Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! :)
I love this day. Not just because of the basket full of sugar I get, dressing up in my best clothes and going to church, and then having a big ham dinner after. -All those things are great and tons of fun! But the reason I love Easter is because of why we have Easter...
We've all sinned. There's no denying that. You all can probably think of something wrong you've done this week, today...probably within the last hour! Yeah, you might be considered a good person. At least by the world's standards. But God doesn't go by the world's, He goes by His. And according to His word, there is none who are good. All fall short of the glory of God. And because God is perfect, He's also just. Which means that our sin has to be paid for. It can't go unpunished. And the punishment is eternal death.
So...we all deserve death.
Sounds pretty depressing, right? We're sinners and we deserve to die.
Well, now's where the good news comes in! The Gosple! :)
See, God is also a loving and merciful God. And He loves us so much, He came and took our place.
Jesus, completely pure and innocent, died the death of a criminal on the cross for us. He took our punishment, paid the price for our sins, so we can be free from our sin! Debt paid in full.
Seriously, just think on how amazing that is. Really think about it.
We've rejected God, scoffed at Him, mocked Him...yet He still loves us? We continually sin against Him, over and over again...done some awful things...yet He still would die for us?
But God's love is unconditional. It's not dependent on anything we do.

So, Jesus had died. But Easter, when He ressurected is what brought it all together. He rose from the dead, He's alive! :D And then He went to heaven and is preparing a place for us.

It's just so incredible. It amazed me everytime I think about it, and I'm totally awestruck.
And yet, there's people who reject this gift. Decide it's not good enough and there sin, with it's temporary false pleasure is better. And then there's people who just don't know. They haven't been told.
That's why we need to be constantly telling people about Him. It's truly a matter between life and death, and it's our jobs to be spreading the Gosple. Nobody but yourself can make the decision to follow God, but we can tell people about Him. God will forgive anybody, if they are truly sorry. All you have to do is ask Him.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. You can message me on SD or post it in a comment below!
Also I would love to hear about what you've done this Easter, and your favorite parts of Easter, so you can comment below for that as well!

God bless everyone, Happy Easter!
-Allie

Only God Can Satisfy

Hey everyone! I'm sorry I haven't posted...well since I started this blog. I really don't have any great excuses...I just forgot. But, today I finally remembered! And I really will try to update this more often from now on. :)

Well, this morning at church I was asked to do 'take 5' for my youth group. Take 5 is where a student will share for about 5 minutes, kind of a mini-sermon. Writing the sermon was no problem, I do that quite a bit anyways. But the sharing it in front of the entire youth group was a bit un-nerving, because I extremely public speaking, not to mention I had hardly any time to prepare since I was at a friend's house with a group of girls the whole afternoon and youth group was that evening.
But I managed to do it, even though it probably wasn't the greatest speaking the youth group's ever heard.
All that to be said, I decided to share it on here since I needed to update this anyways. :) So here it is:

Only God Can Satisfy

We all have the choice to live for God or to live for the world, because God gave us free will.
But God clearly said there's a right and wrong way, and one leads to death while the other leads to eternal life. And it's your choice, nobody else can make it for you.

"For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of the God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." -Romans 3:20-23
You see, when we're not following God, we're under the control of sin. It may seem freeing in regard to righteousness, like you may feel free to do what you want and when you want without having to worry if it's right or wrong. Though you feel free, you're bound in your sin, which you gain nothing but death out of.
However, when you give your life to God, sin doesn't have control over you anymore, and you get eternal life!

We can't have both sin and God, because God wants all of us. And wordly things seem so appealing, they even are sometimes. But they're temporary. They will lets us down or pass away, and true eternal happiness will only be found in God.
"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world -the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life- is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever."  -1John 15-17 

God will always love us, His love is unconditional. The thing is, God is prefect, therefore just. Thatmeans He can't let our sin go unpunished. But Christ took our punishment for us when He died on the cross, and we need to let Him wash the sin from our hearts. We can't pick and choose which sin He takes, He has to take all of it. And if we don't give Him all of us, we're not pure and clean, and nothing impure can enter heaven. It's up to us. God loves us, and wants to make us clean. That's why He died for us. We can't love wordly things more then God. Because when we ask Jesus to forgive our sin, and He washes them from our heart, it doesn't work to just let Him wash some of them away. We'd still be dirty. Maybe just not as dirty as before.
Heaven is a perfect place, and there can be no sin in heaven, because if there was it wouldn't be perfect anymore. God and sin cannot co-exist.
We're already covered in sin, and the only way we can get rid of it is through Jesus. But if we only let Him was away half of it, it's no good. He needs to make our entire hearts clean. (:

"So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple." -Luke 14:33

What if you realize you're sinning by doing something you realy like? Are you willing to give it up for God? Even if it's hard?
God doesn't want to strip us of all pleasures, and He doesn't want us to give up sin for His benefit, but for ours. Because he knows that He can give us so much more then the world can.

-End of sermon-

There was more, but I don't have my notes for it, so I'm not sure that I can really write it out...
Also,