Not there yet, but making effort to get there

As some of you have seen through my many blog posts

I've been living the journey of allowing God to teach me things,

and growing in a relationship with Him and the others around me.

I must say that I am very blessed with amazing friends

who encourage me when I'm going through hard times

and who treasure me. I feel like my friends have been 

more like a family to me. I'm very thankful for them.

I'm also blessed to be apart of the Revelation Youth Group

that God has placed me as the worship leader in. You guys

help me grow so much, and I want you to know that

I don't look at you as just students, but also friends. 

You are a huge part of my life!

Well as my journey has gone on I've had times of feeling like

I'm climbing a mountain with broken arms, and times

of feeling like things are pretty easy.

More times of the broken arm feeling though lol.

My last blog post was about some things that were getting to me,

and I want to thank Josh Ramos for being so encouraging 

today. THANKS BRO!

Well today I came across something in Philippians that 

really encouraged me. As a man who is striving to mature in Christ

first off I see my goal

Philippians 3:10 My goal is to know Him(Christ) and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death

though this is Paul's writing I believe we as Christians share this Goal 

and I find encouragement in this next statement

Philippians 3:¹² Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. ¹³ Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, ¹⁴ I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly  call in Christ Jesus. 

My encouragement here comes from the fact that I know I'm not fully mature in Christ either,

but I can make the effort, and I am making the effort

I can imagine Paul having some of those same feelings I had the other day

Wondering if he was reaching anybody at times

not all the time, but sometimes. 

As I said in my video blog

the same God that strengthened and encouraged Paul

is with Me doing the same for me

I'm starting to see that more and more

God treasures me and calls me to treasure myself as His child

He wouldn't give me these gifts if not for His glory

So even when I FEEL like I'm not reaching anyone and the old

immaturity kicks in, I can remember what I know

I can remember that God is using me

Forgetting the things I left behind to move forward

I want to continue moving forward to what is ahead

and what is ahead is much more amazing

A land that He will show me 

I hope this has been encouraging to my readers