a horrible person I am. I tried not to care about other peoples feelings, so I never have. I literally trained myself to make it look like I was normal on both aspects. And yes I was smart and always knew I was smarter than most of my peers. I don’t say friends because they weren’t my friends it was all an act. When high school came around I accepted the fact that I liked guys and I was done denying it to myself. But I never came out to anyone other than myself. I came to the conclusion that a was bisexual and maybe one day I’d become asexual(not being sexually attracted to either gender). I’ve never been feminine whatsoever and maybe thats because of my psychotic tendencies. Whatever the reason is I’m glad I’m not feminine. I hate saying that but it’s true, this is who I am whether I like it or not. Anyway, the people I did tell when I was 20 years of age were definitely beyond shocked. I told my mom, female friend, my mom told my brothers( huge mistake by the way) and my best friend back home. Everyone except for my best friend we’re extremely shocked. My friend told me he had a feeling, can you believe that?

I knew that my sexual orientation wasn’t going to magically fix itself, or get fixed at all for that matter. I started to go to church when I was in ninth grade to attempt on praying the gay away. That was not a mistake but I did learn a lot about myself. One thing being that I enjoy public speaking. I still never shared anything true until I turned twenty years old. It was all a lie, everything and I didn’t feel bad about it. That was the problem my inability to truly feel guilt with certain things. I knew that the road ahead was going to be narrow and I would stumble along the way. But I also knew that if I ever wanted to get accepted into the kingdoms of God, I was going to need to be extremely strong in my faith. Boy am I glad I did that. I don’t know where’d I’d be. That wasn’t sarcasm if you were wondering. Even though I never truly cared, it does kinda feel good to come clean, even if no one reads this. Life is the most difficult for a gay Christian especially because we give up our sexual orientations; our lifestyle is the hardest not to live. Even when our heart is telling us we’re wrong, our mind and soul knows the truth. The truth that I could never be a true Christian if I was gay.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton