Judge Not, or Ye Shall Be Judged

"See that girl over there? I can't believe she's wearing that much makeup!" 
"Ew....that boy needs a haircut." 
"That girls need more modest clothing."
"Oh, she's a terrible person! I can't believe she calls herself a Christian!" 


If we're honest with ourselves, we know that we think these things. We may not say them out loud, but thoughts like the ones above do run through our heads.

This is something that I have been working on getting better at lately. I used to look at someone and give them a label before I even got a chance to know them.
I saw people and instantly thoughts that weren't true came into my head.

Truthfully, I thought that people who were different than me, were just plain annoying.

As I've been reading through my Bible and trying to get closer to Jesus, I have come across a few verses that have stood out to me.

1 Samuel 16:7 says, "But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as a man sees, for a man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'" 


As we strive to become better Christians, we are striving to become more like Christ himself. Which means, as hard as it may be for us, we need to not judge by what a person looks like on the outside, but rather on what's on the inside.

Truthfully, I have become good friends with quite a few people whom I didn't think I could ever get along with!

But see, God made everyone. You. Me. That random person from church you barely ever talk to.

Jesus makes it pretty clear that we should not be judging others in Matthew 7.

"Judge not, that you be not judged." (Matthew 7:1)

Okay, makes sense. If we don't want to be judged, why do we judge others?

Simple answer: Human nature.

Christian answer: Because we are sinners.

Matthew 7:4 says, "And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye but do not consider the plank in your own?" 


Ohhh boy. Jesus hit the nail on the head there, didn't He? We find it so, so, so much easier to judge others on their actions, when we should be judging ourselves on ours.

"For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged." (1 Corinthians 11:31)

If, instead of judging the person at school or church, or that we see at the store, anywhere!, we judged ourselves - our actions, what we were saying - we would soon realize that everyone sins and falls short of the glory of God.

We all make mistakes.

No one is perfect.

So today - and from now on - let's try not to look at what people look like on the outside. And let's try not to make a rash judgement. Get to know them or stop your thoughts all together!

I heard a saying the other day about not judging other people because we have no idea what problems they may be facing.

So true.

I'm including a video of Give Me Your Eyes by Brandon Heath. This songs say, "give me your eyes for just one second, give me your eyes so I can see..."





Try seeing things through God's eyes. I know that it will make you (and me!) see the world better!

~Ashley

Topic Suggestions? Prayer Requests? Feedback? We'd LOVE to hear from you! Please send us an email at heistodiefor@gmail.com and we'll get back to you shortly!

Trusting in God

Trusting in God.

It's something that if we were all to be honest, we have heard a LOT. We hear it often in church. We see it on Bibles, bilboards, buisness cards, greeting cards, and it's spread among Christians like wildfire on a regular basis.

"Oh hey... I heard you were going through something. Keep trusting in God, he won't give you anything more than you can handle."

We usually respond back with something like, "I know, I'm trying. I know."

Do we really? Do we really know? Not really. Because I'm thinking that if we really knew how to trust God, we wouldn't have so many worries and stressors in our day to day life. We would be able to take any negative situation and just realize that God had 100% control over it and everything was going to be okay. This is actually true, but why don't we realize this often enough?

I think it's because our lack of trust stems from the fact that we need feel connected to God in order to  think we can trust Him. We want to see God work in our lives before we can trust him. Then, when we do actually see him work in our lives, we hesitate to trust Him still. What if that was a coincidence? How do we know that God actually aranged all of that for my good? Good question. The Bible has an answer.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

So I want to draw your attention to something in that Bible verse I posted above. What, exactly did God say that He will work together for our good? One thing? Something? No. Everything. He has promised us in His Word that he will work everything together for the good of us in our plan. Everything. Even the things that we're currently looking at with a negative perspective. He's already got that covered. All planned out. He knows everything about us, everything about our past, and every little detail about our future. And he has it already all working together for His good. That thought should be really calming when you think about it.

"When I am afraid, I will trust in you." Psalm 56:3 

The really beautiful thing is that through the Bible, we have been given the chance to see that God is very trustworthy. He has never let anyone down. Never. He doesn't make mistakes. Here are some verses in the Bible where other people are explaining God's trustworthiness.



"Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods." Psalm 40:4



"In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?" Psalm 56:4


There are so many verses in the Bible on trusting in God. I'm only listing a few here but if you are interested in finding more of these Bible verses, a lot of Bibles have a place in the back where you can look up more of these verses under "trust" or "trustworthiness" or you could look up these verses online. Believe it or not, looking up these verses online can actually be a great reasource if you want to find more of these Bible verses or any of the others that we use in our posts. :)


So see girls, I think when it really comes down to it, we will only end up trusting God more and more with the things in our lives and eventually our entire lives in general if we get to know Him better. Funny enough, that's the simple answer. It really doesn't get any easier than that. Because the closer and closer we get to God, the more we learn about Him. The more we learn, the more we see His good intentions and His promises in the Bible not to harm us and to protect us. Everyone is going to struggle with trust and trusting God at some point in our lives. But my suggestion would be to get to know Him better- something I'm sure we all could use doing.

After all, we can't ever get too close to God. (:

If you have any feedback, suggestions, comments, or prayer requests, please do not hesitate to let us know! We would love to hear from you! Please contact us at heistodiefor.gmail.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible!

~ Angelica

Love Your Enemies? What?!

Probably one of the hardest things that Christians are commanded to do is to love our enemies. When we hear those words, our first thought is, "Um...what? Enemies are enemies for a good reason. Why would we possibly love them?"

Honesty time here, I've had a lot of people come into my life and leave because of various reasons. Friends and I have had falling outs. And the last thought that ever goes through my mind is, "I need to love them, even if they hate me, or aren't in my life anymore."

As a younger teen, one of the girls that I called my best friend at the time, hurled some pretty big and nasty insults on me. Things that a good friend should never say to you, but she said them anyways.
And forgiving her for what she did and said to me was very, very, very hard. They say, "Sticks and stone may break my bones but words will never hurt me."

That's a lie.

Words hurt. People say things that hurt worse than broken bones. Kids are bullied, hurt every day.
And we're supposed to love them? What?

Jesus tells us all about loving our enemies in the Gospel According to Matthew.

Matthew 5:43-48 says, " You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy", but I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who cruse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the sons of the Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sens rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." 

Okay, so....there's a lot to digest there.

But Jesus is pretty adamant about the whole "love your enemies" thing.

"But I say to those who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hates you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who spitefully use you." (Luke 6:27)

When Jesus walked the earth, he had a lot of so-called "enemies". People who didn't want to believe; people who hated him.

And like us, when our friends do things to betray us , one of Jesus' own gave him over to the officials so that he would be hung on the cross.

But did Jesus hate those people who persecuted him, or who spat on him, or loathed him?

No. No. No.


Because, somehow, he loves everyone. No matter what they do - what WE do - he loves us.

As Christians, we need to practice to be more like Jesus every day. He said himself we need to love our enemies, so whether or not we understand it, we still must do it.

I struggle with this. A lot.

There are so many people in my life that I have a hard time loving. But as I was working on this post, I came across a verse in Romans that really helped me.

"For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." (Romans 5:10)

Phew. Okay. Before we accept (or accepted) Christ as our personal Savior, we were God's enemy. But do you think that for one second that he hated us?

No!

So I urge you to pray for those people you don't like so much. If they're not Christians, especially pray that they will find the Lord.

But just pray for them.

You may never be friends with you those people that you call "enemies", but you don't have to hate them.
We'll work through this together. I'm just as much at fault of this as anyone else.

C'mon girls! Let's pray for our enemies.

Together - and with God's help - we'll make it through.

~Ashley

Topic Suggestions? Prayer Requests? Feedback? We'd LOVE to hear from you! Please send us an email at heistodiefor@gmail.com and we'll get back to you shortly!

The Lord is Close to the Brokenhearted

"We're sorry, but I don't think she's going to make it."

The words stabbed through my heart, and I felt the weight of them crush me like a ton of bricks. Was I even hearing her correctly? Maybe I was just seeing things. Or I could be dreaming. Yes, dreaming would be nice. Then I can just wake up and forget...

"Come on Anna, let's go visit her."

As my dad pulled me into the hospital room where my little sister was waiting, every step felt so hard to take. Every breath felt close to impossible. But still, I was alive. Alive in the very physical sense of the world. But as I sat there in the room with my little sister, being forced to say goodbye, everything felt impossible. In a sense it was like my world had fallen apart. She was my world. And now my world was over. 

Most everyone has experienced the feeling of being brokenhearted. Like Anna in the story, you easily could have had a situation in your past where everything just felt impossible. Breathing may seem labored and hard to manage. You might feel a constant pain or heaviness in your chest. Maybe even doing the simplest things are just hard to manage or even close to impossible anymore. I think everyone experiences the feeling of brokeness or brokenheartedness at some point in their lives. But do we really know how to respond when we feel this way? Most of us, when we get to this point, we have no clue where to turn! I've been there, and sometimes over things that are a lot less big than Anna's situation above. 

If you ask around and try talking to others on their opinion on how to handle this feeling, expecially as teenagers, most of them will say things like this.

~ "Oh, you're just a teenager. It's normal to be emotional. The feeling will pass."

~ "Why don't you try finding things to engage in to take your mind off of how your feeling?"

~ "Well, ya know, time heals everything. Just wait awhile and things will get better."

Now don't get me wrong. Teenagers can and will be emotional sometimes. It can be a really good thing to find something else to do if you are feeling overwhelmed in your emotions. And for most things, time does heal things. But sometimes, these answers just aren't good enough. We want something more. Something to grab on to. Something that will encourage and inspire us. Something to give us hope when all seems lost. Well good news for us, God has given us the answer in the Bible. But firstly, we need to realize that not only does God have everything under control, but he is actually close to us! Look at what this Bible verse states in Psalms.

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted 

    and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalms 34:18 

What good news this is for us to hear. To know that even when we feel this way and even when we feel this broken, God has never left us and he actually is close to us instead. This is also worded in another way here. 

 "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." 2 Corinthians 12:9

So in knowing that God is close to us when we feel broken, we need to run to Him when we feel this way. He is the only one who truly can understand the depth of the pain we feel or the weight in our chest. He understands the situation and knows every little part of it. The Bible says that he knows exactly how many hairs we have on our head!(Luke 12:17) God not only knows the problem and its extent but because he loves us so much, he wants us to take our problems and worries to Him. He doesn't want us to have to deal with our problems alone and actually tells us to give our worries, cares, and all of our problems over to Him so we don't have to carry them ourselves! He says that when we go to Him with our problems and give them over to Him, he will give us his peace.

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 5:1

So today I just want to encourage you girls. Sometimes we feel brokenhearted. We just feel hurt and crushed and the things of life get us down. But girls, we don't have to deal with this alone! God is right here with us through everything we are going through. Every step of the way. And when we feel like we can't take another step, God is right there to tell us that we can, that we can heal, and we can get better. Remember that all things are possible through God(Matthew 19:26). When we feel this way, at any time in our lives, we need to run to God. He will help us and will give us the strength we need to acomplish anything!(Exodus 15:2)

I found this song the other day called "Hanging On" by Britt Nicole. This song is amazing because in a way, it's a cry out to God. At the end of the song she's saying that she's hanging on because she knows God will take care of her. A beautiful song to listen to for any occasion! I have posted the video below, so feel free to check it out and let us know what you think! 

Girls, if any of you have been feeling Brokenhearted recently, it is our prayer that this post was an encouragment to you! If you need someone to talk to, prayer, or support, please don't hesitate to email us at heistodiefor@gmail.com and we will get back to you shortly! God Bless! <3

~Angelica

Impurity and Purity

 
In the last month or so, I have seen pictures, previews, talk and pins on Pintrest all about the new movie that came out recently, Magic Mike. The movie stars a lot of Hollywood's favorite men, including Matthew McConaughey, Channing Tatum and Alex Pettyfer.

When I first saw the preview for this movie, I was really pretty appalled. I couldn't believe that someone would actually make a movie like this - something that was so trashy and messed up.

The synopsis reads, "A male stripper teaches a younger performer how to party, pick up women and make easy money."

Okay, so there's a lot going wrong in that, but the first thing that pops to mind is..."Wow, a movie about a stripper..." We, as girls, don't want our boyfriends, or young guy friends to go see a movie about a woman stripper, so why would men want us to go and see a movie about male strippers? I think that somehow that has become a double standard when it comes to this movie.

The saddest part has to be that a lot of my Christian friends are talking about how good this movie is. Or how they want to see it. This is something that I don't think that I will ever understand.

As Christians, God not only wants us to be physically pure, but also pure of heart and mind.

David said these words...Psalm 51:10, "Create in me a clean heart, oh God."


That should be the cry of all our hearts. To have a pure heart, a heart after Jesus Christ, and only after him.
When we go see movies like Magic Mike, we fill our mind with nothing but impure thoughts. I'm not saying that to judge anyone, as just about anything can spark impure thoughts in our brains. No one is perfect and we are born with a sinful nature.

But when we KNOW that the movie we are going t see is bad and yet we still go to see it, we are deliberately putting those thoughts into our minds.

Matthew 5:8 says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."


I'm going to be honest with you girls, there have been a couple of times when I have wanted to go see some not-so-good movies. My mom was quick to tell me - every time - "Ashley, you don't need to fill your head with that kind-of stuff."

Our culture is so secular. There are so many movies out there that are not decent for Christian eyes - or any eyes, to be quite honest - yet people still go and see them and then rant and rave over them and they become popular.

1st Timothy 5:22 says, "...keep yourselves pure." 


2nd Timothy 2:22 says, "Flee yourself of youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." 


So instead of going to see a movie, or reading a book that you're not so sure about, hang out with a good Christian friend and watch a movie that you already own. Or pick up a good Christian fiction.


Titus 1:5 "To the pure, all things are pure..."
Also, if you're not sure about a movie that you've been wanting to see, check out the review on Plugged In. This is a Christian website that gives their honest opinion about movies, as well as saying all the not-so-savory things that happen in those said movies.

But remember, no matter what movies you've seen, or what you've filled your head with, know that Jesus will always forgive you, if you only ask him. He will wash you white as snow. So don't worry. He will be waiting anxiously.

~Ashley

Topic Suggestions? Prayer Requests? Feedback? We'd LOVE to hear from you! Please send us an email at heistodiefor@gmail.com and we'll get back to you shortly!

Through the Pain, To the Healing

A lot of times, you'll hear someone say that they just want to heal from a bad experience and move on with their life. This would make sense, as it would be kind of silly to think that you wouldn't want to heal from something. Why would you want to continue to hold all that pain close to you like that? Well unfortunately, there is something that can keep everyone from healing. Most of the time, it keeps a lot of people from even beginning the healing process. This thing is called pain. 

People don't like pain. In fact, most people try to live their lives in such a way that they don't have to encounter pain. Why? Because as humans, we don't like getting hurt. But most of the time, if not all of the time, we have to go through the pain in order to reach that state of healing. If we never go through the pain, we will never get to the heart of the problem and allow ourselves to heal. Let me tell you a story. 

When I was a young girl, my birth mom decided that she no longer wanted to be a part of my life and left me in the hands of my birth dad. My birth dad struggled to take care of me the best he could for a little while, until he eventually decided to give me over to the hands of my wonderful parents now, and at the age of 4 1/2, they adopted me. Though many things happened in between, once I learned that I was adopted around the age of 12, I really struggled. I had lots of questions and felt rejected and upset a lot of time. Unfortunately, this lead into me acting out. I felt so hurt and rejected that I was being very rude and disrespectful to my loving parents. This continued for years until I recently had the opportunity to visit my birth dad in Nebraska over the summer. Always being a Momma's girl and being rather clingy, I wasn't thrilled at the idea of leaving home to spend time in another state for any amount of time. I really struggled in those upcoming weeks before heading to Nebraska. I had never talked about being adopted with my birth dad and I wasn't planning on talking to him if and when I did decide to head there. But that was the thing, I didn't realize it then, but once I went there and went through the pain, I was going to come back a much better person, and would be healed from a lot of my past wounds. But at the time, I didn't want any part of this thing called "Healing" if it would be painful.

Lucky for me, I didn't really have a choice in the matter. My parents knew it would be best for me to go anyway, and off I went to Nebraska to spend a week there. To be honest, it wasn't easy. But it was good for a few reasons. Firstly, it made me put my trust in God because I was too scared and too out of my element to do anything else. One of the things I was worried about was not having very good cell phone reception. Funny enough, I didn't have very good reception. God's way of saying, "Hey, I'm right here. Come to me, I'm with you." God has a funny way of working sometimes. And ya know, I did get a lot closer to God because of my time in Nebraska. Sometimes my stubbornness can get in the way of what I know is the right option, which in this case, was going to God. It was also good for me because while I was there, I was able to have a heart to heart talk with my birth dad about being adopted. A conversation I had been dreading having for years, ended up being a conversation I am going to remember for the rest of my life. It put a lot of things into perspective and allowed for me to see that God's hand was really in everything. My beginnings, everything that happened early on in my life, and everything going on in my life now. He's simply, always there. 

When I came back from my trip to Nebraska, there was a lot of healing that had taken place. I started seeing everyone else in my family differently because instead of being worried sick they were going to hurt me or leave all the time, I realized that they were all my family who were going to love and support me regardless of what I was going through. From then on out, I have been able to continue to heal my relationships with them. 

So that's the thing. As humans, we don't like pain. Most of us run from the idea of something being painful or unpleasant. But sometimes, we have to go through the pain and through that tough time in order to reach that state of healing. Luckily though, we are not asked to go through it alone. Jesus says that he will never leave us, so we need to remember that he is going to be there regardless of what we may be going through. 

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

So I just wanted to take the time to encourage you girls today. Sometimes we have to go through things that are going to be hard and unpleasant. But instead of being afraid of those times and wanting to run away from them, we should turn to God instead. He understands our fear and knows that some things might not be so easy. But he also says that he will give us his strength. 

"He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." Isaiah 40:29

So girls, stay encouraged. God never promised that as followers of Him we would be free from pain and suffering. Not at all. But instead, he promised us something even bigger than that. He promised us eternal life to everyone that repents, He promised to never leave, and He promised that He would always take care of us. For me, I'd much rather have some pain and suffering if it meant having an all knowing, all loving God who is always on my side, looking out for me. 

~ Angelica

Topic Suggestions? Prayer Requests?  Feedback? We'd LOVE to hear from you! Please send us an email at heistodiefor@gmail.com and we will get back to you shortly!

YOU'RE To Die For!

Do you ever feel useless? Unloved? Worthless? Not good enough? Not needed?
Let's face it. At one point or another, you've felt like that. And no matter what you do to try to convince yourself, a little voice comes into your head and says, "You're not good enough...you're not needed. You're not pretty enough."
We look in the mirror and only see the imperfections. The pimples, the crooked teeth, the messy hair. Everything that makes us a little bit different.
We want to be like the girls in the magazines. No matter how many times we hear those girls are airbrushed and not the real thing, we still want to look like that. They're beautiful.
Although I still have these terrible thoughts of not being good enough, no matter how many times I remind myself that I am, there are a couple of things that I keep telling myself, over and over and over.
First off, we are ALL beautiful. Everyone one of us. Doesn't matter what your skin color is, whether you're skinny or not, whether your hair is straight or curly.
"...God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." - Genesis 1:27
Why should we, for one second, say that we're ugly or not good enough, when we are made in God's image? Isn't it that when we scrutinize every little thing about ourselves, we're questioning the way God made us?
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." - Psalm 139:13-14
Wow, so God knew what we would look like and who we would be from the time we were in our mother's wombs.
He created us in his image.
So the truth is, it's the devil's voice we hear when we feel we're not good enough. He's trying to make us feel that way because if we feel inferior and less than enough, he wins.
The next time you hear that little voice when you look in the mirror and don't see what you want to see, push those thoughts away and say, "You know what? god made me this way...he loves me and I am going to love me, too."
The devil will cower and know that God won this battle. I'm sure you'd much rather listen to God than to the devil.
Because the devil says, "You're not good enough."
But God says, "You're to die for." 


Ashley & Angelica


Be sure to check back on Friday, the 13th of July, when we launch our blog!